Skip to main content

Full text of "The Indian Empire, its people, history, and products"

See other formats 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2009  with  funding  from 

University  of  Toronto 


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


y 

^  / 


TRUBNER'S   ORIENTAL   SERIES. 


"  A  knowledge  of  the  commonplace,  at  least,  of  Oriental  literature,  pliilo- 
sopky,  and  religion  is  as  necessary  to  the  general  reader  of  the  present  day 
as  an  acquaintance  witli  the  Latin  and  Greek  classics  was  a  generation  or  so 
ago.  Immense  strides  have  been  made  within  the  present  century  in  these 
branches  of  learning;  Sanskrit  has  been  brought  within  the  range  of  accurate 
philology,  and  its  invaluable  ancient  literature  thoroughly  investigated  ;  the 
language  and  sacred  books  of  the  Zoroastrians  have  been  laid  bare ;  Egyptian, 
Assyrian,  and  other  records  of  the  remote  past  have  been  deciphered,  and  a 
group  of  scholars  speak  of  still  more  recondite  Accadian  and  Hittite  monu- 
ments ;  but  the  results  of  all  the  scholarship  that  has  been  devoted  to  these 
subjects  have  been  almost  inaccessible  to  the  public  because  tliey  were  con- 
tained for  tlie  most  part  in  learned  or  expensive  works,  or  scattered  through- 
out the  numbers  of  scientific  periodicals.  Messrs.  Trubner  &  Co.,  in  a  spirit 
of  enterprise  which  does  them  infinite  credit,  have  determined  to  supply  the 
constantly-increasing  want,  and  to  give  in  a  popular,  or,  at  least,  a  compre- 
hensive form,  all  this  mass  of  knowledge  to  the  woidd. " — Times. 


Second  Edition,  post  8vo,  pp.  xxxii. — 748,  with  Map,  cloth,  price  21s. 

THE  INDIAN  EMPIRE  : 
ITS  PEOPLE,  HISTORY,  AND  PRODUCTS. 

By  the  Hon.  Sir  W.  W.  HUNTER,  K.C.S.I.,  C.S.I.,  C.I.E.,  LL.D., 

Member  of  the  Viceroy's  Legislative  Council, 

Director-General  of  Statistics  to  the  Government  of  India. 

Being  a  Revised  Edition,  brought  up  to  date,  and  incorporating  the  general 
results  of  the  Census  of  1881. 

"It  forms  a  volume  of  more  than  700  P'lges,  and  is  a  marvellous  combination  of 
literary  condensation  and  research.  It  gives  a  complete  account  of  the  Indian 
Empire,  its  history,  peoples,  and  products,  and  forms  the  worthy  outcome  of 
eeventeen  years  of  labour  with  exceptional  opportunities  for  rendering  that  labour 
fruitful.  Nothing  could  be  more  lucid  than  Sir  William  Hunter's  expositions  of  tlie 
economic  and  political  condition  of  India  at  the  present  time,  or  more  interesting- 
tliau  Ins  scholarly  history  of  the  India  of  the  pjist." — The  Tiiiocs. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


THE  FOLLOWING    WORKS  HAVE  ALREADY  APPEARED:— 
Third  Edition,  post  8vo,  cloth,  pp.  xvi. — 428,  price  i6s. 

ESSAYS  ON  THE  SACRED  LANGUAGE,  WRITINGS, 
AND  RELIGION  OF  THE  PARSIS. 

By  martin  HAUG,  Ph.D., 

Ltite  of  the  Universities  of  Tiibingen,  Gottingen,  and  Bonn  ;  Superintendent 

of  Sanskrit  Studies,  and  Professor  of  Sanskrit  in  the  Poona  College. 

Edited  and  Enlarged  by  Dr.  E.  W.  WEST. 

To  which  is  added  a  Biograjjhical  Memoir  of  the  late  Dr.  Haug 

by  Prof.  E.  P.  Evans. 

I.  History  of  the  Researches  into  the  Sacred  Writings  and  Religion  of  the 

Parsis,  from  the  Earliest  Times  down  to  the  Present. 
II.  Languages  of  the  Parsi  Scriptures. 

III.  The  Zend-Avesta,  or  the  Scripture  of  the  Parsis. 

IV,  The  Zoroastrian  Religion,  as  to  its  Origin  and  Development. 

"  '  Essays  on  the  Sacred  Language,  Writings,  and  Religion  of  the  Parsis,'  by  the 
late  Dr.  Martin  Haug,  edited  by  Dr.  E.  W.  West.  The  author  intended,  on  his  return 
from  India,  to  expand  the  materials  contained  in  this  work  into  a  comprehensive 
account  of  the  Zoroastrian  religion,  but  the  design  vfas  frustrated  by  his  untimely 
death.  We  have,  howevei",  in  a  concise  and  readable  form,  a  history  of  the  researclies 
into  the  sacred  writings  and  relitrion  of  the  Parsis  from  the  earliest  times  d^wn  to 
the  jiresent — a  dissertation  ou  the  languages  of  tl]e  Parsi  Scriptures,  a  ti'anslation 
of  the  Zend-Avesta,  or  the  Scripture  of  the  Parsis,  and  a  dissertation  on  the  Zoroas- 
trian religion,  with  especial  reference  to  its  origin  and  development." — Times. 


Post  Svo,  cloth,  pp.  viii. — 176,  price  7s.  6d. 

TEXTS   FROM    THE    BUDDHIST    CANON 
COMMONLY  KNOWN  AS  "  DHAMMAPADA." 

With  Accompanying  Narratives. 

Translated  from  the  Chinese  by  S.  BEAL,  B.A.,  Professor  of  Chinese, 

University  College,  London. 

The  Dhammapada,  as  hitherto  known  by  the  Pali  Text  Edition,  as  edited 
by  Fausboll,  by  Max  Miiller's  English,  and  Albrecht  Weber's  German 
translations,  consists  only  of  twenty-six  chapters  or  sections,  whilst  the 
Chinese  version,  or  rather  recension,  as  now  translated  by  Mr.  Beal,  con- 
sists of  thirty-nine  sections.  The  students  of  Pali  who  possess  FausbolTs 
text,  or  either  of  the  above  named  translations,  will  therefore  needs  want 
Mr.  Real's  English  rendering  of  the  Chinese  version  ;  the  thirteen  above- 
named  additional  sections  not  being  accessible  to  them  in  any  other  form  ; 
for,  even  if  they  understand  Chinese,  the  Chinese  original  would  be  un- 
obtainable by  them. 

"Mr.  Beal's  rendenng  of  the  Chinese  translation  is  a  most  valuable  aid  to  the 
critical  study  of  the  work.  It  contains  authentic  texts  gathered  from  ancient 
canonical  books,  and  generally  connected  with  some  incident  iu  tlie  history  of 
Buddha.  Their  great  interest,  however,  consists  in  the  light  which  they  throw  upon 
everyday  life  iu  India  at  the  remote  period  at  which  they  were  written,  and  upon 
the  method  of  teaching  adopted  by  the  founder  of  the  religion.  The  method 
employed  was  principally  parable,  and  the  simplicity  of  tlie  tales  and  the  excellence 
of  the  morals  inculcated,  as  well  as  the  strange  hold  which  they  have  retained  upon 
the  minds  of  millions  of  people,  make  them  a  very  remarkable  study." — Times. 
•  "  Mr.  Beal,  by  making  it  accessible  iu  an  English  dress,  has  added  to  the  great  ser- 
vices he  has  already  rendered  to  the  comparative  study  of  religious  history." — Academy. 

"Valuable  as  exliibiting  the  doctrine  of  the  Buddhists  in  its  purest,  least  adul- 
terated form,  it  brings  themodern  reader  face  to  face  with  that  simple  creed  and  rule 
of  conduct  which  won  its  way  overthe  minda  of  myriads,  and  which  is  now  nominally 
professed  by  145  millions,  wlio  have  overlaid  its  austere  simplicity  with  innumerable 
ceremonies,  forgotten  its  maxims,  jierverted  its  teaching,  and  so  inverted  its  leading 
principle  that  a  religion  whose  founder  denied  a  God,  now  worships  that  founder  as 
a  god  hiiuself. " — Scotsman. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Second  Edition,  post  8vo,  cloth,  pp.  xxiv. — 360,  price  los.  6d. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  LITERATURE. 

By  ALBRECHT  WEBER. 

Translated  from  the  Second  German  Edition  by  John  Mann,  M.  A.,  and 
Theodor  Zachariae,  Ph.D.,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Author. 

Dr.  BcHLER,  Inspector  of  Schools  in  India,  writes: — "When  I  was  Pro- 
fessor of  Oriental  Languages  in  Elphinstone  College,  I  frequently  felt  the 
want  of  such  a  work  to  which  I  could  refer  the  students." 

Professor  CowELL,  of  Cambridge,  writes  : — "It  will  be  especially  useful 
to  the  students  in  our  Indian  colleges  and  universities.  I  used  to  long  for 
such  a  book  when  I  was  teaching  in  Calcutta.  Hindu  students  are  intensely 
interested  in  the  history  of  Sanskrit  literature,  and  this  volume  will  supply 
them  with  all  they  want  on  the  subject." 

Professor  Whitney,  Yale  College,  Newhaven,  Conn.,  U.S.A.,  writes  : — 
"  I  was  one  of  the  class  to  whom  the  work  was  originally  given  in  the  form 
of  academic  lectures.  At  their  first  appearance  they  were  by  far  the  most 
learned  and  able  treatment  of  their  subject ;  and  with  their  recent  additions 
they  still  maintain  decidedl}'  the  same  i-auk." 

"  Is  perliaps  the  most  comprehensive  and  h]cid  survey  of  Sanskrit  literature 
extant.  The  essays  contained  in  the  volume  were  originally  delivered  as  academic 
lectures,  and  at  the  time  of  their  first  publication  were  acknowledged  to  be  by  far 
the  most  learned  and  able  treatment  of  the  subject.  They  have  now  been  brought 
up  to  date  by  the  addition  of  all  the  most  important  results  of  recent  research. " — 
Tunes. 

Post  8vo,  cloth,  pp.  xii. — 198,  accompanied  by  Two  Language 
Maps,  price  7s.  6d. 

A  SKETCH  OF 
THE  MODERN  LANGUAGES  OF  THE  EAST  INDIES. 

By  ROBERT  N.  GUST. 

The  Author  has  attempted  to  fill  up  a  vacuum,  the  inconvenience  of 
which  pressed  itself  on  his  notice.  Much  had  been  written  about  the 
languages  of  the  East  Indies,  but  the  extent  of  our  present  knowledge  had 
not  even  been  brought  to  a  focus.  It  occurred  to  him  that  it  might  be  of 
use  to  others  to  publish  in  an  arranged  form  the  notes  which  he  had  collected 
for  his  own  edification. 

"  Supplies  a  deficiency  which  has  long  been  felt." — Times. 

"  The  book  Ijefore  us  is  then  a  valuable  contribution  to  philological  science.  It 
passes  under  review  a  vast  number  of  languages,  and  it  gives,  or  professes  to  give,  in 
every  case  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  opinions  and  judgments  of  the  best-iufoi-med 
writers." — Saturday  Review. 

Second  Corrected  Edition,  post  8vo,  pp.  xii. — 116,  cloth,  price  5s. 

THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  WAR-GOD. 

A  Poem.     By  KALIDASA. 

Translated  from  the  Sanskrit  into  English  Verse  by 
Ralph  T.  H.  Griffith,  M.A. 

"  A  very  spirited  rendering  of  the  Kiandra.sambhava.  which  was  first  published 
twenty-six  years  ago,  and  which  we  are  glad  to  see  made  once  more  accessible." — 
Times. 

"  Mr.  Griffith's  very  spirited  rendering  is  well  known  to  most  who  are  at  all 
interested  in  Indian  literature,  or  enjoy  the  tenderness  of  feeling  and  rich  creative 
imagination  of  its  author." — Indian  Antiquary. 

"  We  are  very  glad  to  welcome  a  second  edition  of  Professor  Griffith's  admirable 
translation.    Few  translations  deserve  a  second  edition  better." — Athenceum. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  Svo,  pp.  432,  clotli,  price  i6s. 

A  CLASSICAL   DICTIONARY  OF  HINDU  MYTHOLOGY 

AND  RELIGION,  GEOGRAPHY,  HISTORY,  AND 

LITERATURE. 

By  JOHN  DOWSON,  M.R.A.S., 
Late  Professor  of  Hindustani,  Staff  College. 

"This  not  only  forms  an  indispensable  book  of  reference  to  students  of  Indian 
literature,  but  is  also  of  great  general  interest,  as  it  gives  in  a  concise  and  easily 
accessible  fonn  all  that  need  be  known  about  the  personages  of  Hindu  mythology 
whose  names  are  so  familiar,  but  of  whom  so  little  is  known  outside  the  limited 
circle  of  savants." — Times. 

"  It  is  no  slight  gain  when  such  subjects  are  treated  fairly  and  fviUy  in  a  moderate 
space  ;  and  we  need  only  add  that  the  few  wants  which  we  may  hope  to  see  supplied 
in  new  editions  detract  but  little  from  the  general  excellence  of  Mr.  Dowson's  work." 
— SalurdaT/  Revieio.  

Post  Svo,  with  View  of  Mecca,  pp.  cxii. — 172,  cloth,  price  9s. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  KORAN. 

By  EDWARD  AVILLIAM  LANE, 

Translator  of  "  The  Thousand  and  One  Nights  ;  "  &c.,  &c. 

A  New  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged,  with  an  Introduction  by 

Stanley  Lane  Poole. 

"...  Has  been  Ion?  esteemed  in  this  country  as  the  compilation  of  one  of  tlie 

greatest  Arabic  scholars  of  the  time,  the  late  Mr.  Lane,  the  well-known  translator  of 

the   '  Arabian  Nights. "...    The  present   editor  has  enhanced   the  value  of  his 

relative's  work  by  divesting  the  text  of  a  great  deal  of  extraneous  matter  introduce<l 

by  way  of  comment,  and  prefixing  an  introduction." — Times. 

"  Mr.  Poole  is  both  a  generous  and  a  learned  biographer.  .  .  .  Mr.  Poole  tells  us 
the  facts  ...  so  far  as  it  is  possible  for  industry  and  criticism  to  ascertain  them, 
and  for  literary  skill  to  present  them  in  a  condensed  and  readable  form." — Bnylish- 
man,  Calcutta. 

Post  Svo,  pp.  vi. — 36S,  cloth,  price  14s. 

MODERN  INDIA  AND  THE  INDIANS, 

BEING  A  SERIES  OF  IMPRESSIONS,  NOTES,  AND  ESSAYS. 

By  MONIER  WILLIAMS,  D.C.L., 
Hon.  LL.D.  of  the  University  of  Calcutta,  Hon.  Member  of  the  Bombay  A.siatic 
Society,  Boden  Professor  of  Sanski-it  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 
Third  Edition,  revised  and  augmented  by  considerable  Additions, 
with  Illustrations  and  a  Map. 
"  In  this  volume  we  have  the  thoughtful  impressions  of  a  thoughtful  man  on  some 
of  the  most  important  questions  connected  with  our  Indian  Empire.  .  .  .  An  en- 
lightened observant  man,  travelling  among  an  enlightened  observant  people.  Professor 
Monier  Williams  has  brought  before  the  public  in  a  pleasant  form  more  of  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  Queen's  Indian  subjects  than  we  ever  remember  to  have  seen  in 
any  one  work.     He  not  only  deserves  the  thanks  of  every  Englishman  for  this  able 
contribution  to  the  study  of  Modern  India — a  subject  with  which  we  should  be 
specially  familiar— but  he  deserves  the  thanks  of  every  Indian,  Parsee  or  Hindu, 
Buddhist  and  Moslem,  for  his  clear  exposition  of  their  manners,  their  creeds,  and 
their  necessities." — Times. 

Post  Svo,  pp.  xliv. — 376,  cloth,  price  14s. 

METRICAL  TRANSLATIONS  FROM  SANSKRIT 
WRITERS. 

With  an  Introduction,  many  Prose  Versions,  and  Parallel  Passages  from 
Classical  Authors. 
By  J.  MUIR,  CLE.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D.,  Ph.D. 
"...  An  agreeable  introduction  to  Hindu  poetrv." — Times. 

"...  A  voh;me  which  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  illustration  alike  of  the  religious 
and  moral  sentiments  and  of  the  legendary  lore  of  the  best  Sanskrit  wiiters." — 
Ediiiburyh  Daily  Jieview. 


■I liUBXERS  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Second  Edition,  post  8vo,  pp.  xxvi. — 244,  cloth,  price  los.  6d. 

THE     GULISTAN; 

Or,  rose  GARDEX  OF  SHEKII  Ml 'SHLIU'D-DIN  SADI  OF  SHIRAZ. 

Translated  for  the  First  Time  into  Prose  and  Verse,  with  an  Introductory 

Preface,  and  a  Life  of  the  Author,  from  the  Atish  Kadah, 

By  EDWARD  B,  EASTWICK,  C.B.,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  M.R.A.S. 

"  It  is  a  very  fail-  rendering  of  the  original." — Times. 

"  The  new  edition  has  long  been  desired,  and  will  be  weloomed  by  all  who  take 
any  interest  in  Oriental  poetry.  The  Gulislan  is  a  typical  Persian  verse-book  of  thu 
highest  order.  Mr.  Eastwick's  rhyruod  translation  .  . .  has  long  established  itself  in 
a  secure  position  as  the  best  version  of  Badi's  finest  work." — Academy. 

"  It  is  both  faithfully  and  gracefully  executed."— Taipei. 


In  Two  Volumes,  post  8vo,  pp.  viii. — 408  and  viii. — 348,  cloth,  price  28s. 

MISCELLANEOUS    ESSAYS    RELATING     TO    INDIAN 
SUBJECTS. 

By  BRIAN  HOUGHTON  HODGSON,  Esq.,  F.R.S., 

Late  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service  ;  Corresponding  Member  of  the  Institute ;  Chevalier 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour  ;  late  British  Minister  at  the  Court  of  Nepal,  &c.,  <Sic. 

CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I. 

Section  I. — On  the  Kocch,  B6d6,  and  Dhimal  Tribes.— Part  I.  Vocabulary. — 
Part  II.  Grammar. — Part  III.  Their  Origin,  Location,  Numbers,  Creed,  Customs, 
Character,  and  Condition,  with  a  General  Description  of  the  Climate  they  dwell  iu 
— Appendix. 

Section  II.— On  Himalayan  Ethnology.- 1.  Comparative  Vocabulary  of  the  Lan 
guages  of  the  Broken  Tribes  of  Ndpal.— II.  Vocabulary  of  the  Dialects  of  the  Kirant 
Language.— III.  Grammatical  Analysis  of  the  Vayu  Language.  The  Vayu  Grammar. 
—IV.  Aualy-sis  of  the  Bahing  Dialect  of  the  Kiranti  Language.  The  BiJhing  Gram- 
mar.—V.  On  the  Vayu  or  Hayu  Tribe  of  the  Central  Himalaya.— VI.  On  tiie  Kirajiti 
Tribe  of  the  Central  Himalaya. 

CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  //. 

Section  III. — On  the  Aborigines  of  North-Eastern  India.  Comparative  Vocabul.arv 
of  the  Tibetan,  B6d6,  and  Garo  Tongues. 

Section  IV. — Aborigines  of  the  North-Eastern  Frontier. 

Section  V. — Aborigines  of  the  Eastern  Frontier. 

Section  VI. — The  Indo-Chinese  Borderers,  and  their  connection  with  the  Hima- 
hiyans  and  Tibetans.  Comparative  Vocabulary  of  Indo-Chinese  Borderers  iu  Arakau. 
Comparative  Vocabulary  of  Indo-Chinese  Borderers  in  Tenasserim. 

Section  VII.— The  Mongolian  Affinities  of  the  Caucasians.— Comparison  and  Ana- 
lysis of  Caucasian  and  Mout'olian  Words. 

Section  VIII. — Piiysical  Type  of  Tibetans. 

Section  IX.— The  Aborigines  of  Central  India.— Comparative  Vocabulary  of  the 
Aboriginal  Languages  of  Central  India.— Aborigines  of  the  Eastern  Ghats.— Vocabu- 
lary of  some  of  tlie  Dialects  of  the  Hill  and  Wandering  Tribes  in  the  Northern  Sircars. 
— Aborigines  of  the  Nilgiris,  with  Remarks  on  their  Affinities. — Stipplement  to  the 
Nilgirian  Vocabularies. — The  Aborigines  of  Southern  India  and  Ceylon. 

Section  X. — Route  of  Nepalese  Mission  to  Pekin,  with  Remarks  on  the  Water- 
Shed  and  Plateau  of  Tibet. 

Section  XL— Route  from  Kathmdndu,  the  Capital  of  Nepal,  to  Darjeeling  in 
Sikim. — Memorandum  relative  to  the  Seven  Cosis  of  Nepal. 

Section  XII. — Some  Accounts  of  the  Systems  of  Law  and  Police  as  recognised  in 
the  State  of  Nepal. 

Section  XIIL— The  Native  Method  of  making  the  Paper  denominated  Hindustan, 
Nepalese. 

Section  XIV. — Pre-eminence  of  the  Vernaculars  ;  or,  the  Anglicists  Answered  ; 
Being  Letters  on  the  Education  of  the  Peoisle  of  India. 

"  For  the  study  of  the  less-known  races  of  India  Mr.  Brian  Hodgson's  'Miscellane- 
ous Essays  '  will  be  found  very  valuable  both  to  the    hiloloe'ist  and  the  ethnologist." 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Third  Edition,  Two  Vols.,  post  8vo,  pp.  viiL — 268  and  viii, — 326,  cloth, 

price  21S. 

THE  LIFE  OR  LEGEND  OF  GAUDAMA, 

THE  BUDDHA  OF  THE  BURMESE.     "With  Annotations. 

The  Ways  to  Neibban,  and  Notice  on  the  Phongyies  or  Burmese  Monks, 

By  the  Eight  Rev.  P.  BIGANDET, 

Bishop  of  Ramatha,  Vicar- Apostolic  of  Ava  and  Pegu. 

"The  woik  is  furnished  with  copious  notes,  wnich  not  only  illustrate  the  subject- 
matter,  but  form  a  perfect  encyclop;edia  of  Buddhist  lore." — I'imes. 

"  A  work  which  will  furnish  European  students  of  Buddhism  with  a  most  valuable 
help  in  the  prosecution  of  their  investigations." — Edinburgh  Daily  Review. 

"Bishop  Bigandet's  invaluable  work." — Indian  Antiquary. 

"Viewed  in  this  light,  its  importance  is  sufficient  to  place  students  of  the  subject 
under  a  deep  obligatiou  to  its  author." — Calcutta  Mevietc. 

"  This  work  is  one  of  the  greatest  authorities  upon  Buddhism." — Dublin  Review. 


Post  Svo,  pp.  xxiv, — 420,  cloth,  price  i8s. 

CHINESE   BUDDHISM. 

A  VOLUME  OF  SKETCHES,  HISTORICAL  AND  CRITICAL. 

By  J.  EDKIXS,  D.D. 

Author  of  "  China's  Place  in  Philology,"  "Religion  in  China,"  kc,  &c. 

"  It  contains  a  vast  deal  of  important  information  on  the  subject,  such  as  is  only 
to  be  gained  by  long-continued  study  on  the  spot." — Atlienceum. 

"  Upon  the  whole,  we  know  of  no  work  comparable  to  it  for  the  extent  of  its 
original  research,  and  the  simplicity  with  which  this  complicated  system  of  philo- 
sophy, religion,  literature,  and  ritual  is  set  forth." — Britisk  Quarterly  Review. 

"  The  whole  volume  is  rei^lete  with  learning.  ...  It  deserves  most  careful  study 
from  all  interested  in  the  history  of  the  religions  of  the  world,  and  expressly  of  those 
who  are  concerned  in  the  propagation  of  Christianity.  Dr.  Edkins  notices  in  terras 
of  just  condemnation  the  exaggerated  praise  bestowed  upon  Buddhism  by  recent 
English  writers." — Record. 


Post  Svo,  pp.  496,  cloth,  price  10s.  6d. 

LINGUISTIC   AND   ORIENTAL   ESSAYS. 

Wkitten  from  the  Yeae  1846  TO  1878. 
By  ROBERT  NEEDHAM  OUST, 

Late  Member  of  Her  Majesty's  Indian  CivU  Service ;  Hon.  Secretary  to 

the  Royal  Asiatic  Society ; 

and  Author  of  "The  Modern  Languages  of  the  East  Indies." 

"  We  know  none  who  has  described  Indian  life,  especially  the  life  of  the  natives, 
with  so  much  learning,  s5Tnpathy,  and  literary  talent." — Acaderay. 

"  They  seem  to  us  to  be  full  of  suggestive  and  original  remarks." — St.  James's  Gazette. 

"  His  book  contains  a  vast  amount  of  information.  The  result  of  thirty-five  years 
of  inquirv,  reflection,  and  speculation,  and  that  on  subjects  as  full  of  fascination  aa 
of  food  for  thought."— Ta/j^tJ. 

"  Exliibit  such  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  history  and  antiquities  of  India 
as  to  entitle  him  to  speak  as  one  having  authority." — Edinburgh  Daily  Revieio. 

"  The  author  -speaks  with  the  authority  of  personal  experience It  is  this 

constant  a.ssociation  with  the  country  and  the  people  which  gives  such  a  vividnesa 
to  many  of  the  pages." — AtUenmum. 


TRUBXER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  civ. — 348,  cloth,  price  i8s. 

BUDDHIST  BIRTH  STORIES;   or,  Jataka  Tales. 

The  Oldest  Collection  of  Folk-lore  Extant : 

BEING    THE    J  AT  AK  ATTHAVANNAN  A, 

For  the  first  time  Edited  in  the  original  Pali. 

By  V.  FAUSBOLL  ; 

And  Translated  by  T.  W.  Rhys  Davids. 

Translation.     Volume  I. 

"These  are  tales  supposed  to  have  been  told  by  the  Buddha  of  what  he  had  seen 
and  heard  in  his  previous  births.  They  are  probably  the  nearest  representatives 
of  the  original  Aryan  stories  from  which  sprang  the  folk-lore  of  Eiin-ope  as  well  as 
India.  Tije  introduction  contains  a  most  interesting  disquisition  on  the  migi-ations 
of  these  fables,  tracing  their  reappearance  in  the  various  groups  of  folk-lore  legends. 
Among  other  old  friends,  we  meet  with  a  version  of  the  Judgment  of  Solomon." — Times. 

"  It  is  now  some  years  since  Mr.  Rhys  Davids  asserted  his  right  to  be  heard  on 
this  subject  by  his  able  article  on  Buddhism  in  the  new  edition  of  the  '  Encyclopajdia 
Britannica.' " — Leeds  Mercury. 

"  AH  who  are  interested  in  Buddhist  literature  ought  to  feel  deeply  indebteil  to 
Jlr.  Rhys  Davids.  His  well-established  reputation  as  a  Pali  scholar  is  a  sufficient 
giiarantee  for  the  fidelity  of  his  version,  and  the  style  of  his  translations  is  deserving 
of  liigh  praise." — Academy. 

"  No  more  competent  expositor  of  Buddhism  could  be  found  than  Mr.  Rhys  Davids. 
In  the  Jataka  book  we  have,  then,  a  priceless  record  of  the  earliest  imaginative 
literature  of  our  race  ;  and  ...  it  presents  to  us  a  nearly  complete  picture  of  the 
social  life  and  customs  and  popular  beliefs  of  the  common  people  ot  Aryan  tribes, 
closely  related  to  ourselves,  jiist  as  they  were  passing  through  the  first  stages  of 
civilisation." — St.  James's  Gazette. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xxviii. — 362,  cloth,  price  14s. 

A    TALMUDIC    MISCELLANY; 

Or,  a  thousand  AND  ONE  EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  TALMUD, 

THE  MIDRASHIM,  AND  THE  KABBALAH. 

Compiled  and  Translated  by  PAUL  ISAAC  HERSHON, 

Author  of  "  Genesis  According  to  the  Talmud,"  &o. 

With  Notes  and  Copious  Indexes. 

"  To  obtain  in  so  concise  and  handy  a  form  as  this  volume  a  general  idea  of  the 
Talmud  is  a  boon  to  Christians  at  least." — Times. 

"  Its  peculiar  and  popular  character  will  make  it  attractive  to  general  readers. 
Jlr.  Hershon  is  a  very  competent  scholar.  .  .  .  Contains  samples  of  the  good,  Ijad, 
and  indifferent,  and   especially  extracts  that  throw  light  upon  the  Scriptures." 
British  Quarterly  Review. 

"  Will  convey  to  English  readers  a  more  complete  and  truthful  notion  of  the 
Talmud  than  any  other  work  that  has  yet  appeared." — Daily  News. 

"  Without  overlooking  in  the  slightest  the  several  attractions  of  the  previous 
volumes  of  tlie  '  Oriental  Series,'  we  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  this  svirpasses 
them  all  in  interest." — Edinburgh  Daily  Review. 

"  Mr.  Herahon  has  .  .  .  thus  given  English  readers  what  is,  we  believe,  a  fair  set 
of  specimens  which  they  can  test  for  themselves." — The  Recnrd. 

"  This  book  is  by  far  the  best  fitted  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge  to  enable  the 
general  reader  to  gain  a  fair  and  unbiassed  conception  of  tlie  multifarious  contents 
of  the  wonderful  miscellany  which  can  only  be  truly  understood— so  Jewish  pride 
asserts — by  the  lifelong  devotion  of  scholars  of  the  Chosen  People." — Inquirer. 

"  The  value  and  importance  of  this  volume  consist  in  the  fact  that  scarcely  a  single 
extract  is  given  in  its  pages  but  throws  some  light,  direct  or  refracted,  upon  those 
Scriptures  which  are  the  common  heritage  of  Jew  and  Christian  alike." — John  Bull. 

"  It  is  a  capital  specimen  of  Hebrew  scholarship;  a  monument  of  learned,  loving, 
light-giviujj  labour." — Jewish  Herald,  j 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xii. — 228,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d, 

THE  CLASSICAL  POETRY  OF  THE  JAPANESE. 

By    basil    hall    CHAMBERLAIN, 

Author  of  "  Yeigo  Heiikaku  Shiraii." 

"  A  very  ctirious  volume.  Tlie  author  lias  manifestly  devoted  much  labour  to  the 
task  of  studying  the  poetical  literature  f>f  the  Japanese,  and  rendering  characteristic 
specimens  into  Enu'lish  verse." — Daily  Ktws. 

"  Mr.  Chamberlain's  volume  is,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  the  first  attempt  which  has 
been  made  to  interpret  the  literature  of  the  Japanese  to  the  Western  world.  It  is  to 
the  classical  poetry  of  Old  Japan  that  we  must  turn  for  indigenous  Japanese  thought, 
and  in  the  volume  before  us  we  have  a  selection  from  that  poetry  rendered  into 
graceful  English  verse." — Tablet. 

"  It  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  best  translations  of  lyric  literature  which  has 
appeared  during  the  close  of  the  last  year." — Celestial  Empire. 

"  Mr.  Chamberlain  set  himself  a  difficult  task  when  he  undertook  to  reproduce 
Japanese  poetry  in  an  English  form.  But  he  has  evidently  laboured  con  amore,  and 
liis  efforts  are  successful  to  a  degree." — London  and  China  Express. 


Post  8to,  pp.  xii. — 164,  cloth,  price  los.  6d, 

THE  HISTORY  OF  ESARHADDON  (Son  of  Sennacherib), 

KING  OF  ASSYRIA,  B.C.  CS1-C6S. 

Translated  from  the  Cuneiform  Inscriptions  upon  Cylinders  and  Tahlets  in 
the  British  Museum  Collection ;  together  with  a  Grammatical  Analysis 
of  each  Word,  Explanations  of  the  Ideographs  by  Extracts  from  the 
Bi-Liugual  Syllabaries,  and  List  of  Eponyms,  &c. 

By  ERNEST  A.  BUDGE,  B.A.,  M.R.A.S.. 

Assyrian  Exhibitioner,  Christ's  College,  Cambridge. 

"Students  of  scriptural  archajology  will  also  appreciate  the  'History  of  Esar- 
haddon.' " — Times. 

"  There  is  much  to  attract  the  scholar  in  this  volume.  It  does  not  pretend  to 
popularise  studies  which  are  yet  in  their  infancy.  Its  primary  object  is  to  translate, 
but  it  does  not  assume  to  be  more  than  tentative,  and  it  offers  both  to  the  professed 
Assyriologist  and  to  the  ordinary  non-Assyriological  Semitic  scholar  the  means  of 
controlling  its  results.'' — Academy. 

"Mr.  Budge's  book  is,  of  course,  mainly  addressed  to  Assyrian  scholars  and 
students.  They  are  not,  it  is  to  be  feared,  a  very  numerous  class.  But  the  more 
thanks  are  due  to  him  on  that  account  for  the  way  in  which  he  has  acquitted  himself 
in  his  laborious  task." — Tablet. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  448,  cloth,  price  21s. 

THE    MESNEVI 

(Usually  known  as  The  Mesneviyi  Sherif,  or  Holt  Mesnevi) 

OP 

MEVLANA   (OUR  LORD)  JELALU  'D-DIN  MUHAMMED  ER-EUML 

Book  the  First. 

Together  with  some  Account  of  the  Life  and  Acts  of  the  Author, 

of  his  Ancestors,  and  of  his  Descendants. 

Ilkistrated  by  a  Selection  of  Characteristic  Anecdotes,  as  Collected 

by  their  Historian, 

Mevlana  Shemsu-'D-Din  Ahmed,  el  Eflaki,  el  'Arifi. 

Translated,  and  the  Poetry  Versified,  in  English, 

By   JAMES   W.    REDHOUSE,    M.R.A.S.,   &c. 

"  A  complete  treasury  of  occult  Oriental  lore." — Saturday  Review. 

"This  book  will  be  a  very  valuable  help  to  the  reader  ignorant  of  Persia,  who  is 
desirous  of  obtaining  an  insight  into  a  very  imiiortaut  department  of  the  literature 
extant  in  that  language." — Tablet. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xvi.— 280,  cloth,  juice  6s. 

EASTERN   PROVERBS  AND  EMBLEMS 

Illustrating  Old  Truths. 

By  Rev.  J.  LONG, 

Member  of  the  Bengal  Asiatic  Society,  F.E.G.S. 

"  We  regard  the  book  as  valu-able,  and  wish  for  it  a  wide  circulation  aud  attentive 
reading. " — Record. 

"  .-Nltogether.  it  is  quite  a  feast  of  good  things." — Globe. 
"  It  is  full  of  interesting  matter." — Antiquary. 


Post  Bvo,  P11.  viii. — 270,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

INDIAN     POETRY; 

Containing  a  New  Edition  of  the  "Indian  Soug  of  Songs,"  from  the  Sanscrit 
of  the  "Gita  Govicda"  of  Jayadeva  ;  Two  Books  from  "The  Iliad  of 
India"  (Mahabharata),  "  Proverbial  Wisdom  "  from  the  Shlokas  of  the 
Hitopadesa,  and  other  Oriental  Poems. 
By  EDWIN  ARNOLD,  C.S.L,  Author  of  "The  Light  of  Asia." 

"  In  this  new  volume  of  Messrs.  Triibiier's  Oriental  Series,  Mr.  Edwin  Arnold  does 
good  service  by  illustrating,  through  the  medium  of  his  musical  English  melodies, 
the  power  of  Indian  poetry  to  stir  European  emotions.  Tlie  '  Indian  Song  of  Songs  ' 
is  not  unknown  to  scholars.  Mr.  Arnold  will  have  introduced  it  among  popular 
English  poems.  Nothing  could  be  more  gi-aceful  and  delicate  than  the  shades  by 
which  Krishna  is  portrayed  in  the  gradual  process  of  being  weaned  by  the  love  of 

'  Beautiful  Radlia,  jasmine-bosomed  Eadha,' 
from  the  allurements  of  the  forest  nymphs,  in  whom  the  five  senses  are  typified." — 
Times. 

"  Xo  other  English  poet  has  ever  thrown  his  genius  and  his  art  so  thoroughly  into 
the  work  of  translating  Eastern  ideas  as  Mr.  Arnold  has  done  in  his  splendid  para- 
phrases of  language  contained  in  these  mighty  exixas."  —Daily  2'etegriijih. 

"  The  poem  abounds  with  imagery  of  Eastern  luxuriousness  aiid  sensuousm  ss;  the 
air  seems  laden  with  the  spicy  odours  of  the  tropics,  and  the  verse  has  a  richness  and 
a  melody  sufficient  to  captivate  the  senses  of  the  dulkst."— .Sia'/«tard. 

"  The  translator,  while  producing  a  very  enjoyable  poem,  has  adhered  with  toler- 
able fidelity  to  the  original  text."— Ot^er^and  Mail. 

"We  certainly  wish  Mr.  Arnold  success  in  his  attempt  'to  popularise  Indian 
classics,'  that  being,  as  his  preface  tells  us,  tlie  goal  towards  which  he  bends  his 
efforts." — Allen's  Jiidian  Hail. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xvi. — 296,  cloth,  price  los.  6d. 

THE  MIND  OF  MENCIUS  ; 

Ok,  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  FOUNDED  UPON  MORAL 
PHILOSOPHY. 

A  Systematic  Digest  of  the  Doctrines  of  the  Chinese  Philosopher 
Men  CI  U.S. 

Translated  from  the  Original  Text  and  Classified,  with 
Comments  and  Explanations, 

By  the  Rev.  ERNST  FABER,  Rhenish  Mission  Society. 

Translated  from  the  German,  with  Additional  Notes, 

By  the  Rev.  A.  B.  HUTCHINSON,  C.M.S.,  Church  Mission,  Hong  Kong. 

"  Mr.  Faber  is  already  well  known  in  the  field  of  Chinese  studies  by  liis  digest  of 
the  doctrines  of  Confucius.  The  value  of  this  work  will  be  perceived  when  it  is 
remembered  that  at  no  time  since  relations  commenced  between  China  .and  the 
West  has  the  former  been  so  powerful — we  had  almost  said  aggressive — as  now. 
For  those  who  will  give  it  careful  study,  Mr.  Faber's  work  is  one  of  the  most 
valuable  of  the  excellent  series  to  which  it  belongs." — Naiure. 

A  2 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  336,  clotb,  price  i6s. 

THE    RELIGIONS  OF    INDIA. 

By  a.  earth. 

Translated  from  the  French  with  the  authority  and  assistance  of  the  Author. 

The  author  has,  at  the  request  of  the  publishers,  considerably  enlarged 
the  work  for  the  translator,  and  has  added  the  literature  of  the  subject  to 
date  ;  the  translation  m.iy,  therefore,  be  looked  upon  as  an  equivalent  of  '.\ 
new  and  improved  edition  of  the  original. 

"  Is  not  only  a  valuable  manual  of  the  religions  of  India,  -which  marks  a  distinct 
step  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject,  but  also  a  useful  work  of  reference."— ^corfmy. 

"This  volume  is  a  reproduction,  with  corrections  and  additions,  of  an  article 
contributed  by  the  learned  author  two  years  ago  to  the  '  Encyclopedia  des  Sciences 
Religieuses.'  It  attracted  much  notice  when  it  first  appeared,  and  is  generally 
admitted  to  present  the  best  summary  extant  of  the  vast  subject  with  which  it 
deals." — Tablet. 

"  This  is  not  only  on  the  whole  the  best  but  the  only  manual  of  the  religions  of 
India,  apart  from  Buddhism,  whicli  we  have  in  English.  The  present  work  .  .  . 
.shows  not  only  great  knowledge  of  the  facts  and  power  of  clear  exposition,  but  also 
great  insight  into  the  inner  history  and  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  great  religion, 
for  it  is  in  reality  only  one,  which  it  proposes  to  descrihe."— Modern  Rtmew. 

"  The  merit  of  the  work  has  been  emphatically  recognised  by  the  most  authoritative 
Orientalists,  both  in  this  country  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  But  probably 
there  are  few  Indianists  (if  we  may  use  the  word)  who  would  not  derive  a  good  deal 
of  information  from  it,  and  especially  from  the  extensive  bibliogi-aphy  provided  in 
the  notes." — Dublin  Review. 

"  Such  a  sketch  M.  Barth  has  drawn  with  a  master-hand."— Crt(;c  (Neio  York). 


Post  8vo,  pp.  viii.  — 152,  cloth,  price  6s. 

HINDU   PHILOSOPHY. 

The  SANKHYA  KARIKA  of  IS'WARA  KRISHNA. 

An  Exposition  of  the  System  of  Kapila,  with  an  Appendix  on  the 
Nyaya  and  Vais'eshika  Systems. 

By  JOHN  DAVIES,  M.A.  (Cantab.),  M.R.A.S. 

The  system  of  Kapila  contains  nearly  all  that  India  has  produced  in  the 
department  of  pure  pliilosophy. 

"  The  non-Orientalist  .  .  .  finds  in  Mr.  Davies  a  patient  and  learned  guide  who 
leads  him  into  the  intricacies  of  the  philosophy  of  India,  and  supplies  him  with  a  clue, 
that  be  may  not  be  lost  in  them.  In  the  preface  he  states  that  the  system  of 
Kapila  is  the  '  earliest  attempt  on  record  to  give  an  answer,  from  reason  alone, 
to  the  mysterious  questions  which  arise  in  every  thoughtful  mind  about  the  origin  of 
the  world,  the  nature  and  relations  of  man  and  his  future  destiny,'  and  in  his  learned 
and  able  notes  he  exhibits  '  the  connection  of  the  Sankhya  system  with  the  philo- 
sophy of  Spinoza,'  and  '  the  connection  of  the  system  of  Kapila  with  that  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  Von  Hartniann.'  " — Foreign  Church  Chronicle. 

"  Mr.  Davies's  volume  on  Hindu  Philosophy  is  an  undoubted  gain  to  all  students 
of  the  development  of  thought.  The  system  of  Kapila,  which  is  here  given  in  a  trans- 
lation from  the  Sankhya  Kaiika,  is  the  only  contrib;ition  of  India  to  pure  philosophy. 
.  .  .  Presents  many  points  of  deep  interest  to  the  student  of  comparative  philo- 
sophy, and  without  Mr.  Davies's  lucid  interpretation  it  would  be  difficult  to  appre- 
ciate these  points  in  any  adequate  manner." — Saturday  Review. 

"  We  welcome  Mr.  Davies's  book  as  a  valuable  addition  to  our  philosophical 
library.'' — Notes  and  Queries. 


TRUSNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Second  Edition.     Post  8vo,  pp.  x. — 130,  cloth,  price  6s. 

A  MANUAL  OF  HINDU  PANTHEISM.    VEDANTASARA. 

Translated,  with  copious  Annotations, 

By  Major  G.  A.  JACOB, 

Bombay  Staff  Corps  ;  Inspector  of  Army  Schools. 

The  design  of  this  little  work  is  to  provide  for  missionaries,  and  for 
others  who,  like  them,  have  little  leisure  for  original  research,  an  accurate 
summary  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Vedanta. 

"  The  modest  title  of  Major  Jacob's  work  conveys  but  an  inadequate  idea  of  the 
vast  amount  of  research  embodied  in  bis  notes  to  the  text  of  the  Vedantasara.  So 
copious,  indeed,  are  these,  and  so  much  collateral  matter  do  they  bring  to  bear  on 
the  subject,  that  the  diligent  student  will  rise  from  their  perusal  with  a  fairly 
adequate  view  of  Hindu  philosophy  generally.  His  work  ...  is  one  of  the  best  of 
its  kind  that  wo  have  seen." — Calcutta  Review. 


Post  8vo,   pp.   xii. — 154,   cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

TSUNI-I  I  GO  AM: 

The  Supreme  Being  of  the  Khoi-Khoi. 

By  THEOPHILUS  HAHN,  Ph.D., 

Custodian  of  the  Grey  Collection,  Cape  Town  ;  Corresponding  Member 

of  the  Geogr.  Society,  Dresden  ;  Corresponding  Member  of  the 

Anthroi)ological  Society,  Vienna,  &c. ,  kc. 

"The  fii-st  instalment  of  Dr.  Hahn's  labours  will  be  of  interest,  not  at  the  Cape 
only,  but  in  every  University  of  Europe.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  most  valuable  contribution 
to  the  comparative  study  of  religion  and  mythology.  Accounts  of  their  religion  and 
mythology  were  scattered  about  in  various  books  ;  these  have  been  carefully  col- 
lected by"  Dr.  Hahn  and  printed  in  his  second  chapter,  enriched  and  improved  by 
what  he  has  been  able  to  collect  himself." — Prof.  Max  Millie:)-  in  the  nineteenth 
Century. 

"  It  is  full  of  good  tilings." — St.  James's  Gazette. 


In  Four  Volumes.      Post  8vo,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  xii. — 392,  cloth,  price  12s.  6d., 

Vol.  II.,  pp.  vi. — 408,  cloth,  price  12s.  6d.,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  viii. — 414, 

cloth,  price  123.  6d.,  Vol.  IV.,  pp.  viii. — 340,  cloth,  price  los.  6d. 

A  COMPREHENSIVE  COMMENTARY  TO  THE   QURAN. 

To  which  is  prefixed  Sale's  Preliminary  Discourse,  with 
Additional  Notes  and  Emendations, 

Together  with  a  Complete  Index  to  the  Text,  Preliminary 
Discourse,  and  Notes. 

By  Rev.  E.  M.  WHERRY,  M.A.,  Lodiana. 

"  As  Mr.  Wherry's  book  is  intended  for  missionaries  in  India,  it  is  no  doubt  v.  ell 
that  they  should  be  prepared  to  meet,  if  they  can,  the  ordinary  arguments  and  inter- 
pretations, and  for  this  purpose  Mr.  Wherry's  additions  will  prove  useful." — Satu7-dau 
Review. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Second  Edition.     Post  8vo,  i)p.  vi.— 208,  cloth,  price  8s.  6d. 

THE  BHAGAVAD-GITA. 

Translated,   with  Introduction  and  Notes. 
By  JOHN  DAVIES,  M.A.  (Cantab.) 

"  Let  us  add  that  his  translation  of  the  Bhagavad  Gita  is,  as  we  judge,  the  best 
that  has  as  yet  appeared  in  English,  and  that  his  Philoogical  Notes  are  of  quite 
peculiar  value." — Dublin  Review. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  96,  cloth,  price  53. 

THE  QUATRAINS  OF  OMAR  KHAYYAM. 

Translated  by  E.   H.  WHINFIELD,  M.A., 
Barrister-at-Law,  late  H.M.  Bengal  Civil  Service. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xxxii. — 336,  cloth,  price  los.  6d. 

THE   QUATRAINS    OF    OMAR    KHAYYAM. 

The  Persian  Text,  with  an  English  Yerse  Translation. 
By  B.  H.  WHINFIELD,  late  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service. 

"  Mr.  Whinfleld  has  executed  a  difificult  task  with  considerable  success,  and  his 
version  contains  much  that  wUl  be  new  to  those  who  only  know  Mr.  Fitzgerald's 
delightful  selection."— .^cac^eHij/. 

' '  The  most  prominent  features  in  the  Quatrains  are  their  profound  agnosticism, 
combined  with  a  fatalism  based  more  on  philosophic  than  religious  grounds,  their 
Epicureanism  and  the  spirit  of  universal  tolerance  and  charity  which  animates  them." 
— Calcutta  Review.  

Post  8vo,  pp.  xxiv. — 268,  cloth,  price  9s. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  UPANISHADS  AND 
ANCIENT  INDIAN  METAPHYSICS. 

As  exhibited  in  a  series  of  Articles  contributed  to  the  Calcutta  lieriew. 

By  AP>,CHIBALD  EDAVARD  GOUGH,  M.A.,  Lincoln  College,  Oxford  ; 
Principal  of  the  Calcutta  Madrasa, 

"For  practical  purposes  this  is  perliaps  the  most  important  of  the  works  that  have 
thus  far  appeared  in  '  Triibner's  Oriental  Series.'  .  .  .  We  cannot  doubt  that  for  all 
who  may  take  it  up  the  work  must  be  one  ot  profound  interest." — Saturday  Review. 


In  Two  Volumes.    Vol.  I.,  post  8vo,  pp.  xxiv. — 230,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

A  COMPARATIVE  HISTORY  OF  THE  EGYPTIAN  AND 

MESOPOTAMIAN  RELIGIONS. 

By  Dr.  C.  P.  TIELE. 

Vol.  I. — History  of  the  Egyptian  Eeligion. 

Translated  from  the  Dutch  with  the  Assistance  of  the  Author. 

By  JAilES  BALLINGAL. 

"  It  places  in  the  hands  of  the  English  readers  a  history  of  Egyptian  Religion 
which  is  very  comiilete,  which  is  based  on  the  best  materials,  and  wliich  has  been 
illustrated  by  the  latest  results  of  research.  In  thi.s  volume  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
iufurmation,  as  well  as  independent  investigation,  for  the  tnistwortliiness  of  which 
Dr.  Tiele's  name  is  in  itself  a  guarantee  ;  and  the  description  of  the  .successive 
religions  under  the  Old  Kingdom,  the  Middle  Kingdom,  and  the  New  Kingdom,  is 
given  in  a  manner  which  is  scholarly  and  minute." — Scotsman. 


TKUnXER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xii. — 302,  cloth,  price  Ss.  6cl. 

YUSUF  AND  ZULAIKHA. 

A  Poem  by  JAMI. 

Tranalated  from  the  Persian  into  English  Verse. 

By  RALPH  T.  H.  GPvIFFITH. 

"  Mr.  Griffith,  who  has  done  ah-eady  good  service  as  translator  into  verse  from  tlie 
Sanski-it,  lias  done  farther  good  work  in  this  translatiou  from  the  Persian,  and  he 
has  evidently  shown  not  a  little  skill  in  his  rendering  the  quaint  and  very  oriental 
style  of  his  author  into  our  more  prosaic,  less  figurative,  language.  .  .  .  The  work, 
besides  its  intrinsic  merits,  is  of  importance  as  being  one  of  the  most  popular  and 
famous  poems  of  Persia,  and  that  which  is  read  in  all  the  independent  native  schools 
of  India  where  Persian  is  taught." — Scotsman. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  viii. — 266,  cloth,  price  9s. 

LINGUISTIC  ESSAYS. 
By  carl  ABEL. 

"  An  entirely  novel  method  of  dealing  with  philosophical  questions  and  impart  a 
real  human  interest  to  the  otherwise  dry  technicalities  of  the  science." — Standard. 

"  Dr.  Abel  is  an  opponent  from  whom  it  is  pleasant  to  differ,  for  he  writes  with 
enthusiasm  and  temper,  and  his  mastery  over  the  English  language  fits  him  to  be  a 
champion  of  unpopular  doctrines." — Athenceum. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  ix. — 281,  cloth,  price  los.  6d. 

THE    SARV  A  -  BARS  AN  A  -  SAMGRAHA  ; 

Or,  review  of  THE  DIFFERENT  SYSTEMS  OF  HINDH 
PHILOSOPHY. 

By  MADHAVA  ACHARYA. 

Translated  by  E.  B.  COWELL,  M.  A.,  Professor  of  Sanskrit  in  the  University 

of  Cambridge,  and  A.  E.  GOUGH,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Philosophy 

in  the  Presidency  College,  Calcutta. 

This  work   is   an   interesting  specimen    of   Hindu    critical   ability.     The 

author    successively    passes    in   review   the   sixteen   philosophical   systems 

current  in  the  fourteenth  century  in  the  South  of  India ;  and  he  gives  what 

appears  to  him  to  be  their  most  important  tenets. 

"  The  translation  is  trustworthy  throughout.  A  protracted  sojourn  in  India, 
where  there  is  a  living  tradition,  has  familiarised  the  translattrs  with  Indian 
thought." — Athenmuiii. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  Ixv. — 368,  cloth,  price  14s. 

TIBETAN  TALES  DERIVED  FROM  INDIAN  SOURCES. 

Translated  from  the  Tibetan  of  the  Kah-Gyur. 

By  F.  ANTON  VON  SCHIEFNER. 

Done  into  English  from  the  German,  with  an  Introduction, 

By  W.  R.  S.  RALSTON,  M.A. 

"Mr.  Ralston,  whose  name  is  so  familiar  to  all  lovers  of  Russian  folk-lore,  has 

supplied  some  interesting  Western  analogies  and  parallels,  drawn,  for  the  most  part, 

from  Slavonic  sources,  to  the  Eastern  folk-tales,  culled  from  tlie  Kabgyur,  one  of  the 

divisions  of  the  Tibetan  sacred  books." — Academy. 

"  The  translation  .  .  .  could  scarcely  liave  fallen  into  better  hands.  An  Introduc- 
tion .  .  .  gives  the  leading  facts  in  the  lives  of  those  scholars  wlio  liave  given  their 
attention  to  gaining  a  knowledge  of  the  Tibetan  literature  and  language."— CaU-«»a 
Revieio. 

"  Ought  to  interest  all  who  care  for  the  East,  for  amusing  stories,  or  for  comparative 
folk-lore."— Pa«  Mall  Gazette. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xvi. — 224,  cloth,  price  9s. 

UDANAVARGA. 

A  Collection  of  Verses  from  the  Buddhist  Canon. 

Compiled  by  DHAEMATRATA. 

Being  the  NORTHERN  BUDDHIST  VERSION  of  DHAMMAPADA. 

Translated  from  the  Tibetan  of  Bkah-hgyur,  with  Notes,  and 
Extracts  from  the  Commentary  of  Pradjnavarman, 

By  W.  WOODVILLE  ROCKHILL. 

"  Mr.  Rockhill's  present  work  is  the  first  from  which  assistance  will  be  gained 
for  SI  more  accurate  understanding  of  the  Pali  text;  it  is,  in  fact,  as  yet  the  only 
term  of  comparison  available  to  us.  The  '  Udanavarga,'  the  Thibetan  version,  was 
originally  discovercl  by  the  late  M.  Schiefuer,  wlio  pul>lished  tlie  Tibetan  text,  and 
liad  intended  adding  a  translation,  an  inteution  frustrated  by  his  deatli,  but  which 
has  been  carried  out  by  Mr.  Rockhill.  .  .  .  Mr.  Rockliill  may  be  congratulated  f(ir 
having  well  accomplished  a  diflficult  task." — Saturday  Review. 


In  Two  Volumes,  post  8vo,  pp.  sxiv. — 566,  cloth,  accompanied  by  a 
Language  Map,  price  i8s. 

A  SKETCH  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGES  OF  AFRICA. 

By  ROBERT  NEEDHAM  CUST, 
Barrister-at-Law,  and  late  of  Her  Majesty's  Indian  Civil  Service. 

"Any  one  at  all  interested  in  African  languages  cannot  do  better  than  get  Mr. 
Cust's  book.  It  is  encyolopsedic  in  its  scope,  and  the  reader  gets  a  start  clear  away 
in  any  particular  languatre,  and  is  left  free  to  add  to  the  initial  sum  of  knowledge 
there  collected." — Natal  Mercury. 

"Mr.  Oust  has  contrived  to  produce  a  work  of  value  to  linguistic  students."—' 
Nature. 


Thii'd  Edition.     Post  8vo,  pp.  XV.-250,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

OUTLINES  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION  TO  THE 
SPREAD  OF  THE  UNIVERSAL  RELIGIONS. 

By  C.  p.  TIELE, 

Doctor  of  Theology,  Professor  of  the  History  of  Religions  in  the 

University  of  Leyden. 

Translated  from  the  Dutch  by  J.  ESTLIN  Cakpenter,  M.A. 

Few  books  of  its  size  contain  the  result  of  so  much  wide  thinking,  able  and  labo- 
rious study,  or  enable  the  reader  to  gain  a  better  bird's-eye  view  of  the  latest  results 
of  investigations  into  the  religious  history  of  nations.  As  Prcifessor  Tiele  modestly 
says,  '  In  this  little  book  are  outlines— pencil  sketches,  I  might  say — nothing  more.' 
Hut  there  are  some  men  whose  sketches  from  a  thumb-nail  are  of  far  more  worth 
tlian  an  enormous  canvas  covered  witli  the  crude  painting  of  others,  and  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  these  pages,  full  of  infonnation,  these  sentences,  cut  and  perhaps  also  dry, 
short  and  clear,  condense  the  fruits  of  long  and  thorough  research." — Scotsman. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xii. — 312,  with  Maps  and  Plan,  cloth,  price  14s. 

A  HISTORY  OF  BURMA. 

Including  Burma  Proper,  Pegu,  Taungu,  Tenasserim,  and  Arakan.     From 
the  Earliest  Time  to  the  End  of  the  First  War  with  British  India. 

By  Lieut. -Gex.  Sir  AETHUR  P.  PHAYRE,  G.C.M.G.,  K.C.S.I.,  andC.B., 

Membre  Correspondant  de  la  Societe  Academique  Indo-Chinoise 

de  France. 

"Sir  Arthur  Phayre's  contribution  to  Trilbner's  Oriental  Series  supplies  a  recog- 
nised want,  and  its  appearance  lias  been  looked  forward  to  for  many  years 

General  Pliayre  deserves  great  credit  for  the  patience  and  industry  which  lias  resulted 
in  this  History  of  Burma." — Saturday  Revieio. 


Third  Edition.     Post  8vo,  pp.  276,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

RELIGION      IN      CHINA. 

By  JOSEPH  EDKINS,  D.D.,  Peking. 
Containing  a  Brief  Account  of  the  Three  Religions  of  the  Chinese,  with 
Observations  on  the  Prosj)ects  of  Christian  Conversion  amongst  that 
People. 
"  Dr.  Edkins  has  been  most  careful  in  noting  the  varied  and  often  complex  phases 
of  opinion,  so  as  to  give  an  account  of  considerable  value  of  the  subject." — Scfitsmo^i. 
"  As  a  missionary,  it  has  been  part  of  Dr.  Edkins'  duty  to  study  the  existing 
religions  in  China,  and  his  long  residence  in  the  country  has  enabled  him  to  acquire 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  them  as  they  at  present  e.xist." — SaUivdav  Revitw. 

"  Dr.  Edkins'  valuable  work,  of  which  this  is  a  second  and  revised  edition,  has, 
from  the  time  that  it  was  published,  been  the  standard  authority  upon  the  subject 
of  which  it  treats." — Konconj'orraist. 

"  Dr.  Edkins  .  .  .  may  now  be  fairly  regarded  as  among  the  first  authorities  on 
Chinese  religion  and  language." — British  Quarterly  Review. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  X.-274,  cloth,  price  93. 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  BUDDHA  AND  THE  EARLY 
HISTORY  OF  HIS  ORDER. 

Derived  from  Tibetan  Works  in  the  Bkah-hgj'ur  and  Estan-hgyur. 

Followed  by  notices  on  the  Early  History  of  Tibet  and  Khoteii. 

Translated  by  W.  W.  ROCKHILL,  Second  Secretary  U.S.  Legation  in  China. 

"The  volume  bears  testimony  to  the  diligence  and  fulnes's  with  wliich  the  author 
has  consulted  and  tested  the  ancient  documents  bearing  upon  his  remarkable  sub- 
ject."—  Times. 

"  Will  be  appreciated  by  those  who  devote  themselves  to  tliose  Buddhist  studies 
which  have  of  late  years  taken  in  these  Western  regions  so  remarkable  a  develop- 
ment. Its  matter  possesses  a  special  interest  as  being  derived  from  ancient  Tibetan 
works,  some  portions  of  which,  here  analysed  and  translated,  have  not  yet  attracted 
the  attention  of  scholars.  The  volume  is  rich  in  ancient  stories  bearing  upon  the 
world's  renovation  and  the  origin  of  castes,  as  recorded  in  these  venerable  autho- 
rities."— Daily  Neios. 

Third  Edition.     Post  Bvo,  pp.  viii.-464,  cloth,  price  i6s. 

THE   SANKHYA   APHORISMS   OF   KAPILA, 

With  Illustrative  Extracts  from  the  Commentaries. 

Transkted  by  J.  R.  BALLANTYNE,  LL.D.,  late  Principal  of  the  Benares 

College. 

Edited  by  FITZEDWARD  HALL. 

The  work  displays  a  vast  exiiendituro  of  labour  and  scholarship,  for  which 
students  of  Hindoo  pliilosophy  have  every  reu.->on  to  be  grateful  to  Dr.  Hall  and  the 
publishers." — C'aUutta  Revitw. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIEA'TAL  SERIES. 


Ill  Two'Volumes,  post  8vo,  pp.  cviii.-242,  and  viii.-370,  cloth,  price  24s. 
Dedicated  by  permission  to  H.  R.H.  the  Prince  of  "Wales. 

BUDDHIST  RECORDS  OF  THE  WESTERN  WORLD, 

Translated  from  the  Chinese  of  Hiuen  Tsiang  (a.d.  629). 

By  SAMUEL  BEAL,  B.A., 

(Trin.  Coll.,  Camb.) ;  R.N.  (Retired  Chaplain  and  N.I.)  ;  Professor  of  Chinese, 
University  College,  London  ;  Rector  of  Wark,  Northumberland,  &c. 

An  eminent  Indian  authority  writes  respecting  tliis  work : — "  Nothing 
more  can  be  done  in  elucidating  the  History  of  India  until  Mr.  Beal's  trans- 
lation of  the  '  Si-yu-ki'  appears." 

"  It  is  a  strange  freak  of  historical  preservation  that  the  best  account  of  the  con- 
dition of  India  at  that  ancient  period  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  books  of  travel 
written  by  the  Chinese  pilgrims,  of  whom  Hwen  Thsang  is  tlie  best  knowu." — Times. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xlviii.-398,  cloth,  price  12s. 

THE    ORDINANCES    OF    MANU. 

Translated  from  the  Sanskrit,  with  an  Introduction. 

By  the  late  A.  C.  BURNELL,  Ph.D.,  CLE. 

Completed  and  Edited  by  E.  "W".  HOPKINS,  Ph.D., 
of  Columbia  CoUege,  N.Y. 

"This  work  is  full  of  interest ;  while  for  the  student  of  sociology  and  the  science 
of  relisfion  it  is  full  of  importance.  It  is  a  great  boon  to  get  so  notable  a  work  in  so 
accessible  a  form,  admirably  edited,  and  competently  translated." — ScoUman. 

"  Few  men  were  more  competent  than  Bumell  to  give  us  a  really  good  translation 
of  this  well-known  law  book,  first  rendered  into  English  by  Sir  William  Jones. 
Bumell  was  not  only  an  independent  Sanskrit  scholar,  but  an  experienced  lawyer, 
and  he  joined  to  these  two  important  qualifications  the  rare  faculty  of  being  able  to 
express  his  thoughts  in  clear  and  trenchant  English.  .  .  .  We  ought  to  feel  very 
grateful  to  Dr.  Hopkins  for  having  given  us  all  that  could  be  published  of  the  trans- 
lation left  by  Burnell." — F.  Max  MI'ller  in  the  Academy. 


Post  Svo,  pp.  xii.-234,  cloth,  price  9s. 

THE  LIFE  AND  WORKS  OF  ALEXANDER 
CSOMA  DE  KOROS, 

Between  1819  and  1842.  "With  a  Short  Notice  of  all  his  Published  and  Un- 
published "Works  and  Essays.  From  Original  and  for  most  part  Unpub- 
lished Documents. 

By  THEODORE  DUKA,  M.D.,  F.R.C.S.  (Eng.),  Surgeon-Major 
H.M.'s  Bengal  Medical  Service,  Retired,  &c. 

"  Not  too  soon  have  Messrs.  Triilmer  added  to  their  valuable  Oriental  Scries  a 
liistory  of  the  life  and  works  of  one  of  the  most  gifted  and  devoted  of  Oriental 
students,  Alexander  Csonia  de  Koros.  It  is  forty-three  years  since  his  death,  and 
though  an  account  of  his  career  was  demanded  soon  after  his  decease,  it  has  only 
now  appeared  in  the  important  memoir  of  his  compatriot,  Dr.  Duka." — Bookseller, 


■fRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


In  Two  Volumes,  post  8vo,  pp.  xii.-3i8  and  vi.-3i2,  cloth,  price  21s. 

MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS  RELATING  TO 
INDOCHINA. 

Reprinted  from  "  Dalrymple's  Oriental  Repertory,"  "Asiatic  Researches," 
and  the  "Journal  of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal." 

CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I. 

I. — Some  Accounts  of  Quedah.     By  Michael  Topping. 

II. — Report  made  to  the  Chief  and  Council  of  Bulambangan,  by  Lieut.  James 
Barton,  of  his  several  Surveys. 

III. —Substance  of  a  Letter  to  the  Court  of  Directors  from  Mr.  Jolni  Jesse,  dated 
July  20,  1775,  at  Borneo  Proper. 

IV. — Formation  of  the  Establishment  of  Poolo  Peenang. 

v.— The  Gold  of  Limong.     By  John  Macdonald. 

VI. — On  Three  Natural  Productions  of  Sumatra.     By  John  Macdonald. 

VII. — On  the  Traces  of  the  Hindu  Language  and  LiteraDure  extant  amongst  the 
Malays.     By  William  Marsden. 

VIII.— Some  Account  of  the  Elastic  Gum  Vine  of  Prince-Wales  Island.  By  James 
Howison. 

IX.-- A  Botanical  Description  of  Urceola  Elastica,  or  Caoutchouc  Vine  of  Sumatra 
and  Pulo-Piuang.     By  William  Roxburgh,  M.D. 

X. — An  Account  of  the  Inhabitants  of  the  Poggy,  or  Nassau  Islands,  lying  off 
Sumatra.     By  John  Crisj). 

XI. — Remarks  on  the  Species  of  Pepper  which  are  found  on  Prince-Wales  Island. 
By  William  Hunter,  M.D. 

XII. — On  the  Languages  and  Literature  of  the  Indo-Chinese  Nations.  By  J. 
Levden,  M.D. 

XIII. — Some  Account  of  an  Or.ang-Outang  of  remarkable  height  found  on  the  Island 
of  Sumatra.     By  Clarke  Abel,  M.D. 

XIV. —Observations  on  the  Geolor^ical  Appearances  and  General  Features  of  Por- 
tions of  tlie  Malayan  Peninsula.     By  Captain  James  Low. 

XV.— Short  Sketch  of  the  Geology  of  Pulo-Pinang  and  the  Neighbouring  Islands, 
By  T.  Ware. 

XVI.— Climate  of  Sing.apore. 

XVII.  -Inscription  on  the  Jetty  at  Singapore. 

XVIII. — Extract  of  a  Letter  from  Colonel  J.  Low. 

XIX. — Inscription  at  Singapore. 

XX.— An  Account  of  Several  Inscriptions  found  in  Province  WeUesley.  By  Lieut. - 
CoL  James  Low. 

XXI. — Note  on  the  Inscriptions  from  Singapore  and  Province  WeUesley.  By  J.  W. 
Laidlay. 

XXII. — On  an  Inscription  from  Keddah.     By  Lieut.-Col.  Low. 

XXIII. — A  Notice  of  the  Alphabets  or  the  Pliilippine  Islands. 

XXIV. — Succinct  Review  of  the  Observations  of  the  Tides  in  the  Indi.an  Archipelago. 

XXV.— Report  on  the  Tin  of  the  Province  of  Mergui.     By  Capt.  G.  B  Tremenheere. 

XXVI.— Report  on  the  Manganese  of  Mergui  Province.    By  Capt.  G.  B.  Tremeuheere. 

XXVII. — Paragraphs  to  be  added  to  Capt.  G.  B.  Tremenheere's  Report. 

XXVIII.— Second  Report  on  the  Tin  of  Mergui.     By  Capt.  G.  B.  Tremenheere. 

XXIX. — Analysis  of  Iron  Ores  from  Tavoy  and  Mergui,  and  of  Limestone  from 
Mergui.     By  Dr.  A.  Ure. 

XXX.— Report  of  a  Visit  to  the  Pakchan  River,  and  of  s^me  Tin  Localities  in  the 
Southern  Portion  of  the  Ttuasserim  Provinces.     By  Capt.  G.  B.  Tremenheere. 

XXXI. — Report  on  a  Route  from  the  Mouth  of  the  Pakch.an  to  Krau,  and  thence 
across  the  Isthmus  of  Krau  to  the  Gulf  of  Siam.  By  Capt.  Al.  Fraser  and  Capt.  J.  G. 
Forlong. 

XXXII. — Report,  &c. ,  from  Capt.  G.  B.  Tremenheere  on  the  Price  of  Mergui  Tin  Ore. 

XXXIII.— Rom.arks  on  the  Different  Species  of  Orang-utan.     By  E.  Blyth. 

XXXIV.— Further  Remarks.     By  E.  Blyth. 


TRUBNF.R'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS  RELATING  TO  INDO-CHINA— 

continued. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  II. 

XXXV.— Catalogue  of  Mammalia  inhabiting  the  Malayan  Peninsula  and  Islands, 
By  Theodore  Cantor,  M.D. 

XXXVI.— On  the  Local  and  Relative  Geology  of  Singapore.     By  J.  R.  Logan. 

XXXVII.— Catalogue  of  Reptiles  inhabiting  the  Malayan  Peninsula  and  Islands. 
By  Theodore  Cantor,  M.U. 

XXXVIIL— Some  Account  of  the  Botanical  Collection  brought  from  the  Eastward, 
in  1841,  by  Dr.  Cantor.     By  the  late  W.  Griffith. 

XXXIX.- Oa  the  Flat-Homed  Taurine  Cattle  ofS.E.  Asia.     By  B.  Blyth. 

XL.— Note,  by  Major-General  G.  B.  Tremenheore. 

General  Index. 

Index  of  Vernacular  Terms. 

Index  of  Zoological  Genera  and  Sub-Genera  occurring  in  Vol.  II. 

"The  papers  treat  of  almost  every  aspect  of  Indo-China— its  philology,  economy, 
geography,  geology — and  constitute  a  very  material  and  important  contribution  to 
otir  accessible  information  regarding  that  country  and  its  people." — Contemporary 
Rtoieio.  

Post  8vo,  pp.  xii.-72,  clotli,  price  5s. 

THE    SATAKAS    OF    BHARTRIHARI. 

Translated  from  the  Sanskrit 
BytheEEV.  B.  HALE  WOETHAM,  M.R.A.S., 

Rector  of  Eggesford,  North  Devon, 

"  A  very  interesting  addition  to  Triibner's  Oriental  Series." — Saturday  Re.view. 
"  Many  of  the  Maxims  in  the  book  have  a  Biblical  ring  and  beauty  of  expression. " 
— St.  James'  Gazette.  ^ 

Post  8vo,  pp.  xii.-i8o,  cloth,  price  6s. 

ANCIENT  PROVERBS  AND  MAXIMS  FROM  BURMESE 
SOURCES ; 

Or,  the  NITI  LITERATURE  OF  BURMA. 

By  JAMES  GRAY, 

Author  of  "Elemeuts  of  Pali  Grammar,"  "Translation  of  the 
Dhammapada,"  &c. 

The  Sanscrit-Pali  word  Niti  is  equivalent  to  "conduct"  in  its  abstract, 
and  "guide"  in  its  concrete  signification.  As  apjilied  to  books,  it  is  a 
general  term  for  a  treatise  which  includes  maxims,  pithy  sayings,  and 
didactic  stories,  intended  as  a  guide  to  such  matters  of  every-day  life  aa 
form  the  character  of  an  individual  and  influence  him  in  his  relations  to  his 
fellow-men.  Treatises  of  this  kind  have  been  popular  in  all  ages,  and  have 
served  as  a  most  effective  medium  of  instruction. 


Post  Bvo,  pp.  xxxii,  and  330,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

MASNAVI    I    MA'    NAVI: 

THE  SPIRITUAL  COUPLETS  OF  MAULANA  JALALU-'D-DIN 
MUHAMMAD  I  RUMI. 

Tranalated  and  Abridged  by  E.  H.  WHINFIELD,  M,A., 
Late  of  H.M.  Bengal  Civil  Service. 


TRUBNERS  ORIENTAL  SER/ES. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  viii.  and  346,  cloth,  price  los.  61I. 

MANAVA-DHARMA-CASTRA: 
THE  CODE   OF  MANU. 

Original  Sanskrit  Text,  with  Critical  Notes. 
By  J.  JOLLY,  Ph.D., 

Professor  of  Sanskrit  in  the  University  of  "Wurzburg  ;  late  Tagore  Professor 
of  Law  in  the  University  of  Calcutta. 

The  date  assigned  by  Sir  William  Jones  to  this  Code — the  well-known 
Great  Law  Book  of  the  Hindus — is  1250-500  B.C.,  although  the  rules  and 

Erecepts  contained  in  it  had  probably  existed  as  tradition  for  countless  ages 
efore.  There  has  been  no  reliable  edition  of  the  Text  for  Students  for 
many  years  past,  and  it  is  believed,  therefore,  that  Prof.  Jolly's  work  will 
supply  a  want  long  felt. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  215,  cloth,  price  7s.  6d. 

LEAVES  FROM  MY  CHINESE   SCRAP-BOOK. 

By  FREDEPvIC  HENRY  BALFOUR. 

Author  of  "Waifs  and  Strays  from  the  Far  East,"  "  Taoist  Texts," 
"  Idiomatic  Phrases  in  the  Peking  Colloquial,"  &c.  &c. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xvi.-548,  with  Six  Maps,  cloth,  price  21s. 

LINGUISTIC    AND    ORIENTAL    ESSAYS. 

Written  from  the  Year  1847  to  1887.     Second  Series. 

By  ROBERT  NEEDHAM  CUST,  LL.D., 

Barrister-at-Law  ;  Honorary  Secretary  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  ; 

Late  Member  of  Her  Majesty's  Indian  Civil  Service. 


In  Two  Volumes,  post  Bvo,  pp.  X.-308  and  vi.-3i4,  cloth,  price  2qs. 

MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS  RELATING  TO 
INDOCHINA. 

Edited  by  R.  ROST,  Ph.D.,  &c.  &c., 

Librarian  to  the  India  Office. 

Second  Series. 

Reprinted  for  the  Straits  Branch  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  from  the 
Malayan  "Miscellanies,"'  the  "  1'ransactions  and  Journal  "of  the  Batavian 
Society,  and  the  "Journals"  of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal  and  the 
Royal  Geographical  and  Royal  Asiatic  Societies. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xii.-5i2,  pi-ice  i6s. 

FOLK-TALES    OF    KASHMIR. 

By  the  Rev.  J.  HINTON  KNOWLES,  F.R.G.S.,  M.R.A.S,  &c. 
(C.M.S.)  Missionary  to  the  Kashmiris. 


TRUBNER'S  ORIENTAL  SERIES. 


In  Two  Volumes,  post  8vo,  pp.  xii.-336  and  X.-352,  cloth,  price  21s. 

MEDIAEVAL  RESEARCHES  FROM  EASTERN  ASIATIC 
SOURCES. 

Fragments  Towaeds  the  Knowledge  of  the  Geogeapht  and  History 
OP  Central  and  Western  Asia  from  the  Thirteenth  to  the 
Seventeenth  Century. 

By  E.  BRETSCHNEIDER,  M.D., 
Formerly  Physician  of  the  Russian  Legation  at  Pekin. 

In  Two  Volumes,  post  8vo,  pp.  I.-408  and  431,  cloth,  price  36s. 

ALBERUNI'S    INDIA: 

AN  ACCOUNT  OF  ITS  RELIGION,  PHILOSOPHY,  LITERATURE, 
GEOGRAPHY,  CHRONOLOGY,  ASTRONOMY.  CUSTOMS,  LAW, 
AND  ASTROLOGY  (about  a.d.  1031). 

Translated  into  English. 

With  Notes  and  Indices  by  Prof.  EDWARD  SACHAU, 
University  of  Berlin. 

*^*  The  Ai-abic  Original,  with  an  Index  of  the  Sanskrit  Words,  Edited  by 
Professor  SACHAU,  is  in  the  press. 


Post  8vo,  pp.  xxxvii.-2i8,  cloth,  price  los. 

THE   LIFE   OF   HIUEN   TSIANG. 

By  the  SHAMANS  HWUI  LI  and  YEN-TSUNG. 

With  a  Preface  containing  an  account  of  the  Works  of  I-TsiNG. 

By  SAMUEL  BEAL,  B.A. 

(Trin.  Coll.,  Camb.) ;  Professor  of  Chinese,  University  College,  London  ; 

Rector  of  Wark,  Northumberland,  &c. 
Author  of  "  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World,"  "  The  Romantic 

Legend  of  Sakya  Budda,"  &c. 
When  the  Pilgrim  Hiueu  Tsiang  returned  from  his  travels  in  India,  he 
took  up  his  abode  in  the  Temple  of  "Great  Benevolence  ;  "  this  convent  had 
been  constructed  by  the  Emperor  in  honour  of  the  Empress,  Weu-te-hau. 
After  Hiuen  Tsiang's  death,  his  disciple,  Hwui  Li,  composed  a  work  which 
gave  an  account  of  his  illustrious  Master's  travels ;  this  work  when  he  com- 
pleted he  buried,  and  refused  to  discover  its  place  of  concealment.  But 
previous  to  his  death  he  revealed  its  whereabouts  to  Yen-tsung,  by  whom  it 
was  finally  revised  and  published.  This  is  "The  Life  of  Hiuen  Tsiang."  It 
is  a  valuable  sequel  to  the  Si-yu-ki,  correcting  and  illustrating  it  in  many 
particulars. 

IN  PREPARATION:— 

Post  8vo. 

A  SKETCH  OF  THE  MODERN  LANGUAGES  OF 
OCEANIA. 

By  R.  N.  CUST,  LL.D. 
Author  of  " IModern  Languages  of  the  East,"  "Modern  Languages  of 

Africa,"  &c. 


LONDON  :  TRUBNER  &  CO.,  57  and  59  LUDGATE  HILL. 


TRUBNER'S 

ORIENTAL    SERIES 


{All  RigJits  Reserved.'] 


MORRISON   AND   GIBB,    EDINBURGH, 
I'RINTERS    TO   HER    MAJESTY'S   STATIONERY   OFFICE. 


THE   INDIAN    EMPIRE 


ITS    PEOPLE,   HISTORY,  AND    PRODUCTS. 


BY 


W.    W.    HUNTER,    C.S.I.   c.i.e.   ll.d. 


SECOND  EDITION. 


LONDON:   TRUBNER   &    CO.,  LUDGATE    HILL.    1886. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


This  book  tries  to  present,  within  a  small  compass,  an 
account  of  India  and  her  people.  The  materials  on 
which  it  is  based  are  condensed  from  my  larger  works. 
In  1869,  the  Government  of  India  directed  me  to 
execute  a  Statistical  Survey  of  its  dominions, — a  vast 
enterprise,  whose  records  now  make  128  printed  volumes, 
aggregating  60,000  pages.  The  scale  of  the  opera- 
tions, although  by  no  means  too  elaborate  for  the 
administrative  purposes  for  which  they  were  designed, 
necessarily  placed  their  results  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
general  public.  The  hundred  volumes  of  TJic  Statistical 
Survey  were  therefore  reduced  to  a  more  compendious 
form  as  the  twelve  volumes  of  TJie  Imperial  Gazetteer 
of  India.  The  present  book  distils  into  one  volume 
the  essence  of  the  whole. 

I  have  elsewhere  explained  the  mechanism  by  which 
the  materials  for  the  Statistical  Survey  were  collected 
in  each  of  the  240  Districts,  or  territorial  units,  of  British 
India.i  Without  the  help  of  a  multitude  of  fellow- 
workers,  the  present  volume  could  never  have  been 
written.  It  represents  the  fruit  of  a  long  process  of  con- 
tinuous condensation.  But  in  again  acknowledging  my 
indebtedness  to  brethren  of  my  Service  in  India,  I  wish 
to  specially  commemorate  the  obligations  which  I  also 
owe  to  a  friend  at  home.  Mr.  J.  S.  Cotton,  late  Fellow 
of  Queen's  College,  Oxford,  has  rendered  important  aid 
at  many  stages  of  the  work. 

1  See  Preface  to  Volume  I.  of  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


vi  INDIA. 

Continuous  condensation,  although  convenient  to  the 
reader,  has  its  perils  for  the  author.  Many  Indian 
topics  are  still  open  questions,  with  regard  to  which 
divergences  of  opinion  may  fairly  exist.  In  some  cases, 
I  have  been  compelled  by  brevity  to  state  my  conclu- 
sions without  setting  forth  the  evidence  on  which  they 
rest,  and  without  any  attempt  to  combat  alternative  views. 
In  other  matters,  I  have  had  to  content  myself  with 
conveying  a  correct  general  impression,  while  omitting 
the  modifying  details.  For  I  here  endeavour  to  present 
an  account,  which  shall  be  at  once  original  and  com- 
plete, of  a  continent  inhabited  by  many  more  races  and 
nations  than  Europe,  in  every  stage  of  human  develop- 
ment, from  the  polyandric  tribes  and  hunting  hamlets 
of  the  hill  jungles,  to  the  most  complex  commercial 
communities  in  the  world.  When  I  have  had  to 
expose  old  fables,  or  to  substitute  truth  for  long 
accepted  errors,  I  clearly  show  my  grounds  for  doing 
so.  Thus,  in  setting  aside  the  legend  of  Mahmud  the 
Idol-Breaker,  I  trace  back  the  growth  of  the  myth 
through  the  Persian  Historians,  to  the  contemporary 
narrative  of  Al  Biruni  (970-1029  A.D.).  The  calumnies 
against  Jagannath  are  corrected  by  the  testimony  of 
three  centuries,  from  1580,  when  Abul  Fazl  wrote,  down 
to  the  police  reports  of  1870.  Macaulay's  somewhat 
fanciful  story  of  Plassey  has  been  told  afresh  in  the 
words  of  Clive's  own  despatch.  The  history  of  Christi- 
anity in  India  is  written,  for  the  first  time,  from  original 
sources  and  local  inquiry. 

But  almost  every  period  of  Indian  history  forms  an 
arena  of  controversy.  Thus,  in  the  early  Sanskrit  era, 
each  date  is  the  result  of  an  intricate  process  of  induc- 
tion ;  the  chapter  on  the  Scy  thic  inroads  has  been  pieced 
together  from  the  unfinished  researches  of  the  Archaeo- 
logical Survey  and  from  local  investigations  ;  the  growth 
of  Hinduism,  as  the  religious  and  social  nexus  of  the 
Indian   races,   is   here   for  the  first   time  written.       In 


INDIA.  vii 

attempting  to  reconstruct  Indian  history  from  its  original 
sources  in  the  fewest  possible  pages,  I  beg  oriental 
scholars  to  believe  that,  although  their  individual  views 
are  not  always  set  forth,  they  have  been  respectfully 
considered.  I  also  pray  the  English  reader  to  remember 
that,  if  he  desires  a  more  detailed  treatment  of  the 
subjects  of  this  volume,  he  may  find  it  in  my  larger 
works. 

W.  W.  H. 

March  iSS6. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


GENERAL    PLAN. 


PAGE 

PAGE 

Physical  Aspects,    . 

1-42 

Early  European  Settlements,  .     356-377 

The  Population  of  India, 

43-52 

History  of  British  Rule, 

•        378-430 

The  Non-Aryan  Races,  . 

53-74 

British  Administration  of 

"India,  431-481 

The  Aryans  in  Ancient  India, 

75-131 

Agriculture  and  Products 

.     482-544 

Buddhism  in  India, 

132-162 

Means  of  Communication,       .     545-554 

The  Greelcs  in  India, 

163-173 

Commerce  and  Trade, 

•     555-597 

Scythic  Inroads  into  India, 

174-190 

Arts  and  Manufactures, 

.     598-617 

Rise  of  Hinduism, 

191-228 

Mines  and  Minerals, 

.     618-630 

Christianity  in  India, 

229-267 

Geology, 

.     631-640 

Early  Muhammadan  Rulers, 

268-289 

Meteorology, 

.     641-651 

The  Mughal  Empire, 

290-316 

Zoology  and  Botany, 

,     652-664 

The  Maratha  Power, 

317-324 

Vital  Statistics, 

.     665-686 

The    Indian   Vernaculars   anc 

1 

Statistical  Appendices,  I 

.-X.,      687-703 

their  Literature, . 

325-355 

Index,    . 

.     705-747 

CHAPTER    L 


PHYSICAL    ASPECTS. 

General  Description  of  India  ;  Boundaries,    . 

The  Three  Regions  of  India, 

First  Region ;  the  Hirnala3'as  ;  their  Scenery  and  Products, 

Second  Region ;  the  Northern  River  Plains, . 

The  Great  Rivers ;  their  Work  ;  Land-making, 

The  Indus,  Brahmaputra,  and  Ganges,  .... 

The  Gangetic  River  System  ;  the  Highway  of  Bengal,     . 
Great  Gangetic  Cities,  ....... 

Three  Stages  in  the  Life  of  an  Indian  River, 

Delta  of  the  Ganges  :  its  Age  and  Process  of  Formation, 


PAGE 

1-4 

4 

4-10 

10-34 

10-33 
10-16 
16-20 

20,  21 

21,  22 
23-28 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


The  Rivers  as  Highways  and  as  Destroyers,  . 
Scenery  and  Crops  of  the  Northern  River  Plains, 
Third  Region  of  India  ;  the  Southern  Table-land, 
The  Deccan ;  the  Ghats,  and  their  Passes,     . 
The  Four  Forest  Regions  of  Southern  India, 
Crops  and  Scenery  of  Southern  India,  . 
British  Burma ;  its  Geography  and  Products, 


PAGE 

29- 

-32 

32- 

-34 

34- 

-41 

35- 

-3S 

38- 

-40 

40, 

41 

41, 

42 

CHAPTER    II. 


THE    POPULATION    OF    INDIA. 

Feudatory  India ;  the  Chiefs  and  their  Powers, 
The  Twelve  British  Provinces ;  how  governed. 
Population  Tables,        ....... 

Pressure  of  Population  ;  overcrowded  Districts, 

Under-peopled  Provinces ;  the  '  immobile  '  Indian  Peasant, 

Nomadic  System  of  Husbandry,    . 

The  Land  and  Labour  Question  in  India  ;  Serfdom, 

Unequal  Pressure  of  Population ;  its  Remedies,     . 

Population  of  India  in  1872  and  1881  ;  Increase,  . 

The  Ethnical  Elements  of  the  Indian  People, 


43 

•   43, 

44 

.   44, 

45 

46 

47 

47 

.   48, 

49 

49, 

50 

50 

•   51, 

52 

CHAPTER    II  L 


THE    NON-ARYAN    RACES. 

Kistvaen  Builders  ;  Flint  and  Bronze  Periods, 
The  Non-Aryans  of  Vedic  India  described,    .... 
Andaman  Islanders;  Anamalai  Hill  Tribes,  .         .         .         . 
Polyandry  among  the  Nairs  ;  the  Gonds,        .... 
Leaf-wearing  Juangs  of  Orissa  ;  Himalayan  Tribes, 
The  Santals  ;  Village  and  Tribal  Government, 
Santal  Customs,  Religion,  and  History,  .... 

The  Kandhs  ;  Tribal  Government,  Wars,  and  Blood  Revenge, 
Kandh  Marriage  by  Capture  ;  Human  Sacrifice,    . 
The  Three  Non-Aryan  Stocks — Tibeto-Burmans,  Dravidians, 
and  Kolarians  ;  their  Languages,    ..... 
Statistics  of  Non- Aryan  Races  in  1872  and  i8Sr,  . 


53 

53, 

54 

55 

55, 

56 

56, 

57 

57 

58- 

-60 

6o, 

61 

6r, 

62 

63- 

-69 

69- 

-71 

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Crushed  Tribes  ;  Gipsy  Clans  ;  Predatory  Tribes, . 
Character  of  the  Non- Aryan  Tribes,       .... 
Mhairs  and  Bhils  ;  their  Reclamation  by  good  Government, 


XI 

PAGE 
71,    72 

72,73 

73.74 


CHAPTER    IV. 


THE    ARYANS    IN    ANCIENT    INDIA. 


The  Indo-European  Stock,    ..... 

Its  Early  Camping-ground  in  Central  Asia,     . 
Common  Origin  of  European  and  Indian  Religions, 
The  Indo-Aryans  on  the  March,  and  in  their  new  Horn 
The  Rig-Veda  ;  Widow-burning  unknown, 
Development  of  Caste,  .         .        78,  87,  88,  89,  9- 

Aryan  Civilisation  in  the  Veda,      .... 

The  Aryan  Tribes  organized  into  Kingdoms, 

Origin  and  Growth  of  Priestly  Families, 

The  Four  Vedas  ;  Brahmanas  \  Sutras, 

The  Warrior  and  Cultivating  Castes, 

The  Four  Castes  formed,       ..... 

Struggle  between  the  Brahmans  and  Kshattriyas,   . 
Brahman  Supremacy  established  ;  Brahman  Ideal  Life, 
Brahman  Theology,       ...... 

Rise  of  the  Post-Vedic  Gods  ;  the  Hindu  Triad,     . 
Brahman  Philosophy  ;  its  Six  Schools,   . 
Brahman  Science  and  Grammar ;  Panini, 
Sanskrit  mss.  and  Prakrit  Dialects, 
The  Indian  Alphabets,  ..... 

Brahman  Astronomy  ;  its  Three  Periods, 
Brahman  Mathematics,  Medicine,  and  Surgery, 
Hindu  Art  of  War,         ,  .  .  .         .  . 

Indian  Music ;  its  Peculiarities  and  Modern  Revival, 
Indian  Architecture,  Art-work,  and  Painting, 
Brahman  Law;  Codes  of  Manu  and  Yajnavalkya, 
Hindu  Customary  Law  ;  Perils  of  Codification, 
Secular  Literature  of  the  Hindus, .... 

The  Mahdbhdrata  ;  its  Growth  and  Central  Story, 
The  Polyandry  of  Draupadi,  .... 

The  Rdmdyana  ;  its  Story  and  its  Author,  Valmiki, 
Later  Sanskrit  Epics,     ...... 


es. 


9I; 


75 

75>  76 

76 

76,  77 

77,  7^ 
94>  95.  96 

79-86 

87 

87,  88 

88,  89 

89,  90 
90,91 
92-94 
94-97 

97 

97.98 

98,99 

100,  lOI 

101-104 

102,  103 

104-106 

106-110 

1 10 

I 10-112 

112,  113 

113-115 
116-118 

iiS 

1 19-122 

121,  122 

122,  124 
124,  125 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


The  Hindu  Drama  ;  Kalidasa, 
The  Hindu  Novel ;  Beast  Stories, 
Sanskrit  Lyric  Poetry  ;  Jayadeva,  . 
Mediseval  Theology  ;  the  Puranas, 
The  Six  Attacks  on  Brdhmanism,  . 


128-1 ^o 


PAGE 

125-127 

127,  128 

128 

216,  217 


CHAPTER    V. 

BUDDHISM  (543    B.C.    TO   lOOO    A.D.). 

Buddha's  Story  modelled  on  the  Sanskrit  Epic, 

Buddha,  the  Spiritual  Development  of  the  Heroic  Aryan  Man, 

Buddha's  Parentage,  Early  Life,  and  Great  Renunciation, 

His  Forest  Life,  Temptation,  and  Teachings, 

His  Later  Years  and  Death, ...... 

The  Northern  and  Southern  Buddhist  Schools, 

Political  Life  of  Buddha ;  his  Opponents  ;  Devadatta,    . 

Doctrines  of  Buddha ;  Karma,  Nirvana, 

Moral  Code  of  Buddha ;  its  Missionary  Aspects,    . 

Political  Development  of  Buddhism  ;  the  Four  Councils,  143 

The  Work  of  iVsoka  ;  his  Council  and  Edicts, 

The  Work  of  Kanishka, 

The  Northern  and  Southern  Buddhist  Canons, 

Spread  of  Buddhism  throughout  Asia, 

Buddhist  Influences  on  Christianity, 

Buddha  as  a  Christian  Saint, 

Buddha's  Personality  denied, 

Buddhism  did  not  oust  Brahmanism, 

The  Chinese  Buddhist  Pilgrims,  Fa  Hian  and  Hiuen  Tsiang, 

Buddhism  under  Siladitya  ;  Monastery  of  Nalanda, 

Mingling  of  Buddhism  and  Brahmanism, 

Buddhism  an  Exiled  Religion ;  its  Foreign  Conquests, 

Buddhist  Survivals  in  India,  ..... 

The  Jains  ;  their  Relation  to  the  Buddhists, . 


• 

[32 

\  133, 

134 

•  -^zz^  3 

[34 

•  134, 

[35 

•  136, 

[37 

^38 

•    i39> 

[40 

•   141, 

[42 

[43 

,  144; 

^47 

•    144-5 

47 

^47 

.    147- 

[49 

.   i49>  J 

50 

50 

•   151,  5 

52 

53 

•   154,  ] 

55 

,      155.  3 

56 

.  156,  ] 

57 

57 

58 

•   IS7-] 

62 

•   157-1 

62 

CHAPTER    VL 

THE    GREEKS    IN    INDIA    (327    TO    161    B.C.). 

Early  Greek  Writers;  Hekataios,  Strabo,  Pliny,  and  Arrian,  .  163 

Alexander  in  India ;  Results  of  his  Invasion,  .         .         .   164-166 


TABLE  OF  CONTE 

Seleukos  and  Chandra  Gupta, 

The  India  of  INIegasthenes, 

Indo-Greek  Treaty ;  Later  Greeks, 

Greek  Survivals  in  Indian  Art, 

Ancient  and  Modern  Greeks ;  the  Yavanas, 


YTS. 


xui 

PAGK 

i66,  169 

168,  169 

I  70 

171,  172 

172,  173 


CHAPTER    VI  I. 

SCYTHIC    INROADS    INTO    INDIA    (126?    B.C.    TO    544    A.D.). 

Early  Scythic  Migrations  towards  India  ;  Tue-Chi  Settlements,  174,  175 

Pre-Buddhistic  Scythic  Influences;  the  Horse  Sacrifice,           .  175,  176 

Was  Buddha  a  Scythian  ?  Tibetan  Traditions,        .         .         .  176-178 

Scythic  Buddhism  and  Settlements  in  India, .         .         .         .  178,  179 

Scythian  Elements  in  India;  the  Jats  and  Rajputs  (?),     .         -179,  180 

Indian  Struggle  against  the  Scythians,    .....  180-182 

Indo-Scythic  Settlements  ;  Sen,  Gupta,  and  Valabhi  Dynasties,  181,  182 

Pre- Aryan  Kingdoms  in  Northern  India,         .         .         .         .  183,  184 

The  Takshaks  and  Nagas,     .......  184-186 

Ghakkars,  Bhars,  Bhils,  Kochs,  Ahams,  Gonds,  etc.,       .         .  186-189 

Scythic  and  Naga  Influences  on  Hinduism,    .         .         .         .  189,  190 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

RISE    OF    HINDUISM    (750    TO    1520    A.D.) 

Decay  and  Persecution  (?)  of  Buddhism, 
Twofold  Basis  of  Hinduism — Caste  and  Religion, 
Caste  founded  on  '  Race,'  '  Occupation,'  and  '  Localit} 
The  Brahman  Caste  analysed,        .... 

Building  up  of  Caste ;  Hindu  Marriage  Law, 
Changes  of  '  Occupation  '  by  Castes,      ... 
Plasticity  and  Rigidity  of  Caste,     .... 

Caste  a  System  of  Trade-Guilds  ;  an  Indian  Strike, 
Practical  Working  of  Caste  ;  no  Poor  Law  ;    Reward 
Punishments,         ...... 

Religious  Basis  of  Hinduism,         .... 

Buddhist  Influences ;  Beast  Hospitals  ;  Monasteries, 
A  Japanese  Temple  and  a  Christian  Church, 


and 


191, 

192 

192 

192, 

193 

i93> 

194 

194, 

195 

196, 

197 

197 

197, 

198 

198- 

-200 

200, 

201 

201, 

202 

202, 

203 

XIV 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Shrines  common  to  Different  Faiths, 

Serpent- Worship  ;  Naga  Rites  ;  Phallic  Emblems, 

Fetish-Worship  in  Hinduism ;  the  Sdlagrdm, 

Brahman  Founders  of  Hinduism  ;  Low-Caste  Apostles, 

The  Acta  Sanctorum  of  Hinduism,  the  Bhakta-Mala, 

Kumarila  Bhatta  ;  Sankara  Acharya, 

Growth  of  Siva-Worship  ;  its  Twofold  Aspects, 

Human  Offerings ;  the  Charak  Puja, 

The  Thirteen  Sivaite  Sects  ;  their  Gradations, 

Siva  and  Vishnu  compared,  ..... 

Friendly  Vishnu  ;  the  Vishnu  Purana,  . 

Brahmanical  and  Popular  Vishnuism,     . 

Vishnuite  Founders  ;  Ramanuja,  Ramanand, 

Kabir  ;  Chaitanya ;  Vallabha-Swami, 

Krishna-Worship  ;  the  Chief  Vishnuite  Sects, 

The  Brahmanical  and  Buddhist  Origin  of  Jagannath, 

Christian  Calumnies  against  Jagannath, 

iSIodern  Fate  of  the  Hindu  Triad, 


-^j 

204 

205, 206 

207 

208 

209 

210-212 

212,  213 

213,  214 

215 

215,  216 

217 

.  217,  218 

.  218-222 

.  222,  223 

224 

.  224-226 

.  227,  228 

CHAPTER    IX. 


CHRISTIANITY    IN    INDIA    (CIRCA    ICO    TO    l! 


A.D.). 


Christianity  coeval  with  Buddhism  for  900  years,    . 
Origin  of  Christianity  in  India,      .         .         .         ... 

The  Three  Legends  of  St.  Thomas,        .... 

St.  Thomas  the  Apostle,  Thomas  the  Manichaean,  Thomas  the 

Armenian,     ........ 

Wide  Meaning  of  '  India '  in  the  Fathers, 

Early  Indian  Christians  (190  a.  d.), 

The  Nestorian  Church  in  Asia ;  its  Wide  Diffusion, 

'  Thomas  Christians  '  of  Persia  and  of  India, 

Mixed   Worship    at  the  alleged  Shrine  of  St.  Thomas  near 

Madras,         ........ 

Troubles  of  the  Ancient  Indian  Church, 

Extinction  of  the  Nestorian  Church,       ....    241 

First  Portuguese  Missionaries,  1500  a.d.  ;  the  Syrian  Rite, 

Xavier  and  the  Jesuits ;  Work  done  b_v, 

Jesuit  Literature  in  India,     ......    246, 


234, 


242, 

243- 
244, 

250, 


229 
229 
-239 


235 
236 

237 

238 

240 
243 
245 
245 
253 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Parochial  Organization  of  Portuguese  India,  . 
Jesuit  Colleges  and  Rural  Settlements,  .... 
The  Jesuit  Malabar  Mission  in  the  17th  and  i8th  Centuries, 
The  Portuguese  Inquisition  at  Goa,        .... 
The  Jesuits  suppressed  (175 9- 177 3);  re-established  (18 14), 
Organization  of  Roman  Catholic  Missions,     . 
Distribution  of  Roman  Catholics  in  India, 
First  Protestant  Missionaries,  1705;  Danish  Lutherans, 
Schwartz  ;  Kiernander  ;  the  Serampur  Missionaries, 
Bishopric  of  Calcutta  ;  Indian  Sees,       .... 
Presbyterian  and  other  IMissions,   ..... 
Statistics  of  Protestant  Missions,  and  their  Progress, 
General  Statistics  of  Christian  Population  in  India, 
The  Indian  Ecclesiastical  Establishment, 


261 


XV 

PACE 

247 

•  247- 

-250 

•  251, 

252 

•  253, 

254 

•  254, 

255 

255> 

256 

•  257, 

259 

•  259, 

260 

260 

261 

261 

f,  263, 

265 

264 

.  266, 

267 

CHAPTER    X. 

EARLY  MUHA'MMADAN  RULERS  (7 1 1  TO  1 5  26  A.D.) 

Early  Arab  Expeditions  to  Bombay  and  Sind, 

India  on  the  Eve  of  the  Muhammadan  Conquest,  . 

Hindu  Kingdoms  (looo  a.d.),        ..... 

The  Muhammadan  Conquests  only  short-lived  and  temporary. 

Table  of  Muhammadan  Dynasties  (looi  to  1857  a.d.),  . 

First  Turki  Invasions;  Subuktigin  (977  a.d.), 

Mahmiid  of  Ghazni ;  his  1 7  Invasions  ;  Somnath,  . 

House    of  Ghor    (1001-1030   a.d.);    Muhammad  of    Ghor's 

Invasions,      ........ 

Hindu  Kingdoms;  Rajput  Dissensions  (11S4  a.d.), 
Muhammadan  Conquest  of  Bengal,        .... 

Slave  Dynasty  (i 206-1 290  a.d.);  Altamsh;  the  Empress  Raziya 
Mughal  Irruptions  into  Northern  India,  and  Rajput  Revolts, 
Balban's  Cruelties  and  his  Royal  Pensioners ;  End  of  Slave 

Dynasty,        ........ 

House  of  Khilji;  Ala-ud-dfn's  Conquest  of  Southern  India, 
Mughal  Mercenaries  for  the  Suppression  of  Hindu  Revolts, 
House  of  Tughlak  (1320-1414  a.d.);  Muhammad  Tughlak's 

Expeditions  and  Cruelties,      ..... 
His  Forced  Currency,  Revenue  Exactions  ;  and  Revolts  against 

him,   ......... 


268 
268,  269 
269 
270 
27 1 
272 
273,  274 

275-278 

276,  277 

277,  278 

278,  279 

279,  280 

280 

280,  282 

282,  283 

283 

283,  284 


xvt 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Firuz  Shah  Tughlak's  Canals  (135 1-1388  A.D.),      .         .         .  285 

Timur  (Tamerlane),  1398  a.d.  ;  Sayyid  and  Lodi  Dynasties,  .  285,  286 
Hindu  Kingdoms  of  the  Deccan  ;  Vijayanagar,  .  .  286,  287,  28S 
Five  Muhammadan  States  of  the  Deccan ;  Bahmani  Kings,  .  287,  288 
Independent  Nayaks  and  Palegars  of  Southern  India,     .         .  2 88 

State  of  India  on  the  Eve  of  the  Mughal  Conquest,        .         .   2S8,  289 


CHAPTER    XI. 

THE    MUGHAL    EMPIRE    (1526    TO    1761    A.D.). 

Babar's  Early  Life ;  his  Invasion  of  India ;  Battle  of  Panipat 

(1526), 

Humayun  ;  Sher  Shah  the  Afghan,         .... 

Akbar  the  Great;  his  Work  in  India  (1560-1605), 

His  Conciliation  of  the  Hindus  ;  Intermarriages,    . 

Akbar's  Hindu  Military  and  Revenue  Officers, 

Reform  of  Hindu  Customs  ;  Change  of  Capital  to  Agra, 

Akbar's  Subjugation  of  Khandesh  ;  his  Death, 

Akbar's  Religious  Principles ;  his  New  Faith, 

Akbar's  Organization  of  the  Empire  \  INIilitary  and  Judicial 

Reforms,        ........ 

Akbar's  Financial  System  ;  Table  of  his  Revenues,    ■ 
Revenues  of  the  Mughal  Empire  (1593-1761), 
Jahangir,  Emperor  (1605-1627);  the  Empress  Nur  Jahan, 
Sir  Thomas  Roe,  Ambassador ;  Drinking  Bouts  at  Court, 
Jahangi'r's  Personal  Character ;  his  Justice  and  Religion, 
Shah  Jahan,  Emperor  (1628-1658) ;  his  Deccan  Conquests, 
Shah   Jahan's   Architectural  Works ;    Taj    ISIahal    and    Mot 

Masjid,  ...... 

The  Great  Mosque  and  Imperial  Palace  at  Delhi, 
Rebellion    of  Prince   Aurangzeb,    and    Deposition    of  Shal 

Jahan,   ....... 

Provinces  and  Revenues  under  Shah  Jahan,  . 

Aurangzeb,  Emperor  (165 8-1 707), 

Murder  of  his  Brothers,  .         .         .         .' 

Conquests  in  Southern  India ;  Rise  of  the  Marathas, 
Aurangzeb's  twenty  years'  Maratha  War;    his   Despair   and 

Death, 

Aurangzeb's  Oppression  of  Hindus  ;  Rajput  Revolts, 


290 

290,  291 

291-297 

293 

293 

293»  294 

294,  295 

295,  296 

296 
296-298 
299,  300 

300,301 

301,302 

302 

302-304 

304 

304 


;o6- 


305 


307 


307>  308 

30S,  309 
309.  310 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Aurangzeb's  Provinces  and  Revenues,    .... 

Character  of  Aurangzeb,        ...... 

Six  Puppet  Successors  of  Aurangzeb,  ... 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Mughal  Empire  (1707-185S),  . 
Independence  of  the  Deccan,  Oudh,  and  Rajput  States, 
Invasions  of  Nadir  Shah  the  Persian,  and  Ahmad  Shah  the 

Afghan  (i 739-1 761), 314,315 

Last   Battle   of   Panipat    (1761)    and    Fall    of   the    Mughal 

Empire, .  315^316 


xvii 

PAGE 

312 

313 
312,313 

314 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE    MARATHA    POWER    (1634    TO    1818    A.D.). 

India  won,  not  from  the  Mughals,  but  from  the  Hindus, 
Rise  of  the  Marathas;  Shahji  Bhonsla  (1634), 
The  Hindu  Party  in  Southern  India, 
Sivaji  the  Great  (i 627-1680), 
His  Guerilla  Warfare  with  the  Mughals, 
Sambhaji  (1680-1689)  ;  Sahu  (1707),    . 
Rise  of  the  Peshwas  ;  Balaji  Viswand.th, 
Growth  of  the  Maratha  Confederacy, 
Maratha  Raids  to  Deccan,  Bengal,  and  the  Punjab ;   Chauth, 
Defeat  of  the  Marathas  at  Panipat  (i  761), 
The  Five  Great  Maratha  Houses ;  Decline  of  the  Peshwas, 
British  Wars  with  the  Marathas  (i 779-1 781,  1803-1804,  and 
1817-1818), 


317 

317 

317,318 

3^8,319 

319,  320 
320 
320 

320,  321 
321 

321-323 

323-324 


CHAPTER    XIII. 


THE    INDIAN    VERNACULARS    AND    THEIR    LITERATURE. 

The  Three  Stages  in  Indian  History,      .... 
The  Dravidian  Route  through  India,      .... 
The  Dravidian  Family  of  Languages  ;  its  Place  in  Philology, 
Pre-Aryan  Dravidian  Civilisation,  .... 

Brahmanic  Influence  on  the  Dravidians, 
Dravidian  Languages  ;  Tamil,        ..... 
Aryan  Languages  of  Northern  India;  Sanskrit, 


•  325, 

326 

327 

•  327, 

328 

328 

329 

•  330- 

-zzz 

•  334, 
b 

335 

xviii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The  Prakrits  or  Ancient  Aryan  Vernaculars,  ....  336-33S 
The     Modern     Vernaculars     evolved      from     the     Ancient 

Prakrits,         .........  338 

Sanskrit,    Prakrit,    and    Non- Aryan    Elements    in    Modern 

Vernaculars,  .........  339-342 

The  Seven  Modern  Vernaculars,    ......  342-344 

The  Modern  Vernaculars;  their  Literature  and  Authors,  .  343-355 
Hindi,  its  Historical  Development  and  Chief  Authors,  .  .  345,  346 
Marathi,  its  Historical  Development  and  Chief  Authors,  .  346 

Bengali,  its  Historical  Development  and  Chief  Authors,  .  346-354 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

EARLY    EUROPEAN    SETTLEMENTS    (1498    TO    I  StH    CENTURY    A.D.) 


Vasco  da  Gama's  Expedition  (1498), 

Portuguese   Voyages   and    Supremacy    in    the    East ; 

querque  and  his  Successors,   .... 
Downfall  of  the  Portuguese;  their  Possessions  in  1881. 
The  Dutch  in  India  (1602-1824), 
Their  Brilliant  Progress,  but  Short-sighted  Policy, 
Fall  of  the  Dutch  Power;  Dutch  Relics  in  India, 
Early  English  Adventurers  (i 496-1 596), 
English  East  India  Companies, 
Early  English  Voyages  (1602-1611), 
Naval  Fights  with  the  Portuguese;  Swally  (1615), 
Wars  with  the  Dutch  ;  Massacre  of  Amboyna, 
Early  English  Factories ;  Surat,  Masulipatam,  Hiigli, 
Madras  Founded  (1639);  Bombay  Ceded  (1661), 

Calcutta  Founded  (1686), 

Other  European  East  India  Companies, 


356-358 


Albu- 


•  357-360 

361 

.  361,362 

362 

•  362, 363 

•  363,364 

•  364, 365 

•  365,366 

•  366,367 

.  367, 368 

.  368,369 

•  369,370 

371 

•  371-377 

CHAPTER    XV. 

HISTORY    OF    BRITISH    RULE    (l7S7    TO    1885). 

First  British  Territorial  Possessions,       .         .         .         .         .  378 

French  and  English  Wars  in  the  Karnatik  ;  Dupleix,  Clive,    .  378-380 
The  English  in  Bengal  (1634- 1696),      .....  380 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Native   Rulers  of  Bengal  (i 707-1 756);    the    'Black  Hole 

Tragedy, 

Battle  of  Plassey  (1757),  and  its  Results, 

Clive,  Governor  of  Bengal   (1758);    List  of  Governors   anc 

Viceroys,        ..... 

Clive's  Wars  in  Oudh,  Madras,  and  Bengal,    . 

Massacre  of  Patna ;  First  Sepoy  Mutiny ;  Battle  of  Baxar, 

The  Grant  of  the  Z)/?m/;/ (1765),  .         .... 

Clive's  Reorganization  of  the  Company's  Service  (1766), 
Administration  of  Warren  Hastings  (17  7  2-1 785),  . 
Abolition  of  the  Dual  System  of  Administration  (1772), 
Hastings'  Policy  towards  Native  Powers, 
Rohilla,  Maratha,  and  Mysore  Wars,      .... 

Charges  against  Hastings ;  his  poor  Excuse,  . 

Lord  Cornwallis  (i 786-1 793) ;  the  Permanent  Settlement, 

Second  Mysore  War,     ....... 

Marquis  of  Wellesley  (1798-1805);  his  Work  in  India, 
Treaty  with  the  Nizam,  and  Extinction  of  French  Influence, 
Third  Mysore  War,  and  Fall  of  Seringapatam  (1799), 
Second  Maratha  War  (1802-1805),  and  Extension  of  British 

Territory,       ........ 

Sir  George  Barlow  (1805) ;  the  Vellore  Sepoy  Mutiny,    . 
Earl    of   Minto    (1807-1813);     Embassies    to    Persia    an 

Afghanistan,  .... 

Marquis  of  Hastings  (1814-1823), 
The  Nepal,  Pindari,  and  last  Maratha  War, 
Lord  iVmherst  ( 1 823-1 828),  . 
First  Burmese  War  ;  Capture  of  Bhartpur, 
Lord  William  Bentinck  (1828-1835),     . 
His  Financial  Reforms  ;  Sati  and  Thagi  suppressed, 
Renewal  of  Charter ;  Mysore  protected  ;  Coorg  annexed 
Lord  Metcalfe  (1835-1836) ;  Liberty  of  the  Press, 
Lord  Auckland  (183 6- 184  2), 
The  First  Afghan  War  (i 839-1841 ) ;   its  Disastrous  Termina 

tion, 

Lord  EUenborough  (i  842-1 844),  . 

The  Army  of  Retribution  ;  '  Gates  of  Somnath,' 

Bind  War,  and  Gwalior  Outbreak, 


XIX 

PAGE 

380,  381 
381-383 

384 
385 
386 

387 

387 
387-392 

388 
388-390 
390-392 

391 
392,393 

394 
394-398 
395>  396 

396,  397 

397,  398 
399 

399,  400 
400-402 
401,  402 

403,  404 
404 

404-406 

404,  405 

405,  406 
406 

406,  408 

408 
408-410 

408,  409 

409,  410 


XX  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Lord  Hardinge  (i  844-1 84S) ;  the  First  Sikh  War, 

Earl  of  Dalhousie  (i 848-1 856), 

Second  Sikh  War,  and  Annexation  of  the  Punjab,  . 
Second  Burmese  War,  and  Annexation  of  Pegu,  . 
Dalhousie's  Policy   towards  Native  States;   the    Doctrine  of 

Lapse,  ....•••■• 

Satara;  Jhansi;  Nagpur ;  Berar, 

Annexation  of  Oudh,     ....... 

Lord  Dalhousie's  Work  ;  Extensions  of  Territory,  . 

Earl  Canning  (1856-1862), 

The  Mutiny  of  1857-1858, 

Downfall  of  the  Company ;  India  transferred  to  the  Crown, 

Queen's  Proclamation  of  November  I  St,  1858, 

Financial  and  Legal  Reforms,         ..... 

Lord  Elgin  (1862);  Lord  Lawrence  (1864-1869), 

Lord  Mayo  (1869-1872);  Ambala  Darbdr ;  Visit  of  Duke 

of  Edinburgh,         ....... 

Financial  Reforms  ;  Abolition  of  Liland  Customs  Lines, 
Lord  Northbrook  (1872-1876) ;  Visit  of  Prince  of  Wales, 
Lord  Lytton   (1876-1880);    Proclamation  of  the  Queen  as 

Empress,        ........ 

Famine  of  187 6-1 8 78  ;  Second  Afghan  War, 
Marquis  of  Ripon  (1880-1884) ;  End  of  the  Afghan  War, 
Rendition  of  Mysore  ;  Legal  and  Financial  Reforms, 
Education  Commission;  Abolition  of  Ln port  Duties, 
Bengal  Tenancy  Bill,     ....... 

Earl  of  Dufferin  (1884), 

Annexation  of  Upper  Burma,         ..... 


PAGE 

410,  411 
411-417 
412,  413 
413-414 

414 

415 
415-417 

417 
417-424 
417-422 
422,423 
423,424 

424 
4^4,425 

425 

425 

425,426 

426,  427 
426,427 
427 
.427-429 
429 
429 
430 
430 


CHAPTER    XV L 


BRITISH    ADMINISTRATION    OF    INDIA. 

Control  of  Lidia  in  England, 

Under  the  Company,  and  under  the  Crown, 

The  Secretary  of  State  ;  the  Viceroy, 

The  Executive  and  Legislative  Councils, 

High  Courts ;  the  Law  of  India,    . 

Provincial  Administration  in  different  Provinces, 


431 
431 
431 

432,  433 
433>  434 
434,  435 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

'  Regulation '  and  '  Non-Regulation '  Districts, 
The  District  Officers ;  their  Duties, 
Districts  and  Sub-Districts  of  India, 
The  Secretariats,  Imperial  and  Provincial, 
The  Land-Tax,     ...... 

Ancient  Land  System  under  Hindus  and  Musalmans, 
Land  System  under  the  Company ;  the  Zaminddr, 
Landed  Property  in  India ;  Growth  of  Private  Rights, 
Rates  of  Land-Tax  ;  Government  Share  of  the  Crop, 
The  Land  Settlement;  'Survey  and  Settlement,'    . 
Permanent  Settlement  of  Bengal,  .... 

Land  Law  of  1859;  Rent  Commission  of  1880,     . 
Temporary  Settlements  ;  in  Orissa  ;  in  Assam, 
Rdyatwdri  Settlement  in  Madras  ;  Sir  Thomas  Munro, 
Permanent  Settlement  in  Madras  \  Sub-Tenures,    . 
Extension  of  Tillage  in  Madras  ;  Reduction  of  Average 

Tax       ........ 

Land  System  of  Bombay;  the  'Survey'  Tenure,    . 
The  Deccan  Cultivator;  Agriculturists'  Relief  Acts  (187 

1881), 

Land  System  of  North- Western  Provinces  and  Punjab, 
Of  Oudh  and  the  Central  Provinces, 
Land  Revenue  of  British  India,     .... 
The  Salt-Tax  ;  Systems  of  Manufacture, 
Excise  ;  Distilleries  and  Breweries, 
Opium  ;   Gdnjd  ;  Charas,      ..... 
Municipal  Administration  ;  the  Old  Fanc/idyat, 
Finance  and  Taxation  of  British  India,  . 
Obscurities  in  Indian  Accounts,    .... 
Taxation  under  the  Mughals  and  the  British  compared 
Heavy  Taxation  in  Native  States, .... 
Incidence  of  Taxation  in  British  India, 
Balance-Sheet  of  British  India,      .... 
Analysis  of  Indian  Revenues,        .... 
Indian  Expenditure  ;  Army;  Public  Debt ;  Famine  Rel 
Exchange ;  Public  Works  ;  Railways  ;  Irrigation, 
Imperial  and  Municipal  Finance,  . 
The  Army  of  India;  its  Constitution,    . 


Land 


9  and 


465 
ef, 


XXI 

PAGE 

435 

435 

,436 

436 

,437 

437 

,438 

438 

-441 

438 

439 

439 

439 

,440 

440 

441 

441 

441 

-443 

443 

444 

445 

445 

446 

446 

447 

447 

448 

448 

449 

449 

450 

451 

45i> 

452 

452 

453> 

454 

454, 

455 

455 

455- 

-457 

457- 

-470 

458 

459- 

-463 

464 

464,  465 

465- 

-468 

467,  468 

468,  469 

469, 

470 

470 

470, 

471 

xxii  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Police  and  Jails, 47  2 

Education, 472-479 

Education    in    Ancient    India;    Sanskrit    Toh    and   Village 

Schools, 472,  473 

Early  English   Efforts ;    the   Calcutta   Madrasa    and    other 

Colleges, 473 

Mission  Schools,  .........  473 

State  System  of  Education  in  India,      .....   473,474 

Education  Commission  of  1882-1883,  .....  474 

Education  Statistics,  1878  to  1883, 474,475 

Indian  Universities,  Colleges,  and  Schools,  ....  475-477 
Primary  Schools,   Girls'  Schools,  Normal  and  other  Special 

Schools, 477-479 

The  Vernacular  Press ;  Newspapers  and  Books,     .         .         .  480-481 


CHAPTER    XVII. 


AGRICULTURE   AND    PRODUCTS. 


Agriculture  almost  the  Sole  Occupation  of  the  People,  . 
Various  Systems  of  Agriculture  ;  Irrigation ;  Manure,     . 
Rice  in  the  different  Provinces ;  Area ;  Out-turn,  . 
Wheat;  Millets;  Pulses;  Oil-seeds;  Vegetables,  . 
Fruits  ;  Spices ;  Palms  ;  Sugar,      ..... 
Cotton  Cultivation  in  different  Provinces  ;  Exports, 
Jute  Cultivation  and  Preparation  ;  Exports,    . 
Indigo  Cultivation  in  various  Provinces, 
Exports  of  Indigo ;  System  of  Planting, 
Opium  Cultivation  and  Manufacture,     .... 
Tobacco  Cultivation  ;  Trade  and  Method  of  Curing, 
Table  of  Crop  Statistics ;  Acreage,         .... 
Coffee ;  its  Introduction  into  India ;  Progress  and  Growth, 
Tea  in  India ;  its  History  and  Statistics, 
Processes  of  Tea  Cultivation  and  Manufacture, 
Cinchona  Cultivation  and  Manufacture ;  Statistics  of,    . 
The  Company's  Silk  Factories,      ..... 
Silk  Area  of  Bengal ;  Silk  Statistics,       .... 
Jungle  Silk ;  Lac ;  Lac-dye, 


482,  483 

483 
484-486 
486-490 
490,  491 
491-494 

494,  495 

495.  496 

497,  498 

498,  499 
499>  500 

501 

502-504 

504-507 
508,  509 

509-511 
5ii>  512 
512,513 
513-515 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xxiii 

I'AGE 

Model  Farms;  the  Problem  of  improved  Husbandry,     .         .   515-517 
The  Impediments  to  better  Husbandry,  ;         .         .         .  517-519 

Agricultural  Stock  of  India,  .......  519-523 

Breeds  of  Cattle  ;  Horse-Fairs;  Studs;  ^Vild  Elephants,        .   520-522 
The  Forest  Department,        .         .         .         .         .         •  522  :  524-528 

Wanton  Destruction  of  Forests ;  Indian  Timber  Trees,  .  522  ;  524-526 
Forest  Conservancy ;  its  Results,  .         .         .         .         .         .526,527 

Nomadic  Tillage ;  its  Destructiveness,  .....   527,528 

Irrigation;  its  Function  in  India, .  .....    528,529 

Irrigated  Area  in  Sind  ;  Bombay;  Punjab,     ....   529-532 

In  the  N.-W.  Provinces;  Oudh ;  Bengal;  Orissa,  .         .         .   532-535 
la  Madras;  Mysore;  Central  Provinces,        ....  535-537 

Statistics  of  Cultivation  and  Irrigation,  .         ....  538 

Famines;  their  Causes ;  Drought;  Flood;  Blight;  A\'ar,        .   539,540 
Necessity  for  husbanding  and  utilizing  the  Water-Supply,        .   540,  541 
History  of  previous  Famines  (1769  to  1876),  .         .         .   541,542 

The  Famine  of  1876-1878  ;  its  Area,    .....   542,543 

Remedial  Efforts ;  Mortality;  Expenditure,  ....   542-544 

Famine,  a  Weak  Check  on  Population,  .         .         .         .  544 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 


ME.\NS    OF    COMMUNICATION 


Indian  Railway  System  ;  Lord  Dalhousie's  Trunk 
Lord  Mayo's  Branch  Lines,  .... 

The  Four  Classes  of  Indian  Railways,   . 

'  Guaranteed '  Railways,         .... 

'  State  Railways,'  .         .         .  .         .         . 

'  Assisted '  and  '  Native  State  '  Railways, 
Railway  Statistics,  ..... 

Roads  ;  Old  Military  Routes, 
The  Grand  Trunk  Road ;  Bombay  Inland  Route, 
Extension  of  Roads ;  Bridges  of  Boats, 
Navigable  Rivers,  ..... 

Navigable  Canals  ;  Malabar  Back-waters,  etc., 


Lmes 

) 

545 

545 

546 

546,  547 

547,  548 

548,549 

549»  550 

550 

550 

551 

551,552 

553j  554 

TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 


COMMERCE    AND    TRADE. 

Ancient,  Medifeval,  and  Modern  Trade  of  India,   . 

Large  Sea-borne  Trade  impossible  under  the  Mughals, 

Growth  of  Trading  and  Industrial  Cities  under  British 

Rise  of  Calcutta  and  Bombay, 

Summary  of  Indian  Exports  (1700-1885), 

India's  Balance  of  Trade  and  Yearly  Savings 

Fourfold  Division  of  Modern  Indian  Trade, 

The  Sea-borne  Trade  of  India, 

Early  Portuguese  Trade  (i 500-1 600),    . 

Dutch  Monopoly  (1600), 

English  Factories  and  Early  Trade  (1600-1700), 

Growth  of  Trade ;  Quinquennial  Table  of  Foreign  Trad 

Indian  Foreign  Trade  Statistics ;  Imports  and  Exports, 

Imports;  Cotton  Goods;  Treasure,       .         .         .565 

Exports  ;  Raw  Cotton ;  Jute  ;  Rice ;  Wheat, 

Exports  ;  Oil-seeds  ;  Indigo  and  Dyes ;  Tea  ;  Coffee, 

Export  of  Cotton  and  Jute  Manufactures, 

Countries  with  which  India  trades ;  England, 

China  ;  Straits  ;  Ceylon  ;  Mauritius  ;  France  ;  Italy, 

United  States ;  xA.ustralia,      ..... 

Distribution  of  Foreign  Trade  of  India, 

Effects  of  the  Suez  Canal  on  Indian  Trade,   . 

Sir  R.  Temple  on  the  Balance  of  India's  Foreign  Trade 

Coasting  Trade  of  India ;  Shipping  Statistics, 

Frontier  Trade  with  Afghanistan  and  Central  Asia, 

The  Himalayan  Trade  Routes ;  Nepal ;  Tibet, 

Trade  with  Bhutan  and  the  North-Eastern  Frontier, 

Trade  with  Independent  Burma  and  Siam, 

Tables  of  Trans-Frontier  Landward  Trade, 

Internal  Trade  ;  Trading  Castes,  . 

Local  Trade ;  the  Village  Money-lender, 

Religious  Fairs  ;  Village  Markets, 

Internal  Trade  a  Safeguard  against  Famine, 

Statistics  of  Internal  Trade  in  certain  Provinces, 

Growth  of  Large  Marts  ;  Local  Trading  Centres, 


Ruk 


566 


PAGE 

555>556 
556 

556-558 
557 
558 

558,559 
559 

559>  560 
560 
560 

560,  561 

561,  562 
563-581 
568,  569 
569-572 
573-575 
575-576 

577 
577,578 

578 
579.580 

581 
581-583 
584-586 
586,  587 
587,588 

58S 
588,  589 
589,590 
591,592 

592 

593 

593.  594 

594,  595 
595-597 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    XX. 


ARTS    AND    MANUFACTURES. 

Manufactures  of  India  ;  Art-work, 
Competition  with  the  English  Artisan,  . 
Native  Industries  ;  Village  Crafts, 
Cotton-weaving ;  its  Decline, 
But  still  a  Domestic  Industry  throughout  India, 
Special  Fabrics  ;  Muslins ;  Chintzes  ;  Sans,  . 
Silk-weaving  ;  Classes  of  Silk  Fabrics,    . 
Steam  Silk  Factories,     ..... 

Embroidery  ;  Kashmir  Shawls  ;  Leather-work, 
Carpets  and  Rugs ;  Processes  of  Manufacture, 
Goldsmiths  and  Jewellers'  Work  ;  Precious  Stones, 
Iron-work ;  Cutlery  ;  Chain  Armour  ;  Damascening, 
Brass  and  Copper  Work;  Bidari  Ware, 
Indian  Pottery  and  Sculpture,        .... 

Wood-carving;  Inlaying;  Ivory-carving, 
European  Industries  ;  Steam  Cotton  Mills,    , 
Their  Manufactures  ;  Competition  with  Manchester, 
Statistics  of  Bombay  Cotton  Mills;  their  Future  Prospects 
Jute  Mills ;  Manufacture  of  Gunny, 
Exports    of    Jute ;    Indian    Consumption ;    Growth    of 
Trade,  ....... 

Brewing;  Paper-making;  Leather,  etc.. 


6io 

the 


PAGE 

598 

598 

599 

599> 

600 

600, 

601 

601, 

602 

602, 

603 

603 

603 

604, 

605 

605, 

606 

606, 

607 

607, 

608 

608, 

609 

609 

610- 

-612 

611, 

612 

611; 

613 

614, 

615 

615 

616 

616, 

617 

CHAPTER    XXI. 


MINES    AND    MINERALS, 


Indian  Iron  ;  Native  System  of  Working, 

Failure  of  Early  English  Efforts,    . 

Difficulties  of  Iron-smelting  in  India, 

Indian  Coal ;  its  Inferior  Quality, 

History  of  Coal  mining  in  Bengal, 

The  Four  Great  Coal  Fields ;  Future  of  Indian  Conl 

Salt  Manufacture ;  the  Punjab  Salt  Range,    . 


618 

61S,  619 
619 
619 

619-621 
622 

622,  62^ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Saltpetre  ;  Manufacture  and  Export  of, 
Gold  and  Gold-mining ;  the  Wainad  Quartz  Reefs, 
Copper  ;  Lead  ;  Tin  ;  Antimony  ;  Cobalt,     . 
Petroleum  and  Mineral  Oils,  .... 

Stone  ;  Lime  ;  Kankar ;  Marble  ;  Slate, 
Diamonds  ;  Carnelians ;  Pearl  Fisheries, 


PAGE 

.  6 

23» 

62 

4 

.   6 

24, 

62 

5 

.   6 

25, 

62 

6 

-  6 

26, 

62 

7 

.   6 

27, 

62 

8 

.   6 

28, 

62 

9 

CHAPTER    XX  I  L 


GEOLOGY. 


Geology ;  the  Himalayan  Region, 

The  Lower  Himalayas ;  Siwaliks  ;  Salt  Range, 

Indo-Gangetic  Plain  ;  its  Geological  Age  and  History, 

Peninsular  India ;  Vindhyan  Rocks, 

Gondwana,  Panchet,  Talcher,  and  Damodar  Series, 

The  Rani'ganj  Coal  Seams,    ..... 

DeccanTrap;  Laterite,         ..... 

Geology  of  Burma,        ...... 


631,  632 

632,  633 
633>  634 
634,  635 
635.636 

637 
638,639 
639,  640 


CHAPTER    XXI I  L 


METEOROLOGY. 


Meteorological  Geography  ;  the  Eastern  and  Western  Hima 
layas,    ........ 

Air-currents  ;  Vapour-bearing  Winds,     . 

Punjab  Frontier ;  Indus  Plain ;  the  Great  Indian  Desert, 

Gangetic  Plain  ;  Eastern  Bengal ;  Assam, 

Central  Table-land ;  Satpura  Range, 

Malw^  Plateau  ;  Aravalli  Range,  .... 


Southern  Plateau ;  Anamalai 
Ceylon  and  Burma, 
Observatory  Stations,    . 
Temperature ;  Atmospheric 
Rainfall  Returns, 
Sun-spot  Cycles,  . 


Hills  j  Coast  Strip, 


Pressure ;  Wind  ;  Humidity,  etc. 


641,  642 
642 

642,  643 

643,  644 
644 
644 

644,  645 
646,  647 

646,  647 

647,  648 
649,650 
650,651 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


XXVtl 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 


ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY. 


PAGE 

Mammals  of  India ;  Lion;  Tiger;  Leopard,  .         .         .  652,653 

Wolf;  Fox;  Jackal;  Dog;  Hyena,       .....  654,655 

Bear;  Elephant;  Rhinoceros;  Wild  Hog,     ....  655-657 

Sheep  and  Goats ;  Antelopes;  Nilgai;  Deer,         .         .         .  657,658 
Bison  and  Buffalo,         ........  658 

Ornithology  ;  Birds  of  Prey  and  Game  Birds,         .         .         .  659 

Reptiles ;  Loss  of  Life  from  Snake-bite  ;  the  '  Cobra,'    .         .  660 

Fishes;  Insects;  Locusts,     .......  661 

Indian  Flora  in  Various  Provinces,        .....  662-664 


CHAPTER    XXV. 


VITAL    STATISTICS. 


Sources  of  Health  Returns ;  their  Untrustworthiness,     .         .  665,  666 

Death-rate  in  India  ;  Average  Duration  of  Life,      .         .         .  666,  667 

Vital  Statistics  in  different  Provinces,     .....  667-675 

Tables  of  Birth  and  Death  Rates, .         .....  676-679 

Health  of  the  European  Army  ;  Causes  of  Mortality,      .    675,680-682 

Health  of  the  Native  Army  ;  Causes  of  Mortality,           .         .  682-684 

Health  Statistics  of  the  Jail  Population,          ....  684,  685 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xxix 


APPENDICES. 


Appendix  I.  Area,  Towns  and  Villages,  Houses,  Population, 

etc.,  of  British  India  in  1 88 1,  .         .         .         689 

„        II.  Towns  and  Villages  of  British  India,  classified 

according  to  Population,  ....  690 
„       III.  Cultivated,   Cultivable,  and   Uncultivable  Area, 

Land  Revenue,  etc.,  in  Provinces  for  which 

Returns  exist,         .         .         .         .         .         .         691 

„       IV.  Population  of  British  India,  classified  according 

to  Sex  and  Age,     ......         692 

„         V.  Population  of  British  India,  classified  according 

to  Religion,  .......         693 

„       VI.  Asiatic  Non-Indian  Population  of  British  India, 

classified  according  to  Birthplace,  .  .  .  694 
,,     VII.   Non-Asiatic  Population  of  British  India,  classified 

according  to  Birthplace,  ....         695 

,,    VIII.  List  of  149  Towns  in  British   India  of  which 

the  Population  exceeds  20,000,       .         .  696,  697 

„       IX.  Population  of  British  India,  classified  according 

to  Education,         .....  698-702 

,,         X.  Population  of  British  India,  classified  according 

to  Caste,  Sect,  and  Nationality,  .  .  .  703 
Index,  705-747 


VOWEL    SOUNDS. 


a  has  the  sound  of  <^  as  in  rural. 

d  has  the  sound  of  a  as  in  far. 

e  has  the  vowel  sound  in  grey, 

i  has  the  sound  of  zas  in  police. 

1  has  the  vowel  sound  in  pier. 

o  has  the  sound  of  o  as  in  bone, 

u  has  the  sound  of  k  as  in  bull, 

u  has  the  sound  of  u  as  in  sure, 

ai  has  the  vowel  sound  in  lyre. 

Accents  have  been  used  as  sparingly  as  possible  ;  and  omitted  in  such 
words  or  terminals  a.s  pur,  where  the  Sanskrit  family  of  alphabets  takes  the 
short  vowel  instead  of  the  long  Persian  one.  The  accents  over  /and  ti  have 
often  been  omitted,  to  avoid  confusing  the  ordinary  English  reader,  when 
the  collocation  of  letters  naturally  gives  them  a  long  or  open  sound.  No 
attempt  has  been  made  by  the  use  of  dotted  consonants  to  distinguish 
between  the  dental  and  lingual  d,  or  to  represent  similar  refinements  of 
Indian  pronunciation. 

Where  the  double  oo  is  used  for  ti,  or  the  double  ee  for  z,  and  whenever 
the  above  vowel  sounds  are  departed  from,  the  reason  is  either  that  the 
place  has  obtained  a  popular  fixity  of  spelling,  or  that  the  Government  has 
ordered  the  adoption  of  some  special  form. 

I  have  borne  in  mind  four  things — First,  that  this  work  is  intended  for 
the  ordinary  English  reader.  Second,  that  the  twenty-six  characters  of  the 
English  alphabet  cannot  possibly  be  made  to  represent  the  fifty  letters  or 
signs  of  the  Indian  alphabets,  unless  we  resort  to  puzzling  un-English  devices 
of  typography,  such  as  dots  under  the  consonants,  curves  above  them,  or 
italic  letters  in  the  middle  of  words.  Third,  that  as  such  devices  are 
unsuitable  in  a  work  of  general  reference,  some  compromise  or  sacrifice 
of  scholarly  accuracy  to  popular  convenience  becomes  inevitable.  Fourth 
that  a  compromise  to  be  defensible  must  be  successful,  and  that  the  spellino- 
of  Indian  places,  while  adhering  to  the  Sanskrit  vowel  sounds,  should  be 
as  little  embarrassing  as  possible  to  the  European  eye. 

W.  W.  H. 


of 


THE    INDIAN    EMPIRE. 


CHAPTER    I. 

PHYSICAL    ASPECTS. 

India  forms  a  great  irregular  triangle,  stretching  southwards  General 
from  Mid- Asia  into  the  sea.  Its  northern  base  rests  upon  the  ^"'  ^^^' 
Himalayan  ranges  ;  the  chief  part  of  its  western  side  is  washed 
by  the  Arabian  Sea,  and  the  chief  part  of  its  eastern  side 
by  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  It  extends  from  the  eighth  to  the 
thirty-fifth  degree  of  north  latitude;  that  is  to  say,  from  the 
hottest  regions  of  the  equator  to  far  within  the  temperate  zone. 
The  capital,  Calcutta,  lies  in  88F  e.  long. ;  so  that  when  the 
sun  sets  at  six  o'clock  there,  it  is  just  past  mid-day  in  England. 

The  length  of  India  from  north  to  south,  and  its  greatest  Dimen- 
breadth  from  east  to  west,  are  both  about  1900  miles ;  but  the  ^'°"^- 
triangle  tapers  with  a  pear-shaped  curve  to  a  point  at  Cape 
Comorin,  its  southern  extremity.  To  this  compact  dominion 
the  English  have  added,  under  the  name  of  British  Burma,  the 
strip  of  country  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal. 
The  whole  territory  thus  described  contains  close  on  i|  millions 
of  square  miles,  and  over  256  millions  of  inhabitants.  India, 
therefore,  has  an  area  and  a  population  about  equal  to  the 
area  and  population  of  the  whole  of  Europe,  less  Russia.  Its 
people  more  than  double  Gibbon's  estimate  of  120  millions  for 
all  the  races  and  nations  which  obeyed  Imperial  Rome. 

This  vast  Asiatic  peninsula  has,  from  a  very  ancient  period.  Origin  of 

been  known  to  the  external  world  by  one  form  or  other  of  the  1}*^  ^    , 

•'  .  India. 

name  which  it  still  bears.  The  early  Indians  did  not  them- 
selves recognise  any  single  designation  for  their  numerous  and 
diverse  races ;  their  nearest  approach  to  a  common  appellation 
for  India  being  Bharata-varsha,  the  land  of  the  Bharatas,  a 
noble  warrior  tribe  which  came  from  the  north.  But  this  term, 
although  afterwards  generalized,  applied  only  to  the  basins 
of  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges,  and  strictly  speaking  to  only  a 

A 


PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 


Sanskrit, 
Zend,  and 
Greek 
forms. 


Buddhist 
derivation 
of  In-tu.' 


part  of  them.  The  Indus  river  formed  the  first  great  landmark 
of  nature  which  arrested  the  march  of  the  peoples  of  Central 
Asia  as  they  descended  upon  the  plains  of  the  Punjab.  That 
mighty  river  impressed  itself  on  the  imagination  of  the  ancient 
world.  To  the  early  comers  from  the  high-lying  camping 
grounds  of  inner  Asia,  it  seemed  a  vast  expanse  of  waters. 

They  called  it  in  Sanskrit  by  the  word  which  they  gave 
to  the  ocean  itself,  Sindhus  (from  the  root  syatid,  '  to  flow  ') : 
a  name  afterwards  applied  to  the  ocean-god  (Varuna).  The 
term  extended  itself  to  the  country  around  the  river,  and 
in  its  plural  form,  Sindhavas,  to  the  inhabitants  thereof.  The 
ancient  Persians,  softening  the  initial  sibilant  to  an  aspirate, 
called  it  Hauhc  in  the  Zend  language :  the  Greeks,  again 
softening  the  initial  by  omitting  the  aspirate  altogether,  derived 
from  it  their  Indikos  and  Indos.  These  forms  closely  corre- 
spond to  the  ancient  Persian  word  Idhus,  which  is  used  in 
the  inscriptions  of  Darius  for  the  dwellers  on  the  Indus.  But 
the  native  Indian  form  (S/nd/ms)  was  known  to  the  Greeks,  as 
is  proved  by  the  Sinf/ios  of  the  Periplus  Maris  Erythraei,  and 
by  the  distinct  statement  of  Pliny,  '  Indus  incolis  Sindus 
appellatus.'     Virgil  says,  '  India  mittit  ebur.' 

The  eastern  nations  of  Asia,  like  the  western  races  of 
Europe,  derived  their  name  for  India  from  the  great  river  of 
the  Punjab.  The  Buddhist  pilgrims  from  China,  during  the 
first  seven  centuries  of  our  era,  usually  travelled  landward  to 
Hindustan,  skirting  round  the  Himalayas,  and  entering  the 
holy  land  of  their  faith  by  the  north-western  frontier  of  India. 
One  of  the  most  celebrated  of  these  pious  travellers,  Hiuen 
Tsiang  (629-645  a.d.),  states  that  India  'was  anciently  called 
Shin-tu,  also  Hien-tau ;  but  now,  according  to  the  right 
pronunciation,  it  is  called  In-tu.'  This  word  in  Chinese  means 
the  moon  ;  and  the  cradle-land  of  Buddhism  derived  its  name, 
according  to  the  good  pilgrim,  from  its  superior  glory  in  the 
spiritual  firmament,  s/cuf  hina  inter  minora  sidera.  '  Though 
there  be  torches  by  night  and  the  shining  of  the  stars,'  he  says, 
'  how  different  from  the  bright  (cool)  moon !  Just  so  the 
bright  connected  light  of  holy  men  and  sages,  guiding  the 
world  as  the  shining  of  the  moon,  have  made  this  country 
emment,  and  so  it  is  called  In-tu.' ^  Notwithstanding  the 
pious  philology  of  the  pilgrim,  the  great  river  of  the  Punjab  is, 
of  course,  the  origm  of  the  Chinese  name. 

^  Si-yu-ki:  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World  ;  translated  from 
the  Chinese  of  Hiuen  Tsiang  by  Samuel  Beal.     Vol.  i.   p.  69.     Triibner. 


BOUNDARIES  OF  INDIA.  3 

The  term  Hindustan  is  derived  from  the  modern  Persian 
form  (Hind),  and  properly  applies  only  to  the  Punjab  and  the 
central  basin  of  the  Ganges.     It  is  reproduced,  however,  with  a 
wider  signification  in  the  title  of  the  Queen-Empress,  Kaisar-i-  Kaisar-i- 
Hind,  the  Caesar,  Kaiser,  Czar,  or  Sovereign-paramount  of  India.  ■^■^'■"■'^'• 

India  is  shut  off  from  the  rest  of  Asia  on  the  north  by  a  Boun- 
vast   mountainous   region,    known   in   the   aggregate    as    the  '*^"^*' 
Himalayas.     Among  their  southern  ranges  lie  the  Independent 
States  of  Bhutan  and  Nepal :    the  great  table-land  of  Tibet  on  the 
stretches  northward  behind:  the  Native  Principality  of  Kashmir  "^^^^  ' 
occupies  their  western  corner.     At  this  north-western  angle  of  and  nonh- 
India  (in  lat.  36°  n.,  long.  75°  e.),  an  allied  mountain  system  ^^'^*^ ' 
branches  southwards.     Its  lofty  offshoots  separate  India  on  the 
west,  by  the  well-marked  ranges  of  the  Safed  Koh  and  the  Sulai-  on  the 
man,  from  Afghanistan  5  and  by  a  southern  continuation  of  lower         ' 
hills  (the  Halas,  etc.)  from  Baluchistan.    The  southernmost  part 
of  the  western  land  frontier  of  India  is  the  river  Hab ;  and  the 
boundary  ends  with  Cape  Monze,  at  the  mouth  of  its  estuary, 
in  lat.  24°  50'  N.,  long.  66°  43'  e.    Still  proceeding  southwards, 
India  is  bounded  along  the  west  and  south-west  by  the  Arabian 
Sea  and  Indian  Ocean.     Turning  northwards  from  its  southern 
extremity  at  Cape  Comorin  (lat.  8°  4'  20"  n.,  long.  7  7°  35'  35"  e.),  on  the 
the  Bay  of  Bengal  forms  the  main  part  of  its  eastern  boundary,  ^^.st. 

But  in  the  north-east,  as  in  the  north-west,  India  has  again  a  Burmese 
land  frontier.  The  Himalayan  ranges  at  their  north-eastern  boundary. 
angle  (in  about  lat.  28°  n.,  long.  97°  e.)  throw  off  long  spurs 
and  chains  to  the  southward.  These  spurs  separate  the  British 
Provinces  of  Assam  and  Eastern  Bengal  from  Independent 
Burma.  They  are  known  successively  as  the  Abar,  Naga, 
Patkoi,  and  Barel  ranges.  Turning  almost  due  south  in  lat. 
25°,  they  culminate  in  the  Blue  Mountain,  7100  feet,  in  lat. 
22°  37'  N.,  long.  93°  10'  E.  ;  and  then  stretch  southwards  under 
the  name  of  the  Arakan  Yomas,  separating  British  Burma  from 
Independent  Burma,  until  they  again  rise  into  the  great 
mountain  of  Myin-matin  (4700  feet),  in  19^  degrees  of  north 
latitude.  Up  to  this  point,  the  eastern  hill  frontier  runs  in 
a  southerly  direction,  and  follows,  generally  speaking,  the 
watershed  which  divides  the  river  systems  of  Bengal  and 
British  Burma  (namely,  the  Brahmaputra,  Meghna,  Kuladan, 
.  etc.)  from  the  Irawadi  basin  in  Independent  Burma.  But  from 
near  the  base  of  the  Myin-matin  Mountain,  the  British  frontier 
stretches  almost  due  east  in  a  geographical  line,  which  divides 
the  lower  Districts  and  delta  of  the  Irawadi  in  British  Burma, 


PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 


Tenas- 

serim 

boundary. 


from  the  middle  and  upper  Districts  of  that  river  in  Inde- 
pendent Burma.  Proceeding  south-eastwards  from  the  delta 
of  the  Irawadi,  a  confused  succession  of  little  explored  ranges 
separates  the  British  Province  of  Tenasserim  from  the  Native 
Kingdom  of  Siam.  The  boundary  line  runs  down  to  Point 
Victoria  at  the  extremity  of  Tenasserim  (lat.  9°  59'  n.,  long. 
98°  32'  E.),  following  the  direction  of  the  watershed  between 
the  rivers  of  the  British  territory  on  the  west  and  of  Siam  on 
the  east. 


Physicnl 
aspects. 


The  three 
Regions 
of  India. 


First 
Region — 
TheHima 
layas. 


The  Empire  included  within  these  boundaries  is  rich  in 
varieties  of  scenery  and  climate,  from  the  highest  mountains 
in  the  world,  to  vast  river  deltas  raised  only  a  few  inches  above 
the  level  of  the  sea.  It  forms  a  continent  rather  than  a  country. 
But  if  we  could  look  down  on  the  whole  from  a  balloon,  we 
should  find  that  India  consists  of  three  separate  and  well-defined 
tracts.  The  first  includes  the  lofty  Himalaya  Mountains,  which 
shut  it  out  from  the  rest  of  Asia,  and  which,  although  for  the 
most  part  beyond  the  British  frontier,  form  a  most  important 
factor  in  the  physical  geography  of  Northern  India.  The  second 
region  stretches  southwards  from  the  base  of  the  Himalayas, 
and  comprises  the  plains  of  the  great  rivers  which  issue  from 
them.  The  third  region  slopes  upward  again  from  the  southern 
edge  of  the  river  plains,  and  consists  of  a  high  three-sided 
table-land,  buttressed  by  the  Vindhya  Mountains  on  the  north, 
and  by  the  Eastern  and  Western  Ghats  which  run  down  the 
coast  on  either  side  of  India,  till  they  meet  at  a  point  near  Cape 
Comorin.  The  interior  three-sided  table-land,  thus  enclosed, 
is  dotted  with  peaks  and  ranges,  broken  by  river  valleys,  and 
interspersed  by  broad  level  uplands.  It  comprises  the  southern 
half  of  the  peninsula. 

The  first  of  the  three  regions  is  the  Himalaya  Mountains 
and  their  oftshoots  to  the  southward.  The  Himalayas — literally, 
the  '  Abode  of  Snow,'  from  the  Sanskrit  hiiiia.,  frost  (Latin, 
hiems,  winter),  and  dlaya,  a.  house — consist  of  a  system  of 
stupendous  ranges,  the  loftiest  in  the  world.  They  are  the 
Emodiis  or  Imaus  of  the  Greek  geographers,  and  extend  in  the 
shape  of  a  scimitar,  with  its  edge  facing  southwards,  for  a 
distance  of  1500  miles  along  the  northern  frontier  of  India. 
At  the  north-eastern  angle  of  that  frontier,  the  Dihang  river, 
the  connecting  link  between  the  Tsan-pu  (Sangpu)  of  Tibet 
and  the  Brahmaputra  of  Assam,  bursts  through  the  main  axis 
of  the  Himalayas.  At  the  opposite  or  north-western  angle, 
the  Indus  in  like  manner  pierces  the  Himalayas,  and    turns 


THE  HIMALAYAN  NORTHERN  WALL.         5 

southwards  on  its  course  through  the  Punjab.  The  Himalayas, 
like  the  Kuen-luen  chain,  the  Tian-shan,  and  the  Hindu 
Kush,  converge  towards  the  Pamir  table-land — that  central 
knot  whence  the  great  mountain  systems  of  Asia  radiate. 
With  the  Kuen-luen  the  Himalayas  have  a  closer  connection, 
as  these  two  mighty  ranges  form  respectively  the  northern  and 
southern  buttresses  of  the  lofty  Tibetan  plateau.  The  Himalayas 
project  east  and  west  beyond  the  Indian  frontier.  Their  total 
length  is  about  1750  miles,  and  their  breadth  from  north  to 
south  from  150  to  250  miles.^ 

Regarded   merely   as   a   natural   frontier   separating    India  The 
from  the  Tibetan  plateau,  the  Himalayas  may  be  described  as  jl'"' .^ 
a  double  mountain  wall  running  nearly  east  and  west,  with  a  Wall  and 
trough  or  series  of  deep  valleys  beyond.     The  southernmost  j^  *'°"S'^ 
of  the  two  walls  rises  steeply  from   the  plains   of  India   to 
20,000   feet,   or    nearly   4   miles,    in   height.      It   culminates 
in  Kanchanjanga,  28,176  feet,  and  Mount  Everest,  29,002 
feet,  the  latter  being  the  loftiest  measured  peak  in  the  world. 
This  outer  or  southern  wall  of  the  Himalayas  subsides  on  the 
northward  into  a  series  of  dips  or  uplands,  reported  to  be 
13,000   feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  beyond  which  rises 
the  second  or  inner  range  of  Himalayan  peaks.     The  double 
Himalayan   wall   thus    formed,    then   descends   into   a   great 
trough  or  line  of  valleys,  in  which  the  Sutlej,  the  Indus,  and 
the  mighty  Tsan-pu  (Sangpu)  gather  their  waters. 

The  Sutlej  and  the  Indus  flow  westwards,  and  pierce  through 
the  Western  Himalayas  by  separate  passes  into  the  Punjab. 
The  Tsan-pu,  after  a  long  unexplored  course  eastwards  along 
the  valley  of  the  same  name  in  Tibet,  finds  its  way  through 
the  Dihang  gorge  of  the  Eastern  Himalayas  into  Assam,  where 
it  takes  its  final  name  of  the  Brahmaputra.  On  the  north  of 
the  river  trough,  beyond  the  double  Himalayan  wall,  rise  the 
Karakoram  and  Gangri  mountains,  which  form  the  immediate 
escarpment  of  the  Tibetan  table-land.  Behind  the  Gangris,  on 
the  north,  the  lake-studded  plateau  of  Tibet  spreads  itself  out 
at  a  height  averaging  15,000  feet.  Broadly  speaking,  the 
double  Himalayan  wall  rests  upon  the  low-lying  plains  of 
India,  and  descends  northward  into  a  river  trough  beyond 
which  rises  the  Tibetan  plateau.  Vast  glaciers,  one  of  which 
is  known  to  be  60  miles  in  length,  slowly  move  their  masses 

^  Some  geographers  hold  that  the  Himalayan  system  stretches  in  a 
continuous  chain  westwards  along  the  Oxus  to  68°  E.  long.  ;  and  that  only 
an  arbitrary  line  can  be  drawn  between  the  Himalayan  ranges  and  the 
elevated  regions  of  Tibet  to  the  north  of  them. 


PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 


Himalayan 
passes. 


Oiifshoots 
of  the 
Hima- 
layas ; 

on  east ; 


and  west. 


The  Gate- 
ways of 
India. 


of  ice  downwards  to  the  valleys.  The  higher  ranges  between 
India  and  Tibet  are  crowned  with  eternal  snow.  They  rise  in 
a  region  of  unbroken  silence,  like  gigantic  frosted  fortresses 
one  above  the  other,  till  their  white  towers  are  lost  in  the  sky. 

This  wild  region  is  in  many  parts  impenetrable  to  man,  and 
nowhere  yields  a  passage  for  a  modern  army.  It  should  be 
mentioned,  however,  that  the  Chinese  outposts  extend  as  far 
as  a  point  only  6000  feet  above  the  Gangetic  plain,  north  of 
Khatmandu.  Indeed,  Chinese  armies  have  seriously  threatened 
Khatmandu  itself ;  and  Sir  David  Ochterlony's  advance  from 
the  plains  of  Bengal  to  that  city  in  18 16  is  a  matter  of  history. 
Ancient  and  well-known  trade  routes  exist,  by  means  of  which 
merchandise  from  the  Punjab  finds  its  way  over  heights  of 
18,000  feet  into  Eastern  Tiirkistan  and  Tibet.  The  Mustagh 
(Snowy  Mount),  the  Karakoram  (Black  Mount),  and  the 
Chang-chenmo  are  among  the  most  famous  of  these  passes. 

The  Himalayas  not  only  form  a  double  wall  along  the  north 
of  India,  but  at  both  their  eastern  and  western  extremities 
send  out  ranges  to  the  southwards,  which  protect  India's  north- 
eastern and  north-western  frontiers.  On  the  north-east,  those 
offshoots,  under  the  name  of  the  Naga  and  Patkoi  mountains, 
etc.,  form  a  barrier  between  the  civilised  British  Districts  and 
the  wild  tribes  of  Upper  Burma.  The  southern  continuations 
of  these  ranges,  known  as  the  Yomas,  separate  British  from 
Independent  Burma,  and  are  crossed  by  passes,  the  most 
historic  of  which,  the  An  or  Aeng,  rises  to  4517  feet,  with 
gradients  of  472  feet  to  the  mile. 

On  the  opposite  or  north-western  frontier  of  India,  the 
mountainous  offshoots  run  down  the  entire  length  of  the 
British  boundaries  from  the  Himalayas  to  the  sea.  As  they 
proceed  southwards,  their  best  marked  ranges  are  in  turn 
known  as  the  Safed  Koh,  the  Sulaiman,  and  the  Hala 
mountains.  These  massive  barriers  have  peaks  of  great 
height,  culminating  in  the  Takht-i-Sulaiman,  or  Throne  of 
Solomon,  11,317  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  But,  as 
already  mentioned,  the  mountain  wall  is  pierced  at  the  corner 
where  it  strikes  southwards  from  the  Himalayas  by  an 
opening  through  which  the  Indus  river  flows  into  India. 
An  adjacent  opening,  the  Khaibar  Pass  (3400  feet  above 
sea-level,  amid  neighbouring  heights  rising  to  6800  feet),  with 
the  Kuram  Pass  on  the  south  of  it,  the  Gwalari  Pass  near 
Dera  Ismail  Khan,  the  Tal  Pass  debouching  near  Dera 
Ghazi  Khan,  and  the  famous  Bolan  Pass  (5800  feet  at  top), 
still   farther  south,  furnish  the  gateways   between   India   and 


HIMALAYAN  WATER-SUPPLY.  7 

Afghanistan.  The  Hala,  Brahui,  and  Pab  mountains  form 
the  southern  hilly  offshoots  between  India  and  Baluchistan; 
but  they  have  a  much  less  elevation  than  the  Safed  Koh  or 
the  Sulaiman. 

The  Himalayas,  while  thus  standing  as  a  rampart  and  strong  Himalayan 
defence  around  the  northern  frontier  of  India,  collect  and  store  gyppj' 
up   water    for  the   tropical    plains   below.      Throughout    the 
summer,  vast  quantities  of  water  are  exhaled  from  the  Indian 
Ocean.     This  moisture  gathers  into  vapour,  and  is  borne  north- 
ward by  the  monsoon  or  regular  wind,  which  sets  in  from  the 
south  in  the  month  of  June.     The  monsoon  carries  the  water- 
laden  clouds  northwards  across  India,  and  thus  produces  the 
'  rainy  season,'  on  which  agriculture  so  critically  depends.     But 
large  quantities  of  the  moisture  do  not  condense  or  fall  as  rain 
in  passing  over  the  hot  plains.     This  vast  residue  is  eventually 
dashed  against  the  Himalayas.     Their  lofty  double  walls  stop 
its  farther  progress  northwards,  and  it  either  descends  in  rain 
on  their  outer  slopes,  or  is  frozen  into  snow  in  its  attempt  to 
cross  their  inner  heights.     Very  little  gets  beyond  them  ;  so 
that  while  the  southern   spurs  of  the   Himalayas  receive  the  Himdlayau 
largest  measured  rainfall  in  the  world,  and  pour  it  down  to  "^^'^  ^ 
the  Indian  rivers,  the  great  plateau  of  Tibet  on  the  north  of 
the  double  Himalayan  wall  gets  scarcely  any  rainfall. 

At  Cherra-Piinji,  where  the  monsoon  first  strikes  the  hills 
in  Assam,  489  inches  of  rain,  according  to  returns  for  25 
years  ending  18S1,  fall  annually.  In  one  year  (1861)  as 
many  as  805  inches  were  reported,  of  which  366  inches  fell 
in  the  single  month  of  July.  While,  therefore,  the  yearly 
rainfall  in  London  is  about  2  feet,  and  that  of  the  plains  of 
India  from  i  to  6  feet,  the  rainfall  at  Cherra-Punji  is  40  feet,  a 
depth  more  than  is  required  to  float  the  largest  man-of-war  ; 
and  in  one  year,  67  feet  of  water  fell  from  the  sky,  or  sufficient 
to  drown  a  three-storied  house.  The  mighty  mountains  that 
wall  in  India  on  the  north  form,  in  fact,  a  rain-screen  whicli 
catches  the  vapour-clouds  from  the  Southern  Ocean,  and 
condenses  them  for  the  hot  Bengal  plains.  The  outer  slopes 
of  the  Himalayas  swell  the  Indian  rivers  by  their  torrents 
during  the  rainy  season  ;  their  inner  ranges  and  heights  store 
up  the  rainfall  in  the  shape  of  snow,  and  thus  form  a  vast 
reservoir  for  the  steady  supply  of  the  Indian  rivers  throughout 
the  year. 

This  heavy   rainfall    renders    the    southern    slopes    of  the  Ilimalayan 
Himalayas  very  fertile,  wherever  there  is  any  depth  of  tilth.  ^<^^"^''>- 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  torrents  scour  away  the  surface 


8  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

soil,  and  leave  most  of  the  mountain-sides  bleak  and  bare. 
The  upper  ranges  lie  under  eternal  snow ;  the  intermediate 
heights  form  arid  grey  masses ;  but  on  the  lower  slopes, 
plateaux,  and  valleys,  forests  spring  up,  or  give  place  to  a  rich 
though  simple  cultivation..  The  temperature  fails  about  3  J°  F. 
for  each  thousand  feet  of  elevation  \  and  the  vegetation  of 
the  Himalayas  is  divided  into  three  well-marked  zones,  the 
tropical,  the  temperate,  and  the  arctic,  as  the  traveller  ascends 
from  the  Indian  plains.  A  damp  belt  of  lowland,  the 
tardi,  stretches  along  their  foot,  and  is  covered  with  dense, 
fever-breeding  jungle,  habitable  only  by  rude  tribes  and  wild 
beasts.  Fertile  duns  or  valleys  penetrate  their  outer  margin. 
Himalayan  Ii^  their  eastern  ranges  adjoining  the  Lieutenant-Governorship 
vegetation,  of  Bengal,  where  the  rainfall  is  heaviest,  the  tree-fern  flourishes 
amid  a  magnificent  vegetation.  Their  western  or  Punjab 
ranges  are  barer.  But  the  rhododendron  grows  into  a  forest 
tree,  and  large  tracts  of  it  are  to  be  found  throughout  the 
whole  length  of  the  Himalayas.  The  deodar  rises  in  stately 
masses.  Thickets  of  bamboos,  with  their  graceful  light-green 
foliage,  beautify  the  lower  valleys.  Higher  up,  the  glistening- 
grey  ilex,  mountain  oaks  with  brown  young  leaves,  the  Hima- 
layan cedar,  drooping  silver-firs,  spruces,  pines,  and  the  many- 
hued  foliage  of  the  chestnut,  walnut,  and  maple,  not  to 
mention  a  hundred  trees  of  a  lower  growth  hung  with  bridal 
veils  of  clematis  in  spring,  and  festooned  with  crimson  virginia- 
creepers  in  autumn,  form,  together  with  patches  of  the  white 
medlar  blossom,  a  brilliant  contrast  to  the  stretches  of  scarlet 
and  pink  rhododendron.  At  harvest-time,  crops  of  millet 
run  in  red  ribands  down  the  hillsides.  The  branches  of  the 
trees  are  themselves  clothed  in  the  damper  regions  with  a 
luxuriant  growth  of  mosses,  ferns,  lovely  orchids,  and  flowering 
creepers.  The  Himalayas  have  enriched  English  parks  and 
hothouses  by  the  deodar^  the  rhododendron,  and  the  orchid  ; 
and  a  great  extension  in  the  cultivation  of  the  deodar  and 
rhododendron  throughout  Britain  dates  from  the  Himalayan 
tour  in  1848  of  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  now  Director  of  Kew 
Gardens.  The  high  price  of  wood  on  the  plains,  for  railway 
sleepers  and  building  purposes,  has  caused  many  of  the 
hills  to  be  stripped  of  their  forests,  so  that  the  rainfall  now 
rushes  quickly  down  their  bare  slopes,  washing  away  the 
surface  soil,  and  leaving  no  tilth  in  which  new  woods  might 
grow  up.  The  Forest  Department  is  endeavouring  to  repair 
this  reckless  denudation  of  the  Himalayan  woods. 

Him.ilaynn      The   hill    tribes    cultivate    barley,    oats,   and    a    variety  of 
cultivation. 


II I  MALA  YAN  C  UL  TI VA  TION.  9 

)nlllets  and  small  grains.  Vegetables  are  also  raised  on  a 
large  scale.  The  potato,  introduced  from  England,  is  a  favourite 
crop,  and  covers  many  sites  formerly  under  forest. 

The  hillman  clears  his  potato  ground  by  burning  a  ring  round  Clearing  a 
the  stems  of  the  great  trees,  and  then  lays  out  the  side  of  the  '  ""^^^ ' 
mountain  into  terraces.  After  a  few  years  the  bark  and  leaves 
drop  off  the  branches,  and  the  forest  stands  bleached  and  ruined. 
Some  of  the  trees  rot  on  the  ground,  like  giants  fallen  in 
confused  flight ;  others  still  remain  upright,  with  white  trunks 
and  skeleton  arms.  In  the  end,  the  rank  green  potato  crop 
marks  the  spot  where  a  forest  has  been  slain  and  buried. 
Several  of  the  ruder  hill  tribes  follow  an  even  more  wasteful 
mode  of  tillage.  Destitute  of  either  ploughs  or  oxen,  they 
burn  down  the  jungle,  and  exhaust  the  soil  by  a  quick  succes- 
sion of  crops,  raised  by  the  hoe.  In  a  year  or  two  the  whole 
settlement  moves  off  to  a  fresh  patch  of  jungle,  which  they 
clear  and  exhaust,  and  then  desert  in  like  manner. 

Rice  is  only  grown  in  the  Himalayas  on  ground  which  has  Irrigation 
an  unfailing  command  of  water — particularly  in  the  damp  find  mill- 
hot  valleys  between  the  successive  ranges  which  roll  upwards 
into  the  interior.  The  hillmen  practise  an  ingenious  system 
of  irrigation,  according  to  which  the  slopes  are  laid  out  in 
terraces,  and  the  streams  are  diverted  to  a  great  distance  by 
successive  parallel  channels  along  the  mountain-side.  They 
also  utilize  their  water-power  for  mill  purposes.  Some  of  them 
are  ignorant  of  cog-wheels  for  converting  the  vertical  movement 
of  the  mill-wheel  into  the  horizontal  movement  required  for 
the  grinding-stone.  They  therefore  place  their  mill-wheel 
flat  instead  of  upright,  and  lead  the  water  so  as  to  dash  with 
great  force  on  the  horizontal  paddles.  A  horizontal  rotary 
movement  is  thus  obtained,  and  conveyed  direct  by  the  axle 
to  the  millstone  above. 

The  chief  saleable  products  of  the  Himalayas  are  timber,  Himalayan 
charcoal,  barley,  millets,  potatoes,  other  vegetables,  honey,  p^Q^^^,^^_ 
jungle  products,  borax,  and  several  kinds  of  inferior  gems. 
Strings  of  ponies  and  mules  straggle  with  their  burdens  along 
the  narrow  pathways,  which  are  at  many  places  mere  ledges 
cut  out  of  the  precipice.  The  hillmen  and  their  hard-working 
wives  load  themselves  also  with  pine  stems  and  conical  baskets 
of  grain.  The  yak-cow  and  hardy  mountain  sheep  are  the 
favourite  beasts  of  burden  in  the  inner  ranges.  The  little 
yak-cow,  whose  bushy  tail  is  manufactured  in  Europe  into  lace, 
patiently  toils  up  the  steepest  gorges  with  a  heavy  burden  on 
her  back.     The  sheep,  laden  with  bags  of  borax,  are   driven 


•     lo  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  IXDIA. 

to  marts  on  the  outer  ranges  near  the  plains,  where  they 
are  shorn  of  their  wool,  and  then  return  into  the  interior  with 
a  load  of  grain  or  salt.  Hundreds  of  them,  having  completed 
their  journe}'  from  the  upper  ranges,  are  sold  for  slaughter 
at  a  nominal  price  of  perhaps  a  shilling  a-piece,  as  they  are 
not  worth  taking  back  to  the  inner  mountains. 
Himalayan  The  characteristic  animals  of  the  Himalayas  include  the 
and  tribes,  v^k-cow,  musk-deer,  several  kinds  of  wild  sheep  and  goat,  bear, 
ounce,  leopard,  and  fox  ;  the  eagle,  great  vultures,  pheasants  of 
beautiful  varieties,  partridges,  and  other  birds.  Ethnologically, 
the  Himalayas  form  the  meeting-ground  of  the  Aryan  and 
Turanian  races,  which  in  some  parts  are  curiously  mingled, 
although  generally  distinguishable.  The  tribes  or  broken  clans 
of  non- Aryan  origin  number  over  fifty,  with  languages,  customs, 
and  religious  rites  more  or  less  distinct.  The  lifelong  labours 
of  Mr.  Brian  Houghton  Hodgson,  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service, 
have  done  much  to  illustrate  the  flora,  fauna,  and  ethnology 
of  the  Himalayas ;  and  no  sketch  of  this  region  would  be 
complete  without  a  reference  to  Mr.  Hodgson's  work. 

Second  The  wide  plains  watered  by  the  Himalayan  rivers  form  the 

In^cfiT-^°  second   of  the   three   regions   into    which  India   is   divided. 

The  They   extend  from    the    Bay  of    Bengal  on  the  east,  to  the 

northern  Afghan  frontier  and  the  Arabian  Sea  on  the  west,  and  contain 

Kiver  °   .  .  '  _ 

Plains.        the  richest  and  most  densely-crowded  Provinces  of  the  Empire. 
One  set  of  invaders  after  another  have,  from  pre-historic  times, 
entered  by  the  passes  on  the  north-eastern  and  north-western 
frontiers  of  India.     They  followed  the  courses  of  the  rivers, 
and  pushed  the  earlier  comers  southwards  before  them  towards 
the  sea.    About  150  millions  of  people  now  live  on  and  around 
these  river  plains  in  the  Provinces  known  as  the  Lieutenant- 
Governorship   of  Bengal,    Assam,    the    North-Western    Pro- 
vinces, Oudh,  the  Punjab,  Sind,  Rajputana  and  other  Native 
States. 
Tiie  three        The  vast  level  tract  which  thus  covers  Northern   India  is 
systems  of  ^^'^-tered  by  three  distinct  river  systems.      One  of  these  river 
N.  India,    systems  takes  its  rise  in  the  hollow  trough  beyond  the  Hima- 
(i^  The       layas,  and  issues  through  their  western  ranges  upon  the  Punjab 
with  the      ^^  ^^  Indus  and  Sutlej.    The  second  of  the  three  river  systems 
Sutlej.        also  takes  its  rise  beyond  the  double  wall  of  the  Himalayas, 
(2)  The       riQj.  ygj.y  f^j.  fj-Qj-j-,  ^i^g  sources  of  the  Indus  and  the  Sutlej.     It 
Isan-pu  or  ,  ,  ,  .  ,      .  \     ■,- 

Bralima-     turns,  however,  almost  due  east  mstead  of  west,  enters  India 

putra.         at  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Himalayas  and  becomes  the 
Brahmaputra  of   Assam  and  Eastern  Bengal.      These  rivers 


THREE  RIVERS  OF  NORTHERN  INDEA.      ii 

collect  the  drainage  of  the  northern  slopes  of  the  Himalayas, 

and  convey  it,  by  long,    tortuous,  and   opposite  routes,  into 

India.     Indeed,  the  special  feature  of  the  Himalayas  is  that 

they  send  down  the  rainfall  from  their  northern  as  well  as 

from   their  southern   slopes  to    the  Indian   plains.       Of   the 

three  great  rivers  of  Northern   India,  the  two  longest,  namely 

the  Indus  with  its  feeder  the  Sutlej,  and   the  Brahmaputra, 

take    their    rise  in   the    trough   on    the   north   of   the   great 

Himalayan  wall.    That  trough  receives  the  drainage  of  the  inner 

or  northern  escarpment  of  the  Himalayas,  together  with  such 

water-supply  as  emerges  from  the  outer  or  southern  escarpment 

of  the  lofty  but  almost  rainless  plateau  of  Tibet. 

The  third  river  system  of  Northern  India  receives  the  drainage  (3)  The 

of  the  outer  or  southern  Himalayan  slopes,  and  unites  into  <J^nges 
,  .  •',.,.,,   with  the 

the  mighty  stream  of  the  Ganges.     In  this  way,  the  rainfall,  jumna. 

alike  from  the  northern  and  southern  slopes  of  the  Himalayas, 
and  even  from  the  mountain  buttresses  of  the  Tibet  pbteau 
beyond,  pours  down  upon  the  plains  of  India,  The  long  and 
lofty  spur  of  the  outer  Himalayas,  on  which  stands  Simla,  the 
summer  residence  of  the  Government  of  India,  forms  the  water- 
shed between  the  river  systems  of  the  Indus  and  Ganges.  The 
drainage  from  the  west  of  this  narrow  ridge  below  the  Simla 
Church  flows  into  the  Arabian  Sea ;  while  that  which  starts  a 
iow  feet  off,  down  the  eastern  side,  eventually  reaches  the  Bay 
of  Bengal. 

The  Indus  (Sanskrit,  Sindhus ;  'IvSo's,  '%ivB6<i)  rises  in  an  The  Indus, 
unexplored  region  (lat.  32°  n.,  long.  81°  E.)  on  the  slopes  of 
the  sacred  Kailas  mountain,  the  Elysium  or  Siva's  Paradise 
of  ancient  Sanskrit  literature.  The  Indus  has  an  elevation  of 
about  16,000  feet  at  its  source  in  Tibet ;  a  drainage  basin  of 
372,700  square  miles;  and  a  total  length  of  over  1800  miles. 
Shortly  after  it  passes  within  the  Kashmir  frontier,  it  drops  to 
14,000  feet,  and  at  Leh  is  only  about  11,000  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.  The  rapid  stream  dashes  down  ravines  and 
wild  mountain  valleys,  and  is  subject  to  tremendous  floods. 
The  Indus  bursts  through  the  western  ranges  of  the  Hima- 
layas by  a  wonderful  gorge  near  Iskardoh,  in  North-Western 
Kashmir — a  gorge  reported  to  be  14,000  feet  in  sheer  depth. 

Its  great  feeder,  the  Sutlej,  rises  on  the  southern  slopes  TheSutlej. 
of  the  Kailas  mountain,  also  in  Tibet.     It  issues  from  one  of 
the   sacred   lakes,   the  Manasarowar  and   Ravana-hrada  (the 
modern  Rakhas  Tal),  famous  in  Hindu  mythology,  and  still  the  • 
resort  of  the  Tibetan  shepherds.     Starting  at  an  elevation  of 
15,200  feet,  the  Sutlej  passes  south-west  across  the  plain  oi 


12  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

Guge,  where  it  has  cut  through  a  vast  accumulation  of  deposits 
by  a  gully  said  to  be  4000  feet  deep,  between  precipices  of 
alluvial  soil.  After  traversing  this  plain,  the  river  pierces  the 
Himalayas  by  a  gorge  with  mountains  rising  to  20,000  feet 
on  either  side.  The  Sutlej  is  reported  to  fall  from  10,000  feet 
above  sea-level  at  Shipki,  a  Tibetan  frontier  outpost,  to  3000 
feet  at  Rampur,  the  capital  of  a  Himalayan  State  about  60 
miles  inward  from  Simla.  During  this  part  of  its  course, 
the  Sutlej  runs  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  trough,  with  precipices 
and  bare  mountains  which  have  been  denuded  of  their  forests, 
towering  above.  Its  turbid  waters,  and  their  unceasing  roar 
as  the  river  dashes  over  the  rapids,  have  a  gloomy  and  dis- 
quieting effect.  Sometimes  it  grinds  to  powder  the  huge  pines 
and  cedars  entrusted  to  it  to  float  down  to  the  plains.  By 
the  time  it  reaches  Bilaspur,  it  has  dropped  to  1000  feet  above 
sea-level.  After  entering  British  territory,  the  Sutlej  receives 
the  waters  of  the  Western  Punjab,  and  falls  into  the  Indus 
near  Mithankot,  after  a  course  of  goo  miles. 
Lower  A  full  account  of  the  Indus  will  be  found   in  the  article  on 

course  of  ^^^  river  in  volume  vii.  of  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
About  800  miles  of  its  course  are  passed  among  the 
Himalayas  before  it  enters  British  territory,  and  it  flows 
for  about  1000  miles  more,  south-west,  through  the  British 
Provinces  of  the  Punjab  and  Sind.  In  its  upper  part  it  is 
fordable  in  many  places  during  the  cold  weather;  but  it  is 
liable  to  sudden  freshets,  in  one  of  which  Ranjit  Singh  is  said 
to  have  lost  a  force,  variously  stated  at  from  1200  to  7000 
horsemen,  while  crossing  by  a  ford.  A  little  way  above  Attock, 
the  Indus  receives  the  Kabul  river,  which  brings  down  the  waters 
of  Northern  Afghanistan.  The  volume  of  those  waters,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  Kabul  river,  is  about  equal  to  the  volume  of  the 
Indus  at  the  point  of  junction.  At  Attock,  the  Indus  has 
fallen,  during  a  course  of  860  miles,  from  its  elevation  of  16,000 
feet  at  its  source  in  Tibet  to  under  2000  feet.  These  2000 
feet  supply  its  fall  during  the  remaining  940  miles  of  its  course. 
The  discharge  of  the  Indus,  after  receiving  all  its  tribu- 
taries, varies  from  40,857  to  446,086  cubic  feet  per  second, 
according  to  the  season  of  the  year.  The  enormous  mass  of 
water  spreads  itself  over  a  channel  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to 
a  mile  (or  at  times  much  more)  in  breadth.  The  effect  pro- 
duced by  the  evaporation  from  this  fluvial  expanse  is  so  marked 
that,  at  certain  seasons,  the  thermometer  is  reported  to  be 
10°  F.  lower  close  to  its  surface  than  on  the  surrounding 
arid   plains.     The  Indus  supplies  a  precious  store  of  water 


THE  INDUS  AND  BRAHMAPUTRA.  13 

for  irrigation  works  at  various  points  along  its  course,  and 
forms  the  great  highway  of  the  Southern  Punjab  and  Sind. 
In  its  lower  course  it  sends  forth  distributaries  across  a  wide 
delta,  with  Haidarabad  (Hyderabad)  in  Sind  as  its  ancient 
political  capital,  and  Karachi  (Kurrachee)  as  its  modern  port. 
The  silt  which  it  carries  down  has  helped  to  form  the  seaboard 
islands,  mud-banks,  and  shallows,  that  have  cut  off  the  ancient 
famous  emporia  around  the  Gulf  of  Cambay  from  modern 
commerce. 

The  Brahmaputra,  like  the  Sutlej,  rises  near  to  the  sacred  The  Tsan- 
lake  of  Manasarowar.     Indeed,  the  Indus,  the  Sutlej,  and  the  Brahma- 
Brahmaputra  may  be  said  to  start  from  the  same  water-parting,  putra. 
The  Indus  rises  on  the  western  slope  of  the  Kailas  mountain, 
the  Sutlej  on  its  southern,  and  the  Brahmaputra  at  some  dis- 
tance from  its  eastern  base.    The  Mariam-la  and  other  saddles  The  Kailas 
■connect  the  more  northern  Tibetan  mountains,  to  w'hich  the^^^"^^^^ 
Kailas  belongs,  with  the  double  Himalayan  wall  on  the  south. 
They  form  an  irregular  watershed  across  the  trough  on  the 
north  of  the  double  wall  of  the  Himalayas  ;  thus,  as  it  were, 
blocking  up  the  western  half  of  the  great  Central  Asian  trench. 
The  Indus  flows  down  a  western  valley  from  this  transverse 
watershed ;  the  Sutlej  finds  a  more  direct  route  to  India  by  a 
south-western   valley.     The   Brahmaputra,  under   its  Tibetan 
name  of  Tsan-pu  or  Sangpu,  has  its  source  in  31°  n.  lat.  and 
83^   E.   long.     It  flows   eastwards  down   the   Tsan-pu  valley, 
passing  not  very  far  to  the  south  of  Lhasa,  the  capital  of  Tibet ; 
and  probably  800  to  900  miles,  or  about  one-half  of  its  total 
course,  are  spent  in  the  hollow  trough  on   the  north  of  the 
Himalayas.     This  brief  account  assumes  that  the  Brahmaputra 
of  India  is  the  true  continuation  of  the  Sangpu  of  Tibet.     The 
result  of  the  latest  researches  into  that  long  mooted  question 
are  given  under  article  Brahmaputra,  in  volume  iii.  of  The 
Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

After  receiving  several  tributaries  from  the  confines  of  the  The 

Chinese  Empire,  the  river  twists  round  a  lofty  eastern  range  of    "^f  ^"^^" 
i       '  .  -'  ^  putra  con- 

the  Himalayas,  and  enters  British  territory  under  the  name  of  fluents  in 
the  DiHANG,  near  Sadiya  in  Assam.  It  presently  receives  two  •'^ssam. 
confluents,  the  Dibang  river  from  the  northward,  and  the 
Brahmaputra  proper  from  the  east  (lat.  27°  20'  N.,  long.  95° 
50'  E.).  The  united  stream  then  takes  its  well-known  appel- 
lation of  the  Brahmaputra,  literally  the  '  Son  of  Brahma  the 
Creator.'  It  represents  a  drainage  basin  of  361,200  square 
miles,  and  its  summer  discharge  at  Goalpara  in  Assam  was 


14 


PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 


Brahma- 
putra silt. 


The 

Brahma- 
putra in 
Bengal. 


(J  am  una 
and 
Meghnd. ) 


for  long  computed  at  146,188  cubic  feet  of  water  per  second. 
Recent  measurements  have,  however,  shown  that  this  calcula- 
tion is  below  the  truth.  Observations  made  near  Dibrugarh 
during  the  cold  weather  of  1877-78,  returned  a  mean  low-water 
discharge  of  116,484  cubic  feet  per  second  for  the  Brahma- 
putra at  the  upper  end  of  the  Assam  valley,  together  with 
16,945  cubic  feet  per  second  for  its  tributary  the  Subansiri. 
Total  cold -weather  discharge  for  the  united  stream,  over 
133,000  cubic  feet  per  second  near  Dibrugarh.  Several 
affluents  join  the  Brahmaputra  during  its  course  through  Assam ; 
and  the  mean  low-water  discharge  at  Goalpara,  in  the  lower 
end  of  the  Assam  valley,  must  be  in  excess  of  the  previous 
computation  at  146,188  cubic  feet  per  second.  During  the 
rains  the  channel  rises  30  or  40  feet  above  its  ordinary  level, 
and  its  flood  discharge  is  estimated  at  over  500,000  cubic 
feet  per  second. 

The  Brahmaputra  rolls  down  the  Assam  valley  in  a  vast 
sheet  of  water,  broken  by  numerous  islands,  and  exhibit- 
ing the  operations  of  alluvion  and  diluvion  on  a  gigantic 
scale.  It  is  so  heavily  freighted  with  silt  from  the  Himalayas, 
that  the  least  impediment  placed  in  its  current  causes  a 
deposit,  and  may  give  rise  to  a  wide-spreading,  almond-shaped 
mud-bank.  Steamers  anchoring  near  the  margin  for  the  night 
sometimes  find  their  sterns  aground  next  morning  on  an 
accumulation  of  silt,  caused  by  their  own  obstruction  to  the 
current.  Broad  divergent  channels  split  off  from  the  parent 
stream,  and  rejoin  it  after  a  long  separate  existence  of  uncon- 
trollable meandering.  By  centuries  of  alluvial  deposit,  the 
Brahmaputra  has  raised  its  banks  and  channel  in  parts  of  the 
Assam  valley  to  a  higher  level  than  the  surrounding  country. 
Beneath  either  bank  lies  a  low  strip  of  marshy  land,  which  is 
flooded  in  the  rainy  season.  Beyond  these  swamps,  the 
ground  begins  to  rise  towards  the  hills  that  hem  in  the  valley 
of  Assam  on  both  sides. 

After  a  course  of  450  miles  south-west  down  the  Assam 
valley,  the  Brahmaputra  sweeps  round  the  spurs  of  the  Giro 
Hills  due  south  towards  the  sea.  It  here  takes  the  name  of 
the  Jamuna,  and  for  180  miles  rushes  across  the  level  plains 
of  Eastern  Bengal,  till  it  joins  the  Ganges  at  Goalanda  (lat. 
23°  50°  N.,  long.  89°  46'  E.).  From  this  point  the  deltas  of  the 
two  great  river  systems  of  the  Ganges  and  the  Brahmaputra 
unite  into  one.  But  before  reaching  the  sea,  their  combined 
streams  have  yet  to  receive,  by  way  of  the  Cachar  valley,  the 
drainage  of  the  eastern  watershed  between  Bengal  and  Burma, 


CHANGES  IN  THE  BRAHMAPUTRA.  15 

under  the  name  of  the    Meghxa  river,   itself  a  broad  and 
magnificent  sheet  of  water. 

The  Brahmaputra  is  famous  not  only  for  its  vast  alluvial  de-  Brahma- 
posits,  but  also  for  the  historical  changes  which  have  taken  place  P"^""^^''^- 
in  its  course.  One  of  the  islands  (the  Majuli  char),  which  it  has 
created  in  its  channel  out  of  the  silt'  torn  away  from  the  distant 
Himalayas,  covers  441  square  miles.  Every  year,  thousands  of 
acres  of  new  land  are  thus  formed  out  of  mud  and  sand;  some 
of  them  destined  to  be  swept  away  by  the  inundations  of  the 
following  year  ;  others  to  become  the  homes  of  an  industrious 
peasantry  or  the  seats  of  busy  river  marts.  Such  formations 
give  rise  to  changes  in  the  bed  of  the  river — changes  which 
within  a  hundred  years  have  completely  altered  the  course  of 
the  Brahmaputra  through  Bengal.  In  the  last  century,  the 
stream,  on  issuing  from  Assam,  bent  close  round  the  spurs  of 
the  Garo  Hills  in  a  south-easterly  direction.  This  old  bed  of 
the  Brahmaputra,  the  only  one  recognised  by  Major  Rennel  in 
1765-75,  has  now  been  deserted.  It  retains  the  ancient  name  Great 
of  the  Brahmaputra,  but  during  the  hot  weather  it  is  little  more  phanges  in 
than  a  series  of  pools.  The  modern  channel,  instead  of  twist- 
ing round  the  Garo  Hills  to  the  east,  bursts  straight  southwards 
towards  the  sea  under  the  name  of  the  Jamuna,  and  is  now 
separated  at  places  by  nearly  100  miles  of  level  land  from  the 
main  channel  in  the  last  century.  A  floating  log  thrown 
up  against  the  bank,  a  sunk  boat,  or  any  smallest  obstruc- 
tion, may  cause  the  deposit  of  a  mud  island.  Every  such 
silt-bank  gives  a  more  or  less  new  direction  to  the  main 
channel,  which  in  a  few  years  may  have  eaten  its  way  far 
across  the  plain,  and  dug  out  for  itself  a  new  bed  at  a  distance 
of  several  miles.  Unlike  the  Ganges  and  the  Indus,  the 
Brahmaputra  is  not  used  for  artificial  irrigation.  But  its  silt- 
charged  overflow  annually  replenishes  the  land.  Indeed,  the 
plains  of  Eastern  Bengal  watered  by  the  Brahmaputra  yield 
unfailing  harvests  of  rice,  mustard,  oil-seeds,  and  the  exhaust- 
ing jute  crop,  year  after  year,  without  any  deterioration. 
The  valley  of  the  Brahmaputra  in  Assam  is  not  less  fertile, 
although  inhabited  by  a  less  industrious  race. 

The  Brahmaputra  is  the  great  high-road  of  Eastern  Bengal  The 

and  Assam.    Its  tributaries  and  bifurcations  afford  innumerable  ^'^^.hnia- 

,  ,.  Ill  ■         putra  as  a 

waterways,  almost  supersedmg  roads,  and  at  the  same  time  high-road. 

rendering  road  construction  and   maintenance  very  diftlcult. 

The   main   river   is   navigable   by   steamers    as    high    up   as 

DiBRUGARH,   about  800  miles  from  the  sea ;  and  its  broad 

surface  is  crowded  with  country  craft  of  all  sizes  and  rigs,  from 


1 6  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

the  dug-out  canoe  and  timber  raft  to  the  huge  cargo  ship, 
with  its  high  bow  and  carved  stern,  its  bulged-out  belly,  and 
spreading  square-sails.  The  busy  emporium  of  Sirajganj,  on 
the  western  bank  of  the  Brahmaputra,  collects  the  produce  of 
the  Districts  for  transmission  to  Calcutta.  Fifty  thousand 
native  craft,  besides  steamers,  passed  Sirajganj  in  1876. 
Liahma-  The  downward  traffic  consists  chiefly  of  tea  (to  the 
putia  value  of  about  i^  million  sterling),  timber,  caoutchouc,  and 

^'^  '^'  raw  cotton,  from  Assam  ;  with  jute,  oil-seeds,  tobacco,  rice, 
and  other  grains,  from  Eastern  Bengal.  In  return  for  these, 
Calcutta  sends  northwards  by  the  Brahmaputra,  European 
piece-goods,  salt,  and  hardware ;  while  Assam  imports  from 
the  Bengal  delta,  by  the  same  highway,  large  quantities  of 
rice  (amounting  to  14,749  tons  in  1S83-S4)  for  the  labourers 
on  the  tea  plantations.  The  total  value  of  the  river-borne  trade 
of  the  Brahmaputra  was  returned  at  a  little  over  three  millions 
sterling  in  1882-83.  -^^^  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain  the 
w^hole  produce  carried  by  the  innumerable  native  boats  on 
the  Brahmaputra.  The  railway  system  of  India  taps  the 
Brahmaputra  at  Goalanda  and  Dhubri ;  while  a  network  of 
channels  through  the  Sundarbans  supply  a  cheaper  means  of 
water  transit  for  bulky  produce  across  the  delta  to  Calcutta. 

The  As  the  Indus,  with  its  feeder  the  Sutlej,  and  the  Brahma- 

Gangetic     putra,  convey  to    India   the    drainage  from  the  northern  or 

river  .  .  ° 

system  Tibetan  slopes  of  the  Himalayas,  so  the  Ganges,  with  its 
tributary  the  Jumna,  collects  the  rainfall  from  the  southern  or 
Indian  slopes  of  the  mountain  wall,  and  pours  it  down  upon 
the  plains  of  Bengal.  The  Ganges  traverses  the  central  part 
of  those  plains,  and  occupies  a  more  prominent  place  in  the 
history  of  Indian  civilisation  than  either  the  Indus  in  the 
extreme  west,  or  the  Brahmaputra  in  the  extreme  east  of 
Hindustan.  It  passes  its  whole  life  to  the  south  of  the 
Himalayas,  and  for  thousands  of  years  has  formed  an  over- 
ruling factor  in  the  development  of  the  Indian  races. 

The  Ganges  issues,  under  the  name  of  the  Bhagi'rathi,  from 
an  ice-cave  at  the  foot  of  a  Himalayan  snowbed,  13,800  feet 
above  the  sea-level  (lat.  30°  56'  4"  n.,  long.  79°  6'  40"  e.). 
After  a  course  of  1557  miles,  it  falls  by  a  network  of  estuaries 
into  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  It  represents,  with  its  tributaries,  an 
enormous  catchment  basin,  bounded  on  the  north  by  a  section 
of  about  700  miles  of  the  Himalayan  ranges,  on  the  south  by 
the  Vindhya  mountains,  and  embracing  391,100  square  miles. 
Before  attempting  a  description  of  the  functions  performed  by 


GROWTH  OF  THE  GANGES.  17 

tlie  Ganges,  it  is  necessary  to  form  some  idea  of  the  mighty 
masses  of  water  which  it  collects  and  distributes.  But  so 
many  variable  elements  affect  the  discharge  of  rivers,  thai 
calculations  of  their  volume  must  be  taken  merely  as  estimates. 

At  the  point  where  it  issues  from  its  snowbed,  the  infant  stream  The 
is  only  27  feet  broad  and  15  inches  deep,  with  an  elevation  of  S^"|^''^ 
13,800  feet  above  sea-level.     During  the  first  180  miles  of  its  Ganges. 
course,  it  drops  to  an  elevation  of  1024  feet.     At  this  point, 
Hardwar,  its  lowest  discharge,  in  the  dry  season,  is  7000  cubic 
feet  per  second.      Hitherto  the  Ganges  has  been  little  more 
than  a  snow-fed  Himalayan  stream.      During  the  next  thousand 
miles  of  its  journey,  it  collects  the  drainage  of  its  catchment 
basin,  and  reaches  Rajmahal  about  11 80  miles  from  its  source. 
It  has  here,  while  still  about  400  miles  from  the  sea,  a  high  Discharge 
flood  discharge  of  1,800,000  cubic  feet  of  water  per  second, '^^  ^^"a^"^- 
and   an  ordinary  discharge    of  207,000    cubic   feet;    longest 
duration    of   flood,    about    forty    days.      The    maximum  dis- 
charge of  the  Mississippi  is  given  at  1,200,000  cubic  feet  per 
second.^      The  maximum  discharge  of  the  Nile  at  Cairo  is 
returned  at  only  362,200  cubic  feet  ;  and  of  the  Thames  at 
Staines  at  6600  cubic  feet  of  water  per  second.     The  Meghna, 
one  of  the  many  outflows  of  the  (ianges,  is  20  miles  broad 
near  its  mouth,  with  a  depth,  in  the  dry  season,  of  30  feet. 
But  for  a  distance  of  about  200  miles,  the  sea  face  of  Bengal 
entirely  consists  of  the  estuaries  of  the  Ganges,  intersected  by 
low  islands  and  promontories,  formed  out  of  its  silt. 

In  forming  our  ideas  with  regard  to  the  Ganges,  we  must  The 
begin  by  dismissing  from  our  minds  any  lurking  comparison  of  J""'"^' 
its  gigantic  stream  with  the  rivers  which  we  are  familiar  with  in 
England.  A  single  one  of  its  tributaries,  the  Jumna,  has  an 
independent  existence  of  860  miles,  with  a  catchment  basin  of 
118,000  square  miles,  and  starts  from  an  elevation  at  its  source 
of  10,849  feet  above  sea-level.  The  Ganges  and  its  principal 
tributaries  are  treated  of  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  Jiuiia,  in 
separate  articles  under  their  respective  names.  The  following 
account  contines  itself  to  a  brief  sketch  of  the  work  which  these 
Gangetic  rivers  perform  in  the  plains  of  Northern  India,  and 
of  the  position  which  they  hold  in  the  thoughts  of  the  people. 

Of  all  great  rivers  on  the  surface  of   the  globe,  none  can  Sanctity 
compare  in  sanctity  with  the  Ganges,  or  Mother  Ganga,  as  she  °f  ^'^^ 
is  affectionately  called  by  devout  Hindus.     From  her  source  in     '  '^ 

^  Hydraulic   Manual,  by    Lowis    D'A.  Jackson.    Hydraulic    Statistics, 
Table  11.  ;  Appendix,  p.  2  (1875). 


1 8  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

the  Himalayas,  to  her  mouth  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  her  banks 

are  holy  ground.     Each  point  of  junction  of  a  tributary  with 

the  main  stream  has  its  own  special  claims  to  sanctity.     But 

the  tongue  of  land  at  Allahabad,  where  the  Ganges  unites  with 

her  great  sister  river  the  Jumna,  is  the  true  Praydg,  the  place 

of  pilgrimage  whither  hundreds  of  thousands  of  devout  Hindus 

repair  to  wash  away  their  sins  in  her  sanctifying  waters.    IMany 

of  the  other  holy  rivers  of  India  borrow  their  sanctity  from  a 

supposed  underground   connection  with    the  Ganges.      This 

fond  fable  recalls  the  primitive  time  when  the  Aryan  race  was 

moving  southward  from  the    Gangetic  plains.     It  is  told  not 

only  of  first-class  rivers  of  Central  and  Southern  India,  like 

the  Narbada,  but  also  of  many  minor  streams  of  local  sanctity. 

Legend  An   ancient  legend  relates  how  Ganga,    the  fair  daughter 

('jan^es       °^  ^^^Z  Himalaya  (Himavat)  and  of  his  queen  the  air-nymph 

Menaka,  was  persuaded,  after  long  supplication,  to  shed  her 

purifying  influence  upon  the  sinful  earth.     The  icicle-studded 

cavern    from   which    she   issues   is   the   tangled    hair   of  the 

god  Siva.      Loving  legends  hallow  each  part  of  her  course ; 

and  from   the  names  of    her  tributaries  and  of    the   towns 

along  her  banks,  a  whole  mythology  might  be  built  up.     The 

southern    offshoots   of    the   Aryan    race    not   only    sanctified 

their  southern   rivers   by  a  fabled  connection  with  the  holy 

stream   of  the  north.     They  also  hoped  that  in   the  distant 

future,    their   rivers   would  attain   an    equal    sanctity  by   the 

diversion  of  the  Ganges'  waters  through  underground  channels. 

Thus,  the  Brahmans  along  the  Narbada  maintain  that  in  this  evil 

age  of  the  world  (indeed,  about  the  year  1894  a.d.),  the  sacred 

character  of  the  Ganges  will  depart  from  that  polluted  stream, 

and  take  refuge  by  an  underground  passage  in  their  own  river. 

(iangeiic         The   estuary   of  the   Gaiiges   is    not   less  sacred  than  her 

julgnm-      source.     Sagar  Island  at  her  mouth  is  annually  visited  by  a 

"  vast  concourse  of  pilgrims,  in  commemoration  of  her  act  of 

saving  grace  ;  when,  in  order  to  cleanse  the  60,000  damned 

ones  of  the  house  of  Sagar,  she  divided  herself  into  a  hundred 

channels,  thus  making  sure  of  reaching  their  remains,  and  so 

forming  the  delta  of  Bengal.     The  six  years'  pilgrimage  from 

her  source  to  her  mouth  and  back  again,  known  as  pradak- 

shina,  is  still  performed  by  many ;  and  a  (tw  devotees  may 

yet  be  seen  wearily  accomplishing  the  meritorious  penance  of 

'  measuring  their   length '  along   certain    parts   of  the   route. 

To  bathe  in  the  Ganges  at  the  stated  festivals  washes  away 

guilt,  and  those  who  have  thus  purified  themselves  carry  back 

bottles   of  her  water  to   their   kindred   in   far-off  provinces. 


WORK  DONE  BY  THE  GANGES.  19 

To  die  and  to  be  cremated  on  the  river  bank,  and  to  have 

their  ashes  borne  seaward  by  her  stream,  is  the  last  wish  of 

millions  of  Hindus.     Even    to  ejaculate  '  Ganga,  Ganga,'  at 

the   distance   of  100   leagues   from  the   river,   say  her  more 

enthusiastic  devotees,  may  atone  for  the  sins  committed  during 

three  previous  lives. 

The  Ganges  has  earned  the    reverence  of  the  people   by  Work 

centuries  of  unfailing  work  done  for  them.     She  and  her  tribu-  *^1°"^  ''^ 

.  .  ,  the 

taries  are  the  unwearied  water-carriers  for  the  densely-peopled  Ganges ; 

provinces  of  Northern  India,  and  the  peasantry  reverence  the 
bountiful  stream  which  fertilizes  their  fields  and  distributes 
their  produce.  None  of  the  other  rivers  of  India  comes  near 
to  the  Ganges  in  works  of  beneficence.  The  Brahmaputra  and 
the  Indus  have  longer  streams,  as  measured  by  the  geographer, 
but  their  upper  courses  lie  beyond  the  great  mountain  Avail  in 
the  unknown  recesses  of  the  Himalayas. 

•  Not  one  of  the  rivers  of  Southern  India  is  navigable  in  Thewster- 
the  proper  sense.  The  Ganges  begins  to  distribute  fertility  ^^'^"^''  ^'^-'^ 
by  irrigation  as  soon  as  she  reaches  the  plains,  within  of  Ben-Tal. 
200  miles  of  her  source,  and  at  the  same  time  her  channel 
becomes  in  some  sort  navigable.  Thenceforward  she  rolls 
majestically  down  to  the  sea  in  a  bountiful  stream,  which 
never  becomes  a  merely  destructive  torrent  in  the  rains,  and 
.  never  dwindles  away  in  the  hottest  summer.  Tapped  by 
canals,  she  distributes  millions  of  cubic  feet  of  water  every 
hour  in  irrigation  ;  but  her  diminished  volume  is  promptly 
recruited  by  great  tributaries,  and  the  wide  area  of  her  catch- 
ment basin  renders  her  stream  inexhaustible  in  the  service 
of  man.  Embankments  are  in  but  few  places  required  to 
restrain  her  inundations,  for  the  alluvial  silt  which  she  spills 
over  her  banks  affords  in  most  parts  a  top-dressing  of  inex- 
haustible fertilit3^  If  one  crop  be  drowned  by  the  flood,  the 
peasant  comforts  himself  with  the  thought  that  the  next 
crop  from  his  silt-manured  fields  will  abundantly  requite  him. 
The  function  of  the  Ganges  as  a  land-maker  on  a  great  scale 
will  be  explained  hereafter. 

The  Ganges   has   also   played  a  pre-eminent   part   in   the  The 
commercial  development  of  Northern  India.     Until  the  open-  Ganges 
ing   of  the   railway  system,    1855   to    1S70,    her  magnificent  ^iah^vay 
stream  formed   almost   the   sole   channel   of  traffic   between  ot  Bengal. 
Upper  India  and  the  seaboard.     The  products  not  only  of  the 
river  plains,  but  even  the  cotton  of  the  Central  Provinces,  were 
formerly  brought  by  this  route  to  Calcutta.      Notwithstanding 
the  revolution  caused  by  the  railways,  the  heavier  and  more 


20  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  IXDIA. 

bulky  staples  are  still  conveyed  by  the  river,  and  the  Ganges 

may  yet  rank  as  one  of  the  greatest  waterways  in  the  world. 

Traffic  The   upward   and    downward    trade   of  the   interior  with 

en  the         Calcutta  alone,    by   the    Gangetic    channels,    was    valued  in 

.angei.       ^^^^  ^^  ^^^^  ^^  millions  sterling.     This  is  exclusive  of  the 

sea-borne  commerce.     At  Bamanghata,  on  one  of  the  canals 

east    of  Calcutta,    178,627    cargo    boats   were    registered    in 

1S76-77;  at  Hiigli,  a  river-side    station    on    a  single  one  of 

the   many   Gangetic    mouths,    124,357;   and    at    Patna,    550 

miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  river,  the  number  of  cargo  boats 

entered  in  the  register  was  61,571.     The  port  of  Calcutta  is 

itself  one  of  the   world's  greatest  emporia  for  sea  and  river 

borne  commerce.     Its  total  exports  and  imports  landward  and 

seaward  amounted  in  1881  to  about  140  millions  sterling. 

Articles  of  Euroioean  commerce,  such  as  wheat,  indigo,  cotton, 
opium,  and  saltpetre,  ])refer  the  railway  ;  so  also  do  the  imports 
Not  of  Manchester  piece-goods.      But  if  we  take  into  account  the 

dimmi.-,hed  ^,^^^  development  in  the  export  trade  of  oil-seeds,  rice,  etc., 
railway.      Still  carried  by  the  river,  and  the  growing  interchange  of  food- 
grains  between  various  parts  of  the  country,  it  seems  probable 
that  the  actual  amount  of  traffic  on  the  (langes  has  increased 
rather   than    diminished  since    the   opening   of  the   railways. 
At  well-chosen  points  along  her  course,  the  iron  lines  touch 
the  banks,  and  these  river-side  stations  form  centres  for  col- 
lecting   and  distributing    the    produce    of   the    surrounding 
country.      The  Ganges,  therefore,  is  not  merely  a  rival,  but  a 
feeder,  of  the  railway.     Her  ancient  cities,  such  as  Allahabad, 
Benares,  and  Patna,  have  thus  been  able  to  preserve  their 
former  importance  ;  while  fishing  villages  like  Sahirgaxj  and 
GOALANDA  have  been  raised  into  thriving  river  marts. 
The  great        For,  unlike  the  Indus  and  the  Brahmaputra,  the  (ianges  is  a 
Gangetic     ^.j       of  sfreat  historic  cities.     Calcuita,  Patna,  and  Benares 

cities.  ° 

are  built  on  her  banks  ;  Agra  and  Delhi  on  those  of  her 
tributary,  the  Jumna  ;  and  Allahabad  on  the  tongue  of  land 
where  the  two  sister  streams  unite.  Many  millions  of  human 
Calcutta,  beings  live  by  commerce  along  her  margin.  Calcutta,  with 
its  suburbs  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  contains  a  popula- 
tion of  over  I  of  a  million.  It  has  a  municijjal  revenue  of 
^^270,000  to  ^290,000:  a  seaTborne  and  coasting  commerce 
of  about  65  millions  sterling,  with  a  landward  trade  of  75 
millions  sterling.  These  figures  vary  from  year  to  year,  but 
show  a  steady  increase.  Calcutta  lies  on  the  Huuli,  the 
most  westerly  of  the  mouths  by  which  the  Ganges  enters  the 
sea.      To  the  eastwards  stretches  the  delta,  till  it  is  hemmed 


THE  LIFE  OF  AN  EXDLIN  RIVER.  21 

in  on  the  other  side  by  the  Mkchna,  the  most  easterly  of  the 
mouths  of  the  Ganges  ;  or  rather  the  vast  estuary  by  which 
the  combined  waters  of  the  Brahmaputra  and  Gangetic  river 
systems  find  their  way  into  the  Bay  of  Bengal. 

In  order,  therefore,  to  understand  the  plains  of  Northern  The  part 
India,  we  must  have  a  clear  idea  of  the  part  played  by  the  P'^y^fi '^y 
great  rivers  ;  for  the  rivers  first  create  the  land,  then  fertilize  rivers, 
it,  and  finally  distribute  its  produce.     The  plains  of  Bengal 
were  in  many  parts  upheaved  by  volcanic  forces,  or  deposited 
in  an  aqueous  era,  before  the  present  race  of  man  appeared. 
But  in  other  parts  they  have  been  fornied  out  of  the  silt  which  the 
rivers  bringdown  from  the  mountains;  and  at  this  day  we  may 
stand  by  and  watch  the  ancient  process  of  land-making  go  on. 

A  great    Indian   river  like  the   Ganges  has   three  distinct  Three 
stages   in   its    career    from    the    Himalayas   to   the   sea.     In  ^l^s^'^.-i.'" 
the  first  stage  of  its  course,  it  dashes  down  the  Hinicalayas,  a  river, 
cutting  out  for  itself  deep  gullies  in  the  solid  rock,  ploughing  First 
up  glens  between  the  mountains,  and  denuding  the  hillsides  ^^^S^^ ; 
of  their  soil.     In  wading  over  the  Sutlej  feeders  among  the 
hills  in  the  rainy  season,  the  ankles  are  sore  from  the  pebbles 
which  the  stream  carries  with  it ;  while  even  in  the  hot  weather, 
the  rushing  sand  and  gravel  cause  a  prickly  sensation  across 
the  feet. 

The  second  stage  in  the  life  of  an  Indian  river  begins  at  the  Second 
point  where  it  emerges  from  the  mountains  upon  the  plains,  ^^tage. 
It  then  runs  peacefully  along  the  valleys,  searching  out 
for  itself  the  lowest  levels.  It  receives  the  drainage  and 
mud  of  the  country  on  both  sides,  absorbs  tributaries,  and 
rolls  forward  with  an  ever-increasing  volume  of  water  and 
silt.  Every  torrent  from  the  Himalayas  brings  its  separate 
contribution  of  new  soil,  which  it  has  torn  from  the  rocks  or 
eroded  from  its  banks.  This  process  repeats  itself  through- 
out more  than  ten  thousand  miles  ;  that  is  to  say,  down  the 
course  of  each  tributary  from  the  Himalayas  or  Vindhyas, 
and  across  the  plains  of  Northern  India.  During  the  second 
stage  of  the  life  of  a  Bengal  river,  therefore,  it  forms  a  great 
open  drain,  which  gradually  deepens  itself  by  erosion  of  its 
channel.  As  its  bed  thus  sinks  lower  and  lower,  it  draws  off 
the  water  from  swamps  or  lakes  in  the  surrounding  country. 
Dry  land  takes  the  place  of  fens ;  and  in  this  way  the  physical 
configuration  of  Northern  India  has  been  greatly  altered,  even 
since  the  Greek  descriptions  2000  years  ago. 

As  long  as  the  force  of  the  current  is   maintained   by  a 


2  2  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

First  and  sufficient  fall  per  mile,  the  river  carries  forward  the  silt  thus 

stages  of  supplied,  and  adds  to  it  fresh  contributions  from  its  banks, 

a  great  Each  river  acquires  a  character  of  its  own  as  it  advances,  a 

river,  as  character  which  tells  the  story  of  its  early  life.      Thus,  the 

a  silt-cul-  .  .  .  ^  ^  ,         M    1 

lector.         Indus  IS  loaded  with  silt  of  a  brown  hue  ;  the  Chenab  has  a 

reddish  tinge  ;  while  the  Sutlej  is  of  a  paler  colour.    The  exact 

amount  of  fall  required  per  mile  depends  upon  the  specific 

gravity  of  the  silt  which  it  carries.      At  a  comparatively  early 

stage,  the  current  drops  the  heavy  particles  of  rock  or  sand 

which  it  has  torn  from  the  Himalayan  precipices.      But  a  fall 

of  5  inches  per  mile  suffices  to  hold  in  suspension  the  great 

body  of  the   silt,  and    to  add  further  accretions    in  passing 

through    alluvial   plains.       The    average   fall  of  the   Ganges 

between  Benares  and  the  delta-head  (about  461  miles)  is  nearly 

5  inches  per  mile.     In  its  upper  course  its  average  declivity  is 

much  greater,  and  suffices  to  bear  along  and   pulverize  the 

heavier  spoils  torn  from  the  Himalayas. 

Loss  of  By  the  time  the  Ganges  reaches  its  delta  in  Lower  Bengal 

carrying      (Colgong  to  Calcutta),  its  average  fall  per  mile  has  dropped 

^'"  ^''        to  4  inches.      From   Calcutta  to    the  sea  the  fall  varies   in 

the  numerous  distributaries  of  the  parent  stream,  according  to 

the  tide,  from  i  to  2  inches.     In  the  delta  the  current  seldom 

suffices  to  carry  the  burden  of  its  silt,  except  during  the  rains, 

and  so  deposits  it^ 

Third  In  Lower  Bengal,  therefore,  the  Ganges  enters  on  the  third 

stage  of      stage  of  its  life.     Finding  its  speed  checked  by  the  equal  level 

of  the  plains,  and  its  bed  raised  by  the  deposit  of  its  own  silt, 

and-        it    splits   out    into   channels,    like   a   jet   of  water    suddenly 

obstructed  by  the  finger,   or  a  jar  of  liquid  dashed  on  the 

ground.     Each  of  the  new  streams  thus  created  throws  out  in 

turn   its  own    set    of  distributaries  to  right   and   left.      The 

country  which  their  many  offshoots  enclose  and  intersect  forms 

^  The  following  facts  may  be  useful  to  observers  in  Bengal  who  wish  to 
study  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  country  in  which  they  live, 
namely  the  rivers.  Ten  inches  per  mile  is  considered  to  be  the  fall  which 
a  navigable  river  should  not  exceed.  The  average  fall  of  the  Ganges  from  the 
point  where  it  unites  with  the  Jumna  at  Allahabad  to  Benares  (139  miles), 
is  6  inches  per  mile  ;  from  Benares  to  Colgong  (326  miles),  5  inclies  per  mile  ; 
from  Colgong  to  the  delta-head,  where  the  Bhagirathi  strikes  off  (about 
135  miles),  4  inches  per  mile  ;  from  the  delta-head  to  Calcutta  (about  200 
miles),  also  4  inches  per  mile  ;  from  Calcutta  to  the  sea  via  the  Hugli 
(about  80  miles),  I  to  2  inches  per  mile,  according  to  the  tide.  The  fall 
of  the  Nile  from  the  first  Cataract  to  Cairo  (555  miles),  is  6|  inches  per 
mile  ;  from  Cairo  to  the  sea,  it  is  very  much  less.  The  fall  of  the  Missis- 
sippi for  the  first  hundred  miles  from  its  mouth,  is  i'8o  inch  per  mile; 
for  the  second   hundred   miles,   2  inches;   for  the   third    hundred,    2'30 


river. 


maker, 


DELTAIC  CHANNELS  OF  GANGES. 


23 


the  delta  of  Benizal.     The  present  delta  of  the  Ganges  may  be  The  delta 

.  .,        ^  .  of  Bengal, 

taken  to  commence  at  a  pomt  1231   miles  from  its  source, 

and  326  from  the  sea  by  its  longest  channel.     At  that  point 

the   head-waters  of   the    Hugh'    break   off,    under   the  name 

of  the  Bhagi'rathi,  from  the  j)arent  channel,  and  make  their 

way  south  to  the  sea.     The  main  volume  of  the  Ganges  pursues 

its  course  to  the  south-east,  and  a  great  triangle  of  land,  with 

its  southern  base  on  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  is  thus  enclosed. 

Between  the  Hugh'  on  the  west  and  the  main  channel  on  The 

the  east,  a  succession  of  offshoots  strike  southward  from  the  'i^^ij^j'i'j^. 

Ganges.      The    network    of  streams  struggle   slowly  seaward  tarics; 

over  the  level  delta.     Their  currents  are  no  longer  able,  by 

reason  of  their  diminished  speed,  to  carry  along  the  silt  or 

sand   which  the  more  rapid  parent  river  has  brought  down 

from  Northern  India.     They  accordingly  drop  their  burden  of 

silt    in    their    channels    or    along    their    margins,    producing  how  they 

almond-shaped   islands,    and  by  degrees  raising  their  banks  ■^^^\^^ 

and  channels  above  the  surrounding  plains.     When  they  spill  above  sur- 

over  in  time  of  flood,  the  largest  amount  of  silt  is  deposited  ^'^""j,'"'^ 

on  their  banks,  or  near  them  on  the  inland  side.     In  this  way 

not  only  their  beds,  but  also  the  lands  along  their  banks,  are 

gradually  raised. 

Section  of  a  Deltaic  Channel  of  the  Ganges. 


a.  The  river  channel :  ^  <5  the  two  banks  raised  by  successive  deposits  of  silt  from  the 
spill-water  in  time  of  flood  ;  c  c.  the  surface  of  the  water  when  not  in  flood  ;  d  d.  the  low- 
lying  swamps  stretching  away  from  either  bank,  into  which  the  river  flows  when  it  spills 
over  its  banks  in  time  of  flood;  e  e.  the  dotted  lines  represent  the  ordinary  level  of  the 
river  surface. 

inches;  for  the  fourth  hundred,  2-57  inches;  and  for  the  whole  section 
i.f  855  miles  from  the  mouth  to  Memphis,  the  averaje  fall  is  given  as  4.^ 
inches  to  the  mile. 

The  following  table,  calculated  by  ISIr.  David  Stevenson  [Canal  ami 
River  Engineering,  p.  315),  shows  the  silt-carrying  power  of  rivers  at  various 
velocities  : — 

Inches  Mile  per 

per  Second.  Hour. 

^         =         o'ljo    will  just  begin  to  work  on  hne  clay. 

6         =         0'340    ^^ill  l^ft  fine  sand. 

8         =         o  4545  will  lift  sand  as  coarse  as  linseed. 
12  =         0-6819  will  sweep  along  fine  gravel. 

24         =  I  "3638  will  roll  along  rounded  pebbles  I  inch  in  diameter. 

36         =         2  045    will  sweep  along  shpperj'  angidar  stones  of  the 
size  of  an  egu;. 


24  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

Delta  The  rivers  of  a  delta  thus  build  themselves  up,  as  it  were, 

theiiiselves  ^'^^°  high-level  canals,  which  in  the  rainy  season  overflow  iheir 

up  into       banks  and  leave  their  silt  upon  the  low  country  on  either  side. 

liigh-level   Thousands  of  square  miles  in  Lower  Bengal  receive  in  this  way 
canals.  '  .  ...  . 

each  summer  a  top-dressmg  of  new  soil,  carried  free  of  cost 

for  more  than  a  thousand  miles  by  the  river  currents  from 
Northern  India  or  the  still  more  distant  Himalayas— -a  system  of 
natural  manuringwhich  yields  a  constant  succession  of  richcrops. 
Junction         At  Goalanda,  about  half-way  between  the  delta-head  and 
iJrahma-  '  ^^^^   ^^'^■>    ^^   Ganges    unites    with    the   main   stream    of  the 
))utra,  and  Brahmaputra,  and  farther  down  with  the  Meghna.     Their  com- 
-  egina.     i^j^ed  waters  exhibit  deltaic  operations  on  the  most  gigantic 
scale.      They   represent   the   drainage   collected  by  the   two 
vast  river  systems  of  the  Ganges  and  the  Brahmaputra,  from 
an  aggregate  catchment  basin  of  752,000  square  miles  on  both 
sides  of  the  Himalayas,  together  with  the  rainfall  poured  into 
the  Meghna  from  the  eastern  Burmese  watershed. 
Their  The  forces  thus  brought  into  play  defy  the  control  even  of 

com  jinei    niodem  engineering.     As  the  vast  network  of  rivers  creeps 
farther  down  the  delta,  they  become  more  and  more  sluggish, 
and  raise  their  beds  still  higher  above  the  adjacent  flats.     Each 
set  of  channels  has  a  depressed  tract  or  swamp  on  either  side, 
so  that  the  lowest  levels  in  a  delta  lie  about  half-way  between 
the    rivers.      The    stream    constantly    overflows    into    these 
Deltaic       depressed  tracts,  and  gradually  fills  them  up  with  its  silt.     The 
swamps,      water  which  rushes  from  the  river  into  the  swamps  has  some- 
times the  colour  of  pea-soup,  from  the  quantity  of  silt  which  it 
carries.     When  it  has  stood  a  few  days  in  the  swamps,  and  the 
river  flood  subsides,  the  water  flows  back  from  the  swamps  into 
the  river  channel ;  but  it  has  dropi)ed  all  its  silt,  and  is  of  a 
how  tilled   clear  dark-brown  hue.     The  silt  remains  in  the  swamp,  and  by 
up  by  silt,  (degrees  fills  it  up,  thus  slowly  creating  new  land.     The  muddy 
fohage  of  the  trees  which  have  been  submerged  bears  witness 
to  the  fresh  deposit.     As  we  shall  presently  see,  buried  roots 
and  decayed  stumps  are  found  at  great  depths ;  while  nearer 
the  top  the  excavator  comes  upon  the  remains  of  old  tanks, 
broken  pottery,  and  other  traces  of  human  habitations,  which 
within  historic  times  were  above  the  ground. 
Last  scene      The  last  scene  in  the  life  of  an  Indian  river  is  a  wilderness 
of  an      ^    °^  forest  and  swamp  at  the  end  of  the  delta,   amid   whose 
Indian        malarious  solitude  the  network  of  tidal  creeks  merges  into  the 
'^'^^'^'  sea.     Here  all   the  secrets   of  land -making  stand  disclosed. 

The  river  channels,  finally  checked  by  the  dead  weight  of  the 
sea,    deposit    most    of   their    remaining    silt,    which   emerges 


THE  DELTA  OF  BENGAL.  25 

from  the  estuary  as  banks  or  blunted  headlands.     The  ocean 
currents  also  find  themselves  impeded  by  the  outflow  from  the 
rivers,  and  in  their  turn  drop  the  burden  of  sand  which  they 
sweep  along  the  coast.     The  two  causes  combine  to  build  up 
breakwaters  of  mingled   sand  and  mud  along  the  foreshore. 
In  this  way,  while  the  solid  earth  gradually  grows  outward  into  Laml- 
the  sea,  owing  to  the  deposits  of  river  silt ;  peninsulas  and  !"^'|^'"^ 
islands  are  formed  around  the  river  mouths  from  the  sand  estuary. 
dropped  by  the  ocean  currents  ;  and  a  double  process  of  land- 
making  goes  on. 

The  great  Indian  rivers,  therefore,  have  not  only  supplied 
new  solid  ground  by  draining  off  the  water  irom  neighbouring 
lakes  and  marshes  in  their  upper  courses,  and  by  depositing 
islands  in  their  beds  lower  down.     They  are  also  constantly 
filling  up  the  low-lying  tracts  or  swamps  in  their  deltas,  and 
are  forming  banks  and  capes  and  masses  of  low-lying  land  at 
their    mouths.      Indeed,    they    slowly   construct    their   entire 
deltas  by  driving  back  the  sea.     Lower  Egypt  was  thus  'the  Egypt,  tlie 
gift  of  the  Nile,'  according  to  her  priests  in  the  age  of  Hero-  ^1^^'^-"^  • 
dotus;    and  the  vast   Province  of  Lower    Bengal   is   in  the 
strictest  scientific  sense  the  gift  of  the  Ganges,  the  Brahma-  liengnl, 
putra,   and   the   Meghna.      The   deltas    of  these   three   river  [^(■'^fj^g'"  ' 
systems   are   in  modern   times    united    into   one,    but    three  Ganges.' 
distinct   delta-heads  are   observable.      The  delta-head  of  the 
Brahmaputra   commences    near    the    bend    where   the    river 
now  twists  due  south  round  the  Garo  Hills,  220  miles  from 
the  sea  as   the  crow  flies.      The   present  delta-head  of  the 
Ganges  begins  at  the  point  where  the  Bhagi'rathi  breaks  south- 
ward from  the  main  channel,  also  about  220  miles  in  a  direct 
line  from  the  sea.     The  delta  of  the  Meghna,  which  represents 
the  heavy  southern  rainfall  of  the  Khasi  Hills  together  with 
the  western  drainage  of  the  watershed  between  Bengal   and 
Independent  Burma,  commences  in  Sylhet  District. 

The  three  deltas,  instead  of  each  forming  a  triangle  like  the  Size  of  tlie 
Greek  A,  unite  to  make  an  irregular  parallelogram,  running  I^engal 
inland  220  miles  from  the  coast,  with  an  average  breadth  also  of 
about  220  miles.  This  vast  alluvial  basin  of  say  50,000  square 
miles  was  once  covered  with  the  sea,  and  it  has  been  slowly 
filled  up  to  the  height  of  at  least  400  feet  by  the  deposits  which 
the  rivers  have  brought  down.  In  other  words,  the  united  river 
systems  of  the  Ganges,  Brahmaputra,  and  Meghna  have  torn 
away  from  the  Himalayas  and  North-eastern  Bengal  enough 
earth  to  build  up  a  lofty  island,  with  an  area  of  50,000  square 
miles,  and  a  height  of  400  feet. 


26  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

Successive  Care  has  been  taken  not  to  overstate  the  work  loerformed  by 
sions  of  ''^^  Bengal  rivers.  Borings  have  been  carried  down  to  48 1  feet  at 
the  delta.  Calcutta,  but  the  auger  broke  at  that  depth,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  say  how  much  farther  the  alluvial  deposits  may  go.  There 
seem  to  have  been  successive  eras  of  vegetation,  followed  by 
repeated  depressions  of  the  surface.  These  successive  eras  of 
vegetation  now  form  layers  of  stumps  of  trees,  peat-beds,  and 
carbonized  wood.  Passing  below  traces  of  recently  submerged 
forests,  a  well  -  marked  peat  -  bed  is  found  in  excavations 
around  Calcutta  at  a  depth  varying  from  20  to  30  feet ;  and 
decayed  wood,  with  pieces  of  fine  coal,  such  as  occur  in 
mountain  streams,  has  been  met  with  at  a  depth  of  392  feet. 
Fossilized  remains  of  animal  life  have  been  brought  uj) 
from  372  feet  below  the  present  surface.  The  footnote^ 
illustrates  the  successive  layers  of  the  vast  and  lofty  island, 
so  to  speak,  which  the  rivers  have  built  up — an  island  with 
an  area  of  50,000  square  miles,  and  400  feet  high  from  its 
foundation,  although  at  places  only  a  few  inches  above  sea-level. 

Its  subter-      1  'Abstract  Report  of  Proceedings  of  Committee  appointed  to  superin- 
ranean  je^id  the  Borings  at  Fort-William,  December   1835  to  April  1840.'     'After 

striicaue.  penetrating  through  the  surface  soil  to  a  depth  of  about  lO  feet,  a  stratum 
of  stiff  blue  clay,  15  feet  in  thickness,  was  met  with.  Underlying  this 
was  a  light-coloured  sandy  clay,  which  became  gradually  darker  in  colour 
from  the  admixture  of  vegetable  matter,  till  it  passed  into  a  bed  of  peat,  at 
a  distance  of  about  30  feet  from  the  surface.  Beds  of  clay  and  variegaietl 
sand,  intermixed  with  katikar,  mica,  and  small  pebbles,  alternated  to  a 
depth  of  120  feet,  when  the  sand  became  loose  and  almost  semi-fluid  in  its 
texture.  At  152  feet,  the  quicksand  became  darker  in  colour  and  coarser 
in  grain,  intermixed  with  red  water-worn  nodules  of  hydrated  oxide  of  iron, 
resembling  to  a  certain  extent  the  laterite  of  South  India.  At  159  feet,  a 
stiff  clay  with  yellow  veins  occurred,  altering  at  163  leet  remarkably  in 
colour  and  substance,  and  becoming  dark,  friable,  and  apparently  ccui- 
taining  much  vegetable  and  ferruginous  matter.  A  fine  sand  succeeded  at 
170  feet,  and  this  gradually  became  coarser,  and  mixed  with  fragments  of 
quartz  and  felspar,  to  a  depth  of  iSo  feet.  At  196  feet,  clay  impregnated 
with  iron  was  passed  through  ;  and  at  221  feet  sand  recurred,  containing 
fragments  of  limestone  with  nodules  of  kankar  and  pieces  of  quartz  and 
felspar ;  the  same  stratum  continued  to  340  feet  ;  and  at  350  feet  a  fossil 
l)one,  conjectured  to  be  tiie  humerus  of  a  dog,  was  extracted.  At  360  feet, 
a  piece  of  supposed  tortoiseshell  was  found,  and  subsequently  several 
pieces  of  the  same  substance  were  obtained.  At  372  feet,  another  fossil 
bone  was  discovered,  but  it  could  not  be  identified,  from  its  being  torn  and 
broken  by  the  borer.  At  392  feet,  a  few  pieces  of  fine  coal,  such  as  are 
found  in  the  beds  of  mountain  streams,  with  some  fragments  of  decayed 
wood,  were  picked  out  of  the  sand,  and  at  400  feet  a  piece  of  limestone 
was  brought  up.  P'rom  400  to  481  feet,  fine  sand,  like  that  of  the  sea- 
shore, intermixed  largely  with  shingle  composed  of  fragments  of  primary 
rocks,  quartz,  felzpar,  mica,  slate,  and  limestone,  prevailed,  and  in  ihi^ 
stratum  the  bore  has  been  terminateil.' 


<     SIL T  BRO  UGHT  DO  WX  B  V  GAXGES.         2 7 

It  should  be   remembered,  liowever,  that  the   rivers   have  Upiwr 
been    aided    in    their   worlc    by  the    sand  deposited    by   the  'fi',"ishe,i' 
ocean  currents.     But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  alluvial  deposits  by  river 
of  the  Ganges  and  Brahmaputra  commence  far  to  the  north  ^' 
of  the    present    delta-head,    and    have   a   total   area   greatly 
exceeding   the    50,000  square  miles  mentioned  in  a  former 
paragraph.    The  Brahmaputra  has  covered  with  thick  alluvium 
the  valley  of  Assam ;  its  confluent,  the  Meghna,  or  rather  the 
upper  waters  which  ultimately  form  the  Meghna,  have  done 
the  same  fertilizing  task  for  the  valleys  of  Cachar  and  Sylhet ; 
while  the  Ganges,  with  its  mighty  feeders,  has  prepared  for  the 
uses  of  man  thousands  of  square  miles  of  land  in  the  broad 
hollow  between  the  Himalayas  and  the  Vindhyas,  far  to  the 
north-west  of  its  present  delta.     A  large  quantity  of  the  finest 
and  lightest  silt,  moreover,  is  carried  out  to  sea,  and  discolours 
the  Bay  of  Bengal  150  miles  from  the  shore.     The  plains  of 
Bengal  are  truly  the  gift  of  the  great  rivers. 

Several  attempts  have  been  made  to  estimate  the  time  which  Amount 
the   Ganges   and  Brahmaputra    must    have    required  for  ac-°'*''\ 

1  •  J         •     J    brought 

complishing  their  gigantic  task.     The  bormgs  already  cited,  down. 

together  with  an  admirable  account  by  Colonel  Baird  Smith 

in  the  Calcutta  Journal  of  Natural  History^  and  the  Rev. 

Mr.  Everest's  calculations,  form  the  chief  materials  for  such  an 

estimate.    Sir  Charles  Lyell  -  accepts  Mr.  Everest's  calculation, 

made  half  a  century  ago,  that  the  Ganges  discharges  6368 

millions  of  cubic  feet  of  silt  per  annum  at  Ghazipur. 

This  would  alone  suffice  to  supply  355  millions  of  tons  a  year,  Canj^es 

or  nearly  the  weight  of  60  replicas  of  the  Great  Pyramid.     '  It  is  ^''^  ,^^, 

•111  •  1  •    J  Ghazipur. 

scarcely  possible,'  he  says,  '  to  present  any  picture  to  the  mind 

which  will  convey  an  adequate  conception  of  the  mighty  scale 

of  this  operation,  so  tranquilly  and  almost  insensibly  carried 

on  by  the  Ganges.'     About  96  per  cent,  of  the  whole  deposits 

are  brought  down  during  the  four  months  of  the  rainy  season, 

or  as  much  as  could  be  carried  by  240,000  ships,  each  of  1400 

tons  burthen.      The  work  thus  done  in  that  season  may  be 

realized  if  we  suppose  that  a  daily  succession  of  fleets,  each  of 

two  thousand  great  ships,  sailed  down  the  river  during  the  four 

months,  and  that  each  ship  of  the  daily  2000  vessels  deposited 

a  freight  of  1400  tons  of  mud  every  morning  into  the  estuary. 

'  Vol.  i.  p.  324.  The  other  authorities,  chiefly  from  the  Journal  of  the 
Bengal  Asiatic  Society,  are  fully  quoted  in  the  Geology  of  Jmlia,  by  Messrs. 
Medlicott  and  Blanfoid,  vol.  i.  pp.  396  et  scq.  (Calcutta  Government  Press, 

1879). 
-  Principles  of  Geology,  vol.  i.  pp.  47S  et  scq.  (1S75). 


28  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

Estimate<l  But  the  Ganges  at  Ghazipur  is  only  a  single  feeder  of  the 
united  niighty  mass  of  waters  which  have  formed  the  delta  of  Bengal, 
river  The    Ganges,  after    leaving   Ghazipur,   receives   many  of  its 

the  fHu  P''''''cipal  tributaries,  such  as  the  Gogra,  the  Son,  the  Gandak, 
and  the  Kusi.  It  then  unites  with  the  Brahmaputra,  and 
finally  with  the  Meghna,  and  the  total  mass  of  mud  brought 
down  by  these  combined  river  systems  is  estimated  by  Sir 
Charles  T>yell  to  be  at  least  six  or  seven  times  as  much  as  that 
discharged  by  the  Ganges  alone  at  Ghazipur.  We  have  there- 
fore, at  the  lowest  estimate,  about  40,000  millions  of  cubic  feet 
of  solid  matter  spread  over  the  delta,  or  deposited  at  the  river 
mouths,  or  carried  out  to  sea,  each  year  ;  according  to  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  five  times  as  much  as  is  conveyed  by  the 
Mississippi  to  its  delta  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  silt  borne 
along  during  the  rainy  season  alone  represents  the  work  which 
a  daily  succession  of  fleets,  each  of  15,000  ships  a-piece,  sailing 
down  the  Ganges  during  the  four  rainy  months  would  perform, 
if  each  ship  of  the  daily  13,000  vessels  discharged  a  freight  of 
1400  tons  a-piece  each  morning  into  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  This 
vast  accumulation  of  silt  takes  place  every  rainy  season  in  the 
delta  or  around  the  mouths  of  the  Ganges  ;  and  the  process, 
modified  by  volcanic  upheavals  and  depressions  of  the  delta, 
has  been  going  on  during  uncounted  thousands  of  years. 
Time  General  Strachey  took  the  area  of  the  delta  and  coast-line 

re.juired      ^vithin  influence  of  the  deposits  at  615,000  square  miles,  and 

Ijv  rivers  to        .  .  .  .        . 

c.nstruct  estunated  that  the  rivers  would  require  45"3  years  to  raise  it 
the  deha.  by  I  foot,  even  by  their  enormous  deposit  of  40,000  millions 
of  cubic  feet  of  solid  earth  per  annum.  The  rivers  must  have 
been  at  work  13,600  years  in  building  up  the  delta  300  feet. 
But  borings  have  brought  up  fiuvial  deposits  from  a  depth  of 
at  least  400  feet.  The  present  delta  forms,  moreover,  but  a 
very  small  part  of  the  vast  alluvial  area  which  the  rivers  have 
constructed  in  the  great  dip  between  the  Himalayas  and  the 
Vindhyan  mountains.  The  more  closely  we  scrutinize  the 
various  elements  in  such  estimates,  the  more  vividly  do  we 
realize  ourselves  in  the  presence  of  an  almost  immeasurable 
labour  carried  on  during  an  almost  immeasurable  past. 
Kiver  '-Ihe  land  which  the  great  Indian  rivers  thus  create,  they  also 

irrigation,  fertilize.  Ill  the  lower  parts  of  their  course  we  have  seen 
how  their  overflow  affords  a  natural  system  of  irrigation  and 
manuring.  In  the  higher  parts,  man  has  to  step  in,  and  to 
bring  their  water  by  canals  to  his  fields.  Some  idea  of  the 
enormous  irrigation  enterprises  of  Northern  India  may  be 
obtained  in  the  four  articles  in   The  Imperial  Gazetteer  on  the 


GANGES  AND  JUMNA  CANALS.  29 

Ganges  and  Jumna  canals.  The  Ganges  Canal  had,  in  1883, 
a  length  of  445  miles,  with  3428  miles  of  distributaries  ;  an 
irrigated  area  of  856,035  acres  (including  both  autumn  and 
spring  crops) ;  and  a  revenue  of  ^279,449,  on  a  total  outlay 
of  2|  millions  sterling  (p{^2, 767,538  to  1883).  The  Lower 
Ganges  Canal  will  bring  under  irrigation  nearly  i^  million 
acres  (including  both  autumn  and  spring  crops).  It  has 
already  (1882-83)  a  main  channel  of  556  miles,  with  199 1 
miles  of  distributaries  ;  an  irrigated  area  of  606,017  ^.cres  ;  and 
a  clear  revenue  of  ^107,000,  or  4- 13  per  cent,  on  the  total 
outlay  up  to  1883  (^2,589,624).  The  Eastern  Jumna  Canal 
has  a  length  of  130  miles,  with  618  miles  of  main  distribu- 
taries. In  1883,  the  total  distributaries  aggregated  nearly 
900  miles,  with  an  irrigated  area  of  240,233  acres;  and  a 
revenue  of  ^82,665,  or  28*4  percent,  on  the  total  outlay  to 
that  year  (^290,839).  The  Western  Jumna  Canal  measures 
433  miles,  with  an  aggregate  of  259  miles  of  distributing 
channels,  besides  private  watercourses,  irrigating  an  area  of 
374,243  acres  ;  with  a  revenue  of  ^74,606,  or  8-4  per  cent,  on 
a  capital  outlay  to  1883  of  ;^8S4,952.  The  four  Ganges  and 
Jumna  Canals,  therefore,  already  irrigate  an  aggregate  area 
of  over  two  million  acres,  and  will  eventually  irrigate  over 
three  millions.  Among  many  other  irrigation  enterprises  in 
Upper  India  are  the  Agra,  Bari  Doab,  Rohilkhand  and  Bijnor, 
Betwa,  and  the  Sutlej-Chenab  and  Indus  Inundation  Canals. 

The  Indian  rivers  form,  moreover,  as  we  have  seen,  the  great  The  Rivers 
highways  of  the  country.     They  supply  cheap  transit  for  the  ^^  ^'•''''^' 
collection,  distribution,  and  export  of  the  agricultural  staples. 
AVhat  the  arteries  are  to  the  living  body,  the  rivers  are  to  the 
plains  of  Bengal.     But  the  very  potency  of  their  energy  some-  The  Rivers 
times  causes  terrible  calamities.     Scarcely  a  year  passes  without  ^*  '^^' 
floods,  which  sweep  off  cattle  and  grain  stores  and  the  thatched  ^  '°^^'"'"" 
cottages,  with  anxious  families  perched  on  their  roofs. 

In  their  upper  courses,  where  their  water  is  carried  by 
canals  to  the  fields,  the  rich  irrigated  lands  breed  fever,  and 
are  in  places  rendered  sterile  by  a  saline  crust  called  reh. 
Farther  down,  the  uncontrollable  rivers  wriggle  across  the  face 
of  the  country,  deserting  their  old  beds,  and  searching  out  new 
channels  for  themselves,  sometimes  at  a  distance  of  many  miles. 
Their  old  banks,  clothed  with  trees  and  dotted  along  their 
route  with  villages,  run  like  high  ridges  through  die  level 
rice-fields,  and  mark  the  deserted  course  of  the  river. 

It  has  been  shown  how  the  Brahmaputra  deserted  its  main 
channel  of  the  last  century,  and  now  rushes  to  the  sea  by  a 


30  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  PYDIA. 

Changes  new  course,  far  to  the  westwards.  Such  changes  are  on  so 
beds.^  '  '^'^^^  ^  scale,  and  the  eroding  power  of  the  current  is  so  irre- 
sistible, that  it  is  perilous  to  build  large  or  permanent  structures 
on  the  margin.  The  ancient  sacred  stream  of  the  Ganges  is 
now  a  dead  river,  which  ran  through  the  Districts  of  Hiigli 
and  the  24  Parganas.  Its  course  is  marked  by  a  line  of  tanks 
and  muddy  pools,  with  temples,  shrines,  and  burning  ghats 
along  high  banks  overlooking  its  deserted  bed. 
Deserted  Many  decayed  or  ruined  cities  attest  the  alterations  in  river- 
capitals  beds  within  historic  times.  In  our  own  days,  the  Ganges 
passed  close  under  Rajmahal,  and  that  town,  once  the  Muhani- 
madan  capital  of  Bengal,  was  (1S50-55)  selected  as  the  spot 
where  the  railway  sliould  tap  the  river  system.  The  Ganges 
•  has  now  turned  away  in  a  different  direction,  and  left  the  town 
high  and  drj-,  7  miles  from  the  bank.  In  1787-88,  the  Tista, 
a  great  river  of  Northern  Bengal,  broke  away  from  its  ancient 
bed.  The  Atrai,  or  the  old  channel,  by  which  the  Tista 
waters  found  their  way  into  the  Ganges,  has  dwindled  into  a  petty 
stream,  which,  in  the  dry  weather,  just  suffices  for  boats  of  2 
tons  burthen  ;  while  the  Tista  has  branched  to  the  eastwards, 
and  now  pours  into  the  Brahmaputra.  In  1870,  the  Ravi,  one  of 
the  Five  Rivers  of  the  Punjab,  carried  away  the  famous  shrine 
of  the  Sikhs  near  Dera  Xanak,  and  still  threatens  the  town. 

If  we  go  back  to  a  more  remote  period,  we  find  that  the 
whole  ancient  geography  of  India  is  obscured  by  changes  in 
the  courses  of  the  rivers.  Thus,  Hastinapur,  the  Gangetic 
capital  of  the  Pandavas,  in  the  Mahabharata,  is  with  difficulty 
identified  in  a  dried-up  bed  of  the  Ganges,  57  miles  north- 
east of  the  present  Delhi.  The  once  splendid  capital  of 
Kaxauj,  which  also  lay  upon  the  Ganges,  now  moulders  in 
desolation  4  miles  away  from  the  modern  river-bank.  The 
remnant  of  its  inhabitants  live  for  the  most  part  in  huts  built 
up  against  the  ancient  walls. 

A  similar  fate  on  a  small  scale  has  befallen  Kushtia,  the 
river  terminus  of  the  Eastern  Bengal  Railway.  The  channel 
silted  up  (1860-70),  and  the  terminus  had  to  be  removed  to 
Goalanda,  farther  down  the  river.  On  the  Hugli  river  ^  a 
succession  of  emporia  and  river-capitals  have  been  ruined  from 
the  same  cause,  and  engineering  efforts  are  required  to  secure 
the  permanence  of  Calcutta  as  a  great  port. 
The  [>orc  An  idea  of  the  forces  at  work  may  be  derived  from  a  single 

well-known  phenomenon  of  the  Hiigli  and  the  Meghna,  the 
tore.     The  tide  advances  up  their  broad  estuaries  until  checked 
^  See  article  Hcgli  River,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


THE  RIVERS  AS  DESTROYERS.  31 

by  a  rapid  contraction  of  the  channel.  The  obstructed  influx, 
no  longer  able  to  spread  itself  out,  rises  into  a  wall  of 
waters  from  5  to  30  feet  in  height,  which  rushes  onwards  at  a 
rate  nearly  double  that  of  a  stage-coach.  Rennel  stated  that 
the  Hiigli  bore  ran  from  Hiigli  Point  to  Hiigli  Town,  a 
distance  of  about  70  miles,  in  four  hours.  The  native  boatmen 
fly  from  the  bank  (against  which  their  craft  would  otherwise 
be  dashed)  into  the  broad  mid-channel  when  they  hear  its 
approaching  roar.  The  bore  of  the  Meghna  is  so  '  terrific 
and  dangerous  '  that  no  boat  will  venture  down  certain  of  the 
channels  at  spring-tide. 

The  Indian  rivers  not  only  desert  the  cities  on  their  banks,  iiamlets 
but  they  sometimes  tear  them  away.  Many  a  hamlet  and  ^o'"  ^.way. 
rice-field  and  ancient  grove  of  trees  is  remorselessly  eaten  up 
each  autumn  by  the  current.  A  Bengal  proprietor  has  often 
to  look  on  helplessly  while  his  estate  is  being  swept  away,  or 
converted  into  the  bed  of  a  broad,  deep  river.  An  important 
branch  of  Indian  legislation  deals  with  the  proprietary  changes 
thus  caused  by  alluvion  and  diluvion. 

The  rivers  have  a  tendency  to  straighten  themselves  out.  River- 
Their  course  consists  of  a  series  of  bends,  in  each  of  which  the  windintjs. 
current  sets  against  one  bank,  which  it  undermines  ;  while  it 
leaves  still  water  on  the  other  bank,  in  which  new  deposits  of 
land  take  place.  By  degrees  these  twists  become  sharper  and 
sharper,  until  the  intervening  land  is  almost  worn  away,  leaving 
only  a  narrow  tongue  between  the  bends.  The  river  finally 
bursts  through  the  slender  strip  of  soil,  or  a  canal  is  cut  across 
it  by  human  agency,  and  direct  communication  is  thus  estab- 
lished between  points  formerly  many  miles  distant  by  the 
windings  of  the  river.  This  process  of  eating  away  soil  from 
the  one  bank,  against  which  the  current  sets,  and  depositing 
silt  in  the  still  water  along  the  other  bank,  is  constantly  at 
work.  Even  in  their  quiet  moods,  therefore,  the  rivers  steadily 
steal  land  from  the  old  owners,  and  give  it  to  new  ones. 

During  the  rains  these  forces  work  with  uncontrollable  fury,  a  railway 
We  have  mentioned  that  the  first  terminus  of  the  Eastern  Bengal  ^'^"■minus 

S\VC])l 

Railway  at  Kushtia  had  been  partially  deserted  by  the  Ganges,  away. 
Its  new  terminus  at  Goalanda  has  suffered  from  an  opposite 
but  equally  disastrous  accident.  Up  to  1S75,  the  Goalanda 
station  stood  upon  a  massive  embankment  near  the  water's 
edge,  protected  by  masonry  spurs  running  out  to  the  river. 
About  ^130,000  had  been  spent  upon  these  protective  works, 
and  it  was  hoped  that  engineering  skill  had  conquered  the 
violence  of   the   Gangetic   floods.     But  in  August  1S75,  the 


32  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

solid  masonry  spurs,  the  railway  station,  and  the  magistrate's 
court,  were  all  swept  away ;  and  deep  water  covered  their 
site,  A  new  Goalanda  terminus  had  to  be  erected  two  miles 
inland  from  the  former  river-bank.  Higher  up  the  Ganges, 
fluvial  changes  on  so  great  a  scale  have  been  encountered  at 
the  river-crossing,  where  the  Northern  Bengal  Railway  begins 
and  the  Eastern  Bengal  Railway  ends,  that  no  costly  or  per- 
manent terminus  has  yet  been  attempted.  Throughout  the 
long  courses  of  the  Ganges  and  Brahmaputra,  the  mighty 
currents  each  autumn  undermine  and  then  rend  away  many 
thousand  acres  of  solid  land.  They  afterwards  deposit  their 
spoil  in  their  channels  farther  down,  and  thus,  as  has  been 
shown,  leave  high  and  dry  in  ruin  many  an  ancient  city  on 
their  banks. 
Toetry  of  Their  work,  however,  is  on  the  whole  beneficent ;  and  a 
Indian        poem  of  Ossian  misrht  be  made  out  of  the  names  which  the 

river-  '        .  ~  . 

names.  Indian  peasant  applies  to  his  beloved  rivers.  Thus,  we  have 
the  Goddess  of  Flowing  Speech  {Sarastuati),  or,  according  to 
another  derivation,  the  River  of  Pools ;  the  Streak  of  Gold 
{Suvarna-reklid)  \  the  Glancing  Waters  {Chitra);  the  Dark 
Channel  {Kala-tiadi),  or  the  Queen  of  Death  {Kdli-nadi) ;  the 
vSinless  One  (Pdpagini  =  Pdpahini)  ;  the  Arrowy  (S/iam7'i7ii)  ; 
the  Golden  iSuvarnaniat'i) ;  the  Stream  at  which  the  Deer 
Drinks  {Haringhdta);  the  Forest  Hope  {Bafids) ;  the  Old 
Twister  [Biiralkilang)  ;  besides  more  common  names,  such  as 
the  All-Destroyer,  the  Forest  King,  the  Lord  of  Strength,  the 
Silver  Waters,  and  the  Flooder. 

Crops  of         Throughout  the  river  plains  of  Northern  India,  two  harvests, 

the  river  ^j^j  jj^  some  Provinces  three,  are  reaped  each  year.  These 
crops  are  not  necessarily  taken  from  the  same  land  ;  but  in 
most  Districts  the  best  situated  fields  yield  two  harvests  within 
the  twelve  months.     In  Lower  Bengal,  pease,  pulses,  oil-seeds, 

The  three  and  green  crops  of  various  sorts,  are  reaped  in  spring ;  the 
f  tli^*^^      early  rice  crops  in  September ;  and  the  great  rice  harvest  of  the 

year.  year  in  November  and  December,     Before  the  last  has  been 

gathered  in,  it  is  time  to  prepare  the  ground  for  the  spring 
crops,  and  the  husbandman  knows  no  rest  except  during  the 
hot  weeks  of  May,  when  he  is  an.xiously  waiting  for  the  rains. 
Such   is   the  course  of  agriculture  in  Lower  Bengal.     But  it 

Rice.  should  always  be  remembered  that  rice  is  the  staple  crop  in  a 

limited  area  of  India,  and  that  it  forms  the  everyday  food  of 
only  about  70  millions,  or  under  one-third  of  the  population. 
It  has  been  estimated  that,  in  the  absence  of  irrigation,  the  rice 
crop  requires  an  annual  rainfall  of  at  least  36  inches;  and  an 


SCENERY  OF  BENGAL  RIVER  PLAINS.      33 

Indian  District  requires  an  average  fall  of  not  less  than  40  to 
60  inches  in  order  to  grow  rice  as  its  staple  crop.  A  line  might 
almost  be  drawn  across  Behar,  to  the  north  of  which  rice 
ceases  to  be  the  staple  food  of  the  people ;  its  place  being 
taken  by  millets,  and  in  a  less  degree  by  wheat.  There  are, 
indeed,  rice-growing  tracts  in  well-watered  or  low-lying  Districts 
of  Northern  India,  and  in  the  river  valleys  or  deltas  and  level 
strips  around  the  southern  coast.  But  speaking  generally, 
throughout  North-Western,  Central,  and  Southern  India  (except 
in  the  coast  strip),  rice  is  consumed  only  by  the  richer  classes. 

The  products  of  each  Province  are  carefully  enumerated  in  the  Scenery  of 
separate  provincial  articles  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  ^^e  river 
and  an  account  of  the  most  important  will  be  found  under 
the  heading  of  Agriculture  in  the  present  volume.     They  are 
here  referred  to  only  so  far  as  is  necessary  to  give  a  general 
idea  of  the  scenery  of  the  river  plains.     Along  the  upper  and 
middle  courses  of  the  Bengal  rivers,  the  country  rises  gently  in  North 
from   their   banks   in   fertile    undulations,    dotted   with   mud  Western 
villages  and  adorned  with  noble  trees.     Mango  groves  scent 
the  air  with  their  blossom  in  spring,  and  yield  their  abundant 
fruit  in  summer.     The  spreading  banyan,  with  its  colonnades 
of  hanging  roots ;  the  stately  pipal,  with  its  green  masses  of 
foliage ;  the  wild  cotton-tree,  glowing  while  still  leafless  with 
heavy  crimson  flowers ;  the  tall,  daintily-shaped  tamarind,  and 
the  quick-growing  bdbtil,  rear  their  heads  above  the  crop  fields. 
As  the  rivers  approach  the  coast,  the  palm-trees  take  possession 
of  the  scene.    The  ordinary  landscape  in  the  delta  is  a  flat  stretch  In  the 
of  rice-fields,  fringed  round  with  an  evergreen  border  of  bam-  ^^^^^• 
boos,  cocoa-nuts,  date-trees,  areca,  and  other  coronetted  palms. 
This  densely-peopled  tract  seems  at  first  sight  bare  of  villages, 
for  each  hamlet  is  hidden  away  amid  its  own  grove  of  plantains 
and  wealth-giving  trees.     The  bamboo  and  cocoa-nut  play  a 
conspicuous   part   in   the   industrial   life  of  the  people ;   and 
the  numerous  products  derived   from  them,   including  rope, 
oil,  food,  fodder,  fuel,  and  timber,  have  been  dwelt  on  with 
admiration  by  many  writers. 

The  crops  also  change  as  we  sail  down  the  rivers.     In  the  Crops  of 
north,  the  principal   grains   are  wheat,   barley,   Indian   corn,  ^°"^" 
and.  a  variety  of  millets,  such  as  Jodr  (Sorghum  vulgare)  and  Ben^^al  ■ 
bdjra  (Pennisetum  typhoideum).     In  the  delta,  on  the  other  of  the 
hand,  rice  is  the  staple  crop,  and  the  universal  diet.     In  a  ^^^'^ 
single  District,  Rangpur,  there  are  295  separate  kinds  of  rice 
known  to  the  peasant,^  who  has  learned  to  grow  his  favourite 
'  Statistical  Account  of  Betigal,  vol.  vii.  pp.  234-237. 

C 


PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 


Drugs, 
fibres,  oil- 
seeds, etc. 


Jungle 
products. 


crop  in  every  locality,  from  the  comparatively  dry  ground,  which 
yields  the  dma7i  harvest,  to  the  swamps  1 2  feet  deep,  on  the 
surface  of  whose  waters  the  rice  ears  may  be  seen  struggling 
upwards  for  air.  Sugar-cane,  oil-seeds,  flax,  mustard,  sesamum, 
palma-christi,  cotton,  tobacco,  indigo,  safilower  and  other  dyes, 
ginger,  coriander,  red  pepper,  capsicum,  cummin,  and  precious 
spices,  are  grown  both  in  the  Upper  Provinces,  and  in  the 
moister  valleys  and  delta  of  Lower  Bengal. 

A  whole  pharmacopceia  of  medicines,  from  the  well-known 
aloe  and  castor  -  oil,  to  obscure  but  valuable  febrifuges, 
is  derived  from  shrubs,  herbs,  and  roots.  Resins,  gums, 
varnishes,  india-rubber,  perfume-oils,  and  a  hundred  articles  of 
commerce  or  luxury,  are  obtained  from  the  fields  and  the 
forests.  Vegetables,  both  indigenous  and  imported  from 
Europe,  largely  enter  into  the  food  of  the  people.  The  melon 
and  huge  yellow  pumpkin  spread  themselves  over  the  thatched 
roofs  ;  fields  of  potato,  brinjal,  and  yams  are  attached  to  the 
homesteads.  The  tea-plant  is  reared  on  the  hilly  ranges  which 
skirt  the  plains  both  in  the  North- West  and  in  Assam ;  the 
opium  poppy  about  half-way  down  the  Ganges,  around  Benares 
and  in  Behar :  the  silkworm  mulberry  still  farther  down  in 
Lower  Bengal ;  while  the  jute  fibre  is  essentially  a  crop  of  the 
delta,  and  would  exhaust  any  soil  not  fertilized  by  river  floods. 
Even  the  jungles  yield  the  costly  lac  and  the  tasar'i^V.  cocoons. 
The  fnahi/d,  also  a  gift  of  the  jungle,  produces  the  fleshy 
flowers  which  form  a  staple  article  of  food  in  many  districts, 
and  when  distilled  supply  a  cheap  spirit.  The  sal,  siss7/, 
tun,  and  many  other  indigenous  trees  yield  excellent  timber. 
Flowering  creepers,  of  gigantic  size  and  gorgeous  colours, 
festoon  the  jungle;  while  each  tank  bears  its  own  beautiful  crop 
of  the  lotus  and  water-lily.  Nearly  every  vegetable  product 
which  feeds  and  clothes  a  people,  or  enables  it  to  trade  with 
foreiiin  countries,  abounds. 


Third 
Region  of 
India — 
The 

Southern 
Tableland, 


Having  described  the  leading  features  of  the  Himalayas  on 
the  north,  and  of  the  great  river  plains  at  their  base,  we  come 
now  to  the  third  division  of  India,  namely,  the  three-sided 
table-land  which  covers  the  southern  half  or  more  strictly 
peninsular  portion  of  India.  This  tract,  known  in  ancient 
times  as  the  Deccan  (Dakshin),  literally  The  South,  comprised, 
in  its  widest  application,  the  Central  Provinces,  Berar, 
Madras,  Bombay,  Mysore,  with  the  Native  Territories  of  the 
Nizam,  Sindhia,  Holkar,  and  other  Feudatory  chiefs.  It  had 
in  1 88 1  an  aggregate  population  of  about  100  millions.     For 


THE  SOUTHERN  TABLE-LAND.  35 

the  sake  of  easy  remembrance,  therefore,  we  may  take  the  in- 
habitants of  the  river  plains  in  the  north  at  about  150  milUons, 
and  the  inhabitants  of  the  southern  table-land  at  100  millions. 

The  Deccan,  in  its  local  acceptation,  is   restricted  to  the  The 
high  inland  tract  between  the  Narbada  (Nerbudda)  and  the    ^^^^^^ ' 
Kistna  rivers ;  but  the  term  is  also  loosely  used  to  include  the 
whole  country  south  of  the  Vindhyas  as  far  as  Cape  Comorin. 
Taken  in  this  wide  sense,  it  slopes  up  from  the  southern  edge 
of  the  Gangetic   plains.      Three  ranges   of  hills  support  its  Its  three 

northern,    its   eastern,    and    its  western   side,  the   two   latter  suppo^.^k' 

'  .     '  mountain 

meetmg  at  a  sharp  angle  near  Cape  Comorin.  walls. 

The  northern  side  is  buttressed  by  confused  ranges,  with  a  The 

general   direction  of  east  to   west,    popularly    known   in    the  ^  '"'^hya 

.  .  moun- 

aggregate  as  the  Vmdhya   mountains.      The  Vmdhyas,  how-  tains ; 
ever,  are  made  up  of  several  distinct  hill  systems.    Two  sacred 
peaks  stand  as  outposts  in  the  extreme  east  and  west,  with  a 
succession  rather  than  a  series  of  ranges  stretching  800  miles 
between.     At  the  western  extremity.  Mount  Abu,  famous  for 
its  exquisite  Jain  temples,  rises,  as  a  solitary  outlier  of  the 
Aravalli  hills,  5653  feet  above  the  Rajputana  plains,  like  an 
island  out  of  the  sea.     Beyond  the  southern  limits  of  that  their 
l)lain,  the  Vindhya  range  of  modern  geography  runs  almost  ^^"0"^_ 
due  east  from  Gujarat,  forming  the  northern  wall  of  the  Nar- 
bada valley.     The   Satpura  mountains  stretch,  also  east  and 
west,    to   the   south   of   the    Narbada  river,   and    form   the 
watershed  between  it  and  the  Tapti.     Towards  the  heart  of 
India,  the  eastern  extremities  of  the  Vindhyas  and  Satpuras 
end   in   the   highlands   of  the   Central    Provinces.      Passing 
gtill  east,  the  hill  system  finds  a  continuation  in  the  Kaimur 
range  and  its  congeners.      These  in  their  turn  end  in   the 
outlying  peaks   and    spurs  that  mark   the   western    boundary 
of  Lower  Bengal,  and  abut  on  the  old  course  of  the  Ganges 
under  the  name  of  the  Rajmahal  hills.     On  the  extreme  east, 
Mount    Parasnath — like    Mount   Abu  on    the   extreme  west, 
sacred  to  Jain  rites — rises  to  4479  feet  above  the  Gangetic  plain. 
The  various  ranges  of  the   Vindhyas,  from    1500    to  over 
4000  feet  high,  form,  as  it  were,  the  northern  wall  and  but- 
tresses  which   support   the   central   table-land.      But  in  this 
sense    the   Vindhyas   must  be  taken   as   a  loose   convenient  the 
generalization  for  the  congeries  of  mountains  and  table-lands  J^"cient 
between  the  Gangetic  plains  and  the  Narbada  valley.     Now  between 
pierced  by  road  and  railway,  they  stood  in  former  times  as  a  Northern 
barrier  of  mountain  and  jungle  between  Northern  and  Southern  southern 
India,  and  formed  one  of  the  main  difficulties  in  welding  the  India. 


, 


The  Ghats. 


Eastern 
Ghats. 


Western 
Ghats. 


36  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

whole  into  an  empire.  They  consist  of  vast  masses  of  forests, 
ridges,  and  peaks,  broken  by  cultivated  tracts  of  the  rich 
cotton-bearing  black  soil,  exquisite  river  valleys,  and  high-lying 
grassy  plains. 

The  other  two  sides  of  the  elevated  southern  triangle  are 
known  as  the  Eastern  and  Western  Ghats.  These  ranges 
start  southwards  from  the  eastern  and  western  extremities  of 
the  Vindhyas,  and  run  along  the  eastern  and  western  coasts 
of  India.  The  Eastern  Ghats  stretch  in  fragmentary  spurs 
and  ridges  down  the  Madras  Presidency,  receding  inland  and 
leaving  broad  level  tracts  between  their  base  and  the  coast. 
The  Western  Ghats  form  the  great  sea  wall  of  the  Bombay 
Presidency,  with  a  comparatively  narrow  strip  between  theiii 
and  the  shore.  Some  of  them  rise  in  magnificent  precipices 
and  headlands  out  of  the  ocean,  and  truly  look  like  colossal 
'  landing-stairs '  {ghats)  from  the  sea.  The  Eastern  or  Madras 
Ghats  recede  upwards  to  an  average  elevation  of  1500  feet. 
The  Western  or  Bombay  Ghats  ascend  more  abruptly  from  the 
sea  to  an  average  height  of  about  3000  feet,  with  peaks  up  to 
4700,  along  the  coast;  rising  to  7000  feet  and  even  8760  feet 
in  the  upheaved  angle  where  they  unite  with  the  Eastern 
Ghats,  towards  their  southern  extremity. 

The  inner  triangular  plateau  thus  enclosed  lies  from  1000  to 
3000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  But  it  is  dotted  with 
peaks  and  seamed  with  ranges  exceeding  4000  feet  in  height. 
Its  best  known  hills  are  the  Nilgiris  (Blue  Mountains),  with  the 
summer  capital  of  Madras,  Utakamand,  over  7000  feet  above 
the  sea.  Their  highest  point  is  Dodabetta  peak,  8760  feet, 
in  the  upheaved  southern  angle.  The  interior  plateau  is 
Passes  approached  by  several  famous  passes  from  the  level  coast-strip 
from  the  q,^  ^^  western  side.  The  Bhor-Ghat,  for  example,  ascends  a 
Ehor-Ghat  tremendous  ravine  about  40  miles  south-east  of  Bombay  city, 
to  a  height  of  2027  feet.  In  ancient  times  it  was  regarded  as 
the  key  to  the  Deccan,  and  could  be  held  by  a  small  band 
against  any  army  attempting  to  penetrate  from  the  coast.  A 
celebrated  military  road  was  constructed  by  the  British  up 
this  pass,  and  practically  gave  the  command  of  the  interior  to 
the  then  rising  port  of  Bombay.  A  railway  line  has  now  been 
carried  up  the  gorge,  twisting  round  the  shoulders  of  moun- 
tains, tunnelling  through  intervening  crags,  and  clinging  along 
narrow  ledges  to  the  face  of  the  precipice.  At  one  point  the 
zigzag  is  so  sharp  as  to  render  a  circuitous  turn  impossible, 
and  the  trains  have  to  stop  and  reverse  their  direction  on  a 
levelled  terrace.     The  Thall  Ghat  (191 2  feet),  to  the  north- 


I 


The  up- 
heaved 
southern 
antrle. 


The  cen- 
tral trian- 
gular 
plateau. 


I 


THE  GHATS  AND  IXXER  PLATEAUX.       37 

east  of  Bombay,  has  in  like  manner  been  scaled  both  by  road  fyitl  the 
and  railway.     Another  celebrated  pass,  farther  down  the  coast,  (^-^^^ 
connects  the  military  centre  of  Belgaum  with  the  little  port  of 
Vengurla. 

These  '  landing-stairs '  from  the  sea  to  the  interior  present 
scenes  of  rugged  grandeur.     The  trap  rocks  stand  out,  after 
ages  of  denudation,  like  circular  fortresses  flanked  by  round  iiiii  forts, 
towers  and  crowned  with  nature's  citadels,  from  the  mass  of 
hills  behind ;  natural  fastnesses,  which  in  the  Maratha  times 
were  rendered  impregnable  by  military  art.     In  the  south  of 
Bombay,   the   passes  climb  up  from   the  sea   through  thick 
forests,  the  haunt  of  the  tiger  and  the  mighty  bison.     Still 
farther  down  the  coast,  the  western  mountain  wall  dips  deep 
into  the  Palghit  valley — a  remarkable  gap,  20  miles  broad,  xhe  Pal- 
and  leading  by  an  easy  route,  only  1000  feet  in  height,  from  gliat  Pass, 
the  seaboard  to  the   interior.     A  third  railway  and  military 
road  penetrate   by  this  passage  from   Beypur,  and  cross  the 
peninsula  to  Madras.     A  fourth  railway  starts  inland  from  the 
coast  at  the  Portuguese  Settlement  of  Goa. 

On  the  eastern  side  of  India,  the  Ghats  form  a  series  of  The  river- 
spurs   and   buttresses  for   the    elevated  inner  plateau  rather  P^  ^'^^ 
1  •  •  11       rr^i  11  inner 

than  a  contmuous  mountam  wall.      1  hey  are  traversed  by  a  plateau : 

number  of  broad  and  easy  passages  from  the  Madras  coast. 
Through  these  openings,  the  rainfall  of  the  southern  half 
of  the  inner  plateau  reaches  the  sea.  The  drainage  from  the 
northern  or  Vindhyan  edge  of  the  three-sided  table-land  falls 
into  the  Ganges.  The  Narbada  (Nerbudda)  and  Tapti  carry 
the  rainfall  of  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Vindhyas  and  of 
the  Satpura  Hills,  by  two  almost  parallel  lines,  into  the  Gulf  of 
Cambay.  But  from  Surat,  in  lat.  21°  28',  to  Cape  Comorin,  in 
lat.  8'  4',  no  great  river  succeeds  in  piercing  the  Western  Ghats,  no  exit 
or  in  reaching  the  Bombay  coast  from  the  interior  table-land. 


west- 


war 


ds 


The  Western  Ghats  form,  in  fact,  a  lofty  unbroken  barrier 
between  the  waters  of  the  central  plateau  and  the  Indian 
Ocean.  The  drainage  has  therefore  to  make  its  way  across  its  drain- 
India  to  the  eastwards,  now  foaming  and  twisting  sharply  '^^'rds^.^ " 
round  projecting  ranges,  then  tumbling  down  ravines, 
roaring  through  rapids,  or  rushing  along  valleys,  until  the 
rain  which  the  Bombay  sea-breeze  has  dropped  on  the 
ridges  of  the  Western  Ghats  finally  falls  into  the  Bay  of 
Bengal.  In  this  way,  the  three  great  rivers  of  the  Madras 
Presidency,  viz.  the  Godavari,  the  Kistna  (Kriohna),  and 
the  Kaveri  (Cauvery),  rise  in  the  mountains  overhanging  the 
Bombay  coast,  and  traverse  the  whole  breadth  of  the  central 


38  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

table-land  before  they  reach  the  sea  on  the  eastern  shores  of 
India. 
Historical       'f  hg  physical  geography  and  the  political  destiny  of  the  two 
clfnce  of      sides  of  the  Indian  peninsula  have  been  determined  by  the 
the  Eastern  characteristics  of  the  mountain  ranges  on  either  coast.    On  the 
ern  Ghdts-  ^^^^'  ^^  Madras  country  is  comparatively  open,  and  was  always 
accessible  to  the  spread  of  civilisation.     On  the  east,  therefore, 
the  ancient  dynasties  of  Southern  India  fixed  their  capitals. 
Along  the  west,   only  a  narrow  strip  of  lowland  intervenes 
between  the  barrier  range  and  the  Bombay  seaboard.      This 
western  tract   long   remained   apart  from   the   civilisation  of 
the  eastern  coast.     To  our  own  day,  one  of  its  ruling  races, 
the  Nairs,  retain  land  tenures  and  social  customs,  such  as  poly- 
andry, which  mark  a  much  ruder  stage  of  human  advancement 
than  Hinduism,  and  which  in  other  parts  of  India  only  linger 
among  isolated  hill  tribes.     On  the  other  hand,  the  people 
and  of  the  of  this  western  or  Bombay  coast  enjoy  a  bountiful  rainfall, 
rainfall.      unknown  in  the  inner  plateau  and  the  east.     The  monsoon 
dashes  its  rain-laden  clouds  against  the  Western  Ghats,  and 
pours  from  too  to   200  inches  of  rain  upon  their  maritime 
slopes  from  Khandesh  down  to   Malabar.     By  the  time  the 
monsoon  has  crossed  the  Western  Ghats,  it  has  dropped  the 
greater  part  of  its  aqueous  burden  ;  and  central  Districts,  such 
as  Bangalore,  obtain  only  about  35  inches.     The  eastern  coast 
also  receives  a  monsoon  of  its  own ;  but,  except  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood   of  the    sea,   the   rainfall    throughout   the    Madras 
Presidency  is  scant}',  seldom  exceeding  40  inches  in  the  year. 
The  deltas  of  the  three  great  rivers  along  the  Madras  coast 
form,  however,  tracts  of  inexhaustible  fertility ;  and  much  is 
done   by   irrigation   to   husband   and   utilize   both   the  local 
rainfall  and  the  accumulated  waters  which  the  rivers  bring 
down. 
The  Four       The   ancient   Sanskrit   poets  speak  of  Southern    India   as 
forest       buried    under    forests.      But   much    of   the   forest    land   has 
Southern    gradually  been  denuded  by  the  axe  of  the  cultivator,  or  in 
India.         consequence  of  the  deterioration  produced  by  unchecked  fires 
and  the  grazing  of  innumerable  herds  of  cattle,  sheep,  and 
goats.     Roughly   speaking.    Southern    India  consists   of  four 
forest  regions — First,  the  Western  Ghats  and  the  plains  of  the 
Konkan,  Malabar,  and  Travancore  between  them  and  the  sea  ; 
second,  the  Karnatik,  with  the  Eastern  Ghdts,  occupying  the 
lands  along   the  Coromandel  coast  and  the  outer  slopes  of 
the  hill  ranges  behind  them  ;  third,  the  Deccan,  comprising 
the  high  plateaux  of  Haidarabad,  the  Ceded  Districts,  Mysore, 


FORESTS  OF  SO  UTHERN  INDIA.  39 

Coimbatore,  and  Salem ;  fourth,  the  forests  of  the  Northern 
Circars  in  the  Madras  Presidency. 

Each  of  these  Districts  has  its  own  peculiar  vegetation.  Forests  of 
That  of  the  first  region,  or  Western  Ghats,  largely  consists  of  ^^j^^^^^^" 
virgin  forests  of  huge  trees,  with  an  infinite  variety  of  smaller 
shrubs,  epiphytic  and  parasitic  plants,  and  lianas  or  tangled 
creepers  which  bind  together  even  the  giants  of  the  forest. 
The  king  of  these  forests  is  the  teak  (Tectona  grandis, 
linn.).  This  prince  of  timber  is  now  found  in  the  greatest 
abundance  in  the  forests  of  Kanara,  in  the  Wynad,  and  in 
the  Anamalai  Hills  of  Coimbatore  and  Cochin.  The  pun 
tree  (Calophyllum  inophyllum,  linn.)  is  more  especially  found 
in  the  southernmost  forests  of  Travancore  and  Tinnevelli,  where 
tall  straight  stems,  fit  for  the  spars  and  masts  of  seagoing  ships, 
are  procured.  The  jack  fruit  (Artocarpus  integrifolia,  Linn.) 
and  its  more  common  relation  the  aini  (Artocarpus  hirsuta, 
Lam.),  furnish  a  pretty  yellow-coloured  timber ;  the  blackwood 
(Dalbergia  \a.nid\io^,  Foxb.)  yields  huge  logs  excellent  for  carved 
furniture.  The  Terminalias  (T.  tomentosa  and  T.  paniculata, 
W.  and  A.)  with  the  benteak  (Lagerstroemia  microcarpa,  Wight.) 
supply  strong  wood  suitable  for  the  well-built  houses  of  the 
prosperous  population  of  Malabar  and  Travancore.  The 
dammer  tree  or  Indian  copal  (Vateria  indica,  Linn.)  yields  its 
useful  resin.  The  ground  vegetation  supplies  one  of  the  most 
valuable  of  Indian  exports,  the  cardamom.  To  enumerate  all 
the  important  trees  and  products  of  the  Western  Ghats  would, 
however,  be  impossible. 

In  the  Karnatik  region,  the  forests  rarely  consist  of  large  Forests  of 

timber,  in  consequence  of  the  drier  climate  and  the  shorter  ^f^,'^"^"  , 

-  XT  1^-1  -I  r  r    ^      Ghats  and 

monsoon  rams.     Nor  are  they  of  a  wide  area.     Most  ot  the  Karnatik. 

forests  consist  of  what  is  known  as  '  Evergreen  Scrub,'  in  which 

the  prominent  trees  are  the  Eugenia  jambolana.  Lam.,  Mimusops 

indica,  Linn.,  and  the  strychnine  (Strychnos  nux-vomica,  Linn.). 

On  the  slopes  of  the  hills  deciduous  forest  appears  with  teak, 

Terminalias,  Anogeissus,  and  occasional  red  sanders. 

The  Deccan  region,  which  gets  a  share  of  both  monsoons  Forests 

(namely  the  monsoon  from  the  south-west  from  Tune  to  Sep-  ?[  ^"^ 
^  ■'  1  Deccan. 

tember,  and   that  from   the   north  -  east  from   September   to 

January),  has  still  some  large  areas  covered  with  fine  forest, 

and  yielding  good  timber.     Chief  among  these  areas  are  the 

Nallamalai  Hills  of  Karnul,  the  Palkonda  Hills  of  Cuddapah, 

the   CoUegal    Hills   of  Coimbatore,    and   the   Shevaroy   and 

Javadi  ranges  of  Salem  and  North  Arcot.     In  the  Nallamalai 

Hills,  bijasdl  (Pterocarpus   INIarsupium,  Roxb.)  and  sdj  (Ter- 


40  PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  INDIA. 

minalia  tomentosa,  W.  atid  A.)  are  the  prevailing  timbers  ;  the 
valuable  red  sanders-wood  (Pterocarpus  santalinus,  Linn.)  has 
its  home  in  the  Palkonda  and  adjoining  ranges  of  Cuddapah, 
while  the  growth  on  the  hills  of  Coimbatore  includes  the 
precious  sandal-wood  (Santalum  album,  Linn.).  In  the  drier 
country  of  Bellary  and  Penukonda,  the  chief  tree  is  the 
anjaii  (Hardwickia  binata,  Poxb.),  furnishing  the  hardest  and 
heaviest  of  Indian  woods. 

Forests  of       The  fourth  forest  region  is  that  of  the  Northern  Circars. 

Northern    jj.  stretches  from  the  Kistna  river  up  to  the  Chilka  lake,  and 

Madras.       .  ^ 

includes  fine  forests  of  almost  untouched  sal  (Shorea  robusta, 
Gaert),  the  iron-wood  (Xylia  dolabriformis,  ^^w///. ),  the  satin- 
wood  (Chloroxylon  Swietenia,  D.C.),  and  many  other  timbers 
of  value. 
Scenery  of  In  wild  tropical  beauty  nothing  can  surpass  the  luxuriance 
southern  ^f  ^^  untouched  Coorg  forest,  as  viewed  from  one  of  the  peaks 
country,  of  the  Western  Ghats.  A  waving  descent  of  green,  broken  into 
terraces  of  varying  heights,  slopes  downward  on  every  side. 
North  and  south  run  parallel  ranges  of  mountains,  wooded 
almost  to  the  summit;  while  to  the  west,  thousands  of  feet 
below,  the  view  is  bounded  by  the  blue  line  of  the  Arabian 
Sea.  Wild  animals  of  many  kinds  breed  in  the  jungle,  and 
haunt  the  grassy  glades.  The  elephant,  the  tiger,  and  the 
leopard,  the  mighty  bison,  the  stately  sdmbhar  deer,  and  the 
jungle  sheep,  with  a  variety  of  smaller  game,  afford  adventure 
to  the  sportsman.  During  the  rains  magnificent  cataracts  dash 
over  the  precipices.  The  Gersappa  falls,  in  the  Western 
Ghats,  have  a  descent  of  830  feet 
Crops  of  In  the  valleys,  and  upon  the  elevated  plains  of  the  central 
Southern  plateau,  tillage  is  driving  back  the  jungle  to  the  hilly  recesses, 
and  fields  of  wheat  and  many  kinds  of  smaller  grain  or 
millets,  tobacco,  cotton,  sugar-cane,  and  pulses,  spread  over 
the  open  country.  The  black  soil  of  Southern  India,  formed 
from  the  detritus  of  the  trap  mountains,  is  proverbial  for  its 
fertility;  while  the  level  strip  between  the  Western  Ghats  and 
the  sea  rivals  even  Lower  Bengal  in  its  fruit-bearing  palms, 
rice  harvests,  and  rich  succession  of  crops.  The  deltas  of  the 
rivers  which  issue  from  the  Eastern  Ghats  are  celebrated  as 
rice-bearing  tracts.  But  the  interior  of  the  table-land  is  liable  to 
droughts.  The  cultivators  here  contend  against  the  calamities 
of  nature  by  varied  systems  of  irrigation — by  means  of  which 
they  store  the  rain  brought  during  a  few  months  by  the  monsoon, 
and  husband  it  for  use  throughout  the  whole  year.  Great  tanks 
or  lakes,  formed  by  damming  up  the  valleys,  are  a  striking 


THE  THREE  REGIOXS  OF  IXDIA.  41 

feature  of  Southern  India.  The  food  of  the  common  people 
consists  chiefly  of  small  grains,  such  asj'odr,  bdjra,  and  rdgi.  The 
great  export  is  cotton,  with  wheat  from  the  northern  Districts 
of  the  table-land.  The  pepper  trade  of  Malabar  dates  from 
far  beyond  the  age  of  Sindbad  the  Sailor,  and  reaches  back 
to  Roman  times.  Cardamoms,  spices  of  various  sorts,  dyes, 
and  many  medicinal  drugs,  are  also  grown. 

It  is  on  the  interior  table-land,  and  among  the  hilly  spurs  Minerals ; 
which    project    from    it,    that   the    mineral   wealth    of   India 
lies  hid.      Coal-mining   now  forms   a  great  industry  on   the  Coal, 
north-eastern  side  of  the  table-land,  in  Bengal :  and  also  in  ^'me, 

.  .  Iron. 

the  Central  Provinces.  Beds  of  iron-ore  and  limestone  have 
been  worked  in  several  places,  and  hold  out  a  possibility  of  a 
new  era  of  enterprise  to  India  in  the  future.  Many  districts 
are  rich  in  building  stone,  marble,  and  the  easily  -  worked 
laterite.  Copper  and  other  metals  exist  in  small  quantities. 
Golconda  was  long  famous  as  the  central  mart  for  the  produce 
of  the  diamond  districts,  which  now  yield  little  more  than  a 
bare  living  to  the  workers.  Gold  dust  has  from  very  ancient 
times  been  washed  out  of  the  river-beds  ;  and  quartz-crushing 
for  gold  is  being  attempted  on  scientific  principles  in  Madras 
and  Mysore. 

We  have  now  briefly  surveyed  the  three  regions  of  India.  Recapitu- 
The  first,  or  the  Himalayan,  lies  for  the  most  part  beyond  the  ^^^^  Three 
British  frontier ;  but  a  knowledge  of  it  supplies  the  key  to  Regions  of 
the   climatic   and   social  conditions  of  India.      The  second  ^""^^• 
region,  or  the  River  Plains  in  the  north,  formed  the  theatre 
of  the  ancient  race  movements  which  shaped  the  civilisation 
and  political  destinies  of  the  whole  Indian  peninsula.     The 
third  region,  or  the  Triangular  Table-land  in  the  south,  has  a 
character  quite  distinct  from  either  of  the  other  two  divisions, 
and  a  population  which  is  now  working  out  a  separate  develop- 
ment   of   its    own.     Broadly    speaking,    the    Himalayas    are  Their 
peopled  by  Turanian  tribes,  although  to  a  large  extent  ruled  P'^^^  ^"^' 
by  Aryan  immigrants.     The  great  River  Plains  of  Bengal  are  guages. 
still  the  possession  of  the  Indo-Aryan  race.     The  Triangular 
Table-land  has  formed  an  arena  for  a  long  struggle  between 
the  Aryan  civilisation  from  the  north,  and  what  is  known  as 
the  Dravidian  stock  in  the  south. 

To  this  vast  Empire  the  English  have  added  British  British 
Burma,  consisting  of  the  lower  valley  of  the  Irawadi  (Irra-  Burma 
waddy)  with  its  delta,  and  a  long  flat  strip  stretching  down  the 


42 


PHYSICAL  ASPECTS  OF  PXDIA. 


Its  valleys 
and  moun- 
tains ; 


Its  pro- 
ducts. 


Tenas- 
serim. 


Annexa- 
tion of 
Upper 
Burma, 
1886. 


eastern  side  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  Between  the  narrow 
maritime  tract  and  the  Irawadi  valley  runs  a  backbone  of  lofty 
ranges.  These  ranges,  known  as  the  Yoma  (Roma)  mountains, 
are  covered  with  dense  forests,  and  separate  the  Irawadi 
valley  from  the  strip  of  coast.  The  Yoma  ranges  have 
peaks  exceeding  4000  feet,  and  culminate  in  the  Blue 
Mountain,  7100  feet.  They  are  crossed  by  passes,  one  of 
which,  the  An  or  Aeng,  rises  to  45 1 7  feet  above  the  sea-level. 
A  thousand  creeks  indent  the  seaboard  ;  and  the  whole  of  the 
level  country,  both  on  the  coast  and  in  the  Irawadi  valley, 
forms  one  vast  rice-field.  The  rivers  float  down  an  abundant 
supply  of  teak  and  bamboos  from  the  north.  Tobacco,  of 
an  excellent  quality,  supplies  the  cigars  which  all  Burmese 
(men,  women,  and  children)  smoke,  and  affords  an  industrial 
product  of  increasing  value.  Arakan  and  Pegu,  or  the 
Provinces  of  the  coast  strip,  and  also  the  Irawadi  valley, 
contain  mineral  oil-springs.  Tenasserim  forms  a  long  narrow 
maritime  Province,  running  southward  from  the  mouths  of  the 
Irawadi  to  Point  Victoria,  where  the  British  territory  adjoins 
Siam.  Tenasserim  is  rich  in  tin  mines,  and  contains  iron-ores 
equal  to  the  finest  Swedish ;  besides  gold  and  copper  in 
smaller  quantities,  and  a  very  pure  limestone.  Rice  and 
timber  form  the  staple  e.xports  of  Burma;  and  rice  is  also 
the  universal  food  of  the  people.  British  Burma,  including 
Tenasserim,  has  an  area  of  over  87,000  square  miles;  and  a 
population,  in  1881,  of  3!  million  persons.  It  is  fortunate  in 
still  possessing  wide  areas  of  yet  uncultivated  land  to  meet  the 
wants  of  its  rapidly  increasing  people.^ 

Since  these  sheets  went  to  press,  the  persistent  misconduct 
of  King  Thebau  in  Upper  Burma,  his  obstinate  denial  of 
justice,  and  his  frustration  of  Lord  Dufferin's  earnest  endea- 
vours to  arrive  at  a  conciliatory  settlement,  compelled  the 
British  Government  to  send  an  expedition  against  him.  A 
force  under  General  Prendergast  advanced  up  the  Irawadi 
valley  with  little  opposition,  and  occupied  Mandalay.  King 
Thebau  surrendered,  and  was  removed  to  honourable  confine- 
ment in  British  India.  His  territories  were  annexed  to  the 
British  Empire,  by  Lord  Dufferin's  Proclamation,  on  the  ist  of 
January  1886. 

'  Vide  post,  pp.  47,  50. 


[43] 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    PEOPLE. 

The  Population  of  Ixdl\,  with  -Ikitish  Burma,  amounted  General 
in  1 88 1  to  256  millions,  or,  as  already  mentioned,  more  than  j||gp%p]g_ 
double  the  number  which  Gibbon  estimated  for  the  Roman 
Empire  in  the  height  of  its  power.  But  the  English  Govern- 
ment has  respected  the  possessions  of  native  chiefs,  and  one- 
third  of  the  country  still  remains  in  the  hands  of  its  hereditary 
rulers.  Their  subjects  make  about  one-fifth  of  the  whole  Indian 
people.  The  British  territories,  therefore,  comprise  only  two- 
thirds  of  the  area  of  India,  and  about  four-fifths  of  its  inhabitants. 

The  native  princes  govern   their  States  with  the   help   of  The  Feur 
certain  English  officers,  whom  the  Viceroy  stations  in  native  ^^^\°f^ 
territory.     Some  of  the  Chiefs  reign  almost  as  independent 
sovereigns ;    others    require    more    assistance,    or    a    stricter 
control.     They  form  a  magnificent  body  of  feudatory  rulers, 
possessed  of  revenues  and  armies  of  their  own.      The  more  Their 

important  of  these  princes  exercise  the  power  of  life  and  death  ^'^"0"s 
'■  '-  *.,..,,  powers. 

over  their  subjects  ;  but  the  authority  of  each  is  limited  by  usage, 

or  by  treaties  or  engagements,  acknowledging  their  subordination 
to  the  British  Government.  That  Government,  as  Suzerain 
in  India,  does  not  allow  its  feudatories  to  make  war  upon 
each  other,  or  to  have  any  relations  with  foreign  States.  It 
interferes  when  any  chief  misgoverns  his  people ;  rebukes,  and 
if  needful  removes,  the  oppressor ;  protects  the  weak ;  and 
firmly  imposes  peace  upon  all. 

The  British  possessions  are  distributed  into  twelve  govern-  British 
ments,  each  with  a  separate  head  ;  but  all  of  them  under  the  ^"^^^"^'^^ 
orders  of   the   supreme  Government  of  India,   consisting  ol  provinces, 
the   Governor-General   in   Council.      The   Governor-General, 
who   also   bears   the    title   of  Viceroy,   holds   his   court   and 
government    at    Calcutta   in   the    cold   weather,    and   during 
summer  at  Simla,  an  outer  spur  of  the  Himalayas,  7000  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea.     The  Viceroy  of  India,  and  the 
Governors  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  are  usually  British  states- 
men  appointed   in   England  by  the  Queen.     The   heads  of  how 
the  other  ten  Provinces  are  selected  for  their  merit  from  the  ^°^'^'"^' ' 


44 


THE  POPULATION  OF  INDIA. 


Census  of 
1 88 1  and 
of  1S72. 


Anglo-Indian  services,  and  are  nominated  by  the  Viceroy, 
subject  in  the  case  of  the  Lieutenant  -  Governorships  to 
approval  by  the  Secretary  of  State. 

The  Census  of  1881  returned  a  population  of  256,396,646 
souls  for  all  India.  The  following  tables  give  an  abstract  of 
the  area  and  population  of  each  of  the  British  Provinces,  and 


The  Twelve  Governments  or  Provinces  of 
British  India,  in  18S1. 


NA.ME  OF  PrOVIN-CE 

^Exclusive  of  the  Native  States  attached  to  it). 

Area 

in 
Square 
Miles. 

Total 
Population. 

Number 

of 
Person  ^ 

per 
Square 
Mile. 

1.  Government  of  Madras, '       .         .         . 

2.  Government  of  Bombay,  with  Sind, 

3.  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Bengal,-  . 

4.  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  the  Punjab, 

5.  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  the  North-"| 

Western  Provinces,    .        .         .         >■ 

6.  Chief-Commissionership  of  Oudh,^      ) 

7.  Chief-Commissionership  of  the  Central 

Provinces 

8.  Chief  -  Commissionership    of     British 

Burma 

9.  Chief-Commissionership  of  Assam, ^ 

10.  Commissionership  of  Berar,^ 

11.  Commissionership  of  Aj mere, 

12.  Commissionership  of  Coor^;, 

Total  for  British  India," 

141,001 
124,122 
150,538 
106,632 

106,111 

84,445 

87,220 
46.341 

17.711 
2,711 

1.583 

31,170,631 

16,454,414 
66,691,456 
18,850,437 

44,107,869 

9,838,791 

3.736.771 

4,881,426 

2,672,673 

460,722 

178,302 

221 
133 
443 
177 

416 

117 

43 
105 
151 

170 

113 

868,465 

199.043.492 

229 

*  Including  the  three  petty  Stales  of  Pudukota,  Banganapalli,  and  Sandhur. 

2  E.xclusive  of  5976  square  miles  of  unsurveyed  and  half-submerged  Sundar- 
bans  along  the  sea  face  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  The  Imperial  Census  Report 
does  not  distinguish  between  the  Feudatory  States  and  British  territory  in  the 
returns  for  Bengal.  The  figures  given  above  are  taken  from  the  Provincial 
Census  Report,  and  refer  to  British  territory  only.  The  area  and  population 
of  the  Native  States  of  Bengal  are  shown  in  the  table  on  the  next  page. 

'  Oudh  has  been  incorporated,  since  1877,  with  the  North-Western  Pro- 
vinces. The  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North- Western  Provinces  is  also 
Chief-Commissioner  of  Oudh. 

•*  Assam  was  separated  from  the  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Bengal  in  1874, 
and  erected  into  a  Chief-Commissionership.  The  area  includes  an  estimate 
for  the  unsurveyed  tracts  in  the  Cachar,  Naga,  and  Lakhimpiu-  Hills. 

5  Berar  consists  of  the  six  '  Assigned  Districts '  made  over  to  the  British 
administration  by  the  Nizam  of  Haidarabad  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
Haidarabad  Contingent,  which  he  was  bound  by  treaty  to  maintain,  and  in 
(discharge  of  other  obligations. 

6  These  figures  are  exclusive  of  the  population  of  the  British  Settlement  of 
Aden  in  Arabia  (34,860),  and  of  the  .Andaman  Islands  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal 
(14,628).  These  places  have  not  been  included  in  the  tables  of  the  Imperial 
Census  Report,  as  being  outside  the  geographical  limits  of  India. 


BRITISH,  FEUDATORY,  AND  FOREIGN.      45 


groups  of  Native  States,  together  with  the  French  and 
Portuguese  possessions  in  India.  The  population  in  1872 
was  as  follows  : — British  India,  1S6  millions  ;  Feudatory  States, 
over  54  millions;  French  and  Portuguese  possessions,  nearly 
I  of  a  million;  total  for  all  India,  240,931,521  in  1872. 

The  Thirteen  Groups  of  Native  States  for:\iing 
Feudatory  India,  in  i88r. 


Total 

Number 

of 
Persons 

Na.aie  of  State. 

Area 

Total 

Square 
Miles. 

Population. 

per 
Square 
Mile. 

"rt 

r  I. 

Rajputana, 

129,750 

10,268,392 

79 

^ 

2. 

Haidarabad  (Nizam's  Dominions) 

7^,77^ 

9.845.594 

^37 

^    U    0 

3- 

Central  Indian  Agency  and  Bun- 

ider 

nor-C 

Coun 

delkhand, 

75.079 

9,261,907 

123 

4- 

Baroda, 

8,570 

2,185,005 

255 

^  ^.H 

,S- 

Mysore,'     . 

24,723 

4,186,188 

169 

0 

6. 

Kashmir,-. 

80, 900 

1.534.972 

19 

0 

\l 

Manipur,    . 

8,000 

221,070 

27 

Native    States    under 

Bombay 

Government,    . 

73.753 

6,941,249 

94 

2 

p. 

Native    States    under 

Madras 

-.  i 

Government,    . 

8,091 

3,001,436 

370 

10. 

Native    States     under 

Bengal 

Government,    . 

36.634 

2,845,405 

78 

II. 

Native    States    under 

Punjab 

;^- 

Government,    . 

35.817 

3,861,663 

108 

12. 

Native     States    under 

North- 

hj 

13- 

Western  Provinces, 
Native     States     under 

Central 

5.125 

741.750 

145 

i 

Provinces,         .... 
Total  for  Feudatory  India, 

28,834 

1,709,720 

59 

587,047 

56,604,371 

96 

1 

If  to  the  foregoing  figures  we  add  the  French  and  Portu- 
guese possessions,  we  obtain  the  total  for  all  India.     Thus — 

All  India,  including  British  Burma. 
(Based  chiefly  on  the  Census  of  1881.) 


Area  in 
Square 
Miles. 

Population. 

Number  of 
Persons  per 
Square  Mile. 

British  India 

Feudatory  India, 
Portuguese  Settlements, 
French  Settlements,     . 

Total  for  all  India,  including) 
British  Burma,  .        .         / 

868,465 

587.047 

2.365 

203 

199,043,492 
56,604,371 

475. 172 
273,611 

229 

96 

201 

13s 

1,458,080 

256,396,646 

176 

'  Mysore  was  under  direct  British  administration  from  1830  to  1881,  when 
it  was  restored  to  native  rule  on  its  young  chief  attaining  his  majority. 
-  The  Kashmir  figures  relate  to  the  year  1873. 


46  THE  POPULATION  OF  INDIA. 

Density  of      British  India,  therefore,  supports  a  population  much  more 

the  popu-    j.|^j^j^  twice  as   dense  as   that   of  the  Native  States.      If  we 
lation,  .  . 

exclude  the  outlying  and  latel3--acquired  Provmces  of  British 

Burma   and   Assam,    the   proportion    is   nearly  three-fold,  or 
260  persons  to  the  square  mile.     How  thick  this  population 
is,  may  be  realized  from  the  fact  that  France  had  in  1876  only 
compared    180  people  to  the  square  mile  ;  while  even  in  crowded  England, 
with  wherever  the  density  approaches   200   to  the  square  mile  it 

England,  ceases  to  be  a  rural  population,  and  has  to  live,  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent,  by  manufactures,  mining,  or  city  industries. ^ 
Throughout  large  areas  of  Bengal,  two  persons  have  to  live  on 
the  proceeds  of  each  cultivated  acre,  or  1280  persons  to  each 
cultivated  square  mile.  The  Famine  Commissioners  reported 
in  1880,  that  over  6  millions  of  the  peasant  holdings  of  Bengal. 
or  two-thirds  of  the  whole,  averaged  from  2  to  3  acres  a-piece. 
Allowing  only  four  persons  to  the  holding,  for  men,  women, 
and  children,  this  represents  a  population  of  24  millions 
struggling  to  live  off  15  million  acres,  or  a  little  over  half  an 
acre  a-piece. 
Absence  Unlike  England,  India  has  few  large  towns,  and  no  great 

of  large      manufacturing  centres.     Thus,  in  England  and  Wales  42  per 
cent.,  or  nearly  one-half  of  the  population  in  187 1,  lived  in 
towns  with   upwards  of   20,000    inhabitants,  while  in  British 
India  only  4^  per  cent.,  or  not  one-twentieth  of  the  people. 
Population  live  in  such  towns.     India,  therefore,  is  almost  entirely  a  rural 
entirely       country ;  and  many  of  the  so-called  towns  are  mere  groups  of 
villages,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  cattle  are  driven  a-field,  and 
ploughing  and  reaping  go  on.     Calcutta  itself  has  grown  out 
of  a  cluster  of  hamlets  on  the  bank  of  the  Hiigli  ;  and  the 
term  '  municipality,'  which  in  Europe  is  only  applied  to  towns, 
often  means  in  India  a  '  rural  union,'  or  collection  of  home- 
steads for  the  purposes  of  local  government. 
Over-  We  see,  therefore,  in  India,  a  dense  population  of  husband- 

crowded     men.     Wherever  their  numbers  exceed  i  to  the  acre,  or  640 
Districts.  ,  .,  ..,,,.. 

to  the  square   mile, — excepting   in    suburban   districts  or  in 

irrigated  tracts, — the  struggle  for  existence  becomes  hard. 
At  half  an  acre  a-piece  that  struggle  is  terribly  hard.  In  such 
Districts,  a  good  harvest  yields  just  sufficient  food  for  the 
people ;  and  thousands  of  lives  depend  each  autumn  on  a  few 
inches  more  or  less  of  rainfall.  The  Government  may,  by 
great  efforts,  feed  the  starving  in  time  of  actual  famine ;  but  it 
cannot  stop  the  yearly  work  of  disease  and  death  among  a 
steadily  underfed  people.  In  these  overcrowded  tracts  the 
^  Report  on  the  Census  of  England  and  Wales  for  187 1. 


MOVEMENTS  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  47 

population  reaches  the  stationary  stage.  For  example,  in  Allah- 
abad District  during  twenty  years,  the  inhabitants  increased 
by  only  6  persons  in  10,000  each  year.  During  the  nine 
years  from  1872  to  1881,  the  annual  increase  was  8  persons 
in  10,000.  In  still  more  densely-peopled  localities  upon  the 
line  of  railway,  facilities  for  migration  have  drained  off  the 
excessive  population,  and  their  total  number  in  1872  was 
less  than  it  had  been  twenty  years  before.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  thinly-peopled  Provinces  the  inhabitants  quickly  multiply.  Under- 

Thus,  when  we  obtained  the  District  of  Amherst  in  1824  from  Pfopled 

I  rovinccs. 
the  king  of  Burma,  it  had  been  depopulated  by  savage  native 

wars.  The  British  established  their  firm  rule ;  people  began 
to  flock  in;  and  by  1829  there  were  70,000  inhabitants.  In 
fifty  years  the  population  had  increased  by  more  than  four- 
fold, or  to  301,086  in  1881. 

In  some  parts  of  India,  therefore,  there  are  more  husband-  The  '  im- 
men  than  the  land  can  feed  :  in  other  parts,  vast  tracts  of  fertile  '"°^i'^ 

....  .  Indian 

sou  still  await  the  cultivator.  In  England  the  people  would  peasant, 
move  freely  from  the  over-populated  districts  to  the  thinly- 
inhabited  ones ;  but  in  India  the  peasant  clings  to  his  heredi- 
tary homestead  long  after  his  family  has  outgrown  his  fields. 
If  the  Indian  races  will  only  learn  to  migrate  to  tracts  where 
spare  land  still  abounds,  they  will  do  more  than  the  utmost 
efforts  of  Government  can  accomplish  to  prevent  famines. 

The  facts  disclosed  by  the  Census  in  1872  and  1881  prove,  Move- 
indeed,  that  the  Indian  peasant  has  lost  something  of  his  '^^'^ts  of 
old  immobility.  The  general  tendency  of  the  population 
in  Bengal  is  south  and  east  to  the  newly-formed  delta,  and 
north-east  to  the  thinly-peoj^led  valleys  of  Assam.  In  1881, 
it  was  ascertained  that  out  of  a  specified  population  of  247 
millions,  nearly  6|  millions  were  living  in  Provinces  in  which 
they  had  not  been  born.  But  the  clinging  of  the  people  to 
their  old  villages  in  spite  of  hardship  and  famine  still  forms 
a  most  difficult  problem  in  India. 

Throughout  many  of  the  hill  and  border  tracts,  land  is  so 
plentiful  that  it  yields  no  rent.     Any  one  may  settle  on  a  patch 
which  he  clears  of  jungle,  exhausts  the  soil  by  a  rapid  succession  The 
of  crops,  and  then  leaves  it  to  relapse  into  forest.    In  such  tracts  nomadic 
no  rent  is  charged  ;  but  each  family  of  wandering  husbandmen  of^hy'" 
pays  a  poll-tax  to  the  chief,  or  to  the  Government  under  whose  bandry. 
protection  it  dwells.    As  the  inhabitants  increase,  this  nomadic 
system  of  cultivation  gives  place  to  regular  tillage.     Through- 
out British  Burma  we  see  both  methods  at  work  side  by  side  ; 
while  on  the  thickly-peopled  plains  of  India  the  '  wandering 


48  THE  POPULATION  OF  INDIA. 

husbandmen'  have  long  since  disappeared,  and  each  house- 
hold  remains   rooted   to   the   same   plot   of    ground   during 
generations. 
Labour  In  some  parts  of  India,  this  change  in  the  relation  of  the 

and  land     pgople  to  the  land  has  taken  place  before  our  own  eyes.    Thus, 
in  the  last  \       ^  .        ,       f  i  •     ,  i     i       i 

century ;     m  Bengal  there  was  in  the  last  century  more  cultivable  land 

than  there  were  husbandmen  to  till  it.     A  hundred  years  of 

British  rule  has  reversed  the  ratio  ;  and  there  are  now,  in  some 

Districts,  more  people  than  there  is  land  for  them  to  till.    This 

change  has  produced  a  silent  revolution  in  the  rural  economy 

of  the  Province.     When  the  English  obtained  Bengal  in  the 

last  century,  they  found  in  many  Districts  two  distinct  rates  of 

rent  current  for  the  same  classes  of  soil     The  higher  rate  was 

paid  by  the  thdn'i  niya/s,  literally  '  stationary '  tenants,  who  had 

their  houses  in  the  hamlet,  and  formed  the  permanent  body  of 

cultivators.    These  tenants  would  bear  a  great  deal  of  extortion 

rather  than  forsake  the  lands  on  which  they  had  expended 

labour  and  capital  in  digging  tanks,  cutting  irrigation  channels, 

and  building  homesteads.     They  were  oppressed  accordingly , 

and  while  they  had  a  right  of  occupation  in  their  holdings,  so 

long  as  they  paid  the  rent,  the  very  highest  rates  were  squeezed 

out  of  them.    The  temporary  or  wandering  cultivators,  paikMst 

rdyats^  were  those  who  had  not  their  homes  in  the  village,  and 

who  could  therefore  leave  it  whenever  they  pleased.     They 

had  no  right  of  occupancy  in  their  fields ;  but  on  the  other 

hand,  the  landlord  could  not  obtain  so  high  a  rent  from  them, 

as  there  was  plenty  of  spare  land  in  adjoining  villages  to  which 

they  could  retire  in  case  of  oppression.     The  landlords  were 

at  that  time  competing  for  tenants  ;  and  one  of  the  commonest 

complaints  which  they  brought  before  the  Company's  officials 

was  a  charge  against  a  neighbouring  proprietor  of  '  enticing 

away  their  cultivators  '  by  low  rates  of  rent. 

and  at  the       This   State   of  things   is   now   reversed   in    most    parts   of 

piesent       Bengal.      The    landlords    have   no   longer   to    compete    for 

tenants.     It  is  the  husbandmen  who  have  to  compete  with 

one   another   for  land.      There   are   still  two   rates   of  rent. 

But  the  lower  rates  are  now  paid  by  the  '  stationary  '  tenants, 

who  possess  occupancy  rights ;  while  the  higher  or  rack-rents 

are  paid  by  the  other  class,  who  do  not  possess  occupancy 

rights.     In  ancient  India,  the  eponymous  hero,  or  original 

village  founder,  was  the  man  who  cut  down  the  jungle.     In 

modern  India,  special  legislation  and  a  Forest  Department  are 

required  to  preserve  the  trees  which  remain.     Not  only  has 

the   country  been  stripped  of  its   woodlands,   but   in   many 


ITS  PRESSURE  ON  THE  LAND.  49 

Districts  the  pastures  have  been  brought  under  the  plough,  to 
the  detriment  of  the  cattle.  The  people  can  no  longer  afford 
to  leave  sufficient  land  fallow,  or  under  grass,  for  their  oxen 
and  cows. 

It  will  be  readily  understood  that  in  a  country  where,  almost  Serfdom 
down  to  the  present  day,  there  was  more  land  than  there  '"  ^"'''^• 
were  people  to  till  it,  a  high  value  was  set  upon  the  cultivating 
class.  In  tracts  where  the  nomadic  system  of  husbandry 
survives,  no  family  is  permitted  by  the  native  chief  to  quit  his 
territory.  For  each  household  there  pays  a  poll-tax.  In 
many  parts  of  India,  we  found  the  lower  classes  attached  to 
the  soil  in  a  manner  which  could  scarcely  be  distinguished 
from  predial  slavery.  In  spite  of  our  legislative  enactments, 
this  system  lingered  on  during  nearly  a  century  of  British 
rule.  Our  early  officers  in  South-Eastern  Bengal,  especially  in 
the  great  island  of  Sandwip,  almost  raised  a  rebellion  by 
their  attempts  to  liberate  the  slaves.  Indeed,  in  certain  tracts 
where  we  found  the  population  very  depressed,  as  in  Behar, 
the  courts  have  in  our  own  day  occasionally  brought  to  light 
the  survival  of  serfdom.  A  feeling  still  survives  in  the  minds 
of  some  British  officers  against  migrations  of  the  people  from 
their  own  Districts  to  adjoining  ones,  or  to  Native  States. 

If  we    except    the    newly -annexed    Provinces    of   Burma  Unequal 

and  Assam,  the   population  of  British  India  is   nearly  three  Pressure  of 

,  ,.  r-r-i  XT      thepopula- 

tunes  more  dense  than  the  population   of  Feudatory  India,  tion  on  the 

This  great  disproportion  cannot  be  altogether  explained  by  l^"<i- 
differences  in  the  natural  capabilities  of  the  soil.  It  would 
be  for  the  advantage  of  the  people  that  they  should  spread 
themselves  over  the  whole  country,  and  so  equalize  the 
pressure  throughout.  The  Feudatory  States  lie  interspersed 
among  British  territory,  and  no  costly  migration  by  sea 
is  involved.  That  the  people  do  not  thus  spread  themselves 
out,  but  crowd  together  within  our  Provinces,  is  partly  due  to 
their  belief  that,  on  the  whole,  they  are  less  liable  to  oppression 
under  British  rule  than  under  native  chiefs.  But  any  outward 
movement  of  the  population,  even  from  the  most  densely- 
peopled  English  Districts,  would  probably  be  regarded  with  pain 
by  the  local  officers.  Indeed,  the  occasional  exodus  of  a  few 
cultivators  from  the  overcrowded  Province  of  Behar  into  the 
thinly-peopled  frontier  State  of  Nepal,  has  formed  a  subject  of 
sensitive  self-reproach.  In  proportion  as  we  can  enforce  good 
government  under  the  native  chiefs  of  India,  we  should  hope 
to  see  a  gradual  movement  of  the  people  into  the  Feudatory 
States.       There    is    plenty  of    land    in    India  for  the  whole 

D 


5° 


THE  POPULATION  OF  INDIA. 


Census  of 


population.      What  is  required  is  not  the  diminution  of  the 
people,  but  their  more  equal  distribution. 

The  Census,  taken  in  February  1881,  shows  an  increase  of 
15I  millions  for  all  India,  or  6-4  per  cent.,  during  the  nine 
years  since  1872.  But  this  general  statement  gives  but  an 
imperfect  insight  into  the  local  increment  of  the  people.  For 
while  in  the  southern  Provinces,  which  suffered  most  from  the 
famineof  1877-78,  the  numbers  have  stood  still,  or  even  receded. 
Increase  of  an  enormous  increase  has  taken  place  in  the  less  thickly- 
the  people,  peopled  tracts.  Thus,  the  British  Presidency  of  Madras  shows 
a  diminution  of  i  '4  per  cent. ;  while  the  Native  State  of 
Mysore,  which  felt  the  full  effects  of  the  long-continued  dearth 
of  1876-79,  had  17  percent,  fewer  inhabitants  in  1881  than 
in  1872.  The  Bengal  population  has  increased  by  11  per  cent. 
in  the  nine  years,  notwithstanding  the  milder  scarcity  of  1874. 
But  the  great  increase  is  in  the  outlying,  under-peopled  Districts 
of  India,  where  the  pressure  of  the  inhabitants  on  the  soil  has 
not  yet  begun  to  be  felt,  and  where  thousands  of  acres  still 
await  the  cultivator.  In  Assam  the  increase  (1872-81)  has 
been  19  per  cent. — largely  due  to  immigration;  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  with  their  Feudatory  States  and  tracts  of  unreclaimed 
jungle,  25  per  cent.  ;  in  Berar  (adjoining  them),  20  per  cent.  ; 
while  in  Burma — which,  most  of  all  the  British  Provinces, 
stands  in  need  of  inhabitants — the  nine  years  have  added  36 
per  cent,  to  the  population,  equivalent  to  doubling  the  people 
in  about  twenty-five  years. 

The  following  table  compares  the  results  of  the  Census  of 
1872  with  those  of  the  Census  of  1881.  It  should  be  borne 
in  mind,  however,  that  the  Census  of  1872  was  not  a  synchron- 
ous one ;  and  that  in  some  of  the  Native  States  the  returns  of 
1872  were  estimates  rather  than  actual  enumerations.^ 

Population  of  India  in  1872  and  1881. 


In  1872. 

In  1881. 

Increase. 

Per- 
centage. 

British  Provinces,     .     . 
Feudatory  States,     .     . 
French  and  Portuguese  ) 
Possessions,     .     .     -j 

186,041,191 
54,2x1,158 

679,172 

199,043,492 
56,604,371 

748,783 

13,002,301 

2.393.213 

69,611 

6-99 
4-41 

IO'25 

240.931.521 

256,396,646 

15,465,125 

6*42 

1  The  figures  for  1872  in  the  above  table  are  taken  from  the  finally 
revised  statements,  after  allowing  for  transfers  of  territory  and  the  restora- 
tion of  Mysore  to  Native  rule.     How  far  the  increase  in  the  French  and 


FOUR- FOLD  DIVISION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.     51 

The  Ethnical  History  of  India. — The  statistical  elacida-  l-ilm)- 
tion  of  the  races  and  Provinces  of  India  can  only  be  effected  "^^' 
by  tabular  forms.  At  the  end  of  this  volume,  therefore,  will  be 
found  a  series  of  ten  statements  dealing  with  the  various  aspects 
of  the  Indian  population.^  The  briefest  summary  of  the 
ethnological  elements  which  compose  that  population  is  all 
that  can  be  here  attempted. 

European  writers  formerly  divided  the  Indian  population  into  Four-fold 
two  races — the  Hindus  and  the  Muhammadans.      But  when  we  Qf^he"" 
look  more  closely  at  the  people,  we  find  that  they  consist  of  four  People, 
well-marked  elements.     These  are,  first,  the  recognised  non-(i)  Non- 
Aryan  Tribes,  called  the  Aborigines,  and  their  half-Hinduized  -'^''y^ns. 
descendants,  numbering  over   17J  millions   in  British  India 
in  1872.      Second,  the   comparatively  pure  offspring  of  the  {2)Aryp.ns. 
Aryan  or  Sanskrit  -  speaking   Race  (the    Brahmans    and  Raj- 
puts), about  16  millions  in  1872.      Third,  the  great  Mixed  ,• 
Population,    known   as   the    Hindus,    which   has    grown    out  (3)  Mixed  .y 
of  the   Aryan   and    non  -  Aryan    elements    (chiefly   from   the  ^'"""*- 
latter),    in  millions  in   1S72.      Fourth,   the   iMuhammadans,  (4)  Mu- 
41  millions.     These  made  up  the  186  millions  of  people  under  ^|^^^'^^" 
British  rule  in  1872.     The  same  four-fold  division  applied  to 
the  population  of  the  54  millions  in  Feudatory  India  in  1872, 
but  we  do  not  know  the  numbers  of  the  different  classes. 

The  figures  for  1872  are  reproduced  in  the  last  paragraph, 
as  the  Census  of  18S1  adopted  a  different  classification,  which 

Portuguese  Possessions  is  due  to  more  accurate  enumeration  in  iSSi,  cannot 
be  exactly  ascertained. 

'  Viz. — Table     I.  Area,  villages,  houses,  and  population,  etc.,  in  each 

Province  of  British  India  in  i88i. 
,,       II.  Distribution  into  town  and  country,  or  '  towns  and 

villages  in  British  India.' 
,,     III.  Cultivated,    cultivable,    and    uncultivable     land    in 

Provinces  for  which  returns  exist. 
,,      IV.  Population  of  British  India  classified  according  to  age 

and  sex. 
,,        V.  Population  of  British    India   classified  according  to 

religion. 
,,      VI.  Asiatic  non-Indian  population  of  British  India  classi- 
fied according  to  birth-place. 
,,    VII.  Non- Asiatic  population   of  British  India   classified 

according  to  birth-place. 
,,  VIII.  Town  population  of  India,  being   a  list  of  the  149 

towns  of  British  India,  of  which    the   population 

exceeds  20,000, 
,,      IX.   Population  of  British  India  according  to  education. 
,,       X.  Population  of  British  India,  classified  according  to 

caste,  sect,  and  nationality. 


52  THE  POPULATION  OF  INDIA. 

does  not  so  clearly  disclose  the  ethnical  elements  of  the 
people.  This  difference  will  be  more  fully  explained  in  the 
next  chapter. 

According  to  the  Census  of  i8Si,  the  comparatively  pure 
descendants  of  the  Aryan  race  (the  Brahmans  and  Rajputs) 
still  numbered  i6  millions  in  British  India;  the  mixed 
population,  including  lower  caste  Hindus,  Aboriginal  Tribes, 
and  Christians,  138  millions;  and  the  Muhammadans,  45 
millions.  These  make  up  the  199  millions  in  British  India 
in  1 88 1.  In  the  Feudatory  States  there  appear  to  have 
been  5|-  millions  of  Brahmans  and  Rajputs  ;  46|-  millions 
of  lower  caste  Hindus  and  Aboriginal  Tribes ;  and  5  millions 
of  INIuhammadans, — making  up  the  56I  millions  in  Feuda- 
tory India  in  1881.  The  aboriginal  element  of  the  population 
was  chiefly  returned  as  low-caste  Hindus.  Only  4I  millions 
were  separately  registered  as  non-Aryans,  or  Aborigines  in 
British  India ;  and  i|  millions  in  the  Feudatory  States ; 
making  6.^  millions  for  all  India  in  1881. 
rianof  this  The  following  chapters  first  treat  of  each  of  these  four  classes 
volume  in   separately,  namely  the  non-Aryan  or  so-called  aboriginal  tribes  ; 

dealing  ^  ^     .         .  ^  ,  .       ,°  ,     . 

with  the     the  Aryan  mimigrants  from  the  north ;  the  mixed  population 

Indian        qj-  Hindus  ;    and  the  IMuhammadans.      These   are   the  four 

their"^         elements  which  make   up   the    present    population.       Their 

hiitor)-.       history,   as   a   loosely-connected  whole,   after   they  had  been 

pounded  together  in  the  mortar  of  Muhammadan  conquest, 

will  next  be  traced.      A  narrative  of  the  events  by  which  the 

English  nation  became  answerable  for  the  welfare  of  this  vast 

section  of  the  human  family,  will  follow.     Finally,  it  will  be 

shown  how  the  British  Government  is  trying  to  discharge  its 

solemn  responsibility,  and  the  administrative  mechanism  will  be 

explained  which  has  knit  together  the  discordant  races  of  India 

into  a  great  pacific  Empire. 

The  two  Our  earliest  glimpses  of  India  disclose  two  races  struggling 

races  of       ^      ^     ^^^^     ^j-j^^  ^^^  ^^.^g  -^  fair-skinned  people,  which  had 

pre-histonc  ^      ^ 

India.  lately  entered  by  the  north-western  passes  ;  a  people  of  Aryan, 
literally  '  noble,'  lineage,  speaking  a  stately  language,  worship- 
ping friendly  and  powerful  gods.  The  other  was  a  race  of  a 
lower  type,  who  had  long  dwelt  in  the  land,  and  whom  the 
lordly  new-comers  drove  back  before  them  into  the  mountains, 
or  reduced  to  servitude  on  the  plains.  The  comparatively 
pure  descendants  of  these  two  races  were  in  1872  nearly  equal 
in  numbers,  total  33!  millions ;  the  intermediate  castes,  sprung 
chiefly  from  the  ruder  stock,  make  up  the  mass  of  the  present 
Indian  population. 


[  53  J 


CHAPTER    III. 


THE    NON-ARYAN    RACES. 


The   present   chapter   treats  of  the  lower  tribes,  an  obscure  The  Non- 
people,  who,  in  the  absence  of  a  race-name  of  their  own,  may  '^''T^^^- 
be  called  the  non-Aryans  or  Aborigines.     They  have  left  no  gines. 
written  records ;  indeed,  the  use  of  letters,  or  of  any  simplest 
hieroglyphs,  was  to  them  unknown.     The  sole  works  of  their 
hands  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  rude  stone  circles,  and 
the  upright  slabs  and  mounds,  beneath  which,  like  the  primitive  Kistvaen- 
peoples  of  Europe,  they  buried  their  dead.     From  these  we  Guilders. 
only  discover  that,  at  some  far -distant  but  unfixed  period, 
they  knew  how  to  make  round  pots  of  hard,  thin  earthenware, 
not  inelegant  in  shape  ;  that  they  fought  with  iron  weapons, 
and  wore  ornaments  of  copper  and  gold.     Coins  of  Imperial 
Rome  have  been  dug  up  from  their  graves.    Still  earlier  remains 
prove  that,  long  before,  their  advent,  India  was  peopled  as  far 
as  the  depths  of  the  Central  Provinces,  by  tribes  unacquainted 
with  the  metals,  who  hunted  and  warred  with  polished  flint  Flint 
axes  and  other  deftly-wrought  implements  of  stone,  similar  to  ^^eapons. 
those  found  in  Northern  Europe.     And  even  these  were  the 
successors  of  yet  ruder  beings,  who  have  left  their  agate  knives 
and  rough  flint  weapons  in  the  Narbada  valley.     In  front  of 
this  far-stretching  background  of  the  early    INIetal  and  Stone 
Ages,  we  see  the  so-called  Aborigines  being  beaten  down  by 
the  newly-arrived  Aryan  race. 

The  struggle  is  commemorated  by  the  two  names  which  the  The  Non- 
victors  gave  to  the  early  tribes,  namely,  the  Dasyus,  or  'enemies,'  Aryans  as 
and  the  Dasas,  or  '  slaves.'     The  new-comers  from  the  north  ^y  the 
prided  themselves  on  their  fair  complexion,  and  their  Sanskrit  Aryans, 
word  for  'colour'   [vartia)  came  to  mean  'race'  or  'caste.' 
Their  earliest  poets,  3000  years  ago,  praised  in  the  Rig-Veda 
their  bright   gods,  who,  'slaying   the    Dasyus,  protected    the 
Aryan  colour;''  who  '  subjected  the  black-skin  to  the  Aryan  man.'  The 
They  tell  us  of  their  '  stormy  deities,  who  rush  on  like  furious  '^j^^'^^'^" 
bulls  and  scatter  the  black-skin.'     The  sacrificer  gave  thanks 
to  his  god  for  '  dispersing  the  slave  bands  of  black  descent,' 


5  4  THE  NON-AR  \  AN  RA  CES. 

and  for  sweeping  away  '  the  vile  Dasyan  colour.'     Moreover, 
the  Aryan,  with  his  finely-formed  features,  loathed  the  squat 
Mongolian  faces  of  the  Aborigines.     One  Vedic  singer  speaks 
Flat-  of  them  as  '  noseless '  or  flat-nosed,  while  another  praises  his 

own  '  beautiful-nosed '  gods.     Indeed,  the  Vedic  hymns  abound 
in  scornful  epithets  for  the  primitive  tribes,  as  'disturbers  of 
Raw-  sacrifices,'  '  gross  feeders  on  flesh,'  '  raw-eaters,'  '  lawless,'  '  not- 

sacrificing,'  '  without  gods,'  and  '  without  rites.'     As  time  went 
on,  and  these  rude  tribes  were  driven  back  into  the  forest,  they 
were  painted  in  still  more  hideous  shapes,  till    they  became 
The  the  'monsters'  and  'demons' of  the  Aryan  poet  and  priest. 

Demons  'pj^gjj.  race-name  Dasyu,  '  enemy,'  thus  grew  to  signify  a  devil, 
Aryan  as  the  old  Teutonic  word  for  enemy  (still  used  in  that  sense  in 
race.  j-j^g  (^qxvlX'xw  feiiui)  has  become  the  English  '  fiend.' 

More  Nevertheless,   all  of  them   could   not   have  been   savages, 

civilised  \Vg  hear  of  wealthy  Dasyus,  and  even  the  Vedic  hymns 
tribes.  speak  of  their  '  seven  castles '  and  '  ninety  forts.'  In  later 
Sanskrit  literature,  the  Aryans  make  alliance  with  aboriginal 
princes ;  and  when  history  at  length  dawns  on  the  scene,  we 
find  some  of  the  most  powerful  kingdoms  of  India  ruled  by 
dynasties  of  non-Aryan  descent.  Nor  were  they  devoid  of 
religious  rites,  or  of  cravings  after  a  future  life.  '  They  adorn,' 
says  an  ancient  Sanskrit  treatise,^  '  the  bodies  of  their  dead 
with  gifts,  with  raiment,  with  ornaments ;  imagining  that  thereby 
they  shall  attain  the  world  to  come.'  These  ornaments  are 
the  bits  of  bronze,  copper,  and  gold  which  we  now  dig  up  from 
beneath  their  rude  stone  monuments.  In  the  Sanskrit  epic 
which  narrates  the  advance  of  the  Aryans  into  Southern 
India,  a  non-Aryan  chief  describes  his  race  as  '  of  fearful 
swiftness,  unyielding  in  battle,  in  colour  like  a  dark-blue 
cloud.'2 
The  non-  Let  US  HOW  examine  these  primitive  peoples,  not  as  portrayed 
the\'^are^^  by  their  enemies  3000  years  ago,  but  as  they  exist  at  the  present 
day.  Thrust  back  by  the  Aryans  from  the  plains,  they  have 
lain  hidden  away  in  the  recesses  of  the  mountains,  like  the 
remains  of  extinct  animals  which  palaeontologists  find  in  hill 
caves.  India  thus  forms  a  great  museum  of  races,  in  which  we 
can  study  man  from  his  lowest  to  his  highest  stages  of  culture. 
The  specimens  are  not  fossils  or  dry  bones,  but  living  com- 
munities, to  whose  widely-diverse  conditions  we  have  to  adapt 
our  administration  and  our  laws. 

'  Chandogya    Upanishad,    viii.    8.    5 ;    Muir's   Sanskrit    Texls,   ii.    396 
(1874). 

-  Kamayana  (ed.  Gorresio),  iii.  28.  iS. 


they  are. 


THE   WILDER  NON-ARYANS.  55 

Among  the  rudest  fragments  of  mankind  are  the  isolated  The 
Andaman  islanders  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  The  old  Arab  and  jsiand""" 
European  voyagers  described  them  as  dog-faced  man-eaters. 
The  English  officers  sent  to  the  islands  in  1855  to  establish 
a  Settlement,  foimd  themselves  surrounded  by  naked  cannibals 
of  a  ferocious  type ;  who  daubed  themselves  when  festive 
with  red  earth,  and  mourned  in  a  suit  of  olive-coloured 
mud.  They  used  a  noise  like  crying  to  express  friendship  or 
joy ;  bore  only  names  of  common  gender,  which  they  received 
before  birth,  and  which  therefore  had  to  be  applicable  to  either 
sex ;  and  their  sole  conception  of  a  god  was  an  evil  spirit,  who 
spread  disease.  For  five  years  they  repulsed  every  effort  at 
intercourse  with  showers  of  arrows  ;  but  our  officers  slowly 
brought  them  to  a  better  frame  of  mind  by  building  sheds  for 
them  near  the  British  Settlement,  where  these  poor  beings  might 
find  shelter  from  the  tropical  rains,  and  receive  medicines  and 
food. 

The  Anamalai  Hills,  in  Southern  Madras,  form  the  refuge  Anamalai 
of  a  whole  series  of  broken  tribes.  Five  hamlets  of  long-haired,  "  "^^"' 
wild-looking  Puliars  were  found  living  on  jungle  products,  mice, 
or  any  small  animals  they  could  catch;  and  worshipping  demons. 
The  Mundavers  shrink  from  contact  with  the  outside  world, 
and  possessed  no  fixed  dwellings,  but  wandered  over  the  inner- 
most hills  with  their  cattle,  sheltering  themselves  under  little  leaf 
sheds,  and  seldom  remaining  in  one  spot  more  than  a  year. 
The  thick-lipped,  small-bodied  Kaders,  'Lords  of  the  Hills,' 
are  a  remnant  of  a  higher  race.  These  hills,  now  almost 
uninhabited,  abound  in  the  great  stone  monuments  (kistvaens 
and  dolmens)  which  the  primitive  tribes  erected  over  their 
dead.  The  Nairs,  or  aborigines  of  South-Western  India,  still  The  Nairs. 
practise  polyandry,  according  to  which  one  woman  is  the  wife 
of  several  husbands,  and  a  man's  property  descends  not  to  his 
own  but  to  his  sister's  children.  This  system  also  appears 
among  the  Himalayan  tribes. 

In  the  Central  Provinces,  the  aboriginal  races  form  a  large  Non- 
proportion  of  the  population.     In  certain  Districts,  as  in  the  ^•'.-^<." 
State  of  Bastar,  they  amounted  in  1872  to  three-fifths  of  the  o(  the 
inhabitants.    Their  most  important  race,  the  Gonds,  have  made  ^entral 

...  .  .  .         .        I  rovinccs. 

some  advances  in  civilisation ;  but  the  wilder  tribes  still  cling  The 
to   the   forest,  and   live   by   the   chase.     Some  of  them  are  C^onds. 
reported  to  have  used,  within  our  own  times,  flint  points  for 
their  arrows.     The  Marias  wield  bows  of  great  strength,  which 
they  hold  with  their  feet  while  they  draw  the  string  with  both 
hands.     A  still  wilder  tribe,  the  iMari's,  fled  from  their  grass-built 


56 


THE  NON-AR  YAN  RA  CES. 


Mans. 


The 

]uangs  or 
"'  Leaf- 
wearers  ' 
of  Orissa 
Hill 
States ; 


Govern- 
ment. 


Tax-  huts  on  the  approach  of  a  stranger.     Once  a  year  a  messenger 

amonij  the  came  to  them  from  the  local  Raja  to  take  their  tribute,  which 
consisted  chiefly  of  jungle  products.  He  did  not,  however, 
enter  their  hamlets,  but  beat  a  drum  outside,  and  then  hid 
himself.  The  shy  Maris  crept  forth,  placed  what  they  had  to 
give  in  an  appointed  spot,  and  ran  back  into  their  retreats. 

Farther  to  the  north-east,  in  the  Tributary  States  of  Orissa, 
there  is  a  poor  tribe,  10,000  in  1872,  of  Juangs  or  Patuas, 
literally  the  'leaf-wearers,'  whose  women  wore  no  clothes.  The 
only  covering  on  the  females  consisted  of  a  few  strings  of 
beads  round  the  waist,  with  a  bunch  of  leaves  tied  before 
and  behind.  Those  under  British  influence  were,  in  187 1, 
clothed  by  clothed  by  order  of  the  Government,  and  their  Chief  was 
persuaded  to  do  the  same  work  for  others.  The  English 
officer  called  together  the  clan,  and  after  a  speech,  handed 
out  strips  of  cotton  for  the  women  to  put  on.  They  then 
passed  in  single  file,  to  the  number  of  1900,  before  him, 
made  obeisance  to  him,  and  were  afterwards  marked  on  the 
forehead  with  vermilion,  as  a  sign  of  their  entering  into  civilised 
society.  Finally,  they  gathered  the  bunches  of  leaves  which 
had  formed  their  sole  clothing  into  a  heap,  and  set  fire  to  it. 
It  is  reported,  however,  that  many  of  the  Juang  women  have 
since  relapsed  to  their  foliage  attire. 

This  leaf-wearing  tribe  had  no  knowledge  of  the  metals  till 
quite  lately,  when  foreigners  came  among  them ;  and  no  word 
existed  in  their  own  language  for  iron  or  any  other  metal. 
But  their  country  abounds  in  flint  weapons,  so  that  the  Juangs 
form  a  remnant  to  our  own  day  of  the  Stone  Age.  '  Their 
huts,'  writes  the  officer  who  knows  them  best,  'are  among  the 
smallest  that  human  beings  ever  deliberately  constructed  as 
dwellings.  They  measure  about  6  feet  by  8.  The  head  of  the 
family  and  all  the  females  huddle  together  in  this  one  shell, 
not  much  larger  than  a  dog-kennel.'  The  boys  and  the  young 
men  of  the  village  live  in  a  building  apart  by  themselves  ; 
and  this  custom  of  having  a  common  abode  for  the  whole  male 
youth  of  the  hamlet  is  found  among  many  aboriginal  tribes 
in  distant  parts  of  India. 

Proceeding  to  the  northern  boundary  of  India,  we  find  the 
slopes  and  spurs  of  the  Himalayas  peopled  by  a  great  variety 
of  rude  tribes.  Some  of  the  Assam  hillmen  have  no  word  for 
expressing  distance  by  miles  nor  any  land  measure,  but  reckon 
the  length  of  a  journey  by  the  number  of  quids  of  tobacco  or 
betel-leaf  which  they  chew  upon  the  way.  As  a  rule,  they  are 
fierce,  black,  undersized,  and  ill-fed.    They  eked  out  a  wretched 


A  relic  of 
the  Stone 
Age. 


Juang 

ilweilings. 


Himalayan 
tribes. 


MORE  ADVAXCED  NON-ARYANS.  57 

subsistence  by  plundering  the  more  civilised  hamlets  of  the 
Assam  valley  ;  a  means  of  livelihood  which  they  have  but  slowly 
given  up  under  British  rule.  Some  of  the  wildest  of  them, 
like  the  independent  Abars,  are  now  engaged  as  a  sort  of 
irregular  police,  to  keep  the  peace  of  the  border,  in  return  for 
a  yearly  gift  of  cloth,  hoes,  and  grain.  Their  very  names  bear 
witness  to  their  former  wild  life.  One  tribe,  the  Akas  of 
Assam,  is  divided  into  two  clans,  known  respectively  as  '  The  Akas  of 
eaters  of  a  thousand  hearths,'  and  '  The  thieves  who  lurk  in  the  ^^sam. 
cotton-field.' 

Many  of  the  aboriginal  tribes,  therefore,  remain  in  the  same  More 
early  stage  of  human  progress  as  that  ascribed  to  them  by  the  •'Advanced 
Vedic  poets  more  than  3000  years  ago.     But  others  have  made  Aryan 
great   advances,  and  form   communities  of  a  well-developed  bribes. 
type.     It  must  here  suffice  to  briefly  describe  two  such  races ; 
the  Santals  and  the  Kandhs  who  inhabit  the  north-eastern  edge 
of  the  central  plateau.      The  Santals  have  their  home  among 
the  hills  which  abut  on  the  Ganges  in  Lower  Bengal,     The 
Kandhs  live  150  to  350  miles  to  the  south,  among  the  high- 
lands which  look  down  upon  the  Orissa  delta   and    Madras 
coast. 

The  Santals  dwell  in  villages  in  the  jungles  or  among  the  The 
mountains,  apart    from    the    people  of    the   plains.       They  Santals. 
numbered  about  a  million  in  1872,  and  give  their  name  to  a 
large   District,  the  Santal  Parganas,    140  miles  north-west 
of  Calcutta.     Although  still  clinging  to   many  customs  of  a 
hunting  forest  tribe,  they  have  learned  the  use  of  the  plough, 
and  settled  down  into  skilful  husbandmen.     Each  hamlet  is 
governed  by  its   own    head-man,  who    is  supposed    to    be  a  Santal 
descendant  of  the  original  founder  of  the  village,  and  who  is  ^'  ''^^e 

o  o   7  govern- 

assisted  by  a  deputy  head-man  and  a  watchman.     The  boys  of  ment. 
the  hamlet  have  their  separate  officers,  and  are  strictly  con- 
trolled by  their  own  head  and  his  deputy  till  they  enter  the 
married  state.     The  Santals  know  not  the  cruel  distinctions  of 
Hindu  caste,  but  trace  their  tribes,  usually  numbering  seven,  to 
the  seven  sons  of  the  first  parents.      The  whole  village  feasts, 
hunts,  and  worships    together ;   and   the   Santal  had  to  take 
his  Avife,  not  from  his  own    tribe,  but    from  one  of  the    six 
others.     So  strong  is  the  bond  of  race,  that    expulsion  from  No  castes, 
the  tribe  was  the  only  Santal  punishment,     A  heinous  criminal  t>ut  strong 
was  cut  off  from  '  fire  and  water '  in  the  village,  and  sent  forth  feeling. 
alone  into  the  jungle.     Minor  offences  were  forgiven  upon  a 
public  reconciliation  with  the  tribe;  to  effect  which  the  guilty 
one  provided  a  feast,  with  much  rice-beer,  for  his  clansmen. 


58  THE  NON-ARYAN  RACES. 

The  six  The  chief  ceremonies  in  a  Santal's  life,  six  in  number,  vary 

cere-'  ^'^  different  parts  of  the  country,  but  are  all  based  upon  this 

monies.  Strong  feeling  of  kinship.  The  first  is  the  admission  of  the 
newly-born  child  into  the  family, — a  secret  rite,  one  act  of  which 
consists  in  the  father  placing  his  hand  on  the  infant's  head 
and  repeating  the  name  of  the  ancestral  deity.  The  second,  the 
admission  of  the  child  into  the  tribe,  is  celebrated  three  or  five 
days  after  birth, — a  more  public  ceremony,  at  which  the  child's 
head  is  shaved,  and  the  clansmen  drink  beer.  The  third 
ceremony,  or  admission  into  the  race,  takes  place  about  the 
fifth  year ;  when  all  friends,  whatever  may  be  their  tribe,  are 
invited  to  a  feast,  and  the  child  is  marked  on  his  right  arm  with 
the  Santal  spots.  The  fourth  consists  of  the  union  of  his  own 
Santal  tribe  with  another  by  marriage,  which  does  not  take  place  till 
mainages.  ^^  young  people  can  choose  for  themselves.  At  the  end  of 
the  ceremony,  the  girl's  clanswomen  pound  burning  charcoal 
with  the  household  pestle,  in  token  of  the  breaking  up  of  her 
former  family  ties,  and  then  extinguish  it  with  water,  to  signify 
the  separation  of  the  bride  from  her  clan.  The  Santals  respect 
their  women,  and  seldom  or  never  take  a  second  wife,  except  for 
the  purpose  of  obtaining  an  heir.  The  fifth  ceremony  consists  of 
the  dismissal  of  the  Santal  from  the  race,  by  the  solemn  burning 
of  his  body  after  death.  The  sixth  is  the  reunion  of  the  dead 
with  the  fathers,  by  floating  three  fragments  of  the  skull  down 
the  Damodar  river  (if  possible),  the  sacred  stream  of  the  race. 
Santal  The  Santal  had  no  conception  of  bright  and  friendly  gods, 

^  "  ■      such  as  the  Vedic  singers   worshipped.      Still  less  could  he 
imagine  one  omnipotent  and  beneficent  Deity, who  watches  over 
mankind.     Hunted  and  driven  back  before  the  Hindus  and 
Muhammadans,  he  did  not  understand  how  a  Being  could  be 
more  powerful   than  himself  without  wishing   to  harm   him. 
'  What,'  said  a  Santal  to  an  eloquent  missionary,  who  had  been 
discoursing  on  the  Christian  God — '  what  if  that  strong  One 
should  eat  me  ? '      Nevertheless,  the  earth  swarms  with  spirits 
and  demons,  whose  ill-will  he  tries    to  avert.      His   religion 
consists  of  nature-worship,  and  offerings  to  the  ghosts  of  his 
ancestors  ;  and  his  rites  are  more  numerous  even  than  those  of 
Race-god  ;  the  Hindus.     First,  the  Race-god  ;  next,  the  Tribe-god  of  each 
trod  •^'         °^  ^^  seven  clans ;  then  the  Family-god,  requires  in  turn  his 
Family.      oblation.     But    besides   these,  there    are  the   spirits   of    his 
^5*   '  forefathers,  river-spirits,  forest-spirits,  well-demons,  mountain- 

demons,  and  a  mighty  host  of  unseen  beings,  whom  he  must 
keep  in  good  humour.  He  seems  also  to  have  borrowed  from 
the  Hindus  some  rites  of  sun-worship.       But   his  own   gods 


THE  SANTALS  UNDER  BRITISH  RULE.     59 

dwell  chiefly  in  the  ancient  sal  trees  which  shade  his  hamlets. 
Them  he  propitiates  by  offerings  of  blood  ;  with  goats,  cocks, 
and  chickens.  If  the  sacrificer  cannot  afford  an  animal,  it  is 
with  a  red  flower,  or  a  red  fruit,  that  he  draws  near  to  his  gods. 
In  some  hamlets,  the  people  dance  round  every  tree,  so  that 
they  may  not  by  evil  chance  miss  the  one  in  which  the  village- 
spirits  happen  to  be  dwelling. 

Until  nearly  the  end  of  the  last  century,  the  Santals  were  The  San- 
the  pests  of  the  neighbouring  plains.  Regularly  after  the  '^'?  .""'^'•''^ 
December  harvest,  they  sallied  forth  from  their  mountains,  mic. 
plundered  the  lowlands,  levied  black-mail,  and  then  retired 
with  their  spoil  to  their  jungles.  But  in  1789,  the  British 
Government  granted  the  proprietary  right  in  the  soil  to  the 
landholders  of  Bengal  under  the  arrangements  which  four 
■years  later  became  the  Permanent  Settlement.  Forthwith 
every  landholder  tried  to  increase  the  cultivated  area  on  his 
estate,  now  become  his  own  property.  The  Santals  and  other 
wild  tribes  were  tempted  to  issue  from  their  fastnesses  by  high 
wages  or  rent-free  farms.  '  Every  proprietor,'  said  a  London 
newspaper,  the  Morning  Chronicle,  in  1792,  'is  collecting  hus- They  come 
bandmen  from  the  hills  to  improve  his  lowlands.'  The  English  ^^^  j^j[jg  " 
officers  found  they  had  a  new  race  to  deal  with,  and  gradu- 
ally won  the  highlanders  to  peaceful  habits  by  grants  of  land 
and  '  exemption  from  all  taxes.'  They  were  allowed  to  settle 
disputes  '  among  themselves  by  their  own  customs,'  and  they 
were  used  as  a  sort  of  frontier  police,  being  paid  to  deliver  up 
any  of  their  own  people  who  committed  violent  crimes.  Such 
criminals,  after  being  found  guilty  by  their  countrymen,  were 
handed  over  for  punishment  to  the  English  judge.  The 
Santals  gained  confidence  in  us  by  degrees,  and  came  down  in 
great  numbers  within  the  fence  of  stone  pillars,  which  the 
British  officers  set  up  in  1832  to  mark  off  the  country  of  the 
hill  people  from  the  plains. 

The  Hindu  money-lender  soon  made  his  appearance  in  their  The  San- 
settlements,  and  the  simple  hillmen  learned   the  new  luxury  f^  ^  ^^\h\ 
of  borrowing.      Our  laws  were  gradually  applied  to  them,  and  to  the 
before  the  middle  of  this  century  most  of  the  Santal  hamlets  'flm^l^s. 
were  plunged  in  debt.     Their  strong  love  of  kindred  prevented 
them  from  running  away,  and  the  Hindu  usurers  reduced  them 
to  a  state  of  practical  slavery,  by  threatening  the  terrors  of  a 
distant    jail.     In    1848,  three  whole  villages   threw   up  their 
clearings,  and  fled  in  despair  to  the  jungle.     In  June  1S55, 
the  southern  Santals  started  in  a  body,  30,000  strong,  with 
their  bows  and  arrows,  to  walk    140  miles  to   Calcutta  and 


6o 


THE  NON-ARYAN  RACES, 


Santal 
rising-, 


The 

Kandhs  or 
Kondhb. 


Breaking 
up  of  the 


Kandh 
j)atri- 
archal 
govern- 
ment. 


Kandh 
wars  and 
punish- 
ments. 


lay  their  condition  before  the  Governor-General.  At  first  they 
were  orderly  ;  but  the  way  was  long,  and  they  had  to  live. 
Robberies  took  place ;  quarrels  broke  out  between  them  and 
the  police  ;  and  within  a  week  they  were  in  armed  rebellion. 
The  rising  was  put  down,  not  without  mournful  bloodshed  ; 
and  their  wrongs  were  carefully  inquired  into.  A  very  simple 
form  of  administration  was  introduced,  according  to  which 
their  village  head-men  were  brought  into  direct  contact  with 
the  English  officer  in  charge  of  the  District,  and  acted  as  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  Our  system  of  justice  and 
government  has  been  adapted  to  their  primitive  needs,  and  the 
Santals  have  for  years  been  among  the  most  prosperous  of  the 
Indian  races. 

The  Kandhs,  literally  '  The  Mountaineers,'  a  tribe  about 
100,000  strong  in  1872,  inhabit  the  steep  and  forest-covered 
ranges  which  rise  inland  from  the  Orissa  delta,  and  the  Madras 
Districts  of  Ganjam  and  Vizagapatam.  They  form  one  of  a 
group  of  non- Aryan  races  who  still  occupy  the  position  assigned 
to  them  by  the  Greek  geographers  1500  years  ago.  Before  that 
early  date,  they  had  been  pushed  backwards  by  the  advancing 
Aryans  from  the  fertile  delta  which  lies  between  the  mountains 
and  the  sea.  One  section  of  the  Kandhs  was  completely 
broken  up,  and  has  sunk  into  landless  low-castes  among  the 
Aryan  or  Hindu  communities  at  the  foot  of  the  hills.  Another 
section  stood  its  ground  more  firmly,  and  became  a  peasant 
militia,  holding  grants  of  land  from  the  Hindu  chiefs  in  return 
for  military  service.  A  third  section  fell  back  into  the  fast- 
nesses of  the  mountains,  and  was  recognised  as  a  wild  but  free 
race.     It  is  of  this  last  section  that  the  present  chapter  treats. 

The  Kandh  idea  of  government  is  purely  patriarchal.  The 
family  is  strictly  ruled  by  the  father.  The  grown-up  sons  have 
no  property  during  his  life,  but  live  in  his  house  with  their 
wives  and  children,  and  all  share  the  common  meal  prepared 
by  the  grandmother.  The  clan  consists  of  a  number  of 
families,  sprung  from  a  common  father ;  and  the  tribe  is  made 
up  in  like  manner  from  a  number  of  clans  who  claim  descent 
from  the  same  ancestor.  The  head  of  the  tribe  is  usually  the 
eldest  son  of  the  patriarchal  family ;  but  if  he  be  not  fit  for  the 
post  he  is  set  aside,  and  an  uncle  or  a  younger  brother 
appointed.  He  enters  on  no  undertaking  without  calling 
together  the  heads  of  clans,  who  in  their  turn  consult  the 
heads  of  families. 

According  to  the  Kandh  theory  of  existence,  a  state  of 
war  might  lawfully  be  presumed  against  all  neighbours  with 


THE  KAyni/s.  6 1 

whom  no  express  agreement  had  been  made  to  the  contrary. 
Murders  were  punished  by  blood-revenge,  the  kinsmen  within  Blood- 
a  certain  degree  being  one  and  all  bound  to  kill  the  slayer,  '■'^^'ei'iie- 
unless  appeased  by  a  payment  of  grain  or  cattle.  The  man 
who  wounded  another  had  to  maintain  the  sufferer  until  he 
recovered  from  his  hurt.  A  stolen  article  must  be  returned, 
or  its  equivalent  paid  ;  but  the  Kandh  twice  convicted  of 
theft  was  driven  forth  from  his  tribe,  the  greatest  punish- 
ment known  to  the  race.  Disputes  were  settled  by  combat, 
or  by  the  ordeal  of  boiling  oil  or  heated  iron,  or  by  taking  a 
solemn  oath  on  an  ant-hill,  or  on  a  tiger's  claw,  or  a  lizard's 
skin.  When  a  house-father  died,  leaving  no  sons,  his  land  was 
parcelled  out  among  the  other  male  heads  of  the  village ;  for 
no  woman,  nor  indeed  any  Kandh,  was  allowed  to  hold  land 
who  could  not  with  his  own  hand  defend  it. 

The  Kandh  system  of  tillage  represented  a  stage  half-way  Kandh 
between  the   migratory   cultivation  of  the   ruder   non-Aryan  j^S'^'cu'- 
tribes  and  the  settled  agriculture  of  the  Hindus.     They  did 
not,  on  the   one   hand,   merely  burn  down  a   patch  in  the 
jungle,  take  a  few  crops  off  it,  and  then  move  on  to  fresh 
clearings.     Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  they  go  on  cultivating 
the  same  fields  from  father  to  son.     When  their  lands  showed 
signs  of  exhaustion,  they  deserted  them  ;  and  it  was  a  rule  in 
some  of  their  settlements  to  change  their  village  sites  once 
in  fourteen  years.      Caste  is  unknown ;  and,  as   among  the 
Santals,  marriage  between  relations,  or  even  within  the  same 
tribe,  is  forbidden.      A  Kandh  wedding  consisted  of  forcibly  Kandh 
carrying  off  the  bride  in  the  middle  of  a  feast.      The  boy's  |5^''^7^f^^ 
father  paid  a  price  for   the  girl,  and  usually  chose  a  strong  ture.' 
one,  several  years  older  than  his  son.      In  this  way,  Kandh 
maidens  were  married  about  fourteen,  Kandh  boys  about  ten. 
The  bride  remained  as  a  servant  in  her  new  father-in-law's  house 
till  her  boy-husband  grew  old  enough  to  live  with  her.     She 
generally  acquired  a  great  influence  over  him  ;  and  a  Kandh 
may  not  marry  a  second  wife  during  the  life  of  his  first  one, 
except  with  her  consent. 

The  Kandh  engaged  only  in  husbandry  and  war,  and  despised  Serfs  of 
all  other  work.  But  attached  to  each  village  was  a  row  of  hovels  viUaee^" 
inhabited  by  a  lower  race,  who  were  not  allowed  to  hold  land, 
to  go  forth  to  battle,  or  to  join  in  the  village  worshij).  These 
poor  people  did  the  dirty  work  of  the  hamlet,  and  supplied 
families  of  hereditary  weavers,  blacksmiths,  potters,  herds- 
men, and  distillers.  They  were  kindly  treated,  and  a  portion  of 
each  feast  was  left  for  them.     But  they  could  never  rise  in  the 


62 


THE  XOX-ARYAN  RACES, 


Kandh 
liuman 
sacrifices. 


The 
victims. 


The 

sacrifice. 


The 

Kandhs 

under 

British 

rule. 


Human 

sacrifices 

abolished. 


The  race 
won  over 
to  peaceful 

industry. 


social  scale.  No  Kandh  could  engage  in  their  work  without 
degradation,  nor  eat  food  prepared  by  their  hands.  They 
can  give  no  account  of  their  origin,  but  are  supposed  to  be 
the  remnants  of  a  ruder  race  whom  the  Kandhs  found  in 
possession  of  the  hills  when  they  themselves  were  pushed 
backwards  by  the  Aryans  from  the  plains. 

The  Kandhs,  like  the  Santals,  have  many  deities,  race-gods, 
tribe-gods,  family-gods,  and  a  multitude  of  malignant  spirits  and 
demons.  But  their  great  divinity  is  the  Earth-god,  who  repre- 
sents the  productive  energy  of  nature.  Twice  each  year,  at 
sowing-time  and  at  harvest,  and  in  all  seasons  of  special  calamity, 
the  Earth-god  required  a  human  sacrifice  {ineriah).  The  duty 
of  providing  the  victims  rested  with  the  lower  race  attached 
to  the  Kandh  village.  Brahmans  and  Kandhs  were  the  only 
classes  exempted  from  sacrifice,  and  an  ancient  rule  ordained 
that  the  offering  must  be  bought  ivith  a  price.  Men  of  the 
lower  race  kidnapped  the  victims  from  the  plains,  and  a 
thriving  Kandh  village  usually  kept  a  small  stock  in  reserve, 
'  to  meet  sudden  demands  for  atonement.'  The  victim,  on 
being  brought  to  the  hamlet,  was  welcomed  at  every  threshold, 
daintily  fed,  and  kindly  treated  till  the  fatal  day  arrived.  He 
was  then  solemnly  sacrificed  to  the  Earth-god,  the  Kandhs 
shouting  in  his  dying  ear,  '  We  bought  you  with  a  price ;  no 
sin  rests  with  us  !'  His  flesh  and  blood  were  distributed  among 
the  village  lands. 

In  1835,  ^^  Kandhs  passed  under  our  rule,  and  these  rites 
had  to  cease.  The  proud  Kandh  spirit  shrank  from  compulsion  ; 
but  after  many  tribal  councils,  they  agreed  to  give  up  their 
stock  of  victims  as  a  valuable  present  to  their  new  suzerain. 
Care  was  taken  that  they  should  not  procure  fresh  ones.  The 
kidnapping  of  victims  for  human  sacrifice  was  declared  a  capital 
offence ;  and  their  priests  were  led  to  discover  that  goats  or 
buffaloes  did  quite  as  well  for  the  Earth-god  under  British  rule 
as  human  sacrifices.  Until  1835,  they  consisted  of  separate 
tribes,  always  at  war  with  each  other  and  with  the  world. 
But  under  able  English  administrators  (especially  Campbell, 
Macpherson,  and  Cadenhead),  human  sacrifices  were  abolished, 
and  the  Kandhs  were  formed  into  a  united  and  peaceful  race 
(1837-45).  The  British  ofiicer  removed  their  old  necessity 
for  tribal  wars  and  family  blood-feuds  by  setting  himself  up 
as  a  central  authority.  He  adjusted  their  inter-tribal  disputes, 
and  punished  heinous  crimes.  Lieutenant  Charters  Macpherson, 
in  particular,  won  over  the  more  troublesome  clans  to  quiet 
industry,  by  grants  of  jungle  tracts,  of  little  use  to  us,  but  a 


THE  THREE  NON-ARYAN  STOCKS.  63 

paradise  to  them,  and  where  he  could  keep  them  well  under 

his  eye.     He  made  the  chiefs  vain  of  carrying  out  his  orders 

by  small  presents  of  cattle,  honorific  dresses,  and  titles.     He 

enlisted  the  whole  race  on  his  side  by  picking  out  their  best 

men  for  the  police  ;  and  drew  the  tribes  into  amicable  relations 

among  themselves  by  means  of  hill-fairs.    He  constructed  roads, 

and  taught  the  Kandhs  to  trade,  with  a  view  to  'drawing  them 

from  their  fastnesses  into  friendly  contact  with  other  men.'  The 

race  has  prospered  and  multiplied  under  British  rule. 

Whence   came  these   primitive   peoples,   whom  the  Aryan  Origin  of 

invaders  found  in  the  land  more  than  3000  years  ago,  and  who  ^^.,^11'^' 

are  still  scattered  over  India,  the  fragments  of  a  pre-historic  tribes. 

world?      Written  annals   they  do   not   possess.      Their   oral 

traditions  tell  us  little  ;  but  such  hints  as  they  yield,  feebly  point  Non- 

■to  the  north.     They  seem  to  preserve  dim  memories  of  a  time  .^'y^ 

■'  '■  _        _  traditions. 

when  their  tribes  dwelt  under  the  shadow  of  mightier  hill  ranges 
than  any  to  be  found  on  the  south  of  the  river  plains  of  Bengal. 
'  The  Great  Mountain  '  is  the  race-god  of  the  Santals,  and  an 
object  of  worship  among  other  tribes.  Indeed,  the  Gonds,  who 
numbered  ih  million  in  the  heart  of  Central  India  in  1872,  have 
a  legend  that  they  were  created  at  the  foot  of  Devvalagiri  peak  in 
the  Himalayas.  Till  lately,  they  buried  their  dead  with  the 
feet  turned  northwards,  so  as  to  be  ready  to  start  again  for  their 
ancient  home  in  the  north. 

But  the  language  of  the  non-Aryan  races,  that  record  of  a  Non- 
nation's  past  more  enduring  than  rock-inscriptions  or  tables  of  ^""y^" 
brass,  is  being  slowly  made  to  tell  the  secret  of  their  origin. 
It  already  indicates  that  the  early  peoples  of  India  belonged  to  The  three 

three  great  stocks,  known  as  the  Tibeto-Burman,  the  Kolarian,  1"'^' 

■1    1      T^        •  T  Aryan 

and  the  Dravidian.  stocks. 

The  first  stock,  or  Tibeto-Burman  tribes,  cling  to  the  skirts  (i)  The 

of  the  Himalayas  and  their  north-eastern  offshoots.      They  ^''^^^°" 

.  ■'  Burmans. 

crossed  over  mto  India  by  the  north-eastern  passes,  and  in 

some  pre-historic  time  had  dwelt  in  Central  Asia,  side  by  side 

with   the   forefathers   of    the   Mongolians   and   the   Chinese. 

Several  of  the  hill  languages  in  Eastern  Bengal  preserve  Chinese 

terms,  others  contain  Mongolian.     Thus,  the  Nagas  in  Assam 

still  use  words  for  three  and  water  which  might  almost  be 

understood  in  the  streets  of  Canton.^ 

^  The  following  are  the  twenty  principal  languages  of  the  Tibeto-Burman 
group  : — (l)  Cachari  or  Bodo,  (2)  Garo,  (3)  Tipura  or  Mrung,  (4)  Tibetan 
or  Bhutia,  (5)  Gurung,  (6)  Murmi,  (7)  Newar,  (8)  Lepcha,  (9)  Miri,  (10) 
Aka,  (11)  Mishmi  dialects,  (12)  Dhimal,  (13)  Kanawari  dialects,  (14) 
Mikir,  (15)  Singpho,  (16)  Naga  dialects,  (17)  Kuki  dialects,  (18)  Burmese, 


64 


THE  NON-ARYAN  RACES. 


(2)  The 
Kolarians 


(3)  The 
Diavidi- 


Their  con- 
vergence 
in  Central 
India. 


The  Kol- 
arians 
broken 
up. 


The  Kolarians,  the  second  of  the  three  non-Aryan  stocks, 
appear  also  to  have  entered  Bengal  by  the  north-eastern  passes. 
They  dwell  chiefly  in  the  north, and  along  the  north-eastern  edge, 
of  the  three-sided  table-land  which  covers  the  southern  half  of 
India.  The  Dravidians,  or  third  stock,  seem,  generally  speaking, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  have  found  their  way  into  the  Punjab  by 
the  north-western  passes.  They  now  inhabit  the  southern  part 
of  the  three-sided  table-land,  as  far  down  as  Cape  Comorin, 
the  southernmost  point  of  India.  It  appears  as  if  the  two 
streams,  namely  the  Kolarian  tribes  from  the  north-east  and  the 
Dravidians  from  the  north-west,  had  converged  and  crossed 
each  other  in  Central  India.  The  Dravidians  proved  the 
stronger,  broke  up  the  Kolarians,  and  thrust  aside  their  frag- 
ments to  east  and  west.  The  Dravidians  then  rushed  fotAvard 
in  a  mighty  body  to  the  south. 

It  thus  came  to  pass  that  while  the  Dravidians  formed  a 
vast  mass  in  Southern  India,  the  Kolarians  survived  only  as 
isolated  tribes,  so  scattered  as  to  soon  forget  their  common 


(19)  Khyeng,  and  (20)  Manipuri.  '  It  is  impossible,'  writes  Mr.  Brandreth, 
'  to  give  even  an  approximate  number  of  the  speakers  included  in  this 
group,  as  many  of  the  languages  are  either  across  the  frontier  or  only  pro- 
ject a  short  distance  into  our  own  territory.  The  languages  included  in 
this  group  have  not,  with  perhaps  one  or  two  exceptions,  both  a  cerebral 
and  dental  row  of  consonants,  like  the  South-Indian  languages ;  some  of 
them  have  aspirated  forms  of  the  surds,  but  not  of  the  sonants  ;  others 
have  aspirated  forms  of  both.  All  the  twenty  dialects  have  words  in 
common,  especially  numerals  and  pronouns,  and  also  some  resemblances  of 
grammar.  In  comparing  the  resembling  words,  the  differences  between 
them  consist  often  less  in  any  modification  of  the  root-syllable  than  in 
various  additions  to  the  root.  Thus  in  Burmese  we  have  na,  "ear;" 
Tibetan,  rna-ba  ;  Magar,  na-kep :  Newar,  nai-poiig ;  Dhimal,  7ia-hathong; 
Kiranti  dialects,  na-pro,  7ia-rek,  na-phak ;  Naga  languages,  ie-na-ro, 
te-iia-rang ;  Manipuri,  na-kong ;  Kupui,  ka-na ;  Sak,  aka-na ;  Karen, 
na-khu  ;  and  so  on.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  such  additions  as  these 
to  monosyllabic  roots  are  principally  determinative  syllables  for  the  purpose 
of  distinguishing  between  what  would  otherwise  have  been  monosyllabic 
words  having  the  same  sound.  These  determinatives  are  generally  affixed 
in  the  languages  of  Nepal  and  in  the  Dhimal  language  ;  prefixed  in  the 
Lepcha  language,  and  in  the  languages  of  Assam,  of  Manipur,  and  of  the 
Chittagong  and  Arakan  Hills.  Words  are  also  distinguished  by  diflference 
of  tone.  The  tones  are  generally  of  two  kinds,  described  as  the  abrupt  or 
short,  and  the  pausing  or  heavy.  It  has  been  remarked  that  those  languages 
which  are  most  given  to  adding  other  syllables  to  the  root  make  the  least 
use  of  the  tones,  and,  vice  versa,  where  the  tones  most  prevail  the  least 
recourse  is  had  to  determinative  syllables.'  —  This  and  the  following 
quotations,  from  Mr.  E.  L.  Brandreth,  are  condensed  from  his  valuable 
paper  in  the  yournal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  New  Series,  vol.  x. 
{1877),  PP-  1-32. 


THE  KOLARIAN  TRIBES.  65 

origin.  We  have  seen  one  of  the  largest  of  the  Kolarian  races, 
the  Santals,  dweUing  on  the  extreme  eastern  edge  of  the  three- 
sided  table-land,  where  it  slopes  down  into  the  Gangetic 
valley.  The  Kurkus,  a  broken  Kolarian  tribe,  inhabit  a 
patch  of  country  about  400  miles  to  the  west.  They  have  for 
perhaps  thousands  of  years  been  cut  off  from  the  Santals  by 
mountains  and  pathless  forests,  and  by  intervening  races  of  the 
Dravidian  and  Aryan  stocks.  The  Kurkus  and  Santals  have  Scattered 
no  tradition  of  a  common  origin  ;  yet  at  this  day  the  Kurkus  Kolarian 
speak  a  language  which  is  little  else  than  a  dialect  of  Santali. 
The  Savars,  once  a  great  Kolarian  tribe,  mentioned  by  Pliny 
and  Ptolemy,  are  now  a  poor  wandering  race  of  woodcutters 
in  Northern  Madras  and  Orissa.  Yet  fragments  of  them  have 
lately  been  found  deep  in  Central  India,  and  as  far  west  as 
Rajputana  on  the  other  side.  The  Juangs  are  an  isolated 
non-Aryan  remnant  among  an  Aryan  and  Uriya-speaking 
population.  They  have  forgotten,  and  disclaim,  any  connection 
with  the  Hos  or  other  Kolarian  tribes.  Nevertheless,  their 
common  origin  is  attested  by  a  number  of  Kolarian  words 
which  they  have  unconsciously  preserved.^ 

The  compact  Dravidians  in  the  south,  although  in  after-days 

'  The  nine  principal  languages  of  the  Kolarian  group  are — (i)  tlie  Santal, 
(2)  Mundari,  (3)  Ho,  (4)  Bhumij,  (5)  Korwa,  (6)  Kharria,  (7)  Juang,  (8) 
Kurku,  and  perhaps  (9)  the  Savar.  Some  of  them,  however,  are  separated 
only  by  dialectical  differences.  '  The  Kolarian  group  of  languages,'  writes 
Mr.  Brandreth,  '  has  both  the  cerebral  and  dental  row  of  letters,  and  also 
aspirated  forms,  which  last,  according  to  Caldwell,  did  not  belong  to  early 
Dravidian.  There  is  also  a  set  of  four  sounds,  which  are  perhaps  peculiar 
to  Santali,  called  by  Skrefsrud  semi-consonants,  and  which,  when  followed 
by  a  vowel,  are  changed  respectively  into  ,^,7,  J,  and  b.  Gender  of  nouns 
is  animate  and  inanimate,  and  is  distinguished  by  difference  of  pronouns 
by  difference  of  suffix  of  a  qualifying  noun  in  the  genitive  relation,  and  by 
the  gender  being  denoted  by  the  verb.  As  instances  of  the  genitive  suffix, 
we  have  in  Santali  in-ren  hopon  "my  son,", but  in-ak  orak  "my  house." 
There  is  no  distinction  of  sex  in  the  pronouns,  but  of  the  animate  and 
inanimate  gender.  The  dialects  generally  agree  in  using  a  short  form  of 
the  third  personal  pronoun  suffixed  to  denote  the  number,  dual  and 
plural,  of  the  noun,  and  short  forms  of  all  the  personal  pronouns  are  added 
to  the  verb  in  certain  positions  to  express  both  number  and  person,  both 
as  regards  the  subject  and  object,  if  of  the  animate  gender ;  the  inanimate 
gender  being  indicated  by  the  omission  of  these  suffixes.  No  other  group 
of  languages,  apparently,  has  such  a  logical  classification  of  its  nouns  as 
that  shown  by  the  genders  of  both  the  South  Indian  groups.  The  genitive 
in  the  Kolarian  group  of  the  full  personal  pronouns  is  used  for  the  posses- 
sive pronoun,  which  again  takes  all  the  post-positions,  the  genitive 
relation  being  thus  indicated  by  the  genitive  suffix  twice  repeated.  The 
Kolarian  languages  generally  express  grammatical  relations  by  suffixes,  and 
add  the  post-positions  directly  to  the  root,  without  the  intervention  of  an 

E 


66  THE  NON-ARYAN  RACES. 

The  con>    subdued  by  the  higher  civilisation  of  the  Aryan  race  which 

vidians  of    pressed  in  among  them,  were  never  thus  broken  into  fragments.^ 

Southern     Their  pure  descendants  consist,  indeed,  of  small  and  scattered 

"'        tribes;  but  they  have  given  their  language  to  28  millions  of 

people  in  Southern  India.     A  theory  has  been  started  that 

Their  off-    some  of  the  islands  in  the  distant  Pacific  Ocean  were  peopled 

yQ^^  gg^^/pv  either  from  the  Dravidian  settlements  in  India,   or  from  an 

earlier  common  source.     Bishop  Caldwell  points  out  that  the 

aboriginal  tribes  in  Southern  and  Western  Australia  use  almost 

the  same  words  for  /,  thou,  he,  7ve,  yo7i,  etc.,  as  the  Dravidian 

fishermen  on  the  Madras  coast ;  and  resemble  in  other  ways 

the  Madras  hill  tribes,  as  in  the  use  of  their  national  weapon, 

the  boomerang.      The   civilisation    and   literature  which   the 

Dravidians  developed  in  Southern  India  will  be  described  in 

a  later  chapter  on  the  Indian  vernaculars. 

oljlique  form  or  genitive  or  other  suffix.  They  agree  with  the  Dravidian 
in  having  inchisive  and  exclusive  forms  for  the  pUiral  of  the  first  personal 
pronoun,  in  using  a  relative  participle  instead  of  a  relative  pronoun,  in 
the  position  of  the  governing  word,  and  in  the  possession  of  a  true  causal 
form  of  the  verb.  They  have  a  dual,  which  the  Dravidians  have  not,  but 
they  have  no  negative  voice.  Counting  is  by  twenties,  instead  of  by  tens, 
as  in  the  Dravidian.  The  Santali  verb,  according  to  Skrefsrud,  has  23 
tenses,  and  for  every  tense  two  forms  of  the  participle  and  a  gerund.' 

1  Bishop  Caldwell  recognises  twelve  distinct  Dravidian  languages  : — 
(i)  Tamil,  (2)  Malayalam,  (3)  Telugu,  (4)  Kanarese,  (5)  Tulu,  (6)  Kudugu, 
(7)  Toda,  (8)  Kota,  (9)  Gond,  (10)  Kandh,  (11)  Uraon,  (12)  Rajmahal. 
'  In  the  Dravidian  group,'  writes  Mr.  Brandreth,  '  there  is  a  rational  and 
an  irrational  gender  of  the  nouns,  which  is  distinguished  in  the  plural  ni 
the  nouns,  and  sometimes  in  the  singular  also,  by  affixes  which  appear  to 
be  fragmentary  pronouns,  by  corresponding  pronouns,  and  by  the  agree- 
ment of  the  verb  with  the  noun,  the  gender  of  the  verb  being  expressed  by 
the  pronominal  suffixes.  To  give  an  instance  of  verbal  gender,  we  have 
in  Tamil,  from  the  root  sey,  "to  do,"  seyd-an,  "he  (rational)  did;" 
seyd-dl,  "she  (rational)  did;"  seyd-adii,  "it  (irrational)  did  ;"  seyd-ar, 
"they  (the  rationals)  did;"  seyd-a,  "  they  (the  irrationals)  did;"  the  full 
pronouns  heing  av  an,  "he;"  aval,  "she;"  adu,  "it;"  avar,  "they;" 
avei,  "  they."  This  distinction  of  gender,  though  it  exists  in  most  of  the 
Dravidian  languages,  is  not  always  carried  out  to  the  extent  that  it  is  in 
Tamil.  In  Telugu,  Gond,  and  Kandh,  it  is  preserved  in  the  plural,  but 
in  the  singular  the  feminine  rational  is  merged  in  the  irrational  gender. 
In  Gond,  the  gender  is  further  marked  by  the  noun  in  the  genitive  relation 
taking  a  different  suffix,  according  to  the  number  and  gender  of  the  noun 
on  which  it  depends.  In  Uraon,  the  feminine  rational  is  entirely  merged 
in  the  irrational  gender,  with  the  exception  of  the  pronoun,  which  preserves 
the  distinction  between  rationals  and  irrationals  in  the  plural ;  thus,  as, 
"he,"  referring  to  a  god  or  a  man;  ad,  "she"  or  "it,"  referring  to  a 
■woman  or  an  irrational  object ;  but  «;-,  "they,"  applies  to  both  men  and 
women  ;  ab7-a,  "  they,"  to  irrationals  only.  The  rational  gender,  besides 
human  beings,  includes  the  celestial  and  infernal  deities  ;  and  it  is  furtiier 


LIST  OF  142  NO N- ARYAN  TRIBES.  67 

The  following  is  a  list  of  142  of  the  principal  non-Aryan  List  of 
languages  and  dialects,  prepared  by  Mr,  Brandreth  for  the  Royal  ^^"' 
Asiatic  Society  in  1877,  and  classified  according  to  their  gram-  lan- 
matical  structure.     Mr.  Robert  Cust  has  also  arranged  them  in  S"^g<^s- 
another  convenient  form,  according  to  their  geographical  habitat. 

Table  of  the  Non-Aryan  Languages  of  India.^ 
Dravidian  Group.  Dravidian  Group — continued. 

Tamil.  Yerukala. 

Malayalam.  Gadaba  (Kolarian  ?). 


Kolarian  Group. 


Telugu 
\  Kanarese. 

{  Badaga.  Santali. 

Tulu.  (  Mundari. 

Kudugu  or  Coore.  \  Ho  or  Larka  Kol. 

Toda.  "                                (  Bhumij. 

Kota.  Korwa. 

Gond  dialects.  Kharria. 

(  Mahddeo.  Juang. 

Raj.  \  Kuri. 


Maria.  \  Kurku. 

Kandh  or  Ku.  Mehto. 

Uraon  or  Dhangar.  Savara. 

Raimahali  or  Maler.  _,             ^                 ., 

Miscellaneous  Dialects.  Tibeto-Burmax  Group. 

I  Naikude.  I.  (  Kachari  or  Bodo. 


'  Kolami.  I  Mech. 

Keikddi.  (  Hojai. 


sub-divided,  in  some  of  the  languages,  but  in  the  singular  only,  into 
masculine  and  feminine.  The  grammatical  relations  in  the  Dravidian  are 
generally  expressed  by  suffixes.  Many  nouns  have  an  oblique  form,  which 
is  a  remarkable  characteristic  of  the  Dravidian  group  ;  still,  with  the 
majority  of  nouns,  the  post-positions  are  added  directly  to  the  nominative 
form.  Other  features  of  this  group  are — the  frequent  use  of  formatives  to 
specialize  the  meaning  of  the  root ;  the  absence  of  relative  pronouns  and 
the  use  instead  of  a  relative  participle,  which  is  usually  formed  from  the 
ordinary  participle  by  the  same  suffix  as  that  which  Dr.  Caldwell  considers 
as  the  oldest  sign  of  the  genitive  relation  ;  the  adjective  preceding  the 
substantive  ;  of  two  substantives,  the  determining  preceding  the  determined ; 
and  the  verb  being  the  last  member  of  the  sentence.  There  is  no  true 
dual  in  the  Dravidian  languages.  In  the  Dravidian  languages  there  are 
two  forms  of  the  plural  of  the  pronoun  of  the  first  person,  one  including, 
the  other  excluding,  the  person  addressed.  As  regards  the  verbs,  there  is 
a  negative  voice,  but  no  passive  voice,  and  there  is  a  causal  form.'  Bishop 
Caldwell's  second  edition  of  his  great  work,  the  Comparative  Grammar  of 
the  Dravidian  Languages  (Triibner,  1875),  forms  in  itself  an  epoch  in  that 
department  of  human  knowledge.  Mr.  Beames'  Comparative  Grajumar 
of  the  Modern  Aryan  Languages  of  India  (Triibner,  1872)  has  laid  the 
foundation  for  the  accurate  study  of  North  Indian  speech.  Colonel 
Dalton's  Ethnology  of  Bengal  {Calcutta,  1872),  and  Sir  George  Campbell's 
Specimens  of  the  Languages  of  Lndia  (Bengal  Secretariat  Press,  1874),  have 
also  shed  new  and  valuable  light  on  the  questions  involved. 

^  Brackets  refer  to  dialects  that  are  very  closely  related  ;  t  to  languages 
beyond  the  circle  of  the  Indian  languages.    {See  list  above  and  on  next  page.) 


68 


THE  NON-ARYAN  RACES. 


Tibeto-Burman  Group — contiinied.  Tibeto-Burman  Group — continued. 


Garo. 

(  Thado. 

Pani-Koch. 

X  Lttshni. 

Deori-Chutia. 

(  Hallami. 

Tipura  or  Mrung. 

Manipuri. 

II.  ( 

Tibetan  or  Bhutia. 

4  Maring. 

< 

Sarpa. 

\  Khoi])U. 

1 

Lhopa  or  Bhutdni. 

Kupui. 

Changlo. 

Tangkhul. 

Twang. 

Luhupa. 

III.  1 

Gurung. 

Khungui. 

Murmi. 

Phadang. 

Thaksya. 

Champhung. 

\  Newar. 

Kupome. 

] 

Pahri. 

Takaimi. 

Magar. 

Andro  and  Sengmai. 

IV. 

Lepcha. 

Chairel. 

V. 

Daphla. 

Anal  and  Namfau. 

Miri. 

XVIII.  \  Kumi. 

Abar. 

1  Kami. 

Bhutia  of  Lo. 

Mru. 

VI. 

Aka. 

\  Banjogi  or  Lungkhe. 

VII. 

Mishmi  dialects. 

\  Pankho. 

Chulikata. 

Shendu  or  Pol. 

Taying  or  Digaru. 

Sak. 

Mijhu. 

Kyau. 

VIII. 

Dhimal. 

XIX.     Karen  dialects. 

IX. 

Kanawari  dialects. 

Sgaii. 

Milchan. 

Bghai. 

Tiharskad. 

Red  Karen. 

Sumchu. 

Pivo. 

X. 

Kiranti. 

Tafu. 

Limbu. 

Mopgha. 

Sun  war. 

Kay  or  Gaikho. 

Bramu. 

Taungthu. 

Chepang. 

tLisaw. 

Vayu. 

tGyarung. 

Kusunda. 

tTakpa. 

XI. 

Naga  dialects. 

tManyak. 

N'amsang  or  ydipuria. 

tThochu. 

Banpara  or  Joboka. 

tllorpa. 

Mithan. 

Tabbing. 

Khasi. 

Miihing. 

XII. 

Naga  dialects. 
Khari. 

Khasi. 

1  N'atigdon. 
'  Tciigsa. 

Tai. 

IJiota. 

(  Siamese  or  Thai. 
Lao. 

XIII. 

Naga  dialects. 

An  garni. 

!  Shan, 
j  Ahom. 

RengDia. 

1  A  r  ting. 

1  Khamti. 

\  Kutcha. 

I  Aiton. 

Liyang  or  Kareng. 

tTai  Mow  or  Chinese  Shan 

Maram. 

XIV. 

Mikir. 

Mon-Anam. 

XV. 

1  Singpho. 

Jili. 

Mon. 

XVI. 

Burmese. 

tKambojan. 

XVII. 

Kuki  dialects. 

tAnamese. 

Khyeng. 

tPaloung. 

NON-ARYAN  CENSUS  OF  INDIA.  69 

We   discern,   therefore,   long   before  the  dawn   of  history,  Recapitu- 
masses  of  men  moving   uneasily   over   India,   and   violently  theTon^ 
pushing  in  among  still  earlier  tribes.     They  crossed  the  snows  Aryan 
of  the  Himalayas,  and  plunged  into  the  tropical  forests  in  '^^'^^^• 
search  of  new  homes.     Of  these  ancient  races,  fragments  now 
exist  almost  in  exactly  the  same  stage  of  human  progress  as 
they  were  described  by  Vedic  jioets  more  than  3000  years  ago. 
Some  are  dying  out,  such  as  the  Andaman  islanders,  among 
whom  in  1869  only  one  family  had  as  many  as  three  children. 
Others   are   increasing   like   the  Santals,  who   have   doubled 
themselves  under  British  rule.     But  they  all  require  special 
and  anxious  care  in  adapting  our  complex  administration  to 
their  primitive  condition  and  needs.     Taken  as  a  whole,  and 
including   certain   half-Hinduized   branches,    they    numbered 
17,627,758  in  1872,  then  about  equal  to  three-quarters  of  the 
population  of  England  and  Wales.     But  while  the  bolder  or 
more  isolated  of  the  aboriginal  races  have  thus  kept   them- 
selves apart,  by  far  the  greater  portion  submitted  in  ancient 
times  to  the  Aryan  invaders,  and  now  make  up  the  mass  of 
the  Hindus. 

The  following  table  shows  the  distribution  of  the  aboriginal  Distribu- 
tribes  throughout  British  India  in  1872.     But  many  live  in '■^^" .  . 
Native  States,  not   included    in   this  enumeration ;   and   the  in  India 
^Madras  Census  of  1872  did  not  distinguish  aborigines  from  ^"  ^^T- 
low-caste  Hindus,     Their  total  number  throughout  all  India 
(British  and    Feudatory)  probably  exceeded    20  millions   in 
1872. 

Aboriginal  Tribes  and  Semi- Hinduized  Aborigines  in  1872. 
(Madras  Presidency  and  the  Feudatory  States  not  included.) 


Bengal, 

11,116,883 

Assam, 

1,490,888 

North-Western  Provinces,    . 

377,674 

Oudh, 

90,490 

Punjab, 

959,720 

Central  Provinces,    . 

1,669,835 

Berar, 

163,059 

Coorg, 

42,516 

British  Burma, 

1,004,991 

Bombay, 

711,702 

17,627,758 

As  already  stated,  the  Census  of  188 1  adopted  a  classification  Aborigines 
which  fails  to  clearly  distinguish  the  aboriginal  elements  in  the  "''  '     *' 
Indian  population.     In  the  North-Western  Provinces,  Oudh, 


70  THE  NON-ARYAN  RACES. 

and  the  Punjab,  which  returned  an  aggregate  of  nearly   \\ 
millions  of  aboriginal  or  non-Aryan  castes  or  tribes  in  1872, 
no  separate  return  of  the  aboriginal  or  non- Aryan  element  was 
Not  made  in  188 1.     It  is  merged  by  the  enumerators  in  the  returns 

separately  of  the  Hindu  low-castes.     The  same  process  has  affected  the 
returns  of  other  Provinces.     In  Madras,  for  example,  27  castes 
formerly  included  in  the  list  of  aboriginal  tribes,  were  trans- 
ferred to  the  Hindu  section  of  the  population.     In  Bengal,  the 
Census  officers  explain  that  the  non-registration  of  the  aboriginal 
element  is  in  some  cases  due  to  'radical  differences  in  the 
system  upon  which  the  castes,  and  especially  the  sub-divisions 
of  castes,  were  classified  in  1872  and  in  1881.'     In  the  North- 
western Provinces  and   Oudh,  the  special  officer  states  that 
his  system  of  classification  '  is  not  compatible  with  the  modern 
doctrine  which  divides  the  population  of  India  into  Aryan  and 
aboriginal.' 
No  com-         Under  these  circumstances  it  would  be  misleading  to  attempt 
mon  data    ^  comparison  between  the  returns  of  the  aboriginal  or  non- 
and  1881.   Aryan  population  in  1872  and  in  1881.     On  the  one  hand, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  aboriginal  castes  and  tribes  are, 
Hindiiiz-     in  many  parts  of  the  country,  tending  towards  Hinduism  ;  and 

ing  ten-      ^\^^<^  many  of  them,  as  they  rise  in  the  scale  of  civilisation,  lose 
cicnciGS.  . 

their  identity  in  the  Hindu  community.     On  the  other  hand, 

it   is   evident   that   the  decreased   returns   of  the   aboriginal 

tribes  and  castes  in  1881  are  not  entirely,  or  indeed  chiefly, 

due  to   this   process.      It  would  be  erroneous,  therefore,   to 

infer    that    the   balance   of    i2|   millions   between   the    175 

millions   of  aborigines   returned   for   British    India   in    1872 

and  the  4f  millions  nominally  returned  in  1881,  had  become 

Hindus. 

A  Hinduizing  process  is  going  on  both  among  the 
aboriginal  low  castes  in  Hindu  Provinces,  and  among  the 
aboriginal  tribes  who  border  on  such  Provinces.  But  the 
apparent  disappearance  of  nearly  13  millions  of  aborigines 
between  1872  and  1881  is  due,  not  so  much  to  this  Hinduizing 
process,  as  to  differences  in  the  system  of  classification  and 
registration  adopted  by  the  Census  officers.  That  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  Indian  aborigines  is  apparent  and  not  real, 
can  be  proved.  The  birth-rate  among  some  of  the  aboriginal 
races  is  unusually  high ;  and,  with  exceptions,  the  abori- 
ginal tribes  and  castes  are  numerically  increasing,  although 
they  are  partially  merging  their  separate  identity  in  the  Hindu 
community. 

In  Bengal  and  Assam,  the  aboriginal  races  are  divided  into 


CRUSHED  TRIBES ;   PREDATORY  CLANS.    71 

nearly  60  distinct  tribes. ^      In  the   North-Western  Provinces,  Their 

16  tribes  of  aboris;ines  were  enumerated  in  the  Census  of  1872.  P'''"'^'P-'^' 
^  .  .    _  '       races  in 

In  the  Central  Provinces  they  numbered  if  millions  (1872) ;  the  1872. 
ancient  race  of  Gonds,  who  ruled  the  ceritral  table-land  before 
the  rise  of  the  Marathas,  alone  amounting  to  i  J  millions.     In 
British  Burma,  the  Karens,  whose  traditions  have  a  singularly 
Jewish  tinge,  numbered  330,000  in  1S72,  and  518,294  in  1881. 

In  Oudh,  the  nationality  of  the  aboriginal  tribes  has  been  Crushed 
buried  beneath  waves  of  Rajput  and  Muhammadan  invaders,  '^"'^s'^- 
For  example,  the  Bhars,  formerly  the  monarchs  of  the  centre  and 
east  of  that  Province,  and  the  traditional  fort-builders  to  whom 
all  ruins  are  popularly  assigned,  were  stamped  out  by  Ibrahim 
Sharki  of  Jaunpur,  in  the  15th  century.     The  Gaulis  or  ancient 
ruling  race  of  the  Central  Provinces,  the  Ahams  of  Assam,  and 
the  Gonds,  Chandels,  and  Bundelas  of  Bundelkhand,-  are  other 
instances  of  crushed  races.     In  centres  of  the  Aryan  civilisa- 
tion, the  aboriginal  peoples  have  been  pounded  down  in  the 
mortar  of   Hinduism,   into   the  low-castes  and  out-castes  on 
which  the  social  fabric  of  India  rests.     A  few  of  them,  how-  CHpsy 
ever,  still  preserve  their  ethnical  identity  as  wandering  tribes  '^l''^"*- 
of  jugglers,   basket-weavers,   and  fortune-tellers.      Thus,   the 
Nats,   Bediyas,  and  other  gipsy  clans  are  recognised  to  this 
day  as  distinct  from  the  surrounding  Hindu  population. 

The   aboriginal    races    on   the    plains    have    supplied    the  Aboriginal 
hereditary    criminal    classes,    alike    under   the    Hindus,    the  ^''.'"^'"''^^ 

•'  '  ■      J        1  1        tribes  on 

jNIuhammadans,  and  the  British.  Formerly  organized  robber  the  plains, 
communities,  they  have,  under  the  stricter  police  of  our  days, 
sunk  into  petty  pilferers.  But  their  existence  is  still  recog- 
nised by  the  Criminal  Tribes  iVct,  passed  so  lately  as  187 1, 
and  still  enforced  within  certain  localities  of  Oudh  and 
Northern  India. 

The  non-Aryan  hill  races,  who  appear  from  Vedic  times  down-  Piedatory 
wards  as  marauders,  have  at  length  ceased  to  be  a  disturbing  '""  '^^'^^^• 
element  in  India.  But  many  of  them  figure  as  predatory 
clans  in  INIuhammadan  and  early  British  history.  They  sallied 
forth  from  their  mountains  at  the  end  of  the  autumn  harvest, 
pillaged  and  burned  the  lowland  villages,  and  retired  to  their 
fastnesses  laden  v/ith  the  booty  of  the  plains.     The  measures 

'  Among  them  may  be  noted  the  Santals,  850,000  under  direct  British 
administration,  total  about  a  million  in  1S72;  Kols,  300,000;  Uraons  or 
Dhangars,  200,000;  and  IMundas,  175,000 — within  British  territory.  In 
Assam — Cacharis,  200,000 ;  Khasis,  95,000.  These  figures  all  refer  to 
1872. 

-  See  for  the  origin  of  the  Bundelas,  ]\Ir.  J.  Beames'  J^a<res  of  the  North- 
IVcstcrn  Provinces,  vol.  i.  p.  45,  etc.  (1869). 


7  2  THE  NON-AR  YAN  RA  CES. 

by  which  these  wild  races  have  been  reclaimed,  form  some  ot 
the  most  honourable  episodes  of  Anglo-Indian  rule.  Cleve- 
land's Hill-Rangers  in  the  last  century,  and  the  Bhils  and 
Mhairs  in  more  recent  times,  are  well-known  examples  of  how 
marauding  races  may  be  turned  into  peaceful  cultivators  and 
loyal  soldiers.  An  equally  salutary  transformation  has  taken 
■place  in  many  a  remote  forest  and  hill  tract  of  India.  The 
firm  order  of  British  rule  has  rendered  their  old  plundering 
life  no  longer  a  possible  one,  and  at  the  same  time  has  opened 
up  to  them  new  outlets  for  their  energies.  A  similar  vigilance 
is  now  being  extended  to  the  predatory  tribes  in  the  Native 
States.  The  reclamation  of  the  wild  Moghias  of  Central  India, 
and  their  settlement  into  agricultural  communities,  has  been 
effected  by  British  officers  within  the  past  five  years. 
Character  The  hill  and  forest  tribes  differ  in  character  from  the 
of  the         tamer  population  of  the    plains.       Their   truthfulness,  sturdy 

non -Aryan  ^     '  .  ^  ,  ■' 

tribes.  loyalty,  and  a  certain  joyous  bravery,  almost  amountmg  to 
playfulness,  appeal  in  a  special  manner  to  the  English  mind. 
There  is  scarcely  a  single  administrator  who  has  ruled  over 
them  for  any  length  of  time  without  finding  his  heart  drawn 
to  them,  and  leaving  on  record  his  belief  in  their  capabilities 
for  good.  Lest  the  traditional  tenderness  of  the  Indian  Civil 
Service  to  the  people  should  weaken  the  testimony  of  such 
witnesses,  it  may  be  safe  to  quote  only  the  words  of  soldiers 
with  reference  to  the  tribes  with  which  each  was  specially 
acquainted. 

The  non-         '  They  are  faithful,  truthful,  and  attached  to  their  superiors,' 

Aryan  hill  pyrites  General  Briggs ;  'ready  at  all  times  to  lay  down  their 

tribes  as 

soldiers.  Vi^'ts  for  those  they  serve,  and  remarkable  for  their  indomit- 
able courage.  These  qualities  have  always  been  displayed 
in  our  service.  The  aborigines  of  the  Karnatik  were  the 
sepoys  of  Clive  and  of  Coote.  A  few  companies  of  the  same 
stock  joined  the  former  great  captain  from  Bombay,  and 
helped  to  fight  the  battle  of  Plassey  in  Bengal,  which  laid  the 
foundation  of  our  Indian  Empire.  They  have  since  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the  corps  of  pioneers  and  engineers, 
not  only  in  India,  but  in  Ava,  in  Afghanistan,  and  in  the 
celebrated  defence  of  Jalalabad.  An  unjust  prejudice  against 
them  grew  up  in  the  native  armies  of  Madras  and  Bombay, 
produced  by  the  feelings  of  contempt  for  them  existing  among 
the  Hindu  and  Muhammadan  troops.  They  have  no  preju- 
dices themselves  ;  are  always  ready  to  serve  abroad  and  embark 
on  board  ship ;  and  I  believe  no  instance  of  mutiny  has  ever 
occurred  among  them.'      Since    General  Briggs  wrote  these 


HIGH  QUALITIES  OF  NON-ARYANS.  73 

sentences,  the  non- Aryan  hill  races  have  supplied  some  of  the 
liravest  and  most  valued  of  our  Indian  regiments,  particularly 
the  gallant  little  Gurkhas. 

Colonel  Dixon's  report,  published  by  the  Court  of  Directors,  Colonel 
l)ortrays  the  character  of  the  Mhair  tribes  with  admirable  minute-  o^'^/h" 
ness.     He  dilates  on  their  'fidelity,  truth,  and  honesty,'  their  INlhairs. 
determined  valour,  their  simple  loyalty,  and  an  extreme  and 
almost  touching  devotion  when  put  upon  their  honour.    Strong 
as  is  the  bond  of  kindred  among  the  Mhairs,  he  vouches  for 
their  fidelity  in  guarding  even  their  own  relatives  as  prisoners 
when  formally  entrusted  to  their  care.     For  centuries  they  had 
been  known  only  as  exterminators  ;  but  beneath  the  considerate 
handling  of  one  Englishman,  who  honestly  set  about  under- 
standing  them,    they   became    peaceful    subjects    and    well- 
disciplined  soldiers. 

Sir  James  Outram,  when  a  very  young  man,  did  the  same  Outram's 
good  work  for  the  Bhils  of  Khandesh.     He  made  their  chiefs  i™^,'    .,,^ 
his  hunting  companions,  formed  the  wilder  spirits  into  a  Bhil  Bhfls. 
battalion,  and  laid  the  basis  for  the  reclamation  of  this  for- 
merly  intractable    race.       (See   also   The    Dangs,    Imperial 
Gazetteer  of  India.') 

Every  military  man  who  has  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
aboriginal  races  acknowledges,  that  once  they  admit  a  claim  on 
their  allegiance,  nothing  tempts  them  to  a  treacherous  or  disloyal 
act.  '  The  fidelity  to  their  acknowledged  chief,'  wrote  Captain  Fidelity  of 
Hunter,  '  is  very  remarkable ;  and  so  strong  is  their  attach-  \^^^ 
ment,  that  in  no  situation  or  condition,  however  desperate,  can 
they  be  induced  to  betray  him.  If  old  and  decrepit,  they  will 
convey  him  from  place  to  place,  to  save  him  from  his  enemies.' 
Their  obedience  to  recognised  authority  is  absolute ;  and 
Colonel  Tod  relates  how  the  wife  of  an  absent  chieftain  pro- 
cured for  a  British  messenger  safe-conduct  and  hospitality 
through  the  densest  forests  by  giving  him  one  of  her  husband's 
arrows  as  a  token.  The  very  officers  who  have  had  to  act 
most  sharply  against  them  speak  most  strongly,  and  often  not 
without  a  noble  regret  and  self-reproach,  in  their  favour.  '  It 
was  not  war,'  Major  Vincent  Jervis  writes  of  the  operations 
against  the  Santals  in  1855.  'They  did  not  understand 
yielding ;  as  long  as  their  national  drums  beat,  the  whole  party- 
would  stand,  and  allow  themselves  to  be  shot  down.  They 
were  the  most  truthful  set  of  men  I  ever  met.'  Ethnical 

distribu- 

We  have  seen  that  India  may  be  divided  into  three  regions —  j'°".  °' 
the  Himalayas  on  the  north,  the  great  River  Plains  that  stretch  races. 


74  THE  NON-A R  YAN  RA  CES. 

southward  from  their  foot,  and  the  Three-sided  Table-land 
which  slopes  upwards  again  from  the  River  Plains,  and  covers 
the  whole  southern  half  of  India.  Two  of  these  regions,  the 
Himala3'as  on  the  north,  and  the  Three-sided  Table-land  in 
the  south,  still  afford  retreats  to  the  non-Aryan  tribes.  The 
third  region,  or  the  great  River  Plains,  became  in  very  ancient 
times  the  theatre  on  which  a  nobler  race  worked  out  its 
civilisation. 


[  75  ] 


CHAPTER    IV 


THE   ARYANS    IN    ANCIENT    INDIA. 


This  nobler  race  belonged  to  the  Aryan  or  Indo-Germanic  The 
stock,  from  which  the  Brahman,  the  Rajput,  and  the  English-  ^.^^^.^ 
man  ahke  descend.  Its  earliest  home,  visible  to  history,  was 
in  Central  Asia.  From  that  common  camping-ground,  certain 
tranches  of  the  race  started  for  the  east,  others  for  the  west. 
One  of  the  western  offshoots  founded  the  Persian  kingdom  ; 
another  built  Athens  and  Lacedcemon,  and  became  the  Hellenic 
nation;  a  third  went  on  to  Italy,  and  reared  the  City  on  the  Its 

Seven    Hills,    which    grew   into    Imperial    Rome.     A   distant  European 
,  .     ,  °  '•,,.,  .  branches, 

colony  of  the  same  race  excavated  the  silver-ores  of  pre- 
historic Spain ;  and  when  we  first  catch  a  sight  of  ancient 
England,  we  see  an  Aryan  settlement  fishing  in  wattle  canoes, 
and  working  the  tin  mines  of  Cornwall.  Meanwhile,  other  its 
branches  of  the  Aryan  stock  had  gone  forth  from  the  primitive  Eastern 
home  in  Central  Asia  to  the  east.  Powerful  bands  found  their 
way  through  the  passes  of  the  Himalayas  into  the  Punjab,  and 
spread  themselves,  chiefly  as  Brahmans  and  Rajputs,  over 
India. 

We  know  little  regarding  these  Aryan  tribes  in  their  early  -j-j^g 
camping-ground  in  Central  Asia.     From  words  preserved  in  Aryans  in 
the  languages  of  their  long-separated  descendants  in  Europe  pri^,'^^jtiyg 
and  India,  scholars  infer  that  they  roamed  over  the  grassy  home, 
steppes  with  their  cattle,  making  long  halts  to  rear  crops  of 
grain.     They  had  tamed  most  of  the  domestic  animals  ;  were 
acquainted   with  a   hard   metal,  probably  iron,^  and  silver ;  - 
understood  the  arts  of  weaving  and  sewing ;  wore  clothes  ;  and 
ate  cooked  food.     They  lived  the  hardy  life  of  the  temperate 
zone,  and  the  feeling  of  cold  seems  to  be  one  of  the  earliest 
common  remembrances  of  the  eastern  and  the  western  branches 
of  the  race.     Ages  afterwards,  when  the  Vedic  singers  in  hot 

'  Sanskrit,  ajas,  iron  or,  in  a  more  general  sense,  metal,  including  gold 
but  not  copper  in  Sanskrit ;  Latin,  aes,  aeris,  copper,  bronze  ;  Gothic,  ais, 
eisam  ;  old  German,  er,  iron  ;  modern  German,  ciseii. 

'^  Sanskrit,  kharjura,  silver ;  Latin,  afgeniuin  ;  Greek,  cipyupo;,  apyCpii)!. 


76 


THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


European 

and  Indian 

languages 

merely 

varieties 

of  Aryan 

speech. 


Indo- 
European 

words. 


Common 
origin  of 
]"Iuropean 
and  Indian 
religions. 


The  Indo- 
Aryans  on 
tlie  march, 


India  prayed  for  long  life,  they  still  asked  for  'a  hundred 
winters.^  To  this  day  the  November  rice  in  the  tropical  delta  of 
the  Ganges  is  called  the  haimdntik  (cf.  Latin  hievis)  or  crop  of 
the  '  snowy '  season. 

The  forefathers  of  the  Greek  and  the  Roman,  of  the  English- 
man and  the  Hindu,  dwelt  together  in  Asia,  spoke  the  same 
tongue,  worshipped  the  same  gods.  The  languages  of  Europe 
and  India,  although  at  first  sight  they  seem  wide  apart,  are 
merely  different  growths  from  the  original  Aryan  speech.  This 
is  especially  true  of  the  common  words  of  family  life.  The 
names  for  father,  mother,  brother,  sister,  and  widow  (Sanskrit, 
vidhava),  are  the  same  in  most  of  the  Aryan  languages,  whether 
spoken  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges,  of  the  Tiber,  or  of  the 
Thames.  Thus  the  word  daughter  (Sanskrit,  duhitri),  which 
occurs  in  nearly  all  of  them,  has  been  derived  from  the  Sanskrit 
root  duh,  '  milk,'  and  preserves  the  memory  of  the  time  when 
the  daughter  was  the  little  milkmaid  in  the  primitive  Aryan 
household. 

The  words  preserved  alike  by  the  European  and  Indian 
branches  of  the  Aryan  race,  as  heirlooms  of  their  common 
home  in  Western  Central  Asia,  include  most  of  the  terms 
required  by  a  pastoral  people  who  had  already  settled  down  to 
the  cultivation  of  the  more  easily  reared  crops.  Their  domes- 
ticated animals  are  represented  by  names  derived  from  the 
same  root,  for  cattle,  sheep,  wool,  goats,  swine,  dogs,  horses, 
ducks,  geese  ;  also  mice  ;  their  agricultural  life,  by  cognate 
words  for  corn  (although  the  particular  species  of  the  cereal 
varied),  flax  or  hemp,  ploughing  and  grinding ;  their  implements, 
by  cognate  terms  for  copper  or  iron,  cart  or  waggon,  boat, 
helm  ;  their  household  economy  and  industries,  by  words  from 
the  same  roots  for  sewing  and  weaving,  house,  garden,  yard  ; 
also  for  a  place  of  refuge,  the  division  of  the  year  into  lunar 
months,  and  several  of  the  numerals. 

The  ancient  religions  of  Europe  and  India  had  a  similar 
origin.  They  were  to  some  extent  made  up  of  the  sacred 
stories  or  myths  which  our  common  ancestors  had  learned 
while  dwelling  together  in  Central  Asia.  Certain  of  the  Vedic 
gods  were  also  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Rome ;  and  the  Deity 
is  still  adored  by  names  derived  from  the  same  old  Aryan 
root  (div,  to  shine,  hence  The  Bright  One,  the  Indian  Deva, 
Latin  Dens,  or  Divinity),  by  Brahmans  in  Calcutta,  by  the 
Protestant  clergy  of  England,  and  by  Catholic  priests  in  Peru. 

The  Vedic  hymns  exhibit  the  Indian  branch  of  the  Aryans 
on  their  march  to  the  south-east,  and  in  their  new  homes. 


THE  RIVER  SETTLEMENTS  IN  PUNJAB.     77 

The  earliest  songs  disclose  the  race  still  to  the  nonli  of  the 
Khaibar  Pass,  in  Kabul ;  the  latest  ones  bring  them  as  far  as 
the  Ganges.  Their  victorious  advance  eastwards  through  the 
intermediate  tract  can  be  traced  in  the  Vedic  writings  almost 
step  by  step.  One  of  their  famous  settlements  lay  between 
the  two  sacred  rivers,  the  Saraswati,  supposed  to  be  the 
modern  Sarsuti  near  Thanesar  in  the  Punjab,  and  the  Drishad- 
vati,  or  Ghaggar,  a  day's  march  from  it.  This  fertile  strip  of 
land,  not  more  than  60  miles  long  by  20  broad,  was  fondly 
remembered  by  the  Indo-Aryans  as  their  Holy  Land  {Brahmd- 
varita),  'fashioned  of  God,  and  chosen  by  the  Creator.'  As 
their  numbers  increased,  they  pushed  eastwards  along  the  base 
of  the  Himalayas,  into  what  they  afterwards  called  the  Land 
of  the  Sacred  Singers  {BraJimarshi-desha).  Their  settlements  and  in 
included  by  degrees  the  five  rivers  of  the  Punjab,  together  with  f'^^'"'  "e^^' 
the  upper  course  of  the  Jumna  and  perhaps  of  the  Ganges.         ments. 

Here  the  Vedic  hymns  were  composed  ;  and  the  steady 
supply  of  water  led  the  iVryans   to   settle  down  from  their 
old   state   of  wandering  pastoral  tribes  into  communities   of 
husbandmen.      Their  Vedic  poets  praised   the  rivers  which  Function 
enabled  them  to  make  this  great  change — perhaps  the  most  '^S^^ 
important  step  in  the  progress  of  a  race.     '  May  the  Indus,' 
they  sang,  '  the  far-famed  giver  of  wealth,  hear  us  ;  (fertilizing 
our)  broad  fields  with  water.'     The  Himalayas,  through  whose 
offshoots  they  had  reached  India,  and  at  whose  southern  base 
they  long  dwelt,  made  a  lasting  impression  on  their  memory. 
The  Vedic  singer  praised  '  Him  whose  greatness  the  snow\- 
ranges,  and  the  sea,  and  the  aerial  river  declare.'     In  all  its 
long  wanderings  through  India,  the  Aryan  race  never  forgot  its  Recollec- 
northern  home.     There  dwelt  its  gods  and  holy  singers  ;  and  ''O'P  "f 
there  eloquence  descended  from  heaven  among  men ;  while  noTthem 
beyond   the   mountain-wall   lay   the  paradise   of  deities   and  home, 
heroes,  where  the  kind  and  the  brave  for  ever  repose. 

The   Rig- Veda  forms   the   great   literary  memorial  of  the  The  Ri;;- 

early  Arj-an   settlements   in  the    Punjab.      The   age   of  this  ^  ^'^'''• 

venerable  hymnal  is  unknown.     The  Hindus  believe,  without 

evidence,  that  it  existed  '  from  before  all  time,'  or  at  least  from  Insufficient 

•::ioi   years  B.C.,  nearly  5000  \'ears  ago.     European  scholars  evidence 
,  .    ,         ,    /  ^    "^         -1    J  1         •  ••       for  its  sup- 

have  mferred  from   astronomical  dates  that   its  composition  posed 

was  going  on  about  1400  B.C.     But  these  dates  are  themselves  dates, 3101 

given   in  writings   of  modern   origin,   and   might  have  been  ^'f(^ 

calculated   backwards.     We  know,   however,  that   the   Vedic  b.c.  {?) 

religion  had  been  at  work  long  before  the  rise  of  Buddhism  in 

the  6th  century  B.C.     The  antiquity  of  the  Rig- Veda,  although 


78  THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

not  to  be  dogmatically  expressed  in  figures,  is  abundantly  estab- 
lished.    The  earlier  hymns  exhibit  the  Aryans  on  the  north- 
western frontiers  of  India,  just  starting  on  their  long  journey. 
Neverthe-  Before  the  embassy  of  the  Greek  Megasthenes,  at  the  end  of 
fn-eat*anti-  ^'^^  ^'^  century  B.C.,  they  had  spread  at  least  to  the  verge  of 
quity.         the  Gangetic  delta,   1500  miles  distant     At  the  time  of  the 
Periplus,  circ.  70  a.d.,  the  southernmost  point  of  India  was 
apparently  a  seat  of  their  worship.     A  temple  to  the  queen  of 
tlie  god  Siva  stood  on  Cape  Comorin,  before  the  end  of  the  first 
Christian  century ;  and  the  inferences  of  European  scholarship 
point  to  the  composition  of  at  least  some  of  the  Vedic  psalms 
at  a  period  not  later  than  twelve  to  sixteen  centuries  before  the 
commencement  of  our  era. 
Inspira-  The  Brahmans  declare  that  the  Vedic  hymns  were  directly 

tion  of  the  inspired  by  God.     Indeed,  in  our  own  times,  the  young  Theistic 
Church  of  Bengal,  which  rejects  Brahmanical  teaching,  was 
split  into  two  sects  on  the  question  of  the  divine  authority 
of  the  Veda.     The  hymns  seem  to  have  been  composed  by 
certain  families  of  Rishis  or  psalmists,  some  of  whose  names 
The  Rig-    are  preserved.     The  Rig- Veda  is  a  very  old  collection  of  10 17 
Veda ;        Qf  these  short  lyrical  poems,  chiefly  addressed  to  the  gods, 
hymns,       ^i^d  Containing  10,580  verses.     They  show  us  the  Aryans  on 
10,580        the  banks  of  the   Indus,   divided   into  various  tribes,  some- 
'^''''^^'        times  at  war  with  each  other,  sometimes  united  against  the 
Caste  not    '  black  -  skinned '    aborigines.      Caste,    in    its    later    sense,    is 
known  to    unknown.     Each  father  of  a  family  is  the  priest  of  his  own 
"^'g     eca,  ]-^Q^ggl-,Ql(J_    -p^g  chieftain  acts  as  father  and  priest  to  the  tribe; 
but  at  the  greater  festivals  he  chooses  some  one  specially  learned 
in  holy  offerings  to  conduct  the  sacrifice  in  the  name  of  the 
people.  The  chief,  although  hereditary,  seems  to  have  been  partly 
elected;  and  his  title  of  Vis-pati,  'Lord  of  the  Settlers,'  survives 
in  the  old  Persian  Vis-paiti,  and  as  the  Lithuanian  Wiez-patis 
in  central  Europe  at  this  day.    Women  enjoyed  a  high  position, 
and  some  of  the  most  beautiful  hymns  were  composed  by 
ladies  and  queens.     Marriage  was  held  sacred.     Husband  and 
wife  were  both    '  rulers  of  the  house '  {dampati) ;  and  drew 
nor  near  to  the  gods  together  in  prayer.     The  burning  of  widows 

widow-  Qj-j  |.j^g  husbands'  funeral  pile  was  unknown  :  and  the  verses 
in  the  Veda  which  the  Brahmans  afterwards  distorted  into  a 
sanction  for  the  practice,  have  the  very  opposite  meaning. 
'  Rise,  woman,'  says  the  sacred  text  to  the  mourner ;  '  come  to 
the  world  of  life.  Come  to  us.  Thou  hast  fulfilled  thy  duties 
as  a  wife  to  thy  husband.' 

The  Aryan  tribes  in  the  Veda  are  acquainted  with  most  of 


T 


VEDIC  CIVILISATION ;   VEDIC  GGDS.        79 

the  metals.     They  have  blacksmiths,  coppersmiths,  and  gold-  Aryan 
smiths  among  them,   besides  carpenters,  barbers,   and  other  P^'Y*^^"*" 
artisans.     They  fight  from  chariots,  and  freely  use  the  horse,  Veda. 
although   not  yet  the  elephant,   in   war.     They  have  settled 
down  as  husbandmen,  till  their  fields  with  the  plough,  and  live 
in  villages  or  towns.     But  they  also  cling  to  their  old  wander- 
ing Hfe,  with  their  herds  and  '  cattle-pens.'     Cattle,  indeed,  still 
form  their  chief  wealth — the  coin  (Latin,  pecunid)  in  which 
payments  or  fines  are  made ;  and  one  of  their  words  for  war 
literally  means   '  a  desire  for  cows.'     They  have  learned  to 
build  '  ships,'  perhaps  large  river-boats  ;  and  have  seen  or  heard 
something  of  the  sea.     Unlike  the  modern  Hindus,  the  Aryans 
of  the  Veda  ate  beef;  used  a  fermented  liquor  or  beer,  made 
from  the  soma  plant ;  and  offered  the  same  strong  meat  and 
drink  to  their  gods.     Thus  the  stout  Aryans  spread  eastwards  Spread  of 

through   Northern    India ;   pushed  on  from    behind  bv  later  "-'^^  Aryans 
.  .    .  eastvvanls. 

arrivals   of  their   own    stock ;    and   driving   before   them,    or 

reducing  to  bondage,  the  earlier  'black-skinned'  races.  They 
marched  in  whole  communities  from  one  river  valley  to 
another  ;  each  house-father  a  warrior,  husbandman,  and  priest ; 
with  his  wife,  and  his  little  ones,  and  cattle. 

These  free-hearted  tribes  had  a  great  trust  in  themselves  The  gods 
and  in  their  gods.  Like  other  conquering  races,  they  believed  "f  th^ 
that  both  themselves  and  their  deities  were  altogether  superior 
to  the  people  of  the  land  and  to  their  poor,  rude  objects  of 
worship.  Indeed,  this  noble  self-confidence  is  a  great  aid  to 
the  success  of  a  nation.  Their  divinities — devas^  literally  'The 
Shining  Ones,'  from  the  Sanskrit  root  div,  'to  shine' — were  the 
great  powers  of  nature.  They  adored  the  Father-heaven, 
Dyaush-pitar  in  Sanskrit,  the  Dies-piter  or  Jupiter  of  Rome, 
the  Zeus  of  Greece,  the  Low  German  Dnits^  and,  through 
the  old  French  god-demon,  Dns-ius,  probably  the  Deuce  of 
English  slang ;  together  with  Mother-Earth  ;  and  the  Encom- 
passing Sky,  Varuna  in  Sanskrit,  Uranus  in  Latin,  Ouranos 
in  Greek.  The  Sarameyas,  or  two  children  of  Indra's  watch- 
dog, the  messengers  of  death,  have  been  compared  with  the 
Greek  Hermeias,  the  conductor  of  the  dead.  Such  common 
ideas  and  names  penetrate  deeply  into  the  mythology  of  the 
ancient  world,  although  they  have  sometimes  been  exaggerated. 
Jupiter  Feretrius^  for  whom  the  Romans  invented  conflicting 
derivations,  may  be  really  the  Vritra-han,  or  destroyer  of  the 
old  Aryan  demon  Vritra.  On  the  coins  of  the  Republic,  Juno 
Sospita  is  represented  with  a  skin  and  horns  over  her.  General 
Cunningham  suggests  that  her  epithet  represents  the  Sanskrit 


So 


THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Influence 

of  the 

rainy 

season  on 

Aryan 

mytho- 

log}'. 


Indra  and 
Agni. 


Moisture 
V.  Heat. 


Agni  gives 
])lace  to 
Indra. 


Indra, 
the  rain- 
bringer. 


Saspatni  i^Sasi\  a  name  for  the  moon,  so  called  from  the  marks 
on  the  moon  being  supposed  to  resemble  a  hare  (sasd). 

Indra,  or  the  Aqueous  Vapour  that  brought  the  precious  rain 
on  which  plenty  or  famine  depended  each  autumn,  received  the 
largest  number  of  hymns.  By  degrees,  as  the  settlers  realized 
more  and  more  keenly  the  importance  of  the  periodical  rains 
to  their  new  life  as  husbandmen,  he  became  the  chief  of  the 
Vedic  gods.  '  The  gods  do  not  reach  unto  thee,  O  Indra,  or 
men;  thou  overcomest  all  creatures  in  strength.'  Agni,  the 
God  of  Fire  (Latin,  ignis),  ranks  next  to  Indra  in  the  number 
of  hymns  in  his  honour  as  the  friend  of  man,  the  guide  of  the 
people,  the  lord  and  giver  of  wealth. 

Judging,  indeed,  from  the  preponderance  of  the  invoca- 
tions to  Agni,  and  from  the  position  which  the  corresponding 
deity  holds  in  Iranian  mythology,  it  would  appear  as  if 
Agni  and  not  Indra  had  been  the  chief  god  of  the  race, 
while  the  Indian  and  old  Persian  branches  still  dwelt 
together.  Among  the  cold  heights  and  on  the  uplands  of 
Central  Asia,  to  the  north-west  of  the  Himalayas,  Heat  was  the 
great  factor  of  fertility,  the  giver  of  human  comfort,  and  the 
ripener  of  the  crops.  When  the  eastern  offshoots  of  the  Aryans 
descended  upon  the  plains  of  India,  they  found,  as  they  advanced 
southward,  that  heat  was  an  element  of  productiveness  which 
might  be  taken  for  granted,  a  constant  factor  in  the  husbandry 
of  the  Indus  and  Jumna  valleys.  Here  it  was  upon  moisture 
rather  than  on  heat  that  their  harvest  depended.  To  the  right  of 
their  line  of  march  across  the  five  rivers  of  the  Punjab,  a  rather 
narrow  tract  stretched  to  the  foot  of  the  Himalayas,  with  an  ample 
rainfall,  now  averaging  35  inches  a  year.  But  on  the  broad  plains 
to  their  left,  the  water-supply  was  less  abundant  and  more  capri- 
cious. At  the  present  day  the  tract  immediately  to  the  south  of 
the  Aryan  route  receives  only  20  to  30  inches  per  annum,  di- 
minishing through  successive  belts  of  rainfall  down  to  10  inches. 
As  the  Aryan  immigrants  spread  south,  therefore,  it  was  no 
longer  so  necessary  to  pray  for  heat,  and  it  became  more 
necessary  to  pray  for  moisture.  Agni,  the  heat-giving  god, 
without  being  discredited,  became  less  important,  and  receded 
in  favour  of  Indra,  the  rain-bringing  deity.  In  the  settlements 
of  the  Punjab,  Indra  thus  advanced  to  the  first  place  among 
the  Vedic  divinities.  He  is  the  cloud  compeller,  dropping 
bountiful  showers,  filling  the  dried-up  rivers  from  the  Hima- 
layas and  bringing  the  rain-storms.  His  voice  is  the  thunder  ; 
with  his  spear  of  lightning  he  smites  open  the  black  clouds,  and 
rends  the  black  bodies  of  the  demons  who  have  drunk  up  the 


INDRA  AND  THE  RAINFALL.  Si 

wished-for  rains.  He  makes  the  sun  to  shine  forth  again.  '  I 
will  sing  of  the  victories  of  Indra,  of  the  victories  won  by  the 
God  of  the  Spear,'  chanted  the  Rig-Vedic  psalmist.  '  On  the 
mountains  he  smote  the  demon  of  drought  (Ahi) ;  he  poured 
out  the  waters  and  let  the  river  flow  from  the  mountains  :  like 
calves  to  cows,  so  do  the  waters  hasten  to  tlie  sea.'  '  Thou  hast 
broken  open  the  rain-prisons  ^  rich  in  cattle.  The  bonds  of 
the  streams  hast  thou  burnt  asunder.'  - 

As  the  Aryans  pushed  forward  into  the  middle  and  lower  India  gives 
valley  of  the  Ganges,  they  found  themselves  in  a  region   ofE,.*^^,'*^ 
copious  rainfall  brought  by  the  unfailing  monsoons.     The  rain- 
storms of  Indra  thus  became  less  important.     His  waterspouts, 
although    well    worth    praying    for    in    the   Punjab,    evidently 
belonged  to  an  inferior  grade  of  divine  energy  than  that  which 
presided  over  the  irresistible,  majestically  ordered  advance  of 
the  periodical  rains  in  Bengal.     Indra,  the  Cloud-Compeller, 
shared  in  his  turn  the  fate  of  Agni,  the  God  of  Heat,  and  gave 
way  to  three  deities  on  a  scale  commensurate  with  the  vaster  of  Brahma, 
forces  of  nature  in  the  Lower  Gangetic  valley.    We  shall  see  how  g^^!^'^"' 
the  abstract  but  potent  conception  of  Divine  energy  embodied  in 
the  Brahmanical  Triad  of  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Destroyer 
took  the  place  alike  of  Agni  and  of  Indra,  and  of  the  other 
Vedic  gods.     But,  meanwhile,  Indra,  the  Giver  of  Rain,  was 
the  most  important  deity  to  the  Aryan  settlers  in  the  Punjab. 
He  stands  forth  in  the  Veda  as  the  foremost  Shining  One. 

The  Maruts  were  the  Vedic  Storm   Gods,  '  who  make  the  Other 
rocks  to  tremble,  who  tear  in  pieces  the  forest.'     Ushas,  '  the  \  ^^ 
High-born  Dawn '  (Greek,  Eos)^  '  shines  upon  us  like  a  young  "^ 
wife,  rousing  every  living  being  to  go  forth  to  his  work.'     The 
Aswins,  or  '  Fleet  Outriders '  of  the  Dawn,  are  the  first  rays  of 
sunrise,   'Lords  of  Lustre.'     The  Solar  Orb  (Siirjya,  Savitri), 
the  Wind  (Vayu),  the  Sunshine  or  Friendly  Day  (Mitra),  the 
animating  fermented   juice  of  the   Sacrificial   Plant   (Soma), 
and  many  other  Shining  Ones,  are  invoked  in  the  Veda  ;  in 
all,  about  thirty-three  gods,  '  who  are  eleven  in  heaven,  eleven 
on  earth,  and  eleven  dwelling  in  glory  in  mid-air.'  . 

The  terrible  blood-drinking  deities  of  modern  Hinduism  are        1/ 

1  Literally,  '  Thou  hast  broken  the  cave  of  Vritra,'  the  demon  who 
imprisons  the  rain  and  causes  drought,  with  whom  Indra  is  constantly 
waging  victorious  war. 

-  The  Rig-Vedic  attributes  of  Indra  are  well  summarized  by  Professor 
Max  Duncker,  Ancient  History  of  India,  pp.  47-49  (ed.  1881),  following 
Roth  and  Benfey  ;  and  are  detailed  with  completeness  liy  Muir,  '  Sanskrit 
Texts,'  pp.  76-139,  vol.  V.  (1872). 

F 


82  THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

The  blood-  scarcely  known  in  the  Veda.     Buffaloes  are  indeed  offered  ; 

deities  of    ^^*^  '^'^^  hymn  points  to  a  symbolism  based  on  human  sacrifices, 

Hinduism  an  early  practice  apparently  extinct  before  the  time  of  the 

kiTowi/in    ^sdic  singers.     The  great  Horse-Sacrifice  (Aswamedha)  seems, 

the  Veda,   in    some    of    its    aspects,  a   substitution  for    the   flesh   and 

blood  of  a  man.     But,  as  a  whole,  the  hymns  are  addressed 

to    bright,    friendly    gods.      Rudra,    who    was    destined    to 

y    become    the    Siva   of    the    Hindus,    and    the    third    person 

or   Destroyer   in    their   Triad,    is    only   the  god    of   Roaring 

Tempests    in    the    Veda.      Vishnu,    the    second    person    or 

Preserver  in  the   Hindu  Triad,  is  but  slightly  known  to  the 

Vedic  singers  as  the  deity  of  the  Shining  Firmament ;  while 

Brahma,  the  first  person,  or  Creator,  has  no  separate  existence 

in  their  simple  hymns.     The  names  of  the  dreadful  Mahadeva, 

Diirga,  Kali,  and  of  the  gentler  but  intensely  human  Krishna 

and  Rama,  are  alike  unknown. 

Attitude  of      The  Aryan  settlers  lived  on  excellent  terms  with  their  bright 

sincreAo'^   gods.     They  asked  for  protection  with  an  assured  conviction 

his  gods,     that  it  would  be  granted.     '  Give  me  cows,  or  land,  or  long 

life,  in  return  for  this  hymn  or  offering ; '  '  slay  my  enemy, 

scatter  the  black-skin,  and  I  will  sacrifice  to  thee,' — such  is 

the  ordinary  frame  of  mind  of  the  singer  to  his  gods.     But, 

at  the  same  time,  he  was  deeply  stirred    by  the   glory  and 

mystery  of  the  earth  and  the  heavens.     Indeed,  the  majesty  of 

nature  so  filled  his  mind,  that  when  he  praises  any  one  of  his 

Shining  Gods  he  can  think  of  none  other  for  the  time  being, 

and  adores  him  as  the  Supreme  Ruler.     Verses  of  the  Veda 

may  be  quoted  declaring  each  of  the  greater  deities  to  be  the 

One  Supreme:   'Neither  gods  nor  men  reach  unto  thee,  O 

Indra;'  Soma  is  'king  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  conqueror 

of  all.'     To  Varuna  also  it  is  said,   '  Thou  art  lord  of  all,  of 

heaven  and  earth  ;  thou  art  king  of  all  those  who  are  gods,  and 

of  all  those  who  are  men.'     Agni  is  likewise  addressed  as  the 

mightiest  and  as  the  most  beloved  of  the  gods  :  '  No  one  can 

approach  thy  darting,  strong,  terrible  flames  :  burn  thou  the 

evil   spirits,    and   every   enemy.'     The  more   spiritual  of  the 

Vedic  singers,  therefore,  may  be  said  to  have  worshipped  One 

God,  although  not  One  Alone. 

Higher  Some  beautiful  souls  among  them  were  filled  not  only  with 

concep-      ^i^g  splendours  of  the  visible  universe,  but  with  the  deeper 

Deity  in     mysteries  of  the  Unseen,  and  the  powerlessness  of  man   to 

the  Veda,    search  out  God. 

A  Vedic         '  In  the  beginning  there  arose  the  Golden  Child.     He  was 
hymn.        j-|-,g  ^^g  \,ox\-\  lord  of  all  that  is.      He  established  the  earth 


A   VEDIC  HYMN:  SENSE  OF  SIN.  S3 

and  this  sky.     Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our 
sacrifice  ? 

'He  who  gives  life,  he  who  gives  strength ;  whose  command 
all  the  Bright  Gods  revere ;  whose  shadow  is  immortality, 
whose  shadow  is  death.  Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall 
offer  our  sacrifice  ? 

'He  who,  through  his  power,  is  the  one  king  of  the 
breathing  and  awakening  world.  He  who  governs  all,  man 
and  beast.  Who  is  the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our 
sacrifice  ? 

'  He  through  whom  the  sky  is  bright  and  the  earth  firm  ; 
he  through  whom  the  heaven  was  established,  nay,  the  highest 
heaven ;  he  who  measured  out  the  light  and  the  air.  Who  is 
the  God  to  whom  we  shall  offer  our  sacrifice  ? 

'  He  who  by  his  might  looked  even  over  the  water-clouds ; 
he  who  alone  is  God  above  all  gods.  Who  is  the  God  to 
whom  we  shall  offer  our  sacrifice  ?  ^ 

The  yearning  for  rest  in  God,  that  desire  for  the  wings  of  a  '  The 
dove,  so  as  to  fly  away  and  be  at  rest,  with  which  noble  hearts  L^ncL' 
have  ached  in  all  ages,  breathes  in  several  exquisite  hymns  of 
the  Rig- Veda  :  '  Where  there  is  eternal  light,  in  the  world 
where  the  sun  is  placed,— in  that  immortal,  imperishable  world, 
place  me,  O  Soma  !  Where  life  is  free,  in  the  third  heaven  of 
heavens,  where  the  worlds  are  radiant, — there  make  me  im- 
mortal !  Where  there  is  happiness  and  delight,  where  joy  and 
pleasure  reside,  where  our  desires  are  attained, — there  make 
me  immortal.'- 

Nor  was  the  sense  of  sin,  and  the  need  of  pardon,  absent  The  sense 
from  the  minds  of  these  ancient  psalmists.     As   a  rule,  an  ^^^^  ^f" 
honourable  understanding  seems  to  have  existed  between  the  forgive- 
Vedic  sacrificer  and  his  bright  god  :  the  god  being  equitably  "^^^'  • 
pledged  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  sacrificer's  prayer  in  return  for 
the  offering,  although  the  wisest  might  leave  it  to  Indra  himself 
to  decide  what  was  best  to  bestow.     But  even  the  cheerful 
worshippers  of  the  Veda  at  times  felt  deeply  the  sinfulness  of 
sin,  and  the  fear  of  the  sins  of  the  father  being  visited  upon 
the  children.     '  What  great  sin  is  it,  O  Varuna,'  says  a  hymn 
of  the  Rig- Veda,  '  for  which  thou  seekest  to  slay  thy  worshipper 
and  friend?'     'Absolve  us  from  the  sins  of  our  fathers  and 
from  those  which  we  committed  in  our  own  persons,'     '  It  was 
not   our   own   doing   that  led   us  astray,   O   Varuna,   it  was 

^  Rig-Veda,  x.  121  ;  translated  by  Prof.  Max  Miiller,  Hist.  Am:  Smsk, 
Lit.  p.  569  ;   Chips,  vol.  i.  p.  29  (ed.  1867). 

-  Rig- Veda,  ix.  113.  7,  Max  Miiller's  translation. 


84  THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

necessity  (or  temptation) ;  wine,  anger,  dice,  or  thoughtlessness. 

Prayers      'j-j^g  stronger  perverts  the  weaker.     Even  sleep  bringeth  sin.'  ^ 
forpardon.         ,  ,^      ^       ^  ,       ,  ,    ,    •   ,  i  , 

'  Through  want  of  strength,  thou  strong  and  bright  god,  says 

another  hymn  to  Varuna,   '  have  I  gone  wrong  :   have  mercy, 

almighty,  have  mercy.    I  go  along  trembling  like  a  cloud  driven 

before  the  wind  :  have  mercy,  almighty,  have  mercy.    Through 

want  of  power  (to  do  right)  have  I  transgressed,  O  bright  and 

mighty  god  :  have  mercy,  almighty,  have  mercy.    Whenever  we 

men,  O  Varuna,  commit  an  offence  before  the  heavenly  host, 

whenever   we   break    the    law   through  thoughtlessness,   have 

mercy,  almighty,  have  mercy.'  - 

Primitive        'Y\\Q,  very  ancient  Aryans  in  Central  Asia  buried  their  dead, 

burial.        although  cremation  seems  also  to  have  been  resorted  to.     In 

Iran  the  custom  of  burial  eventually  gave  place  to  that  of 

exposing  the  corpse  on  a  mountain  to  the  birds  of  heaven  ; 

a  custom   still   practised   in   the  Parsi   Towers  of  Silence  at 

Bombay  and   elsewhere.     We  have  seen  that  Agni,  god  of 

heat,  appears  to  have  been  the  chief  deity  of  the  Aryan  race 

in  Iran ;  and  fire  was  regarded  by  the  ancient  Persian  as  too 

sacred  an  element  to  be  polluted  by  a  human  corpse.     The 

Aryan  settlers  in    India   for   a  time  retained  the  custom  of 

burial.      '  Let  me  not,  O  Varuna,  go  to  the  house  of  clay,' 

says  one  hymn  of  the  Rig-Veda.-^     '  O  earth,  be  not  too  narrow 

for  him,'  says  another  hymn,  '  cover  him  like  the  mother  who 

folds  her  son  in  her  garment.''*     But  in  time  the  Indo- Aryans 

substituted  the  fire  for  the  grave  ;  and  the  burning  of  the  corpse 

became  a  distinctive  feature  of  the  race,  as  contrasted  with 

the  ruder  and  more  primitive  peoples  whom  they  found  in  the 

Punjab. 

Burning  While  the  aboriginal  tribes  buried  their  dead  under  rude 

dead.  Stone  monuments,  the  Aryan — alike  in  India,  in  Greece,  and 

in  Italy — made  use  of  the  funeral-pyre  as  the  most  solemn 

method  of  disposing  of  the  mortal  part  of  man.     As  the  Indo- 

Aryan  derived  his  natural  birth  from  his  parents ;  and  a  partial 

regeneration,  or  second  birth,  from  the  performance  of  his 

religious  duties ;  so  the  fire,  by  setting  free  the  soul  from  the 

body,   completed  the  third   or  heavenly  birth.      His  friends 

'  Rig-Veda,  vii.  86  ;  translated  in  Muir's  'Sanskrit  Texts,'  vol.  v.  p.  66 
(1872). 

'^  Rig- Veda,  vii.  89.  Max  Miiller's  beautiful  translation  is  reproduced 
by  Professor  Duncker,  Ancient  History  of  India,  p.  53  (18S1).  See  also 
Muir's  translation,  'Sanskrit  Texts,'  vol.  v.  p.  67  (1872). 

^  Rig-Veda,  vii.  89.  i.     Muir's  '  Sanskrit  Texts,'  vol.  v.  p.  67  (1872). 

*  Rig-Veda,  x.  18.  Roth's  rendering  in  Duncker,  Attcicnt  History  of 
India,  p.  63  (188 1). 


KING  OF  DEATH:   VEDIC  OBSEQUIES.       85 

stood  round  the  pyre  as  round  a  natal  bed,  and  commanded 
his  eye  to  go  to  the  sun,  his  breath  to  the  wind,  his  Hmbs  to  the 
earth,  the  water  and  plants  whence  they  had  been  derived. 
But  '  as  for  his  unborn  part,  do  thou.  Lord  (Agni),  quicken  it 
with  thy  heat ;  let  thy  flame  and  thy  brightness  quicken  it ; 
convey  it  to  the  world  of  the  righteous.' 

For  the  lonely  journey  of  the  soul  after  its  separation  from  Aryan 
the  body,  the  Aryans,    both  in  Asia   and    Europe,   provided  l^?^" 
faithful  guides  (the  Sdrameyas  in  Sanskrit,  Hermeias  in  Greek).  Yama,  or 
According  to  the  Zend  or  old  Aryan  legend  in  Persia,  Yama  Death. 
was  a  monarch  in  the  old  time,  when  sorrow  and  sickness  were 
unknown.     By  degrees  sin  and  disease  crept  into  the  world ; 
the  slow  necessity  of  death  hastened  its  step ;  and  the  old 
king  retired,  with  a  chosen  band,  from  the  polluted  earth  into 
a  better  country,  where  he  still  reigns.     The  Indian  version  of 
the  story  makes  Yama  to  be  the  first  man  who  passed  through 
death  into  immortality.     Having  discovered  the  way  to  the 
other  world,  he  leads  men  thither.     He  became  the  nekro- 
pompos,  or  guide  of  the  Aryan  dead.     Meanwhile  his  two  dogs 
{Sdrameyas) — '  black  and  spotted,'  '  broad  of  nostril,'  and  '  with 
a  hunger  never  to   be  satisfied' — wander  as   his  messengers 
among   men.     '  Worship   with   an    offering  King   Yama,    the 
Assembler  of  Men,  who  departed  to  the  mighty  waters,  who 
found  out  the  road  for  many.'  ^ 

Several  exquisite  hymns  bid  farewell  to  the  dead  : — '  Depart  The  Vedic 
thou,  depart  thou  by  the  ancient  paths  to  the  place  whither  our  [u'^j  /^ 
fathers  have  departed.  Meet  with  the  Ancient  Ones;  meet 
with  the  Lord  of  Death.  Throwing  off  thine  imperfections,  go 
to  thy  home.  Become  united  with  a  body ;  clothe  thyself  in  a 
shining  form.'  '  Let  him  depart  to  those  for  whom  flow  the 
rivers  of  nectar.  Let  him  depart  to  those  who,  through  medi- 
tation, have  obtained  the  victory ;  who,  by  fixing  their  thoughts 
on  the  unseen,  have  gone  to  heaven.  Let  him  depart  to  the 
mighty  in  battle,  to  the  heroes  who  have  laid  down  their  lives 
for  others,  to  those  who  have  bestowed  their  goods  on  the 
poor.'  The  doctrine  of  transmigration  was  unknown.  The 
circle  round  the  funeral-pile  sang  with  a  firm  assurance  that 
their  friend  went  direct  to  a  state  of  blessedness  and  reunion 
with  the  loved  ones  who  had  gone  before.     '  Do  thou  conduct 

^  Rig- Veda,  x.  14.  i.  See  Dr.  John  Muir's  '  Sanskrit  Texts,'  and  his 
essay  on  '  Y&mz.,^  Joitrnal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  part  ii.,  1865,  whence 
many  of  the  above  quotations  are  derived.  See  also  Max  Miiller's  essay  on 
the  '  Funeral  Rites  of  the  Brahmans,'  on  which  the  following  paragraph  is 
chiefly  based. 


86 


THE  AR  YANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Vedic 
concep- 
tions of 
immor- 
tality. , 


US  to  heaven,'  says  a  hymn  of  the  later  Atharva-Veda ;  'let  us 
be  with  our  wives  and  children.'  '  In  heaven,  where  our  friends 
dwell  in  bliss, — having  left  behind  the  infirmities  of  the  body, 
free  from  lameness,  free  from  crookedness  of  limb, — there  let 
us  behold  our  parents  and  our  children.'  '  May  the  water- 
shedding  spirits  bear  thee  upwards,  cooling  thee  with  their 
swift  motion  through  the  air,  and  sprinkling  thee  with  dew.' 
'  Bear  him,  carry  him  ;  let  him,  with  all  his  faculties  complete, 
go  to  the  world  of  the  righteous.  Crossing  the  dark  valley 
which  spreadeth  boundless  around  him,  let  the  unborn  soul 
ascend  to  heaven.  Wash  the  feet  of  him  who  is  stained  with 
sin  ;  let  him  go  upwards  with  cleansed  feet.  Crossing  the 
gloom,  gazing  with  wonder  in  many  directions,  let  the  unborn 
soul  go  up  to  heaven.' 


The 

Aryans 

advance 

into  the 

Middle 

Land 


The 

Ganges. 


Slow 
advance 
into  the 
Middle 
Land,     i 


The  hymns  of  the  Rig-Veda  were  composed,  as  we  have 
seen,  by  the  Aryans  in  their  colonies  along  the  Indus,  and  on 
their  march  eastwards  towards  the  Jumna  and  upper  Ganges. 
The  growing  numbers  of  the  settlers,  and  the  arrival  of  fresh 
Arj'an  tribes  from  behind,  still  compelled  them  to  advance. 
From  '  The  Land  of  the  Sacred  Singers,'  in  the  Eastern  Punjab 
{Brahmarshi-des/ia,  ante,  p.  77),  Manu  describes  them  as 
spreading  through  '  The  Middle  Land'  {Madhya-desha).  This 
comprised  the  river  system  of  the  Ganges  as  far  east  as  Oudh 
and  Allahabad,  with  the  Himalayas  as  its  northern,  and  the 
Vindhya  ranges  as  its  southern  boundary. 

The  Ganges  is  only  twice  mentioned,  and  without  special 
emphasis,  in  the  Rig- Veda.  The  conquest  of  the  Middle  Land 
seems,  therefore,  not  to  have  commenced  till  the  close  of  the 
Rig- Vedic  era.  It  must  have  been  the  work  of  many  genera- 
tions, and  it  will  be  referred  to  when  we  come  to  examine  the 
historical  significance  of  the  two  great  Sanskrit  epics.  Between 
the  time  when  the  Aryans  descended  from  Central  Asia  upon 
the  plains  of  the  Indus  and  the  age  when  they  passed  the 
Ganges,  they  had  conquered  many  of  the  aboriginal  races,  left 
others  behind  on  their  route,  and  had  begun  to  wage  inter-tribal 
wars  among  themselves,  under  rival  Aryan  heroes  and  rival 
Vedic  priests.  During  this  advance,  the  simple  faith  of  the  Rig- 
Vedic  singers  was  first  adorned  with  stately  rites,  and  then 
extinguished  beneath  them.  The  race  progressed  from  a  loose 
confederacy  of  tribes  into  several  well-knit  nations,  each  bound 
together  by  the  strong  central  force  of  kingly  power,  directed  by 
a  powerful  priesthood,  and  organized  on  a  firm  basis  of  caste. 

Whence  arose  this  new  constitution  of  the  Aryan  tribes  into 


ORIGIN  OF  FRIESTL  Y  FAMILIES.  87 

nations,  with  castes,  priests,  and  kings  ?     We  have  seen  that  The  Aryan 

althoua;h  in  their  earUer  colonies  on  the  Indus  each  father  was  ^tlT!-;,A 

priest  in  his  family,  yet  the  Chieftain,  or  Lord  of  the  Settlers,  into 

railed  in   some   man   specially  learned   in   holy  offerings  to  '•^'"S'^'"'"^- 

conduct  the  greater  tribal  sacrifices.      Such  men  were  highly 

honoured,  and  the  famous  quarrel  which  runs  throughout  the 

whole   Veda    sprang   from    the    claims    of    two    rival    sages, 

X'asishtha  and  Viswamitra,  to  perform  one  of  these  ceremonies. 

The  art  of  writing  was  unknown,  and  the  hymns  and  sacrificial 

formulae  had  to  be  handed   down  by   word   of  mouth   from 

father  to  son. 

It  thus  came    to   pass  that  the   families  who   knew  these  Origin  of 

holy  words  by  heart  became   the   hereditary  owners  of  the  P^'^.^.  ^ 
.     •'    .  ■'  /  families. 

•  liturgies  required  at  the  most  solemn  offermgs  to  the  gods. 
Members  of  such  households  were  chosen  again  and  again 
to  conduct  the  tribal  sacrifices,  to  chant  the  battle-hymn,  to 
implore  the  divine  aid,  or  to  pray  away  the  divine  wrath.  Even 
the  early  Rig- Veda  recognises  the  importance  of  these  sacrifices. 
'  That  king,'  says  a  verse,  '  before  whom  marches  the  priest,  he 
alone  dwells  well  established  in  his  own  house ;  to  him  the 
people  bow  down.  The  king  who  gives  wealth  to  the  priest, 
he  will  conquer ;  him  the  gods  will  protect.'  The  tribesmen 
first  hoped,  then  believed,  that  a  hymn  or  prayer  which  had 
once  acted  successfully,  and  been  followed  by  victory,  would 
again  produce  the  same  results.  The  hymns  became  a  valu- 
able family  property  for  those  who  had  composed  or  learned 
them.  The  Rig- Veda  tells  how  the  prayer  of  Vasishtha  pre- 
vailed '  in  the  battle  of  the  ten  kings,'  and  how  that  of  Viswa- 
mitra 'preserves  the  tribe  of  the  Bharats.'  The  potent  prayer 
was  termed  brahman  (from  the  root  brih  =  vrih,  to  increase), 
and  he  who  offered  it,  brahman.  Woe  to  him  who  despised 
either  !  '  Whosoever,'  says  the  Rig- Veda,  '  scoffs  at  the  prayer 
which  we  have  made,  may  hot  plagues  come  upon  him,  may 
the  sky  burn  up  that  hater  of  Brahmans.'^ 

Certain  families  thus  came  to  have  not  only  a  hereditary  Growing 

claim  to  conduct  the  great  sacrifices,  but  also  the  exclusive  "un^l;>ers 
.  -   ,  .  .         of  priests, 

knowledge  of  the  ancient  hymns,  or  at  any  rate  of  the  traditions 

which  explained  their  symbolical  meaning.      They  naturally 

tried  to  render  the  ceremonies  solemn  and  imposing.      By 

degrees  a  vast  array  of  ministrants  grew  up  around  each  of  the 

greater  sacrifices.     There  were  first  the  officiating  priests  and 

1  The  following  pages  are  largely  indebted  to  Professor  Weber's 
History  of  Indian  Literature  (Triibner,  1S7S),  — a  debt  very  gratefully 
acknowledged. 


88  THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDL4. 

their  assistants,  who  prepared  the  sacrificial  ground,  dressed 

the   altar,   slew  the  victims,  and   poured  out  the   libations ; 

second,  the  chanters  of  the  Vedic  hymns ;  third,  the  reciters 

of  other  parts  of  the  service  ;  fourth,  the  superior  priests,  who 

watched  over  the  whole,  and  corrected  mistakes. 

The  four         The  entire  service  was  derived  from  the  Veda,  or  '  inspired 

vedas.        knowledge,'  an  old  Aryan  word  which  -appears  in  the  Latin 

vid-ere,  '  to  see  or  perceive  ; '  in  the  Greek /^;V/f  of  Homer,  and 

oida,  'I  know;'  in  the  Old  English,  I  wit ;  in  the  modern 

(i)  The      German   and    English,  -ansseu,  ivisdom,  etc.      The    Rig-Veda 

^'k-   eca.  gxj^ji^ifg  jj^g  hymns  in  their  simplest  form,  arranged  in  ten 

'circles,' according  to  the  families  of  their  composers,  the  Rishis. 

Some  of  the  hymns  are  named  after  individual  minstrels. 

But  as  the  sacrifices  grew  more  elaborate,  the  hymns  were 
also  arranged  in  four  collections  {sanhitds)  or  service-books 

(2)  The      for  the  ministering  priests.     Thus,  the  second,  or  Sama-Veda, 
VedT        ^^^^  made  up  of  extracts  from  the  Rig- Vedic  hymns  used  at 

the  Soma  sacrifice.    Some  of  its  verses  stamp  themselves,  by 
their  antiquated  grammatical  forms,  as  older  than  their  render- 

(3)  The      ing  in  the  Rig- Veda  itself.     The  third,  or  Yajur-Veda,  consists 
^^J"'';        not  only  of  Rig- Vedic  verses,  but  also  of  prose  sentences,  to  be 

used  at  the  sacrifices  of  the  New  and  Full  Moon ;  and  at  the 

Great  Horse  Sacrifice,  when  609  animals  of  various  kinds  were 

off"ered,  perhaps  in  substitution  for  the  earlier  Man  Sacrifice, 

its  («)         which  is  also  mentioned  in  the  Yajur-Veda.     The  Yajur-Veda 

wl'^^i^u^-?'^^  is  divided  into  two  editions,  the  Black  and  the  White  Yajur  : 
(/>)  White    ,      ,    ,    ,        .  .  ■ 

editions,      both  belongmg  to  a  more  modern  period  than  either  the  Rig 

or  the  Sama  Vedas,  and  composed  after  the  Aryans  had  spread 

far  to  the  east  of  the  Indus. 

(4)  The  The  fourth,  or  Atharva-Veda,  was  compiled  from  the  least 
Athaiva-     ancient  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda  in  the  tenth  book ;  and  from 

the  still  later  songs  of  the  Brahmans,  after  they  had  established 

their  priestly  power.     It  supplies  the  connecting  link  between 

the  simple  Aryan  worship  of  the  Shining  Ones  exhibited   in 

the  Rig- Veda,  and  the  complex   Brahmanical   system  which 

followed.     It  was  only  allowed  to  rank  as  part  of  the  Veda 

after  a  long  struggle. 

The  four         The  four  Vedas  thus  described,  namely,  the  Rig- Veda,  the 

\l^^^    -,    S'^^"'"'^'  t^^  Yajur,  and  the  Atharva,  formed  an  immense  body 

sufficient,    of  sacrificial  poetry.     But  as  the  priests  grew  in  number  and 

power,  they  went  on  elaborating  their  ceremonies,  until  even 

the  four  Vedas  became  insufficient  guides  for  them.      They 

The  Brah-  accordingly  compiled  prose  treatises,  called  Brahmanas,  attached 

compHed     ^°  ^^^^  °^  "^^^  '^'^^^  Vedas,  in  order  to  more  fully  explain  the 


SRUTI  AND  SMRITl.  89 

tiinctions  of  the  officiating  priests.     Thus  the  Brahmana  of  the 

Rig- Veda  deals  with  the  duties  of  the  Reciter  of  the  Hymns 

{Jwtar) ;  the   Brahmana  of  the  Sama-Veda,  with  those  of  the 

Singer  at  the  Soma  sacrifice  {ndgdtar) ;  the  Brahmana  of  the 

Vajur-Veda,  with  those  of  the  actual  performer  of  the  Sacrifice 

[adhvaryii) ;   while   the   Brahmana  of  the   Atharva-Veda  is  a 

medley  of  legends  and  speculations,   having  but  little  direct 

'onnection  with  the  Veda   whose   name  it   bears.      All    the  Srtiti,  or 

Ijrahmanas,  indeed,  besides    explaining  the   ritual,  lay  down  Reveded 

religious  precepts  and  dogmas.       Like  the  four  Vedas,  they 

are  held  to  be  the  very  Word  of  God.     The  Vedas  and  the 

Brahmanas  form  the  Revealed  Scriptures  {sritti)  of  the  Hindus ; 

the  Vedas  supplying  their  divinely-inspired  psalms,  and  the 

■Brahmanas  their  divinely-inspired  theology  or  body  of  doctrine. 

Even  this  ample   literature    did  not  suffice.      The   priests  The  Sutras 

accordingly  composed  a  number  of  new  works,  called  Sutras,  25  '^^^.''^" 

which  elaborated    still  further  their    system  of  sacrifice,  and 

which  asserted  still  more  strongly  their  own  claims  as  a  separate 

and  superior  caste.     They  alleged  that  these  Sutras,  although 

not  directly  revealed  by  God,  were  founded  on  the  inspired 

Vedas  and  Brahmanas,  and  that  they  had  therefore  a  divine 

authority  as  sacred  traditions  {smriti).     The  Sutras,  literally,  Sturiii ; 

'  strings '  of  aphorisms,  were  composed  in  the  form  of  short  "°''      ,  ,  , 

sentences,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  and  in  order  that  their  vast 

number  might  be  the  better  remembered  in  an  age  when  writing 

was  little   practised,   or  unknown.      Some  of  them,  such    as  their 

the  Kalpa-Siitras,  deal  with  the  ritual  and  sacrifices  :  others,  ^ubject- 
^  '  .  ,  .  •*  .    '  matter, 

like  the  '  Household  '  or  Grihya-Siitras,  prescribe  the  ceremonies 

at  birth,  marriage,  and  death  ;  a  still  larger  class  of  Sutras  treat 

of  the  doctrines,  duties,  and  privileges  of  the    priests.     The 

Sutras  thus  became  the  foundation  of  the  whole  legislation  and 

philosophy  of  the  Brahmans  in  later  times.    They  exhibit  the  The 

Brahmans  no  longer  as  the  individual  sacrificers  of  the  Vedic  caTte'fuUv 

period,  but  as  a  powerful  hereditary  caste,  claiming  supremacy  formed. 

alike  over  king  and  people. 

Meanwhile,  other  castes  had  been  gradually  formed.      As  Growth 

the   Aryans  moved  eastwards    from  the  Indus,  some  of   the        ^^ 

-'  '        .  warrior 

warriors  were  more  fortunate  than  others,  or  received  larger  caste 
shares  of  the  conquered  lands.  Such  families  had  not  to  till  ('"^shat- 
their  fields  with  their  own  hands,  but  could  leave  that  work 
to  be  done  by  the  aboriginal  races  whom  they  subdued.  In 
this  way  there  grew  up  a  class  of  warriors,  freed  from  the 
labour  of  husbandry,  who  surrounded  the  chief  or  king,  and 
were  always  ready  for  battle.    It  seems  likely  that  these  kinsmen 


y 


90  THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

and  companions  of  the  king  formed  an  important  class  among 
the  early  Aryan  tribes  in  India,  as  they  certainly  did  among 
the  mediaeval  branches  of  the  race  in  Europe,  and  still  do  at 
the  petty  courts  of  India.  Their  old  Sanskrit  names,  Kshat- 
triya,  Rajanya,  and  Rdjbansi,  mean  'connected  with  the 
royal  power,'  or  '  of  the  royal  line  ; '  their  usual  modern  name 
Rajput  means  '  of  royal  descent.'  In  process  of  time,  when 
the  Aryans  settled  down,  not  as  mere  fighting  clans,  but  as 
powerful  nations,  in  the  Middle  Land  along  the  Jumna  and 
Ganges,  this  warrior  class  grew  in  numbers  and  in  power. 
The  black  races  had  been  reduced  to  serfdom,  or  driven  back 
towards  the  Himalayas  and  the  Vindhyas,  on  the  north  and  on 
the  south  of  the  central  tract.  The  incessant  fighting,  which 
had  formed  the  common  lot  of  the  tribes  on  their  actual 
migration  eastwards  from  the  Indus,  now  ceased. 
The  culti-  A  section  of  the  people  accordingly  laid  aside  their  arms, 
caste^  «  and,  devoting  themselves  to  agriculture  or  other  peaceful  pur- 
(Vaisyas).  suits,  became  the  Vaisyas.  The  sultry  heats  of  the  Middle 
Land  must  have  abated  their  old  northern  energy,  and  inclined 
them  to  repose.  Those  who,  from  family  ties  or  from  personal 
inclination,  preferred  a  soldier's  life,  had  to  go  beyond  the 
frontier  to  find  an  enemy.  Distant  expeditions  of  this  sort 
could  be  undertaken  much  less  conveniently  by  the  husband- 
man than  in  the  ancient  time,  when  his  fields  lay  on  the  very 
border  of  the  enemy's  country,  and  had  just  been  wrested 
from  it.  Such  expeditions  required  and  probably  developed  a 
military  class ;  endowed  with  lands,  and  with  serfs  to  till  the 
soil  during  the  master's  absence  at  the  wars.  The  old  com- 
panions and  kinsmen  of  the  king  formed  a  nucleus  round 
which  gathered  the  more  daring  spirits.  They  became  in 
time  a  distinct  military  caste. 
The  four  The  Aryans  on  the  Ganges,  in  the  '  ^Middle  Land,'  thus 
m^Bi-'h-  fo'J^'"^  themselves  divided  into  three  classes — first,  the  priests, 
mans,  or  Brahmans  ;  second,  the  warriors  and  king's  companions, 
(aUvshat-  called  in  ancient  times  Kshattriyas,  at  the  present  day  Rajputs; 

(3)  Vais-     third,  the  husbandmen,  or  agricultural  settlers,  who  retained 
yas,  the  old  name  of  Vaisyas,  from  the  root  vis,  which  in  the  Vedic 

period  had  included  the  whole  '  people.'  These  three  classes 
j  gradually  became  separate  castes  ;  intermarriage  between  them 
J  was  forbidden,  and  each  kept  more  and  more  strictly  to  its  heredi- 
tary employment.  But  they  were  all  recognised  as  belonging  to 
'  Twice-born,'  or  Aryan  race  ;  they  were  all  present  at  the  great 
national  sacrifices  ;  and  all  worshipped  the  same  Bright  Gods. 

(4)  Sudras.      Beneath  them  was  a  fourth  or  servile  class,  called  Siidras,  the 


THE  FOUR  CASTES  DIFFERENTIATE.        91 

remnants  of  the  vanquished  aboriginal  tribes  whose  lives  had 
1  >een  spared.  These  were  '  the  slave-bands  of  black  descent,'  the 
Dasas  of  the  Veda.  They  were  distinguished  from  their  '  Twice- 
born  '  Aryan  conquerors  as  being  only  '  Once-born,'  and  by 
many  contemptuous  epithets.  They  were  not  allowed  to  be 
present  at  the  great  national  sacrifices,  or  at  the  feasts  which 
followed  them.  They  could  never  rise  out  of  their  servile 
condition  ;  and  to  them  was  assigned  the  severest  toil  in  the 
fields,  and  all  the  hard  and  dirty  work  of  the  village  community. 

Of  the  four  Indian  castes,  three  had  a  tendency  to  increase.  The  Erah- 
As  the  Aryan  conquests  spread,  more  aboriginal  tribes  were  ^^\ 
reduced  to  serfdom,  as  Siidras.     The  warriors,  or  Kshattriyas,  triyas,  and 

would  constantly  receive  additions  from  wealthy  or  enterprising  Sudras 

-  .  incrccisc, 

members  of  the   cultivating  class.     When  an  expedition  or 

migration  went  forth  to  subdue  new  territory,  the  whole 
colonists  would  for  a  time  lead  a  military  life,  and  their  sons 
would  probably  all  regard  themselves  as  Kshattriyas.  In 
ancient  times,  entire  tribes,  and  at  the  present  day  the  mass 
of  the  population  throughout  large  tracts,  thus  claim  to  be 
of  the  warrior  or  Rajput  caste.  Moreover,  the  kings  and 
fighting-men  of  aboriginal  races  who,  without  being  conquered 
by  the  Aryans,  entered  into  alliance  with  them,  would  probably 
assume  for  themselves  the  warrior  or  Kshattriya  rank.  We  see 
this  process  going  on  at  the  present  day  among  many  of  the 
aboriginal  peoples.  The  Brahmans,  in  their  turn,  appear  at 
first  to  have  received  into  their  body  distinguished  families  of 
Kshattriya  descent.  In  later  times,  too,  we  find  that  sections 
of  aboriginal  races  were  also  '  manufactured '  wholesale  into 
Brahmans.  Unmistakeable  cases  of  such  '  manufactures  '  or 
ethnical  syncretisms  are  recorded ;  and  besides  the  upper- 
class  agricultural  Brahmans,  there  are  throughout  India  many 
local  castes  of  Brahmans  who  follow  the  humble  callings  of 
fishermen,  blacksmiths,  ploughmen,  and  potato-growers.^ 

The  Vaisya  or  cultivating  caste  did  not  tend,  in  this  manner.  The 
to  increase.  No  one  felt  ambitious  to  win  his  way  into  it,  ,.''^'!>'?\^ 
except  perhaps  the  enslaved  Sudras,  to  whom  any  change  of 
condition  was  forbidden.  The  Vaisyas  themselves  tended  in 
early  times  to  rise  into  the  more  honourable  warrior  class  ; 
and  at  a  later  period,  to  be  mingled  with  the  labouring 
multitude  of  Sudras,  or  with  the  castes  of  mixed  descent.  In 
many  Provinces  they  have  now  almost  disappeared  as  a  distinct 
caste.  In  ancient  India,  as  at  the  present  day,  the  three 
conspicuous  castes  were  (1)  the  priests  and  (2)  warriors  of 
^  See  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  pp.  239-264  (1S72). 


92  THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

Aryan  birth,  and  (3)  the  serfs  or  Siidras,  the  remnants  of 
earlier  races.  The  Siidras  had  no  rights  ;  and,  once  con- 
quered, ceased  to  struggle  against  their  fate.  But  a  long 
contest  raged  between  the  priests  and  warriors  for  the  chief 
place  in  the  Aryan  commonwealth. 
Struggle  In  order  to  understand  this  contest,  we  must  go  back  to 

Ijetween      ^^  time  when  the  priests  and  warriors  were  simply  fellow- 
and  tribesmen.     The  Brahman  caste  seems  to  have  grown  out  of 

warrior       the  families  of  Rishis  who  composed    the   Vedic   hymns,  or 
ca-^  eb.        ^^.j^^  w^txt  chosen  to  conduct  the  great  tribal  sacrifices.      In 
after-times,  the  whole  Brahman  population  of  India  pretended 
to  trace  their  descent  from  the  Seven  Rishis,  heads  of  the 
seven    priestly   families    to    whom   the   Vedic    hymns   were 
assigned.       But   the   composers   of  the   Vedic   hymns   were 
sometimes  kings  or  distinguished  warriors  rather  than  priests  ; 
indeed,  the  Veda  itself  speaks  of  these  royal  Rishis  {Rdjarshis). 
Risine        When  the  Brahmans  put  forward  their  claim  to  the  highest 
pretension  rank,  the  warriors  or  Kshattriyas  were  slow  to  admit  it ;  and 
jj  ^,^      ,  when  the  Brahmans  went  a  step  further,  and  declared  that  only 
members  of  their  families  could  be  priests,  or  gain  admission 
into  the  priestly  caste,  the  warriors  seem  to  have  disputed 
their  pretensions.     In  later  ages,  the  Brahmans,  having  the 
exclusive  keeping  of  the  sacred  writings,  effaced  from  them,  as 
far  as  possible,  all  traces  of  their  struggle  with  the  Kshattriyas. 
The  Brahmans  taught  that  their  caste  had  come  forth  from  the 
mouth  of  God,  divinely  ordained  to  the  priesthood  from  the 
beginning  of  time.     Nevertheless,  the  Vedic  and  Sanskrit  texts 
record  a  long  contest,  perhaps  representing  a  difference  in  race 
or  separate  waves  of  Aryan  migrations. 
Viswa-  '^^^   quarrel  between  the  two  sages  Viswamitra  and  Vas- 

mitra  and  ishtha,  which,  as  has  been  mentioned,  runs  through  the  whole 
Vasishtha  Veda,  is  typical  of  this  struggle.  Viswamitra  stands  as  a 
representative  of  the  royal-warrior  rank,  who  claims  to  perform 
a  great  public  sacrifice.  The  white-robed  Vasishtha  represents 
the  Brahmans  or  hereditary  priesthood,  and  opposes  the 
warrior's  claim.  In  the  end,  Viswamitra  established  his  title  to 
conduct  the  sacrifice ;  but  the  Brahmans  explain  this  by  saying 
that  his  virtues  and  austerities  won  admission  for  him  into 
the  priestly  family  of  Bhrigu.  He  thus  became  a  Brahman, 
and  could  lawfully  fill  the  priestly  ofllice.  Viswamitra  serves  as 
a  typical  link,  not  only  between  the  priestly  and  the  worldly 
castes,  but  also  between  the  sacred  and  the  profane  sciences. 
He  was  the  legendary  founder  of  the  art  of  war,  and  his  equally 
legendary  son  Susruta  is  quoted  as  the  earliest  authority  on 


B RAHMANS  AND  KSHA  TTRJ  J  AS.  93 

Indian  medicine.  These  two  sciences  of  war  and  medicine, 
together  with  music  and  architecture,  form  iipa-  Vedas,  or  sup- 
plementary sections  of  the  divinely-inspired  knowledge  of  the 
Brahmans. 

Another  famous  royal  Rishi,  Vitahavya,  '  attained  the  con-  Other 
dition  of  Brahmanhood,  venerated  by  mankind,'  by  a  word  ^^^f^t 
of  the  saintly  Bhrigu,     Parasu-Rama,  the  Divine  Champion  of  tiiyasai- 
the  Brahmans,  was  of  warrior  descent  by  his  mother's  side.  tain'"g '" 

-.,  ,.,.,  .  .  1,-     Branmau- 

Manu,  their  legislator,  sprang  from  the  warrior  caste ;  and  his  hood, 
father  is  expressly  called  '  the  seed  of  all  the  Kshattriyas.'  But 
when  the  Brahmans  had  firmly  established  their  supremacy, 
they  became  reluctant  to  allow  the  possibility  of  even  princes 
•finding  an  entrance  into  their  sacred  order.  King  Ganaka 
was  more  learned  than  all  the  Brahmans  at  his  court,  and 
l)erformed  terrible  penances  to  attain  to  Brahmanhood.  Yet 
the  legends  leave  it  doubtful  whether  he  gained  his  desire. 
The  still  more  holy,  but  probably  later,  Matanga,  wore  his 
body  to  skin  and  bone  by  a  thousand  years  of  austerities,  and 
was  held  up  from  falling  by  the  hand  of  the  god  Indra  himself. 
Nevertheless,  he  could  not  attain  to  Brahmanhood.  Gautama 
Buddha,  who  in  the  6th  century  before  Christ  overthrew  the  J 
Brahman  supremacy,  and  founded  a  new  religion,  was  a  prince 
of  warrior  descent ;  perhaps  born  in  too  late  an  age  to  be 
adopted  into,  and  utilized  by,  the  Brahman  caste. 

Among  some  of  the  Aryan  tribes  the  priests  apparently  failed  The 
to  establish  themselves  as  an  exclusive  order.     Indeed,  the  four  t     j'^  .1 

'  Land,    the 

castes,  and  especially  the  Brahman  caste,  seem  only  to  have  focus  of 
obtained  their  full  development  amid  the  plenty  of  the  Middle  ^^rahman- 
Land  {Afadhya-desha),  watered  by  the  Jumna  and  the  Ganges. 
The  early  Aryan  settlements  to  the  west  of  the  Indus  long  re- 
mained outside  the  caste  system  ;  the  later  Aryan  offshoots  to  the 
south  and  east  of  the  Middle  Land  only  partially  carried  that 
system  with  them.    But  in  the  Middle  Land  itself,  with  Delhi  as      / 
its  western  capital,  and  the  great  cities  of  Ajodhya  (Oudh)  and    V 
Benares  on  its  eastern  frontier,  the  Brahmans  grew  by  degrees 
into  a  compact,  learned,  and  supremely  influential  body,  the 
makers  of  Sanskrit  literature.     Their  language,  their  religion, 
and  their  laws,  became  in  after  times  the  standards  aimed  at 
throughout  all  India.     They  naturally  denounced  all  who  did  Aryan 
not  submit  to  their  pretensions,  and  they  stigmatized  the  other  j"^'^*^^ 
Aryan  settlements  who  had  not  accepted  their  caste  system  as  the  Brah- 
lapsed  tribes  or  outcasts  ( Vrishalas).     Among  the  lists  of  such  nianical 
fallen   races   we   read   the   name   afterwards   applied   to   the  ^^  ^' 
lonians  or  Greeks  ( Yavanas).     The  Brahmans  of  the  Middle 


94  THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

Land  had  not  only  to  enforce  their  supremacy  over  the  powerful 

warriors  of  their  own  kingdoms ;  they  had  also  to  extend  it 

among  the  outlying  Aryan  tribes  who  had  never  fully  accepted 

their  caste  system.     This  must  have  been  a  slow  work  of  ages, 

and  it  seems  to  have  led  to  bitter  feuds. 

Biahman         There   were   moments  of  defeat,   indeed,    when    Brahman 

tures"^  "     leaders   acknowledged   the   superiority  of  the   warrior  caste. 

'  None  is  greater,'  says  the  Brihad  Aranyaka  Upanishad,  '  than 

the  Kshattriya  ;  therefore  the  Brahman,  under  the  Kshattriya, 

worships  at  the  royal  sacrifice  (rdjasiiya).'  ^     It  seems  likely 

that  numbers  of  the  Vaisyas   or  cultivators  would  take  part 

with   the    Kshattriyas,   and    be    admitted    into   their   caste. 

That  the  contest  was  not  a  bloodless  one  is  attested  by  many 

legends,   especially  that  of  Parasu-Rama,    or  '  Rama  of  the 

Axe.'     This  hero,  who  was   divinely  honoured   as  the  sixth 

Incarnation  of  Vishnu,  appeared  on  the  scene  after  alternate 

massacres   by   Brahmans  and    Kshattriyas   had   taken   place. 

He  fought  on  the  Brahman  side,  and  covered  India  with  the 

carcases  of  the  warrior  caste.     '  Thrice  seven  times,'  says  the 

Sanskrit  epic,  'did  he  clear  the  earth  of  the  Kshattriyas,'  and 

so-ended  in  favour  of  the  Brahmans  the  long  struggle. 

The  Brail-  J  It  is  vain  to  search  into  the  exact  historical  value  of  such 

man  su-      legends.     They  suffice  to  indicate  an  opposition  among  the 

cstab-         early  Aryan  kingdoms  to  the  claims  of  the  Brahmans,  and  the 

hshed.        mingled   measures  of  conciliation  and  force   by  which  that 

opposition  was  overcome.     The  Brahman  caste,  having  estab- 

They         lished  its  power,  made  a  wise  use  of  it.     From  the  ancient 

wise^use     Vedic  times  its  leaders  recognised  that  if  they  were  to  exercise 

of  it.  spiritual  supremacy,  they  must  renounce  earthly  pomp.      In 

arrogating  the  priestly  function,  they  gave  up  all  claim  to  the 

royal  office.     They  were  divinely  appointed  to  be  the  guides 

of  nations  and  the  counsellors  of  kings,  but  they  could  not 

be  kings  themselves.     As  the  duty  of  the  Siidra  was  to  serve, 

of    the   Vaisya   to   till   the   ground   and   follow   middle-class 

trades  or  crafts,  so  the  business  of  the   Kshattriya  was  with 

^  It  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  significance  of  tiiis  passage,  and  dangerous 
to  generalize  from  it.  The  author  has  to  thank  Prof.  Cowell  and  the  late 
Dr.  John  INIuir  for  notes  upon  its  precise  application.  Weber,  Hist.  Ind. 
Lit.  p.  54  (1878),  describes  the  rdjasiiya  as  'the  consecration  of  the  king.' 
The  author  takes  this  opportunity  of  expressing  his  many  obligations  to  Dr. 
John  Muir,  his  first  teacher  in  Sanskrit.  Dr.  Muir,  after  an  honourable 
career  in  the  Bengal  Civil  Service,  devoted  the  second  half  of  his  life  to  the 
study  of  ancient  Indian  literature  ;  and  his  five  volumes  of  Original  Sans- 
krit Texts  form  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  most  permanent  contributions 
to  Oriental  learning  made  in  our  lime. 


THE  BRAHMAN  RULE  OF  LIJ^E.  95 

tlie  public  enemy,  and  that  of  the  Brdhmans  with  the  national 
gods. 

While  the  Brahman  leaders  thus  organized  the  occupations  Four 

of  the  commonwealth,  they  also  laid  down  strict  rules  for  their  ^*^ses  of  a 
_,,         ^  ,       ,  ,     .     -         .  .         Jjrahman  s 

own  caste.     They  felt  that  as  their  functions  were  mysterious  nfg, 

and  above  the  reach  of  other  men,  so  also  must  be  their  lives. 
Each  day  brought  its  hourly  routine  of  ceremonies,  studies, 
and  duties.     Their  whole  life  was  mapped  out  into  four  clearly- 
defined  stages  of  discipline.     For  their  existence,  in  its  full  First  stage: 
religious  significance,  commenced  not  at  birth,  but  on  being  T^*^ 

.  .  °  Learner 

invested  at  the  close  of  childhood  with  the  sacred  thread  of  the  [hrahma- 
Twice-Born.     Their  youth  and  early  manhood  were  to  be  spent  (hari). 
in  learning  by  heart  from    some    Brahman  sage  the  inspired 
Scriptures,  tending  the  sacred  fire,  and  serving  their  preceptor. 
Having   completed    his    long   studies,    the    young    Brahman  (2)  The 
entered  on  the  second  stage  of  his  life,  as  a  householder.     He  House- 
married  and  commenced  a  course  of  family  duties.     When  he  i^n'/ias- 
had  reared  a  family,  and  gained  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  ^^t'l)- 
world,  he  retired  into  the  forest  as  a  recluse,  for  the  third  period  (3)  The 
of  his  existence  ;  feeding  on  roots  or  fruits,  and  practising  his  I'O'est- 
religious  rites  with  increased  devotion.     The  fourth  stage  was  (zuina- 
that  of  the  ascetic  or  religious  mendicant,  wholly  withdrawn  from  prastha). 
earthly  affairs,  and   striving   to   attain   a  condition  of  mind  (4)  The 
which,  heedless  of  the  joys,  or  pains,  or  wants  of  the  body,  is  Ascetic 
intent  only  on  its  final  absorption  into  the  deity.     The  Brahman,  y^i^i\ 
in  this  fourth  stage  of  his  life,  ate  nothing  but  what  was  given  to 
him  unasked,  and  abode  not  more  than  one  day  in  any  village, 
lest  the  vanities  of  the  world  should  find  entrance  into  his 
heart.     Throughout  his  whole  existence,  he  practised  a  strict 
temperance;  drinking  no  wine,  using  a  simple  diet,  curbing 
the  desires,  shut  off  from  the  tumults  of  war,  and  his  thoughts 
fixed  on   study  and   contemplation.      '  What  is  this  world  ? ' 
says  a  Brahman  sage.     '  It  is  even  as  the  bough  of  a  tree,  on 
which  a  bird  rests  for  a  night,  and  in  the  morning  flics  away.' 

It  may  be  objected  that  so  severe  a  life  of  discipline  could  Brahman 
never  be  led  by  any  large  class  of  men.  And  no  doubt  there  ^^^^^  *^^ 
have  been  at  all  times  worldly  Brahmans  \  indeed,  the  struggle 
for  existence  in  modern  times  has  compelled  the  great  majority 
of  the  Brahmans  to  betake  themselves  to  secular  pursuits. 
But  the  whole  body  of  Sanskrit  literature  bears  witness  to  the 
fact  that  this  ideal  life  was  constantly  before  their  eyes,  and 
that  it  served  to  the  whole  caste  as  a  high  standard  in  its 
two  really  essential  features  of  self-culture  and  self-restraint. 


96  THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

Incidents  in  the  history  of  Buddha,  in  the  6th  century  before 
Christ,  show  that  numbers  of  Brahmans  at  that  time  lived 
according  to  this  rule  of  life.     Three  hundred  years  later,  the 
Greek  ambassador,    Megasthenes,    found  the    Brahmans  dis- 
coursing  in   their   groves,    chiefly   on   life  and  death.      The 
Chinese  travellers,  down  to  the  loth  century  a.d.,  attest  the 
,     surviv-al  of  the  Brahmanical  pattern  of  the  religious  life.     The 
A      whole   monastic   system   of  India,   and    those   vast   religious 
revivals  which  have  given  birth  to  the  modern  sects  of  Hin- 
duism, are  based  on  the  same  withdrawal  from  worldly  affairs. 
At  this   day,  Brahman   colleges,    called  iols^   are   carried   on 
without  fees  on  the  old   model,    at  Nadiya   in   Bengal,  and 
elsewhere.     The  modern  visitor  to  these  retreats  can  testify 
to  the  stringent  self-discipline,  and  to  the  devotion  to  learning 
for  its  own  sake,   often   protracted  till  past  middle-life,   and 
sometimes  by  grey-haired  students. 
Brahman        The  Brahmans,  therefore,  were  a  body  of  men  who,  in  an 
Hfg  early  stage  of  this  world's  history,  bound  themselves  by  a  rule 

of  life  the  essential  precepts  of  which  were  self-culture  and  self- 
restraint.  As  they  married  within  their  own  caste,  begat 
children  only  during  their  prime,  and  were  not  liable  to  lose 
the  finest  of  their  youth  in  war,  they  transmitted  their  best 
qualities  in  an  ever-increasing  measure  to  their  descendants. 
Its  here-  J  The  Brahmans  of  the  present  day  are  the  result  of  nearly  3000 
s^u  years  of  hereditary  education  and  self-restraint ;  and  they  have 

the  caste,  evolved  a  type  of  mankind  quite  distinct  from  the  surrounding 
population.  Even  the  passing  traveller  in  India  marks  them 
out,  alike  from  the  bronze-cheeked,  large-limbed,  leisure- 
loving  Rajput  or  warrior  caste  of  Aryan  descent ;  and  from  the 
dark-skinned,  flat-nosed,  thick-lipped  low-castes  of  non-Aryan 
origin,  with  their  short  bodies  and  bullet  heads.  The  Brahman 
The  stands  apart  from  both ;  tall  and  slim,  with  finely  modelled 

J  ra  man     jjp^  ^^^  nose,  fair  complexion,  high  forehead,  and  somewhat 
cocoa-nut  shaped  skull — the  man  of  self-centred  refinement. 
He  is  an  example  of  a  class  becoming  the  ruling  power  in  a 
,^  country,  not  by  force  of  arms,  but  by  the  vigour  of  hereditary 

^  '^  culture  and  temperance.    One  race  has  swept  across  India  after 

another,  dynasties  have  risen  and  fallen,  religions  have  spread 
themselves  over  the  land  and  disappeared.  But  since  the 
dawn  of  history,  the  Brahman  has  calmly  ruled ;  swaying  the 
minds  and  receiving  the  homage  of  the  people,  and  accepted 
by  foreign  nations  as  the  highest  type  of  Indian  mankind. 

The  paramount  position  which  the  Brahmans  won,  resulted, 
in  no  small  measure,  from  the  benefits  which  they  bestowed. 


WORK  DONE  BY  THE  JB RAHMANS.  97 

For  their  own  Aryan   countrymen,  they  developed  a,  noble  The  work 

language  and    literature.     The    Brahraans  were  not  only  the  th"Brah- 

priests  and  philosophers.     They  were  also  the  lawgivers,  the  mans  for 

statesmen,    the  administrators,  the  men  of  science,  and  the  ■^""■^• 

poets  of  their  race.     Their  influence  on  the  aboriginal  peoples, 

the  hill  and  forest  races  of  India,  was  not  less  important.     To 

these  rude  remnants  of  the  flint  and  bronze  ages  they  brought 

in  ancient  times  a  knowledge  of  the  metals  and  of  the  gods. 

Within  the  historical  period,  the  Brahmans  have  incorporated       / 

the  mass  of  the  backward  races  into  the  social  and  religious     ^ 

organization  of  Hinduism.    A  system  of  worship   is  a  great 

comfort  to  a  tropical  people,  hemmed  in  by  the  uncontrolled 

forces  of  nature,  as  it  teaches  them  how  to  propitiate  those 

mysterious  powers,  and  so  tends  to  liberate  their  minds  from 

the  terrors  of  the  unseen. 

The  reflective  life  of  the  Middle  Land  {Madhya-desha)  led  Brahman 

the  Brahmans  to  see  that  the  old  gods  of  the  Veda  were  in  ^'^^o^osy- 

reality  not  supreme  beings,  but  poetic  fictions.     For  when  they 

came  to  think  the  matter  out,  they  found  that  the  sun,  the 

aqueous  vapour,    the   encompassing  sky,  the   wind,  and  the 

dawn,  could  not  each  be  separate  and  supreme  creators,  but 

must  have  all  proceeded  from  one  First  Cause.     They  did  not 

shock  the  religious  sense  of  the  less  speculative  castes  by  any 

public  rejection  of  the  Vedic  deities.     They  accepted  the  old  Its  esoteric 

'  Shining  Ones '  of  the  Veda  as  beautiful  manifestations  of  the  ^"^  ^'^°' 

t6ric  sides 
divine  power,  and  continued  to  decorously  conduct  the  sacrifices 

in  their  honour.  But  among  their  awn  caste,  the  Brahmans 
distinctly  enunciated  the  unity  of  God.  To  the  Veda,  the 
Brahmanas,  and  the  Sutras,  they  added  a  vast  body  of  theo- 
logical literature,  composed  at  intervals  between  800  B.C.  and 
1000  A.D.  The  Upanishads,  meaning,  according  to  their  great 
Brahman  expounder,  '  The  Science  of  God,'  and  His  '  identity 
with  the  soul ; '  the  Aranyakas,  or  '  Tracts  for  the  Forest- 
Recluse  ; '  and  the  much  later  Puranas,  or  '  Traditions  from  of 
Old,' — contain  mystic  and  beautiful  doctrines  inculcating  the 
unity  of  God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  mingled  with  less 
noble  dogmas,  popular  tales,  and  superstitions.  The  mass  of 
the  people  were  left  to  believe  in  four  castes,  four  Vedas,  and 
many  deities.  But  the  higher  thinkers  among  the  Brahmans  / 
recognised  that  in  the  beginning  there  was  but  one  caste,  one 
Veda,  and  one  God, 

The  old  'Shining  Ones'  of  the  Vedic  singers  were,  indeed.  Rise  of  the 

no  longer  suitable  deities,  either  for  the  life  which  the  Aryans  post-Vedic 

gods. 
led  after  they  advanced  into  Southern  Bengal,  or  for  the  country 

G 


98 


THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


The  vast 
forces  of 
nature, 


in  Bengal. 


The  Hindu 
Triad  : 

Brahma  ;  * 


Vishnu  ; 


Siva. 


Brahman 
philoso- 
phy. 


in  which  they  lived.  The  Vedic  gods  were  the  good  '  friends ' 
of  the  free-hearted  warring  tribes  in  Northern  India,  settled 
on  the  banks  of  fordable  streams  or  of  not  overpowering  rivers. 
In  Central  and  South-Eastern  Bengal,  the  Brahmans  required 
deities  whose  nature  and  attributes  would  satisfy  profoundly 
reflective  minds,  and  at  the  same  time  would  be  commensurate 
with  the  stupendous  forces  of  nature  amid  which  they  dwelt.  The 
storm-gods  {Mauds)  of  the  Veda  might  suffice  to  raise  the 
dust-whirlwinds  of  the  Punjab,  but  they  were  evidently  deities 
on  a  smaller  scale  than  those  which  wielded  the  irresistible 
cyclones  of  Bengal.  The  rivers,  too,  had  ceased  to  be  merely 
bountiful  givers  of  wealth,  as  in  the  north.  Their  accumulated 
waters  came  down  in  floods,  which  buried  cities  and  drowned 
provinces ;  wrenching  away  the  villages  on  their  banks,  de- 
stroying and  reproducing  the  land  with  an  equal  balance.  The 
High-born  Dawn,  the  Genial  Sun,  the  Friendly  Day,  and  the 
kindly  but  confused  old  groups  of  Vedic  deities,  accordingly 
gave  place  to  the  conception  of  one  god  in  his  three  solemn 
manifestations  as  Brahma  the  Creator,  Vishnu  the  Preserver, 
and  Siva  the  Destroyer  and  Reproducer. 

Each  of  these  highly  elaborated  gods  had  his  prototype 
among  the  Vedic  deities ;  and  they  remain  to  this  hour  the 
three  persons  of  the  Hindu  Triad.  Brahma,  the  Creator,  was 
too  abstract  an  idea  to  be  a  popular  god ;  and  in  a  journey 
through  India,  the  traveller  comes  on  only  one  great  seat  of 
his  worship  at  the  present  day,  on  the  margin  of  the  sacred 
lake  PusHKARA,  near  Ajmere.  A  single  day  of  Brahma  is 
2160  millions  of  man's  years.  Vishnu,  the  Preserver,  was  a  more 
useful  and  practical  deity.  In  his  ten  incarnations,  especially 
in  his  seventh  and  eighth,  as  Rama  and  Krishna,  under  many 
names  and  in  varied  forms,  he  took  the  place  of  the  bright 
Vedic  gods.  Siva,  the  third  person  of  the  Triad,  embodied, 
as  Destroyer  and  Reproducer,  the  profound  Brahmanical  con- 
ception of  death  as  a  change  of  state  and  an  entry  into  new  life. 
He  thus  obtained,  on  the  one  hand,  the  special  reverence  of  the 
mystic  and  philosophic  sects  among  the  Brahmans  ;  while,  on 
the  other,  his  terrible  aspects  associated  him  alike  with  the 
Rudra,  or  '  God  of  Roaring  Tempests '  of  the  Veda,  and  with 
the  blood-loving  deities  of  the  non-Aryan  tribes.  Vishnu  and, 
Siva,  in  their  diverse  male  and  female  shapes,  now  form,  for 
practical  purposes,  the  gods  of  the  Hindu  population. 

The  truth  is,  that  the  Aryans  in  India  worshipped — first,  as 
they  feared  ;  then,  as  they  admired ;  and  finally,  as  they  reasoned. 
Their  earliest  Vedic  gods  were  the  stupendous  phenomena  of 


S/X  SCHOOLS  OF  BRAHMAN  PHILOSOPHY.     99 

the  visible  world  ;  these  deities  became  divine  heroes  in  the 
epic  legends;  and  they  were  spiritualized  into  abstractions  by 
the  philosophical  schools.  From  the  Vedic  era  downward — 
that  is  to  say,  during  a  period  which  cannot  be  estimated  at 
less  than  3000  years — the  Brahmans  have  slowly  elaborated 
the  forces  and  splendid  manifestations  of  nature  into  a  har- 
monious godhead,  and  constructed  a  system  of  belief  and 
worship  for  the  Indian  people.  They  also  pondered  deeply  on 
the  mysteries  of  life.  Whence  arose  this  fabric  of  the  visible 
world,  and  whence  came  we  ourselves — we  who  with  conscious 
minds  look  out  upon  it  ?  It  is  to  these  questions  that  philo- 
sophy has,  among  all  races,  owed  her  birth ;  and  the  Brahmans 
arranged  their  widely  diverse  answers  to  them  in  six  great 
systems  or  darsa?ias,  literally  '  mirrors  of  knowledge.' 

The  present  sketch  can  only  touch  upon  the  vast  body  of  The  six- 
speculation  which  thus  grew  up,  at  least  500  years  before  Christ.  "^^'^'^"^^  ^ 
The  universal  insoluble  problems  of  thought  and  being,  of 
mind  and  matter,  and  of  soul  as  apart  from  both,  of  the  origin 
of  evil,  of  the  sumvnim  bonum  of  life,  of  necessity  and  freewill, 
and  of  the  relations  of  the  Creator  to  the  creature,  are  in  the 
six  schools  of  Brahmanical  philosophy  endlessly  discussed. 

The  Sankhya  system  of  the  sage  Kapila  explains  the  visible  (i)  The 
world  by  assuming  the  existence  of  a  primordial  matter  from    ^"^  ^^  ' 
all  eternity,  out  of  which  the  universe  has,  by  successive  stages, 
evolved  itself.     The  Yoga  school  of  Patanjali  assumes  the  exist-  C2)  The 
ence  of  a  primordial  soul,  anterior  to  the  primeval  matter,  and    ^^^  ' 
holds  that  from  the  union  of  the  two  the  spirit  of  life  {ina/idn- 
dtmd)  arose.     The  two  Vedanta  schools  ascribe  the  visible  world  ^3.  4^  The 
to  a  divine  act  of  creation,  and  assume  an  omnipotent  god  as    "  ^"'^"^  ' 
the  cause  of  the  existence,  the  continuance,  and  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  universe.     The  Nyaya  or  logical  school  of  Gautama  (5)  The 
enunciates  the  method  of  arriving  at  truth,  and  lays  special  ^  ^^^    ' 
stress  on  the  sensations  as  the  source  of  knowledge.     It  is 
usually  classed  together  with  the  sixth  school,  the  Vaiseshika,  (6)  The 
founded  by  the  sage  Kanada,  which  teaches  the  existence  of  a  ^l"^' 
transient  world  composed  of  eternal  atoms.     All  the  six  schools 
had  the  same  starting-point,  ex  nihilo  nihil  fit.     Their  sages,  as 
a  rule,  struggled  towards  the  same  end,  namely  the  liberation 
of  the  human  soul  from  the  necessity  of  existence  and  from 
the  chain  of  future  births,  by  its  absorption  into  the  Supreme 
Soul,  or  primordial  Essence  of  the  universe.^ 

^  Any  attempt  to  fuse  into  a  few  lines  the  vast  conflicting  masses  of 
Hindu  philosophical  doctrines  must  be  unsatisfactory.  Objections  may  be 
taken  to  compressing  the  sub-divisions  and  branching  doctrines  of  each 


THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Summary 
of  Brah- 
man 
religion. 


The  Brahmans,  therefore,  treated  philosophy  as  a  branch  of 
religion.  Now  the  universal  functions  of  religion  are  to  lay  down 
a  rule  of  conduct  for  this  life,  and  to  supply  some  guide  to  the 
next.  The  Brahman  solutions  to  the  problems  of  practical 
religion,  were  self-discipline,  alms,  sacrifice  to  and  contem- 
plation of  the  deity.  But  besides  the  practical  questions  of 
the  spiritual  life,  religion  has  also  intellectual  problems,  such  as 
the  compatibility  of  evil  with  the  goodness  of  God,  and  the  un- 
equal distribution  of  happiness  and  misery  in  this  life.  Brahman 
philosophy  exhausted  the  possible  solutions  of  these  difficulties, 
and  of  most  of  the  other  great  problems  which  have  since  per- 
plexed Greek  and  Roman  sage,  mediaeval  schoolman,  and 
modern  man  of  science.  The  various  hypotheses  of  Creation, 
Arrangement,  and  Development  were  each  elaborated ;  and 
the  views  of  physiologists  at  the  present  day  are  a  return,  with 
new  lights,  to  the  evolution  theory  of  Kapila.  His  Sankhya 
system  is  held  by  Weber  to  be  the  oldest  of  the  six  Brahman 
schools,  and  certainly  dates  from  not  later  than  500  B.C.  The 
works  on  Religion  published  in  the  native  languages  in  India 
in  1877  numbered  1192,  besides  56  on  Mental  and  Moral 
Philosophy.  In  1882,  the  totals  had  risen  to  1545  on 
Religion,  and  153  on  Mental  and  Moral  Philosophy. 


Brahman 
science. 


Sanskrit 
grammar. 


Panini. 


The  Brahmans  had  also  a  circle  of  sciences  of  their  own. 
The  Science  of  Language,  indeed,  had  been  reduced  in  India 
to  fundamental  principles  at  a  time  when  the  grammarians  of 
the  West  still  treated  it  on  the  basis  of  accidental  resemblances  ; 
and  modern  philology  dates  from  the  study  of  Sanskrit  by 
European  scholars.  Panini  was  the  architect  of  Sanskrit 
grammar  ;  but  a  long  succession  of  grammarians  must  have 
laboured  before  he  reared  his  enduring  fabric.  The  date 
of  Panini  has  been  assigned  by  his  learned  editor  Bohtlink 
to  about  350  B.C.  Weber,  reasoning  from  a  statement  made 
(long  afterwards)  by  the  Chinese  pilgrim  Hiuen  Tsiang,  sug- 
gests that  it  may  have  been  later.  The  grammar  of  Panini 
stands  supreme  among  the  grammars  of  the  world,  alike  for  its 
precision  of  statement,  and  for  its  thorough  analysis  of  the 
roots  of  the  language  and  of  the  formative  principles  of 
words.  By  employing  an  algebraic  terminology  it  attains  a 
sharp  succinctness  unrivalled  in  brevity,  but  at  times  enigma- 
tical.    It  arranges,  in  logical  harmony,  the  whole  phenomena 

school  into  a  single  sentence.  But  space  forbids  a  more  lengthy  disqui- 
sition. The  foregoing  paragraphs  endeavour  to  fairly  condense  the  accounts 
which  H.  H.  Wilson,  Albrecht  Weber,  Professor  Dowson,  and  the  Rev. 
K.  M.  Banarji  give  of  the  Six  Darsaiias  or  Schools. 


SANSKRIT  AND  PRAKRIT.  loi 

which  the  Sanskrit  language  presents,  and  stands  forth  as 
one  of  the  most  splendid  achievements  of  human  invention 
and  industry.  So  elaborate  is  the  structure,  that  doubts  have 
arisen  whether  its  complex  rules  of  formation  and  phonetic 
change,  its  polysyllabic  derivatives,  its  ten  conjugations  with 
their  multiform  aorists  and  long  array  of  tenses,  could  ever 
have  been  the  spoken  language  of  a  people.  This  question  wilL 
be  discussed  in  the  chapter  on  the  modern  vernaculars  of  India. 

It  is  certain  that  a  divergence  had  taken  place  before  the  Sanskrit 
time  of  Panini  (350  b.c.),  and  that  the  spoken  language,  or  pj.^j^.j.jj 
Prdkrita-bhdshd,  had  already  assumed  simpler  forms  by  the  speech, 
assimilation  of  consonants  and  the  curtailment  of  terminals. 
The  Samskrita-bhdshd,  literally,  the  '  perfected  speech,'  which 
Panini  stereotyped  by  his  grammar,  developed  the  old  Aryan 
tendency  to  accumulations  of  consonants,  with  an  undi- 
minished, or  perhaps  an  increased,  array  of  inflections.  In 
this  highly  elaborated  Sanskrit  the  Brahmans  wrote.  It  became 
the  literary  language  of  India, — isolated  from  the  spoken 
dialects,  but  prescribed  as  the  vehicle  for  philosophy,  science, 
and  all  poetry  of  serious  aim  or  epic  dignity.  As  the  Aryan 
race  mingled  with  the  previous  inhabitants  of  the  land, 
the  spoken  Prakrits  adopted  words  of  non- Aryan  origin  and 
severed  themselves  from  Sanskrit,  which  for  at  least  2000 
years  has  been  unintelligible  to  the  common  people  of  India. 
The  old  synthetic  spoken  dialects,  or  Prakrits,  underwent  the 
same  decay  as  Latin  did,  into  analytic  vernaculars,  and  about 
the  same  time.  The  noble  parent  languages,  alike  in  India 
and  in  Italy,  died;  but  they  gave  birth  to  families  of  vernaculars 
which  can  never  die. 

An  intermediate  stage  of  the  process  can  be  traced  in  the 
Hindu  drama,  in  which  persons  of  good  birth  speak  in  Pra- 
kritized  Sanskrit,  and  the  low-castes  in  a  bhdshd,  or  patois, 
between  the  old  Prakrit  and  the  modern  dialects.  It  is  chiefly 
under  the  popularizing  influences  of  British  rule  that  the  Indian 
vernaculars  have  become  literary  languages.  Until  the  last 
century,  Sanskrit,  although  as  dead  as  Latin  so  far  as  the  mass 
of  the  people  were  concerned,  was  the  vehicle  for  all  intel- 
lectual and  artistic  effort  among  the  Hindus,  their  local  ballads 
and  the  writings  of  religious  reformers  excepted.  In  addition, 
therefore,  to  other  sources  of  influence,  the  Brahmans  were 
the  interpreters  of  a  national  literature  written  in  a  language 
unknown  to  the  people. 

The  priceless  inheritance  thus  committed  to  their  charge  Sanskrit 
they  handed  down,  to  a  great  extent,  by  word  of  mouth.    Partly  "^^.""' 


102         THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  JNDL4. 

No  vei7      from  this  cause,  but  chiefly  owing  to  the  destructive  climate  ot 

Indian        India,  no  Sanskrit  manuscripts  of  remote  antiquity  exist.     A 

Mss.  fairly  continuous  series  of  inscriptions  on  rocks,  pillars,  and 

copper-plates,  enable  us  to  trace  back  the  Indian  alphabets 

to  the   3rd   century  B.C.      But  the  more  ancient  of  existing 

Sanskrit    manuscripts    are  only  four  hundred  years  old,  very 

few  have  an  age  exceeding  five  centuries,  and  only  two  date  as 

far  back  as  1132  and  1008  a.d.^      The  earliest    Indian  MS. 

1008  A.D.    (1008  A.D.)  comes  from  the  cold,  dry  highlands  of  Nepal.^     In 

Kashmir,  birch-bark  was  extensively  used  :  a  substitute  for  paper 

also  employed  in  India  before  500  a.d.,  and  still  surviving  in 

the  amulets  with  verses  on  them  which  hang  round  the  neck 

of  Hindus.^     Indeed,  birch-bark  is  to  this  day  used  by  some 

native  merchants  in  the  Simla  Hills  for  their  account  books. 

Palm-leaf       The  palm-leaf  was,   however,  the  chief  writing  material  in 

MSS.  of      ancient  and  medieval  India.     Two  Sanskrit  manuscripts  on 

this  substance  have  been  preserved  in  the  Monastery  of  Horiuzi 

in  Japan   since   the  year   609  a.d.      It   seems  probable  that 

these  two  strips  of  palm-leaf  were  previously  the  property  of  a 

520  A.D.  ?  Buddhist  monk  who  migrated  from  India  to  China  in  520  a.d.* 

At  any  rate,  they  cannot  date  later  than  the  first  half  of  the 

6th  century ;   and  they  are   the   oldest   Sanskrit  manuscripts 

yet   discovered.      They  were  photographed  in  the  Anecdota 

Oxoniefisia,  1SS4. 

7K^.  With  regard  to  the  origin  of  the  Indian  alphabets,  the  evi- 

Indian  ,  .       °,,  ,.      °     ,  .  ,  .    ^   ^ 

Alphabets,  dence  IS  still  too  undigested  to  safely  permit  of  cursory  state- 
ment. Of  the  two  characters  in  which  the  Asoka  inscriptions 
were  written  (250  A.D.),  the  northern  variety,  or  Ariano-Pali,  is 
now  admitted  to  be  of  Phoenician,  or  at  any  rate  of  non-Indian, 

'  Footnote  198a  to  Weber's  Hist.  Ind.  Lit.  p.  182  (1878),  quoting  the 
report  of  Rajendra  Lala  Mitra  (1S74),  and  Dr.  Rost's  letter  (1875).  Mr. 
R.  Cust,  in  a  note  for  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  assigns  the  year  883 
A.D.  as  the  date  of  the  earliest  existing  Sanskrit  MS.  at  Cambridge.  But 
this  remains  doubtful.  For  very  interesting  information  regarding  the  age  of 
Indian  mss.  see  the  official  reports  of  the  Search  for  Sanskrit  Manuscripts 
in  Bengal,  Bombay,  and  Madras  ;  particularly  Dr.  G.  Biihler's  (extra  num- 
ber of  the  yournal  of  the  Bombay  Branch  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society, 
No.  xxxiv.A,  vol.  xii.  1877),  and  Professor  P.  Peterson's  (extra  numbers  of 
the  same  Journal,  xli.  1883,  and  xliv.  1S84). 

^  The  present  author  has  printed  and  sent  to  the  India  Office  Library,  for 
public  reference,  a  catalogue  of  the  332  Sanskrit  Buddhist  mss.  collected 
by  Mr.  B.  H.  Hodgson  in  Nepal. 

^  Dr.  Biihler's  Tour  in  Search  for  Sanskrit  MSS.,  Journal  Bombay 
Asiatic  Society,  xxxiv.A,  p.  29,  and  footnote.      1877. 

•*  Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Aryan  Series,  p.  64,  vol.  i.  Part  III.  (1S84.)  See 
also  Part  I.  of  the  volume,  and  pp.  3,  4  of  Part  III. 


THE  TWO  ANCIENT IXDIAN  ALPHABETS.    103 

parentage.  The  southern  variety,  or  Indo-Pali,  is  beheved  by 
some  scholars  to  be  of  Western  origin,  while  others  hold  it  to 
be  an  independent  Indian  alphabet.  An  attempt  has  even  been 
made  to  trace  back  its  letters  to  an  indigenous  system  of 
picture-writing,  or  hieroglyphs,  in  pre-historic  India.^  Quintus 
Curtius  mentions  that  the  Indians  wrote  on  leaves  in  the  time 
of  Alexander  (326  B.C.).-  They  do  so  to  this  hour.  Few,  if 
any,  Indian  manuscripts  on  paper  belong  to  a  period  anterior 
to  the  1 6th  century  a.d.  The  earliest  Indian  writings  are  on 
copper  or  stone;  the  mediceval  ones  generally  on  strips  of  palm- 
leaves.  General  Cunningham  possesses  a  short  inscription, 
written  with  ink  in  the  inside  of  a  lid  made  of  soapstone, 
dating  from  the  time  of  Asoka,  or  256  B.C.  The  introduc- 
tion of  paper  as  a  writing  material  may  be  studied  in  the 
interesting  collection  of  Sanskrit  manuscripts  at  the  Deccan 
College,  Poona. 

Sanskrit  literature  was  the  more  easily  transmitted  by  word  of  Sanskrit 
mouth,  from  the  circumstance  that  it  was  almost  entirely  written  ^^'"^'"S^ 

'  ■>  almost 

in  verse.     A  prose  style,  simple  and  compact,  had  grown  up  entirely  in 
during  the  early  age  following  that  of  the  Vedic  hymns.     But  ^'^''^^• 
Sanskrit  literature  begins  with  the  later,  although  still  ancient, 
stage  of  Aryan    development,   which    superseded   the   Vedic 
gods  by  the  Brahmanical  Triad  of  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva. 
When  Sanskrit  appears  definitively  on  the  scene  in  the  centuries 
preceding  the  birth  of  Christ,  it  adopted  once  and  for  all  a 
rhythmic  versification  alike  for  poetry,  philosophy,  science,  law, 
and  religion,  with  the  exception  of  the  Beast  Fables  and  the 
almost   algebraic   strings   of  aphorisms   in   the   Sutras.     The 
Buddhist  legends  adhered  more  closely  to  the  spoken  dialects 
of  ancient  India.,  prdkrita-bhdshd  ;  and  they  also  have  retained 
a   prose   style.      But   in   classical    Sanskrit    literature,    prose 
became  an  arrested  development ;  the  sloka  or  verse  reigned  Prose,  a 
supreme ;  and  nothing  can  be  clumsier  than  the  attempts  at  f"''!?otten 
prose  in  later  Sanskrit   romances  and  commentaries.     Prose- 

^  By  General  Cunningham,  Corpus  Inscriptiomim  Indicarum,  ■pp.^2et seq. 
The  attempt  cannot  be  pronounced  successful.  Dr.  Burnell's  Palccography 
of  Southern  India  exhibits  the  successive  developments  of  the  Indian 
alphabet.  For  the  growth  of  the  Indian  dialects,  see  Mr.  Beames'  Compara- 
tive Grammar  of  the  Modern  Aryan  Languages  of  India ;  Dr.  Rudolph 
Hoernle's  Comparative  Graintnar  of  the  Gaud  tan  Languages  ;  two  excellent 
papers,  by  Mr.  E.  L.  Brandreth,  on  the  Gaudian  Languages,  in  the  fourn. 
Roy.  As.  Soc,  vols.  xi.  xii.;  and  Mr.  R.  N.  Gust's  Linguistic  and  Oriental 
Essays,  pp.  144-171,  Triibner,  1880.  For  a  compendious  view  of  the 
Indian  alphabets,  see  Faulmann's  Buck  der  Schrift,  1 19-158,  Vienna,  1880. 

-  Alexander  in  India,  lib.  viii.  cap.  9,  v.  15. 


I04         THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

writing  was  practically  a   lost   art  in    India   during   eighteen 
hundred  years. 
Sanskrit  Sanskrit  dictionaries  are  a  more  modem  product  than  Sanskrit 

aries.  grammars.     The  oldest   Indian  lexicographer  whose  work  sur- 

vives, Amara-Sinha,  ranked  among  the  '  nine  gems '  at  the 
court  of  Vikramaditya,  one  of  several  monarchs  of  the  same 
name — assigned  to  various  periods  from  56  B.C.  to  1050  a.d. 
The  particular  Vikramaditya  under  whom  the  'nine  gems'  are 
said  to  have  flourished,  appears  from  evidence  in  Hiuen 
Tsiang's  travels  to  have  lived  about  500  to  550  a.d.  A  well- 
known  memorial  verse  makes  Amara-Sinha  a  contemporary  of 
Varaha-Mihira,  the  astronomer,  504  a.d.  The  other  Sanskrit 
lexicons  which  have  come  down  belong  to  the  nth,  12th,  and 
subsequent  centuries  a.d.  Those  centuries,  indeed,  seem  to 
The  mark  an  era  of  industry  in  Sanskrit  dictionary  -  making  ;  and 

Amaia-       tj^gj-g  jg  little  inherent  evidence  in  Amara  -  Sinha's  work  (the 
550  A.D. .?  Amara-kosha)  to  show  that,  in  its  present  form,  it  was  separated 
from  them  by  any  wide  interval.     The  number  of  works  on 
language  published  in  1877  in  the  Indian  tongues,  was  604; 
and  in  1882,  738. 
Brahman        The  astronomy  of  the  Brahmans  has  formed  alternately  the 
astronomy,  g^bject  of  excessive  admiration  and  of  misplaced  contempt. 
The  truth  is,  that  there  are  three  periods  of  Sanskrit  astronomy 
dent  ^^'^'     {Jyoti-sdstrd).    The  first  period  belongs  to  Vedic  times,  and  has 
period,  to   left  a  moderate  store  of  independent  observations  and  inferences 
500  B.C.      worked  out  by  the  Brahmans.     The  Vedic  poets  had  arrived 
at  a  tolerably  correct  calculation  of  the  solar  year ;  which  they 
divided  into  360  days,  with  an  intercalary  month  every  five 
years.    They  were  also  acquainted  with  the  phases  of  the  moon ; 
they  divided  her  pathway  through  the  heavens  into  27  or  28 
lunar  mansions ;  and  they  had  made  observations  of  a  {t\^  of 
the  fixed  stars.     The  order  in  which  the  lunar  mansions  are 
enumerated  is  one  which  must  have  been  established  'some- 
where between  1472  and  536  B.C.'  (Weber).     The  planets  were 
also  an  independent,  although  a  later  discovery,  bordering  on 
the  Vedic  period.     At  first  seven,  afterwards  nine  in  number, 
they  bear  names  of  Indian  origin  ;  and  the  generic  term  for 
planet,  graha,  the  seizer,  had  its  source  in  primitive  Sanskrit 
astrology.    The  planets  are  mentioned  for  the  first  time,  perhaps, 
in  the  Taittiriya-Aryanaka.     The  Laws  of  Manu,  however,  are 
silent  regarding  them  ;  but  their  worship  is  inculcated  in  the 
later  code  of  Yajnavalkya.    The  zodiacal  signs  and  the  Jyotisha, 
or  so-called  Vedic  Calendar, — with  its  solstitial  points  referring 
to  1 181  B.C.,  or  to  a  period  still  more  remote, — seem  to  have 


BRAHMAN  ASTRONOMY,  500  i?.C— 172S  A.D.   105 

been  constructed,  or  at  any  rate  completed,  in  an  age  long 

subsequent   to   the   Veda.     The    influence    of    the    Chinese 

observers  upon  Indian  astronomy,  especially  with  regard  to 

the  lunar  mansions,  is  an  undecided  but  a  pregnant  question. 

The  second  period  of  Brahman  astronomy  dates  from  the  Second 

Greek  and  Greco-Bactrian  invasions  of  India,  during  the  three  Pf^^f^ ' 

.  Greek 

centuries  before  Christ.     The  influence  of  Greece  mfused  new  influences, 

life  into  the  astronomy  of  the  Hindus.     The  Indian  astrono-  327  b.c.  to 

mers  of  this  period  speak  of  the  Yavanas,  or  Greeks,  as  their 

instructors ;   and   one   of  their   five   systems   is    entitled   the 

Romaka-Siddhanta.^     Their  chief  writer  in  the  6th  century, 

Varaha-Mihira,  504  a.d.,  gives  the  Greek  names  of  the  planets 

side  by  side  with  their  Indian  appellations  ;  and  one  of  his  works 

bears  a  Greek  title,  Hora-Sastra  (wprj).     The  Greek  division  of 

the  heavens  into  zodiacal  signs,  decani,  and  degrees,  enabled 

the  Brahmans  to  cultivate  astronomy  in  a  scientific  spirit ;  and 

they  elaborated  a  new  system  of  their  own.     They  rectified  the 

succession  of  the  Sanskrit  lunar  mansions  which  had  ceased  to 

be  in  accordance  with  the  actual  facts,  transferring  the  two  last 

of  the  old  order  to  the  first  two  places  in  the  new. 

In  certain   points   the    Brahmans  advanced  beyond  Greek  Best  age  of 

astronomy.    Their  fame  spread  throughout  the  West,  and  found  ^''^hman 

•  1^1-  ,     1      /  astronomy, 

entrance  mto  the  Chronicon  Paschale  (commenced  about  330 
A.D.;  revised, under  Heraclius,  610-641  a.d.).  In  the  8th  and  9th 
centuries,  the  Arabs  became  their  disciples,  borrowed  the  lunar 
mansions  in  the  revised  order  from  the  Hindus,  and  translated 
the  Sanskrit  astronomical  treatises  Siddhdntas  under  the  name 
of  Sindhends.  The  Brahman  astronomer  of  the  6th  century,  6th century 
Varaha-Mihira,  was  followed  by  a  famous  sage,  Brahma-gupta,  a.d. 
in  the  7th  (664  a.d.);  and  by  a  succession  of  distinguished 
workers,  ending  with  Bhaskara,  in  the  12th  (1150  a.d.). 

The  Muhammadan  conquest  of  India  then  put  a  stop  to  Third 
further  independent  progress.     After  the  death  of  Bhaskara,  penod  ; 
Indian  astronomy  gradually  decayed,  and  owed  any  occasional  under 
iinpulse  of  vitality  to  Arabic   science.      Hindu   observers   of  M"haii'- 
note  arose  at  rare  intervals.    In  the  i8th  century  (17 10-1735),  ruk— 
Raja  Jai  Singh  11.  constructed  a  set  of  observatories   at   his  1 150-1800 
capital   Jaipur,   and  at  Delhi,  Benares,   Muttra,    and  Ujjain.  '^•^• 
His  observations  enabled  him  to  correct  the  astronomical  tables  ^^  ^'"R"  « 

tories, 
^  That  is,  the  Grecian  Siddhanta.     Another,  the  Paulisa-Siddhanta,  is  1728. 
stated  by  Al  Biruni  to  have  been  composed  by  Paulus  al  Yunani,  and  is 
probably  to  be  regarded,  says  Weter,  as  a  translation  of  the  EiVaya/^j?  of 
Paulus  Alexandrinus.     But  see  Weber's  own  footnote,  No.  277,  p.  253, 
Hist.  hid.  Lit.  (1878). 


io6 


THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Raja  ot 
Jaipur's 
observa- 
tories, 
1728. 


Brahman 
mathe- 
matics. 


Brahman 
medicine. 


of  De  la  Hire,  published  in  1702,  before  the  French  accepted 
the  Newtonian  Astronomy.  The  Raja  left,  as  a  monument  of 
his  skill,  lists  of  stars  collated  by  himself,  known  as  the  Tij  Mu- 
hammad Shahi,  or  Tables  of  Muhammad  Shah,  the  Emperor  of 
Delhi,  by  whose  command  he  undertook  the  reformation  of  the 
Indian  Calendar.  His  observatory  at  Benares  survives  to  this 
day;  and  elsewhere,  his  huge  astronomical  structures  testify, 
by  their  ruins,  to  the  ambitious  character  of  his  observations. 
Nevertheless,  Hindu  astronomy  steadily  declined.  From  Vedic 
times  it  had  linked  omens  and  portents  with  the  study  of  the 
heavens.  Under  the  Muhammadan  dynasties  it  degenerated 
into  a  tool  of  trade  in  the  hands  of  almanac-makers,  genea- 
logists, astrologers,  and  charlatans.  It  is  doubtful  how  far 
even  Raja  Jai  Singh's  observations  were  conducted  by  native 
astronomers.  It  is  certain  that  the  Catholic  missionaries 
contributed  greatly  to  his  reputation ;  and  that  since  the 
sixteenth  century  the  astronomy  of  the  Hindus,  as  of  the 
Chinese,  is  deeply  indebted  to  the  science  of  the  Jesuits. 

In  algebra  and  arithmetic,  the  Brahmans  attained  to  a  high 
degree  of  proficiency  independent  of  "Western  aid.  To  then"> 
we  owe  the  invention  of  the  numerical  symbols  on  the  decimal 
system  ;  the  Indian  figures  i  to  9  being  abbreviated  forms  of 
the  initial  letters  of  the  numerals  themselves,^  and  the  zero, 
or  o,  representing  the  first  letter  of  the  Sanskrit  word  for  empty 
(sunya).  The  correspondence  of  the  numeral  figures  with  the 
initial  letters  of  their  Indian  names,  can  be  clearly  traced  in 
the  Liindi  character,  a  cursive  form  of  writing  still  used  in 
the  Punjab,  especially  among  the  hereditary  trading  castes. 
The  Arabs  borrowed  these  figures  from  the  Hindus,  called 
them  the  '  Indian  cyphers,'  and  transmitted  them  to  Europe. 
The  Arabian  mathematicians,  indeed,  frequently  extol  the 
learning  of  the  Indians ;  and  the  Sanskrit  term  for  the  apex 
of  a  planet's  orbit  seems  to  have  passed  into  the  Latin 
translations  of  the  Arabic  astronomers. ^  The  works  on 
mathematics  and  mechanical  science,  published  in  the  native 
languages  in  India  in  1877,  numbered  89;  and,  in  1882,  166. 

The  medical  science  of  the  Brahmans  was  also  an  indepen- 
dent development.  The  national  astronomy  and  the  national 
medicine  of  India  alike  derived  their  first  impulses  from 
the  exigencies  of  the  national  worship.     Observations  of  the 

^  Dr.  Burnell,  however,  questioned  this  generally  accepted  view,  and  sug- 
gested that  the  old  cave  numerals  of  India  are  themselves  of  Greek  origin. 

^  The  Sanskrit  uccha  has  become  the  atcx  (gen.  attgis)  of  the  Latin 
translators  (Reinaud,  p.  525  ;  Weber,  p.  257). 


VEDIC  AND  BRAHMAN  MEDICINE.        107 

heavenly  bodies  were  required  to  fix  the  dates  of  the  recurring 

festivals  ;  anatomical  knowledge  took  its  origin  in  the  dissection 

of  the  victim  at  the  sacrifice,  with  a  view  to  dedicating  the 

different  parts  to  the  proper  gods.     The  Hindus  ranked  their  Its  inde- 

medical  science  as  an  upa-veda,  or  a  supplementary  revelation,  jg^gig"^. 

under  the  title  of  Ayur-Veda,   and  ascribed  it  to  the   gods,  ment,  4th 

But   their   earliest    medical   authorities   belong   to   the  Siitra  century 

*  ,.  B.C.  to  Sth 

period,   or  later  scholastic  development,   of  the  Yajur-Veda.  century 

The  specific  diseases  whose  names  occur  in  Panini's  Grammar  a.d.  : 

indicate   that  medical  studies  had  made  progress  before  his 

time  (350  B.C.).     The   chapter  on    the   human  body  in  the 

earliest  Sanskrit  dictionary,  the  Amara-kosha  {arc.  550  a.d.), 

■presupposes   a   systematic   cultivation    of  the   science.     The 

works  of  the  great  Indian  physicians,  Charaka  and  Susruta, 

were  translated  into  Arabic  not  later  than  the  Sth  century. 

Unlike   the    astronomical    treatises   of   the  Brahmans,    the  The  basis 
Hindu  medical  works  never  refer  to  the  Yavanas,  or  Greeks,  of -Arabic 
as  authorities ;  and,   with  one  doubtful  exception,   they  con-  European 
tain  no  names  which  point  to  a  foreign  origin.     The  chief  seat  medicine, 
of  the  science  was  at  Benares,  far  to  the  east  of  Greek  influence 
in    India.     Indeed,  Indian  pharmacy   employed   the  weights 
and  measures    of  Provinces   still  farther    to    the    south-east, 
namely,  Magadha  and  Kalinga.    Arabic  medicine  was  founded 
on  the  translations  from  the  Sanskrit  treatises,  made  by  com- 
mand of  the  Kaliphs  of  Bagdad,   750-960   a.d.       European 
medicine,  down  to    the   17th  century,   was  based  upon   the 
Arabic ;    and    the    name    of    the    Indian   physician    Charaka 
repeatedly  occurs  in  the  Latin  translations  of  Avicenna  (Ibn 
Sina),  Rhazes  (Al  Rasi),  and  Serapion  (Ibn  Serabi). 

Indian  medicine  dealt  with  the  whole  area  of  the  science.  Scope  of 
It  described  the  structure  of  the  body,  its  organs,  ligaments,  n^gcjl'c^ne 
muscles,  vessels,  and  tissues.  The  viateiia  viedica  of  the 
Hindus  embraces  a  vast  collection  of  drugs  belonging  to  the 
mineral,  vegetable,  and  animal  kingdoms,  many  of  which  have 
been  adopted  by  European  physicians.  Their  pharmacy 
contained  ingenious  processes  of  preparation,  with  elaborate 
directions  for  the  administration  and  classification  of  medi- 
cines. Much  attention  was  devoted  to  hygiene,  to  the  regimen 
of  the  body,  and  to  diet. 

The  surgery  of  the  ancient   Indian  physicians  appears  to  Indinn 
have   been  bold  and  skilful.     They  conducted  amputations,  ^^'-''Seiy- 
arresting  the  bleeding  by  pressure,  a  cup-shaped  bandage,  and 
boiling  oil.    They  practised  lithotomy  ;  performed  operations  in 
the  abdomen  and  uterus ;  cured  hernia,  fistula,  piles  ;  set  broken 


io8         THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

bones  and  dislocations ;  and  were  dexterous  in  the  extraction 

of  foreign  substances  from  the  body.     A  special  branch  of 

surgery  was  devoted  to  rhinoplasty,  or  operations  for  improving 

Nose-         deformed   ears  and  noses,  and  forming  new  ones;   a  useful 

™^''ng-      operation   in  a  country  where  mutilation  formed  part  of  the 

judicial    system,    and    one   which    European    surgeons    have 

borrowed.     It  is  practised  with  much  success  in  the  Residency 

Hospital  at  Indore,  Holkar's  capital;  as  jealous  husbands  in 

Native  States  still  resort,  in  spite  of  more  humane  laws,  to  their 

ancient  remedy  against  a  suspected  or  unfaithful  wife.     This 

consists  in  throwing  the  woman  violently  down  on  the  ground 

and  slashing  off  her  nose. 

Operation       The    ancient    Indian    surgeons  also   mention    a   cure   for 

for  neur-     neuralgia,  analogous  to  the  modern  cutting  of  the  fifth  nerve 
algia.  11 

above  the  eyebrow.     They  devoted  great  care  to  the  makmg 

of  surgical  instruments,   and  to  the   training  of  students  by 

means  of  operations  performed  on  wax  spread  out  on  a  board, 

or  on  the  tissues   and  cells   of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  and 

upon    dead   animals.      They   were   expert  in   midwifery,    not 

shrinking  from  the  most  critical  operations  ;  and  in  the  diseases 

of  women   and  children.     Their  practice  of  physic  embraced 

the  classification,  causes,  symptoms,  and  treatment  of  diseases, 

— diagnosis  and  prognosis.    The  maladies  thus  dealt  with  have 

been  arranged  into  lo  classes,  namely — those  affecting  (i)  the 

humours;  (2)  the  general  system,  including  fevers;  (3  to  9) 

the  several  organs    and  parts  of  the  body;  and  (10)  trivial 

complaints.     Considerable  advances  were  also  made  in  veteri- 

Veterinary  nary  science,  and  monographs  exist  on  the  diseases  of  horses 
sureery.  i     1      1 

and  elephants. 

Best  age         The  best  era  of  Indian  medicine  was  contemporary  with  the 

of  Indian    ascendancy  of  Buddhism  (2^0  B.C.   to  7=50  a.d.),  and  did  not 

medicme,     ,  /     .         „„  .     ^    -^  ,.,.,',.    ^ 

250 B.C.  to  ^ong  survive  it.      Ihe  science  was  studied  in  the  chief  centres 
750  A.D.     of  Buddhist  civilisation,  such  as  the  great  monastic  university 
of  Nalanda,   near  Gaya.     The  ancient  Brahmans  may  have 
derived  the  rudiments  of  anatomy  from  the  dissection  of  the 
Buddhist     sacrifice ;  but  the  pubUc  hospitals  which  the  Buddhist  princes 
iio^n^hTk     established  in  every  city  were  probably  the  true  schools  of 
Indian  medicine.     A  large  number  of  cases  were  collected  in 
them  for  continuous  observation  and  treatment ;  and  they  sup- 
plied opportunities  for  the  study  of  disease  similar  to  those 
which  the  Greek  physicians  obtained  at  their  hospital  camps 
around  the  mineral  springs.    Hippokrates  was  a  priest-physician, 
indeed  the  descendant  of  a  line  of  priest-physicians,  practising 
at  such  a  spring ;  and  Charaka  was  in  many  ways  his  Indian 


hospitals 


DECLINE  OF  HINDU  MEDICINE.  109 

counterpart.     To  the  present  da}'^,  works  on  Hindu  medicine 

frequently  commence  tlieir  sections  with  the  words,  '  Charaka 

says.'     This  half-mythical  authority,  and  Susruta,  furnish  the 

types  of  the  ancient  Indian  physician,  and  probably  belong,  so 

far  as  they  were  real  personages,  to  about  the  commencement 

of  the   Christian    era.     Both   appear   as    Brahmans  ;    Susruta 

being,  according  to  tradition,  the  son  of  the  sage  Viswamitra 

(p.  92);  and  Charaka,  of  another  'Veda-learned  Muni.' 

As  Buddhism   passed  into   modern    Hinduism    (750-1000  Decline  of 

A.D.),  and  the  shackles  of  caste  were  reimposed  with  an  iron  Hindu 

1      T-,    /I  11-11  -1    rnedicine  ; 

rigour,  the  Brahmans  more  scrupulously  avoided  contact  with 

blood  or  morbid  matter.  They  withdrew  from  the  medical 
profession,  and  left  it  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Vaidyas ;  a 
lower  caste,  sprung  from  a  Brahman  father  and  a  mother  of 
the  Vaisya  or  cultivating  class.  These  in  their  turn  shrank  75°  to 
more  and  more  from  touching  dead  bodies,  and  from  those 
ancient  operations  on  '  the  carcase  of  a  bullock,'  etc.,  by  which 
alone  surgical  skill  could  be  acquired.  The  abolition  of  the 
public  hospitals,  on  the  downfall  of  Buddhism,  must  also  have 
l)roved  a  great  loss  to  Indian  medicine.  The  series  of 
Muhammadan  conquests,  commencing  about  1000  a.d.,  brought 
in  a  new  school  of  foreign  physicians,  who  derived  their  know- 
ledge from  the  Arabic  translations  of  the  Sanskrit  medical 
works  of  the  best  period.  These  Musalman  doctors  or  hakims 
monopolized  the  patronage  of  the  Muhammadan  princes  and 
nobles  of  India.  The  decline  of  Hindu  medicine  went  on 
until  it  has  sunk  into  the  hands  of  the  village  kabirdj,  whose  The 
knowledge  consists  of  jumbled  fragments  of  the  Sanskrit  texts,  P^^/^|,- 
and  a  by  no  means  contemptible  pharmacopoeia  ;  supplemented 
by  spells,  fasts,  and  quackery.  While  the  dissection  of  the 
human  body  under  Vesalius  and  Fabricius  was  giving  birth  to 
modern  medicine  in  the  17th  century,  the  best  of  the  Hindu 
physicians  were  working  upon  the  recollections  of  a  long  past 
age  without  any  new  lights. 

On  the  establishment  of  medical  colleges  in  India  by  the  English 
British   Government,   in  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  "^11"^^' 
the    Muhammadan    youth    took   advantage   of  them    in   dis-  in  India, 
proportionately    large    numbers.       But    the    Brahmans    and 
intellectual   classes  of  the  Hindus   soon  realized  that  those 
colleges  were  the  doors  to  an   honourable   and   a  lucrative 
career.     Having  accepted  the  change,  they  strove  with  their 
characteristic  industry  and   acuteness  to  place  themselves  at 
the  head  of  it.     In  1879,  of  the  1661  pupils  in  British  medical 
schools   throughout    India,  950  were    Hindus   and  284  were 


I  lo         THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

Revival  of  JNIuhammadans,  while  the  remaining  427  included  Christians, 
in  India.     Tarsis,  and  all  others.     Of  three  Indian  youths  studying  medi- 
cine at  the   University  of  Edinburgh  during  the  same  year, 
one  belonged  to  the  Kayasth  or  Hindu  writer  caste,  another  to 
the  Vaidya  or  hereditary  physician  caste,  and  the  third  was  a 
Brahman.      The  number  of  medical  works  published  in  the 
native  languages  of  India  in  1877  amounted  to  130;  and  in 
1882  to  212,  besides   87   on    natural   science,  not   including 
mathematics  and  mechanics.^ 
Hindu  art       The  Brahmans  regarded  not  only  medicine,  but  also  the  arts 
of  war.        Qf  y^^^^  music,  and  architecture  as  upa-vedas,  or  supplementary 
parts  of  their  divinely-inspired  knowledge.     Viswamitra,   the 
Vedic  sage  of  royal  warrior  birth,  who  in  the  end  attained  to 
Brahmanhood  (p.  92),  was  the  first  teacher  of  the  art  of  war 
[dhamir-veda).     The  Sanskrit  epics   prove  that  strategy   had 
attained  to  the  position  of  a  recognised  science  before  the 
birth  of  Christ,  and  the  later  Agni  Purana  devotes  long  sections 
to  its  systematic  treatment. 
Indian  The  Indian  art  of  music  {gdndharva-vedd)  was  destined  to 

music.  exercise  a  wider  influence.  A  regular  system  of  notation  had 
been  worked  out  before  the  age  of  Panini  (350  B.C.),  and 
the  seven  notes  were  designated  by  their  initial  letters.  This 
notation  passed  from  the  Brahmans  through  the  Persians  to 
Arabia,  and  was  thence  introduced  into  European  music  by 
Guido  d'Arezzo  at  the  beginning  of  the  nth  century. ^  Some, 
indeed,  suppose  that  our  modern  word  gamut  comes  not  from 
the  Greek  letter  gamma,  but  from  the  Indian  gdma  (in 
Prakrit ;  in  Sanskrit,  grd?na),  literally  '  a  musical  scale.' 

Hindu  music,  after  a  period  of  excessive  elaboration,  sank 
under  the  Muhammadans  into  a  state  of  arrested  development. 
Of  the  36  chief  musicians  in  the  time  of  Akbar,  only  5  were 
Hindus.     Not  content  with  tones  and  semi-tones,  the  Indian 

^  For  monographs  on  this  interesting  brancli  of  Indian  science,  see 
the  articles  of  Dr.  E.  Haas,  '  Ueber  die  Urspriinge  der  Indischen 
Medizin,  mit  besonderem  Bezug  auf  Susruta,'  and  '  Hippokrates  und 
die  Indische  Medizin  des  Mittelalters,'  Zeitschi-jft  der  Detitsclien  Margin- 
Idndischeti  Gesellschaft  for  1876,  p.  617,  and  1877,  p.  647  ;  the  'Indische 
Medicin,  Karaka,'  of  Professor  Roth  in  the  Z,eitschrijt  der  Deuisc/ien 
Morgenldndischen  Gesellschaft  for  1872,  p.  441  ;  the  Revieio  of  the  History 
of  Medicine  among  the  Asiatics,  by  T.  A.  Wise,  M.D.,  2  vols.,  1867;  H. 
H.  Wilson's  little  essay,  Works,  iii.  269  (ed.  1864) ;  the  excellent  summary 
in  Weber's  History  of  Indian  Literature,  Triibner,  1878  ;  and  Dr.  Watts' 
Diet.  Economic  Products  of  India  (Calcutta,  1SS5). 

-  Von  Bohlen,  Das  Alte  Indien,  ii.  195  (1S30)  ;  Benfey's  Indien  (Ersch 
&  Grubei-'s  Encyclopccdie.  xvii.,  1 840) ;  quoted  by  Weber,  Hist.  Ind.  Lit., 
p.  272,  footnote  315  (1878). 


HINDU  MUSIC.  HI 

musicians  employ  a  more  minute  sub-division,  together  with  a 
number  of  sonal  modifications,  which  the  Western  ear  neither 
recognises  nor  enjoys.  Thus  they  divide  the  octave  into  22 
sub-tones,  instead  of  the  12  tones  and  semi-tones  of  the  Euro- 
])can  scale.  This  is  one  of  several  fundamental  differences, 
hut  it  alone  suffices  to  render  Indian  music  barbaric  to  us ; 
giving  it  the  effect  of  a  Scotch  ballad  in  a  minor  key,  sung 
intentionally  a  little  out  of  tune. 

Melodies  which  the  Indian  composer  pronounces  to  be  Its  peculi- 
the  perfection  of  harmony,  and  which  have  for  ages  touched  ''"'''^'^^• 
the  hearts  and  fired  the  imagination  of  Indian  audiences,  are 
condemned  as  discord  by  the  European  critic.  The  Hindu 
ear  has  been  trained  to  recognise  modifications  of  sound  which 
the  European  ear  refuses  to  take  pleasure  in.  Our  ears,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  been  taught  to  expect  harmonic  combina- 
tions for  which  Indian  music  substitutes  different  combinations 
of  its  own.  The  Indian  musician  declines  altogether  to  be 
judged  by  the  few  simple  Hindu  airs  which  the  English  ear 
can  appreciate.  It  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  adequately 
represent  the  Indian  system  by  the  European  notation ;  and 
the  full  range  of  its  effects  can  only  be  rendered  by  Indian 
instruments — a  vast  collection  of  sound  -  producers,  slowly 
elaborated  during  2000  years  to  suit  the  special  requirements 
of  Hindu  music.  The  complicated  structure  of  its  musical 
modes  {rags)  rests  upon  three  separate  systems,  one  of  which 
consists  of  five,  another  of  six,  and  the  other  of  seven  notes. 
It  preserves  in  a  living  state  some  of  the  early  forms  which 
puzzle  the  student  of  Greek  music,  side  by  side  with  the  most 
complicated  developments. 

Patriotic  Hindus  have  of  late  endeavoured  to  bring  about  Revival  of 
a  musical  revival  upon  the  old  Sanskrit   basis.     Within  the  "^".  " 

^  music. 

past  fifteen  years,  Raja  Sir  Surendra  Mohan  Tagore  of 
Calcutta  has  published  a  series  of  interesting  works  on 
Indian  music  in  the  English  tongue,  adopting  as  far  as 
possible  the  European  notation.  He  has  organized  an 
orchestra  to  illustrate  the  art ;  and  presented  complete  col- 
lections of  Hindu  instruments  to  the  Conservatoire  at  Paris, 
and  to  other  institutions  in  Europe.  One  of  the  earliest  sub- 
jects which  the  new  movement  took  as  its  theme,  was  the 
celebration  of  the  Queen  of  England  and  her  ancestors,  in  a 
Sanskrit  volume  entitled  the  Victoria-Gitika  (Calcutta,  1875). 
No  Englishman  has  yet  brought  an  adequate  acquaintance  with 
the  technique  of  Indian  instrumentation  to  the  study  of  Hindu 
music.     The  art  still  awaits  investigation  by    some  eminent 


112 


THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Indian 
architec- 
ture. 


Greco- 

Bactrian 

and 


Muham- 
mad an 
influences, 


Indian 

decorative 

art. 


Western  professor ;  and  the  contempt  with  which  Europeans 
in  India  regard  it,  merely  proves  their  ignorance  of  the  system 
on  which  Hindu  music  is  built  up. 

Indian  architecture  (artha-sdsh'a  ^),  although  also  ranked  as 
an  upa-veda  or  supplementary  part  of  inspired  learning,  derived 
its  development  from  Buddhist  rather  than  from  Brahmanical 
impulses.  A  brick  altar  sufficed  for  the  Vedic  ritual.  The 
Buddhists  were  the  great  stone-builders  of  India.  Their 
monasteries  and  shrines  exhibit  the  history  of  the  art  during 
twenty-two  centuries,  from  the  earliest  cave  structures  and 
rock-temples,  to  the  latest  Jain  erections,  dazzling  in  stucco 
and  overcrowded  with  ornament.  It  seems  not  improbable 
that  the  churches  of  Europe  owe  their  steeples  to  the  Buddhist 
topes.  The  Greco-Bactrian  kingdom  profoundly  influenced 
architecture  and  sculpture  in  Northern  India  ;  the  Musalman 
conquerors  brought  in  new  forms  and  requirements  of  their 
own.  Nevertheless,  Hindu  art  powerfully  asserted  itself  in 
the  imperial  works  of  the  Mughals,  and  has  left  memorials 
which  extort  the  admiration  and  astonishment  of  our  age. 

The  Hindu  builders  derived  from  the  Muhammadans  a 
lightness  of  structure  which  they  did  not  formerly  possess. 
The  Hindu  palace-architecture  of  Gwalior,  the  Indian-Muham- 
madan  mosques  and  mausoleums  of  Agra  and  Delhi,  with 
several  of  the  older  Hindu  temples  of  Southern  India,  stand 
unrivalled  for  grace  of  outline  and  elaborate  wealth  of  orna- 
ment. The  Taj-Mahal  at  Agra  justifies  Heber's  exclamation, 
that  its  builders  had  designed  like  Titans,  and  finished  like 
jewellers.  The  open-carved  marble  windows  and  screens  at 
Ahraadabad  furnish  examples  of  the  skilful  ornamentation 
which  beautifies  every  Indian  building,  from  the  cave  monas- 
teries of  the  Buddhist  period  downward.  They  also  show 
with  what  plasticity  the  Hindu  architects  adapted  their  Indian 
ornamentation  to  the  structural  requirements  of  the  Muham- 
madan  mosque. 

English  decorative  art  in  our  day  has  borrowed  largely 
from  Indian  forms  and  patterns.  The  exquisite  scrolls  on 
the  rock-temples  at  Karli  and  Ajanta,  the  delicate  marble 
tracery  and  flat  wood-carving  of  Western  India,  the  har- 
monious blending  of  forms  and  colours  in  the  fabrics  of 
Kashmir,  have  contributed  to  the  restoration  of  taste  in 
England.  Indian  art-work,  when  faithful  to  native  designs, 
still  obtains  the  highest  honours  at  the  international 
exhibitions  of  Europe.  In  pictorial  art,  the  Hindus  never 
^  Specifically,  nirmdna-silpavi,  or  niniidiia-z'iJyd. 


THE  LAWS  OF  THE  B RAHMANS.  113 

made  much  progress,  except  in  miniature-painting,  for  which  Indian 
perspective  is  not  required.  But  some  of  the  book-illustrations,  ^^^'^'  '"^' 
executed  in  India  under  Persian  impulses,  are  full  of  spirit 
and  beauty.  The  Royal  library  at  Windsor  contains  the  finest 
existing  examples  in  this  by-path  of  art.  The  noble  manuscript 
of  the  ShdhJaJidn  Ndinah,  purchased  in  Oudh  for  ^i  200  in  the 
last  century,  and  now  in  possession  of  Her  Majesty,  will  itself 
amply  repay  a  visit.  The  specimens  at  the  South  Kensington 
Museum  do  not  adequately  represent  Indian  painting  (1882). 
But  they  are  almost  everything  that  could  be  desired  as 
regards  Indian  ornamental  design,  including  Persian  book- 
binding, and  several  of  the  minor  arts. 

While  the  Brahmans  claimed  religion,  theology,  and  philo-  Brahman 
sophy  as  their  special  domain,  and  the  chief  sciences  and  arts  '^^^" 
as  supplementary  sections  of  their  divinely-inspired  knowledge, 
they  secured  their  social  supremacy  by  codes  of  law.     Their 
earliest  Dharma-sastras,  or  legal  treatises,  belong  to  the  Grihya-  Grihya- 
Sutra  period,  a  scholastic  outgrowth  from  the  Veda.     But  their  "coob  c.(?).  / 

two  great  digests,  upon  which  the  fabric  of  Hindu  jurisprudence  V 

has  been  built  up,  are  of  later  date.  The  first  of  these,  the 
code  of  Manu,  is  separated  from  the  Vedic  era  by  a  series  of  The  code 
Brahmanical  developments,  of  which  we  possess  only  a  few  of  ° 
the  intermediate  links.  It  is  a  compilation  of  the  customary 
law,  current  probably  about  the  5th  century  B.C.,  and  exhibits 
the  social  organization  which  the  Brahmans,  after  their 
successful  struggle  for  the  supremacy,  had  established  in  the 
Middle  Land  of  Bengal.  The  Brahmans,  indeed,  claim  for 
their  laws  a  divine  origin,  and  ascribe  them  to  the  first  Manu 
or  Aryan  man,  30  millions  of  years  ago.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  laws  of  Manu  are  the  result  of  a  series  of  attempts 
to  codify  the  usages  of  some  not  very  extensive  centre  of 
Brahmanism  in  Northern  India.  They  form  a  metrical  digest  of 
local  customs,  condensed  by  degrees  from  a  legendary  mass  of 
100,000  couplets  {slokas)  into  2685.  They  may  possibly  have 
been  reduced  to  a  written  code  with  a  view  to  securing  the 
system  of  caste  against  the  popular  movement  of  Buddhism  ; 
and  they  seem  designed  to  secure  a  rigid  fixity  for  the 
privileges  of  the  Brahmans. 

The  date  of  the  code  of  Manu   has   formed   a   favourite  The  ai;e  of 
subject  for  speculation  from  the  appearance  of  Sir  William  ' 
Jones'  translation  ^  downwards.     The  history  of  those  specula- 
tions is  typical  of  the  modernizing  process  which  scholarship 

^  Calcutta,  1794  ;  followed  by  Iliittner's  translation  into  German,  1797. 

H 


114 


THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Date  of 
Manu  ? 


Older 
prose  code 
500-200 

B.C.   (?). 


Present 
metrical 
code 
I 00- 500 
A.D. 


l'rol)al)!y 

500  A.  I). 


Code  of 
^'aj  na- 
val kya. 


6th  cen- 
tury A.D.  ? 


has  applied  to  the  old  pretensions  of  Indian  literature.  The 
present  writer  has  refrained  from  anything  approaching  tu 
dogmatic  assertion  in  regard  to  the  dates  assigned  to 
V'edic  and  Sanskrit  works  ;  as  such  assertions  would  involve 
disquisitions  quite  beyond  the  scope  of  this  volume. 

It  may,  therefore,  be  well  to  take  the  code  of  Alanu  as 
a  single  instance  of  the  uncertainty  which  attaches  to  the  date 
of  one  of  the  best  known  of  Indian  treatises.  Sir  William 
Jones  accepted  for  it  a  fabulous  antiquity  of  1250  to  500  B.C. 
Schlegel  was  confident  that  it  could  not  be  later  than  1000  B.C. 
Professor  Monier  Williams  puts  it  at  500  B.C.,  and  Johaentgen 
assigns  350  B.C.  as  the  lowest  possible  date.  Dr.  Burnell,  in 
his  posthumous  edition  of  the  code,^  discusses  the  question 
with  admirable  learning,  and  his  conclusions  must,  for  the 
present,  be  accepted  as  authoritative.  As  indicated  in  a  recent 
paragraph,  the  code  of  Manu,  or  Manava-Dharmasastra,  is 
not  in  its  existing  metrical  form  an  original  treatise,  but  a 
versified  recension  of  an  older  prose  code.  In  its  earlier  shape 
it  belonged  to  the  Sutra  period,  probably  extending  from  the 
sixth  to  the  second  century  B.C.  Ur.  Burnell's  investigations 
show  that  our  present  code  of  Manu  was  a  popular  work 
intended  for  princes  or  Rajas,  and  their  officials,  rather  than 
a  technical  treatise  for  the  Brahmans.  They  also  prove  that 
the  present  code  must  have  been  compiled  between  100  and 
500  A.D. ;  and  they  indicate  the  latter  date  as  the  most  probable 
one,  viz.  500  a.d.  '  It  thus  appears,'  concludes  Dr.  Burnell, 
'  that  the  text  belongs  to  an  outgrowth  of  the  Brahmanical 
literature,  which  was  intended  for  the  benefit  of  the  kings, 
when  the  Brahmanical  civilisation  had  begun  to  extend  itself 
over  the  south  of  India.'  - 

The  second  great  code  of  the  Hindus,  called  after  Yajna- 
valkya,  belongs  to  a  period  when  Buddhism  had  established 
itself,  and  probably  to  a  territory  where  it  was  beginning  to 
succumb  to  the  Brahmanical  reaction.  It  represents  the 
Brahmanical  side  of  the  great  controversy  (although  a  section 
of  it  deals  with  the  organization  of  Buddhist  monasteries), 
refers  to  the  execution  of  deeds  on  metal  plates,  and  altogether 
marks  an  advance  in  legal  precision.  It  refers  more  especially 
to  the  customs  and  state  of  society  in  the  kingdom  of  Mithila, 
now  the  Tirhut  and  Purniya  Districts,  after  the  Aryans  had 
securely  settled  themselves  in  the  Gangetic  Provinces  to  the 

*   The  Ordinances  of  Mann,  by  the  late  Arthur  Coke  Burnell,  Ph.D., 
C. I.E.,  of  the  Madras  Civil  Service.     Triibner.      1S84.     Pp.  xv.-xlvii. 
-  Idem,  xxvii. 


SCOPE  OF  HIND  U  LA  W.  1 1 5 

east  and  south-east  of  their  old  Middle  Land  of  Bengal.  The  Mitak- 
Mitakshard  commentary  of  the  law  which  bears  the  name  of  ''^"^^' 
Yajnavalkya  is  in  force  over  almost  all  India  except  Lower 
Bengal  Proper;  and  the  Hindus,  as  a  whole,  allow  to 
Yajnavalkya  an  authority  only  second  to  that  of  Manu. 
Yajnavalkya's  code  was  compiled  apparently  not  later  than  the 
6th  or  7th  century  a.d.  It  is  right  again  to  mention  that  much 
earlier  ])eriods  have  been  assigned  both  to  Manu  and  Yajna- 
valkya than  those  adopted  here.  Duncker  still  accepts  the 
old  date  of  600  B.C.  as  that  at  which  Manu's  code  'must  have 
been  put  together  and  written  down.'  ^ 

These   codes    deal   with    Hindu    law    in    three   branches,  Scope  of 
namely— (i)  domestic  and  civil    rights    and    duties;   (2)  the  ,        " 
administration  of  justice  ;  (3)  purification  and  penance.     They 
stereotyped  the  unwritten  usages  which  regulated  the  family 
life  and  social  organization  of  the  old  Aryan  communities  in 
the  Middle  Land  of  Bengal.     They  did  not  pretend  to  supply 
a  body  of  law  for  all  the  numerous  races  of  India,  but  only 
for  Hindu  communities  of  the  Brahmanical  type.     It  is  doubt- 
ful whether  they  correctly  represented  the  actual  customary 
law  even  among  the  Hindu  communities  in  the  Middle  Land 
of  the  Ganges.     For  they  were  evidently  designed  to  assert  and 
maintain  the  special  privileges  of  the  Brahmans.     This  they    1  ' 
eftected  by  a  rigid   demarcation   of  the  employments  of  the 
])eople,  each  caste  or  division  of  a  caste  having  its  own  hereditary 
occupation  assigned  to  it ;  by  stringent  rules  against  the  inter-  its  rirrid 
mingling  of  the  castes  in  marriage  ;  by  forbidding  the  higher  caste 
castes,  under  severe  penalties,  to  eat  or  drink  or  hold  social  ^^^  ^™' 
intercourse  with  the  lower ;  and  by  punishing  the  lower  castes 
with   cruel   penances,  for  defiling  by  their   touch  the  higher 
castes,  or  in  any  way  infringing  their  privileges. 

They  exhibit  the    Hindu   community  in   the  four   ancient  Legal 
classes    of    priests,    warriors,    cultivators,    and   serfs   {siidras).  '^^''^'sion  of 
But  they  disclose  that  this  old  Aryan  classification  failed  to 
represent  the  actual  facts  even  among  the  Aryan  communities 
in  Northern  India.     They  admit  that  the  mass  of  the  people 
did    not  belong   to    any   one   of    the   four   castes,   and   they 
very   inadequately  ascribe    it    to    concubinage    or   illicit    con- 
nections.    The  ancient  Brahmanical  communities  in  Northern 
India,  as  revealed  by  the  codes,  consisted — First,  of  an  Aryan  The  actual 
element  divided  into  priests,  warriors,  and  cultivators,  all  of '''^'^*'°"  *^^ 
whom  bore  the  proud  title  of  the  Twice-Born,  and  wore  the 
sacred  thread.    Second,  the  subjugated  races,  '  the  once-born ' 

'  Ancient  History  of  India,  liy  Professor  Max  Duncker,  p.  195,  ed.  18S1. 


1 16         THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

Siidras.       Third,  a  vast   residue   termed  the  Varna -sankara, 
literally  the  '  mingled  colours ; '  a  great  but  uncertain  number 
of  castes,  exceeding  300,  to  whom  was  assigned  a  mixed  descent 
from  the  four  recognised  classes.     The  first  British  Census  of 
India,  in  1872,  proved  that  the   same  division   remains   the 
fundamental  one  of  the  Hindu  community  to  this  day. 
Growth  of       As    the    Brahmans    spread    their    influence   eastwards   and 
Hindu        southwards  from  the   Middle   Land   of  Bengal,  they  carried 
their   codes  with    them.      The    number  of  their  sacred   law- 
books (Dharma-sastras)  amounted    to    at   least    fifty-six,    and 
separate  schools  of  Hindu  law  sprang  up.     Thus  the  Daya- 
bhaga  version  of  the  Law  of  Inheritance  prevails  in  Bengal ; 
while  the  Mitakshara  commentary  on  Yajnavalkya  is  current 
in  ]\Ladras  and  throughout  Southern  and  Western  India.     But 
all  modern  recensions  of  Hindu  law  rest  upon  the  two  codes 
of  Manu  or  of  Yajnavalkya  ;  and  these  codes,  as  we  have  seen, 
only  recorded  the  usages  of  certain  Brahmanical  centres  in  the 
north,  and  perhaps  did  not  fairly  record  even  them. 
J       As  the  Brahmans  gradually  moulded  the  population  of  India 
into  Hinduism,  such  codes  proved  too  narrow  a  basis  for  dealing 
with  the  rights,  duties,  and  social  organization  of  the  people. 
Based  on    Later   Hindu  legislators  accordingly  inculcated   the   recogni- 
customaiy  ^-^j^  ^^  ^^  local  usages  or  land-law  of  each  part  of  the  country, 
and  of  each  class  or  tribe.     While  binding  together,  and  pre- 
serving the  historical  unity  of,  the  Aryan  twice-born  castes  by 
systems  of   law  founded  on  their  ancient  codes,  they  made 
provision  for  the  customs  and  diverse  stages  of  civilisation  of 
the  ruder  peoples  of  India,  over  whom  they  established  their 
ascendency.      By  such  provisions,  alike  in  religion  and  in  law, 
J      the  Brahmans  incorporated  the  Indian  races  into  that  loosely 
coherent  mass  known  as  the  Hindu  population. 
Plasticity        It  is  to  this  plastic  element  that  Hinduism  owes  its  success ; 
of  Hindu-  and  it  is  an  element  which  English  administrators  have  some- 
1     times  overlooked.     The  races  of  British  India  exhibit  many 
N     stages  of  domestic    institutions,  from    the   polyandry  of   the 
Nairs  to  the  polygamy  of  the  Kulin  Brahmans.     The  structure 
of  their  rural  organization  varies,  from  the  nomadic  husbandry 
of  the  hillmen,  to  the  long  chain  of  tenures  which  in   Bengal 
descends  from  the  landlord  through  a  series  of  middle-men 
to  the   actual   tiller   of   the  soil.       Every  stage  in  industrial 
progress  is  represented  ;  from  the  hunting  tribes  of  the  central 
plateau  to  the  rigid  trade-guilds  of  Gujarat.     The  Hindu  legis- 
lators  recognised  that  each  of  these  diverse  stages  of  social 
development  had  its  own  usages  and  unwritten   law.      Even 


PERILS  OF  INDIAN  CODIFICATION.       117 

the  code  of  Manu  acknowledged  custom  as  a  source  of  law,  Incor- 
and  admitted  its  binding  force  when  not  opposed  to  express  law.  ^f  i^caT 
Vrihaspati  says,  '  The  laws  {dharma)  practised  by  the  various  customs 
countries,  castes,  and  tribes,  they  are  to  be  preserved ;  other-  j"j*i^juj;.,j^ 
wise  the  people  are  agitated.'     Devala  says,  '  What  gods  there 
are  in  any  country,  .  .  .  and  whatsoever  be  the  custom  and 
law  anywhere,  they  are  not  to  be  despised  there  ;  the  law  there 
is  such.'     Varaha-Mihira  says,  '  The  custom  of  the  country  is 
first  to  be  considered ;  what  is  the  rule  in  each  country,  that 
is  to  be  done.'    A  learned  English  judge  in  Southern  India 
thus  summed  up  the  texts  :  '  By  custom  only  can  the  Dharma- 
sastra  [Hindu  law]  be  the  rule  of  others  than  Brahmans  [only 
one-thirtieth  of  the  population  of  Madras] ;  and  even  in  the 
case  of  Brahmans  it  is  very  often  superseded  by  custom.'  ^ 

The  English,  on  assuming  the  government  of  India,  wisely  peHls  of 
declared  that  they  would  administer  justice  according  to  the  modem 
customs  of  the  people.      But  our  High    Courts  enforce  the  ^^^^ 
Brahmanical   codes  with  a  comprehensiveness  and  precision 
unknown  in  ancient  India.     Thus  in  Bengal,  the  non-Hindu 
custom  of  sagai,  by  which  deserted  or  divorced  wives  among 
the  lower  castes  marry  again,   was  lately  tried    according   to 
'the  spirit  of  Hindu  law;'   while   in    Madras,   judges   have 
pointed  out  a  serious  divergence  between  the  Hindu  law  as 
now  administered,  and  the  actual  usages  of  the  people.    Those 
usages  are  unwritten  and  uncertain.    The  Hindu  law  is  printed 
in  many  accessible  forms ;  -   and   Hindu  barristers  are  ever 
pressing  its  principles  upon  our  courts.     The  Hindu  law  is 
apt  to  be  appHed  to  non-Hindu,  or  semi-Hindu,  customs. 

Efforts  at  comprehensive  codification  in  British  India  are 
thus  surrounded  by  special  difficulties.  For  it  would  be  im- 
proper to  give  the  fixity  of  a  code  to  all  the  unwritten  half- 
fluid  usages  current  among  the  300  unhomogeneous  castes 
of  Hindus  ;  while  it  might  be  fraught  with  future  injustice 
to  exclude  any  of  them.     Each  age  has  the  gift  of  adjusting 

^  Dr.  Burnell's  Ddya-vibhdgha,  Introd.  p.  xv.  See  also  Hindu  Latv 
as  admims/ereJ  by  the  High  Court  of  judicature  at  Madras,  by  J-  Nelson, 
M.A.,  District  Judge  of  Cuddapah,  chaps,  iii.  and  iv.  (Madras,  1877); 
and  Journal  Roy.  As.  Soc,  pp.  20S-236  (April  18S1). 

-  For  the  latest  treatment  of  Hindu  law  from  the  philosophical,  scholarly, 
and  practical  points  of  view,  see  the  third  edition  of  West  and  Biihler's 
Digest  of  the  Hindu  Law  of  Inheritance,  Partition,  atid  Adoption.  2  vols. 
Bombay  1884.  From  the  writings  of  Mayne,  Burnell,  and  Nelson  in 
Madras,  and  those  of  the  Honourable  Raymond  West  and  Dr.  Biihler 
in  Bombay,  a  new  and  more  just  conception  of  the  character  of  Hindu  law 
and  of  its  relations  to  Indian  custom  may  be  said  to  date. 


ii8 


THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


Codes 
versiis 
survival  of 
fittest 
customs. 


Restricted 
scope  of 
Indian 
codifica- 
tion. 


its  institutions  to  its  actual  wants,  especially  among  tribes 
whose  customs  have  not  been  reduced  to  written  law.  Many 
of  those  customs  will,  if  left  to  themselves,  die  out.  Others 
of  them,  which  prove  suited  to  the  new  social  developments 
under  British  rule,  will  live.  A  code  should  stereotype  the 
survival  of  the  fittest ;  but  the  process  of  natural  selection 
must  be  the  work  of  time,  and  not  an  act  of  conscious 
legislation. 

This  has  been  recognised  from  time  to  time  by  the  ablest 
of  Anglo-Indian  codifiers.  They  restrict  the  word  code  to 
the  systematic  arrangement  of  the  rules  relating  to  some 
well-marked  section  of  juristic  rights,  or  to  some  executive 
department  of  the  administration  of  justice.  '  In  its  larger 
sense,' write  the  Indian  Law  Commissioners  in  1879,  '  of  a 
general  assemblage  of  all  the  laws  of  a  community,  no  attempt 
has  yet  been  made  in  this  country  to  satisfy  the  conception  of 
a  code.  The  time  for  its  realization  has  manifestly  not  arrived.' 
The  number  of  works  on  Law,  published  in  the  native  languages 
of  India  in  1877,  was  165;  and  in  1882,  181,  besides  157  in 
English;  total,  338  works  on  law  published  in  India  in  1882. 


Secular 
literature 
of  the 
Hindus. 


Its  chief 
branches. 


TheMaha- 
Lharata ; 


The  Brahmans  were  not  merely  the  depositaries  of  the 
sacred  books,  the  philosophy,  the  science,  and  the  laws  of 
the  ancient  Hindu  commonwealth  ;  they  were  also  the  creators 
and  custodians  of  its  secular  literature.  They  had  a  practical 
monopoly  of  Vedic  learning,  and  their  policy  was  to  trace 
back  every  branch  of  knowledge  and  of  intellectual  effort  to 
the  Veda.  In  this  policy  they  were  aided  by  the  divergence 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  arose  at  a  very  early  date  between  the 
written  and  spoken  languages  of  India.  Sanskrit  literature, 
apart  from  religion,  philosophy,  and  law,  consists  mainly  of  two 
great  epics,  the  drama,  and  a  vast  body  of  legendary,  erotic, 
and  mystical  poetry. 

The  venerable  epic  of  the  Mahabharata  ranks  first.  The 
orthodox  legend  ascribes  it  to  the  sage  Vyasa,  who,  according 
to  Brahman  chronology,  compiled  the  inspired  hymns  into  the 
four  Vedas,  nearly  five  thousand  years  ago  (3101  B.C.).  But 
one  beauty  of  Sanskrit  is  that  every  word  discloses  its  ancient 
origin  in  spite  of  mediaeval  fictions,  and  Vyasa  means  simply 
the  '  arranger,'  from  the  verb  '  to  fit  together.'  No  fewer  than 
twenty-eight  Vyasas,  incarnations  of  Brahma  and  Vishnu, 
came  down  in  successive  astronomical  eras  to  arrange  and 
promulgate  the  Vedas  on  earth.  Many  of  the  legends  in 
the  Mahdbharata  are  of  Vedic  antiquity,  and  the  main  story 


STOR  Y  OF  THE  MAHABHARA  TA.  1 1 9 

(■eals  with  a  period  assigned,  in  the  absence  of  conclusive 
(  vidence,  to  about  1200  b.c.  ;  and  certainly  long  anterior  to 
the  time  of  Buddha,  543  b.c.  But  its  compilation  into  its 
present  form  seems  to  have  taken  place  many  centuries  later. 

Panini  (350  B.C.)  makes  no  clear  reference  to  it.     The  in-  Its  date ; 
quisitive  Greek  ambassador  and  historian,  Megasthenes,  does 
not  appear  to  have  heard  of  it  during  his  stay  in  India,  300 
B.C.       Dion  Chrysostomos  supplies  the  earliest  external  evi- 
dence of  the  existence  of  the  Mahabhdrata,  circ.  75  a.d.     The 
arrangement  of  its  vast  mass  of  legends  must  probably  have 
covered   a   long   period.       Indeed,  the   present   poem   bears 
traces  of  three  separate  eras    of  compilation  ;    during  which 
its   collection  of  primitive  folk-tales  grew  from  8800  slokas  its 
or    couplets,    into   a   cyclopaedia   of  Indian    mythology   and  growth. 
legendary  lore  extending  over   eighteen   books  and  220,000 
lines.     The  twenty-four  books  of  Homer's  Iliad  comprise  only 
15,693  lines;  the  twelve  books  of  Virgil's  ^jieid,  only  9868. 

The  central  story   of   the  Mahabharata   occupies   scarcely  Central 
one-fourth  of  the  whole,  or  about  50,000  lines.     It  narrates  ^^°'^^r'^,  • 

'  .  .  the  Mana- 

a  pre-historic  struggle  between  two  families  of  the  Lunar  bharata. 
race  for  a  patch  of  country  near  Delhi.  These  families, 
alike  descended  from,  the  royal  Bharata,  consisted  of  two 
brotherhoods,  cousins  to  each  other,  and  both  brought  up  under 
the  same  roof.  The  five  Pandavas  were  the  miraculously  born 
sons  of  King  Pandu,  who,  smitten  by  a  curse,  resigned  the 
sovereignty  to  his  brother  Dhrita-rashtra,  and  retired  to  a 
hermitage  in  the  Himalayas,  where  he  died.  The  ruins  of 
his  capital,  Hastinapura,  or  the  '  Elephant  City,'  are  pointed 
out  beside  a  deserted  bed  of  the  Ganges,  57  miles  north-east 
of  Delhi,  at  this  day.  His  brother  Dhrita-rashtra  ruled  in  his 
stead,  and  to  him  one  hundred  sons  were  born,  who  took  the 
name  of  the  Kauravas  from  an  ancestor,  Kuru.  Dhrita-rashtra 
acted  as  a  faithful  guardian  to  his  five  nephews,  the  Pandavas, 
and  chose  the  eldest  of  them  as  heir  to  the  family  kingdom. 
His  own  sons  resented  this  act  of  supersession  ;  and  so  arose 
the  quarrel  between  the  hundred  Kauravas  and  the  five  Pan- 
davas which  forms  the  main  story  of  the  Mahabharata.  The 
nucleus  of  the  legend  probably  belongs  to  the  period  when  the 
Aryan  immigrants  were  settling  in  the  upper  part  of  the  triangle  12th  ccn- 
of  territory  between  the  Jumna  and  the  Ganges,  and  before  "'^  ■*^' 
they  had  made  any  considerable  advances  beyond  the  latter 
river.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  assign  this  period  to  about 
the  12th  century  B.c. 

The  hundred  Kauravas  forced  their  father  to  send  away  their  Its  outline. 


120        THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

five  Pandava  cousins  into  the  forest.  The  Kauravas  then  burned 
down  the  woodland  hut  in  which  the  five  Pandavas  dwelt.  The 
five  escaped,  however,  and  wandered  in  the  disguise  of  Brah- 
mans  to  the  court  of  King  Draupada,  who  had  proclaimed  a 
swayam-vara,  or  maiden's-choice, — a  tournament  at  which  his 
daughter  would  take  the  victor  as  her  husband.  Arjuna,  one 
of  the  Pandavas,  bent  the  mighty  bow  which  had  defied  the 
strength  of  all  the  rival  chiefs,  and  so  obtained  the  fair  princess, 
Draupadi,  who  became  the  common  wife  of  the  five  brethren. 
Their  uncle,  the  good  Dhrita-rashtra,  recalled  them  to  his 
capital,  and  gave  them  one-half  of  the  family  territory  towards 
the  Jumna,  reserving  the  other  half  for  his  own  sons. 

The  Pandava  brethren  hived  oft'  to  their  new  settlement, 

Indra-prastha,    afterwards    Delhi ;    clearing   the   jungle,    and 

driving   out  the    Nagas    or    forest-races.       For  a  time  peace 

reigned ;    but    the    Kauravas    tempted   Yudishthira,  '  firm  in 

fight,'  the   eldest  of  the  Pandavas,  to  a  gambling  match,  at 

Gambling  which  he  lost  his  kingdom,  his  brothers,  himself,  and  last  of 

matches.     ^11,  his  wife.     Their  father,  however,  forced  his  sons  to  restore 

their  wicked    gains  to  their    cousins.      But  Yudishthira  was 

again  seduced  by  the   Kauravas  to  stake  his  kingdom  at  dice, 

again  lost  it,   and  had  to  retire  with  his  wife  and  brethren 

into  exile  for  twelve  years.     Their  banishment  ended,  the  five 

Pandavas  returned  at  the  head  of  an  army  to  win  back  their 

P^inal  kingdom.    Many  battles  followed.    Other  Aryan  tribes  between 

overthrow  the  Tumna  and  the  Ganges,  together  with  their  gods  and  divine 

Kauravas    '"^Groes,  joined  in  the  struggle,  until  at  last  all  the  hundred 

Kauravas  were  slain,  and  of  the  friends  and  kindred  of  the 

Pandavas  only  the  five  brethren  remained. 

Rei<m  of         Their  uncle,  Dhrita-rashtra,  made  over  to  them  the  whole 

the  five       kingdom  ;  and  for  a  long  time  the  Pandavas  ruled  gloriously, 

Tandavas.  celebrating  the  aswa-medha,  or  '  great  horse  sacrifice,'  in  token 

of  their  holding  imperial  sway.     But  their  uncle,  old  and  blind, 

ever  taunted  them  with  the  slaughter  of  his  hundred  sons, 

until  at  last  he  crept  away  with  his  few  surviving  ministers, 

his  aged  wife,  and  his  sister-in-law  the  mother  of  the  Pandavas, 

to  a  hermitage,  where  the  worn-out  band  perished  in  a  forest 

fire.      The  five  brethren,  smitten  by  remorse,  gave  up  their 

kingdom ;  and  taking  their  wife,  Draupadi,  and  a  faithful  dog, 

Their  pil-    they  departed  to  the  Himalayas  to  seek  the  heaven  of  Indra 

grimage  to  qj^  Mount  Meru,    One  by  one  the  sorrowful  pilgrims  died  upon 

the  road,  until  only  the  eldest  brother,  Yudishthira,  and  the 

dog  reached  the  gate  of  heaven.     Indra  invited  him  to  enter, 

but  he  refused  if  his   lost  wife  and  brethren  were  not  also 


GR  O  WTH  OF  THE  MAHABHARA  TA.        121 

admitted.  The  prayer  was  granted,  but  he  still  declined  unless 
his  faithful  dog  might  come  in  with  him.  This  could  not  be 
allowed,  and  Yudishthira,  after  a  glimpse  of  heaven,  was  thrust 
down  to  hell,  where  he  found  many  of  his  old  comrades  in 
anguish.  He  resolved  to  share  their  sufferings  rather  than  enjoy 
paradise  alone.  But  having  triumphed  in  this  crowning  trial,  the 
whole  scene  was  revealed  to  be  jndyd  or  illusion,  and  the  reunited 
band  entered  into  heaven,  where  they  rest  for  ever  with  Indra. 

Even  this  story,   which  forms  merely  the  nucleus  of  the  Slow 
Mahabharata,  is  the  collective  growth  of  far-distant  ages.     For  5^°"  th  of 

°  .  the  central 

example,  the  two  last  books,  the  17th  and  i8th,  which  narrate  story. 
'  the  Great  Journey '  and  '  the  Ascent  to  Heaven,'  are  the 
product  of  a  very  different  epoch  of  thought  from  the  early 
ones,  which  portray  the  actual  life  of  courts  and  camps  in 
ancient  India.  The  sivayam  -  vara  or  husband  -  choosing  of 
Draupadi  is  a  genuine  relic  of  the  tournament  age  of  Aryan 
chivalry.  Her  position  as  the  common  wife  of  the  five 
brethren  preserves  a  trace  of  even  more  primitive  institutions 
— institutions  still  represented  by  the  polyandry  of  the  Nairs  The  poly- 
and  Himalayan  tribes,  and  by  domestic  customs  which  are  ^raiuwlf 
survivals  of  polyandry  among  the  Hinduized  low-castes  all  over 
India.  Thus,  in  the  Punjab,  among  Jat  families  too  poor  to 
bear  the  marriage  expenses  of  all  the  males,  the  wife  of  the 
eldest  son  has  sometimes  to  accept  her  brothers-in-law  as  joint 
husbands.  The  polyandry  of  the  Ghakkars,  the  brave  people 
of  Rawal  Pindi  District,  was  one  of  their  characteristics  which 
specially  struck  the  advancing  Muhammadans  in  1008  a.d. 
The  Karakat  Vellalars  of  Madura,  at  the  opposite  extremity 
of  the  peninsula,  no  longer  practise  polyandry ;  but  they 
I)reserve  a  trace  of  it  in  their  condonement  of  cohabita- 
tion with  the  husband's  kindred,  while  adultery  outside  the 
husband's  family  entails  expulsion  from  caste. 

Such  customs  became  abhorrent  to  the  Brahmans.  The 
Brahmans  justify  Draupadi's  position,  however,  on  the  ground 
that  as  the  five  Pandava  brethren  were  divinely  begotten  emana- 
tions from  one  deity,  they  formed  in  reality  only  one  person, 
and  could  be  lawfully  married  to  the  same  woman.  No  such 
afterthought  was  required  to  uphold  the  honour  of  Draupadi 
in  the  age  when  the  legend  took  its  rise.  Throughout  the  whole 
Mahabharata  she  figures  as  the  type  of  a  high-born  princess, 
and  a  chaste,  brave,  and  faithful  wife.  She  shares  in  every 
sorrow  and  triumph  of  the  five  brethren ;  bears  a  son  to  each  ; 
and  finally  enters  with  the  true-hearted  band  into  the  glory 
of  Indra.     Her  husbands  take  a  terrible  vengeance  on  insult 


122 


THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


i; 


The 

Rama 

yana. 


offered  to  her,  and  seem  quite  unaware  tliat  a  later  age  would 
deem  her  position  one  which  required  explanation.^ 

The  struggle  for  the  kingdom  of  Hastinapura  forms,  how- 
The  rest  of  ever,  only  a  fourth  of  the  Mahabharata.     The  remainder  con- 

ills  AlihtL-      • 

hharat'a.  ^^^^^  '^^  l-^X-^x  additions.  Some  of  these  are  legends  of  the  early 
Aryan  settlements  in  the  Middle  Land  of  Bengal,  tacked  on  to 
the  central  story ;  others  are  mythological  episodes,  theological 
discourses,  and  philosophic  disquisitions,  intended  to  teach  the 
military  caste  its  duties,  especially  its  duty  of  reverence  to  the 
Brahmans.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  Mahabhd.rata  may  be  said 
to  form  the  cyclopaedia  of  the  Heroic  Age  in  Northern  India, 
with  the  struggle  of  the  Pandavas  and  Kauravas  as  its  original 
nucleus ;  and  the  submission  of  the  military  power  to  priestly 
domination  as  its  later  didactic  design. 

The  second  great  Indian  epic,  the  Ramayana,  recounts  the 
advance  of  the  Aryans  into  Southern  India.  Unlike  the 
Mahabharata,  its  composition  is  assigned  not  to  a  compiler 
{vydsa)  in  the  abstract,  but  to  a  named  poet,  Valmiki.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  personages  and  episodes  of  the  Ramayana 
have  an  abstract  or  mythological  character,  which  contrasts  with 
the  matter-of-fact  stories  of  the  Mahabharata.  The  heroine 
of  the  Ramayana,  Sita,  is  literally  the  '  field-furrow,'  to  whom 
the  Vedic  hymns  and  early  Aryan  ritual  paid  divine  honour. 
She  represents  Aryan  husbandry,  and  has  to  be  defended 
against  the  raids  of  the  aborigines  by  the  hero  Rama,  an  incar- 
nation of  the  Aryan  deity  Vishnu,  and  born  of  his  divine  nectar. 
Rama  is  regarded  by  Weber  as  the  analogue  of  Balarama, 
the  '  Ploughbearer '  (Jialallirit).  From  this  abstract  point  of 
view,  the  Ramayana  exhibits  the  progress  of  Aryan  plough- 
husbandry  among  the  mountains  and  forests  of  Central  and 
Southern  India ;  and  the  perils  of  the  agricultural  settlers  from 
the  non-ploughing  nomadic  cultivators  and  hunting  tribes. 

The  abduction  of  Sita  by  an  aboriginal  or  demon  prince,  who 
carried  her  off  to  Ceylon  ;  her  eventual  recovery  by  Rama ; 
and  the  advance  of  the  Aryans  into  Southern  India,  form  the 
central  story  of  the  Ramayana.  It  differs  therefore  from  the 
central  legend  of  the  Mahabharata,  as  commemorating  a  period 
when  the  main  arena  of  Aryan  enterprise  had  extended  itself  far 


Its  alle- 
gorical 
character. 


Its  cen!ral 
idea 


^  The  beautiful  story  of  Savitri,  the  wife  faithful  to  the  end,  is  told  in 
the  Mahabharata  by  the  sage  Markandeya  in  answer  to  Yudishthira's 
question,  whether  any  woman  so  true  and  noljle  as  Draupadi  had  ever  been 
known.  Savitri,  on  the  loss  of  her  husband,  dogged  the  steps  of  Yania, 
King  of  Death,  until  she  wrung  from  him,  one  by  one,  many  blessings  for 
her  family,  and   finally  the  reluctant  restoratii  n  of  her  husband  to  life. 


STOR  V  OF  THE  RAMA  YANA.  1 23 

lievond  their  ancient  settlements  around  Delhi;  and  as  a  pro-  later  than 
duct  of  the  Erihman  tendency  to  substitute  abstract  personifica-  |,]^4rat\i 
tions  for  human  actors  and  mundane  events.     The  nucleus  of  Legend. 
the  Mahabharata  is  a  legend  of  ancient  life;  the  nucleus  of  the 
Ivdmayana  is  an  allegory.    Its  most  modern  form,  the  Adhya'tma 
Ramayana,  still  further  spiritualizes  the  story,  and  elevates  Rama 
into  a  saviour  and  deliverer,  a  god  rather  than  a  hero.^ 

Its  reputed  author,  Valmiki,  is  a  conspicuous  figure  in  Vdlmiki. 
the  epic,  as  well  as  its  composer.  He  takes  part  in  the 
action  of  the  poem,  receives  the  hero  Rama  in  his  hermitage, 
and  afterwards  gives  shelter  to  the  unjustly  banished  Sita  and 
her  twin  sons,  nourishing  the  aspirations  of  the  youths  by 
tales  of  their  father's  prowess.  These  stories  make  up  the 
main  part  of  the  Ramayana,  and  refer  to  a  period  which  has 
been  loosely  assigned  to  about  1000  b.c.  But  the  poem 
could  not  have  been  put  together  in  its  present  shape  many 
centuries,  if  any,  before  our  era.  Parts  of  it  may  be 
earlier  than  the  Mahabhdrata,  but  the  compilation  as  a  whole 
apparently  belongs  to  a  later  date.  The  Ramayana  consists  of 
seven  books  {Kdndas)  and  24,000  slokas,  or  about  48,000  lines. 

As  the  Mahabharata  celebrates  the  lunar  race  of  Delhi,  so  Outline  (if 
the  Raniciyana  forms  the  epic  chronicle  of  the  solar  race  of  \^^  '^"^'^' 
Ajodhya  or  Oudh.  The  two  poems  thus  preserve  the  legends 
of  two  renowned  Aryan  kingdoms  at  the  two  opposite,  or 
eastern  and  western,  borders  of  the  Middle  Land  {Madhya- 
desha).  The  opening  books  of  the  Ramayana  recount  the  The  local 
wondrous  birth  and  boyhood  of  Rama,  eldest  son  of  Dasa- 
ratha.  King  of  Ajodhya  ;  his  marriage  with  Sita,  as  victor  at  her 
swayam-vara,  or  tournament,  by  bending  the  mighty  bow  of 
Siva  in  the  public  contest  of  chiefs  for  the  princess  ;  and  his 
appointment  as  heir-apparent  to  his  father's  kingdom.  A 
zandna  intrigue  ends  in  the  youngest  wife  of  Dasaratha 
obtaining  this  appointment  for  her  own  son,  Bharata,  and  in 
the  exile  of  Rama,  with  his  bride  Sita,  for  fourteen  years  to 
the  forest.  The  banished  pair  wander  south  to  Prayag  (Allah- 
abad), already  a  place  of  sanctity ;  and  thence  across  the  river  to 
the  hermitage  of  Valmiki,  among  the  Bdnda  jungles,  where  a 
hill  is  still  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  their  abode.  ]\Ieanwhile 
Rama's  father  dies,  and  the  loyal  youngest  brother,  Bharata, 
although  the  lawful  successor,  refuses  to  enter  on  the  inherit- 

1  The  allegorical  character  of  the  Ramayana  has  allowed  scope  for 
various  speculations  as  to  its  origin.  Such  speculations  have  been  well 
dealt  with  by  Mr.  Kashinath  Trimbak  Telang  in  his  Essay,  Was  the 
RdiiiAyana  copied  from  Homer?  (Bombay,  1S73.) 


124 


THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 


The 

abduction 
of  Sita. 


Her 

rescue. 


Later  San- 
skrit epic;. 


Rarjhu- 
vansa. 


ance,  but  goes  in  quest  of  Rama  to  bring  him  back  as  rightful 
heir.  A  contest  of  fraternal  affection  takes  place.  Bharata 
at  length  returns  to  rule  the  family  kingdom  in  the  name  of 
Rama,  until  the  latter  shall  come  to  claim  it  at  the  end  of  the 
fourteen  years  of  banishment  appointed  by  their  late  father. 

So  far,  the  Ramayana  merely  narrates  the  local  chronicles  of 
the  court  of  Ajodhya,  In  the  third  book  the  main  story  begins. 
Ravana,  the  demon  or  aboriginal  king  of  the  far  south,  smitten 
by  the  fame  of  Si'ta's  beauty,  seizes  her  at  the  hermitage  while 
her  husband  is  away  in  the  jungle,  and  flies  off  with  her  in 
a  magical  chariot  through  the  air  to  Lanka  or  Ceylon.  The 
next  three  books  (4th,  5th,  and  6th)  recount  the  expedition  of 
the  bereaved  Rama  for  her  recovery.  He  makes  alliances  with 
the  aboriginal  tribes  of  Southern  India,  under  the  names  of 
monkeys  and  bears,  and  raises  a  great  army.  The  Monkey 
general,  Hanuman,  jumps  across  the  straits  between  India  and 
Ceylon,  discovers  the  princess  in  captivity,  and  leaps  back 
with  the  news  to  Rama.  The  Monkey  troops  then  build  a 
causeway  across  the  narrow  sea, — the  Adam's  Bridge  of  modern 
geography, — by  which  Rama  marches  across  and,  after  slaying 
the  monster  Ravana,  delivers  Si'ta.  The  rescued  wife  proves 
her  unbroken  chastity,  during  her  stay  in  the  palace  of  Ravana, 
by  the  ancient  ordeal  of  fire.  Agni,  the  god  of  that  element, 
himself  conducted  her  out  of  the  burning  pile  to  her  husband  ; 
and,  the  fourteen  years  of  banishment  being  over,  Rama  and 
Sita  return  in  triumph  to  Ajodhya.  There  they  reigned 
gloriously ;  and  Rama  celebrated  the  great  horse  sacrifice 
{asTca-fnedha)  as  a  token  of  his  imperial  sway  over  India.  But 
a  famine  having  smitten  the  land,  doubts  arose  in  Rama's 
heart  as  to  his  wife's  purity  while  in  her  captor's  power  at 
Ceylon.  He  banishes  the  faithful  Sita,  who  wanders  forth 
again  to  Valmi'ki's  hermitage,  where  she  gives  birth  to  Rama's 
two  sons.  After  sixteen  years  of  exile,  she  is  reconciled  to 
her  repentant  husband,  and  Rama  and  Sita  and  their  children 
are  at  last  reunited.^ 

The  Mahabharata  and  the  Ramayana,  however  overladen  with 
fable,  form  the  chronicles  of  the  kings  of  the  Middle  Land 
of  the  Ganges,  their  family  feuds,  and  their  national  enter- 
prises. In  the  later  Sanskrit  epics,  the  legendary  element  is 
more  and  more  overpowered  by  the  mythological.  Among 
them  the  Raghu-vansa  and  the  Kumara  -  sambhava,  both 
assigned  to  Kalidasa,  take  the  first  rank.     The  Raghu-vansa 

'  Respectful  mention  should  here  be  made  of  Growse's  translation  of  the 
Hindi  version  of  the  Ramayana  by  Tulsf  Das.     (4'.o.     Allahabad,  1SS3.) 


LATER  EPICS:  THE  SANSKRIT  DRAMA.    125 

celebrates  the  solar  line  of  Raghu,  King  of  Ajodhya  ;  more 
particularly  the  ancestry  and  the  life  of  his  descendant  Rama. 
The  Kumara-sambhava  recounts  the  birth  of  the  War-god.^  Kumara- 
It  is  still  more  didactic  and  allegorical,  abounding  in  sentiment 
and  in  feats  of  prosody.  But  it  contains  passages  of  ex- 
quisite beauty  of  style  and  elevation  of  thought  From  the 
astrological  data  which  these  two  poems  furnish,  Jacobi  infers 
that  they  cannot  have  been  composed  before  350  a.d. 

The  name  of  Kalidasa  has  come  down,  not  only  as  the  Kaliddsa. 
composer  of  these  two  later  epics,  but  as  the  father  of  the 
Sanskrit  drama.  According  to  Hindu  tradition,  he  was  one 
of  the  '  Nine  Gems '  or  distinguished  men  at  the  court  of 
Vikramaditya.  This  prince  is  popularly  identified  with  the 
King  of  Ujjain  who  gave  his  name  to  the  Samvat  era, 
commencing  in  the  year  57  b.c  But,  as  Holtzmann 
points  out,  it  may  be  almost  as  dangerous  to  infer  from  this 
latter  circumstance  that  Vikramaditya  lived  in  57  B.C.,  as  to  Kins,' Vik- 
place  Julius  Caesar  in  the  first  year  of  the  so-called  Julian  f-^'^^'^i'^y'^- 
Calendar,  namely,  4713  B.C.  Several  Vikramadityas  figure  in 
Indian  history.  Indeed,  the  name  is  merely  a  title,  '  A  very 
Sun  in  Prowess,'  which  has  been  borne  by  victorious  monarchs 
of  many  of  the  Indian  dynasties.  The  date  of  Vikramaditya 
has  been  variously  assigned  from  57  B.C.  to  1050  a.d.  ;  and 
the  works  of  the  poets  and  philosophers  who  formed  the  55° --^-d- ? 
'  Nine  Gems '  of  his  court,  appear  from  internal  evidence  to 
have  been  composed  at  intervals  during  that  long  period.  The 
Vikramaditya,  under  whom  Kalidasa  and  the  '  Nine  Gems ' 
are  said  to  have  flourished,  ruled  over  Malwa  probably  from 
500  to  550  A.D. 

In  India,  as  in  Greece  and    Rome,  scenic  representations  Age  of  the 
seem  to  have  taken  their  rise  in  the  rude  pantomime  of  a  very  Sanskrit 

.  drama. 

early  time,  possibly  as  far  back  as  the  Vedic  ritual ;  and  the 
Sanskrit  word  for  the  drama,  ndtaka,  is  derived  from  nata,  a 
dancer.  But  the  Sanskrit  dramas  of  the  classical  age  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  probably  belong  to  the  period  between 
the  ist  century  B.C.  and  the  8th  century  a.d.  They  make 
mention  of  Greek  slaves,  are  acquainted  with  Buddhism  in  its 
full  development,  and  disclose  a  wide  divergence  between 
San.skrit  and  the  dialects  used  by  the  lower  classes.    The  Maha- 

^  Translated  into  spirited  English  verse  by  Mr.  Ralph  T.  H.  Griffith, 
M.A.,  who  is  also  the  author  of  a  charming  collection  of  'Idylls  from  the 
Sanskrit,'  based  on  the  Mahabharata,  Ramayana,  Raghu-vansa,  and  Kali- 
dasa's  Seasons. 


126         THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

bharata  and  Ramayana  appear  in  the  Sanskrit  drama  as  part 
of  the  popular  literature, — in  fact,  as  occupying  very  much  the 
same  position  which  they  still  hold.  No  dramas  are  known 
to  exist  among  the  works  which  the  Hindus  who  emigrated 
to  Java,  about  500  a.d.,  carried  with  them  to  their  new 
homes.  Nor  have  any  dramas  been  yet  found  among  the 
Tibetan  translations  of  the  Sanskrit  classics. 
Sakantala.  The  most  famous  drama  of  Kalidasa  is  Sakuntala,  or  the 
'  Lost  Ring.'  Like  the  ancient  epics,  it  divides  its  action 
between  the  court  of  the  king  and  the  hermitage  in  the  forest. 
Prince  Dushyanta,  an  ancestor  of  the  noble  Lunar  race,  weds 
by  an  irregular  marriage  a  beautiful  maiden,  Sakuntala,  at 
her  father's  hermitage  in  the  jungle.  Before  returning  to  his 
capital,  he  gives  his  bride  a  ring  as  a  pledge  of  his  love  ; 
but  smitten  by  a  curse  from  a  holy  man,  she  loses  the  ring,  and 
cannot  be  recognised  by  her  husband  till  it  is  found.  Sakun- 
tala bears  a  son  in  her  loneliness,  and  sets  out  to  claim  recog- 
nition for  herself  and  child  at  her  husband's  court.  But  she 
is  as  one  unknown  to  the  prince,  till,  after  many  sorrows  and 
trials,  the  ring  comes  to  light.  She  is  then  happily  reunited 
with  her  husband,  and  her  son  grows  up  to  be  the  noble 
Bharata,  the  chief  founder  of  the  Lunar  dynasty  whose 
achievements  form  the  theme  of  the  Mahabharata.  Sakun- 
tala, like  Sita,  is  the  type  of  the  chaste  and  faithful  Hindu 
wife  ;  and  her  love  and  sorrow,  after  forming  the  favourite 
romance  of  the  Indian  people  for  perhaps  eighteen  hundred 
years,  have  furnished  a  theme  for  the  great  European  poet  of 
our  age.     '  Wouldst  thou,'  says  Goethe, 

'  Wouldst  thou  the  young  year's  blossoms,  and  the  fruits  of  its  decline, 
And  all  by  which  the  soul  is  charmed,  enraptured,  feasted,  fed, — 
Wouldst  thou  the  earth  and  heaven  itself  in  one  sole  name  combine? 
I  name  thee,  O  Sakuntala  !  and  all  at  once  is  said.' 

Other  Sakuntala  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  translated  by  Sir 

dramas;  -^vjnim^-j  Jones  (1789),  and  to  be  sung  by  Goethe.  But  other 
of  the  Hindu  dramas  and  domestic  poems  are  of  almost  equal 
interest  and  beauty.  As  examples  of  the  classical  period, 
may  be  taken  the  Mrichchakati,  or  '  Toy  Cart,'  a  drama  in  ten 
.Sanskrit,  acts,  on  the  old  theme  of  the  innocent  cleared  and  the  guilty 
punished  ;  and  the  poem  of  Nala  and  Damayanti,  or  the  '  Royal 
(iambler  and  the  Faithful  Wife.'  Such  plays  and  poems  fre- 
quently take  an  episode  of  the  Mahabharata  or  Ramayana  for 
their  subject ;  and  in  this  way  the  main  incidents  in  the  two 
great  epics  have  been  gradually  dramatized  or  reduced  to  the 
still  more  popular  form  of  household   song.      The   modern 


MODERN  PLAYS:  OLD  BEAST  STORLES.   127 

drama  was  one  of  the  first  branches  of  Hindu  secular  Hterature  ami 
which  accepted  the  spoken  dialects ;   and  the  native  theatre  "i"tl<^"i- 
forms  the  best,  indeed  the  only,  school  in  which  an  English- 
man can  acquaint  himself  with  the  in-door  life  of  the  people. 

In  our  own  day  there  has  been  a   great  dramatic   revival  Recent 
in  India  :  new  plays  in  the  vernacular  tongues  issue  rapidly  fli^api^'ic 

^  .     .  .     .  .         \.  revival. 

from  the  press  ;  and  societies  of  patriotic  young  natives  form 
themselves  into  dramatic  companies,  especially  in  Calcutta 
and  Bombay.  IMany  of  the  pieces  are  vernacular  render- 
ings of  stories  from  the  Sanskrit  epics  and  classical  dramas. 
Several  have  a  political  significance,  and  deal  with  the  phases 
of  development  upon  which  India  has  entered  under  the 
influence  of  British  rule.  One  Bengali  play,  the  Nil-darpan,^ 
or  the  '  Indigo  Factory,'  became  the  subject  of  a  celebrated  trial 
in  Calcutta  ;  while  others — such  as  Ekei  ki  bale  Sabhyatd  ?  '  Is 
this  what  you  call  civilisation  ? ' — suggests  many  serious  thoughts 
to  a  candid  English  mind.  In  1877,  102  dramas  were  pub- 
lished in  India  in  the  native  tongues  ;  and  in  1882,  245. 

Closely  allied  to  the  drama  is  the  prose  romance.     In  1823,  The 

Dr.   H.  H.  Wilson  intimated  that  Hindu  literature  contained  ^"  "^hi 

novel, 
collections  of  domestic  narrative  to  an  extent  surpassing  those 

of  any  other  people.      The  vast  growth  of  European  fiction 
since  that  date  renders  this  statement  no  longer  accurate.     But 
Wilson  s  translations  from  the  Vrihat-katha  may  still  be  read 
with  interest,-  and  the  Sanskrit  Beast-stories  now  occupy  an  Beast- 
even  more  significant  place  in  the  history  of  Indo-European  atones ; 
literature  than  they  did  then.     IMany  fables  of  animals  familiar 
to  the  western  world,  from  the  time  of  .^Esop  downwards,  had 
their  original  home  in  India.    The  relation  between  the  fox  and 
the  lion  in  the  Greek  versions  has  no  reality  in  nature.     It  was 
based,  however,  upon  the  actual  relation  between  the  lion  and  his 
follower  the  jackal,  in  the  Sanskrit  stories.^     Weber  thinks  that 
complete  cycles  of  Indian  fables  may  have  existed  in  the  time 
of  Panini  (350  B.C.).     It  is  known  that  the  Sanskrit  Pancha- 
tantra,  or  Book  of  Beast  Tales,  was  translated  into  the  ancient  their 
Persian  as  early  as  the  6th  century  a.d.,  and  from  that  render-  spread 
ing  all  the  subsequent  versions  in  Asia  Minor  and  Europe  have  wards, 
been  derived.     The  most  ancient  animal  fables  of  India  are  at 

^  Literally,  '  The  Mirror  of  Indigo. ' 

-  Oriental  Quarterly  A/agaziite,  Calcutta,  March  1824,  pp.  63-77.  Also 
vol.  iii.  of  Wilson's  Collected  Works,  pp.  156-268.     London,  1864. 

^  See,  however,  Weber's  elaborate  footnote,  No.  221,  for  the  other 
view,  Hist.  Ind.  Lit.,  p.  21 1.  Max  Midler's  charming  essay  on  the 
Migration  of  Fables  {Chips,  vol.  iv.  pp.  145-209,  1875)  traces  the  actual 
stages  of  a  well-known  story  from  the  East  to  the  West. 


1 2  8         THE  AR  VANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

the  present  day  the  nursery  stories  of  England  and  America. 
The  graceful  Hindu  imagination  delighted  also  in  fairy  tales  ; 
and  the  Sanskrit  compositions  of  this  class  are  the  original 
source  of  many  of  the  fairy  tales  of  Persia,  Arabia,  and 
Christendom.  The  works  of  fiction  published  in  the  native 
languages  in  India  in  1877  numbered  196  ;  and  in  1882,  237. 

Sanskrit  ^'^  mediaeval  India,  a  large  body  of  poetry,  half-religious,  half- 

lyric  amorous,  grew  up  around  the  legend  of  the  youthful  Krishna 

poetry.  ^^.j^^  eighth  incarnation  of  Vishnu)  and  his  loves  with  the 
shepherdesses,  the  playmates  of  his  sweet  pastoral  life.  Kali- 
dasa,  according  to  Hindu  tradition,  was  the  father  of  the 
erotic  lyric,  as  well  as  a  great  dramatic  and  epic  poet.  In 
his  Megha-dtita  or  '  Cloud  Messenger,'  an  exile  sends  a  message 
by  a  wind-borne  cloud  to  his  love,  and  the  countries  beneath 
its  long  aerial  route  are  made  to  pass  like  a  panorama  before 
the  reader's  eye.  The  Gita  Govinda,  or  Divine  Herdsman 
of  Jayadeva,  is  a  Sanskrit  'Song  of  Solomon'  of  the  12th 
century  a.d.  A  festival  once  a  year  celebrates  the  birthplace 
of  this  mystical  love-poet,  in  the  Birbhum  District  of  Lower 
Bengal ;  and  many  less  famous  compositions  of  the  same 
class  now  issue  from  the  vernacular  press  throughout  India. 
In  1877,  no  fewer  than  697  works  of  poetry  were  published 
in  the  native  languages  in  India;  and  in  1882,  834. 

The  The  mediseval  Brahmans  displayed  a  marvellous  activity  in 

Puranas,     theological  as  well  as  in  lyric  poetry.     The  Puranas,  literally 

centuiy       '  The  Ancient  Writings,'  form  a  collection  of  religious  and  philo- 

A-n.  sophical  treatises  in  verse,  of  which  the  principal  ones  number 

eighteen.     The  whole  Puranas  are  said  to  contain  1,600,000 

lines.      The  really  old  ones  have  either   been  lost  or  been 

incorporated  in  new  compilations  ;  and  the  composition  of  the 

existing  Puranas  probably  took  place  from  the  8th  to  the  i6th 

century  a.d.     As  the  epics  sang  the  wars  of  the  Aryan  heroes. 

Contents     so  the  Purdnas  recount  the  deeds  of  the  Brahman  gods.     They 

?/  .  deal  with  the  creation  of  the  universe  :  its  successive  dissolu- 

ruranas.         .  .  ... 

tions  and  reconstructions  ;  the  stories  of  the  deities  and  their 
incarnations ;  the  reigns  of  the  divine  Manus ;  and  the 
chronicles  of  the  Solar  and  Lunar  lines  of  kings  who  ruled,  the 
former  in  the  east  and  the  latter  in  the  west  of  the  Middle 
Land  (Madhya-desha). 
Thtir  The  Puranas  belong  to  the  period  after  the  mass  of  the 

^*^^'^"  people  had  split  up  into  their  two  existing  divisions,  as  wor- 

shippers   of  Vishnu    or   of  Siva,  post^   700   a.d.      They   are 


INDIAN  LITERARY  ACTIVITY,   18S2.        129 

devoted   to   the   glorification   of  one  or  other  of  these   two 
rival  gods,  and  thus  embody  the  sectarian  theology  of  Brah- 
manism.      While  claiming  to  be  founded  on  Vedic  inspira-  Their 
tion,  they  practically  superseded  the  Veda,  and  have  formed  "ifl^ence. 
during  ten  centuries  the  sacred  literature  on  which  Hinduism 
rests.  ^ 

An  idea  of  the  literary  activity  of  the  Indian  mind  at  the  Indian 
present  day  may  be  formed  from  the  fact,  that  4890  works  were  works 

1  1-  T      1    •      r     T     ■        o  /-      1  •    1  r  -1  •       published 

published  in  India  in  1877,  of  which  4346  were  m  the  native  in  1^77 
languages.  Only  436  were  translations,  the  remaining  4454 
being  original  works  or  new  editions.  The  number  of  Indian 
publications  constantly  increases.  In  1882,  6198  works  were  and  1882. 
published  in  India,  5543  being  in  the  native  languages. 
The  translations  numbered  720,  and  the  original  works,  in- 
cluding new  editions,  5478.  These  figures  only  show  the 
publications  officially  registered  under  the  Act.  A  large 
number  of  unregistered  pamphlets  or  brochures  must  be  added  ; 
together  with  the  daily  and  weekly  issue  of  vernacular  news- 
papers, exceeding  230  in  number  and  circulating  over  150,000 
copies. 

This  chapter  has  attempted  to  trace  the  intellectual  and  Aljsence  of 
religious  development  of  the  early  Aryans  in  India,  and  their  territorial 
constitution  into  castes  and  communities.  Regarding  their 
territorial  history,  it  has  said  almost  nothing.  It  has,  indeed, 
indicated  their  primeval  line  of  march  from  their  Holy  Land 
among  the  seven  rivers  of  the  Punjab,  to  their  Land  of  the 
Sacred  Singers  between  the  upper  courses  of  the  Jumna  and 
the  Ganges  ;  and  thence  to  their  more  extensive  settlements  in 
the  Middle  Land  of  Bengal  {Madhya-desha)  stretching  to  beyond 
the  junction  of  these  two  great  rivers.  It  has  also  told  very 
briefly  the  legend  of  their  advance  into  Southern  India,  in  the 
epic  rendering  of  the  Ramayana.  But  the  foregoing  pages 
have  refrained  from  attempts  to  fix  the  dates  or  to  fill  in  the 

'  The  foregoing  pages  have  very  briefly  reviewed  the  most  important 
branches  of  Sanskrit  literature ;  the  influence  of  that  literature  upon 
Hinduism  will  be  dealt  with  in  a  subsequent  chapter.  To  fully  appreciate 
the  connection  between  ancient  thought  and  present  practice  in  India,  the 
student  may  also  refer  to  Professor  Monier  Williams'  Moderti  India  and  the 
Indians  (Triibner,  1879).  That  work  unites  the  keen  observation  of  a 
traveller  new  to  the  country  with  the  previous  learning  acijuired  during  a 
lifetime  devoted  to  Oriental  studies.  Professor  Monier  Williams  is  thus 
enabled  to  correlate  the  existing  phenomena  of  Indian  life  with  the  historical 
types  which  underlie  them. 

I 


I30         THE  ARYANS  IN  ANCIENT  INDIA. 

details  of  these  movements.     For  the  territorial  extension  of 

the  Aryans  in  India  is  still  a  battle-ground  of  inductive  history. 

Its  indue-        Even  for  a  much  later  period  of  Indian  civilisation,   the 

tive  data,    ^^j^j.^^  continue  under  keen  dispute.    This  will  be  amply  apparent 

in  the  following  chapters.^     These  chapters  will  open  with  the 

great  upheaval  of  Buddhism  against  Brahmanism  in  the  6th 

century  before  Christ.     They  will  summarize  the  struggles  of 

the  Asiatic  races  in   India  during  a  period  of  twenty-three 

hundred  years.     They  will  close  with  the  great  military  revival 

of  Hinduism  under  the  Maratha  Brahmans  in  the  i8th  century 

of  our  era.     An  attempt  will  then  be  made,  from  the  evidence 

of  the  vernacular  literature  and  languages,  to  present  a  view  of 

Indian  thought  and  culture,  when  the  European  nations  came 

in  force  upon  the  scene. 

The  Bmh-      Meanwhile,  the  history  of  India,  so  far  as  obscurely  known 

mans  in      |-q  ^g  before  the  advent  of  the   Greeks,  327   B.C.,  is  essentially 

history.       ^  literary  history,  and  the  memorials  of  its  civilisations  are 

mainly  literary  or  religious  memorials.     The  more  practical 

aspects  of  those  long  ages,  which  were  their  real  aspects  to 

the  people,  found  no  annalist.     From  the  commencement  of 

the  post-Vedic  period,  the   Brahmans   strove  with  increasing 

success  to  bring  the  Aryan  hfe  and  civilisation  of  India  more 

and  more  into  accord  with  their  own  priestly  ideas. 

In  order  to  understand  the  long  domination  of  the  Brahmans, 
and  the  influence  which  they  still  wield,  it  is  necessary  also  to 
keep  in  mind  their  position  as  the  great  literary  caste.  Their 
priestly  supremacy  has  been  repeatedly  assailed,  and  was  during 
a  space  of  nearly  a  thousand  years  overpowered  by  Buddhism. 
The  six  But  throughout  twenty-two  centuries  the  Brahmans  have  been 
attacks  on  ^^  counsellors  of  Hindu  princes  and  the  teachers  of  the  Hindu 

Brahman-  ,        .  ..... 

ism,  6th      people.     They  still  represent  the  early  Aryan  civilisation  of 

century       India.     Indeed,  the  essential  history  of  India  is  a  narrative  of 
R  c  to  ....... 

19th  cen-     tl'ie  attacks  upon  the  continuity  of  their  civilisation, — that  is 

turyA.D.    to  say,  of  attacks  upon  the  Brahmanical  system  of  the  Middle 

Land,  and  of  the  modifications  and  compromises  to  which  that 

system  has  had  to  submit. 

^  Namely,  on  Buddhism,  the  Greeks  in  India,  the  Scythic  Inroads,  the 
Rise  of  Hinduism,  Early  Muhammadan  Rulers,  tfie  Mughal  Empire,  and 
the  Maratha  Power.  We  still  await  the  complete  evidence  of  coins  and 
inscriptions  ;  although  valuable  materials  have  been  already  obtained  from 
these  silent  memorials  of  the  past.  iMr.  K.  T.  Telang's  Introduction  to  the 
Mudrardkshasa,  with  Appendix,  shows  what  can  be  gathered  from  a 
minute  and  critical  examination  of  the  historical  data  incidentally  contained 
in  the  Hindu  drama. 


SIX  SOLVENTS  OF  BRAHMANISM.  131 

Those  attacks  mark  out  six  epochs.     First,  the  rehgious  up-  i.  Buddh- 

rising  of  the  non-Aryan  and  the  partially  Brahmanized  Aryan  '*''"• 

tribes  on  the  east  of  the  Middle  Land  of  Bengal ;  initiated  by 

the  preaching  of  Buddha  in  the  6th  century  B.C.,  culminating  in 

the  Buddhist  kingdoms  about  the  commencement  of  our  era, 

and  melting  into  modern  Hinduism  about  the  8th  century  a.d. 

Second, warlike  inroads  of  non-Brahmanical  Aryans  and  Scythic  2.  Greeks, 

races  from  the  west :  strongly  exemplified  by  the  Greek  invasions  f"*^'  , . 
•      ,  I  J  •      •  3        1^  -r,         •       'Scythians 

m  the  4th  century  B.C.,  and  contmumg  under  the  Greco-Bactnan 

empire  and  its  Scythic  rivals  to  probably  the  5th  century  a.d. 
Third,  the  influence  of  the  so-called  aborigines  or  non-Aryan  3.  Non- 
tribes  of  India  and  of  the  non-Aryan  low-castes  incorporated  ^H'^n 
into  the  Hindu  community;  an  influence  ever  at  work — indeed 
by  far  the  most  powerful  agent  in  dissolving  Brahmanism  into      \/ 
Hinduism,  and  specially  active  after  the  decline  of  Buddhism 
about  the  7th  century  a.d. 

Fourth,  the  reaction  against  the  low  beliefs,  priestly  oppres-  4.  Hindu 
sion,  and  bloody  rites  which  resulted  from  this  compromise  ^'^'^'^" 
between  Brahmanism  and  aboriginal  worship.      The  reaction 
received  an  impetus  from  the  preaching  of  Sankar  Acharya, 
who  founded  his  great  Sivaite  sect  in  the   8th  century  a.d. 
It    obtained    its   full    development    under    a  line    of  ardent 
Vishnuite  reformers  from  the  12th  to  the  i6th  centuries  a.d. 
The  fifth  solvent  of  the  ancient  Brahmanical  civilisation  of  5.  Muham- 
India  was  found  in  the  Muhammadan  invasions  and  the  rule  m-^Jans. 
of  Islam,    1000   to   1765  a.d.      The    sixth,    in    the   English  6.  English, 
supremacy,  and  in  the  popular  upheaval  which  it  has  produced 
in  the  i8th  and  19th  centuries.     Each  of  these  six  epochs  will, 
so  far  as  space   permits,  receive  separate   treatment   in   the 
following  chapters. 


[  132  ] 


CHAPTER   V. 

BUDDHISM    IN    INDIA    (543    B.C.    TO    lOOO   A.D.). 

Buddhism.  "Yhe  first  great  solvent  of  Brahmanism  was  the  teaching  of 

Gautama  Buddha.     The  life  of  this  celebrated  man  has  three 

sides, — its  personal  aspects,  its  legendary  developments,  and  its 

religious  consequences  upon  mankind.     In  his  own  person, 

Buddha  appears  as  a  prince  and  preacher  of  ancient  India. 

In  the  legendary  developments  of  his  story,  Buddha  ranks  as 

a  divine  teacher   among   his  followers,  as  an   incarnation  ot 

Gautama     Vishnu  among   the  Hindus,  and  as  a  saint  of  the  Christian 

Buddha,      church,  with  a  day  assigned  to  him  in  both  the  Greek  and 

Roman  calendars.     As  a  religious  founder,  he  left  behind  a 

system  of  belief  which  has  gained  more  disciples  than  any 

other  creed    in  the  world  ;   and  which   is  now  more  or  less 

accepted  by  500  millions  of  people,  or   nearly  one-half  the 

human  race.     According  to  the  Pali  texts,  Buddha  was  born 

622  B.C.,  and  died  543  b.c.^     Modern  calculations  fix  his  death 

about  480  B.c.^ 

The  story        'piig  story  of  Buddha's  earthly  career  is  a  typical  one.     It  is 

modelled  '  based  on  the  old  Indian  ideal  of  the  noble  life  which  we  have 

on  the  epic  seen  depicted  in  the  Sanskrit  epics.     Like  the  Pandavas  in 

^^^^^'  the  Mahabharata,  and  like  Rama  in  the  Ramayana,  Buddha  is 

the  miraculously  born  son  of  a  king,  belonging  to  one  of  the  two 

great  Aryan  lines,  the  Solar  and  the  Lunar  ;  in  Buddha's  case,  as 

in  Rama's,  to  the  Solar.    His  youth,  like  that  of  the  epic  heroes, 

is  spent  under  Brahman  tutors,  and  like  the  epic  heroes  he 

obtains  a  beautiful  bride  after  a  display  of  unexpected  prowess 

with  the  bow  ;  or,  as  the  northern  Buddhists  relate,  at  an  actual 

swayani-vara,  by  a  contest  in  arms  for  the  princess.    A  period  of 

voluntary  exile  follows  an  interval  of  married  happiness,  and 

Buddha  retires  like  Rama  to  a  Brahman's  hermitage  in  the  forest. 

Buddha  The  sending  back  of  the  charioteer  to  the  bereaved  father's 

capital  forms  an  episode  in  the  story  of  both  the  young  princes. 

As  in  the  Ramayana,  so  in  the  legend  of  Buddha,  it  is  to  the 

'  Childers'  Dictionary  of  the  Pali  Language,  s.v.  Buddho,  p.  96. 
^  Oldenberg's  Bitddha,  Sein  Leben  etc.   (Hoey's  excellent  translation, 
p.  197).      Vide  post,  p.  153. 


and  Rama. 


EARL  V  LIFE  OF  B  UDDHA.  133 

jungles  on  the  south  of  the  Ganges,  lying  between  the  Aryan 
settlements  and  the  aboriginal  races,  that  the  royal  exile 
repairs.  After  a  time  of  seclusion,  the  Pandavas,  Rama, 
uid  Buddha  alike  emerge  to  achieve  great  conquests;  the  two  The 
former  by  force  of  arms,  the  last  by  the  weapons  of  the  Spirit.  ig"^J^? 
Up  to  this  point  the  outline  of  the  three  stories  has  followed 
the  same  type  ;  but  henceforth  it  diverges.  The  Sanskrit  epics 
depict  the  ideal  Aryan  man  as  prince,  hermit,  and  hero.  In 
the  legend  of  Buddha,  that  ideal  has  developed  into  prince, 
hermit,  and  saint. 

Gautama,  afterwards  named   Buddha,   '  The    Enlightened,'  Parentage 
and  Siddhartha,  '  He  who  has  fulfilled  his  end,'  was  the  only  °^  ^^"' 

.  .  .  .  tama 

son  of  Suddhodana,  King  of  Kapilavastu.     This  prince,  the  Buddha, 
chief  of  the  Sakya  clan,  ruled  over  an  outlying  Aryan  settle- 
ment on  the  north-eastern  border  of  the  Middle  Land,  about  622  b.c. 
1   hundred  miles  to  the  north  of  Benares,  and  within  sight 
of  the  snow-topped  Himd^layas.     A  Gautama  Rajput  of  the 
noble  Solar  line,  be  wished  to  see  his  son  grow  up  on  the 
warlike  model  of  his  race.     But  the  young  prince  shunned  the  His  lonely 
sports  of  his  playmates,  and  retired  to  solitary  day-dreams  in  ^'°"^  '  ^^^' 
nooks  of  the  palace  garden.     The  king  tried  to  win  his  son  to 
a  practical  career  by  marrying  him  to  a  beautiful  and  talented 
^irl ;    and   the    youthful   Gautama    unexpectedly   proved    his 
manliness  by  a  victory  over  the  flower  of  the  young  chiefs  at 
a  tournament.      For  a  while  he  forgot  his  solemn  speculations 
on  the  unseen,  in  the  sweet  realities  of  early  married  life. 

But    in    his  drives    through    the  city  he    deeply   reflected  His  mar- 
on    the   types    of  old   age,    disease,    and   death   which    met  "f     ^   ' 

-'^  .  f^^-  19-29. 

his   eye  ;   and   he  was  powerfully  impressed  by  the  calm  of 

a  holy  man,  who  seemed  to  have  raised  his  soul  above  the 
changes  and  sorrows  of  this  world.     After  ten  years,  his  wife 
bore  to  him  an  only  son;  and  Gautama,  fearing  lest  this  new- 
tie  should  bind  him  too  closely  to  the  things  of  earth,  retired 
about  the  age  of  thirty  to  a  cave  among  the  forest-clad  spurs 
of  the  Vindhyas.     The  story  of  how  he  turned  away  from  the  His  Great 
door  of  his  wife's  lamp-lit  chamber,  denying  himself  even  a  ^^""ncia- 
parting  caress  of  his  new-born  babe  lest  he  should  wake  the  29-30. 
sleeping  mother,  and  galloped  off  into  the  darkness,  is  one  of 
the  many  tender  episodes  in  his  life.    After  a  gloomy  night  ride, 
he  sent  back  his  one  companion,  the  faithful  charioteer,  with 
his  horse  and  jewels  to  his  father.     Having  cut  off  his  long 
Rajput  locks,  and  exchanged  his  princely  raiment  for  the  rags 
f)f  a  poor  passer-by,   he  went  on  alone  a  homeless  beggar. 
This  abandonment  of  earthly  pomp  and  power,  and  of  loved 


134  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.  TO  1000  A.D. 


Buddha's 
forest  life, 

cEt.   30-36 

or  29-34. 


588  B.C. 


His  spiri- 
tual crisis. 


His  temp- 
tation. 


His  'En- 
lighten- 
ment.' 


wife  and  new-bom  son,  is  the  Great  Renunciation  which  forms 
a  favourite  theme  of  the  Buddhist  scriptures  in  Sanskrit,  Pali, 
Tibetan,  and  Chinese.  It  has  furnished,  during  twenty  cen- 
turies, the  type  of  self-sacrifice  which  all  Indian  reformers  must 
follow  if  they  are  to  win  the  trust  of  the  people. 

For  a  time  Buddha  studied  under  two  Brahman  recluses,  near 
Rajagriha,  in  Patna  District,  learning  from  them  that  the 
path  to  divine  knowledge  and  tranquillity  of  soul  lies  through 
the  subjection  of  the  flesh.  He  then  buried  himself  deeper  in 
the  south-eastern  jungles,  which  at  that  time  covered  Gaya 
District,  and  during  six  years  wasted  himself  by  austerities 
in  company  with  five  disciples.  The  temple  of  Buddh-Gaya 
marks  the  site  of  his  long  penance.  But  instead  of  earning 
peace  of  mind  by  fasting  and  self-torture,  he  reached  a  crisis 
of  religious  despair,  during  which  the  Buddhist  scriptures 
affirm  that  the  enemy  of  mankind,  J\Iara,  wrestled  with  him 
in  bodily  shape.  Torn  with  doubts  as  to  whether,  after  all 
his  penance,  he  was  not  destined  to  perdition,  the  haggard 
ascetic,  in  a  final  paroxysm,  fell  senseless  to  the  earth. 

When  he  recovered,  the  mental  struggle  had  passed.  He 
felt  that  the  path  to  salvation  lay  not  in  self-torture  in  a 
mountain  cave,  but  in  preaching  a  higher  life  to  his  fellow- 
men.  His  five  disciples,  shocked  by  his  giving  up  penance, 
forsook  him  ;  and  Buddha  was  left  in  solitude  to  face  the  ques- 
tion whether  he  alone  was  right  and  all  the  devout  minds  of 
his  age  were  wrong.  The  Buddhist  scriptures  depict  him  as 
sitting  serene  under  a  fig-tree,  while  the  great  Enemy  and  his 
crew  whirled  round  him  with  flaming  weapons.  'When  the 
conflict  began  between  the  Saviour  of  the  World  and  the 
Prince  of  Evil,'  says  one  of  their  sacred  texts,^  the  earth  shook  ; 
the  sea  uprose  from  her  bed,  the  rivers  turned  back  to  the 
mountains,  the  hill-tops  fell  crashing  to  the  plains,  the  sun  was 
darkened,  and  a  host  of  headless  spirits  rode  upon  the  tempest. 
From  his  temptation  in  the  wilderness,  the  ascetic  emerged 
with  his  doubts  for  ever  laid  at  rest,  seeing  his  way  clear,  and 
henceforth  to  be  known  as  Buddha,  literally  'The  Enlightened.'- 

This  was  Buddha's  second  birth ;  and  the  pipal  fig  or 
Bo  (Bodhi),  literally  the  Tree  of  the  Enlightenment,  under 
whose  spreading  branches  its  pangs  were  endured,  has  become 

^  The  Madhurattha-Vilasini,  yoia-nal  of  the  Bengal  Asiatic  Society,  vol. 
vii.  p.  812.      Rhys  Davids'  Buddhism,  p.  36. 

=*  According  to  the  Ceylonese  texts,  IBuddha  'obtained  Buddhahood  '  in 
588  B.C.  This  would  make  him  34,  not  36  years  of  age.  Childers'  Paii 
Dictionary,  s.v.  Buddho. 


POPULAR  PREACHING  OF  BUDDHA.       135 

tlic    sacred    tree   of    500   millions    of   mankind.      It   is   the 
licus   religiosa   of  Western  science.     The  idea  of  a  second 
birth  was  familiar  to  the  twice-born  Aryan  castes  of  ancient  His  story 
India,    and  was   represented   by   their   race-ceremony   of  in-  follows  the 
vesting   the   boy  at   the  close  of  childhood  with  the  sacred  types, 
thread.     In  this,  as  in  its  other  features,  the  story  of  Buddha 
adheres   to  ancient  Aryan  types,   but  gives  to  them  a  new 
spiritual  significance.     Having  passed  through  the  three  pre- 
scribed stages  of  the  Aryan    saintly  life, — as  learner,  house- 
liolder,  and  forest  recluse, — he  now  entered  on  its  fourth  stage 
as   a  religious  mendicant.     But  he  developed  from  the  old 
IJrahmanical  model  of  the  wandering  ascetic,  intent  only  on 
saving  his  own  soul,  the  nobler  type  of  the  preacher,  striving 
to  bring  deliverance  to  the  souls  of  others. 

Two  months  after  his  temptation  in  the  wilderness,  Buddha  Public 
commenced  his  public  teaching  in  the   Deer- Forest,  on  the  l?^j^/u^ °* 
outskirts  of  the  great  city  of  Benares.     Unlike  the  Brahmans,  cvt.  36-80. 
he  addressed  himself,  not  to  one  or  two  disciples  of  the  sacred 
caste,  but  to  the  mass  of  the  people.     His  first  converts  were 
laymen,   and  among  the  earliest  were  women.     After  three 
months  of  ministry,  he  had  gathered  around  him  sixty  disciples, 
whom  he  sent  forth  to  the  neighbouring  countries  with  these  He  sends 
words  :  '  Go  ye  now  and  preach  the  most  excellent  Law.'    The  ^?.''^^  '^^ 
essence  of  his  teaching  was  the  deliverance  of  man  from  the 
sins  and  sorrows  of  life  by  self-renunciation  and  inward  self- 
control.     While  the  sixty  disciples  went  on  their  missionary 
tour  among  the  populace,  Buddha  converted  certain  celebrated 
hermits  and  fire-worshippers  by  an   exposition  of  the  philo- 
sophical   side    of    his    doctrine.      AVith    this    new    band    he 
journeyed   on   to  Rajagriha,  where  the    local  king   and   his 
subjects  joined  the  faith,  but  where  also  he  first  experienced 
the  fickleness  of  the  multitude.     Two-thirds  of  each  year  he 
spent  as  a  wandering  preacher.    The  remaining  four  months  of 
the  rainy  season  he  abode  at  some  fixed  place,  often  near 
Rajagriha,  teaching  the  people  who  flocked  around  his  little 
dwelling  in  the  bamboo  grove.     His  five  old  disciples,  who  He  con- 
had  forsaken  him  in  the  time  of  his  sore  temptation  in  the  '>'^"s  tue 
wilderness,  penitently  rejoined  their   master.      Princes,   mer- 
chants,  artificers,    Brahmans   and    hermits,   husbandmen   and 
serfs,  noble  ladies  and  repentant  courtesans,  were  yearly  added 
to  those  who  believed. 

Buddha    preached    throughout    a    large     part    of    Behar,  in  the 
Oudh,    and    the    adjacent    Districts   in    the   North  -  Western  Gangetic 
Provinces.      In  after   ages   monasteries   marked   his   halting- 


136  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

places ;    and    the    principal     scenes    of    his    life,    such    as 

AjODHYA,  Buddh-Gaya,  Sravasti,  the  modern  Sahet  Mahet, 

Rajagriha,  etc.,  became  the  great  places  of  pilgrimage  for 

the  Buddhist  world.     His  visit  to  his  aged  father  at  Kapila- 

vastu,  whence  he  had  gone  forth  as  a  brilliant  young  prince, 

and  to  which  he  returned  as  a  wandering  preacher,  in  dingy 

yellow  robes,  with  shaven  head  and  the  begging  bowl  in  his 

hand,  is  a  touching  episode  which  appeals  to  the  heart  of 

Buddha      universal  mankind.     The  old  king  heard  him  with  reverence. 

converts     "Yho.  son,  whom  Buddha  had  left  as  a  new-born  babe,  was 

family.       converted    to    the    faith ;    and    his    beloved    wife,    from    the 

threshold  of  whose  chamber  he  had  ridden  away  into   the 

darkness,  became  one  of  the  first  of  Buddhist  nuns. 

The  Great  Renunciation  took  place  in  his  twenty-ninth  year. 

After  silent   self-preparation,  his  public  ministry  commenced 

in  his  thirty-sixth,  and  during  forty-four  years  he  preached  to 

He  pro-      the    people.       In    prophesying    his    death,    he    said    to    his 

deat^^  ^'^  followers  :  '  Be  earnest,  be  thoughtful,  be  holy.     Keep  stedfast 

watch  over  your  own  hearts.     He  who  holds  fast  to  the  law 

and  discipline,  and  faints  not,  he  shall  cross  the  ocean  of  life 

and  make  an  end  of  sorrow.'     He  spent   his   last  night  in 

preaching,   and  in  comforting  a  weeping  disciple ;  his  latest 

Buddha's    words,  according  to  one  account,  were,  '  Work  out  your  salva- 

last  words,  tion  with  diligence.'     He  died  calmly,  at  the  age  of  eighty,^ 

■  ■      under  the  shadow  of  a  fig-tree,   at   Kusinagara,  the  modern 

Kasia,  in  Gorakhpur  District. 

Different         Such  is  the  story  of  Gautama  Buddha's  life  derived  from 

versions      Indian  sources,  a  story  which  has  the  value  of  gospel  truth  to 

Legend       3^  millions'-  of  devout  believers.     But  the  two  branches  even 

of  Indian  or  Southern  Buddhism  have  each  their  own  version, 

and  the  Buddha  of  the  Burmese  differs  in  important  respects 

from  the  Buddha  of  the  Ceylonese.-'     Still  wider  is  the  diver- 

^  According  to  some  accounts  ;  according  to  others,  at  about  seventy. 

But  the  chronology  of  Buddha's  life  is  legendary. 

-  The  following  estimate  is  given  by  Mr.  Rhys  Davids  of  the  number 

of  the  Southern  Buddhists,  substituting  for  his  Indian  figures  the  results 

ascertained  by  the  Census  of  1S81 : — 

In  Ceylon, 1,520,575 

,,  India  and  British  Burma,         .         .         .         nearly  4,000,000 
,,  Burma,  ........  3,000,000 

,,  Siam,     ........  10,000,000 

,,  Anam,    ........         12,000,000 

,,  Jains,      ........  485,020 

Total,  .         .         31.005,595 
•*  The  original  Pali  text  of  the  CoDDiicntary  of  the  Jdtaklias  is  assigned 


LATER   YEARS  OF  BUDDHA.  137 

gence  which  the  Northern  or  Tibetan  Buddhists  give  to  the 
legend  of  the  life  and  to  the  teaching  of  their  Master.  The 
southern  texts  dwell  upon  the  early  career  of  Buddha  up  to 
the  time  of  his  Enlightenment  in  his  34th  or  36th  year.  The 
incidents  of  that  period  have  a  peculiar  pathos,  and  appeal  to 
the  most  sacred  experiences  of  humanity  in  all  ages.  They 
form  the  favourite  episodes  of  European  works  on  Buddhism. 
But  such  works  are  apt  to  pay  perhaps  too  little  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  first  thirty-four  years  of  Buddha's  life  were 
only  a  self-preparation  for  a  social  and  religious  propaganda 
prolonged  to  an  extreme  old  age. 

The  forty-six  3'ears  of  intense  personal  labour,  during  which  Later 
Buddha  traversed  wide  regions,  converted  nations,  withstood  j^^^J^i^ 
kings,  eluded  assassins,  and  sifted  out  false  disciples,  receive 
more  attention  in  the  northern  legends.  These  legends  have 
lately  been  compiled  from  the  Tibetan  texts  into  a  work  which 
furnishes  a  new  and  most  interesting  view  of  Buddha's  life.^ 
The  best  authority  on  the  Southern  Buddhism  of  Burma  states 
that  the  history  of  the  Master  '  offers  an  almost  complete  blank 
as  to  what  regards  his  doings  and  preachings  during  a  period 
of  nearly  twenty-three  years.'  ^ 

The  texts  of  the   Northern  Buddhists  fill  up   this   blank.  Northern 
Southern  Buddhism  modelled  its  biographies  of  the  Master 

to  Ceylonese  scribes,  chx.  450  A.D.  The  first  part  of  it  was  pubhshed  by 
Fausbcill  in  1875  (Copenhagen)  ;  and  Mr.  Rhys  Davids'  translation,  with 
valuable  introduction  and  notes,  appeared  under  the  title  of  Buddhist 
Birth  Stories  \vi  1880  (Trubner,  London).  Mr.  Childers'  Dictionary  of  the 
Pali  Language  is  a  storehouse  of  original  materials  from  Ceylonese  sources, 
and  has  been  used  for  verifying  all  statements  in  the  present  chapter.  A 
compendious  view  of  Southern  Buddhism,  ancient  and  modern,  will  be 
found  in  Spence  W&xAy^s  Manual  of  Btiddhism,  translated  from  Singalese 
MS.  The  Burmese  branch  of  Southern  Buddhism  is  well  represented  by 
Bishop  Bigandet's  Life  or  Legend  of  Gaudama  (third  edition,  2  vols., 
Trubner,  1880),  and  by  Mr.  Alabaster's  Ihe  Wheel  of  the  Latu,  a  transla- 
tion or  paraphrase  of  the  Siamese  Pathama  Sambodhiyan.  Mr.  Rhys 
Davids'  Buddhism,  and  his  Hibheit  Lectures,  give  an  excellent  review  of 
the  faith.  The  French  works,  the  original  authorities  in  Europe,  have  (in 
some  respects)  been  superseded  by  Oldenberg's  Buddha,  Sein  Lebcn  etc. 

1  Tlie  Life  of  the  Buddha,  and  the  Early  History  of  his  Order,  derived 
from  Itbetan  Works  in  the  Bkah-hgyur  and  Bstan-hgyur,  translated  by 
W.  Woodville  Rockhill,  Second  Secretary  to  the  United  States  Legation 
in  China  (Trubner  &  Co.,  London  1884).  Mr.  Beal's  Si-yu-ki,  or 
Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World,  translated  from  the  Chinese  of 
Hiuen  Tsiang,  throws  curious  side-lights  upon  the  traditions  which  the 
Chinese  pilgrim  brought  with  him  or  heard  in  India  regarding  the  local 
incidents  of  Buddha's  life. 

-  From  the  lifty-sixth  to  the  seventy-ninth  year  of  his  life.  Bishop 
jBigandet's  Life  or  Legend  of  Gaudama,  vol.  i.  p.  260,  and  footnote. 


138 


BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  looo  A.D. 


The 
Indian 
epic  type ; 


The 

Tibetan 

iype. 


The  philo- 
sophical 
type 


of  the 

Southern 

Buddha. 


The 

northern 
concrete 
type. 


upon  the  Indian  epic  type.  Such  biographies,  as  already  stated, 
reproduce  the  three  stages  in  the  Ufe  of  an  Aryan  hero,  depicted 
by  the  Mahabharata  and  Ramayana;  except  that  the  three 
ideal  stages  have  developed  from  those  of  prince,  hermit,  and 
warrior,  to  those  of  prince,  hermit,  and  saint.  In  the  northern 
conditions  of  China  and  Tibet,  Buddha  appears  by  no  means  as 
an  Aryan  hero.  He  is  rather  the  representative  of  a  race  with 
birth-customs  and  death-rites  of  its  own — of  a  race  dwelling 
amid  the  epic  Aryan  kingdoms  of  India,  but  with  traces  of  a 
separate  identity  in  the  past.  He  is  a  Sakya  (perhaps  a 
Scythic)  prince,  whose  clan  had  settled  to  the  south  of  the 
Himalayas,  and  preserved  relics  of  a  non-Aryan  type. 

The  artificial  character  which  the  southern  legends  give  to 
the  life  of  Buddha,  arose  from  their  tendency  to  assimilate  him 
with  epic  Indian  types.  It  was  intensified  by  the  equally  Indian 
tendency  to  convert  actual  facts  into  philosophical  abstractions. 
Gautama  or  Sakya-Muni  became  only  a  link  in  a  long  series  of 
just  men  made  perfect.  According  to  the  Ceylonese  texts,  a 
Buddha  is  a  human  being  who  has  obtained  perfect  self-control 
and  infinite  knowledge.  Having  attained  Enlightenment  himself, 
he  spends  the  rest  of  his  life  in  preaching  the  truth  to  others. 
At  his  death  he  is  reabsorbed  into  the  Divine  Essence,  and  his 
religion  flourishes  for  a  certain  period  until  it  dies  out,  and  a  new 
Buddha  appears  to  preach  anew  the  lost  truth.  The  attainment 
of  Buddhahood  is  the  final  result  ofvirtue  and  self-sacrifice  during 
many  previous  lives.  Innumerable  Buddhas  have  been  born 
in  this  world ;  24  of  whom  are  separately  named.  Gautama  was 
only  the  latest,  and  his  doctrine  is  destined  to  give  place  to  the 
Metteya  Buddha,  or  Buddha  of  Kindness,  who  is  next  to  come.^ 

The  Buddha  of  the  northern  legends  is  a  reformer  of  a  more 
concrete  type.  The  Tibetan  texts  give  prominence  to  the 
political  aspects  of  his  Reformation.  Incidentally,  indeed,  they 
amplify  several  of  the  touching  episodes  familiar  to  Southern 
Buddhism.  The  '  great  Fear '  which  impelled  the  young  prince 
forth  from  his  palace  into  the  darkness  to  seek  a  higher  life ; 
the  dirt  and  stones  thrown  at  the  wanderer  by  the  village  girls  ; 
the  parables  of  the  Mango-tree,  the  Devout  Slave,  and  many 
others ;  the  rich  young  man  who  left  all  for  the  faith  and 
was  not  exceeding  sorry ;  and  Buddha's  own  retirement  from 
Benares  to  avoid  the  gifts  and  honours  which  were  being  thrust 
upon  him, — receive  fresh  illustration  from  the  Tibetan  texts. - 

■^  Mr.  Childers'  Pali  Dictionary.^  p.  96.      Sanskrit,  Ma'traya. 
-  The  materials  for  the  following  paragraphs  are  derived  mainly  from 
Mr.  Rockhill's  work  (1884),  already  cited. 


POLITICAL  ASPECTS  OF  BUDDHA.         139 

But  it  is  from  the  political  and  historical  aspects  that  the  ToHtical 
Tibetan  life  of  Buddha  possesses  its  special  value.  We  learn  l'^^°( 
that  Buddhism  was  m  its  origin  only  one  of  many  conflicting 
sects ;  indeed,  that  alike  to  its  royal  patrons  and  opponents  it 
appeared  at  first  in  the  light  of  a  new  order  rather  than  in  the 
light  of  a  new  faith.  ^  The  early  struggles  of  Buddhism  were 
neither  with  the  old  Aryan  gods,  nor  with  the  Brahmans  as  a 
caste ;  but  with  rival  orders  of  philosophers  or  ascetics,  and 
with  schismatics  among  its  own  followers.  The  gods  of  the 
Veda,  Brahma,  Indra,  and  the  Shining  Ones,  appear  in  friendly 
relations  with  Buddha,  and  attend  upon  him  in  more  than  one 
crisis  of  his  life.  The  Brahmans  were  no  longer  a  caste  alto- 
gether devoted  to  a  spiritual  life.  The  Tibetan  texts  disclose 
them  as  following  partly  religious,  partly  secular  avocations, 
and  as  among  '  the  great  nobles '  of  an  Indian  kingdom.  The 
Brahman  attitude  to  the  new  faith  was  by  no  means  one  of  con- 
federate hostility.  The  main  body  of  Brahmans  continued  non- 
Buddhistic,  and  taught  their  doctrines  at  royal  courts.  But  many 
conspicuous  converts  were  drawn  from  among  them,  and  the 
Tibetan  texts  almost  uniformly  speak  of  Brahmans  with  respect. 

The  opponents   of  the   Tibetan    Buddha  were   rival  sects  Buddha's 

whom    he  found   in   possession   of  the   field,  and   the   false  '^^''^^ 
11  1  1  •  T     •    1  rr-.,  ,  •.      opponents. 

brethren   who   arose   among   his   own    disciples.     The   older 

hostile  sects  were  confuted,  sometimes  by  fair  discussion,  but 

more  often  by  superior  magical  feats.    Indeed,  transformations 

and  miraculous  appearances  seem  for  a  time  to  have  furnished 

the  most  potent  arguments  of  the  new  faith.     But  eventually 

Buddha  forbade  resort  to  such  testimonies,  and  magic  became 

to  the  orthodox  Buddhist  an  unholy  art.     In  his  later  years, 

Buddha  more  than  once  insists  that  his  doctrine  is  essentially 

one  to  be  understanded  of  the  people  ;  that  he  was  keeping  back  His 

no  secret  for  an  initiated  few ;  and  that  he  was  the  preacher  "'''^g'cal 

of  a  strictly  popular  religion  without  any  esoteric  side. 

It   was   from  among   his   own  disciples   that   his  bitterest 

enemies  came.     The  Sakya  race  of  Kapilavastu  had  adopted 

his  teaching  as  a  nation,  without  much  pretence  of  individual 

conversion.     Buddha's  modest  beginnings,  first  with  the  five 

followers,  then  with  the  sixty,  then  with  the  thousand,  now  Wholesale 

took  a  national  development.      In  the  fervour  of  the   new  ^^'^y^-  . 

1-11  ,-  conversion 

movement,  the  bakyas  proclaimed  that  one  man  out  of  every 

family  must  enter  the  Buddhist  mendicant  order ;  and  it  was 

from  this  ordinance,  to  which  Buddha  was  compelled  to  give  a 

reluctant  assent,  that  the  troubles  of  his  later  life  arose. 

1  Rockhill,  op.  cit.     Also  Rhys  Davids'  Hi! bert  Lectures,  p.  156. 


140 


BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 


Schism  of 
Devadatta. 


His  fall 
into  hell. 

Buddha, 
the  Sakya 
prince. 


Disasters 
of  his  race. 


The  discontent  among  the  forced  disciples  found  a  leader 
in  Buddha's  own  cousin,  Devadatta,  who  aspired  by  superior 
asceticism  to  the  headship.  For  the  schism  which  he  created, 
Devadatta  won  the  support  of  the  Heir-apparent  of  Magadha. 
A  struggle,  partly  religious  partly  political,  ensued.  Devadatta 
was  for  a  time  triumphant.  He  abetted  the  murder  of  the 
Magadha  king,  the  father  of  his  ally ;  forced  the  aged  Buddha 
into  retirement ;  and  plundered  and  oppressed  the  people. 
The  miraculous  deliverances  of  '  the  Blessed  One '  from  the 
catapult,  and  from  the  wild  elephant  let  loose  against  him  in  a 
narrow  street,  mark,  however,  the  turning-point  in  the  fortunes 
of  the  schism.  Devadatta  was  confuted  by  magical  arts,  and 
his  royal  patron  was  converted  to  the  true  faith.  The  traitor 
disciple  having  thus  failed  to  usurp  the  spiritual  leadership  of 
the  Sakyas,  attempted  to  seduce  the  wife  whom  Buddha  had 
left  in  sohtude.  The  apostate  hoped  with  her  aid  to  stand 
forth  as  the  king  or  temporal  leader  of  the  Sakya  race.  His 
contemptuous  rejection  by  the  loyal  Sakya  princess,  his  acts  of 
despairing  cruelty,  and  his  fall  into  hell  with  a  lie  in  his  mouth, 
fitly  close  the  career  of  the  lirst  great  schismatic. 

Throughout  the  Tibetan  texts,  Buddha  figures  as  a  typical 
Sakya ;  first  as  a  young  Kshattriya  or  prince  of  the  royal  line, 
and  then  as  a  saintly  personage  who  turns  back  an  army  sent 
against  his  nation  by  the  force  of  his  piety  alone.  Such 
spiritual  weapons,  however,  proved  a  feeble  defence  in  early 
India.  Eventually,  the  Sakya  capital  was  attacked  by  over- 
whelming numbers.  For  a  time  the  enemy  were  repulsed 
without  the  Buddhists  incurring  the  sin  of  taking  life.  But 
their  firm  adherence  to  their  Master's  commandment,  '  Thou 
shalt  not  kill,'  in  the  end  decided  the  fate  of  the  Sakya  city. 
Some  escaped  into  exile  and  founded  settlements  in  distant 
parts  as  far  as  the  other  side  of  the  Punjab  frontier.  The  fall 
of  the  city  ended  in  the  slaughter  of  77,000  Sakyas,  and  in 
the  dispersion  of  the  remnants  of  the  race.  The  story  of  the 
five  hundred  Sakya  youths  and  five  hundred  Sakya  maidens 
who  were  carried  into  captivity  is  a  pathetic  one.  The  five 
hundred  youths  were  massacred  in  cold  blood;  and  the  faithful 
Sakya  maidens,  having  refused  to  enter  the  harem  of  their 
conqueror,  were  exposed  to  the  populace  with  their  hands  and 
feet  chopped  off.  How  Buddha  came  to  them  in  their  misery, 
dressed  their  wounds,  and  comforted  them  with  the  hope  of  a 
better  life,  '  so  that  they  died  in  the  faith,'  is  affectingly  told. 

The  foregoing  narrative  touches  only  on  one  or  two  aspects 
of  the  Tibetan  texts.     It  suffices  to  show  the  characteristic 


B  UDDHA'S  D  0  C TRINE  OF  KA RMA.         1 4 1 

divergences   between  the  northern  and  the  southern  legend.  Other 
In  the  northern,  there  is  a  gradually  developed  contrast  be-  of^th'e^ 
tween  two  main  figures,  the  traitor  Devadatta  and  his  brother  Tibetan 
Ananda,   the  Beloved   Disciple.     The  last  year  of  Buddha's  legend, 
ministry  is  dwelt  on  by  both.     But  its  full  significance  and  its 
most  tender  episodes  are  treated  with  special  unction  in  the 
northern  version  of  the  Book  of  the  Great  Decease.    The  Fo-wei- 
kian-king,^  or  '  Dying  Instruction  of  Buddha,'  translated  into 
Chinese  between  397  and  415  a.d.  from  a  still  earlier  Sanskrit 
text,  gives  to  the  last  scene  a  peculiar  beauty.    '  It  was  now  in  the  Chinese 
middle  of  the  night,'  it  says,  'perfectly  quiet  and  still;  for  the  sake  lf''''i^^  -. 
of  his  disciples,  he  delivered  a  summary  of  the  law.'    After  laying  dying  dis- 
down  the  rules  of  a  good  life,  he  revealed  the  inner  doctrines  of  course, 
his  faith.    From  these  a  few  sentences  may  be  taken.    'The  heart 
is  lord  of  the  senses  :  govern,  therefore,  your  heart ;  watch  well 
the  heart'     'Think  of  the  fire  that  shall  consume  the  world, 
and  early  seek  deliverance  from  it.'     '  Lament  not  my  going 
away,  nor  feel  regret.     For  if  I  remained  in  the  world,  then 
what  would  become  of  the  church  ?     It  must  perish  without 
fulfilling  its  end.     From  henceforth  all  my  disciples,  practising 
their  various  duties,  shall  prove  that  my  true  Body,  the  Body  The 
of  the  Law   (D/iarmakayo),   is  everlasting  and  imperishable.  '^??!'^\"f^ 
The  world  is  fast  bound  in  fetters ;  I  now  give  it  deliverance, 
as   a  physician  who  brings  heavenly  medicine.     Keep  your 
mind  on  my  teaching ;  all  other  things  change,  this  changes 
not.     No  more  shall  I  speak  to  you.     I  desire  to  depart.     I 
desire  the  eternal  rest  {Nirvana).     This  is  my  last  exhortation.' 

The  secret  of  Buddha's  success  was  that  he  brought  spiritual 
deliverance  to  the  people.  He  preached  that  salvation  was 
equally  open  to  all  men,  and  that  it  must  be  earned,  not  by 
propitiating  imaginary  deities,  but  by  our  own  conduct.  His 
doctrines  thus  cut  away  the  religious  basis  of  caste,  impaired  the 
efficiency  of  the  sacrificial  ritual,  and  assailed  the  supremacy  of 
the  Brahmans  as  the  mediators  between  God  and  man.  Buddha 
taught  that  sin,  sorrow,  and  deliverance,  the  state  of  a  man  in  this 
life,  in  all  previous  and  in  all  future  lives,  are  the  inevitable  results 
of  his  own  acts  {Karma).  He  thus  applied  the  inexorable  law  of  Law  of 
cause  and  effect  to  the  soul.     What  a  man  sows,  he  must  reap.  -^'^''""^• 

As  no  evil  remains  without  punishment,  and  no  good  deed 
without  reward,  it  follows  that  neither  priest  nor  God  can  prevent 

'  Translated  in  Appendix  to  the  Catalogiie  of  the  Manuscripts  presented 
by  the  Japanese  Government  to  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  and  now 
in  the  India  Office. — Concluding  letter  of  Mr.  Beal  to  Dr.  Rost,  dated 
1st  September  1S74,  see.  5. 


142  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

each  act  bearing  its  own  consequences.  Misery  or  happiness  in 
this  life  is  the  unavoidable  result  of  our  conduct  in  a  past  life  ; 
and  our  actions  here  will  determine  our  happiness  or  misery 
in  the  life  to  come.  When  any  creature  dies,  he  is  born  again 
in  some  higher  or  lower  state  of  existence,  according  to  his 
meri  or  demerit.  His  merit,  or  demerit,  that  is  his  character, 
consists  of  the  sum  total  of  his  actions  in  all  previous  lives. 

By  this  great  law  of  Karma,  Buddha  explained  the  inequali- 
ties and  apparent  injustice  of  man's  estate  in  this  world  as 
the  consequence  of  acts  in  the  past ;  while  Christianity 
compensates  those  inequalities  by  rewards  in  the  future.  A 
system  in  which  our  whole  well-being,  past,  present,  and  to 
come,  depends  on  ourselves,  theoretically  leaves  little  room  for 
the  interference,  or  even  existence,  of  a  personal  God.^  But 
the  atheism  of  Buddha  was  a  philosophical  tenet,  which  so 
far  from  weakening  the  sanctions  of  right  and  wrong,  gave  them 
new  strength  from  the  doctrine  of  Karma,  or  the  Metem- 
psychosis of  Character. 
The  liber-  To  free  ourselves  from  the  thraldom  of  desire  and  from  the 
the  soul,  fritters  of  selfishness,  was  to  attain  to  the  state  of  the  perfect 
disciple,  Arahat  in  this  life,  and  to  the  everlasting  rest  after 
Nirvana,  death.  Nirvana.  Some  Buddhists  explain  Ninmia  as  absolute 
annihilation,  when  the  soul  is  blown  out  like  the  flame  of  a 
lamp.  Others  hold  that  it  is  merely  the  extinction  of  the 
sins,  sorrows,  and  selfishness  of  individual  life.  The  fact  is, 
that  the  doctrine  underwent  processes  of  change  and  develop- 
ment, like  all  theological  dogmas.  '  But  the  earliest  idea 
of  Nirvana^  says  one  of  the  greatest  authorities  on  Chinese 
Buddhism,  'seems  to  have  included  in  it  no  more  than  the 
enjoyment  of  a  state  of  rest  consequent  on  the  extinction 
of  all  causes  of  sorrow.''^  The  great  practical  aim  of  Buddha's 
teaching  was  to  subdue  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  the  cravings 
of  self;  and  Nirvana  has  been  taken  to  mean  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  sinful  grasping  condition  of  heart  which,  by  the 
inevitable  law  oi  Karma,  would  involve  the  penalty  of  renewed 
individual  existence.  As  the  Buddhist  strove  to  reach  a 
state  of  quietism  or  holy  meditation  in  this  world,  namely,  the 

^  'Buddhism,'  says  Mr.  Beal,  Catena  of  Buddhist  Scriptures,  p.  153, 
'  declares  itself  ignorant  of  any  mode  of  jjersonal  existence  compatible  with 
the  idea  of  spiritual  perfection,  and  so  far,  it  is  ignorant  of  God.' 

"  Beal,  Catena  of  Buddhist  Scriptures  from  the  Chinese,  p.  157,  cil. 
1871  ;  and  the  Buddhist  Tripitaka,  App.,  Letter  to  Dr.  Rost,  sec.  6.  Max 
Midler  deals  with  the  word  from  the  etymological  and  Sanskrit  side  in  his 
Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  vol.  i.  pp.  279,  290,  ed.  1S67.  But  see, 
specially,  Childers'  Pdli  Dictionary,  s.v.  Nilbdnam,  pp.  265-274. 


MISSIONARY  WORK  OF  BUDDHISM.       143 

state  of  the  perfect  disciple  or  Arahat ;  so  he  looked  forward 
to  an  eternal  calm  in  a  world  to  come,  Nin'dna. 

Buddha  taught  that  this  end  could  only  be  attained  by  the  Moral 
practice  of  virtue.     He  laid  down  eight  precepts  of  morality,  ^°  '^' 
with  two  more  for  the  religious  orders,  making  ten  command- 
ments {dasasila)  in  all.     He  arranged  the  besetting  faults  of 
mankind  into  ten  sins,  and  set  forth  the  special  duties  appli-  The  Ten 
cable  to  each  condition  of  life ;   to  parents  and  children,  to  nients. 
pupils  and  teachers,  to  husbands  and  wives,  to  masters  and 
servants,  to  laymen  and  the  religious  orders.     In  place  of  the 
Brahman  rites  and    sacrifices,  Buddha    prescribed  a  code  of 
practical   morality   as    the   means    of    salvation.       The   four 
essential   features  of  that  code  were— reverence   to  spiritual 
teachers  and  parents,  control  over  self,  kindness  to  other  men, 
and  reverence  for  the  life  of  all  sentient  creatures. 

He  urged  on  his  disciples  that  they  must  not  only  follow  Missionar>- 

the  true  path  themselves,  but  that  they  should  preach  it  to  all  ^^P?^!^.  °^ 
,  .     ,       ^     ,  ,,  .  ,         -  ■,       r         1  •     -  Buddhism. 

mankmd.     Buddhism   has  from   the  first  been   a   missionary 

religion.  One  of  the  earliest  acts  of  Buddha's  public  ministry 
was  to  send  forth  the  Sixty  ;  and  he  carefully  formulated  the 
four  chief  means  of  conversion.  These  were  companionship 
with  the  good,  listening  to  the  Law,  reflection  upon  the  truths 
heard,  and  the  practice  of  virtue.  He  also  instituted  a  re- 
ligious Order,  one  of  whose  special  duties  it  was  to  go  forth 
and  preach  to  the  nations.  While,  therefore,  the  Brahmans 
kept  their  ritual  for  the  twice-born  Aryan  castes.  Buddhism 
addressed  itself  not  only  to  those  castes  and  to  the  lower 
mass  of  the  people,  but  to  all  the  non-Aryan  races  through- 
out India,  and  eventually  to  almost  the  whole  Asiatic  world. 
Two  features  of  the  Buddhist  Order  were  its  fortnightly 
meetings  and  public  confession,  or  '  Disburdenment '  of  sins. 

On  the  death  of  Buddha,  five  hundred  of  his  disciples  met  The  First 
in  a  vast  cave  near  Rajagriha  to  gather  together  his  sayings.  r?""'^c'(?) 
This  was    the  First  Council.     They  chanted  the   lessons  of 
their  master  in  three  great  divisions — the  words  of  Buddha  to 
his  disciples;^    his  code  of   discipline;-   and  his   system  of 
doctrine.^     These  became  the  Three  Collections  *  of  Buddha's 
teaching;    and   the  word   for    a   Buddhist    Council^    means 
literally  '  a  singing  together.'     A  century  afterwards,  a  Second  Second 
Council,  of  seven  hundred,  was  held  at  Vaisali,  to  settle  disputes  c^un^-j'f 
between  the  more  and  the  less  strict  followers  of  Buddhism.  443  b.c.  \}) 
It  condemned  a  system  of  ten  '  Indulgences '  which  had  grown 

^  Sii/ras.  ^  Vinaya.  ^  Abhidharma. 

■*  Filakas,  lit.  '  baskets  ; '  afterwards  the  five  A^ikdyas.      ^  Saugifi  in  Pali. 


144  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

up  ;   but  it  led  to  the  separation  of  the  Buddhists  into   two 
hostile  parties,  who  afterwards  split  into  eighteen  sects. 
^I^'J?  During  the  next  two  hundred  years  Buddhism  spread  over 

Council,      Northern  India,  perhaps  receiving  a  new  impulse  from  the  Greek 
244  B.C.  (?)  kingdoms  in  the  Punjab.    About  257  B.C.,  Asoka,  the  King  of 
Magadha  or  Behar,  became  a  zealous  convert  to  the  faith. ^  Asoka 
was  grandson  of  the  Chandra  Gupta  whom  we  shall  meet  as  an 
adventurer  in  Alexander's  camp,  and  afterwards  as  an  ally  of 
Seleukos.     Asoka  is  said  to  have  supported  64,000  Buddhist 
priests  ;  he  founded  many  religious  houses,  and  his  kingdom  is 
called  the  Land  of  the  Monasteries  (Vihara  or  Behar)  to  this  day. 
The  work       Asoka  did  for  Buddhism  what  Constantine  afterwards  effected 
for  Christianity ;  he  organized  it  on  the  basis  of  a  State  reli- 
gion.    This   he  accomplished  by  five  means — by  a  Council 
to  settle  the  faith,  by  edicts  promulgating  its  principles,  by  a 
State  Department  to  watch  over  its  purity,  by  missionaries  to 
spread  its  doctrines,  and  by  an  authoritative  revision  or  canon 
(i)  His       of  the  Buddhist  scriptures.       In   244  B.C.,  Asoka   convened 
c"^^nVl       ^''  ■P^^'^^  ^he  Third  Buddhist  Council,  of  one  thousand  elders. 
Evil  men,  taking  on  them  the  yellow  robe  of  the  Order,  had 
given  forth   their  own    opinions  as  the  teaching  of  Buddha. 
Such   heresies  were    now   corrected ;   and   the    Buddhism  of 
Southern  Asia  practically  dates  from  Asoka's  Council. 

1  Much  learning  has  been  expended  upon  the  age  of  Asoka,  and  various 
dates  have  been  assigned  to  him.  But,  indeed,  all  Buddhist  dates  are  open 
questions,  according  to  the  system  of  chronology  adopted.  The  middle  of 
the  3rd  century  B.C.  may  be  taken  as  the  era  of  Asoka.  The  following 
table  from  General  Cunningham's  Corpus  Inscriptiontim  ludicartim,  p.  vii. 
(1877),  exhibits  the  results  of  the  latest  researches  on  this  subject  : — 


B.C.  264 
260 

257 
256 

255 
251 
249 

248 
246 
244 
243 
242 

234 
231 
228 
226 
225 
224 
223 
215 


Asoka,  Struggle  with  brothers,  4  years. 

Comes  to  the  throne. 

Conversion  to  Buddhism. 

Treaty  with  Antiochus. 

Mahindo  ordained. 

Earliest  date  of  rock  edicts. 

Second  date  of  rock  edicts. 

Arsakes  rebels  in  Parthia. 

Diodotus  rebels  in  Bactria. 

Third  Buddhist  Council  under  Mogaliputra. 

Mahindo  goes  to  Ceylon. 

Barabar  cave  inscriptions. 

Pillar  edicts  issued. 

Queen  Asandhimitta  dies. 

Second  Queen  married. 

Her  attempt  to  destroy  the  Bodhi  tree. 

Asoka  becomes  an  ascetic. 

Issues  Riipndth  and  Sasseram  edicts. 

Dies. 
Dasaratha's  cave  inscriptions,  Nagarjuni. 


BUDDHIST  COUNCIL   UNDER  ASOKA.      145 

In  a  number  of  edicts,  before  and  after  the  synod,  he  published  (2)  His 
ilu'oughout  India  the  cardinal  principles  of  the  faith.  Such  edicts 
;ire  still  found  graven  deep  upon  pillars,  caves,  and  rocks,  from 
the  Yusafzai  valley  beyond  Peshawar  on  the  north-western 
truntier,  through  the  heart  of  Hindustan  and  the  Central  Pro- 
vinces, to  Kathiawar  in  the  west,  and  Orissa  in  the  east  coast 
of  India.  Tradition  states  that  Asoka  set  up  84,000  memorial 
columns  or  topes.  The  Chinese  pilgrims  came  upon  them  in 
the  inner  Himalayas.  Forty-two  inscriptions  still  surviving 
show  how  widely  these  royal  sermons  were  spread  over  India 
itself.  1 

In  the  year  of  the  Council,  Asoka  founded  a  State  Depart-  (3)  ^^'s 
ment  to  watch  over  the  purity,  and  to  direct  the  spread,  of  the  ^lem  of 
faith.  A  Minister  of  Justice  and  Religion  (Dharma  Mahamatra)  Public 
directed  its  operations;  and,  as  one  of  its  first  duties  was  to  ^^o'^'^'"!' 
proselytize,  this  Minister  was  charged  with  the  welfare  of  the 
aborigines  among  whom  his  missionaries  were    sent.      Asoka 
did  not  think  it  enough  to  convert  the  inferior  races,  without 
looking  after  their  material  interests.      Wells  were  to  be  dug, 
and  trees  planted,  along  the  roads  ;  a  system  of  medical  aid  was 

'  Major-General  Cunningham,  Director-General  of  the  Archaeological 
Survey  of  India,  enumerates  14  rock  inscriptions,  17  cave  inscriptions. 
and  II  inscribed  pillars.  The  rock  inscriptions  are  at — (i)  Shahbazgarhi 
in  the  Yusafzai  country,  40  miles  east-north-east  of  Peshawar  ;  (2)  Khalsi 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  Jumna  ;  (3)  Girnar  in  Kathiawar,  40  miles  north 
of  Somnath  ;  (4  to  7)  Dhauli  in  Cuttack,  midway  between  Cuttack 
and  Puri,  and  Jaugada  in  Ganjam  District,  18  miles  north-north-west  of 
Barhampur, — two  inscriptions  at  each,  virtually  identical ;  (8)  Sasseram,  at 
the  north-east  end  of  the  Kaimur  range,  70  miles  south-east  of  Benares  ; 
(9)  Rupnath,  a  famous  place  of  pilgrimage,  35  miles  north  of  Jabalpur  ; 
(10  and  11)  Bairat,  41  miles  north  of  Jaipur  ;  {12)  the  Khandgiri  Plill, 
near  Dhauli  in  Cuttack  ;  (13)  Deotek,  50  miles  south-east  of  Nagpur  ;  (14) 
Mansers,  north-west  of  Rawal  Pindi,  inscribed  in  the  Bactrian  character. 
The  cave  inscriptions,  17  in  number,  are  found  at — (i,  2,  3)  Barabar,  and 
(4,  5,  6)  Nagarjuni  Hills,  both  places  15  miles  north  of  Gaya  ;  (7  to  15) 
Khandgiri  Hill  in  Cuttack,  and  (16  and  17)  Ramgarh  in  Sirguja.  The 
eleven  inscribed  pillars  are — (i)  the  Delhi-Siwalik,  at  Delhi ;  (2)  theDelhi- 
Meerut,  at  Delhi  ;  (3)  the  Allahabad ;  (4)  the  Lauriya-Araraj,  at  Lauriya, 
77  miles  north  of  Patna  ;  (5)  the  Lauriya-Navandgarh,  at  another 
Lauriya,  15  miles  north-north-west  of  Bettia  ;  (6  and  7)  two  additional 
edicts  on  the  Delhi-Siwalik,  not  found  on  any  other  pillar  ;  (8  and  9)  two 
short  additional  edicts  on  the  Allahabad  pillar,  peculiar  to  itself;  (lo)  a 
short  mutilated  record  on  a  fragment  of  a  pillar  at  Sanchi,  near  Bhilsa;  (ll) 
at  Rampura  in  the  Tarai,  north-east  of  the  second  Lauriya,  near  Bettia. 
The  last-named  pillar  and  the  rock  inscription  at  Mansera  (No.  14)  are 
recent  discoveries  since  the  first  edition  of  this  work  was  published.  The 
Mansera  rock  inscription  is  interesting  as  being  the  second  in  the  Bactrian 
character,  and  for  its  recording  twelve  Edicts  complete. 

K 


146 


BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.  TO  1000  A.D. 


(4)  Mis- 
sionary 
efforts. 


(5)  Re- 
formed 
canon  of 
]5ucldhist 
scriptures. 


Edicts  of 
Asoka. 


established  throughout  his  kingdom  and  the  conquered  Pro- 
vinces, as  far  as  Ceylon,  for  man  and  beast.  ^  Officers  were 
appointed  to  watch  over  domestic  life  and  public  morality,^  and 
to  promote  instruction  among  the  women  as  well  as  the  youth. 

Asoka  recognised  proselytism  by  peaceful  means  as  a  State 
duty.  The  Rock  Inscriptions  record  how  he  sent  forth  mis- 
sionaries '  to  the  utmost  limits  of  the  barbarian  countries,'  to 
'  intermingle  among  all  unbelievers,'  for  the  spread  of  religion. 
They  shall  mix  equally  with  soldiers,  Brahmans,  and  beggars, 
with  the  dreaded  and  the  despised,  both  within  the  kingdom 
'  and  in  foreign  countries,  teaching  better  things.'  ^  Conversion 
is  to  be  effected  by  persuasion,  not  by  the  sword.  Buddhism 
was  at  once  the  most  intensely  missionary  religion  in  the  world, 
and  the  most  tolerant.  This  character  of  a  proselytizing  faith, 
which  wins  its  victories  by  peaceful  means,  so  strongly  impressed 
upon  it  by  Asoka,  has  remained  a  prominent  feature  of 
Buddhism  to  the  present  day.  Asoka,  however,  not  only 
took  measures  to  spread  the  religion,  he  also  endeavoured  to 
secure  its  orthodox3^  He  collected  the  body  of  doctrine 
into  an  authoritative  version,  in  the  Magadhi  language  or 
dialect  of  his  central  kingdom  in  Behar  ;  a  version  which  for 
two  thousand  years  has  formed  the  canon  {pitakas)  of  the 
Southern  Buddhists.  In  this  way,  the  Magadhi  dialect  became 
the  Pali  or  sacred  language  of  the  Ceylonese. 

Mr.  Robert  Cust  thus  summarizes  Asoka's  Fourteen  Edicts : — 

1.  Prohibition  of  the  slaughter  of  animals  for  food  or  sacrifice. 

2.  Provision  of  a  system  of  medical  aid  for  men  and  animals,  and  of 

plantations  and  wells  on  the  roadside. 

3.  Order  for  a  quinquennial  humiliation  and  re-publication  of  the  great 

moral  precepts  of  the  Buddhist  faith. 

4.  Comparison  of  the  former  state  of   things,  and    the   happy  existing 

state  under  the  king. 

5.  Appointment  of  missionaries  to  go  into  various  countries,  which  are 

enumerated,  to  convert  the  people  and  foreigners. 

6.  Appointment  of  informers  (or  inspectors)  and  guardians  of  morality. 

7.  Expression  of  a  desire  that  there  may  be  uniformity  of  religion  and 

equality  of  rank. 

8.  Contrast  of  the  carnal  pleasures  of   previous  rulers  with    the  pious 

enjoyments  of  the  present  king. 

9.  Inculcation  of  the    true  happiness    to   be  found  in    virtue,  through 

which  alone  the  blessings  of  heaven  can  be  propitiated. 

^  Rock  Inscriptions,  Edict  ii.,  General  Cunningham's  Corpus  htscrip- 
tiomim,  p.  118. 

^  Rock  Inscriptions,  Edict  vi.  etc.,  Corpus  Inscriptionum,  p.  120.  These 
Inspectors  of  Morals  are  supposed  to  correspond  to  the  Sixth  Caste  of 
Megasthenes,  the  'EoriVxoiro/  of  Arrian. 

^  Rock  Inscriptions,  Edict  v.  etc.,  Corpus  Iiiscnptionuiii,  p.  120. 


BUDDHIST  COUNCIL  UNDER  KANISHKA.  147 

10.  Contrast  of   tlie  vain    and    transitory  glory  of   this  world  with    the 

reward  for  which  the  king  strives  and  looks  beyond. 

11.  Inculcation  of  the  doctrine  that  the  imparting  of  dharma  or  teaching 

of  virtue  to  others  is  the  greatest  of  cliaritable  gifts. 

12.  Address  to  all  unbelievers. 

13.  (Imperfect)  ;  the  meaning  conjectural. 

14.  Summing  up  of  the  whole. 

The  fourth  and  last  of  the  great  Buddhist  Councils  was  held  Fourth 
under  King  Ivanishka,  according  to  one  tradition  four  centuries  S°""'jl'i' 
after  Buddha's  death.    The  date  of  Kanishka  is  still  uncertain  ;  (40  a.d.  ?) 
but,  from  the  evidence  of  coins  and  inscriptions,  his  reign  has 
b.een  fixed  in  the  rst  century  after  Christ,  or,  say,  40  a.d.'- 
Kanishka,  the  most  famous  of  the  Saka  conquerors,  ruled  over 
North  -  Western    India,    and    the   adjoining   countries.       His 
authority  had  its  nucleus  in  Kashmir,  but  it  extended  to  both 
sides  of  the  Himalayas,  from  Yarkand  and  Khokand  to  Agra 
and  Sind. 

Kanishka's   Council   of  five  hundred  drew  up  three   com- 
mentaries on  the  Buddhist  faith.     These  commentaries  sup- 
plied in  part  materials  for  the  Tibetan  or  Northern  Canon,  '  Greater 
completed  at  subsequent  periods.     The  Northern  Canon,  or,  ^ '^'"c^^- 
as  the  Chinese  proudly  call  it,  the  '  Greater  Vehicle  of  the 
Law,'  includes  many  later  corruptions  or  developments  of  the 
Buddhism  which  was  originally  embodied  by  Asoka  in  the 
'  Lesser  Vehicle,'  or  Canon  of  the  Southern  Buddhists  (244  B.C.).  '  Lesser 
The  Buddhist  Canon  of  China,  a  branch  of  the  'Greater  Vehicle,'    "^  '^  ^' 
was  gradually  arranged  between  67  and  1285  a.d.     It  includes 
1440  distinct  works,  comprising  5586  books.      The  ultimate 
divergence   between   the   Canons   is   great.     They  differ  not 
only,  as  we  have  seen,  in  regard  to  the  legend  of  Buddha's 
life,  but  also  as  to  his  teaching.     With  respect  to  doctrine,  one 
example  will  suffice.     According  to  the  Northern  or  '  Greater 
Vehicle,'  Buddhist  monks  who  transgress  wilfully  after  ordina- 
tion may  yet  recover  themselves ;  while  to  such  castaways  the 
Southern  or  '  Lesser  Vehicle '  allowed  no  room  for  repentance.- 

The  original  of  the  Northern    Canon   was  written  in  the  Northern 
Sanskrit  language,  perhaps  because  the  Kashmir  and  northern  c    .u 
priests,  who  formed  Kanishka's  Council,  belonged  to  isolated  Canons. 
Himalayan  settlements  which  had  been  little  influenced  by  the 

^  The  latest  eftbrts  to  fix  the  date  of  Kanishka  are  little  more  than 
records  of  conflicting  authorities.  See  Dr.  James  Fergusson's  paper  in  the 
Jouriial  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  Article  ix. ,  April  iSSo;  and  Mr.  E. 
Thomas' comprehensive  disquisition  on  the  Sah  and  Gupta  coins,  pp.  i8  79 
of  the  Report  of  the  ArcJutological  Stirvey  of  Western  India  for  1S74-75, 
410,  London,  1876.  -  Beal,  Catena,  p.  253. 


148  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

growth  of  the  Indian  vernacular  dialects.      In  one  of  these 

dialects,  the  Magadhi  of  Behar,  the  Southern  Canon  had  been 

compiled  by  Asoka  and  expanded  by  commentators.     Indeed, 

the  Buddhist  compilations  appear  to  have  given  the  first  literary 

impulse  to  the  Prakrits  or  spoken  Aryan  dialects  in  India  ;  as 

represented  by  the  Pali  or  Magadhi  of  the  Ceylonese  Buddhist 

scriptures,  and  the  Maharashtri  of  the  ancient  sacred  books  of 

the  Jains.      The  northern   priests,  who  compiled  Kanishka's 

Canon,  preferred  the  '  perfected '  Sanskrit,  which  had  become 

by  that   time   the   accepted   literary  vehicle   of  the   learned 

throughout  India,  to  the  Prakrit  or  '  natural '  dialects  of  the 

Gangetic  valley.      Kanishka  and   his    Kashmir   Council   (40 

A.D.  ?)  became  to  the  Northern  or  Tibeto-Chinese  Buddhists, 

what  Asoka  and  his  Patna  Council  (244  B.C.)  had  been  to  the 

Buddhists  of  Ceylon  and  the  South. 

Buddhism       Buddhism  was  thus  organized  as  a  State  religion  by  the 

national      Councils   of  Asoka   and    Kanishka.      It  started  from   Brah- 

leligion  ;     manical  doctrines ;  but  from  those  doctrines,  not  as  taught  in 

hermitages  to  clusters  of  Brahman  disciples,  but  as  vitalized  by 

a  preacher  of  rare  power  in  the  capital  cities  of  India.    Buddha 

did  not  abolish  caste.      On  the  contrary,  reverence  to  Brah- 

mans  and  to  the  spiritual  guide  ranked  among  the  four  great 

sets  of  duties,  with  obedience  to  parents,  control  over  self,  and 

acts  of  kindness  to   all  men  and  animals.     He  introduced, 

however,  a  new  classification  of  mankind,  on  the  spiritual  basis 

of  believers  and  unbelievers. 

itsrehgious      "Yh^   former   took    rank    in    tlie    Buddhist    community, — 
orders;  ...  .        ■' 

at  first,  accordmg  to  their  age  and  merit ;  m  later  times,  as 

laity ^  and  clergy-  {i.e.  the  religious  orders).  Buddhism  carried 
transmigration  to  its  utmost  spiritual  use,  and  proclaimed  our 
own  actions  I0  be  the  sole  ruling  influence  on  our  past,  present, 
and  future  states.  It  was  thus  led  into  the  denial  of  any 
external  being  or  god  who  could  interfere  with  the  immutable 
law  of  cause  and  effect  as  applied  to  the  soul.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  linked  together  mankind  as  parts  of  one 
universal  whole,  and  denounced  the  isolated  self-seeking  of 
the  human  heait  as  'the  heresy  of  individuality.'^  Its  mission 
was  to  make  men  more  moral,  kinder  to  others,  and  happier 
themselves  ;  not  to  propitiate  imaginary  deities.  It  accord- 
ingly founded  its  teaching  on  man's  duty  to  his  neighbour, 
instead  of  on  his  obligations  to  God ;   and  constructed  its 

'   Upasdka. 

^  Sramana,  bhikshu  (monk  or  religious  mendicant),  bhikshitnl  (nun). 

^  Sakayaditthi. 


SPREAD  OF  BUDDHISM.  149 

ritual  on  the  basis  of  relic-worship  or  the  commemoration  of  and 
good  men,  instead  of  on  sacrifice.     Its  sacred  buildings  were  n|^!j^j-f. 
not  temples  to  the  gods,  but  monasteries  (vihdras)  for  the 
religious  orders,  with  their  bells  and  rosaries  ;  or  memorial 
shrines,^  reared  over  a  tooth  or  bone  of  the  founder  of  the  faith. 

The  missionary  impulse  given  by  Asoka  quickly  bore  fruit.  Spread  of 
In  the  year  after  his  great  Council  at  Patna  (244  b.c),  his  son  ^^'ddhism. 
Mahindo  -  carried  x^soka's  version  of  the  Buddhist  scriptures 
in  the  Magadhi  language  to  Ceylon.      He  took  with  him  a  in  the 
band  of  fellow-missionaries;  and  soon  afterwards,  his   sister,  ^^oujl'. 

Ceyltin 

the  princess  Sanghamitta,  who  had  entered  the  Order,  followed  etc.,  244 

with  a  company  of  nuns.     It  was  not,  however,  till  six  hundred  i^-c  to 

years   later  (410-432    a.d.)   that    the   Ceylonese   Canon  was    -^    "  '   ' 

written   out   in    Pali,  the   sacred    Magadhi    language   of   the 

Southern  Buddhists.     About  the  same  time,  missionaries  from 

Ceylon  finally  established  the  faith  in  Burma  (450  A.D.).     The 

Burmese  themselves  assert  that  two  Buddhist  preachers  landed 

in  Pegu  as  early  as  207  B.C.     Indeed,  some  Burmese  date  the 

arrival  of  Buddhist  missionaries  just  after  the  Patna  Council, 

244  B.C.,  and  point  out  the  ruined  city  of  Tha-tun,  between  the 

Sitaung  (Tsit-taung)  and  Salwi'n  estuaries,  as  the  scene  of  their 

pious  labours.     Siam  was  converted  to  Buddhism  in  638  a.d.  ; 

Java  received  its  missionaries  direct  from  India  between  the  5th 

and  the  7th  centuries,  and  spread  the  faith  to  Bali  and  Sumatra.-^ 

While    Southern    Buddhism   was   thus   wafted   across    the  In  the 

ocean,  another  stream   of  missionaries  had  found  their  way  J^°J^^' 

.  ....  China, etc., 

by  Central  Asia  mto  Chma.     Their  first  arrival  in  the  Chinese  2ndcentury 

empire  is  said  to  date  from  the  2nd  century  B.C.,  although  it  '^'•■^-  to 

was  not  till  65  a.d.  that  Buddhism  there  became  the  estab-  ^^~  '  ' 

lished  religion.     The  Greco-Bactrian  kingdoms  in  the  Punjab, 

and  beyond  it,  afforded  a  favourable  soil  for  the  faith.     The 

Scythian  dynasties  who  succeeded  the  Greco-Bactrians  accepted 

Buddhism;  and  the  earliest  remains  which  recent  discovery  has 

^  Sti'ipas,  topes,  literally  '  heaps  or  tumuli ; '  dagobas  or  dkdtu-gopas, 
'  relic-preservers  ; "  chailyas.  -  Sanskrit,  Mahendra. 

^  All  these  dates  are  uncertain.  They  are  founded  on  the  Singalese 
chronology,  but  the  orthodox  in  the  respective  countries  place  their  national 
conversion  at  remoter  periods.  Occasionally,  however,  the  dates  can  be 
tested  from  external  sources.  Thus  we  know  from  the  Chinese  traveller 
Fa-Hian,  that  up  to  about  414  a.d.  Java  was  still  unconverted.  Fa- 
Hian  says,  '  Heretics  and  Brahmans  were  numerous  there,  and  the  law  of 
Buddha  is  in  nowise  entertained.'  The  Burmese  chroniclers  go  back  to  a 
time  when  the  duration  of  human  life  was  ninety  millions  of  years  ;  and 
when  a  single  dynasty  ruled  for  a  period  represented  by  a  unit  followed 
by  140  cyphers.    See  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  Article  Sandoway. 


I50  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

unearthed  in  Afghanistan  are  Buddhist.  Kanishka's  Council, 
soon  after  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  gave  the  great 
impetus  to  the  faith  beyond  the  Himalayas.  Tibet,  South  Central 
Asia,  and  China,  lay  along  the  regular  missionary  routes  of 
Northern  Buddhism  ;  the  Kirghiz  are  said  to  have  carried  the  re- 
ligion as  far  west  as  the  Caspian;  on  the  east,  Buddhism  was  in- 
troduced into  the  Corea  in  372  A.D.,and  thence  into  Japan  in  552. 
Buddhist  Buddhist  doctrines  are  believed  to  have  deeply  affected 
on  Chris-  religious  thought  in  Alexandria  and  Palestine.  The  question 
tianity.  is  yet  undecided  as  to  how  far  the  Buddhist  ideal  of  the  holy 
life,  with  its  monks,  nuns,  relic-worship,  bells,  and  rosaries, 
influenced  Christian  monachism  ;  and  to  what  extent  Buddhist 
philosophy  aided  the  development  of  the  Gnostic  heresies, 
particularly  those  of  Basilides  and  Manes,  which  rent  the  early 
church.  It  is  certain  that  the  analogies  are  striking,  and  have 
been  pointed  out  alike  by  Jesuit  missionaries  in  Asia,  and  by 
oriental  scholars  in  Europe.^  The  form  of  abjuration  for  those 
who  renounced  the  Gnostic  doctrines  of  Manes,  expressly 
mentions  Bo'SSa  and  the  ^Kv^tavos  (Buddha  and  the  Scythian 
or  Sakya) — seemingly,  says  Weber,  a  separation  of  Buddha 
the  Sakya  into  two.  At  this  moment,  the  Chinese  in  San 
Francisco  assist  their  devotions  by  pictures  of  the  Buddhist 
Goddess  of  Mercy,  imported  on  thin  paper  from  Canton,  which 
the  Irish  Roman  Catholics  identify  as  the  Virgin  Mary  with 
the  Infant  in  her  arms,  an  aureole  round  her  head,  an  adoring 
figure  at  her  feet,  and  the  Spirit  hovering  in  the  form  of  a  bird.- 
But  it  is  right  to  point  out  that  the  early  Nestorian  Chris- 
tians in  China  may  have  been  the  source  of  some  of  these 
resemblances.  The  liturgy  of  the  Goddess  of  Mercy,  Kwan- 
yin,  in  which  the  analogies  to  the  Eastern  Christian  office  are 
most  strongly  marked,  have  been  traced  with  certainty  only  as 
far  back  as  141 2  a.d.  in  the  Chinese  Canon.^     Professor  Max 

^  For  the  latter  aspect  of  the  question,  see  ^Yeber,  founding  on  Lassen, 
Renan,  and  Beal,  Hist.  hid.  Lit.,  p.  309,  note  363,  ed.  1878. 

-  See  also  post,  p.  153.  Polemical  writers,  Christian  and  Chinese,  have 
with  equal  injustice  accused  Buddhism  and  Christianity  of  consciously 
plagiarizing  each  other's  rites.  Thus  Kuang-Hsien,  the  distinguished 
member  of  the  Astronomical  Board,  who  brought  about  the  Chinese  perse- 
cution of  the  Christians  from  1665  to  1671,  writes  of  them  :  'They  pilfer 
this  talk  about  heaven  and  hell  from  the  refuse  of  Buddhism,  and  then  turn 
round  and  revile  Buddhism. '—  The  Death-blow  to  the  Corrupt  Doctrines  oj 
T'len-chu  {i.e.  Christianity),  p.  46  (Shanghai,  1 870).  See  also  the  remarks 
of  Jao-chow — '  The  man  most  distressed  in  heart ' — in  the  same  collection. 

^  For  an  excellent  account  from  the  Chinese  texts  of  the  worship  and 
liturgy  of  Kwan-yin,  '  the  Saviour,'  or  in  her  female  form  as  the  Goddess  of 
Mercy,  see  Beal's  Catena  of  Bwidhist  Scriptures,  3S3-397  (Triibner,  1871). 


BUDDHA  AS  A  CHRISTIAN  SAIXT.         151 

iMiiller  endeavoured  to  show  that  Buddha  himself  is  the  original 
of  Saint  Josaphat,  who  has  a  day  assigned  to  \\\\\\  by  both  the 
Greek  and  Roman  churches.^ 

Professor  Miiller's  Essay  ^  has  led  to  an  examination  of  the  Buddha  as 
whole  evidence  bearing  on  this  subject.'^     The  results  may  be  |V""^^^^" 
thus  summarized.     The  Roman  Martyrology  at  the  end  of  the 
saints  for   the   27th    November,  states:  'Apud   Indos   Persis 
finitimos    sanctorum    Barlaam   et   Josaphat    (commemoratio), 
(juorum   actus   mirandos   Joannes    Damascenus   conscripsit.' 
Af?io/7g  the  Indians  ivJio  border  on  Persia,  Saints  Barlaam  and 
Josaphat,  whose  wonderful  works  have  been  wi'itten  of  by  St.  John 
of  Damascus.     The  story  of  these  two  saints  is  that  of  a  young  Legend  of 
Indian  prince,  Josaphat,  who  is  converted  by  a  hermit,  Barlaam.  j'^^"'^^   ^'' 
Josaphat  undergoes  the  same  awakening  as  Buddha  from  the  Josaphat. 
pleasures  of  this  world.     His  royal  father  had  taken  similar 
l^recautions  to  prevent  the  youth  from  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  sorrows  of  life.     But  Josaphat,  like  Buddha,  is  struck 
by  successive  spectacles  of  disease,  old  age,  and  death ;  and 
abandons  his  princely  state  for  that  of  a  Christian  devotee. 
He   converts   to  the  faith  his  father,  his  subjects,  and   even 
the  magician  employed  to  seduce  him.     For  this   magician, 
Theudas,  the  Buddhist  schismatic  Devadatta  is  supposed  to 
have   supplied  the  orginal ;    while  the  name  of  Josaphat  is 
itself  identified  by  philologers  with  that  of  Boddhisattwa,  the 
complete  appellation  of  Buddha.'^ 

This  curious  transfer  of  the  religious  teacher  of  Asia  to  the  Early 
Christian  IVIartyrology  has  an  equally  curious  history.  Saint  ^^^^^j'^^, 
John  of  Damascus  wrote  in  the  8th  century  in  Greek,  and 
an  Arabic  translation  of  his  work,  belonging  to  the  nth 
century,  still  survives.  The  story  of  Josaphat  was  popular  in 
the  Greek  Church,  and  was  embodied  by  Simeon  the  Meta- 
phrast  in  the  lives  of  the  saints,  circ.  11 50  a.d.  The  Greek 
form  of  the  name  is  'Iwao-a<^.^      By  the    12th    century,  the 

'  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,  vol.  iv.  pp.  177-1S9,  ed.  1875- 

-  Contemporary  Kevicxo,  July  1870. 

^  For  a  list  of  the  authorities,  and  an  investigation  of  them  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  side,  by  Emmanuel  Cosquin,  see  Revue  des  Questions 
Historiqjtes,  Ivi.  pp.  579-600;   Paris,  October  iSSo. 

*  The  earlier  form  of  Josaphat  was  loasaph  in  Greek  and  Youasaf  or 
Youdasf  in  Arabic,  an  evident  derivation  from  the  Sanskrit  Boddhi- 
!-att\va,  through  the  Persian  form  Boudasp  (Weber).  The  name  of  the 
magician  Theudas  is  in  like  manner  an  accurate  philological  reproduction 
of  Devadatta  or  Thevdat. 

■'  See  the  valuable  note  in  Colonel  Yule's  Marco  Polo,  vol.  ii.  pp.  302-309 
(2nd  ed.  1875).  J 


152  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.  TO  1000  A. D. 

Life  of  Barlaam  and  Josaphat  had  already  reached  Western 
Europe  in  a  Latin  form.  During  the  first  half  of  the  13th 
century,  Vincent  de  Beauvais  inserted  it  in  his  Speculum 
Histo7'iale  ;  and  in  the  latter  half  of  that  century  it  found  a 
place  in  the  Golden  Legend  of  Jacques  de  Voragine.  Mean- 
while, it  had  also  been  popularized  by  the  troubadour,  Guy  de 
Cambrai.  From  this  double  source,  the  Golden  I>egend  of  the 
Church  and  the  French  poem  of  the  people,  the  story  of 
Barlaam  and  Josaphat  spread  throughout  Europe.  German, 
Provengal,  Italian,  Polish,  Spanish,  English,  and  Norse  versions 
carried  it  from  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Continent  to 
Sweden  and  Iceland. 

In  1583,  the  legend  was  entered  in  the  Roman  Martyrology 

for  the  27th  day  of  November,  as  we  have  already  seen,  upon 

the  alleged  testimony  of  St.  John  of  Damascus.     A  church  in 

Palermo   still  (1874)   bears   the   dedication,  Divo   losaphat} 

The  Roman  Martyrology  of  Gregory  xiii.,  revised  under  the 

auspices  of  Urban  viii.,  has  a  universal  acceptance  throughout 

Catholic  Christendom  ;  although  from  the  statements  of  Pope 

Benedict  xiv.,  and  others,  it  would  appear  that  it  is  to  be 

used  for  edification,  rather  than  as  a  work  resting  on  infallible 

authority.^     However  this  may  be,  the  text  of  the  two  legends. 

and  the  names  of  their  prominent  actors,  place  beyond  doubt 

the  identity  of  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  story. 

AJapanese      It  is  difficult  to  enter  a  Japanese  Buddhist  temple  without 

ifranalo-    t)eing  struck  by  analogies  to  the  Christian  ritual  on  the  one 

gies  to        hand,  and  to  Hinduism  on  the  other.     The  chantings  of  the 

^^'"^"'^"^  priests,  their  bowing  as  they  pass  the  altar,  their  vestments, 

and  Chris-   '^  .  '  .  °  -^    '  '  .  ' 

tianity.  rosaries,  bells,  incense,  and  the  responses  of  the  worshippers, 
remind  one  of  the  Christian  ritual.  '  The  temple  at  Rokugo,' 
writes  a  recent  traveller  to  a  remote  town  in  Japan,  '  was  very 
beautiful,  and,  except  that  its  ornaments  were  superior  in 
solidity  and  good  taste,  differed  little  from  a  Romish  church. 
The  low  altar,  on  which  were  lilies  and  lighted  candles,  was 
draped  in  blue  and  silver ;  and  on  the  high  altar,  draped  in 
crimson  and  cloth  of  gold,  there  was  nothing  but  a  closed 
shrine,  an  incense -burner,  and  a  vase  of  lotuses.'-^  In  a 
Buddhist  temple  at  Ningpo,  the  Chinese  goddess  of  mercy, 

•  Vule,  op.  cit.  p.  308. 

^  This  aspect  of  the  question  is  discussed  at  considerable  length  by 
Emmanuel  Cosquin,  pp.  583-594.  He  gives  the  two  legends  of  Buddha 
and  of  Barlaam-Josaphat  in  parallel  columns,  pp.  590-594  of  the  Kevtte  dcs 
Questions  Historiqiies,  vol.  Ivi.,  already  cited. 

^  Miss  Bird's  Utibeaien  Tracks  in  Japan,  vol.  i.  p.  295  (cd.  iSSo). 


BUDDHA'S  PERSONALITY  DENIED.        153 
Kwan-yin,  whose  resemblance  to  the  Virgin  iSIary  and  Child  Serpent 

ornaiiK" 
talion. 


has  already  been  mentioned  (p.  150),  is  seen  standing  on  a  ""^ 


serpent,  bruising  his  head  with  her  heel. 

The  Hindus,  while  denouncing  Buddha  as  a  heretic,  have  Buddha  as 
been  constrained  to  admit  him  to  a  place  in  their  mythology,  q/ viThnu 
They  regard  him  as  the  ninth,  and  hitherto  last,  incarnation  of 
Vishnu, — the  Lying  Spirit  let  loose  to  deceive  men  until  the 
tenth  or  final  descent  of  Vishnu,  on  the  white  horse,  with  a 
flaming  sword  like  a  comet  in  his  hand,  for  the  destruction  of 
the  wicked  and  the  renovation  of  the  world. 

AVhile  on  the  one  hand  a  vast  growth  of  legends  has  arisen  Buddha's 
around  Buddha,  tending  to  bring  out  every  episode  of  his  life  personality 
into  strong  relief,  efforts  have  been  made  on  the  other  hand  to 
explain  away  his  personal  identity.  No  date  can  be  assigned 
with  certainty  for  his  existence  on  this  earth.  The  Northern 
Buddhists  have  fourteen  different  accounts,  ranging  from  2422  His  date- 
to  546  B.c.^  The  Southern  Buddhists  agree  in  starting  from 
the  ist  of  June  543  B.C.  as  the  day  of  Buddha's  death.  This 
latter  date,  543  e.g.,  is  usually  accepted  by  European  writers; 
but  Indian  chronology,  as  worked  back  from  inscriptions  and 
coins,^  gives  the  date  circ.  480.  Some  scholars,  indeed,  have 
argued  that  Buddhism  is  merely  a  religious  development  of 
the  Brahmanical  Sankhya  philosophy  of  Kapila  {ante,  p.  99)  ; 
that  Buddha's  birth  is  placed  at  a  purely  allegorical  site,  Kapila- 
vastu,  'the  abode  of  Kapila';  that  his  mother  is  called  Maya- 
devi,  in  reference  to  the  Maya  doctrine  of  Kapila's  system ; 
and  that  his  own  two  names  are  symbolical  ones,  Siddartha, 
'he  who  has  fulfilled  his  end,'  and  Buddha,  'the  enlightened.' 

Buddhism    and    Brahmanistii    are    unquestionably   united  Links  with 
by  intermediate  links.       Certain  of  the   sacred   texts  of  the  ^la^^jjij^ 
Brahmans,  particularly  the  Vrihad  Aranyaka  and  the  Atharva 
Upanishad    of    the    Yoga    system,    teach    doctrines    which 
are  essentially  Buddhistic.     According  to  Wilson  and  others, 
Buddha    had    possibly   no   personal   existence ;  ^    Buddhism 

1  Csoma  de  Koros,  on  the  authority  of  Tibetan  MSS.,  Tibetan  Grain- 
inar,  p.  199.  A  debt  long  overdue  has  at  length  been  paid  to  one  of  the 
most  single-minded  of  oriental  scholars  by  the  publication  of  Dr.  Theodore 
Duka's  Life  and  Works  of  Alexander  Csoma  de  A'oros.     (Triibner,  1885.) 

-  General  Cunningham  works  back  the  date  of  Buddha's  death  to  478 
B.C.,  and  takes  this  as  his  starting-point  in  the  Corpus  Inscriptionum 
Indicarum,  p.  vii.  The  subject  is  admirably  discussed  by  Mr.  Rhys 
Davids  in  the  Inta-national  Nitmismala  Orientalia  (Ceylon  fasciculus), 
pp.  38-56.  He  arrives  at  412  B.C.  as  the  most  probable  date.  Dr. 
Oldenberg  fixes  it  at  about  480  B.C. 

^  Professor  H.  H.  Wilson  went  so  far  as  to  say,  '  It  seems  not  impossible 


154  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

ISuddhism  was  merely  the  Sankhya  philosophy  widened  into  a  national 
'""f'^  ''^^  religion  ;  and  the  relicfious  life  of  the  Buddhistic  orders  was 
system?      the  old  Brahmanical  type  popularized.^     The  theory  is  at  any 
rate  so  far  true,  that  Buddhism  was  not  a  sudden  invention  of 
any  single  mind,  but  a  development  on  a  broader  basis  of  a 
philosophy  and   religion  which  preceded   it.      Such  specula- 
tions, however,  leave  out  of  sight  the   two   great  traditional 
features  of  Buddhism — namely,  the  preacher's  appeal  to  the 
people,  and  the  undying  influence  of  his  beautiful  life.    Senart's 
still  more  sceptical  theory  of  Buddha  as  a  Solar  Myth,  has 
completely  broken  down  under  the   critical    examination    of 
Oldenberg. 
Buddhism       Buddhism  never  ousted  Brahmanism  from  any  large  part  of 

^^  M    India.     The  two  systems  co-existed  as  popular  religions  from 
oust  r>iah-    ,,,  _,,,,.  .  , 

manism.      the  death  of  Buddha  durmg  thirteen  hundred  years  (543  b.c. 

to  about  800  A.D.),  and  modern  Hinduism  is  the  joint  product 
of  both.  The  legends  of  Buddha,  especially  those  of  the 
Northern  Canon,-  bear  witness  to  the  active  influence  of  Brah- 
manism during  the  whole  period  of  Buddha's  life.  After  his 
death,  certain  kings  and  certain  eras  were  intensely  Buddhistic; 
but  the  continuous  existence  of  Brahmanism  is  abundantly 
proved  from  the  time  of  Alexander  (327  b.c.)  downwards.  The 
historians  who  chronicled  Alexander's  march,  and  the  Greek 
ambassador  Megasthenes,  who  succeeded  them  (300  b.c.)  in 
their  literary  labours,  bear  witness  to  the  predominance  of 
Brahmanism  in  the  period  immediately  preceding  Asoka.  In- 
scriptions, local  legends,  Sanskrit  literature,  and  the  drama, 
disclose  the  survival  of  Brahman  influence  during  the  next 
six  centuries  (244  b.c.  to  400  a.d.).  From  400  a.d.  we  have 
the  evidence  of  the  Chinese  ])ilgrims,  who  toiled  through 
Central  Asia  into  India  to  visit  the  birthplace  of  their  faith. ^ 
'  Never  did  more  devoted  pilgrims,'  writes  the  greatest  living 

that  Sakya  Muni  is  an  unreal  being,  and  that  all  that  is  related  of  him  is 
as  much  a  fiction  as  is  that  of  his  preceding  migrations  and  the  miracles 
that  attended  his  birth,  his  life,  and  his  departure.'  The  arguments  are 
dealt  with  by  Weber,  Hist.  liid.  Lit.,  pp.  284-290,  ed.  1878. 

'  Dr.  Oldenberg's  Buddha,  Sein  Lehcn,  contains  valuable  evidence  on 
this  subject  (Hoey's  transl.  pp.  46,48  to  59,  etc.).  See  also  The  ■Sankhya 
Aphorisms  0/  /Capita,  Sanskrit  and  English,  ^^■ith  illustrative  texts  from  the 
Commentaries  by  Dr.  Ballantyne,  formerly  Principal  of  the  Benares  College, 
3rd  ed.     (Trubner,  1885.) 

^  See  the  Life  of  the  Buddha  and  the  Early  History  of  his  Order,  derived 
from  the  Tibetan  texts,  by  Mr.  Woodville  Rockhill  of  the  U.  S.  Legation 
in  China  ;  also  Oldenberg's  Buddha. 

*  The  Si-yu-ki,  or  Buddhist  Records  of  the  Western  World,  translated 
from  the  Chinese,  by  Samuel  Beal  (Trubner,  2  vols.  1 884),  has  completed 


CONFLICT  OF  INDIAN  FAITHS.  155 

student  of  their  lives,^  '  leave  their  native  country  to  encounter  Buddhism 
the  perils  of  travel  in  foreign   and  distant  lands ;  never  did  ^^nism 
disciples  more  ardently  desire  to  gaze  on  the  sacred  vestiges  400  a. d.  to 
of  their  religion  ;  never  did  men  endure  greater  sufferings  by    "^^  a-d. 
desert,  mountain,  and  sea,  than  these  simple-minded,  earnest 
Buddhist  priests.'     Fa-Hian  entered  India  from  Afghanistan,  Fa-Hian, 
and  journeyed  down  the  whole  Gangetic  valley  to  the  Bay  of  ^^^  ^^^^ 
Bengal  in  399-413  a.d.     He  found  Brahman  priests  equally 
honoured  with  Buddhist  monks,   and  temples  to  the  Indian 
gods  side  by  side  with  the  religious  houses  of  the  Buddhist 
faith. 

■   Hiuen  Tsiang,  a  still  greater  pilgrim,  also  travelled  to  India  Hiuen 
from  China  by  the  Central  Asia  route,  and  has  left  a  fuller  pi^ng, 

-'  '  629  A.D. 

record  of  the  state  of  the  two  religions  in  the  7th  century. 
His  wanderings  extended  from  629  to  645  a.d.  Everywhere 
throughout  India  he  found  the  two  systems  eagerly  com- 
peting for  the  suffrages  of  the  people.  By  this  time,  indeed, 
Brahmanism  was  beginning  to  reassert  itself  at  the  expense  of 
the  Buddhist  religion.  The  monuments  of  the  great  Buddhist 
monarchs,  Asoka  and  Kanishka,  confronted  him  from  the 
moment  he  neared  the  Punjab  frontier ;  but  so  also  did  the 
temples  of  Siva  and  his  'dread'  queen  Bhi'ma.  Throughout 
North- Western  India  he  found  Buddhist  convents  and  monks 
surrounded  by  'swarms  of  heretics,'  i.e.  Brahmanical  sects. 

The  political  power  was  also  divided,  though  Buddhist 
sovereigns  still  predominated.  A  Buddhist  monarch  ruled 
over  ten  kingdoms  in  Afghanistan.  At  Peshawar,  the  great 
monastery  built  by  Kanishka  was  deserted,  but  the  populace 
remained  faithful.  In  Kashmir,  the  king  and  people  were 
devout  Buddhists,  under  the  teaching  of  500  monasteries  and 

and  perfected  the  work  begun  by  Julien  and  Remusat.  Mr.' Beal's  new 
volumes  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  social,  religious,  and  political  condi- 
tion of  India  from  the  5th  to  7th  centuries  A.D.  The  older  authorities  are 
Foe  Koue  Ki,  on  Relation  des  Royaiwies  Boitddhigues ;  Voyages  dans  la 
Tartarie,  r Afghanistan  et  Plndca  la  fin  du  iv.  siecle,  par  Chi-Fa-liian, 
translated  by  A.  Remusat,  reviewed  by  Klaproth  and  Landresse,  1836. 
Mr.  Beal's  Travels  of  the  Buddhist  Pilgrim  Fa-Hian,  translated  with  Notes 
and  Prolegomena,  1869  ;  Julien's  Voyages  des  Pderins  Bonddhisfes,  t.  i.  ; 
Histoire  de  la  Vie  de  Hioiicn-Thsang  et  de  ses  Voyages  dans  Flnde,  trans- 
lated from  the  Chinese,  1853,  t.  ii.  and  iii.  ;  Meinoires  sur  les  Contrees 
Gccidentales,  par  Hioncn-Thsang,  translated  from  the  Chinese,  1 85 7-59. 
C.  J.  Neumann's  Pilgerfahrten  Buddhistischer  Priester  von  China  nach 
Indien,  aits  dein  Chinesischen  iihersetzt,  1883,  of  which  only  one  volume 
is  published  ;  General  Cunningham's  Ancient  Geography  of  India,  and 
his  Reports  of  the  Archaological  Suit'ey  of  India  (various  dates). 
^  Si-yu-ki,  Mr.  Beal's  Introduction,  pp.  ix.,  x. 


156  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

5000  monks.     In  the  country  identified  with  Jaipur,  on  the 

other  hand,  the  inhabitants  were  devoted  to  heresy  and  war. 

Buddhism       Buddhist  influence  in  Northern  India  seems,  during  the  7th 

629-645'     century  a.d.,  to  have  centred  in  the  fertile  plain  between  the 

A.I).  Jumna  and  the  Ganges, and  in  Behar.   At  Kanauj  (Kanyakubja), 

on   the   Ganges,  Hiuen    Tsiang   found  a  powerful    Buddhist 

monarch,  Siladitya,  whose  influence  reached  from  the  Punjab 

to   North-Eastern  Bengal,    and   from   the    Himalayas   to  the 

Narbada  river.     Here  flourished   100  Buddhist  convents  and 

10,000  monks.     But  the  king's  eldest  brother  had  been  lately 

slain  by  a  sovereign  of  Eastern  India,  a  hater  of  Buddhism  ; 

and   200  temples  to  the   Brahman  gods  reared  their   heads 

under  the  protection  of  the  devout  Siladitya  himself. 

Siladitya  appears  as  an  Asoka  of  the  7th  century  a.d., 
and  he  practised  with  primitive  vigour  the  two  great  Buddhist 
virtues  of  spreading  the  faith  and  charity.  The  former  he 
Council  of  attempted  by  means  of  a  general  Council  in  634  a.d.  Twenty- 
Siladityn,  ^^^  tributary  sovereigns  attended,  together  with  the  most 
learned  Buddhist  monks  and  Brahmans  of  their  kingdoms. 
But  the  object  of  the  convocation  was  no  longer  the  undis- 
puted assertion  of  the  Buddhist  religion.  It  dealt  with  the 
two  phases  of  the  religious  life  of  India  at  that  time.  First,  a 
discussion  between  the  Buddhists  and  Brahman  philosophers 
of  the  Sankhya  and  Vaiseshika  schools ;  second,  a  dispute 
between  the  Buddhist  sects  who  followed  respectively  the 
Northern  and  the  Southern  Canons,  known  as  'the  Greater 
and  the  Lesser  Vehicle  of  the  Law.'  The  rites  of  the  popu- 
lace were  of  as  composite  a  character  as  the  doctrines  of  their 
teachers.  On  the  first  day  of  the  Council,  a  statue  of  Buddha 
was  installed  with  great  pomp ;  on  the  second,  an  image  of 
the  Sun-god  ;  on  the  third,  an  idol  of  Siva. 
.Siladitya\s  Siladitya  held  a  solemn  distribution  of  his  royal  treasures 
^  ^"ty.  gvgj-y  fivg  years.  Hiuen  Tsiang  describes  how  on  the  plain 
near  Allahabad,  where  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna  unite 
their  waters,  the  kings  of  the  Empire,  and  a  multitude  of 
people,  were  feasted  for  seventy-five  days.  Siladitya  brought 
forth  the  stores  of  his  palace,  and  gave  them  away  to  Brahmanr 
and  Buddhists,  to  monks  and  heretics,  without  distinction.  At 
the  end  of  the  festival,  he  stripped  off  his  jewels  and  royal 
raiment,  handed  them  to  the  bystanders,  and,  like  Buddha  of  old, 
put  on  the  rags  of  a  beggar.  By  this  ceremony,  the  monarch 
commemorated  the  Great  Renunciation  of  the  founder  of  the 
Buddhist  faith.  At  the  same  time,  he  discharged  the  highest 
duty  inculcated  alike  by  the  Buddhist  and  Brahmanical  religions. 


SZ O  W  J 'ICTOR  Y  OF  BRAHMANISM.         1 5  7 


namely  almsgiving.     The  vast  monastery  of  Nalanda^  formed  Monasteiy 

of  Nal 
anda. 


a  seat  of  learning  which  recalls  the  universities  of  Mediaeval  °      ^  ' 


Europe.  Ten  thousand  monks  and  novices  of  the  eighteen 
Euddhist  schools  here  studied  theology,  philosophy,  law, 
science,  especially  medicine,  and  practised  their  devotions. 
They  lived  in  lettered  ease,  supported  from  the  royal  funds. 
But  even  this  stronghold  of  Buddhism  furnishes  a  proof  that 
Buddhism  was  only  one  of  two  hostile  creeds  in  India. 
During  the  brief  period  with  regard  to  w'hich  the  Chinese 
records  afford  information,  it  was  three  times  destroyed  by  the 
enemies  of  the  faith. - 

■   Hiuen  Tsiang  travelled  from  the  Punjab  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mingling 
Ganges,  and  made  journeys  into  Southern  India.     But  every-  .      uddh- 
where  he  found  the  two  religions  mingled.     Buddh-Gaya,  which  Braliman- 
holds  so  high  a  sanctity  in  the  legends  of  Buddha,  had  already  "T™'  ^"9- 
become   a  great  Brahman  centre.      On  the  east  of  Bengal, 
Assam  had  not  been  converted  to  Buddhism.     In  the  south- 
west, Orissa  was  a  stronghold  of  the  Buddhist  faith.     But  in 
the  seaport  of  Tamliik,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hugh,  the  temples 
to  the  Brahman  gods  were  five  times   more   numerous  than 
the    monasteries    of    the    faithful.      On    the    Madras   coast, 
Buddhism  flourished  ;  and  indeed,  throughout  Southern  India, 
the  faith  seems  still  to  have  been  in  the  ascendant,  although 
struggling  against  Brahman  heretics  and  their  gods. 

During   the   8th  and  9th    centuries   a.d.,  Brahmanism  be-  Victory  of 
came  the  ruling  religion.     There  are  legends  of  persecutions,  ^'"^hman- 
instigated  by  Brahman  reformers,  such  as  Kumarila  Bhatta  900  a.d. 
and  Sankara  Acharya.     But  the  downfall  of  Buddhism  seems 
to  have  resulted  from  natural  decay,  and  from  new  movements 
of  religious  thought,  rather  than  from  any  general  suppression 
by  the  sword.     Its  extinction  is  contemporaneous  with  the  rise 
of  Hinduism,  and  belongs  to  a  subsequent  chapter. 

In  the  nth  century,  it  was  chiefly  outlying  States,  like 
Kashmir  and  Orissa,  that  remained  faithful.  When  the  Muham- 
madans  come  permanently  upon  the  scene.  Buddhism  as  a 
popular  faith  has  almost  disappeared  from  the  interior  Provinces 
of  India.  Magadha,  the  cradle  of  the  religion,  still  continued 
Buddhist  under  the  Pal  Rajas  down  to  the  Musalman  conquest 
of  Bakhtiyar  Khilji  in  1 199  a.d.'' 

^  Identified  with  the  modern  Baragaon,  near  Gaya.  The  Great  Monastery 
can  be  traced  by  a  mass  of  brick  ruins,  l6oo  feet  long  by  400  feet  deep. 
General  Cunningham's  Ancient  Geop-aphy  of  India,  pp.  468-470,  ed.  1871. 

-  Beal's  Catena  of  Biiddliist  Scriptures  from  the  Chinese,  p.  371,  ed.  187  T. 

•^  MS.    materials   supplied   to  the  author  by   CJeiieral   Cunningham,    to 


158  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

Buddhism       During  nearly   a  thousand  years,    Buddhism   has   been    a 

religion       banished  reh'gion  from  its  native  home.     But  it  has  won  greater 

1000  A.D.   triumphs  in  its  e.xile  than  it  could  have  ever  achieved  in  the 

land  of  its  birth.     It  has  created  a  literature  and  a  religion  for 

nearly  half  the  human  race,   and  has  affected  the  beliefs  of 

the  other  half.     Five  hundred  millions  of  men,  or  forty  per 

cent,  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  world,  still  acknowledge,  with 

more  or  less  fidelity,  the  holy  teaching  of  Buddha,    Afghanistan, 

Nepal,     Eastern    Tiirkistan,    Tibet,     Mongolia,     Manchuria, 

China,  Japan,  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  Siam,  Burma,  Ceylon, 

and  India,  at  one  time  marked  the  magnificent  circumference 

Its  foreign  of  its  conquests.     Its  shrines  and  monasteries  stretched  in  a 

conquests,  continuous  line  from  what  are  now  the  confines  of  the  Russian 

Empire   to   the   equatorial   islands    of   the    Pacific.      During 

twenty-four  centuries,  Buddhism  has  encountered  and  outlived 

a    series    of   powerful    rivals.      At    this    day   it   forms,    with 

Christianity  and  Islam,  one  of  the  three  great  religions  of  the 

world;  and  the  most  numerously  followed  of  the  three. 

Buddhist         In  India  its  influence  has  survived  its  separate   existence. 

inYndi  ^  The  Buddhist  period  not  only  left  a  distinct  sect,  the  Jains  ;  but 
it  supplied  the  spiritual  basis  on  which  Brahmanism  finally 
developed  from  the  creed  of  a  caste  into  the  religion  of  the 
people.  A  later  chapter  will  show  how  important  and  how 
permanent  have  been  Buddhistic  influences  on  Hinduism. 
The  Buddhists  in  British  India  in  18S1  numbered  nearly  3^ 
millions,  of  whom  3 J  millions  were  in  British  Burma;  and 
166,892  on  the  Indian  continent,  almost  entirely  in  North- 
Eastern  Bengal  and  Assam.  Together  with  the  Jain  sect,  the 
Buddhist  subjects  of  the  Crown  in  British  India  amount  to  close 
on  four  millions  (1881).^  The  revival  of  Buddhism  is  always 
a  possibility  in  India.  This  year  (1885)  an  excellent  Buddhist 
journal  has  been  started  in  Bengali,  at  Chittagong. 

The  Jains.      The  Jains  number  about  half  a  million  in  British  India. 
Like  the  Buddhists,  they  deny  the  authority  of  the  Veda,  except 

whose  Avchreological  Reports  and  kind  assistance  this  volume  is  deeply 
indebted. 

^  The  Buddhists  proper  were  returned  in  iSSi  for  British  India  at 
3,418,476;  of  whom  3,251,584  were  in  British  Burma;  155,809  in  the 
Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Bengal ;  and  6563  in  Assam.  The  Jains 
proper  were  returned  at  448,897  in  British  India  by  the  Census  of  iSSi. 
But  except  in  a  few  spots,  chiefly  among  the  sjiurs  of  the  Himalayas  antl  in 
Assam  and  South-Eastern  Bengal,  the  Indian  Buddhists  may  be  generally 
reckoned  as  Jains. 


J  A  IN  D  0  CTRINES  A  ND  TEMPL  ES.  159 

ill  so  far  as  it  agrees  with  their  own  doctrines.  They  disregard 
sacrifice ;  practise  a  strict  moraUty ;  believe  that  their  past  and 
future  states  depend  upon  their  own  actions  rather  than  on  any 
external  deity  ;  and  scrupulously  reverence  the  vital  principle 
in  man  and  beast.  They  differ  from  the  Buddhists  chiefly  in 
their  ritual  and  objects  of  worship.  The  veneration  of  good 
men  departed  is  common  to  both,  but  the  Jains  have  expanded 
and  methodized  such  adoration  on  lines  of  their  own. 

The  Buddhists  admit  that  many  Buddhas  have  appeared 
in  successive  lives  upon  earth,  and  attained  Nin^dfia  or 
beatific  extinction ;  but  they  confine  their  reverence  to  a 
comparatively  small  number.  The  Jains  divide  time  into  Jain  doc- 
successive  eras,  and  assign  twenty-four y/^a'i-,  or  just  men  made  '^'''"^^• 
perfect,  to  each.^  They  name  twenty-four  in  the  past  age, 
twenty-four  in  the  present,  and  twenty-four  in  the  era  to  come ; 
and  place  colossal  statues  of  white  or  black  marble  to  this 
great  company  of  saints  in  their  temples.  They  adore  above 
all  the  two  latest,  or  twenty-third  and  twenty-fourth  Jhias  of 
the  present  era — namely,  Parsvanath  -  and  Mahavira. 

The  Jains  choose  wooded  mountains  and  the  most  lovely  jain 
retreats  of  nature  for  their  places  of  pilgrimage,  and  cover  them  ^e'l^ple 
with  exquisitely-carved  shrmes  m  white  marble  or  stucco. 
Parasnath  Hill  in  Bengal,  the  temple  city  of  Palitana  in 
Kathiawar,  and  Mount  Abii,  which  rises  with  its  gems  of 
architecture  like  a  jewelled  island  from  the  Rajputana  plains, 
form  well-known  scenes  of  their  worship.  The  Jains  are  a 
wealthy  community,  usually  engaged  in  banking  or  wholesale 
commerce,  devoid  indeed  of  the  old  missionary  spirit  of 
Buddhism,  but  closely  knit  together  among  themselves. 
Their  charity  is  boundless ;  and  they  form  the  chief  sup- 
porters of  the  beast  hospitals,  which  the  old  Buddhistic 
tenderness  for  animals  has  left  in  many  of  the  cities  of  India. 

Jainism  is,  in  its  external  aspects,  Buddhism  equipped  with  Relation 
a  mythology — a  mythology,  however,  not  of  gods,  but  of  saints.  °^-lf^^^fP^ 
But    in    its    essentials,   Jainism    forms   a    survival .  of  beliefs  jsm. 
anterior  to  Asoka  and  Kanishka.     According  to  the  old  view, 
the  Jains  are  a  remnant  of  the  Indian  Buddhists  who  saved 
themselves  from  extinction  by  compromises  with  Hinduism, 
and  so  managed  to  erect  themselves  into  a  recognised  caste. 

^  Under  such  titles  as  Jagata-prabhu,  '  lord  of  the  world  ; '  Kshinakarma, 
'freed  from  ceremonial  acts;'  Sarvajna,  'all-knowinjj  ; '  Adhiswara, 
'  supreme  lord  ; '  Tirthankara,  '  he  who  has  crossed  over  the  world  ; '  and 
Jina,  '  he  who  has  conquered  the  human  passions.' 

-  Popularly  rendered  Parasnath. 


i6o  BUDDHISM,  543  B.C.   TO  1000  A.D. 

Jains  According  to  the  later  and  truer  view,  they  re])resent  in  an 

earlier  unbroken  succession  the  Nigantha  sect  of  the  Asoka  edicts. 
Buddhists?  '^^^  Jains  themselves  claim  as  their  founder,  Mahavi'ra,  the 
teacher  or  contemporary  of  Buddha ;  and  the  Niganthas 
appear  as  a  sect  independent  of,  indeed  opposed  to,  the 
Buddhists  in  the  Rock  Inscriptions  of  Asoka  and  in  the 
Southern  Canon  {pitakas). 

INIahavira,  who  bore  also  the  spiritual  name  of  Vardhamana, 
'The  Increaser,' is  the  24th  Jina  or  'Conqueror  of  the  Pas- 
sions,' adored  in  the  present  age  of  Jain  chronology.  Like 
Buddha,  he  was  of  princely  birth,  and  lived  and  laboured  in  the 
same  country  and  at  the  same  time  as  Buddha.  According 
to  the  southern  Buddhistic  dates,  Buddha  'attained  rest'  543 
B.C.,  and  Mahavira  in  526  B.C.  According  to  the  Jain  texts, 
Mahavi'ra  was  the  predecessor  and  teacher  of  Buddha. 

Antiquity  A  theory  has  accordingly  been  advanced  that  the  Buddhism 
of  the  Qf  Asoka  (244  B.C.)  was  in  reality  a  later  product  than  the 
Nigantha  or  Jain  doctrines.^  The  Jains  are  divided  into  theSwet- 
ambaras,  'The  White  Robed,' and  the  Digambaras,  'The  Naked.' 
The  Tibetan  texts  make  it  clear  that  sects  closely  analogous  to 
the  Jains  existed  in  the  time  of  Buddha,  and  that  they  were 
antecedent  and  rival  orders  to  that  which  Buddha  established.- 
Even  the  Southern  Buddhist  Canon  preserves  recollections  of  a 
struggle  between  a  naked  sect  like  the  Jain  Digambaras,  and 
the  decently  robed  Buddhists.^  This  Digambara  or  Nigantha 
sect  (Nirgrantha,  '  those  who  have  cast  aside  every  tie ')  was 
very  distinctly  recognised  by  Asoka's  edicts ;  and  both  the 
Swetambara  and  Digambara  orders  of  the  modern  Jains  find 
mention  in  the  early  copper-plate  inscriptions  of  Mysore,  circ. 
5th  or  6th  century  a.d.  The  Jains  in  our  own  day  feel  strongly 
on  this  subject,  and  the  head  of  the  community  at  Ahmadabdd 
has  placed  many  arguments  before  the  writer  of  the  present 
work  to  prove  that  their  faith  was  anterior  to  Buddhism. 

Until  quite  recently,  however,  European  scholars  did  not 
admit  the  pretensions  of  the  Jains  to  pre-Buddhistic  antiquity. 

^  This  subject  was  discussed  in  Mr.  Edward  Thomas'  Jainism,  or  the 
Early  Faith  of  Asoka ;  in  Mr.  Rhys  Davids' article  in  The  Academy  of 
13th  September  1S79  ;  in  his  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  27  ;  and  in  the  Nuniis- 
mata  Orientalia  (Ceylon  fasciculus),  pp.  55,  60. 

*  Mr.  \^  ooA\\\[Q.'^oz\C\\^Vi  Life  of  the  Buddha,  from  the  Bkah-IIgyur  and 
Bstan-Hgyur  in  variis  locis.      1884. 

^  See  for  example  the  curious  story  of  the  devout  Buddhist  liride  from 
the  Burmese  sacred  books,  in  Bishop  Bigandel's  Life  of  Caiidama,  pp. 
257-259,  vol.  i.  ed.  1882. 


SUR  VIVALS  OF  B  UDDHISM.  1 6 1 

H.  H.  Wilson  questioned  their  importance  at  any  period 
earlier  than  twelve  centuries  ago.^  Weber  regarded  '  the 
Jains  as  merely  one  of  the  oldest  sects  of  Buddhism  ; '  and 
Lassen  believed  that  they  had  branched  off  from  the 
Buddhists.2  M.  Barth,  after  a  careful  discussion  of  the 
evidence,  still  thought  that  we  must  regard  the  Jains  '  as  a 
sect  which  took  its  rise  in  Buddhism.'^  On  the  other  hand, 
Oldenberg,  who  brings  the  latest  light  from  the  Pali  texts  to 
bear  on  the  question,  accepts  the  identity  of  the  Jain  sect  with 
the  Niganthas  '  into  whose  midst  the  younger  brotherhood  of 
Buddha  entered.'"^ 

■  The  learned  Jacobi  has  now  investigated  this  question  from  jacobi's 
the  Tain  texts  themselves.-^     Oldenberg  had  proved,  out  of  the  ipvestiga- 

.  .  tion  of  the 

Buddhist  scriptures,  that  Buddhism  was  a  true  product  of  question. 
Brahman  doctrine  and  discipline.  Jacobi  shows  that  both 
'  Buddhism  and  Jainism  must  be  regarded  as  religions 
developed  out  of  Brahmanism  not  by  a  sudden  reformation, 
but  prepared  by  a  religious  movement  going  on  for  a  long 
time.'*^  And  he  brings  forward  evidence  for  believing  that 
Jainism  was  the  earlier  outgrowth ;  that  it  was  probably 
founded  by  Parsvanath,  now  revered  as  the  23rd  Jina  ; 
and  merely  reformed  by  Mahavira,  the  contemporary  of 
Buddha.''  The  outfit  of  the  Jain  monk,  his  alms  -  bowl,  Jainism 
rope,  and  water  vessel,  was  practically  the  equipment  of  the  ^j"^^"^/-^^" 
previous  Brahman  ascetic.^  In  doctrine,  the  Jains  accepted 
the  Brahman  pantheistic  philosophy  of  the  Atmdn,  or 
Universal  Soul.  They  believed  that  not  only  animals  and 
plants,  but  the  elements  themselves,  earth,  fire,  water,  and 
wind,  were  endowed  with  souls.  Buddha  made  a  further 
divergence.  He  combated  the  Brahman  doctrine  of  the 
Universal  Soul;   and  the  Jain  dogma,  of  the  elements  and 

'  Essays  and  Lectures  on  the  Religion  of  the  Hindus,  by  H.  H.  Wilson. 
Dr.  Reinhold  Rest's  edition,  p.  329,  vol.  i.  (1862). 

■•^  Weber's  Indische  Studien,  xvi.  2IO,  and  Lassen's  Indische  Alterthums- 
kiinde,  iv.  763  et  seq. 

3  Earth's  Religions  of  India,  ed.  18S2,  p.  151  ;  also  Earth's  Revue  de 
mistoire  des  ReligioJis,  iii.  90. 

*  Buddha,  his  Life,  his  Doctrine,  his  Order,  by  Prof.  Hermann  Olden- 
berg. Hoey's  translation  (1882),  p.  67.  See  also  his  pp.  66  and  (foot- 
note) 77,  and  175. 

*  Jaina  Sutras,  Part  I.,  the  Acharanga  Sutra,  and  the  Kalpa  Sutra,  by 
Hermann  Jacobi,  forming  vol.  xxii.  of  Max  Miiller's  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East.     Clarendon  Press,  1884. 

^  Jacobi,  op.  cit.     Introduction,  xxxii.  ^  Op.  cit.  xxxiv. 

*  For  slight  differences,  see  Jacobi,  xxviii. 

L 


1 62  BUDDHISM,  543  b.c.    TO  1000  a. a 

minerals  being  endowed  with  souls,  finds  no  place  in  Buddhist 

philosophy.^ 

Date  of  Jacobi   believes    that    the    Jain    texts  were    composed    or 

the  Jain      collected  at  the  end  of  the  4th  century  B.C. ;  that  the  origin  of 
Scriptures.  .       .  ^  ■'  .  . 

the  extant  Jain  literature  cannot  be  placed  earlier  than  about 

300  B.C. ;  and  that  their  sacred  books  were  reduced  to  writing 

in  the  5th  century  a.d.^     He   thinks  that  the  two  existing 

divisions  of  the  Jains,  the  Swetambaras  and  the  Digambaras, 

separated  from  each  other  about  two  or  three  hundred  years 

after  the  death  of  the  Founder ;   but  '  that  the  development  of 

the  Jain  church  has  not  been  at  any  time  violently  interrupted.' 

Jains  an      That,  *  in  fact,  we  can  follow  this  development  from  its  true 

indepen-     beginning  through  its  various  stages,  and  that  Jainism  is  as 
dent  sect.  »       _    &  &  &     >         ^  j 

much  independent  from  other  sects,  especially  from  Buddhism, 

as  can  be  expected  from  any  sect.'^ 

Modern  In  its  superficial  aspects,  modern  Jainism  may  be  described 

Jainibin.  ^g  ^  religion  allied  in  doctrine  to  ancient  Indian  Buddhism, 
but  humanized  by  saint-worship,  and  narrowed  from  a  national 
religion  to  the  exclusive  requirements  of  a  sect. 

vSurvivals  The  noblest  survivals  of  Buddhism  in  India  are  to  be  found, 
of  Buddh-  however,  not  among  any  peculiar  body,  but  in  the  religion  of 
India.  the  people  ;  in  that  principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  with 
the  re-assertion  of  which  each  new  revival  of  Hinduism  starts  ; 
in  the  asylum  which  the  great  Vaishnav  sect  affords  to  women 
who  have  fallen  victims  to  caste  rules,  to  the  widow  and  the 
outcast ;  in  that  gentleness  and  charity  to  all  men,  which  take 
the  place  of  a  poor-law  in  India,  and  give  a  high  significance 
to  the  half-satirical  epithet  of  the  'mild'  Hindu. 

'(?/.  cit.  xxxiii.         ^Jacobi,  op.  cit.  xxxv.  and  xliii.         '  Op.  cit.  xlvi. 


[   i63  ] 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE    GREEKS    IN    IXDIA    (327    TO    161     B.C.). 

Religion  and  Philosophy  have  been  the  great  contributions 
.of  India  to  the  world.  We  now  come  to  deal  with  India,  not 
as  a  centre  of  influence  upon  other  nations,  but  as  acted  on 
by  them. 

The   External    History  of  India  commences  with  the  External 
Greek  invasion  in  327  B.C.    Some  indirect  trade  between  India  ^P^"^u" 

^    '  .  the  history 

and  the  Mediterranean  seems  to  have  existed  from  very  ancient  of  India. 
times.     Homer  was  acquainted  with  tin,^    and  other  articles 
of  Indian  merchandise,    by   their  Sanskrit  names ;  and  a   list 
has  been  made  of  Indian  products  mentioned  in  the  Bible.- 
The  ship  captains  of  Solomon  and  Hiram  not  only  brought 
Indian  apes,  peacocks,  and  sandal-wood  to  Palestine  ;  they  also 
brought  their  Sanskrit  names.^     This  was  about  1000  b.c.    The 
Assyrian  monuments  show  that  the  rhinoceros  and  elephant  were 
among  the  tribute  offered  to  Shalmaneser  11.  (S59-823  b.c.).* 
But  the  first  Greek  historian  who  speaks  clearly  of  India  is  Early 
Hekataios  of  Miletos  (549-4S6  B.C.) ;  the  knowledge  of  Hero-  ^^9^^ 
dotos  (450  B.C.)  ended  at  the  Indus  ;  and  Ktesias,  the  physician  549-401 
(401  B.C.),  brought  back  from  his  residence  in  Persia  only  a  ^•'^• 
few  facts  about  the  products  of   India,  its  dyes  and  fabrics, 
monkeys  and  parrots.     India  to  the  east  of  the  Indus  was  first 
made  known  to  Europe  by  the  historians  and  men  of  science        v 
who  accompanied  Alexander  the   Great  in   327   B.C.     Their 
narratives,  although  now  lost,  furnished  materials  to  Strabo,  Megas- 
Pliny,  and  Arrian.     Soon  afterwards,  jMegasthcnes,  as  Greek  -,^^^^298 

B.C. 

'  Greek,  Kassiteros  ;  Sanskrit,  Kastira  ;  hence,  the  Kassiterides,  the  Tin 
or  Scilly  Islands.  Elephas,  ivory,  through  the  Arabia-n  e/ep/i  (from  Arabic 
e/,  the,  and  Sanskrit  t'Ma,  domestic  elephant),  is  also  cited. 

='  Sir  G.  Bird  wood's  Handbook  to  the  British  Indian  Section  of  tlu:  Paris 
Exhibition  of  1878,  pp.  22-35.  For  economic  intercourse  with  ancient 
India,  see  Del  Mar's  History  of  Money  in  Ancient  Countries,  chaps,  iv. 
and  V.  (1S85). 

=*  Hebrew,  Kophim,  tukijim,  almugim  =  Sanskrit,  kapi,  sikhi,  valgukam. 

*  Professor  Max  Duncker's  Ancient  History  of  India,  p.  13  (ed.  1S81). 


1 64  THE  GREEKS  IN  INDIA. 

ambassador   resident   at   a   court    in    the   centre   of    Bengal 

(306-298  B.C.),  had  opportunities  for  the  closest  observation. 

The  knowledge    of  the  Greeks  concerning    India   practically 

dates  from  his  researches,  300  B.c.i 
Alexan-  Alexander  the  Great  entered  India  early  in  327  B.C.;  crossed 

<iei-s  ex-      |.|^g  Indus  above  Attock,  and  advanced,  without  a  struggle, 

pedition,  .  .  .        o  11 

327-325      over  the  mtervenmg  territory  of  the  Taxiles  -  to  the  J ehlam 
^•^-  (Jhelum)  (Hydaspes).    He  found  the  Punjab  divided  into  petty 

kingdoms  jealous  of  each  other,  and  many  of  them  inclined  to 
join  an  invader  rather  than  to  oppose  him.  One  of  these  local 
monarchs,  Porus,  disputed  the  passage  of  the  Jehlam  with  a 
force  which,  substituting  chariots  for  guns,  about  equalled 
the  army  of  Ranji't  Singh,  the  ruler  of  the  Punjab  in  the  present 
century.^  Plutarch  gives  a  vivid  description  of  the  battle  from 
Alexander's  own  letters.  Having  drawn  up  his  troops  at  a 
bend  of  the  Jehlam,  about  14  miles  west  of  the  modern  field 
of  Chilianwala,'*  the  Greek  general  crossed  under  cover  of  a 
tempestuous  night.  The  chariots  hurried  out  by  Porus  stuck 
in  the  muddy  margin  of  the  river.  In  the  engagement  which 
followed,  the  elephants  of  the  Indian  prince  refused  to  face  the 

^  The  fragments  of  the  Indika  of  Megasthenes,  collected  by  Dr. 
Schwanbeck,  with  the  first  part  of  the  Indika  of  Arrian  ;  the  Periplus 
Maris  Erythrasi,  with  Arrian's  account  of  the  voyage  of  Nearkhos  ;  the 
Indika  of  Ktesias  ;  and  Ptolemy's  chapters  relating  to  India,  have  been 
edited  in  four  volumes  with  prolegomena  by  Mr.  J.  W.  M'Crindle,  M.A. 
(Triibner,  1877,  1879,  1882,  and  1S85).  They  originally  appeared  in  the 
Indian  Antiqiiaiy,  to  which  this  volume  and  the  whole  Iinperial  Gazetteer 
of  India  are  much  indebted.  General  Cunningham's  Ancient  Geography 
of  India,  with  its  maps,  and  his  Reports  of  the  Archaological  Survey, 
Vincent's  Commerce  and  Navigation  of  the  Ancients  (2  vols.  4to,  1807), 
and  the  series  of  maps,  on  an  unfortunately  small  scale,  in  General- 
Lieutenant  von  Spruner's  Historisch-Geographischen  Atlas  (Gotha),  have 
also  been  freely  availed  of. 

*  The  Takkas,  a  Turanian  race,  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Rawal 
PiNDi  District.  They  gave  their  name  to  the  town  of  Takshasila  or 
Taxila,  which  Alexander  found  'a  rich  and  populous  city,  the  largest 
between  the  Indus  and  Hydaspes,'  identified,  with  the  ruins  of  Deri 
Shahan.  Taki  or  Asarur,  on  the  road  between  Lahore  and  Pindi 
P)hatiyan,  was  the  capital  of  the  Punjab  in  633  A. n.  When  names  are 
jirinted  in  capitals,  the  object  is  to  refer  the  reader  to  the  fuller  informa- 
tion given  in  the  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

^  Namely,  '  30,000  efficient  infantry ;  4000  horse  ;  300  chariots ;  200 
elephants'  [Professor  Cowell].  The  Greeks  probably  exaggerated  the 
numbers  of  the  enemy.  Alexander's  army  numbered  'about  50,000, 
including  5000  Indian  auxiliaries  under  Mophis  of  Taxila.' — General  Cun- 
ningham, Anc.  Geog.  of  India,  p.  172.  See  his  lucid  account  of  the  battle, 
with  an  excellent  map,  pp.  159-177,  ed.  1871. 

•*  And  about  30  miles  south-west  of  Jehlam  town. 


ALEXANDER  IN  INDIA,  327-325  b.c.         165 

Greeks,  and,  wheeling  round,  trampled  his  own  army  under 
foot.  His  son  fell  early  in  the  onset;  Porus  himself  tied 
wounded ;  but  on  tendering  his  submission,  he  was  confirmed 
in  his  kingdom,  and  became  the  conqueror's  trusted  friend. 
Alexander  built  two  memorial  cities  on  the  scene  of  his  victory, 
— Bucephala  on  the  west  bank,  near  the  modern  Jalalpur, 
named  after  his  beloved  charger,  Bucephalus,  slain  in  the  battle  ; 
and  Nikaia,  the  present  IMong,  on  the  east  side  of  the  river. 

Alexander  advanced  south-east  through  the  kingdom  of  the  Alexander 
younger  Porus  to  Amritsar,  and  after  a  sharp  bend  backward  l"^    .. 
to  the  west,  to  fight  the  Kathaei  at  Sangala,  he  reached  the  327-326 
Beas  (Hyphasis).     Here,  at  a  spot  not  far  from  the  modern  ^•^• 
battle-field    of  Sobraon,  he    halted  his  victorious  standards.^ 
He  had  resolved  to  march  to  the  Ganges ;  but  his  troops  were 
worn  out  by  the  heats  of  the  Punjab  summer,  and  their  spirits 
broken  by  the  hurricanes  of  the  south-west  monsoon.      The 
native  tribes  had  already  risen  in  his  rear,  and  the  Conqueror 
of  the  World  was  forced  to  turn  back,  before  he  had  crossed 
even  the  frontier  Province  of  India.     The  Sutlej,  the  eastern 
Districts  of  the  Punjab,  and  the  mighty  Jumna,  still  lay  between 
him  and  the  Ganges.    A  single  defeat  might  have  been  fatal  to 
his  army ;  if  the  battle  on  the  Jehlam  had  gone  against  him, 
not  a  Greek  would  probably  have    reached  the  Afghan  side 
of  the  passes.     Yielding  at  length  to  the  clamour  of  his  men, 
he  led  them  back  to  the  Jehlam.     He  there  embarked  8000 
of  his  troops  in  boats  previously  prepared,  and  floated  them 
down  the  river ;  the  remainder  marched  in  two  divisions  along 
the  banks. 

The  country  was  hostile,  and  the  Greeks  held  only  the  Alexandei- 
land  on  which  they  encamped.  At  Miiltan,  then  as  now  the  *,"  r  ^r.. 
capital  of  the  Southern  Punjab,  Alexander  had  to  fight  a  pitched 
battle  with  the  INIalli,  and  was  severely  wounded  in  taking  the 
city.  His  enraged  troops  put  every  soul  within  it  to  the  sword. 
Farther  down,  near  the  confluence  of  the  five  rivers  of  the 
Punjab,  he  made  a  long  halt,  built  a  town, — Alexandria,  the 
modern  Uchh, — and  received  the  submission  of  the  neighbour- 
ing States.  A  Greek  garrison  and  Satrap,  whom  he  here  left 
behind,  laid  the  foundation  of  a  more  lasting  influence.  Having 
constructed  a  new  fleet,  suitable  for  the  greater  rivers  on  which 
he  was  now  to  embark,  he  proceeded  southwards  through 
Sind,  and  followed  the  course  of  the  Indus  until  he  reached 

'  The  change  in  the  course  of  the  Sutlej  has  altered  its  old  position 
relative  to  the  Beas  at  this  point.  The  best  small  map  of  Alexander's  route 
is  No.  V.  in  General  Cunningham's  Auc.  Gc^g.  0/ India,  p.  104,  ed.  1871. 


1 66  THE  GREEKS  IN  INDIA. 

the  ocean.  In  the  apex  of  the  delta  he  founded  or  refounded 
a  city — Patala — which  survives  to  this  day  as  Haidarabad,  the 
native  capital  of  Sind.^  At  the  mouth  of  the  Indus,  Alexander 
beheld  for  the  first  time  the  majestic  phenomenon  of  the 
Leaves  tides.  One  part  of  his  army  he  shipped  off  under  the  corn- 
India,         mand  of  Nearkhos  to  coast  alonaj  the  Persian  Gulf:  the  other 

August  .  . 

325^B.c.  he  himself  led  through  Southern  Baluchistan  and  Persia  to 
Susa,  where,  after  terrible  losses  from  want  of  water  and  famine 
on  the  march,  he  arrived  in  325  b.c.^ 
Results  of  During  his  two  years'  campaign  in  the  Punjab  and  Sind, 
jreek  ex-  Alexander  captured  no  province,  but  he  made  alliances, 
327-325'  founded  cities,  and  planted  Greek  garrisons.  He  had  trans- 
^•c-  ferred   much    territory  from   the   tribes  whom   he   had   half- 

subdued,  to  the  chiefs  and  confederations  who  were  devoted 
to  his  cause.  Every  petty  court  had  its  Greek  faction  ;  and  the 
detachments  which  he  left  behind  at  various  positions  from 
the  Afghan  frontier  to  the  Beas,  and  from  near  the  base  of 
the  Himalayas  to  the  Sind  delta,  were  visible  pledges  of  his 
return.  At  Taxila  (Deri-Shahan)  and  Nikaia  (Mong)  in  the 
Northern  Punjab ;  at  Alexandria  (Uchh)  in  the  Southern 
Punjab  ;  at  Patala  (Haidarabad)  in  Sind ;  and  at  other  points 
along  his  route,  he  established  military  settlements  of  Greeks 
or  their  allies.  A  body  of  his  troops  remained  in  Bactria.  In 
Seleukos,  the  partition  of  the  Empire  after  Alexander's  death  in  323  B.C., 
323-312  Bactria  and  India  eventually  fell  to  Seleukos  Nikator,  the 
founder  of  the  Syrian  monarchy. 

Chandra  Meanwhile,  a  new  power  had  arisen  in  India.  Among  the 
026  B.C.-  Indian  adventurers  who  thronged  Alexander's  camp  in  the 
Punjab,  each  with  his  plot  for  winning  a  kingdom  or  crushing 
a  rival,  Chandra  Gupta,  an  exile  from  the  Gangetic  valley, 
seems  to  have  played  a  somewhat  ignominious  part.  He  tried 
to  tempt  the  wearied  Greeks  on  the  banks  of  the  Beas  with 

'  For  its  interesting  appearances  in  ancient  history,  see  General  Cun- 
ningham's Anc.  Geog.  of  India,  pp.  279-287,  under  Patala  or  Nirankot. 
It  appears  variously  as  Pattala,  Pattalene,  Pitasila,  etc.  It  was  formerly 
identified  with  Tatta  (Thatha),  near  to  where  the  western  arm  of  the 
Indus  bifurcates.  See  also  M'Crindle's  Cotninerce  and  Navigation  of  the 
ErythntanSea,-^.  156  (Trilbner,  1879).  An  excellent  map  of  Alexander's 
campaign  in  Sind  is  given  at  p.  248  of  Cunningham's  A71C.  Geog.  of  India. 

^  The  stages  down  the  Indus  and  along  the  Persian  coast,  with  the 
geographical  features  and  incidents  of  Nearkhos'  Voyage,  are  given  in  the 
second  part  of  the  Indika  of  Arrian,  chapter  xviii.  to  the  end.  The  river 
stages  and  details  are  of  value  to  the  student  of  the  modern  delta  of  the 
Indus.— M'Crindle's  Coinnierce  and  Navigation  of  the  Erythnran  Sea,  pp. 
153-224  (1879). 


SELEUKOS  IN  INDIA,  312-306  b.c.  167 

schemes  of  conquest  in  the  rich  south-eastern  Provinces ;  but 
having  personally  ofifended  Alexander,  he  had  to  fly  the  camp 
(326  B.c).  In  the  confused  years  which  followed,  he  managed, 
with  the  aid  of  plundering  hordes,  to  found  a  kingdom  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Nanda  dynasty  in  Magadha,  or  Behar  (316  316  b.c; 
B.c.).i  He  seized  their  capital,  Pataliputra,  the  modern  Patna; 
established  himself  firmly  in  the  Gangetic  valley,  and  com- 
pelled the  Punjab  principalities,  Greek  and  native  alike, 
to  acknowledge  his  suzerainty.'-^  While,  therefore,  Seleukos 
Nikator  was  winning  his  way  to  the  Syrian  monarchy  during 
the  eleven  years  which  followed  Alexander's  death,  Chandra 
Gupta  was  building  up  an  empire  in  Northern  India.  Seleukos 
reigned  in  Syria  from  312  to  280  B.C.;  Chandra  Gupta  in  the  312  b.c. 
Gangetic  valley  from  316  to  292  B.C.  In  312  B.C.,  the  power 
of  both  had  been  consolidated,  and  the  two  new  sovereignties 
were  soon  brought  face  to  face. 

About  that  year,  Seleukos,  having  recovered  Babylon,  pro-  Seleukos 

ceeded  to  re-establish  his  authority  in  Bactria  and  the  Punjab.  ^"  In^li-}, 

•  312-306 

In  the  Punjab,  he   found  Greek   mfluence   decayed.      Alex-  ^c. 

ander  had  left  a  mixed  force  of  Greeks  and  Indians  at  Taxila. 
But  no  sooner  had  he  departed  from  India,  than  the  Indians 
rose  and  slew  the  Greek  governor.  The  Macedonians  next 
massacred  the  Indians.  A  new  governor,  sent  by  Alexander, 
murdered  the  friendly  Punjab  prince,  Porus ;  and  was  himself 
driven  out  of  India,  by  the  advance  of  Chandra  Gupta  from  the 
Gangetic  valley.  Seleukos,  after  a  war  with  Chandra  Gupta, 
determined  to  ally  himself  with  the  new  power  in  India  rather 
than  to  oppose  it.  In  return  for  500  elephants,  he  ceded  the 
Greek  settlements  in  the  Punjab  and  the  Kabul  valley ;  gave 
his  daughter  to  Chandra  Gupta  in  marriage ;  and  stationed  an 
ambassador,  Megasthenes,  at  the  Gangetic  court  (306-298  B.C.).  306-298 
Chandra  Gupta  became  familiar  to  the  Greeks  as  Sandrokottos, 
King  of  the  Prasii  and  Gangaridae  ;  his  capital,  Pataliputra,^ 
or  Patna,  was  rendered  into  Palimbothra.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Greeks  and  kings  of  Grecian  dynasties  appear  in  the  rock- 
inscriptions  under  Indian  forms.'^ 

1  Corpus  Inscriptiomim  Indicaritm,  i.  7.     Jacobi's _/««'««  Stitras,  xliii. 

-  For  the  dynasty  of  Chandra  Gupta,  see  Nuinisniata  Orientalia  (Ceylon 
fasciculus),  pp.  41-50. 

^  The  modern  Patna,  or  Pattana,  means  simply  'the  city.'  For  its 
identification  with  Pataliputra  by  means  of  Mr.  Ravenshaw's  final  dis- 
coveries, see  General  Cunningham's  Anc.  Geog.  of  India,  p.  452  et  seq. 

*  The  Greeks  as  Yonas  (Vavanas),  from  the  'laovs;  or  lonians.  In  the 
Inscriptions  of  Asoka,  five  Greek  princes  appear  :  Antiochus  (of  Syria) ; 
Ptolemy   (Philadelphos   of  Egypt)  ;   Antigonos   (Gonatos   of  Macedon)  ; 


i68  THE  GREEKS  IN  INDIA. 

The  India  Megasthenes  has  left  a  lifelike  picture  of  the  Indian  people, 
thenes^  "  Notwithstanding  some  striking  errors,  the  observations  which 
300  K.c.  he  jotted  down  at  Patna,  three  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
give  as  accurate  an  account  of  the  social  organization  in  the 
Gangetic  valley  as  any  which  existed  when  the  Bengal  Asiatic 
Society  commenced  its  labours  at  the  end  of  the  last  century 
(1784),  Up  to  the  time  of  Megasthenes,  the  Greek  idea  ot 
India  was  a  very  vague  one.  Their  historians  spoke  of  two 
classes  of  Indians, — certain  mountainous  tribes  who  dwelt  in 
Northern  Afghanistan  under  the  Caucasus  or  Hindu  Kush, 
and  a  maritime  race  living  on  the  coast  of  Baluchistan.  Of 
the  India  of  modern  geography  lying  beyond  the  Indus,  they 
]:)ractically  knew  nothing.  It  was  this  India  to  the  east  of  the 
Indus  which  Megasthenes  opened  up  to  the  western  world. 
His  seven  He  describes  the  classification  of  the  people,  dividing  them, 
of^^r  however,  into  seven  castes  instead  of  four,^ — namely,  philo- 
people.  sophers,  husbandmen,  shepherds,  artisans,  soldiers,  inspectors, 
and  the  counsellors  of  the  king.  The  philosophers  were  the 
Brahmans,  and  the  prescribed  stages  of  their  life  are  indicated. 
Megasthenes  draws  a  distinction  between  the  Brahmans 
(Bpa;)(/xav€s)  and  the  Sarmanai  (2ap/x.ami),  from  which  some 
scholars  infer  that  the  Buddhist  Sramanas  or  monks  were  a 
recognised  order  300  B.C.,  or  fifty  years  before  the  Council  of 
Asoka.  But  the  Sarmanai  might  also  include  Brahmans  in  the 
first  and  third  stages  of  their  life  as  students  and  forest 
recluses.-  The  inspectors,^  or  sixth  class  of  Megasthenes,  have 
been  identified  with  the  Buddhist  supervisors  of  morals,  after- 
wards referred  to  in  the  sixth  edict  of  Asoka.  Arrian's  name 
for  them,  cTrto-KOTrot,  is  the  Greek  word  which  has  become  our 
modern  Bishop  or  overseer  of  souls. 
'Errors 'of      It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Indian  society,  as  seen  by 

Megas-       Megasthenes,    was   not    the   artificial    structure    described   in 
thanes.  •      ^^  •  1     ■ 

Manu,  with  its  rigid  lines  and  four  sharply  demarcated  castes. 

It  was  the   actual   society  of  the  court,  the  camp,  and  the 

capital,  at  a  time  when  Buddhist  ideals  were  conflicting  with 

Brahmanical  types.     Some  of  the  so-called  errors  of  Megas- 

Magas  (of  Kyrene) ;  Alexander  (11.  of  Epirus). — Weber,  Hist.  Ind.  Lit., 
pp.  179,  252.  But  see  also  Wilson,  Jciirn.  Roy.  As.  See,  vol.  xii.  (1S50), 
and  Cunningham's  Corpus  Inscrip.  Jndic,  pp.  125,  126. 

^  Ancient  India  as  described  by  Megastlienes  and  Arrian,  being  fragni cuts 
of  the  Indika,  by  J.  W.  M'Crindle,  M.A.,  p.  40,  ed.  1877. 

^  Brahmacharins  and  Vanaprasthas  (ukifiioi).  Weber  very  properly 
declines  to  identify  the  2apfid.tai  exclusively  with  the  Buddhist  Sramanas. 
J/ist.  Ind.  Lit.,  p.  28,  ed.  1S78. 

^  The  j(po/!(w  (Deodorus,  Strabo),  Wkjx.o'xoi  (Arrian). 


THE  INDIA  OF  MEGASTHENES.  169 

thenes  have  been  imp-uted  to  him  from  a  want  of  due  apprecia- 
tion of  this  fact.  Others  have  been  proved  by  modern  inquiry 
to  be  no  errors  at  all.  The  knowledge  of  India  derived  by 
the  Greeks  chiefly,  although  by  no  means  exclusively,  from 
Megasthenes  includes  details  which  were  scarcely  known  to 
Europeans  in  the  last  century.  The  Aryan  and  Aboriginal 
elements  of  the  population,  or  the  White  and  Dark  Indians ; 
the  two  great  harvests  of  the  year  in  spring  and  autumn ;  the 
salt-mines ;  the  land-making  silt  brought  down  by  the  rivers 
from  the  Himalayas ;  the  great  changes  in  the  river-courses ; 
and  even  a  fairly  accurate  measurement  of  the  Indian 
peninsula — were  among  the  points  known  to  the  Greek  writers. 

From  those  sources,  the  present  writer  has  derived  pregnant  The  old 
hints  in  regard  to  the  physical  configuration  of  India.     The  I"c'i'in 

°  ^  rivers. 

account  which  Megasthenes  gives  of  the  size  of  the  Indus  and 
its  lakes,  points  to  the  same  conclusion  as  that  reached  by 
the  most  recent  observations,  in  regard  to  the  Indian  rivers 
being  originally  lines  of  drainage  through  great  watery  regions. 
In  their  upper  courses  they  gradually  scooped  out  their  beds, 
and  thus  produced  a  low-level  channel  into  which  the  fens 
and  marshes  eventually  drained.  In  their  lower  courses  they 
conducted  their  great  operations  of  land-making  from  the  silt 
which  their  currents  had  brought  down  from  above.  In  regard 
to  the  rivers,  as  in  several  other  matters,  the  '  exaggerations ' 
of  Megasthenes  turn  out  to  be  nearer  the  truth  than  was 
suspected  until  the  Statistical  Survey  of  187 1. 

The  Brahmans  deeply  impressed  Alexander  by  their  learning  Kalanos, 
and  austerities.     One  of  them,  Kalanos  by  name,  was  tempted,  ^"^^  Brah- 
notwithstanding  the  reproaches  of  his  brethren,  to  enter  the 
service  of  the  conqueror.     But  falling  sick  in  Persia,  Kalanos 
determined  to  die  like  a  Brahman,  although  he  had  not  consist- 
ently lived  as  one.     Alexander,  on  hearing  of  the  philosopher's 
resolve  to  put  an  end  to  his  life,  vainly  tried  to  dissuade  him  ; 
then  loaded  him  with  jewels,  and  directed  that  he  should  be 
attended  with  all  honours  to  the  last  scene.     Distributing  the 
costly  gifts  of  his  master  as  he  advanced,  wearing  a  garland  of  323  k.c. 
flowers,  and  singing  his  native   Indian  hymns,  the  Brahman 
mounted  a  funeral  pyre,  and  serenely  perished  in  the  flames. 

The  Greek  ambassador  observed  with  admiration  the  ab-  Indian 
sence  of  slavery  in  India,  the  chastity  of  the  women,  and  the  society, 
courage  of  the  men.     In  valour  they  excelled  all  other  Asiatics  ;  '^ 
they  required  no  locks  to  their  doors  ;  above  all,  no  Indian  was 
ever  known  to  tell  a  lie.     Sober  and  industrious,  good  farmers, 
and  skilful  artisans,  they  scarcely  ever  had  recourse  to  a  law- 


I70  THE  GREEKS  IN  INDIA. 

suit,  and  lived  peaceably  under  their  native  chiefs.    The  kingly 
government  is  portrayed  almost  as  described  in  Manu,  with  its 
Petty  hereditary  castes  of  councillors  and  soldiers.      Megasthenes 

kingdoms,  mentions  that  India  was  divided  into  ii8  kingdoms;  some 
of  which,  such  as  that  of  the  Prasii  under  Chandra  Gupta, 
exercised  suzerain  powers.  The  village  system  is  well  described, 
each  little  rural  unit  seeming  to  the  Greek  an  independent 
republic.  Megasthenes  remarked  the  exemption  of  the  hus- 
bandmen (Vaisyas)  from  war  and  public  services  ;  and  enume- 
rates the  dyes,  fibres,  fabrics,  and  products  (animal,  vegetable, 
and  mineral)  of  India.  Husbandry  depended  on  the  periodical 
rains ;  and  forecasts  of  the  weather,  with  a  view  to  '  make 
adequate  provision  against  a  coming  deficiency,'  formed  a 
special  duty  of  the  Brahmans,  '  The  philosopher  who  errs  in 
his  predictions  observes  silence  for  the  rest  of  his  life.' 

Indo-  Before  the  year  300  B.C.,  two  powerful  monarchies  had  thus 

^eat  ^  begun  to  act  upon  the  Brahmanism  of  Northern  India,  from 
256  B.'c.  the  east  and  from  the  west.  On  the  east,  in  the  Gangetic 
valley,  Chandra  Gupta  (316-292  B.C.)  firmly  consolidated  the 
dynasty  which  during  the  next  century  produced  Asoka 
(264-223  B.C.),  established  Buddhism  throughout  India,  and 
sjDread  its  doctrines  from  Afghanistan  to  China,  and  from 
Central  Asia  to  Ceylon.  On  the  west,  the  heritage  of  Seleukos 
(312-280  B.C.)  diffused  Greek  influences,  and  sent  forth  Greco- 
Bactrian  expeditions  to  the  Punjab.  Antiochos  Theos  (grand- 
son of  Seleukos  Nikator)  and  Asoka  (grandson  of  Chandra 
Gupta),  who  ruled  these  probably  conterminous  monarchies, 
made  a  treaty  with  each  other,  256  B.C.  In  the  next  century, 
Eukratides,  King  of  Bactria,  conquered  as  far  as  Alexander's 
royal  city  of  Patala,  the  modern  Haidarabad  in  the  Sind 
Delta;  and  sent  expeditions  into  Cutch  and  Gujarat,  181-161 
Greeks  in    B.C.     Menander  advanced  farthest  into  North-Western  India, 

o     V       and    his  coins  are  found  from    Kabul,   near  which   he   pro- 
181-161  .  .  '  ' 

K.c.  bably  had  his  capital,  as  far  as  Muttra  on  the  Jumna.     The 

Buddhist  successors  of  Chandra  Gupta  profoundly  modified 
the  religion  of  Northern  India  from  the  east ;  the  empire  of 
Seleukos,  with  its  Bactrian  and  later  offshoots,  deeply  influenced 
the  science  and  art  of  Hindustan  from  the  west. 
Greek  in-  We  have  already  seen  how  much  Brahman  astronomy  owed 
fluence  on  |.q  ^^  Greeks,  and  how  the  builders'  art  in  India  received  its 

Indian  art.    .         .  ^  j  n  • 

first  impulse  from  the  architectural  exigencies  of  Buddhism. 
The  same  double  influence,  of  the  Greeks  on  the  west  and  of 
the  Buddhists  on  the  east  of  the  Brahmanical  Middle  Land  of 


GRECO-INDIAN  SCULPTURE.  171 

Bengal,  can  be  traced  in  many  details.  What  the  Buddhists 
were  to  the  architecture  of  Northern  India,  that  the  Greeks  were 
to  its  sculpture.  Greek  faces  and  profiles  constantly  occur  in 
ancient  Buddhist  statuary.  They  enrich  almost  all  the  larger 
museums  in  India,  and  examples  may  be  seen  at  South  Kensing- 
ton. The  purest  specimens  have  been  found  in  the  Punjab, 
where  the  Greeks  settled  in  greatest  force.  In  the  Lahore  col- 
lection there  was,  among  other  beautiful  pieces,  an  exquisite  little 
figure  of  an  old  blind  man  feeling  his  way  with  a  staff.  Its 
subdued  pathos,  its  fidelity  to  nature,  and  its  living  movement 
dramatically  held  for  the  moment  in  sculptured  suspense, 
are  Greek,  and  nothing  but  Greek.  It  is  human  misfortune, 
that  has  culminated  in  wandering  poverty,  age,  and  blindness 
— the  very  curse  which  Sophocles  makes  the  spurned  Teiresias 
throw  back  upon  the  doomed  king — 

'  Blind,  having  seen  ; 
Poor,  having  rolled  in  wealth  ;  he  with  a  staff 
Feeling  his  way  to  a  strange  land  shall  go.' 

As  we  proceed  eastward  from  the   Punjab,  the  Greek  type  Greek  and 
begins  to  fade.     Purity  of  outline  gives  place  to  lusciousness  flmtUi 
of  form.     In    the  female  figures,  the  artists  trust  more  and  sculpture. 
more  to  swelling  breasts  and  towering  chignons,  and  load  the 
neck  with  constantly-accumulating  jewels.     Nevertheless,  the 
Grecian  type  of  countenance  long  survived  in  Indian  art.     It 
is  perfectly  unlike  the  coarse,   conventional  ideal  of  beauty 
in  modern  Hindu  sculptures,  and  may  perhaps  be  traced  as 
late  as  the  delicate  profiles  on  the  so-called  Sun  Temple  at 
Kanarak,  built  in  the  12th  century  a.d.  on  the  Orissa  shore. 

Not  only  did  the  Greek  impulse  become  fainter  and  fainter  Greek 
in  Indian  sculpture  with  the  lapse  of  time,  but  that  impulse  "^^yi'^^  '^''^ 
was  itself  gradually  derived  from  less  pure  and  less  vigorous 
sources.  The  Greek  ideal  of  beauty  may  possibly  have  been 
brought  direct  to  India  by  the  officers  and  artists  of  Alexander 
the  Great.  But  it  was  from  Graeco-Bactria,  not  from  Greece 
itself,  that  the  practical  masters  of  Greek  sculpture  came  to  the 
Punjab.  Indeed,  it  seems  probable  that  the  most  prolific  stream 
of  such  artistic  inspirations  reached  India  from  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  in  Imperial  times,  rather  than  through  even  the 
indirect  Grecian  channels  represented  by  the  Bactrian  kingdom. 

It  must  suffice  here  to  indicate  the  ethnical  and  dynastic  Foreign 
influences  thus  brouiiht  to  bear  upon  India,  without  attempt-  '"^"ences 

...  ^       on  India. 

ing    to    assign    dates    to    the    individual    monarchs.       The 
chronology  of  the  twelve  centuries  intervening  between  the 


I 


172  THE  GREEKS  IN  INDIA. 

GriBco  -  Bactrian  period  and  the  Muhammadan  conquest 
still  depends  on  a  mass  of  conflicting  evidence  derived  from 
inscriptions,  legendary  literature,  unwritten  traditions,  and 
coins. ^  Four  systems  of  computation  exist,  based  upon  the 
Vikramaditya,  Saka,  Seleucidan,  and  Parthian  eras. 

In  the  midst  of  the  confusion,  we  see  dim  masses 
moving  southwards  from  Central  Asia  into  India.  The 
Gra^co-Bactrian  kings  are  traced  by  coins  as  far  as  Muttra  on 
the  Jumna.  Their  armies  occupied  for  a  time  the  Punjab,  as 
far  south  as  Gujarat  and  Sind.  Sanskrit  texts  are  said  to 
indicate  their  advance  through  the  Middle  Land  of  the 
Brahmans  {Madhya  -  desha)  to  Saketa  (or  Ajodhya),  the 
capital  of  Oudh,  and  to  Patnd  in  Behar."  Megasthenes  was 
(ireeks  in  only  the  first  of  a  series  of  Greek  ambassadors  to  Bengal'' 
Bengal.  ^  Grecian  princess  became  the  queen  of  Chandra  Gupta  at 
Patna  {circ.  306  B.C.).  Greeco-Bactrian  girls,  or  Yavanis,  were 
welcome  gifts,  and  figure  in  the  Sanskrit  drama  as  the  per- 
sonal attendants  of  Indian  kings.  They  were  probably  fair- 
complexioned  slaves  from  the  northern  regions.  It  is  right 
to  add,  however,  that  the  word  Yavan  has  a  much  wider 
application  than  merely  to  the  Greeks  or  even  to  the  Bactrians. 
Greek  The  credentials  of  the  Indian  embassy  to  Augustus  in 
survivals  22-20  B.C.  were  written  on  skins;  a  circumstance  which  per- 
haps indicates  the  extent  to  which  Greek  usage  had  overcome 
Brahmanical  prejudices.  During  the  century  preceding  the 
Christian  era,  Scythian  or  Tartar  hordes  began  to  supplant 
the  Grseco-Bactrian  influence  in  the  Punjab. 

The  The  term  Yavana,  or  Yona,  formerly  applied  to  any  non- 

avanas;  brahmanical  race,  and  especially  to  the  Greeks,  was  now  ex- 
tended to  the  Sakoe  or  Scythians.  It  probably  includes  many 
various  tribes  of  invaders  from  the  west.     Patient  effort  will  be 

Ancient  required  before  the  successive  changes  in  the  meaning  of 
Yavana,  both  before  and  after  the  Greek  period,  are  worked 


and 
modern. 


^  Report  of  the  Archaological  Survey  of  Western  India  for  1S74-75,  p. 
49  (Mr.  E.  Thomas'  monograph). 

-  Goldstucker  assigned  the  Yavana  siege  of  Saketa  (Ajodhya),  men- 
tioned in  the  Mahabhashya,  to  Menander  ;  while  the  accounts  of  the  Gargi 
Sanhita  in  the  Yuga  Purana  speak  of  a  Yavana  expedition  as  far  as  Patna. 
But,  as  Weber  points  out  {Hist.  Ind.  Lit.,  p.  251,  footnote  276),  the  ques- 
tion arises  as  to  whether  these  Yavanas  were  Grceco-B.-ictrians  or  Indo- 
.Scythians.  See,  however,  Report  of  Arckuologieal  Sw~'cy  of  IVestern  India 
for  1874-75,  p.  49,  and  footnote. 

^  Weber,  Hist.  Ind.  Lit.,  p.  251  (ed.  1S7S),  enumerates  four. 


THE   YAVANAS.  173 

t.  The  word  travelled  far,  and  has  survived  with  a  strange 
..lality  in  out  of  the  way  nooks  of  India.  The  Orissa 
(  hroniclers  called  the  sea-invaders  from  the  Bay  of  Bengal, 
Wivanas,  and  in  later  times  the  term  was  applied  to  the 
Musalmans.i  At  the  present  day,  a  vernacular  form  of  the 
word  is  said  to  have  supplied  the  local  name  for  the  Arab 
settlers  on  the  Coromandel  coast.- 

^  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  pp.  25,  85,  and  209  to  232  (ed.  1872). 

-  Bishop  Caldwell  gives  Yavanas  (Yonas)  as  the  equivalent  of  the 
Sijnagas  or  Muhammadans  of  the  western  coast  :  Cowfarative  Graniinar 
.  I  tiie  Dravidian  Languages,  2nd  edition,  p.  2  (Trubner,  1S75). 


[  174] 


CHAPTER   VII. 

SCVTHIC    INROADS    INTO    INDIA  (126?    B.C.  TO  544  A. D.). 

Migrations  The  foregoing  chapters  have  dealt  with  two  streams  of  popula- 

from  Cen-  j.jqj^  which,  Starting  from  Central  Asia,  poured  through  the  north- 
tral  Asia  ;  . 

western  passes  of  the  Himalayas,  and  spread  themselves  out 

upon  the  plains  of  Bengal.    Those  two  great  series  of  migrations 

are  represented  by  the  early  Vedic  tribes,  and  by  the  Graeco- 

Bactrian  armies.      The  first  of  them   gave  the  race-type  to 

Aryan,        Indian   civilisation  ;    the  second   impressed   an  influence  on 

Indian  science  and  art,  more  important  and  more  permanent 

tlian  the  mere  numerical  strength  of  the  invaders  would  seem 

to  justify.     But  the  permanent  settlement  of  the  early  Vedic 

tribes,  and  the  shorter  vehement  impact  of  the  Graeco-Bactrian 

invaders,  alike  represent  movements  of  the  Aryan  section  of  the 

human  race.     Another  great  family  of  mankind,  the  Turanian, 

and  Tur-     had  also  its  home  in  Central  Asia.    The  earliest  migrations  of  the 

anian.         Turanians  belong  to  a  period  absolutely  pre-historic ;  nor  has 

inductive  history  yet  applied  its  scrutiny  to  Turanian  antiquity 

with  anything  like  the  success  which  it  has  achieved  in  regard 

to  the  beginnings  of  the  Aryan  peoples. 

Scythic  Yet  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  waves  of  Turanian  origin 

movements  overtopped  the  Himalayas  or  pierced  through  their  openings 

India.         i"to  India  from  very  remote  times.     The  immigrants  doubtless 

represented  many  difterent  tribes,  but  in  the  dim  twilight  of 

Indian  history  they  are  mingled  together  in  confused  masses 

known  as  the  Scythians.     There  are  indications  that  a  branch  of 

the  Scythian  hordes,  who  overran  Asia  about  625  B.C.,  made  its 

way  to  Patala  on  the  Indus,  the  site  selected  by  Alexander  in 

325  B.C.  as  his  place  of  arms  in  that  delta,  and  long  the  capital 

of  Sind  under  the  name  of  Haidarabad.     One  portion  of  these 

Patala  Scythians  seems  to  have  moved  westwards  by  the  Persian 

Gulf  to  Assyria ;  another  section  is  supposed  to  have  found  its 

way  north-east  into  the  Gangetic  valley,  and  to  have  branched 

off   into  the   Sakyas   of  Kapilavastu,    among  whom    Buddha 


THE  SCYTHIAN  KANISHKA,  40  a.d.  (?)        175 

was  born.^     During  the  two  hundred  years  before  the  Christian 
era,  the  Scythic  movements  come  a  little  more  clearly  into 
sight,  and  in  the  first  century  after  Christ  those  movements 
culminate  in  a  great   Indian  sovereignty.       About  126  B.C.,  Tue-Chi 
the  Tartar  tribe  of  Su  are  said  to  have  conquered  the  Greek  settlements 

J  .  .  ,  .  .  126  B.C.  (?) 

dynasty  in  Eactria,  and  the  Grajco-Bactruin  settlements  m  the 
Punjab  were  overthrown  by  the  Tue-Chi.^ 

Two  centuries  later,  we  touch  solki  ground  in  the  dynasty  Kanishka, 
whose  chief  representative,  Kanishka,  held  the  Fourth  Bud- "^^  ^■'^' '' 
dhist  Council,  lirc.  40  a.d.,  and  became  the  royal  founder  of 
Northern  Buddhism.  But  long  anterior  to  the  alleged  Tue- 
Chi  settlements  in  the  Punjab,  tribes  of  Scythic  origin  had 
found  their  way  into  India,  and  had  left  traces  of  non-Aryan 
origin  upon  Indian  civilisation.  The  sovereignty  of  Kanishka 
in  the  first  century  a.d.  was  not  an  isolated  effort,  but  the 
ripened  fruit  of  a  series  of  ethnical  movements. 

Certain  scholars  believe  that  even  before  the  time  of  Euddha,  Pre-Bud- 

there  are  relics  of  Scythic  origin  in  the  religion  of  India.     It  ^     u'^ 

JO  D  .Scythic 

has  been  suggested  that  the  Aswamedha^  or  Great  Horse  influences. 
Sacrifice,  in  some  of  its  developments  at  any  rate,  was  based 
upon  Scythic  ideas.  '  It  was  in  effect,'  writes  Mr.  Edward 
Thomas,  '  a  martial  challenge,  which  consisted  in  letting  the 
victim  who  was  to  crown  the  imperial  triumph  at  the  year's 
end,  go  free  to  wander  at  will  over  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  its 
sponsor  being  bound  to  follow  its  hoofs,  and  to  conquer  or  The  Horse 
conciliate '  the  chiefs  through  whose  territories  it  passed.  Such  Sacrifice. 
a  prototype  seems  to  him  to  shadow  forth  the  life  of  the 
Central  Asian  communities  of  the  horseman  class,  'among 
whom  a  captured  steed  had  so  frequently  to  be  traced  from 
camp  to  camp,  and  surrendered  or  fought  for  at  last.'  ^  The 
curious  connection  between  the  Horse  Sacrifice  and  the  Man 
Sacrifice  of  the  pre-Buddhistic  religion  of  India  has  often  been 
noticed.  That  connection  has  been  explained  from  the  Indian 
point  of  view,  by  the  substitution  theory  of  a  horse  for  a  human 
victim.  But  among  the  early  shepherd  tribes  of  Tibet,  the 
two    sacrifices   coexisted  as   inseparable  parts  of  The   Great 

'  Catena  of  the  Buddhist  Serif  tiircs  from  the  Chinese,  by  S.  Beal,  pp. 
126-130.  See  also  Herodotus,  i.  103  to  106;  Csoma  de  ¥J5r'6s,  Joiiriia' 
As.  Soc.  Bevg.  1833  ;  and  H.  H.  \\\\<io\\,  Ariana  Antiqtia,  p.  212,  quoted 
by  Weber,  hist.  Ind.  Lit.  p.  285,  ed.  1878. 

*  De  Guignes,  supported  by  Professor  Cowell  on  the  evidence  of  coins. 
Appendix  to  Elphinstone's  History  of  India,  p.  269,  ed.  1866. 

'  Refort  of  Archirological  Siirz'ey  of  Western  India,  pp.  37,  38  (1876). 
But  see,  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Thomas'  view,  ^f.  Senart  in  the  French 
Joiirn.  Asiatiqite,  1875,  p.  126. 


176     SCYTHIC  INROADS  AND  NAG  A  RACES. 

Oath.  Each  year  the  Tibetans  took  The  Little  Oath  to  their 
chiefs,  and  sacrificed  sheep,  dogs,  and  monkeys.  But  every 
third  year  they  solemnized  The  Great  Oath  with  offerings  of 
men  and  horses,  oxen  and  asses.^ 
Buddha,  a  Whatever  significance  may  attach  to  this  rite,  it  is  certain 
Scythian(?)  |.j^^j.  ^|(.j^  ^^xq  advent  of  Buddhism,  Scythic  influences  made 
themselves  felt  in  India.  Indeed,  it  has  been  attempted  to 
establish  a  Scythic  origin  for  Buddha  himself.  One  of  his 
earliest  appearances  in  the  literature  of  the  Christian  Church 
is  as  Buddha  the  Scythian.  It  is  argued  that  by  no  mere 
accident  did  the  Fathers  trace  the  Manichsan  doctrine  to 
Scythianus,  whose  disciple,  Terebinthus,  took  the  name  of 
Buddha.^  As  already  stated,  the  form  of  abjuration  of  the 
^Manichsean  heresy  mentions  BdSSa  and  SKu^tavos  (Buddha 
and  the  Scythian  or  Sakya),  seemingly,  says  Weber,  a  separation 
of  Buddha  Sakya-muni  into  two.^  The  Indian  Buddhists  of  the 
Southern  school  would  dwell  lightly  on,  or  pass  over  altogether, 
a  non-Aryan  origin  for  the  founder  of  their  faith.  We  have 
seen  how  the  legend  of  Buddha  in  their  hands  assimilated 
itself  to  the  old  epic  type  of  the  Aryan  hero.  But  a  Scythic 
origin  would  be  congenial  to  the  Northern  school  of  Buddhism  : 
to  the  school  which  was  consolidated  by  the  Scythic  monarch 
Kanishka,  and  which  supplied  a  religion  during  more  than  ten 
centuries  to  Scythic  tribes  of  Central  Asia. 
Meaning  We  find,  therefore,  without  surprise,  that  the  sacred  books 
of  Sakya.  Qf  Tibet  constantly  speak  of  Buddha  as  the  Sakya.  In  them, 
Buddha  is  the  heir-apparent  to  the  throne  of  the  Sakyas ;  his 
doctrine  is  accepted  by  the  Sakya  race ;  and  a  too  strict 
adherence  to  its  tenets  of  mercy  ends  in  the  destruction  of  the 
Sakya  capital,  followed  by  the  slaughter  of  the  Sakya  people* 
If  we  could  be  sure  that  Sakya  really  signified  Scythian,  this 
evidence  would  be  conclusive.  But  the  exact  meaning  of  Sakya, 
although  generally  taken  to  be  the  Indian  representative  of 
Scythian,  as  the  Persian  Sakas  was  the  equivalent  of  Scythos, 
has  yet  to  be  determined.     At  one  time  it  seemed  as  if  the 

^  Early  History  of  Tibet,  in  Mr.  Woodville  KocVhiiVs  Life  of  the  Buddha, 
from  the  Tibetan  Classics,  p.  204  (Triibner,  1S84). 

^  '  I  believe  the  legend  of  Sakya  was  perverted  into  the  history  of 
Scythianus,'  Beal's  Catena  of  the  Biiddlust  Script uycs  from  the  Chinese, 
p.  129  (Triibner,  1871). 

*  Weber's  History  of  Indian  Literature,  p.  309,  footnote  363  (Triibner, 
1878).  But  Buddhism  probably  reached  the  Early  Church  through  the 
Scythians ;  so  that  Buddha  might  be  called  Skuthianos,  as  the  Scythian 
religious  founder,  without  implying  that  he  was  a  born  Scythian.  Vide 
post,  chap.  ix.  *  Vide  ante,  p.  140. 


THE  TIBETAN  TRADITIONS.  177 

Tibetan  records  might  settle  the  point.  These  hopes  have, 
however,  been  disappointed,  as  the  earHest  Tibetan  records 
prove  to  be  a  reflex  of  foreign  influences  rather  than  a  deposi- 
tory of  indigenous  traditions. 

Tibet,  Khoten,  and  other  countries  to  the  north  of  the  Artificial 
Himalayas,  on  adopting  Buddhism,  more  or  less  unconsciously  -pj^/t^n 
re-cast  their  national  traditions  into  Buddhist  moulds.^  These  traditions, 
countries  formed  the  meeting-place  of  two  distinct  streams  of 
civilisation, — the  material  civilisation  of  China,  and  the  religious 
civilisation  of  India.  Some  of  the  early  Tibetan  legends  seem 
to  be  clumsy  copies  of  the  stories  of  the  first  Chinese  sovereigns 
recorded  in  the  Bamboo  Books.-  The  Tibetan  classics  further 
obscure  the  historical  facts,  by  a  tendency  to  trace  the  royal  lines 
of  Central  Asia  to  the  family  or  early  converts  of  Buddha  ;  as 
certain  mediaeval  families  of  Europe  claimed  descent  from 
the  Wise  Men  of  the  East ;  and  noble  gentes  of  Rome  found 
their  ancestors  among  the  heroes  of  the  Trojan  war.  Thus 
the  first  Tibetan  monarch  derived  his  line  from  Prasenadjit, 
King  of  Kosala,  the  life-long  friend  of  Buddha ;  and  the 
dynasty  of  Khoten  claimed,  as  its  founder,  a  son  of  King 
Dharmasoka. 

The  truth  is,  that  while  Tibet  obtained  much  of  its  material  Sources  of 
civilisation  from  China,  its  medicine,  its  mathematics,  its  j^jg^j^  and 
weights  and  measures,  its  chronology,  its  clothing,  its  mul-  traditions, 
berries,  tea,  and  ardent  spirits  ;  it  received  its  religion  and  letters 
from  India,  together  with  its  philosophy,  and  its  ideal  of  the 
spiritual  life.  The  mission  of  the  seven  Tibetan  nobles  to  India 
to  find  an  alphabet  for  the  yet  unwritten  language  of  Tibet,  is  an 
historical  event  of  the  7  th  century  a.d.  The  Indian  monastery 
of  Nalanda  was  reproduced  with  fidelity  in  the  great  Hsamyas, 
or  religious  house  at  Lhasa.  The  struggle  between  Chinese 
and  Indian  influences  disclosed  itself  alike  in  the  public  disputa- 
tions of  the  Tibetan  sects,  and  in  the  inner  intrigues  of  the 
palace.  One  of  the  greatest  of  the  Tibetan  monarchs  married 
two  wives, — an  Indian  princess  who  brought  Buddhist  images 
from  Nepal,  and  a  Chinese  princess  who  brought  silk-brocades 
and  whisky  frorn  China.-^  We  must  therefore  receive  with 
caution  the  evidence  as  to  the  original  signification  of  the 
word  Sakya,  derived  from  the  records  of  a  nation  which 
was  so  largely  indebted  for  its  ideas  and  its  traditions  to  later 
foreign  sources. 

^  Early  Histories  of  Tibet  and   Khoten,   in    Mr.    Rockhill's  Zz/i.'  ^ ///,? 
Buddha,  p.  232,  etc. 

^  Idem,  p.  203.  3  jj^„i^  pp    213-215 

M 


T  7 8     SCI -rniC  INK OADS  AND  NA GA  RA CES. 

Evidence  That  evidence  should,  however,  be  stated.  The  Tibetan 
traditions  sacred  books  preserve  an  account  of  the  Sakya  creation  ;  of  the 
as  to  the  non-sexual  procession  of  the  ancient  Sakya  kings ;  and  of  the 
Sacyas,  settlement  of  the  Sakyas  at  Kapila,  the  birthplace  of  Buddha. 
Their  chief  seat  was  the  kingdom  of  Kosala,  near  the  southern 
base  of  the  Himalayas.  Tibetan  traditions  place  the  early 
Indian  homes  of  the  Sakyas  on  the  banks  of  the  Bhagfrathi,  as 
distinctly  as  the  Vedic  hymns  place  the  homes  of  the  primitive 
Aryans  on  the  tributaries  of  the  Indus.  They  claim,  indeed, 
for  Buddha  a  Kshattriyan  descent  from  the  noble  Ishkvaku  or 
Solar  line.  But  it  is  clear  that  the  race  customs  of  the  Indo- 
Sakyas  differed  in  some  respects  from  those  of  the  Indo-Aryans. 
Sakya  race  At  birth,  the  Sakya  infant  was  made  to  bow  at  the  feet  of  a 
tribal  image,  Taksha  Sakya-vardana,  which,  on  the  presentation 
of  Buddha,  itself  bowed  down  to  the  divine  child. ^  In  regard 
to  marriage,  the  old  Sakya  law  is  said  to  have  allowed  a  man 
only  one  wife.-  The  dead  were  disposed  of  by  burial,  although 
cremation  was  not  unknown.  In  the  /opes  or  funeral  mounds 
of  Buddhism  is  apparently  seen  a  reproduction  of  the  royal 
Scythian  tombs  of  which  Herodotus  speaks.^  Perhaps  more 
remarkable  is  the  resemblance  of  the  great  co-decease  of 
Buddha's  companions  to  the  Scythian  holocausts  of  the 
followers,  servants  and  horses  of  a  dead  monarch.*  On  the 
death  of  Buddha,  according  to  the  Tibetan  texts,  a  co-decease 
of  18,000  of  his  disciples  took  place.  On  the  death  of  the 
faithful  Maudgalyayana,  the  co-decease  of  disciples  amounted 
to  70,000;  while  on  that  of  Sariputra,  the  co-decease  of 
Buddhist  ascetics  was  as  high  as  80,000.^  The  composite 
idea  of  a  co-decease  of  followers,  together  with  a  funeral 
niound  over  the  relics  of  an  illustrious  personage,  was  in 
accordance  with  obsequies  of  the  Scythian  type. 
Scythic  Whatever  may  be  the  value  of  such  analogies,  the  influence 

in^ImUa'"  °^  ^^^  Scythian  dynasties  in  Northern  India  is  a  historical 
40-634  fact.  The  Northern  or  Tibetan  form  of  Buddhism,  represented 
by  the  Scythian  monarch  Kanishka  and  the  Fourth  Council  ^ 
in  40  A.D,,  soon  made  its  way  down  to  the  plains  of  Hindu- 
stan, and  during  the  next  six  centuries  competed  with  the 
earlier  Buddhism  of  Asoka.     The  Chinese  pilgrim  in  629-645. 

^  Mr.  Rockliill's  Life  of  t lie  Buddha,  p.  17.  -  Mm,  p.  15. 

^  Herodotus,  iv.  71,  127. 

■*  The  slaughter  of  the  king's   concubine,    cup-bearer,   and   followers  is 
also  mentioned  in  Herodotus,  iv.  7 1  and  72. 

^  Mr.  Rockhill's  Life  of  the  BtiddJia,  p.  141,  footnote  3,  and  p.  148. 
*  Nmniiinala  Oricntalia  (Ceylon  fasc),  p.  54. 


« 


A.D 


SC  YTHIC  (?)  J  A  TS  A  ND  RAJPUTS.  1 7  9 

A.D.  found  both   the  Northern  or  Scythic  and  the  Southern 

forms  of  Buddhism  in  full  vigour  in  India.     He  spent  fourteen 

months  at  China-pati,  the  town  where  Kanishka  had  kept  his 

Chinese  hostages  in  the  Punjab  ;  and  he  records  the  debates 

between  the  Northern  and   Southern    sects   of  Buddhists  in 

various  places.     The  town  of  China-pati,  ten  miles  west  of  the 

Beas  river,'  bore  witness  to  later  ages  of  the  political  connection 

of  Northern  India  with  the  Trans-Himalayan  races  of  Central 

and   Eastern  Asia.      The   Scythic  influence  in  India  was   a  Scythic 

dynastic  as  well  as  a  religious   one.     The  evidence  of  coins  settlements 

and  the  names  of  Indian  tribes  or  reigning  families,  such  as 

•the  Sakas,  Huns,  and  Nagas,  point    to  Scythian  settlements 

as  far  south  as  the  Central  Provinces.- 

Some  scholars  believe  that  the  Scythians  poured  down  upon  Scythian 
India  in  such  masses  as  to  supplant  the  previous  population,  elements  in 
The  Jats  or  Jats,^  who  now  number  4^^  millions  and  form  one-  lation    ' 
fifth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Punjab,  are  identified  with  the 
Getae ;  and  their  great  sub-division  the  Dhe  with  the  Dahae, 
whom  Strabo  places  on   the  shores  of   the    Caspian.      This 
view  has  received  the  support  of  eminent  investigators,  from 
Professor   H.   H.  Wilson   to    General   Cunningham,  the  late 
Director-General  of  the  Archaeological  Survey  of  India.*     The 
existing  division  between  the  Jats  and  the  Dhe  has,  indeed,  been  (i)  The 
traced  back   to  the   contiguity  of  the    Massa-getae  or  Great  J^^^- 
Getae,^  and  the  Dahae,  who  dwelt  side  by  side  in  Central  Asia, 
and  who  may  have  advanced  together  during  the   Scythian 
movements  towards  India  on  the  decline  of  the  Grceco-Bactrian 
Empire.     Without  pressing  such  identifications  too  closely  in 
the  service  of  particular  theories,  the  weight  of  authority  is  in 
favour  of  a  Scythian  origin  for  the  Jats,  the  most  numerous  and 
valuable  section  of  the  agricultural  population  of  the  Punjab.*^ 
A  similar  descent  has  been  assigned  to  certain  of  the  Rajput 

'  General  Cunningham's  Anc.  Gcog.  of  India,  p.  200. 

2  Muir's  Sanskrit  Texts,  chap.  v.  vol.  i.  (i868)  ;  Sir  C.  Grant's  Gazetteer 
of  the  Cejitral  Proziiices,  Ixx.,  etc.  (Nagpur,  1870)  ;  Reports  of  the  .^;r//fr^- 
logical  Survey  of  India  and  of  IVestern  India  ;  Professor  H.  H.  Wilson 
(and  Dr.  F.  Hall),   Vishnu  Fttrdna,  ii.  134. 

^  The  word  occurs  as  Jats  and  Jats  ;  but  the  identity  of  the  two  forms 
has  been  established  by  reference  to  the  Ain-i-Akbari.  Some  are  now 
Hindus,  others  Muhammadans. 

*  See  among  other  places,  part  iv.  of  his  ArcJutological  Reports,  p.  19. 

*  Massa  means  '  great '  in  Pehlevi. 

"  It  should  be  mentioned,  however,  that  Dr.  Trumpp  believed  them  to 
be  of  Aryan  origin  {Zeitsch.  d.  Dentsch.  I\[org.  Gesellsch.,  xv.  p.  690).  See 
Mr  J.  Beanies'  admirable  edition  of  Sir  Henry  Elliott's  Glossary  of  the  Races 
of  the  Ncrlh-Wcstern  Provinces,  vol.  i.  pp.  130-137,  ed.  1869. 


I  So     SCYTHIC  INROADS  AND  NAG  A  RACES. 

tribes.     Colonel  Tod,  still  the  standard  historian  of  Rajasthan, 
strongly  insisted  on  this  point. 
(2)  The  The    relationship    between    the    Jats    and    the    Rajputs, 

^jpu  s.  although  obscure,  is  acknowledged ;  and  although  the  jus 
conmibii  no  longer  exists  between  them,  an  inscription  seems 
to  show  that  they  intermarried  in  the  5th  century  a.d.^ 
Professor  Cowell,  indeed,  regards  the  arguments  for  the  Scythic 
descent  of  the  Rajputs  as  inconclusive.^  But  authorities  of 
weight  have  deduced,  alike  from  local  investigation  ^  and 
from  Sanskrit  literature,*  a  Scythic  origin  for  the  Jats  and  for 
certain  of  the  Rajput  tribes.  The  question  has  lately  been 
discussed,  with  the  fulness  of  local  knowledge,  by  Mr.  Denzil 
Ibbetson,  the  chief  Census  officer  for  the  Punjab  in  iSSr. 
His  conclusions  are — First,  that  the  terms  Rajput  and  Jat 
indicate  a  difference  in  occupation  and  not  in  origin.  Second, 
that  even  if  they  represent  distinct  waves  of  migration,  sepa- 
rated by  an  interval  of  time,  '  they  belong  to  one  and  the  same 
ethnic  stock.'  Third,  'that  whether  Jats  and  Rajputs  were 
or  were  not  originally  distinct,'  '  the  two  now  form  a  common 
stock  ;  the  distinction  between  Jat  and  Rajput  being  social 
rather  than  ethnic.'^  We  shall  see  that  earlier  migrations  of 
Central  Asian  hordes  also  supplied  certain  of  the  Naga,  or 
so-called  aboriginal,  races  of  India. 
Indian  The  Scythic  settlements  were  not  effected  without  a  struggle, 

struggle      ^^g  Chandra  Gui^ta  had  advanced  from  the  Gangetic  valley,  and 
against  the      ,,    j,!,-,^^  -n-  r 

Scythians,  rolled  back  the  tide  of  Grceco-Bactnan  conquest,  312-306  B.C., 

'  Inscription  discovered  in  Kotah  State  ;  No.  i  of  Inscription  Appenilix 
to  Colonel  Tod's  Annals  and  Antiquities  of  Rdjdsthdn,  vol.  i.  p.  701, 
note  3  (Madras  Reprint,  1873).  Although  Tod  is  still  the  standard 
historian  of  Rajputana,  and  will  ever  retain  an  honoured  place  as  an 
original  investigator,  his  ethnical  theories  must  be  received  with  caution. 

-  Appendix  to  Elphinstone's  Hist.  Ind.,  pp.  2^0  et  seq.,  ed.  1866. 

•''  Tod's  Kdjdsthdn,  pp.   52,    483,    500,   etc.,    vol.    i.    (Madras    Reprint, 

1873). 

*  Dr.  Fitz-Edward  Hall's  edition  of  Professor  H.  H.  Wilson's  Vishnu 
Purdna,  vol.  ii.  p.  134.  The  Ilunas,  according  to  Wilson,  were  'the 
white  Huns  who  were  established  in  the  Punjab,  and  along  the  Indus,  as 
we  know  from  Arrian,  Strabo,  and  Ptolemy,  confirmed  by  recent  discoveries 
of  their  coins  and  by  inscriptions. '  'I  am  not  prepared,'  says  Dr.  Fitz- 
Edward  Hall,  '  to  deny  that  the  ancient  Hindus  when  they  spoke  of  the 
Hunas  included  the  Huns.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  however,  it  is  certain 
that  a  race  called  Hiina  was  understood  by  the  learned  of  India  to  form  a 
division  of  the  Kshattriyas. '  Professor  Dowson's  Diet.  Hind.  Mythology, 
etc.,  p.  122. 

*  See  the  ethnographical  volume  of  the  Punjab  Census  for  1S81,  paras. 
421,  422  et  seq.,  by  Mr.  Denzil  Jelf  Ibbetson,  of  the  Bengal  Civil  Service, 
p.  220  (Government  Press,  Calcutta,  1S83). 


SAMVAT  AND  SAKA  ERAS.  i8r 

so  the  native  princes  who  stemmed  the  torrent  of  Scythian 
invasion  are  the  Indian  heroes  of  the  first  century  before  and 
after  Christ.  Vikramaditya,  King  of  Ujjain,  appears  to  have 
won  his  paramount  place  in  Indian  story  by  driving  out  the 
invaders.  An  era,  the  Saiiivat,  beginning  in  57  B.C.,  was  Samvat 
founded  in  honour  of  his  achievements.  Its  date  ^  seems  ^^^i  57 
at  variance  with  his  legendary  victories  over  the  Scythian 
Kanishka  in  the  ist  century  after  Christ.-  But  the  very  title 
of  its  founder  suffices  to  commemorate  his  struggle  against 
the  northern  hordes,  as  Vikramaditya  Sakari,  or  A^ikramaditya, 
the  Enemy  of  the  Scythians. 

The  name  of  Vikramaditya,  'A  very  Sun  in  Prowess,'  was 
borne,  as  we  have  seen,  by  several  Indian  monarchs.  In 
later  ages  their  separate  identity  was  merged  in  the  ancient 
renown  of  the  Slayer  of  the  Scythians,  who  thus  combined  the 
fame  of  many  Vikramadityas.  There  was  a  tendency  to 
assign  to  his  period  the  most  eminent  Indian  works  in  science 
and  poetry, — works  which  we  know  must  belong  to  a  date  long 
after  the  first  century  of  our  era.  His  reign  forms  the  Augustan 
era  of  Sanskrit  literature;  and  tradition  fondly  ascribed  the 
highest  products  of  the  Indian  intellect  during  many  later  cen- 
turies to  the  poets  and  philosophers,  or  Nine  Gems,  of  this 
Vikramaditya's  Court.  As  Chandra  Gupta,  who  freed  India  from 
the  Greeks,  is  celebrated  in  the  drama  Mudra-rakshasa  ;  so 
Vikramaditya,  the  vanquisher  of  the  Scythians,  forms  the  central 
royal  personage  of  the  Hindu  stage. 

Vikramaditya's  achievements,  however,  furnished  no  final  de-  Sdka  or 
liverance,but  merely  form  an  episode  in  the  long  struggle  between  ^cytlnrin 
the  Indian  dynasties  and  new  races  from  the  north.     Another  a.u. 
popular  era,  the  Saka,  literally  the  Scythian,  takes  its  com- 
mencement in  78  A.D.,'^  and  is  supposed  to  commemorate  the 
defeat  of  the  Scythians  by  a  king  of  Southern  India,  Salivahana.* 
During  the  seven  centuries  which  followed,  three  powerful  mon- 
archies, the  Senas,  Guptas,  and  Valabhis,  established  themselves 

^  Samvatsara,  the  'Year.'  TTie  uncertainty  which  surrounds  even  this 
long-accepted  finger-post  in  Indian  chronology  may  be  seen  from  Dr.  J. 
Fergusson's  paper  '  On  the  Saka  and  Samvat  and  Gupta  eras '  {Journal 
Roy.  As.  Sac,  New  Series,  vol.  xii. ),  especially  p.  172. 

"  The  Hushka,  Jushka,  and  Kanishka  family  of  the  Raja  Tarangini, 
or  Chronicles  of  Kashmir,  are  proved  by  inscriptions  to  belong  to  the  4th 
century  of  the  Seleucidan  era,  or  the  1st  century  A.  D. 

*  Monday,  14th  March  78  A.D.,  Julian  style. 

■*  General  Cunningham  ;  see  also  Mr.  Edw.  Thomas'  letter,  dated  i6th 
September  1S74,  to  The  Academy,  which  brings  this  date  within  the  period 
of  the  Kanishka  family  (2  H.C.  to  S7  A.  U.). 


1 82     SCYTHIC  INROADS  AND  NAG  A  RACES. 


Sena (Sah) 
dynasty, 
60  B.C.  to 
235  A.D. 

Gupta 

dynasty, 

319-470 

A.D. 


Valabhi 
dynasty, 
480-722 


Long 

struggle 

against 

Scylhic 

invaders, 

57  B.C.  to 

544  A.D. 


in  Northern  and  Western  India.  The  Senas  and  Singhas,  or 
Satraps  of  Sura.shtra,are  traced  by  coins  and  inscriptions  from  60 
or  70  B.C.  to  after  235  a.d.^  After  the  Senas  come  the  Guptas 
of  Kanauj,^  in  the  North-Western  Provinces,  the  Middle  Land 
of  ancient  Brahmanism.  The  Guptas  introduced  an  era  of 
their  own,  commencing  in  319  a.d.  ;  and  ruled  in  person  or 
by  viceroys  over  Northern  India  during  150  years,  as  far  to 
the  south-west  as  Kathiawar.  The  Gupta  dynasty  was  over- 
thrown by  foreign  invaders,  apparently  a  new  influx  of  Huns 
or  Tartars  from  the  north-west  (450-470  a.d.). 

The  Valabhi's  succeeded  the  Guptas,  and  ruled  over  Cutch, 
north-western  Bombay,^  and  Malwa,  from  480  to  after  722  a.d.* 
The  Chinese  pilgrim,  Hiuen  Tsiang,  gives  a  full  account  of 
the  court  and  people  of  Valabhi  (630-640  a.d.).  Buddhism  was 
the  State  religion,  but  heretics,  i.e.  Brahmans,  abounded ;  and 
the  Buddhists  themselves  were  divided  between  the  northern 
school  of  the  Scythian  dynasties,  and  the  southern  or  Indian 
school  of  Asoka.  The  Valabhi's  seem  to  have  been  overthrown 
by  the  early  Arab  invaders  of  Sind  in  the  Sth  century. 

The  relations  of  these  three  Indian  dynasties,  the  Senas, 
Guptas,  and  Valabhi's,  to  the  successive  hordes  of  Scythians, 
who  poured  down  on  Northern  India,  are  obscure.  There 
is  abundant  evidence  of  a  long-continued  struggle,  but  the 
efforts  to  athx  dates  to  its  chief  episodes  have  not  yet  pro- 
duced results  which  can  be  accepted  as  final.  Two  Vikrama- 
ditya  Sakaris,  or  vanquishers  of  the  Scythians,  are  required 
for  the  purposes  of  chronology  ;  and  the  great  battle  of  Konir 
near  Miiltan,  in  which  the  Scythian  hosts  perished,  has  been 
shifted  backwards  and  forwards  from  78  to  544  a.d.-""' 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  during  the  first  six  centuries  of 
the  Christian  era,  the  fortunes  of  the  Scythian  or  Tartar  races 
rose  and  fell  from  time  to  time  in  Northern  India.  They  more 
than  once  sustained  great  defeats  ;  and  they  more  than  once 
overthrew  the  native  dynasties.     Their  presence  is  popularly 

^  By  Mr.  Newton.  See  Mr.  E.  Thomas  on  the  Coins  of  the  Sah  Kings, 
Archaol.  Kep.  Wcsteni  India,  p.  44  (1876)  ;  and  Dr.  J.  Fergusson,  Journal 
Koy.  As.  Soc,  18S0. 

-  Now  a  town  of  only  16,646  inliabitants  in  Farukhahad  District,  but 
with  ruins  extending  over  a  semicircle  of  4  miles  in  diameter. 

^  Lat-desha,  including  the  coUectorates  of  Surat,  Broach,  Kaika, 
and  parts  of  Baroda  territory. 

*  The  genealogy  is  worked  out  in  detail  by  Mr.  E.  Tliomas,  nt  supra, 
pp.  80-82. 

^  78  A.D.  was  the  popularly  received  date,  commemorated  l)y  tlie  Saka 
era  ;  'between  524  and  544  A.D.'  is  suggested  by  Dr.  Fergusson  (p.  284 
oi  Journal  Koy.  As.  Soc,  vol.  xii.)  in  1880. 


PRE- ARYANS  IN  INDIA.  183 

.ittested  during  the  century  before  Christ  by  Vikramaditya 
(57  B.C.  ?) ;  during  the  ist  century  after  Christ,  it  is  represented 
l)y  the  Kanishka  family  (2  B.C.  to  87  a.d.)  ;  it  was  noted  by 
( 'osmas  Indicopleustes,  about  535  a.d. 

A  recent  writer  on  the  subject  ^  beHeves  that  it  was  the 
white  Huns  who  overthrew  the  Guptas  between  465  and  470 
A.D.  He  places  the  great  battles  of  Korur  and  Maushari, 
which  'freed  India  from  the  Sakas  and  Hiinas,' between  524 
and  544  A.D.  But  these  dates  still  lie  in  the  domain  of  in- 
ductive, indeed  almost  of  conjectural,  history.  Cosmas  Indico- 
pleustes, who  traded  in  the  Red  Sea  about  535  a.d.,  speaks  of 
'the  Huns  as  a  powerful  nation  in  Northern  India  in  hisdays.- 

While  Greek  and  Scythic  influences  had  thus  been  at  work  in  The  pre- 
Northern  India  during  nine  centuries  (327   e.c.  to  544  a.d.),  "^'^^'^.  j 
another  (so-called  indigenous)  element  was  profoundly  affecting  ancient 
the  future  of  the  Indian  people.     A  previous  chapter  has  traced  India, 
the  fortunes,  and  sketched  the  present  condition,  of  the  pre- 
Aryan  'aborigines.'  The  Brcihmanical  Aryans  never  accomplished 
a  complete  subjugation  of  these  earlier  races.     The  tribes  and 
castes  of  non-Aryan  origin  numbered  in  1872  about  18  millions 
in  British  territory;  while  the  castes  who  claim  a  pure  Aryan 
descent  are  under  x6  millions.^     The  pre-Aryans  have  influ- 
enced the  popular  dialects  of  every  Province,  and  in  Southern 
India  they  still  give  their  speech  to  28  millions  of  people. 

The  Vedic  settlements  along  the  five  rivers  of  the  Punjab 
were  merely  colonies  or  confederacies  of  Aryan  tribes,  who  had 
]iushed  in  among  a  non-Aryan  population.  When  an  Aryan  Their 
family  advanced  to  a  new  territory,  it  had  often,  as  in  the  case  jj^^ygf  ^^ 
of  the  Pandava  brethren,  to  clear  the  forest  and  drive  out  the 
aboriginal  people.  This  double  process  constantly  repeated 
itself;  and  as  late  as  1657,  when  the  Hindu  Raja  founded  the 
present  city  of  Bareilly,  his  first  work  was  to  cut  down  the 
jungle  and  expel  the  old  Katheriyas.  The  ancient  Brahmanical 
kingdoms  of  the  Middle  Land  {Afadhya-desha),  in  the  North- 
western Provinces  and  Oudh,  were  surrounded  by  non-Aryan 
tribes.  All  the  legendary  advances  beyond  the  northern  centre 
of  Aryan  civilisation,  narrated  in  the  epic  poets,  were  made  into 

^  Dr.  J.  Fergusson,  Journal  Roy.  As.  Sac,  pp.  282-284,  etc.  (1880). 

-  Topo^rapltia  Christiana,  lib.  xi.  p.  338  ;  apud  Fergusson,  ut  supra. 

*  This  latter  number  included  both  Brahmans  (10,574,444)  and  Kshattriyas 
and  Rajputs  (5,240,495).  But,  as  we  have  just  seen,  someof  the  Rajput  tribes 
are  believed  to  be  of  Scythic  origin,  while  others  have  been  incorporated  from 
confessedly  non-.^ryan  tribes  {vide  ante,  p.  91).  Such  non-Aryan  Rajputs 
more  than  outnumber  any  survivals  of  the  Vaisyas  of  pure  Aryan  descent. 


1 84     SCYTHIC  INROADS  AND  NAG  A  RACES. 


Aryan  ^ 
kingdoms 
in 

Northern 
India. 


The 

'i'akshaks 
of  Kawal 
Tindi 
District. 


The 
Takshaks. 

Sixth  Cen 
tur}'  B.C.; 

327  ]:.c. 


the  territory  of  non-Aryan  races,  ^^'hen  we  begin  to  catch 
historical  ghmpses  of  India,  we  find  the  countries  even  around 
the  northern  Aryan  centre  ruled  by  non-Aryan  princes.  The 
Nandas,  whom  Chandra  Gupta  succeeded  in  Behar,  appear  as 
a  Siidra  or  non- Aryan  dynasty;  and  according  to  one  account, 
Chandra  Gupta  and  his  grandson  Asoka  came  of  the  same  stock. ^ 

The  Buddhist  religion  did  much  to  incorporate  the  pre- Aryan 
tribes  into  the  Indian  polity.  During  the  long  struggle  of  the 
Indo-Aryans  against  Graco-Bactrian  and  Scythian  inroads  (627 
B.C.  to  544  A.D.),  the  Indian  aboriginal  races  must  have  had  an 
increasing  importance,  whether  as  enemies  or  allies.  At  the  end 
of  that  struggle,  we  discover  them  ruling  in  some  of  the  fairest 
tracts  of  Northern  India.  In  almost  every  District  throughout 
Oudh  and  the  North-Western  Provinces,  ruined  towns  and  forts 
are  ascribed  to  aboriginal  races  who  ruled  at  different  periods, 
according  to  the  local  legends,  between  the  5th  and  nth 
centuries  a.d.  When  the  Muhammadan  conquest  supplies  a 
firmer  historical  footing,  after  1000  a.d.,  non-Aryan  tribes  were 
still  in  possession  of  several  of  these  Districts,  and  had  only 
been  lately  ousted  from  others. 

The  Statistical  Survey  of  India  has  brought  together  many 
survivals  of  these  obscure  races.  It  is  impossible  to  follow  that 
survey  through  each  locality  ;  the  following  paragraphs  indicate, 
with  the  utmost  brevity,  a  few  of  the  results.  Starting  from  the 
West,  Alexander  the  Great  found  Rawal  Pindi  District  in 
the  hands  of  the  Takkas  or  Takshaks,  from  whom  its  Greek 
name  of  Taxila  was  derived.  This  people  has  been  traced 
to  a  Scythian  migration  about  the  6th  century  B.C.-  Their 
settlements  in  the  4th  century  B.C.  seem  to  have  extended 
from  the  Paropamisan  range  ^  in  Afghanistan  to  deep  into 
Northern  India.  Their  Punjab  capital,  Takshasila,  or  Taxila, 
was  the  largest  city  which  Alexander  met  with  between  the  Indus 
and  the  Jehlam  (327  b.c.).'^     Salihavana,  from  whom  the  Sdka 

^  The  Mudrd-rdkshasa  represents  Chandra  Gupta  as  related  to  the  last 
of  the  Nandas  ;  the  Commentator  of  the  Vishnu  Pnrdna  says  he  was  the 
son  of  a  Nanda  by  a  low-caste  woman.  Prof.  Dowson's  Diet.  Hindu 
Mythology,  etc.,  p.  68  (Triibner,  1879). 

*  Such  dates  have  no  pretension  to  be  anything  more  than  intelligent 
conjectures  based  on  very  inadequate  evidence.  With  regard  to  the  Tak- 
shaks, see  Colonel  Tod  and  the  authorities  which  he  quotes,  Rdjdsthdn, 
vol.  i.  p.  i^T)  passim,  pp.  93  et  scq.  (Madras  Reprint,  1873). 

2  Where  Alexander  found  them  as  the  Parae-takae  — pahari  or  Hill 
Takae(.?). 

■*  Arrian.  The  Brahman  mythologists,  of  course,  produce  an  Aryan  pedi- 
gree for  so  important  a  person  as  King  Taksha,  and  make  him  the  son  of 
Bharata  and  nephew  of  Rama-chandra. 


NAGAS  AND  TAKSHAKS.  185 

ur  Scythian  era  took  its  commencement  (78  a.d.),  is  held  by  The 
some  authorities  to  have  been  of  Takshak  descent.^     In  the  Takshaks 
7th  century  a.d.,  Taki,-  perhaps  derived  from  the  same  race, 
was  the  capital  of  the  Punjab.     The  Scythic  Takshaks,  indeed,    ^^ 
are  supposed  to  have  been  the  source  of  the  great  Serpent  Race,  iSSi  a.d. 
the  Takshakas  or  Nagas,  who  figure  so  prominently  in  Sanskrit 
literature  and  art,  and  whose  name  is  still  borne  by  the  Naga 
tribes  of  our  own  day.      The  Takkas  remaining  to  the  present 
time  are  found  only  in  the   Districts  of  Delhi  and   Karnal. 
They  number    14,305,    of  whom  about    three  -  fourths    have 
adopted  the  faith  of  Islam. 

The  words  Naga  and  Takshaka  in  Sanskrit  both  mean  The 
a  'snake,'  or  tailed  monster.  As  the  Takshakas  have  been  ^''^S^^* 
(juestionably  connected  with  the  Scythian  Takkas,  so  the  Nagas 
have  been  derived,  by  conjecture  in  the  absence  of  evidence, 
from  the  Tartar  patriarch  Nagas,  the  second  son  of  Elkhan.-^ 
Both  the  terms,  Nagas  and  Takshakas,  seem  to  have  been 
loosely  applied  by  the  Sanskrit  writers  to  a  variety  of  non-Aryan 
peoples  in  India,  whose  religion  was  of  an  anti-Aryan  type. 
\\'e  learn,  for  example,  how  the  five  Pandava  brethren  of 
tlie  Mahabharata  burned  out  the  snake-king  Takshaka  from 
his  primeval  Khandava  forest.  The  Takshaks  and  Nagas 
were  the  tree  and  serpent  worshippers,  whose  rites  and 
objects  of  adoration  have  impressed  themselves  deeply  on  the 
architecture  and  sculptures  of  India.  They  included,  in  a 
(onfused  manner,  several  different  races  of  Scythic  origin. 

The  chief  authority  on  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship  in  India  Indo- 
has  deliberately  selected  the  term  '  Scythian  '  for  the  anti-Aryan  ^*^.^  .  "; 
elements,  which  entered  so  largely  into  the  Indian  religions 
both  in  ancient  and  in  modern  times."*  The  Chinese  records 
give  a  full  account  of  the  Naga  geography  of  ancient  India. 
The  Naga  kingdoms  were  both  numerous  and  powerful,  and 
Buddhism  derived  many  of  its  royal  converts  from  them.    The 

^  Tod,  Rctjdsthdn,  vol.  i.  p.  95  (ed.  1873). 

^  Taki,  or  Asarur,  45  miles  west  of  Lahore.  General  Cunningham,  Aiic. 
Geog.  of  India,  p.  191,  and  Map  VI.  (ed.  1871).  This  Taki  lies,  however, 
considerably  to  the  south-east  of  the  Takshasila  of  Alexander's  expedition. 

^  Tod,  Kdjdstluin,  vol.  i.  p.  53  (ed.  1873)  ;  a  very  doubtful  authority. 

*  Dr.  J.  Fergusson's  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship,  pp.  71,  72  (India 
Museum,  4to,  1868).  For  the  results  of  more  recent  local  research,  see 
Mr.  Rivett-Carnac's  papers  in  the  yoiirnal  of  the  As.  Sac,  Bengal,  'The 
Snake  Symbol  in  India,'  'Ancient  Sculpturings  on  Rocks,'  'Stone  Carv- 
ings at  Mainpuri,' etc.;  the  Honourable  Rao  Sahib  Vishvanaks  Narayan 
Mandlik's  'Serpent-Worship  in  Western  India,'  and  other  essays  in  the 
I'ombay  As.  Sac.  yonrnal ;  also,  Repoiis  of  Archccological  Stii"vey,  Western 
India. 


iS6     SCYTHIC  INROADS  AND  NAG  A  RACES. 

Chinese  chroniclers,  indeed,  classify  the  Naga  princes  of  India 

into  two  great  divisions,   as   Buddhists  and  non  -  Buddhists. 

The  serpent-worship,  which  formed  so  typical  a  characteristic 

of  the  Indo-Scythic  races,  led  the  Chinese  to  confound  those 

tribes  with  the  objects  of  their  adorations ;  and  the  fierce  Indo- 

become       Scythic  Nagas  would  almost  seem  to  be  the  oriafinals  of  the 

the  .  * 

])racTon-      Dragon  races  of  Chinese  Buddhism  and  Chinese  art     The 

races  of      compromises  to  which  Buddhism  submitted,  with  a  view  to 

China.        winning  the  support  of  the   Naga  peoples,  will   be  referred 

to  in  the  following  chapter,  on  the  Rise  of  Hinduism. 

As   the   Greek   invaders   found    Rawal    Pindi    District   in 
possession  of  a  Scythic  race  of  Takkas  in  327  B.C.,  so  the 
Musalman  conqueror  found  it  inhabited  by  a  fierce  non-Aryan 
The  race  of  Ghakkars  thirteen  hundred  years  later.     The  Ghakkars 

ofRiwaT  ^°^  ^  ^'"^^  imperilled  the  safety  of  Mahmiid  of  Ghazni  in  1008. 
Pindi,  Farishta  describes  them  as  savages,  addicted  to  polyandry  and 
1008-1857  infanticide.  The  tide  of  Muhammadan  conquest  rolled  on, 
but  the  Ghakkars  remained  in  possession  of  their  sub-Hima- 
layan tract. '^  In  1205  they  ravaged  the  Punjab  to  the  gates  of 
Lahore;  in  1206  they  stabbed  the  Muhammadan  Sultan  in 
his  tent ;  and  in  spite  of  conversion  to  Islam  by  the  sword,  it 
was  not  till  1525  that  they  made  their  submission  to  the 
Emperor  Babar  in  return  for  a  grant  of  territory.  During  the 
next  two  centuries  they  rendered  great  services  to  the  Mughal 
dynasty  against  the  Afghan  usurpers,  and  rose  to  high  influence 
in  the  Punjab.  Driven  from  the  plains  by  the  Sikhs  in  1765 
A.D.,  the  Ghakkar  chiefs  maintained  their  independence  in 
the  Murree  (Marri)  Hills  till  1830,  when  they  were  crushed 
after  a  bloody  struggle.  In  1849,  Rawal  Pindi  passed,  with 
the  rest  of  the  Sikh  territories,  under  British  rule.  But  the 
Ghakkars  revolted  four  years  afterwards,  and  threatened 
Murree,  the  summer  capital  of  the  Punjab,  as  lately  as  1857. 
The  Ghakkars  are  now  found  in  the  Punjab  Districts  of  Rawal 
Pindi,  Jehlam,  and  Hazara.  Their  total  number  was  returned 
at  25,789  in  1 88 1,  They  are  described  by  their  British  officers 
as  '  a  fine  spirited  race,  gentlemen  in  ancestry  and  bearing,  and 
clinging  under  all  reverses  to  the  traditions  of  noble  blood.'- 

I're-  The  population  of  Rawal  Pindi  District  has  been  selected  to 

]Jarei^fv°    illustrate  the  long-continued  presence  and  vitality  of  the  pre- 
JJistrict.      Aryan  element  in  India.     Other  parts  of  the  country  must  be 

'  For  a  summary   of  their  later  history,  see  article  on  Rawal  Pindi 
District,  7'he  Impa-ial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

2  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  article  R.vwal  Pixdi  District. 


THE  BHARS  AND  KOCIL  187 

more  briefly  dealt  with.  Proceeding  inwards  into  the  North- 
A\'estern  Provinces,  we  everywhere  find  traces  of  an  early 
Ikiddhist  civilisation  in  contact  with,  or  overturned  by,  rude 
liun-Aryan  tribes.  In  Bareilly  District,  for  example,  the  wild 
Ahi'rs  from  the  north,  the  Bhils  from  the  south,  and  the  Bhars 
from  the  east,  seem  to  have  expelled  highly-developed  Aryan 
communities  at  some  period  before  1000  a.d.  Still  farther  to 
the  east,  all  remains  of  pre-historic  masonry  in  Oudh  and  the 
Xorth-Western  Provinces  are  assigned  to  the  ancient  Buddhists 
or  to  a  non-Aryan  race  of  Bhars. 

The   Bhars  appear  to  have  possessed  the   north  Gangetic  The  Bhars 
]ilains    in  the  centuries  coeval  with   the   fall   of  Buddhism.  '"  Oudh. 
Their  kingdoms  extended  over  most  of  Oudh.     Lofty  mounds 
covered  with  ancient  groves  mark  the  sites  of  their  forgotten 
cities ;   and  they  are  the  mysterious  '  fort-builders '  to  whom 
the   peasantry   ascribe    any   ruin   of  unusual   size.       In    the 
central   valley  of  the  Ganges,  their   power   is    said   to  have 
been  crushed  by  the  Sharki  dynasty  of  Jaunpur  in  the  end  in  jaun- 
■  )f  the    14th    centur}'.      In  the  Districts  north  of  the    Gan-  P"''- 
_'etic  plain,  the  Bhars  figure  still  more  prominently  in  local 
traditions,  and  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  trace  their  con- 
tinuous  history.     In    Gorakhpur    District,   the   aboriginal  inGorakh- 
Tharus   and   Bhars   seem   to   have    overwhelmed    the    early  P"'- 
jutposts  of  Aryan  civilisation  several  centuries  before  Christ. 
Their  appearance  on  the  scene  is  connected  with  the  rise  of 
Buddhism.     They  became  vassals  of  the  Buddhist  kingdom 
)f  Behar  on  the  south-east;  and  on  the  fall  of  that  power, 
about   550    A.D.,    they    regained    their    independence.     The 
Chinese  pilgrim  in  the  7th  century  comments  in  this  region 
on  the  large  number  of  monasteries  and  towers — the  latter 
probably   a   monument   of  the   struggle   with   the  aboriginal 
Bhars,  who  were  here  finally  crushed  between  the  7th  and  the 
loth  centuries   a.d.     In   1881,   the  total  Bhar  population  of 
Oudh  and  the  North-Western  Provinces  numbered  349,113. 

As  we  advance  still  farther  eastwards  into  Bengal,  we  find 
that  the  non-Aryan  races  have  within  historical  time  supplied  a 
large  part  of  the  Hindu  population.     In  the  north,  the  Koch  The  Koch 
established   their   dominion   upon   the    ruins   of    the    Aryan  %^^  , 
kingdom  of  Kamriip,  which  the  Afghan  King  of  Bengal  had  Bengal, 
overthrown    in    14S9.     The    Koch   gave   their   name    to  the 
Native  State  of  Kuch  Behar  ;  and  their  descendants,  together  In  Kuch 
with  those  of  other  non-Aryan  tribes,  form  the  mass  of  the  ^^"^'■• 
people  in  the  neighbouring  British  Districts,  such  as  Rangpur.  in  Rang- 
In  1 88 1,  they  numbered   \\  million  in  Northern  Bengal  and  P""^- 


1 88     SCYTHIC  INROADS  AND  NAG  A  RACES. 


Kuch 
liehar 

Rajas. 


Behar.  One  part  of  them  got  rid  of  their  low  origin  by  becom- 
ing Musalmans,  and  thus  obtained  the  social  equality  which 
Islam  grants  to  all  mankind.  The  rest  have  merged  more  or 
less  imperfectly  into  the  Hindu  population ;  and  about  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  of  them  claim,  in  virtue  of  their  position 
as  an  old  dominant  race,  to  belong  to  the  Kshattriya  caste. 
They  call  themselves  Rajbansis,  a  term  exactly  corresponding 
to  the  Rajputs  of  Western  India.  The  Hinduized  Rajas  of 
Kuch  Behar  obtained  for  their  ancestors  a  divine  origin  from 
their  Brahman  genealogists,  in  order  to  efface  their  aboriginal 
descent ;  and  among  the  nobility  all  mention  of  the  Koch  tribe 
was  avoided.  The  present  Maharaja  married  the  daughter 
of  the  celebrated  theistic  apostle,  Keshab  Chandra  Sen,  the 
leader  of  the  Brahmo  Samaj.  He  is  an  honorary  major  in  the 
British  army,  and  takes  a  prominent  part  in  Calcutta  and 
Simla  society. 


Ahams  of 
Assam. 


Proceeding  still  eastwards,  the  adjacent  valley  of  Assam  was, 
until  the  last  century,  the  seat  of  another  non-Aryan  ruling 
race.  The  Ahams  entered  Assam  from  the  south-east  about 
1350  (?)  A.D. ;  had  firmly  established  their  power  in  1663  ; 
gradually  yielded  to  Hinduism ;  and  were  overpowered  by 
fresh  Buddhist  invasions  from  Burma  between  1750  and  1825, 
when  the  valley  was  annexed  to  British  India.  The  Ahams 
have  been  completely  crushed  as  a  dominant  race ;  and  their 
old  national  priests,  to  the  number  of  253,860,  have  been 
forced  to  become  tillers  of  the  soil  for  a  living.  But  the 
people  of  Assam  are  still  so  essentially  made  up  of  aboriginal 
races  and  their  Hinduized  descendants,  that  not  130,000 
persons  of  even  alleged  pure  Aryan  descent  can  be  found  in  a 
population  exceeding  4I  millions.^ 


Pre-  The  foregoing  summary  has  been  confined  to  races  north  of 

Aryan        (-|^g  Ganges.     Passing  to  the  southern  Gangetic  plain,  we  find 

clement  °  .  . 

south  of      that  almost   every  tract  has  traditions  of  a  pre- Aryan  tribe, 
I'le  either  as  a  once-dominant  race  or  as  lying  at  the  root  of  the 

'^    ■      local  population.      The  great  Division  of  Bundelkhand  con- 
Aborigines  tains  several  crushed  peoples  of  this  class,  and  takes  its  name 

in  Central  from  the  Bundelas,  a  tribe  of  at  least  semi-aboriginal  descent. 
India ;  '  ° 

^  The  Brahmans  in  Assam  number  only  119,075  (being  fewer  than  the 
Kalitas  or  old  priests  of  the  Ahams,  253,860),  out  of  a  total  population 
in  Assam  of  4,881,426  ;  while  the  Koch  alone  number  about  230,382,  and 
even  the  crushed  Ahams  179,314.  For  further  particulars  regarding  these 
races,  see  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  article  Ass.\M. 


LASTING  NON-AR  YAN  INFL UENCES.       189 

As  we  rise  from  the  Gangetic  plains  into  the  highlands  of 
the  Central  Provinces,  we  reach  the  abiding  home  of  the  non- 
Aryan  tribes.  One  such  race  after  another — Gauli's,  Nagas, 
Gonds,  Ahi'rs,  Bhi'ls — ruled  from  the  Satpura  j^lateau.^  Some 
of  their  chiefs  and  leading  families  now  claim  to  be  Kshattriyas; 
and  a  section  of  one  of  the  lowest  races,  the  Chauhans, 
borrowed  their  name  from  the  noble  '  Chauhan '  Rajputs. 

In  the  Lower  Provinces  of  Bengal,  we  find  the  delta  in  Lower 
peopled  by  masses  of  pre-Aryan  origin.  One  section  of  them  ^'-'".^''i' ; 
has  merged  into  low-class  Hindus ;  another  section  has  sought 
a  more  equal  social  organization  by  accepting  the  creed  of 
.Muhammad.  But  such  changes  of  faith  do  not  alter  their 
ethnical  type ;  and  the  Musalman  of  the  delta  differs  as  widely 
in  race  from  the  Afghan,  as  the  low-caste  Hindu  of  the  delta 
differs  from  the  Brahman.     Throughout  Southern  India,  the  in 

non-Aryan  elements  form  almost  the  entire  population,  and  Southern 

.  ...  Indici. 

have  supplied  the  great  Dravidian  family  of  languages,  which 

are  spoken  by  28  millions  of  people.     Two  of  our  oldest  and 

most  faithful  allies  in  the  Madras  Presidency,  the  enlightened 

dynasty  of  Travancore,  and  the  ancient  princes  of  Pudukotta, 

are  survivals  of  the  time  when  non-Aryan  sovereigns  ruled  over 

Southern  India. 

The  Scythic  inroads,  and  the  ancient  Naga  and  so-called  Scythic 
aboriginal    tribes,    have,    however,    not    merely    left    behind  f"fl„^„!;^^ 

°  '         _     '  _'      _  -'  innuence.s 

remnants  of  races  in  individual  Districts.     They  have  affected  on 

the    character    of    the    whole    population,    and    profoundly  "i"""'^"''- 

influenced  the  religious  beliefs  and  domestic   institutions  of 

India.      In   the  Veda  we  see  highly  developed  communities 

of  the  Aryan    stock,  worshipping   bright  and   friendly  gods, 

honouring  woman,  and  assigning  to  her  an  important  position 

in  the  family  life.     Husband  and  wife  were  the  Dampati,  or 

joint  rulers  of  the  Indo-Aryan  household.     Traditions  of  the 

freedom  of  woman  among  the  ancient  Aryan  settlers  survive  in 

the  sivayainvara  or  Maiden's  Own  Choice  of  a  Husband,  in 

the  epic  poems. 

The  curtain  of  Vedic  and  Post-Vedic  literature  falls  upon  On  the 
the  scene  before  the  5th  century  b.c.  When  the  curtain  rises  ^''^"po" 
on  the  domestic  and  religious  life  of  medieval  India,  in  the  domestic 

life  of 

1  See  Central  Provinxes,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India.    The  Gaulis  moclerii 
are  locally  believed  to  have  been  earlier  fort-builders  than  the  Gonds  (see  ^"'^"'^• 
for  example,  article  Saoner);  and  some  of  the  Gond  chiefs  trace  their 
descent  through  54  generations  to  a  well-recorded  ancestor  assigned  to  91 
A.D.  (see  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  article  Saranghak). 


190     SCI 'THIC  INR OADS  AND  NA GA  RA CES. 

Purdnas  about  the  loth  century  a.d.,  a  vast  change  has  taken 
s]  place.  The  people  are  no  longer  sharply  divided  into  civilised 
Aryans  and  rude  non-Aryans,  but  into  castes  of  a  great  mixed 
population.  Their  religion  is  no  longer  a  worship  of  bright 
and  friendly  gods,  but  a  composite  product  of  Arj'an  spiritual 
conceptions  and  non-Aryan  superstitions.  The  position  of 
woman  has  also  altered  for  the  worse.  Husband  and  wife  are 
no  longer  'joint  rulers'  of  the  household.  The  INIaiden's  Own 
Choice  has  fallen  into  disuse,  or  survived  only  as  a  Court 
pageant ;  the  custom  of  child-marriage  has  grown  up.  The 
widow  has  been  condemned  to  a  life  of  privation,  or  has 
been  taught  the  merit  of  extinguishing  her  existence  on  her 
husband's  funeral  pile. 

The  following  chapter  will  exhibit  this  amorphous  growth, 
popularly     known    as     Hinduism.      Orthodox     Hindus    are 
The  unfortunately  in   the  habit  of  claiming  the  authority  of  the 

fhTveda  ^^^'^  ^^^  their  mediaeval  institutions,  for  the  evil  as  well  as  for 
the  good.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  institutions  are  the  joint 
product  of  non-Aryan  darkness  and  of  Aryan  light.  The 
Scythic,  and  Naga,  and  so-called  aboriginal  races,  with  their 
indifference  to  human  suffering,  their  polyandric  households,  and 
their  worship  of  fear  and  blood,  have  left  their  mark  deep  in 
the  Hindu  law-codes,  in  the  terrorizing  of  the  Hindu  religion, 
and  in  the  degradation  of  woman.  English  scholarship  has 
shown  that  the  worst  feature  of  Hinduism,  widow-burning,  had 
no  authority  in  the  Veda.  When  it  is  equally  well  understood 
that  the  darker  features  of  Hinduism,  as  a  whole,  rest  not 
upon  the  Vedic  scriptures,  but  are  the  result  of  a  human 
compromise  with  non-Aryan  barbarism,  the  task  of  the  Indian 
reformer  will  be  half  accomplished.  It  is  with  a  true  popular 
instinct  that  the  great  religious  movements  of  India  in  our  day 
N  reject  the  authority  of  medieval  Hinduism,  and  appeal  back 
to  the  Veda. 


[  191   ] 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

RISE    OF    HINDUISM  (750  TO  1520  A.D.). 

From  these  diverse  races,  pre-Aryan,  Aryan,  and  Scythic,  Rise  ok 
the  population  of  India  has  been  made  up.  The  task  of^''''^''' 
organizing  them  fell  to  the  Brahmans.  That  ancient  caste, 
which  had  never  quitted  the  scene  even  during  the  height 
of  the  Buddhistic  supremacy,  stepped  forward  to  the  front 
of  the  stage  upon  the  decay  of  the  Buddhist  faith.  The 
Chinese  pilgrim,  about  640  a.d.,  had  found  Brahmanism 
and  Buddhism  co-existing  throughout  India.  The  conflict  of 
creeds  brought  forth  a  great  line  of  Brahman  apostles,  from 
the  8th  to  the  i6th  century  a.d.,  with  occasional  successors 
down  to  our  own  day.  The  disintegration  of  Buddhism,  as 
we  have  seen,  occupied  many  hundred  years,  perhaps  from 
300  to  1000  A.D.^ 

The  Hindus  take  the  Sth  century  as  the  turning-point  in  the  Kumarila, 
struggle.  About  750  a.d.,  arose  a  holy  Brahman  of  Bengal,  ^^°  ^■■* 
Kumarila  Bhatta  by  name,  preaching  the  old  Vedic  doctrine 
of  a  personal  Creator  and  God.  Before  this  realistic  theology, 
the  impersonal  abstractions  of  the  Buddhists  succumbed ;  and 
according  to  a  later  legend,  the  reformer  wielded  the  sword  of 
the  flesh  not  less  trenchantly  than  the  weapons  of  the  spirit. 
A  Sanskrit  writer,  jMadhava-Acharya,  of  the  14th  century  a.d., 
relates  how  Sudhanwan,  a  prince  in  Southern  India,  '  com- 
manded his  servants  to  put  to  death  the  old  men  and  the  Tersecu- 

children  of  the  Buddhists,  from  the  bridge  of  Rama  [the  ridge  ^1°",!?^- ' 

.         .,_,,-,  ,'-  °     Buddhism, 

of  reefs  which  connects    India  with  CeylonJ   to  the   Snowy 

Mountain  :  let  him  who  slays  not,  be  slain.' - 

^  From  the  language  of  the  Saddharma  Pundarika,  translated  into 
Chinese  before  the  end  of  the  3rd  century  a.d.,  H.  H.  Wilson  infers 
that  even  at  that  early  date  '  the  career  of  the  Buddhists  had  not  been  one 
of  uninterrupted  success,  although  the  opposition  had  not  been  such  as 
to  arrest  their  progress'  (Esstiys,  vol.  ii.  p.  366,  ed.  1S62).  The  existence 
of  Buddhism  in  India  is  abundantly  attested  to  1000  A.D. 

-  Quoted  by  H.  H.  Wilson,  n(  supra.  See  also  Lassen's  Indischc 
AltertJntiiiskinide,  vol.  iv.  p.  708;  Colebrooke's  £.fj'a;'j,  p.  190. 


192 


^7^^  OF  HINDUISM. 


True  value 
of  the 
legend. 


Twofold 
basis  of 
Hindu- 
ism ; 
caste  and 
religion. 


Caste  basis 
of  Hindu- 
ism. 

The  race- 
orii^in  of 
caste. 


Modified 
by  '  occu- 
pation ' 
and  '  lo- 
cality.' 

Com- 
plexity 
of  caste. 


It  is  needless  to  say  that  no  sovereign  existed  at  that  time 
in  India  whose  power  to  persecute  extended  from  the  Hima- 
layas to  Cape  Comorin.  So  far  as  the  legend  has  any  truth, 
it  refers  to  one  of  many  local  religious  reprisals  which  took 
place  at  the  Indian  courts  during  the  struggle  between  the 
Buddhists  and  the  Brahmans.  Such  reprisals  recurred  in  later 
days,  on  a  smaller  scale,  between  the  rival  Hindu  sects.  The 
legend  of  Kumarila  is  significant,  however,  as  placing  on  a  re- 
ligious basis  the  series  of  many-sided  evolutions  which  resulted 
in  Hinduism.  These  evolutions  were  the  result  of  ethnical 
processes,  more  subtle  than  the  scheming  of  any  caste  of  men. 
The  Brahmans  gave  a  direction  to  Hinduism,  but  it  was  the 
natural  development  of  the  Indian  races  which  produced  it. 

Hinduism  is  a  social  organization  and  a  religious  con- 
federacy. As  a  social  organization,  it  rests  upon  caste,  with 
its  roots  deep  down  in  the  ethnical  elements  of  the  Indian 
people.  As  a  religious  confederacy,  it  represents  the  coali- 
tion of  the  old  Vedic  faith  of  the  Brahmans  with  Buddhism 
on  the  one  hand,  and  with  the  ruder  rites  of  the  pre- Aryan 
and  Indo-Scythic  races  on  the  other. 

The  ethnical  basis  of  caste  is  disclosed  in  the  fourfold  division 
of  the  people  into  the  '  twice-born '  Aryan  castes,  including 
the  Brahmans,  Kshattriyas  (Rajputs),  and  Vaisyas ;  and  the 
'  once-born  '  non-Aryan  Siidras.  The  Census  proves  that  this 
classification  remains  the  fundamental  one  to  the  present  day. 
The  three  'twice-born'  castes  still  wear  the  sacred  thread,  and 
claim  a  joint,  although  an  unequal,  inheritance  in  the  holy 
books  of  the  Veda.  The  '  once-born '  castes  are  still  denied 
the  sacred  thread,  and  their  initiation  into  the  old  religious 
literature  of  the  Indo-Aryans  has  only  been  effected  by  the 
secular  teaching  of  our  Anglo-Indian  schools.  But  while  caste 
has  thus  its  foundations  deep  in  the  distinctions  of  race,  its 
superstructure  is  regulated  by  another  system  of  division,  based 
en  the  occupations  of  the  people.  The  early  classification  of 
the  people  may  be  expressed  either  ethnically  as  '  twice-born  ' 
Aryans,  and  '  once-born '  non-Aryans ;  or  socially,  as  priests, 
warriors,  husbandmen,  and  serfs.  On  these  two  principles  of 
classification,  according  to  race  and  to  employment,  still 
further  modified  by  geographical  position,  has  been  built  up 
the  ethnical  and  social  organization  of  Indian  caste. 

From  the  resulting  cross-divisions  arises  an  excessive  com- 
plexity, which  renders  any  brief  exposition  of  caste  superficial. 
As  a  rule,  it  may  be  said  that  the  Aryan  or  '  twice-born ' 
castes    adhere    most    closely   to    the    ctlmical    principle    of 


A.yJZVS/S  OF  CASTE.  193 

division ;    the    '  once-born '   or   distinctly   non-Aryan   to   the 
same  principle,  but  profoundly  modified  by  the  concurrent 
principle  of  employment ;  while  the  mixed  progeny  of  the  two 
are  classified  solely  according  to  their  occupation.     But  even  Even  the 
among  the  Brahmans,  whose  pride  of  race  and  continuity  of  ^'■[^"""'^"s 

.  ^  '  '  .  ■'         not  an 

tradition  should  render  them  the  firmest  ethnical  unit  among  etlinical 
the  Indian  castes,  classification  by  employment  and  by  geo-  ""''• 
graphical  situation  plays  a  very  important  part ;  and  the  Brah- 
mans, so  far  from  being  a  compact  unit,  are  made  up  of  several 
hundred  castes,  who  cannot  intermarry,  nor  eat  food  cooked 
by  each  other.  They  follow  every  employment,  from  the 
.calm  pandits  of  Behar  in  their  stainless  white  robes,  and  the 
haughty  priests  of  Benares,  to  the  potato-growing  Brahmans 
of  Orissa,  '  half-naked  peasants,  struggling  along  under  their 
baskets  of  yams,  with  a  filthy  little  Brahmanical  thread  over 
their  shoulder.'^ 

In  many  parts  of  India,  Brahmans  may  be  found  earning  The  Brah- 
their  livelihood  as  porters,  shepherds,  cultivators,  potters,  and  ™^"  ^^'^^'^ 
fishermen,  side  by  side  with  others  who  would  rather  starve  ' 
and  see  their  wives  and  little  ones  die  of  hunger,  than 
demean  themselves  to  manual  labour,  or  allow  food  prepared 
by  a  man  of  inferior  caste  to  pass  their  lips.  Classification  by 
locality  introduces  another  set  of  distinctions  among  the 
Brahmans.  In  Lower  Bengal  jails,  a  convict  Brahman  from 
Behar  or  the  North-Western  Provinces  used  to  be  highly 
valued,  as  the  only  person  who  could  prepare  food  for  all  classes 
of  Brahman  prisoners.  In  1864,  the  author  saw  a  Brahman 
felon  try  to  starve  himself  to  death,  and  submit  to  a  flogging 
rather  than  eat  his  food,  on  account  of  scruples  as  to  whether 
the  birthplace  of  the  North-Western  Brahman,  who  had  cooked 
it,  was  equal  in  sanctity  to  his  own  native  district.  The 
Brahmans  are  popularly  divided  into  ten  great  septs,  according 
to  their  locality;  five  on  the  north,  and  five  on  the  south  of  the 
Vindhya  range.-  But  the  minor  distinctions  are  innumer- 
able.    Thus,  the  first  of  the  five  northern  Brahman  septs,  the 

^  See  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  pp.  238  d  secj.  (ed.  1872),  where  25  pages 
are  devoted  to  the  diversities  of   the  Brahmans  in  occupation  and  race. 
Also  Hindu  Tribes  and  Castes,  by  the  Rev.  jNI.  A.  Sherring,  Introd.  xxi. 
vol.  ii.  (4to,  Calcutta,  1879). 
^  Thus  tabulated  according  to  a  Sanskrit  mnemonic  Sloka : — 
I.   The  five  Gauras  north  of  the  Vindhya  range — 

(i)  The  Sdraswatas,   so  called  from   the  country  watered  by 

the  river  Saraswati. 
(2)  The    Kdnyakitbjas,    so    called    from    the    Kanyakubja    or 
Kanauj  country. 

N 


194  Ji^SE  OF  HINDUISM. 

Saraswatas  in  the   Punjab,  consist  of  469  classes.^     Sherring 
enumerated  1886  separate  Brahmanical  tribes.-     Dr.  Wilson, 
of  Bombay,  carried  his  learned  work  on  Caste  to  the  length  of 
two  volumes,  aggregating  678  pages,  before  his  death;  but  he 
had  not  completed  his  analysis  of  even  a  single  caste — the 
Brahmans. 
The  lower       It  will  be  readily  understood,  therefore,  how  numerous  are 
more^com-  ^^^  sub-divisions,  and  how  complex  is  the  constitution,  of  the 
plex.  lower    castes.      The    Rajputs    now    number    590    separately- 

named  tribes  in  different  parts  of  India.'  But  a  process  of 
synthesis  as  well  as  of  analysis  has  been  going  on  among  the 
Indian  peoples.  In  many  outlying  Provinces,  we  see  non- 
Aryan  chiefs  and  warlike  tribes  turn  into  Aryan  Rajputs 
before  our  eyes.^  Well-known  legends  have  been  handed 
down  of  large  bodies  of  aliens  being  incorporated  from 
time  to  time  even  into  the  Brahman  caste.^  But  besides 
these  '  manufactured  Brahmans,'  and  the  ethnical  syncretisms 
which  they  represent,  there  has  been  a  steady  process  of 
amalgamation  among  the  Hindus  by  mixed  marriage.^  The 
The  build- Sudras,    says    Mr.    Sherring,     'display    a    great   intermingling 

ingupof        ^  •'^  "?'.,.         \  .  ^  °  .  r^,         ° 

castes.  o*  races.  Every  caste  exhibits  this  confusion.  ihey  form 
a  living  and  practical  testimony  to  the  fact  that  in  former 
times  the  upper  and  lower  classes  of  native  society,  by  which  I 

(3)  The   Gaiiras  proper,   so  called  from  Gaur,  or  the  country 

of  the  Lower  Ganges. 

(4)  The  Utkalas,  of  the  Province  of  Utkala  or  Odra  (Orissa). 

(5)  The  Maithilas,  of  the  Province  of  Mithila  (Tirhut). 
IT.  The  five  Dravidas  south  of  the  Vindh)-a  range — 

(1)  The  Mahdrdshtras,  of  the  country  of  the  Marathi  language. 

(2)  The  Andhras  or   Tailangas,  of  the  country  of  the  Telui,'u 

language. 

(3)  The  Dravidas  proper,  of  the  country  of  the  Dravidian  or 

Tamil  language. 

(4)  The  A'arnd/as,   of  the   Karnatika,    or   the   country  of  the 

Canarese  language. 

(5)  The    Gttrjaras,    of    Gurjarashtra,   or    the    country    of    the 

Gujarati  language. 

^  Compiled  by  Pandit  Radha  Krishna,  quoted  by  Dr.  J.  Wilson,  Indian 
Caste,  part  ii.  pp.  126-133. 

-  Hindu  Tribes  and  Castes,  pp.  xxii.-xlvi.  vol.  ii.  (4I0,  Calcutta,   1879). 

•*  See  Sherring,  Hindu.  Tribes  and  Castes,  vol.  ii.  pp.  Iv.-lxv. 

^  .See  .Sherring,  Hindu  Tribes  and  Castes,  vol.  ii.  p.  Ixvii. 

'•'  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  p.  247  (in  Oudh),  p.  248  (in  Bh.-igalpur), 
p.  254  (in  Malabar),  etc. 

•'  See  two  interesting  articles  from  opposite  points  of  view,  on  the 
synthetic  aspects  of  caste,  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Sherring,  of  lienares,  and  by 
jogendra  Chandra  Ghose,  in  the  Calcutta  Review,  Oct.  1880. 


S  UR  VIVA  LS  OF  POL  1  ^ANDR  Y.  195 

mean  the  Hindu  and  non-Hindu  population  of  India,  formed 
alliances  with  one  another  on  a  prodigious  scale,  and  that  the 
offspring  of  these  alliances  were  in  many  instances  gathered 
together  into  separate  castes  and  denominated  Sudras.'^ 

The  Hindu  custom  now  forbids  marriage  between  (i)  per- The  slow- 
sons  of  the  same  gotra  or  kindred,  and  (2)  persons  of  different  "^^^^  "P" 
castes.     But  this  precise  double  rule  has  been  arrived  at  only  Hindu 
after  many  intermediate  experiments  in  endogamous  and  exo-  "i'i|"'^'^ge 
gamous  tribal  life.    The  transitions  are  typified  by  the  polyandry 
of  Draupadi  in  the  Mahabharata,  and  by  many  caste  customs 
relating  to  marriage,   inheritance,   and    the  family  tie,  which 
survive  to  this  day.     Such  survivals  constitute  an  important 
branch  of  law,  in  fact,  the  domestic  '  common  law '  of  India,- 
and  furnish  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  in  the  way  of  Anglo- 
Indian  codification.     Thus,  to  take  a  single  point,  the  rules  Survivals 
regarding  marriage  exhibit  every  phase  from  the  compulsory  "  '  ^ 
polyandry  of  the  old  Nairs,  the  permissive  polyandry  of  the 
Punjab  Jats,  and  the  condonement  of  adultery  with  a  husband's 
brother  or  kinsman  among  the  Karakat  Vellalars  of  Madura ; 
to  the  law  of  Levirate  among  the  Ahi'rs  and  Nuniyas,  the  legal 
re-marriage  of  vvidows  among  the  low-caste  Hindus,   and  the 
stringent  provisions  against  such  re-marriages  among  the  higher 
castes.     At  this  day,  the  Nairs  exhibit  several  of  the  stages  in 
the   advance   from    polyandric    to    monogamous    institutions. 
The  conflict  between  polyandry  and  the  more  civilised  marriage 
system  of  the  Hindus  is  going  on  before  our  eyes  in  Malabar. 
Among  the  Koils,  although  polyandry  is  forgotten,  the  right  of 
disposing  of  a  girl  in  marriage  still  belongs,  in  certain  cases, 
to  the  viatei'nal  uncle,— a  relic  of  the  polyandric  system  ot 
succession  through  females.    This  tribe  also  preserves  the  form 
of  marriage  by  'capture.' 

The  Brdhmanas   indicate  that   the  blood    of  the    Hindus  Ancient 
was,  even  in  the  early  post-Vedic  period,  greatly  intermingled.-^  mingling 
The  ancient  marriage  code  recognised  as   lawful,   unions  of 
men  of  higher  caste  with  females  from  any  of  the  lower  ones, 
and  their  offspring*  had  a  quite  different  social  status  from 

'  Calattta  Rrview,  cxlii.  jj.  225. 

'^  Among  many  treatises  on  this  subject,  Arthur  Steele's  La'v  aiid  Custom 
of  Hindu  Castes  {xZ^i'i)  deals  with  Western  India;  Nelson's  View  of  Hindu 
Latv  (1877),  and  Burnell's  Dayavibhdga ,  etc.,  may  be  quoted  for  the 
Madras  Presidency ;  Beames'  admirable  edition  of  Sir  Henry  Elliot's 
Trilics  of  the  Noi-t/i  •  IVesteru  Provinces,  and  Sherring's  Hindu  Tribes 
(besides  more  strictly  legal  treatises),  for  Bengal. 

■'  The  Tixittiriya  Bi-dhinana  of  the  Krishna  Vajur  Wda  (f|uoted  by  Dr. 
J.  Wilson,  Caste,  i.  pp.  127-132)  enumerates  159  castes.  ■•  Annlo)na. 


J 


196  JilSE  OF  HINDUISM. 

the    progeny  ^    of   illicit   concubinage.      The   laws    of  !Manu 
disclose   how   widely   such    connections    had    influenced  the 
structure  of  Indian  society  2000  years  ago ;  and  the  Census 
proves  that  the  mixed  castes  still  form  the  great  body  of  the 
Hindu  population.      In   dealing  with   Indian  caste,  we  must 
therefore  allow,  not  only  for  the  ethnical  and  geographical 
elements  into  which  it  is  resolvable,  but  also  for  the  synthetic 
processes  by  which  it  has  been  built  up. 
The  'oc-         The  same  remark  applies  to  the  other  principle  of  classifi- 
cupatKm     cation  on  which  caste  rests,  namely,  according  to  the  employ- 
caste,  ments  of  the  people.      On  the  one  hand,  there  has  been  a 
tendency  to  erect  every  separate  employment  in  each  separate 
Changes     Province  into  a  distinct  caste.     On  the  other  hand,  there  has 
*].  t"^''>"]'  .been  a  practice  (which   European  observers  are  apt  to  over- 
castes,        look)  of  the  lower  castes  changing  their  occupation,  and  in 
some  cases  deliberately  raising  themselves  in  the  social  scale. 
Thus  the  Vaisya  caste,  literally  the  vis  or  general  body  of 
the  Aryan   settlers,  were  in  ancient  times  the  tillers  of  the 
soil.     They  have  abandoned  this  laborious  occupation  to  the 
Siidra  and    mixed  castes,   and   are  now  the   merchants   and 
bankers    of   India.      '  Fair   in    complexion,'   writes   the   most 
accurate  of  recent  students  of  caste,^   'with   rather   delicate 
features,   and   a  certain    refinement  depicted  on  their   coun- 
tenances,   sharp    of   eye,    intelligent    of   face,    and    polite    of 
The  Vais-  bearing,'  the  Vaisyas  '  must  have  radically  changed  since  the 
^^^-            days  when  their  forefathers  delved,  sowed,  and  reaped.'   Indeed, 
so  great  is  the  change,  that  a  heated  controversy  is  going  on  in 
Hindu  society  as  to  whether  the  Bengali  luiuiyds,  or  merchant- 
bankers,  are  really  of  Vaisya  descent  or  of  a  higher  origin. 

Such  a  rise  in  the  social  scale  is  usually  the  unconscious 
work  of  time,  but  there  are  also  legends  of  distinct  acts  of  self- 
assertion  by  individual  castes.  In  Southern  India,  the  gold- 
Gold-  smiths  strenuously  resisted  the  rule  of  the  Brahmans,  and  for 
Madras^  ^S^^  claimed  to  be  the  true  spiritual  guides,  styling  themselves 
dc/idryas,  '  religious  teachers,'  and  wearing  the  sacred  thread. 
Their  pretensions  are  supposed  to  have  given  rise  to  the 
great  division  of  castes  in  Madras,  into  the  '  Right-hand,'  or 
the  cultivating  and  trading  castes  who  supported  the  Brahmans; 

^  Pratiloina.  For  an  arrangement  of  134  Indian  castes,  according  to 
their  origin,  or  'procession'  from  (i)  regular  full  marriage  by  members 
of  the  same  caste,  (2)  annloma,  (3)  pratilonia,  (4)  Vrdtya-Santati,  (5) 
adultery,  (6)  incest,  (7)  degeneration  ;  Wilson,  Indian  Caste,  ii.  pp.  39-70. 
^  The  Rev.  M.  A.  Sherring  (deceased,  alas,  since  the  above  was  written, 
after  a  life  of  noble  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  to  the  Indian  people), 
Cahutta  Revieiv,  October  1880,  p.  220. 


I 


CASTE  AS  A  TRADE-GUILD.  197 

and  the  'Left-hand,'  chiefly  craftsmen  who  sided  with  the  artisan 
opposition  to  Brahman  supremacy.^ 

In  Bengal,  a  similar  opposition  came  from  the  literary  class.  I'he 
The    Dattas,    a    sept    of    the    Kayasth    or   writer  -  caste,    re-  of\.g,^,T^l 
nounced  the  position  assigned  to  them  in  the  classification 
of  Hindu  society.    They  claimed  to  rank  next  to  the  Brahmans, 
and  thus   above  all   the   other  castes.      They  failed ;    but  a 
native    author-    states   that   one    of   their   body,    within   the 
memory  of  men  still  living,  maintained  his  title,  and  wore 
the  sacred  thread  of  the  pure   'twice-born.'     The  Statistical 
Survey   of  India   has  disclosed   many  self-assertions  of  this 
sort,  although  of  a  more  gradual  character  and  on  a  smaller 
scale.     Thus,  in  Eastern  Bengal,  where  land  is  plentiful,  the 
Shahas,  a  section  of  the  Suris  or  degraded  spirit-sellers,  have,  The 
in  our  own  time,  advanced  themselves  first  into  a  respectable  ' 
cultivating  caste,  and  then  into  prosperous  traders.     Some  of 
the  Teh's  or  oil-pressers  in  Dacca  District,  and  certain  of  the  T^l's, 
Tambuh's  or  /^///-growers  in   Rangpur,  have  in  like  manner  ^^^^  ^'  '^' 
risen  above  their  hereditary  callings,  and  become  bankers  and 
grain  merchants.     These  examples  do  not  include  the  general 
opening  of  professions,  effected    by  English    education — the 
great  solvent  of  caste. 

There  is  therefore  a  plasticity  as  well  as  a  rigidity  in  caste.  Plasticity 
Its   plasticity  has    enabled    caste    to    adapt   itself  to    widely  ^."'^,.     . 

,  '■  .  ^  rigidity  in 

separated    stages    of    social    progress,    and    to    mcorporate  caste. 
the  various   ethnical   elements   which   make   up   the    Indian 
people.      Its  rigidity  has  given  strength  and  permanence  to 
the   corporate   body  thus   formed.       Hinduism    is   internally 
loosely  coherent,   but  it    has   great   powers   of  resistance  to 
external  pressure.       Each  caste   is  to  some  extent   a  trade-  Caste,  as 
guild,  a  mutual  assurance  society,  and  a  religious  sect.     As  a  o/fiade- 
trade-union,  it  insists  on  the  proper  training  of  the  youth  of  guilds, 
its  craft,  regulates  the  wages  of  its  members,  deals  with  trade- 
delinquents,  and  promotes  good  fellowship  by  social  gather- 
ings.    The  famous  fabrics  of  mediaeval  India,  and  the  chief 
local  industries   in  our  own  day,  were  developed  under  the 
supervision  of  caste  or  trade  guilds  of  this  sort.     Such  guilds 
may  still  be  found  in  many  parts  of  India,  but  not  always 
with  the  same  complete  development.^ 

'  This  subject  is  involved  in  much  obscurity.  The  above  sentences 
embody  the  explanation  given  in  Nelson's  Vicio  of  the  Hindu  Law,  as 
adininisteyed  by  the  High  Court  of  Madras,  p.  140  (Madras,  1877). 

'■*  Jogendra  Chandra  Ghose,  Calcutta  Jvcuirw,  cxlii.  p.  279  (October  1880). 

'  The  Statistical  Accounts  or  Gazetteers  of  the  Bombay  Districts  devote 
a  special  section  to  such  trade-guilds  in  every  District. 


198  J^ISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

In   Ahmadaead   District^   each    trade   forms   a  separate 
guild.     All  heads  of  artisan  households  are  ranged  under  their 
It^  proper  guild.     The  objects  of  the  guild  are  to  regulate  com- 

of^wa^es'^  petition  among  the  members,  and  to  uphold  the  interest  of 
the  body  in  disputes  with  other  craftsmen.    To  moderate  com- 
petition, the  guild  appoints  certain  days  as  trade  holidays,  when 
any  member  who  works   is  punished  by  a  fine.      A  special 
case  occurred   in   1873  among   the   Ahmadabad   bricklayers. 
Men  of  this  class  sometimes  added  3d.  to  their  daily  wages 
by  working  extra  time  in  the   early  morning.      But  several 
families  were  thereby  thrown  out  of  employment      Accord- 
ingly the  guild  met,  and  decided  that  as  there  was  not  employ- 
ment for  all,  no  man  should  be  allowed  to  work  extra  time. 
Working         The  decisions  of  the  guild  are  enforced  by  fines.     If  the 
of  the         offender  refuses  to   pay,  and  the   members  of  the  guild  all 
guild,         belong  to  one  caste,  the  offender  is  put  out  of  caste.      If  the 
guild   contains   men    of  different   castes,   the   guild   uses    its 
influence  with  other  guilds  to  prevent  the  recusant   member 
from   getting   work.      The   guild   also   acts   in   its   corporate 
capacity   against    other   crafts.      For   example,    in    1872,   the 
Ahmadabad   cloth  -  dealers    resolved    among    themselves    to 
reduce  the   rates   paid  to  the  sizers  or  tdgias.      The  sizers' 
guild    refused    to    prepare   cloth    at   the    lower    rates,   and 
An  Indian  remained  six  weeks  on  strike.     At  length  a  compromise  was 
'  '^^"^^-       arrived  at,  and  both  guilds  signed  a  stamped  agreement. 

Besides  its  punitive  fines,  the  guild  draws  an  income  from 

fees  levied  on  persons  beginning  to  practise  its  craft.      This 

custom  prevails  at  Ahmadabad  in  the  cloth  and  other  industries. 

But  no  fee  is  paid  by  potters,  carpenters,  and  inferior  artisans. 

(juild         An  exception  is  made,  too,  in  the  case  of  a  son  succeeding  to 

funds.         j^jg  father,  when  nothing  need  be  paid.     In  other  cases,  the 

amount  varies,  in  proportion  to  the  importance  of  the  trade, 

from  p^5  to  ^50.     The  revenue   from  these  fees  and  from 

punitive  fines  is  expended  in  feasts  to  the  members  of  the  guild, 

in  the  support  of  poor  craftsmen  or  their  orphans,   and  in 

Cuild         charity.     A  favourite  device  for  raising  money  in  Surat  is  for 

chanties.     ^^  members  of  a  trade  to  agree  to  keep  a  certain  date  as  a 

holiday,  and  to  shut  up  all  their  shops  except  one.     The  right 

to  keep  open  this  one  shop  is  let  by  auction,  and  the  amount 

bid  is  credited  to  the  guild-fund. 

Trade-  Within  the  guild,  the  interests  of  the  common  trade  often 

interests  v.  g-^ipersede  the  race  element  of  the  theoretically  common  caste. 

Thus,  in  Surat,  each  class  of  craftsmen,  although  including  men 

'  See  the  article,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


CASTE  DISCIPLINE.  199 

of  different  castes  and  races,  combine  to  form  a  guild,  with 
a  council,  a  head-man,  and  a  common  purse  for  charity  and 
entertainments.     In  Ahmadabad,  Broach,  and  many  industrial  in  trade 
centres,  the  trade  organization  into  guilds  co-exists  with,  or  ""''^^ ' 
dominates,  the  race-structure  of  caste.     A  twofold  organization 
also  appears  in  the  village  community.      Caste  regulates  the  in  the  vil- 
theoretical  position  of  every  family  within  it ;  but  the  low-  ,(^unity'"" 
castes  often  claim  the  headship  in  the  village  government. 

In    Barasat    Sub  -  district   in    Bengal,  of  5818  enumerated  Low-caste 
Village   Heads,  only  15  were   Brahmans  or  Rajputs,  4  were  ^^''^^p" 
Kayasths,  while  3524  belonged  to  the  Siidra  or  inferior  castes, 
down  to  the  detested  cow-skinners  and  corpse-bearers ;  the 
residue  being  Muhammadans,  with  13  native  Christians.     In 
Southern  India,  the  Village  Head  is  sometimes  of  so  low  a 
caste  that  he  cannot  sit  under  the  same  roof  with  his  colleagues 
in  the  village  government.     He  therefore  hands  up  his  staff, 
which  is  set  in  the  place  of  honour,  while  he  himself  squats 
on  the  ground  outside.     The  trade-guild  in  the  cities,  and  the  Caste  and 
village  community  throughout  the  country,  act,  together  with  .'  '""''^''i' 

^  ■'  °  .     .  J'  J       a  insurance. 

caste,  as  mutual  assurance  societies,  and  under  normal  con- 
ditions allow  none  of  their  members  to  starve.     Caste,  and  the  No  'poor- 
trading  or  agricultural  guilds  concurrent  with  it,  take  the  place  j  V  "^ 
of  a  poor-law  in  India. 

It  is  obvious  that  such  an  organization  must  have  some  Caste 
weapons  for  defending  itself  against  lazy  or  unworthy  members,  ^"ewards. 
The  responsibility  which  the  caste  discharges  with  regard  to 
feeding  its  poor,  would  otherwise  be  liable  to  abuses.     As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  caste  or  guild  exercises  a  surveillance  over 
each  of  its  members,  from  the  close  of  childhood  until  death. 
If  a  man  behaves  well,  he  will  rise  to  an  honoured  place  in 
his  caste ;  and  the  desire  for  such  local  distinctions  exercises 
an   important   influence   in   the  life   of  a  Hindu.      But    the 
caste   has   its   punishments   as  well   as   its   rewards.      Those  Caste  pun- 
punishments  consist  of  fine  and  excommunication.     The  fine  '^'^"'"^n^'^- 
usually  takes  the  form  of  a  compulsory  feast   to   the   male 
members  of  the  caste.     This  is  the  ordinary  means  of  purifica- 
tion, or  of  making  amends  for  breaches  of  the  caste  code. 

Excommunication  inflicts  three  penalties  :  First,  an  interdict  Excommu- 
against  eating  with  the  fellow-members  of  the  caste.  Second,  "''-'•'^^'"n- 
an  interdict  against  marriage  within  the  caste.  This  practically 
amounts  to  debarring  the  delinquent  and  his  family  from 
respectable  marriages  of  any  sort.  Third,  cutting  off  the 
delinquent  from  the  general  community,  by  forbidding  him 
the  use  of  the  village   barber  and  washerman,   and   of  the 


2  00  RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

priestly  adviser.  Except  in  very  serious  cases,  excommunica- 
tion is  withdrawn  upon  the  submission  of  the  offender,  and 
his  payment  of  a  fine.  Anglo-Indian  law  does  not  enforce 
caste-decrees.  But  caste  punishments  exercise  an  efficacious 
restraint  upon  unworthy  members  of  the  community,  precisely 
as  caste  rewards  supply  a  powerful  motive  of  action  to  good 
ones.  A  member  who  cannot  be  controlled  by  this  mixed 
discipline  of  punishment  and  reward  is  eventually  expelled  ; 
and,  as  a  rule,  an  '  out-caste '  is  really  a  bad  man.  Imprison- 
ment in  jail  carries  with  it  that  penalty ;  but  may  be  condoned 
after  release,  by  heavy  expiations. 
Recapitu-        Such  is  a  brief  survey  of  the  nature  and  operation  of  caste. 

lation  of  g^j.  ^j^g  cross-divisions  on  which  the  institution  rests  :  its  con- 
caste. 

flicting  principles  of  classification  according  to  race,  employ- 
ment, and  locality ;  the  influence  of  Islam  in  Northern  India  ; 
of  the  '  right-handed '  and  '  left-handed '  branches  in  the 
South  ;^  and  the  modifications  everywhere  effected  by  social 
or  sectarian  movements,  render  a  short  account  of  caste  full 
of  difficulties. 

The  religi-  Hinduism  is,  however,  not  only  a  social  organization  resting 
ofH'riT-  ^^^01"^  caste ;  it  is  also  a  religious  federation  based  upon  wor- 
ism.  ship.      As  the  various  race    elements  of  the   Indian  people 

have  been  welded  into  caste,  so  the  simple  old  beliefs  of  the 
Veda,  the  mild  doctrines  of  Buddha,  and  the  fierce  rites  of 
the  non-Aryan  tribes  have  been  thrown  into  the  melting-pot, 
and  poured  out  thence  as  a  mixture  of  alloy  and  dross  to  be 
worked  up  into  the  Hindu  gods.  In  the  religious  as  in  the 
social  structure,  the  Brahmans  supplied  the  directing  brain- 
Its  stages  power.  But  both  })rocesses  resulted  from  laws  of  human 
evolution,  deeper  than  the  workings  of  any  individual  will ; 
and  in  both,  the  product  has  been,  not  an  artificial  manufac- 
ture, but  a  natural  development.  Hinduism  merely  forms  one 
link  in  the  golden  chain  of  Indian  religions.  We  have  seen 
that  the  career  of  Buddha  was  but  a  combination  of  the  ascetic 
and  the  heroic  Aryan  life  as  recorded  in  the  Indian  epics. 
Indeed,  the  discipline  of  the  Buddhists  organized  so  faithfully 
the  prescribed  stages  of  a  Brahman's  existence,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  decide  whether  the  Sarmaiiai  of  Megasthenes  were 
Buddhist  clergy  or  Brahman  recluses.  If  accurate  scholarshij) 
cannot  accept  Buddhism  as  simply  the  Sankhya  philosophy 
turned  into  a  national  religion,  it  admits  that  Buddhism  is  a 
natural  development  from  Brahmanism.  An  early  set  of 
'  See  dole's  Statistical  Aaoiint  of  Chiugl,-pui  District,  pp.  33,  34  (1879). 


of  evolu 
tion. 


B  UDDHIST  ELEMEN TS  IN  HIND  UISM.     201 

intermediate  links  is  found  in  the  darsanas,  or  philosophical 
systems,  between  the  Vedic  period  and  the  establishment  ot 
Buddhism  as  a  national  religion  under  Asoka  (1400?  to  250 
B.C.).  A  later  set  is  preserved  in  the  compromises  effected 
during  the  final  struggle  between  Buddhism  and  Brahmanism, 
ending  in  the  re-assertion  of  the  latter  in  its  new  form  as  the 
religion  of  the  Hindus  (700  to  1000  a.d.). 

Buddhism  not  only  breathed  into  the  new  birth  its  noble  Buddhist 
spirit  of  charity,  but  bequeathed  to  Hinduism  many  of  its  o'jf  j^;"'!'^'' 
institutions  unimpaired,  together  with  its  scheme  of  religious  duism. 
life,  and  the  material  fabric  of  its  worship.     At  this  day,  the 
mahdjan  or  bankers'  guild,  in  Surat,  devotes  part  of  the  fees 
that  it  levies  on  bills  of  exchange  to  animal  hospitals  ;  true  Beast 
survivals  of  Asoka's  second   edict,  which  provided  a  system      ■^'' 
of  medical   aid  for   beasts,   250   years    before  Christ.      The 
cenobitic    life,    and    the    division    of   the    people    into    laity 
and  clergy,  have  passed  almost  unchanged  from   Buddhism 
into    the    present    Hindu    sects,    such    as    the   Vaishnavs   or 
Vishnuites. 

The  Hindu  monasteries  in  our  own  day  vie  with  the  Buddhist  Monas- 
convents  in  the  reign  of  Siladitya  ;  and  Puri  is,  in  many  respects,  ^^i^'^^- 
a  modern  unlettered  Nalanda.     The  religious  houses  of  the 
Orissa  delta,  with  their  revenue  of  jP.^0,000  a  year,^  are  but 
Hindu  developments  of  the  Buddhist  cells  and  rock-monas- 
teries, whose  remains  still  honeycomb  the  adjacent  hills. 

If  we  examine  the  religious  life  of  the  Vishnuite  commu- 
nities, we  find  their  rules  are  Buddhistic,  with  Brahmanical 
reasons  attached.     Thus  the  moral  code  of  the  Kabir-panthis  The  reli- 
consists  of  five  rules  :  -  First,  life,  whether  of  man  or  beast,  g'o"^  hte. 
must  not  be  violated  ;  because  it  is  the  gift  of  God.     Second, 
humanity  is  the  cardinal  virtue ;  and  the  shedding  of  blood, 
whether  of  man  or  beast,  a  heinous  crime.     Third,  truth  is  the 
great  principle  of  conduct ;  because  all   the  ills   of  life  and 
ignorance   of  God   are    due    to    original    falsehood    {indyd). 
Fourth,  retirement  from  the  world  is  desirable  ;  because  the 
desires  of  the  world  are  hostile  to  tranquillity  of  soul,  and  to       , 
the  undisturbed  meditation  on  God.     Fifth,  obedience  to  the    .  / 
spiritual  guide  is  incumbent  on  all.     This  last  rule  is  common 
to  every  sect  of  the  Hindus.      But  the  Kabir-panthi's  direct 
the  pupil  to  examine  well  his  teacher's  life  and  doctrine  before 

^  Report  by  the  Committee  of  native    gentlemen  appointed  to  inquire 
into  the  Orissa  inafhs,  dated  25th  March  1S69,  par.  15. 

2  H.  H.  \Yiison's  Religion  oj the  Hindus,  vol.  1.  p.  94  (ed.   1862). 


202  J^ISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

he  resigns  himself  to  his  control.  If  we  did  not  know  that 
Buddhism  was  itself  an  outgrowth  from  primitive  Brahmanism, 
we  might  hold  this  code  to  be  simple  Buddhism,  with  the 
addition  of  a  personal  God.  But  knowing,  as  we  do,  that 
Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  were  themselves  closely  con- 
nected, and  that  they  combined  to  form  Hinduism ;  it  is 
impossible  to  discriminate  how  far  Hinduism  was  made  up  by 
direct  transmission  from  Buddhism  or  from  Brahmanism. 

Buddhist         The  influence  of  Buddhism  on  the  Christianity  of  the  western 
influences    world  has  been  referred  to  at  p.  152.     Whatever  uncertainties 
religions,     '^"'^y  Still  obscure  that  question,  the  effect  of  Buddhism  upon 
the  present  faiths  of  Eastern  Asia  admits  of  no  doubt.     The 
best  elements  in  the  teaching   of  Buddha   have   survived   in 
modern  Hinduism  ;   and  Buddhism  carried  with  it  essential 
doctrines  of  Brahmanism  to  China  and  Japan,  together  with 
Serpent      certain   characteristics   of  Indian    religious   art.     The  snake 
oinamen-    ornamentation,  which   figures   so  universally  in   the   religion 
of  India,  is  said  to  have  been  carried  by  Buddhism  alike  to 
Jn  the  east  and  the  west.     Thus,  the  canopy  or  baldachino  over 

Hinduism;  g^^^j^,^,g    ^^^^   delights   in   twisted    pillars    and   wavy   pat- 
In  terns.     These  wave-like  ornaments  are  conventionalized  into 
Luddhism;  f^\Q^^  curves  in  most  of  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  canopies  ; 
but    some    of  them    still    exhibit    the    original   figures    thus 
symbolized   as    undulating    serpents    or    Nagas.      A   serpent 
baldachino  of  this  sort  may  be  seen  in  a  monastery  at  Ningpo.^ 
It  takes  the  place  of  the  cobra-headed  canopy,  which  in  India 
shelters  the  head  of  Siva,  or  of  Vishnu  as  he  slept  upon  the 
In  Chris-    waters  at  the  creation  of  the  world.      The  twisted  columns 
tian  art.      •^hich  support  the  baldachino  at  St.  Peter's  in  Rome,  and  the 
fluted  ornamentation  so  common  over  Protestant  pulpits,  are 
said  to  have  a  serpentine  origin,  and  an  eastern  source.     The 
association  of  Buddha  with  two  other  figures,  in  the  Japanese 
temples,   perhaps  represents  a  recollection   of  the   Brahman 
triad.      The    Brahmanical    idea    of   trinity,  in    its    Buddhist 
development  as  Buddha,  Dharma  (the  Law),  and  Sangha  (the 
Congregation),  deeply  ])enetrates  the  faith.    The  Sacred  Tooth 
of  Buddha  at  Ceylon  is  a  reproduction  of  the  phallic  linga  of 
India. 
Coalition         Buddhism  readily  coalesced  with  the  pre-existing  religions 
i^nfwit'h^"  °^  primitive  races.      Thus,  among  the  hill  tribes  of  Eastern 
earlier        Bengal,  we  see  the  Khyaungthas,  or  '  Children  of  the  River,' 

"      ^  ■        '  The  authority  for  this  statement  is  an  unpublished  drawing  by  Miss 
Gordon  Cummini;. 


COALITION  OF  CREEDS.  203 

passing  into  Buddhists  without  giving  up  their  aboriginal  rites.  In  India  ; 
They  still  offer  rice  and  fruits  and  flowers  to  the  spirits  of  hill 
and  stream ;  ^  and  the  Buddhist  priests,  although  condemning 
the  custom  as  unorthodox,  do  not  very  violently  oppose  it.    In  in  Japan. 
Japan,  a  Buddhist  saint  visited  the  hill-slope  of  Hotoke  Iwa  in 
767  A.D.  ;  declared  the  local  Shinto  deity  to  be  only  a  mani- 
festation of  Buddha  ;  and  so  converted  the  old  idolatrous  high- 
place  into  a  Buddhist  shrine.     Buddhism  has  thus  served  as  Shrines 
a  link  between  the  ancient  faiths  of  India  and  the  modern  y^^^s" 
worship  of  the  eastern  world.  It  has  given  sanctity  to  the  centres  faiths, 
of  common  pilgrimage,  to  which  the  great  faiths  of  Asia  resort. 
Thus,  the  Siva-w'orshippers  ascend  the  top  of  Adam's  Peak  in  Adam's 
Ceylon,  to  adore  the  footprint  of  their  phallic  god,  the  Siva- 
pada ;  the  Buddhists  repair  to  the  spot  to  revere  the  same 
symbol  as  the  footmark  of  Buddha ;  and  the  Muhammadans 
venerate    it    as    a    relic   of    Adam,    the    Semitic    father    of 
mankind. 

Many  common  shrines  of  a  similar  character  exist  in  India.  Sakhi 
The  famous  place  of  pilgrimage  at  Sakhi  Sarwar  crowns  the  ^^'^^''"'• 
high  bank  of  a  hill  stream  at  the  foot  of  the  Sulaiman  range, 
in  the  midst  of  desert  scenery,  well  adapted  to  penitents  who 
would  mortify  the  flesh.  To  this  remote  spot,  the  Muham- 
madans come  in  honour  of  a  Musalman  saint ;  the  Sikhs  to 
venerate  a  memorial  of  their  theistic  founder,  Nanak  ;  and  the 
Hindus  to  perform  their  own  ablutions  and  rites.  The  mount 
near  Madras,  associated  in  Catholic  legend  with  the  martyrdom 
of  St.  Thomas,  was  originally  a  common  hill-shrine  for  Muham- 
madans, Christians,  and  Hindus,  b'uch  hill-shrines  for  joint 
worship  are  usually  either  rock-fortresses,  like  Kalinjar  in  the 
North-Western  Provinces  and  Chunar  overhanging  the  Ganges, 
or  river-islands,  like  the  beautiful  islet  on  the  Indus  just  below 
the  new  railway  bridge  at  Sakkar.  The  object  of  common 
adoration  is  frequently  a  footmark  in  stone.  This  the  Hindus 
venerate  as  the  footprint  of  Vishnu  or  Siva  ( Vishnupad  or 
Sivapad) ;  while  the  Musalmans  revere  it  as  the  footprint 
of  Muhammad  {Kadam-rasul).  The  mingled  architecture  of 
some  of  these  pilgrim-sites  attests  the  various  races  and  creeds 
that  combined  to  give  them  sanctity.  Buddhism,  which  in 
some  respects  was  at  first  a  revolt  against  Brahman  supremacy, 
has  done  much  to  maintain  the  continuity  between  the  ancient 
and  the  modern  religions  of  India. 

Hinduism,  however,  derived  its  elements  not  merely  from 
'  See  Hunter's  Statistical  Account  0/  Bengal,  vol.  vi.  p.  40,  etc. 


204  RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

Non-  the  two  ancient  Aryan  faiths,  the  Brahmanical  and  the  Bud- 

elements  in  dhist.     In  its  popular  aspects,  it  drew  much  of  its  strength, 
Hinduism,  and  many  of  its  rites,  from    the  Naga  and  other  non-Aryan 
peoples   of  India.     Buddhists   and    Brahmans    ahke    endea- 
voured, during  their  long  struggle,  to  enlist  the  masses  on 
their  side.     The  Naga  kingdoms  were  divided,  as  we  have 
seen,    by   the   Chinese   geographers   into    those    which    had 
accepted  Buddhism,  and  those  which  had  not.    A  chief  feature 
Naga  rites,  in   Naga  -  worship   was   the   reverence   for   dragons   or  tailed 
monsters.     This    reverence    found    its    way    into   mediceval 
Buddhism,   and  became  an  important  element   in    Buddhist 
Serpent-     mythology.     The  historian  of  Tree  and  Serpent  worship  goes 
worship  in  g^  ^^j.  ^^  ^^  g^y  ^^^^  t  Buddhism  was  little  more  than  a  revival 

llmduism.  ■'  ..  .,,..,  -r-jj 

of  the  coarser  superstitions  ot  the  aboriginal  races,  punned  and 
refined  by  the  application  of  Aryan  morality.'^ 

The  great  monastery  of  Nalanda  owed  its  foundation  to  the 
supposed  influence  of  a  tailed  monster,  or  Naga,  in  a  neigh- 
bouring tank.  Many  Hindu  temples  still  support  colonies  of 
sacred  crocodiles  ;  and  the  scholar  who  has  approached  the 
subject  from  the  Chinese  point  of  view,  comes  to  the  con- 
clusion that  '  no  superstition  was  more  deeply  embedded  in 
the  [ancient]  Hindu  mind  than  reverence  for  Nagas  or  dragons. 
Buddhism  from  the  first  had  to  contend  as  much  against  the 
under  current  of  Naga  reverence  in  the  popular  mind,  as 
against  the  supercilious  opposition  of  the  philosophic  Brah- 
man in  the  upper  current.  At  last,  as  it  would  seem,  driven 
to  an  extremity  by  the  gathering  cloud  of  persecution,  the 
Buddhists  sought  escape  by  closing  with  the  popular  creed, 
and  endeavouring  to  enlist  the  people  against  the  priests ; 
but  with  no  further  success  than  such  a  respite  as  might  be 
included  within  some  one  hundred  years.'  - 
Phallic  This   conception    of  the   process   is   coloured   by   modern 

em  )  em;,     i(]e;js,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Hinduism  incorporated 

m  Hindu-  ...  ^ 

ism.  many  aboriginal  rites.     It  had  to  provide  for  the  non-Aryan 

as  well  as  for  the  Aryan  elements  of  the  population,  and  it 
combined  the  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism  of  the  Aryans  with 
the  fetish-worship  and  religion  of  terror  which  swayed  the  non- 
Aryan  races.  Some  of  its  superstitions  seem  to  have  been 
brought  by  Turanian  or  Scythian  migrations  from  Central 
Asia.     Serpent-worship  is  closely  allied  to,  if  indeed  it  does 

^  Fergusson's  Tree  and  Serpent  IVarskip,  pp.  62,  with  footnote,  et  scq. 
(4to,  1868).     This  view  must  be  taken  subject  to  limitations. 

-  Catena  of  Buddhist  Scriptures  from  the  Chinese,  pp.  415,  416.  I'y 
Samuel  Beal  (Triibner,  1871). 


PHALLIC  EMBLEMS. 


205 


not  take  its  origin  in,  that  reverence  for  the  symbols  of  human 

reproduction  which  formed  one  of  the  most  widely  -  spread 

religions  of  pre-historic  man.     Phallic  or  generative  emblems 

are  on  earth  what  the  sun  is  in  the  heavens.     The  sun,  as  the 

type  of  celestial  creative  energy,  was  a  primitive  object  of  Aryan 

adoration.     Later  Brahmanism,  and  its  successor  Hinduism, 

seem  to  have  adopted  not  only  the  serpent,  but  the  linga  and  The  Hindu 

yoni,   or   the  terrestrial  organs  of  male  and  female  creative  ^^"^'.  ^"'^ 

yoni. 
energy,  from  the  non-Aryan  races.     The  early  Aryan  ritual  of 

the   Vedas    was   addressed   to   the    elements,    particularly   to 
Fire. 

The  worship  of  the  phallic  emblem  or  linga  finds  only  a 
doubtful  sanction,  if  any  at  all,  in  those  ancient  scriptures ;  ^ 
but  the  Puranas  disclose  it  in  full  vigour  (1000  a.d.);  and 
the  jNIuhammadans  found  it  in  every  part  of  India.  It  is  not 
only  the  chief  religion  to  the  south  of  the  Vindhyas,  but  it  is 
universally  recognised  by  the  Hindus.  Such  symbolism  fitted 
well  into  the  character  of  the  third  person  of  their  triad — Siva, 
the  Reproducer,  as  well  as  the  All-Destroyer.  To  the  Brah- 
mans  it  supplied  a  popular  basis  for  their  abstruse  doctrines 
regarding  the  male  and  female  energy  in  nature.  Phallic  Tlie 
worship  harmonized  also  with  their  tendency  to  supply  each  god  'creative 
with  a  correlative  goddess,  and  furnished  an  easily-understood  """^^S)- 
symbolism  for  the  Sdkta  sects,  or  worshippers  of  the  divine 
creative  power,^  so  numerous  among  the  Hindus.  For  the 
semi -aboriginal  tribes  and  half-Hinduized  low -castes,  this 
conception  of  Siva  as  the  All -Destroyer  and  Reproducer, 
organized  on  a  philosophical  basis  their  old  religion  of  pro- 
pitiation by  blood. ^ 

The  fetish  and   tree  worship  of   the  non-Aryan  races  also  Fetish- 
entered  largely  into  Hinduism.     The  first  Englishman  ^  who  worship  in 
tried  to  srudy  the  natives  as  they  actually  are,  and  not  as  the  '    " 

Brahmans  described  them,  was  struck  by  the  universal  preva- 
lence of  a  worship  quite  distinct  from  that  of  the  Hindu  deities. 
A  Bengal  village  has  usually  its  local   god,  which    it  adores  The  sdla- 


gram. 


'  H.  H.  Wilson's  Religion  of  the  Hindus,  vol.  i.  p.  220  (ed.  1S62). 

-  S,ikii. 

^  The  relation  of  these  rites  of  the  semi-Hinduized  low-castes  to  the 
religion  of  the  non-Aryan  races  is  treated  at  considerable  length,  from 
personal  observation,  in  Hunter's  Annals  of  Rural  Bengal,  pp.  127-136  and 
194,  5th  edition. 

'■  Dr.  Francis  Buchanan,  who  afterwards  took  the  name  of  Hamilton. 
His  survey  of  the  North-Eastern  Districts  of  Bengal,  1807-13,  forms  a  noble 


2o6  RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

either  in  the  form  of  a  rude  unhewn  stone,  or  a  stump,  or  a 
tree  marked  with  red-lead.  Sometimes  a  lump  of  clay  placed 
under  a  tree  does  for  a  deity ;  and  the  attendant  priest, 
when  there  is  one,  generally  belongs  to  the  half-Hinduized 
low-castes.  The  rude  stone  represents  the  non-Aryan  fetish  ; 
and  the  tree  seems  to  owe  its  sanctity  to  the  non-Aryan  belief 
that  it  forms  the  abode  of  the  ghosts,  or  gods,  of  the  village. 
We  have  seen  how,  in  some  Santali  hamlets,  the  worshippers 
dance  round  every  tree  ;  so  that  they  may  not,  by  any  evil 
chance,  miss  the  one  in  which  the  village  spirits  happen  to 
dwell. 
Vi-hnuite  As  the  non-Arvan  phallic  emblems  were  utilized  by  Hindu- 
symbols.  jgj-,-(  jj-i  ^]ig  worship  of  Siva,  the  All-Destroyer  and  Reproducer, 
so  the  household  fetish  sdlagniin  has  supplied  a  symbol  for  the 
rival  Hindu  deity  Vishnu,  the  Preserver.  The  sdlagrdm  (often 
an  ammonite  or  curved  stone)  and  the  tulasi  plant  are  the 
insignia  of  Vishnuism,  as  universally  as  the  linga  is  of  Sivaism. 
In  both  cases  the  Brahmans  enriched  the  popular  fetish-worship 
with  deep  metaphysical  doctrines,  and  with  admirable  moral 
codes.  The  Sivaite  devotee  carries  round  his  neck,  or  hidden 
about  his  person,  a  miniature  phallic  emblem,  liiiga ;  the 
sdlagrdm  and  tulasi  are  the  objects  of  reverence  among  all 
the  Vishnuite  sects. i 

The  great  Vishnuite  festival  of  Bengal,  the  rath  -j'dtra, 
when  Jagannath,  the  '  Lord  of  the  World,'  is  dragged  in 
his  car  to  his  garden  -  house,  is  of  Buddhist  origin.  But 
it  has  many  a  humbler  counterpart  in  the  forest  excursions 
which  the  Pjengal  villagers  make  in  their  holiday  clothes  to 
some  sacred  tree  in  the  neighbouring  grove  or  jungle.  These 
Jungle  jungle  rites  find  special  favour  with  the  low-castes,  and  disclose 
rites.  curious  survivals  of  the  non-Hinduized  element  in    the  wor- 

shippers. Blood  sacrifices  and  the  eating  of  flesh  have  long 
been  banished  from  the  popular  Vishnuite  sects.  But  on 
such  forest  festivals,  the  fierce  aboriginal  instincts  even  in 
the  mixed  castes,  who  accept  in  ordinary  life  the  restraints 
of  Hinduism,  break    loose.       Cowherds    have   been    seen  to 

series  of  MS.  folios  in  the  InJia  Office,  much  in  need  of  a  competent 
editor.  Montgomery  Martin  made  three  printed  volumes  out  of  them  by 
the  process  of  drawing  his  pencil  through  the  parts  which  did  not  interest 
him,  or  which  he  could  not  understand.  These  he  published  under  the 
title  of  the  History,  Antiqtiilies,  Topography ,  and  Statistics  of  Eastern 
India  (3  vols.,  1838). 

'  See,  inter  alia,  pp.  15.  39,  50,  54,  116,  117,  140,  149,  179,  iSi,  246, 
vol.  i.  of  II.  II.  Wilson's  Religion  of  the  Hindus  (ed.  1S62). 


BRAHMAN  FOUNDERS.  207 

feed  on  swine-flesh,  which  at  all  other  times  they  regard  with 
abhorrence. 

The   ceremonies,  where   they  can  pretend    to  a  conscious 
meaning,  have   a  propitiatory  or  necromantic  tinge.       Thus, 
in  Birbhiim  District  the  mixed    and  low  castes  of  the  chief 
town  repair  once  a  year   to  the   jungle,  and    make  offerings 
to    a   ghost  who  dwells  in  a  bel-iree..       Buchanan  -  Hamilton 
describes  such  sacrifices  as  '  made  partly  from  fear,  and  partly 
to  gratify  the  appetite  for  flesh.' ^      In  examining  the  western  Nun- 
ethnical  frontier  of  Lower  Bengal,  the  rites  of  the  non-Aryan    t'^s^n^gr.r. 
hillmen  are  found  to  merge  into  the  Hinduism  of  the  plains.-  ing  into 
The  evidence  shows  that  the  Hindus  derived  from  non-Aryan  I^induism. 
sources    their    phallic   emblem,    the   linga,   their    household 
fetish,  the  sdlagrdm,  their  village  gods,  grctm-devatas,  with  the 
ghosts  and  demons  that  haunt  so  many  trees,  and  the  bloody 
rites  of  their  national  deity,  Siva.      Among  the  Hindus,  these 
superstitions  are  often  isolated  and  unconnected  with   each 
other  ;   among  the  Santals  and  other  non-Aryan  races,  they 
form  riveted  links  in  a  ritual  of  fear  and  propitiation. 


The  development  of  Hinduism  out  of  pre-existing  religious  Brahman 

founders  <: 
Hinduism. 


types,    although    a    natural    evolution,   bears   the   impress   of  ^°""'^'"^'^^  "'^ 


human  guidance.     Until  the  12th  century  a.d.,  the  Brahmans 
supplied  the  directing  energy  in  opposition  to  the  Buddhists, 
and  founded  their  reforms  on  a  re-assertion  of  the  personality 
of  God.     But  by  that  period,  Buddhism  had  ceased  to  struggle 
for  a  separate  existence  in  India  ;  and  the  mass  of  the  people 
began    to   strike    out    religious   sects    upon   popular    rather 
than  on  Brahmanical  lines.      The  work  of  the  early  Brahman 
reformers  was  accordingly  carried  on  after  the  12th  century, 
in  part  by  low-caste  apostles,  who  popularized  the  old  Brah-  Low- 
manical  conception  of  a  personal  God,  by  infusing  into  it  the  <^^*''-' 
Buddhist  doctrine  of  the  spiritual    equality  of  man.       Many  ' 
of  the  Hindu  sects  form  brotherhoods,  on  the  Buddhist  model, 
within  which  the  classification    by  caste   gives  place   to  one 
based   on  the   various  degrees  of  perfection  attained  in   the 
religious  life. 

Most  of  the   Hindu   reformations  since  the    12th  century  The 
thus   preserve   what   was   best    in    each   of  the   two   ancient  Hindu 
faiths  of  India^ — namely,  the  personal  God  of  the  Brahmans,  ^^'^^ 
and   the    spiritual   equality  of    the    Buddhists.      Among   the 
Hindus,    every   preacher   who   would    really    appeal    to    the 

^  History,  etc.  of  Eastern  India,  from  the  Buchanan  MSS.,  vol.  i.  p.  194. 
^  Hunter's  Annals  of  Rural  Bengal,  p.  194,  5th  edition. 


2o8 


RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 


popular  heart  must  fulfil  two  conditions,  and  conform  to  a 
certain  type.  He  must  cut  himself  off  from  the  world  by  a 
solemn  act,  like  the  Great  Renunciation  of  Buddha  ;  and  he 
must  come  forth  from  his  solemn  communing  with  a  simple 
message.  The  message  need  not  be  original.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  must  consist  of  a  re-assertion,  in  some  form,  of  the 
personality  of  God  and  the  equality  of  men  in  His  sight. 


The  Hindu  Hinduism  boasts  a  line  of  religious  founders  stretching  in 
tonim.^"'^'  ^'i^i^'^ost  unbroken  succession  from  about  700  a.d.  to  the  present 
day.  The  lives  of  the  mediseval  saints  and  their  wondrous 
works  are  recorded  in  the  Bhakta-Mala,  literally,  '  The  Garland 
of  the  Faithful,'  compiled  by  Nabhaji  about  three  centuries 
ago.^  This  difficult  Hindi  work  was  popularized  by  later 
versions  and  commentaries,-  and  a  vast  structure  of  miracle 
and  fable  has  been  reared  upon  it.  It  is  the  Golden  Legend 
and  Acta  Sanctorum  of  Hinduism.  The  same  wonders  are 
not  recorded  of  each  of  its  apostles,  but  divine  interpositions 
abound  in  the  life  of  all.  The  greater  ones  rank  as  divine 
incarnations  prophesied  of  old.  Some  were  born  of  virgins  ; 
others  overcame  lions ;  raised  the  dead  ;  their  hands  and  feet 
when  cut  off  sprouted  afresh  ;  prisons  were  opened  to  them  ; 
the  sea  received  them  and  returned  them  to  the  land  unhurt, 
while  the  earth  opened  and  swallowed  up  their  slanderers. 
Their  lives  were  marvellous,  and  the  deaths  of  some  a  solemn 
mystery. 

Thus  on  Kabir's  decease,  both  the  Hindus  and  Musal- 
mans  claimed  the  body,  the  former  to  burn  it,  the  latter  to 
bury  it,  according  to  their  respective  rites.  While  they 
wrangled  over  the  corpse,  Kabir  suddenly  stood  in  the  midst, 
and,  commanding  them  to  look  under  the  shroud,  vanished. 
This  they  did.  But  under  the  winding-sheet  they  found  only 
a  heap  of  beautiful  flowers,  one-half  of  which  they  gave  to  be 
burned  by  the  Hindus  in  their  holy  city,  while  the  other  half 
was  buried  in  pomp  by  the  Musalmans.  His  name  lives  in 
the  memory  of  the  people ;  and  to  this  day  pilgrims  from 
Upper  India  beg  a  spoonful  of  rice-water  from  the  Kabfr 
^Monastery  at  Purf,  at  the  extreme  southern  point  of  Bengal. 

^  H.  H.  Wilson,  writing  in  the  Asiatic  Researches  (Calcutta,  1828),  says 
about  '  250  years  ago. ' — See  Journal  of  the  Bombay  Branch  of  the  Asiatic 
Society,  vol.  iii.  p.  4. 

"  The  best  known  are  those  of  Narayan  Das,  about  the  time  of  Shah 
Jahan  (1627-58)  ;  the  tikd  of  Krishna  Das  (17 13)  ;  and  a  later  version 
'in  the  more  ordinary  dialect  of  Hindustan.' — Wilson's  Religions  of  the 
Hindus,  vol.  i.  pp.  9,  10  (ed.  1862). 


Miracles 
of  the 
religious 
founders. 


Kabir 
death, 


BRAHMAN  SIVAITE  SECTS.  209 

The  first  in  the  Hne  of  apostles  was  Kumarila,  a  bhatta  or  Kumarila 
Brahman  of  Behar.       The  legend  relates  that  he  iourneved  ^h^^'^- 

750  ('')  V  I) 

into  Southern  India,  in  the  8th  century  a.d.,  commanding 
princes  and  people  to  worship  one  God.  He  stirred  up  a 
persecution  against  the  Buddhists  or  Jains  in  the  State  of 
Rudrapur, — a  local  persecution  which  later  tradition  magni- 
fied into  a  general  extermination  of  the  Buddhists  from  the 
Himalayas  to  Cape  Comorin.^  In  Hindu  theology  he  figures 
as  a  teacher  of  the  later  Mimansa  philosophy,  which  ascribes 
the  universe  to  a  divine  act  of  creation,  and  assumes  an  all- 
powerful  God  as  the  cause  of  the  existence,  continuance,  and 
dissolution  of  the  world.  The  doctrine  of  this  personal  deity, 
'  the  one  existent  and  universal  soul,'  '  without  a  second ' 
{adwaita),  embodies  the  philosophical  argument  against  the 
Buddhists.  Kumarila  bequeathed  his  task  to  his  famous 
disciple  Sankara  Acharya,  in  whose  presence  he  is  said  to  have 
solemnly  committed  his  body  to  the  flames. 

With  the  advent  of  Sankara  Acha  rya  we  touch  firmer  historical  Sankara 

ground.     Born  in  Malabar,  he  wandered  over  India  as  an  itine-  -^f^^'T-^. 

1  r  1         Tr     1      /  -1    ,•  9th  cen- 

rant  preacher  as  far  north  as  Kashmir,  and  died  at  Kedarnath  tury  a.d, 

in  the  Himalayas,  aged  32.     One  of  his  disciples  has  narrated 
his  life's  work  under  the  title  of  '  The  Victory  of  Sankara,'  2  a 
record  of  his  doctrines  and  controversial  triumphs.     Sankara 
moulded  the  later  Mimansa  or  Vedantic  philosophy  into  its  final 
form,  and  popularized  it  as  a  national  religion.     It  is  scarcely 
too  much  to  say  that,  since  his  short  life  in  the  8th  or  9th 
century,  every  new  Hindu  sect  has  had  to  start  with  a  personal 
■God.     He  addressed  himself  to  the  high-caste  philosophers  on 
the  one  hand,  and  to  the  low-caste  multitude  on  the  other. 
He   left  behind,  as   the  twofold  result   of  his  life's  work,  a  His  two- 
compact  Brahman  sect  and  a  popular  religion.  fol'-l  work. 
The  Brahman  sect  are  the  Smartas,  still  powerful  in  Southern  His  sect  of 
India.     Sankara  taught  that  there  was  one  sole  and  supreme  p"^?,^''^ 
God,  Brahma  Para  Brahma,  distinct  alike  from  any  member  of 
the  old  Brahman  triad,  or  of  the  modern  Hindu  pantheon  ;  the 

^  The  local  persecution  is  recorded  by  Ananda  Giri,  a  disciple  of 
Sankara  about  the  8th  or  9th  century  a.d.,  and  the  author  of  the  Sankara- 
Vijaya.  The  m.ignified  version  appears  in  the  Sarva  Darsana  Sangraha 
of  Madhava  Acharya,  in  the  14th  century.  See,  however,  the  Mackenzie 
MSS.  in  the  India  Office  Library. 

*  The  Sankara-  Vijaya  of  Ananda  Giri,  published  in  the  Bibliotheca 
Indica,  and  critically  examined  by  Kashinath  Trimbak  Telang  in  vol.  v. 
of  the  Indian  Antiquary.  But,  indeed,  Sankara  is  the  first  great  figure  in 
almost  every  Hindu  hagiology,  or  book  of  saints,  from  the  Sanni  Darsana 
Sangraha  of  Madhava  Acharya  downwards. 

O 


2 1  o  RISE  OF  HIXD  UISM. 

Ruler  of  the  universe  and  its  inscrutable  First  Cause,  to  be  wor- 
shipped, not  by  sacrifices,  but  by  meditation,  and  in  spirit  and 
in  truth.  The  Smarta  Brahmans  follow  this  philosophic  side 
of  his  teaching ;  and  of  the  religious  houses  which  he  founded 
some  remain  to  this  day,  controlled  from  the  parent  monastery 
His  re-       perched  among  the  western  ranges  of  Mysore.^     But  Sankara 

hgion  for    j-galized  that  such  a  faith  is  for  the  few.     To  those  who  could 
the  people, 

not  rise  to  so  high  a  conception  of  the  godhead,  he  allowed 

the  practice  of  any  rites  prescribed  by  the  Veda,  or  by  later 
orthodox  teachers,  to  whatsoever  form  of  the  godhead  they 
might  be  addressed.  Tradition  fondly  narrates  that  the  founders 
of  almost  all  the  historical  sects  of  Hinduism — Sivaites,  Vishnu- 
ites,  Sauras,  Saktas,  Ganapatyas,  Bhairavas — were  his  disciples.^ 
But  Siva-worship  claims  Sankara  as  its  apostle  in  a  special 
sense.  Siva-worship  represents  the  popular  side  of  his  teach- 
ing, and  the  piety  of  his  followers  has  elevated  Sankara  into 
an  incarnation  of  Siva  himself.^ 
Growth  of  Nothing,  however,  is  altogether  new  in  Hinduism,  and  it  is 
'^■, .  .  needless  to  say  that  Siva  had  won  his  way  high  up  into  the 
pantheon  long  before  the  preaching  of  Sankara,  in  the  9th 
century  a.d.  Siva  is  the  Rudra  of  the  Vedas,  as  developed 
by  Brahman  philosophy,  and  adapted  by  Sankara  and  others 
to  popular  worship.  Rudra,  the  Storm-God  of  the  Vedic 
hymns,  had  grown  during  this  process  into  Siva,  the  Destroyer 
and  Reproducer,  as  the  third  person  of  the  Brahman 
triad.  The  Chinese  pilgrims  supply  evidence  of  his  worship 
before  the  7th  century  a.d.,  while  his  dread  wife  had  a  temple 
at  the  southernmost  point  of  India  at  the  time  of  the  Periplus 
(2nd  century  a.d.),  and  gave  her  name  to  Cape  Comorin.* 
Siva  ranks  high  in  the  Mahabharata,  in  various  passages  of 
uncertain  date  ;  but  does  not  reach  his  full  development  till  the 
Puranas,  probably  after  the  loth  century  a.d.  His  worship  in 
Bengal  is  said  to  have  been  formulated  by  Paramata  Kalanala 
at   Benares ;  ^  but  Sankara's  teaching  gave  an  impulse  to  it 

^  See  Sringiri  {^The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  InJia)  for  a  brief  account  of 
the  chief-priest  of  the  Smarta  sect,  which  has  its  head-quarters  in  this 
monastery.  Also  the  Statistical  Account  of  Alysore  and  Coorg,  by  Lewis 
Rice,  vol.  ii.  p.  413,  etc.     (Bangalore  Government  Press,  1S76. ) 

-  Wilson's  Religion  of  the  Hindus,  vol.  i.  p.  28  (1862). 

^  This  rank  is  claimed  for  Sankara  by  Madhava  Acharya  in  the  14th 
century  A.D. ;  indeed,  Siva's  descent  as  Sankara  is  said  to  have  been  fore- 
told in  the  Skanda  Purdna.     Sankara  is  one  of  the  names  of  Siva. 

■*  From  Kumari  or  Kanya-kuniari,  the  Virgin  Goddess,  a  name  of  Durga, 
wife  of  Siva. 

*  As  Visweswara,  or  Lord  of  the  Universe,  under  which  name  Siva  is 
still  the  chief  object  of  worship  at  Benares.  1 


SIVA  -  WORSHIP.  2 1 1 

tliroughout  all  India,  especially  in  the  soutli ;  and  later  tradition 
makes  Paramata  himself  a  disciple  of  Sankara. 

In    the   hands   of  Sankara's    followers   and   apostolic   sue-  its  plulo- 
cessors,  Siva-worship  became  one  of  the  two  chief  religions  s^^P'^'cai 
of  India.     As  at  once  the  Destroyer   and  Reproducer,  Siva 
represented  profound  philosophical  doctrines,  and  was  early 
recognised  as  being  in  a  special  sense  the  god  of  the  Brahmans.^ 
To  them  he  was  the  symbol  of  death  as  merely  a  change  of  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  his  terrible  aspects,  preserved  in  his  long  list  its  terrible 
of  names  from  the  Roarer  (Rudra)  -  of  the  Veda,  to  the  Dread  ^o''"^'^- 
One  (Bhi'ma)  of  the  modern  Hindu  Pantheon,  well  adapted 
him  to  the  religion  of  fear  and  propitiation  prevalent  among 
the  ruder  non-Aryan  races.     Siva,  in  his  twofold  character, 
thus  became  the  deity  alike  of  the  highest  and  of  the  lowest 
castes.      He   is   the    Maha-deva,    or   Great    God   of  modern 
Hinduism ;  and  his  wife  is  Devi,  pre-eminently  the  Goddess. 
His    universal    symbol    is    the  linga^  the    emblem    of  repro- 
duction ;  his  sacred  beast,  the  bull,  connected  with  the  same 
idea ;  a  trident  tops  his  temples. 

His  images  partake  of  his  double  nature.     The  Brahmanical  T\v(5fold 
conception  is  represented  by  his  attitude  as  a  fair-skinned  man,  c^jy^^*^^^ " 
seated  in  profound  thought,  the  symbol  of  the  fertihzing  Ganges 
above  his  head,  and  the  bull  (emblem  alike  of  procreation  and 
of  Aryan  plough-tillage)  near  at  hand.     The  wilder  non-Aryan 
aspects  of  his  character  are  signified  by  his  necklace  of  skulls, 
his  collar  of  twining  serpents,  his  tiger-skin,  and  his  club  with 
a  human  head  at  the  end.     His  five  faces  and  four  arms  have 
also  their  significance  from  this  double  aspect  of  his  character, 
Aryan  and  non-Aryan.    His  wife,  in  like  manner,  appears  in  her  and  of 
Aryan  form  as  Uma,  '  Light,'  the  type  of  high-born  loveliness  ;  ^"''p'  '^'^ 
in  her  composite  character  as  Durga,  a  golden-coloured  woman, 
beautiful  but  menacing,  riding  on  a  tiger ;  and  in  her  terrible 
non-Aryan  aspects,  as  Kali,  a  black  fury,  of  a  hideous  coun- 
tenance, dripping  with  blood,  crowned  with  snakes,  and  hung 
round  with  skulls. 

As  an  Aryan  deity,  Siva  is  Pasu-pati,  the  Lord  of  Animals  Their  two- 
and  the  Protector  of  Cows  ;  Sambhu,  the  Auspicious  ;  Mrityun-  I^!|||^^f  ^  ''^ 
jaya,  the  Vanquisher  of  Death  ;  Viswanatha,  Monarch  of  All. 
In  his  non-Aryan  attributes,  he  is  Aghora,  the  Horrible  ;  Virii- 
pdksha,  of  Mis-shapen  Eyes ;  Ugra,  the  Fierce  ;  Kapala-malin, 

'  A  Sanskrit  text  declares  Siva  to  be  the  ddideva,  or  special  god  of  the 
Brahmans  ;  Vishnu,  of  the  Kshattriyas  ;  Brahma,  of  the  Vaisyas  ;  and 
Ganesa,  of  the  Sudras. 

'-'  From  the  root  ritd,  weep. 


RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 


Twofold 
aspects  of 
Siva- 
worship. 


Human 

offerings, 

1866. 


Garlands  -, 
of  skulls. 


Garlanded  with  Skulls.  So  also  Devi,  his  female  form,  as  an 
Aryan  goddess  is  Uma,  the  lovely  daughter  of  the  mountain 
king,  Himavat ;  ^  Arya,  the  Revered ;  Gauri,  the  Brilliant 
or  Gold-coloured;  Jagad-gauri,  the  World's  Fair  One;  Bhavani, 
the  Source  of  Existence ;  and  Jagan-mata,  the  Mother  of  the 
Universe.  Her  non-Aryan  attributes  appear  in  her  names  of 
Kali  or  Syama,  the  Black  One  ;  Chandi,  the  Fierce ;  Bhairavi, 
the  Terrible ;  Rakta-danti,  the  Bloody-Toothed. 

The  ritual  of  Siva-worship  preserves,  in  an  even  more 
striking  way,  the  traces  of  its  double  origin.  The  higher 
minds  still  adore  the  Godhead  by  silent  contemplation,  as  pre- 
scribed by  Sankara,  without  the  aid  of  external  rites.  The 
ordinary  Brahman  hangs  a  wreath  of  blossoms  around  the  phallic 
linga^  or  places  before  it  offerings  of  flowers  and  rice.  But  the 
low-castes  pour  out  the  lives  of  countless  victims  at  the  feet 
of  the  terrible  Kali,  and  until  lately,  in  time  of  pestilence  and 
famine,  tried  in  their  despair  to  appease  the  relentless  goddess 
by  human  blood.  During  the  dearth  of  1866,  in  a  temple  to 
Kali  within  100  miles  of  Calcutta,  a  boy  was  found  with  his 
neck  cut,  the  eyes  staring  open,  and  the  stiff  clotted  tongue 
thrust  out  between  the  teeth.  In  another  temple  at  Hiigli 
(a  railway  station  only  25  miles  from  Calcutta),  the  head  was 
left  before  the  idol,  decked  with  flowers.^  Such  cases  are  true 
survivals  of  the  regular  system  of  human  sacrifices  which  we 
have  seen  among  the  non-Aryan  tribes.^  They  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  old  mystic  punisha-??iedha  or  man-offering, 
whether  real  or  symbolical,  of  the  ancient  Aryan  faith  ;^  but 
they  form  an  essential  part  of  the  non-Aryan  religion  of  terror, 
which  demands  that  the  greater  the  need,  the  greater  shall  be 
the  propitiation. 

Such  sacrifices  are  now  forbidden,  alike  by  Hindu 
custom  and  English  law,  H.  H.  Wilson  found  evidence  that 
they  were  regularly  offered  by  the  Kapalika  sect  of  Sivaite 
Hindus   eight   centuries   ago ;    and   representatives   of  those 


1  Monarch  of  the  Himalayas. 

-  The  Czlcuna.  Englis/tmaji  of  19th  May  1866  ;  Annals  of  Rural  Bengal, 
p.  128,  5th  edition. 

^  As  among  the  Kandhs,  ante,  chap.  iii. 

■*  See  Dr.  Haug's  Origin  of  Brdkiiianism,  p.  5  (Poona,  1863).  The 
Purusha-sukta  of  the  Big  Veda,  x.  90,  verses  7-15  ;  and  the  Purusha-medha 
of  the  Satapatha  Brdhmana,  i.  2,  3,  6,  and  xiii.  6,  i.  I  ;  and  of  the  Aitareya 
B7-ahmana,  ii.  8,  with  other  passages  quoted  throughout  Dr.  Muir's  Sanskrit 
Texts,  seem  to  have  an  allegorical  and  mystical  significance,  rather  than 
to  refer  to  a  real  sacrifice.  See  also  Wilson's  Essay  on  Human  Sacrifices, 
Journal  Roy.  As,  Soc,  vol.  viii.  p.  96  (1S52). 


SIVAITE  RITES  AND  SECTS.  213 

hideous  votaries  of  Siva,  '  smeared  with  ashes  from  the  funeral 

pile,  and  their  necks  hung  round  with  human  skulls,'  survive 

.to  this  day.^      Colonel  Keatinge  mentions  that  he  has  seen 

old  sacrificial  troughs  near  Jaintiapur,  now  used  only  for  goats, 

which  exactly  fitted  the  size  of  a  man.      The   new   troughs 

are   reduced   to   the   dimensions  of  the   animals   at   present  Animals 

offered  :  and  the  greater  length  of  the  ancient  ones  is  explained  f'  ^^""'<='' 
'  *  °.  _     _  i^  for  human 

by  a  legend  of  human  sacrifices.  The  Statistical  Survey  of  offerings. 
India  has  brought  to  light  many  traditions  of  such  offerings. 
The  hill  tribes  between  Sylhet  and  Assam  hunt  a  monkey  at 
sowing-time,  and  crucify  it  on  the  margin  of  the  village  lands, 
apparently  as  a  substitute  for  the  Spring  man-sacrifice.^  A 
human  life  was  sometimes  devoted  to  the  preservation  of  an 
artificial  lake,  or  of  a  river  embankment ;  a  watchman  of 
aboriginal  descent  being  sacrificed,^  or  a  virgin  princess  walled 
up  in  the  breach."* 

Another  Sivaite  festival  was  the  Charak-Puja,  or  Hook-Swing-  The 
ing  Festival,  during  which  men  were  suspended  from  a  pole  by  a  p  . , 
hook  thrust  through  the  muscles  of  the  back,  and  then  swung 
in  the  air,  in  honour  of  Kali.  In  1S63,  the  orders  of  Govern- 
ment for  abolishing  this  festival  were  carried  out  in  a  border 
District,  Birbhiim,  lying  between  the  Hindu  plains  and  the 
non-Aryan  highlands.  The  low-castes,  in  reality  semi-abori- 
gines, and  only  half-Hinduized,  assembled  round  the  poles 
and  foretold  famine  from  the  loss  of  their  old  propitiatory 
rites.  As  they  thought  the  Spring  ceremonies  absolutely 
essential  before  commencing  tillage,  the  British  officer  suggested 
they  might  swing  a  man  by  a  rope  round  his  waist  instead  of 
with  a  hook  through  his  back.  This  compromise  was  accepted 
by  some,  but  the  better-informed  cultivators  gloomily  assured 
the  officer  that  the  ceremonies  would  have  no  good  effect  on 
the  crops  without  the  spilling  of  blood. ^ 

The    thirteen  chief  sects    of   Siva  -  worshippers    faithfully  The 
represent    the   composite   character   of  their   god.       Sankara  givaUe" 
left  behind  him  a  succession  of  teachers,  many  of  whom  rose  sects. 
to  the  rank  of  religious  founders.      The   StJidrta   Brahmans 
still  maintain  their  life  of  calm  monastic  piety.     The  Daiidis, 

'  H.  H.  Wilson's  Religion  of  the  Hindus,  vol.  i.  p.  264. 

'^  As  among  the  Kandhs,  ante,  chap.  iii. 

^  See  Sakraypatna,  T/ie  Imperial  Gazetteet-  of  India. 

*  See  Anantasagaram,   The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

•'  It  is  right  to  say  that  very  little  blood  was  lost,  and  the  wounds  caused 
were  slight  ;  indeed,  slighter  than  those  sometimes  left  behind  by  the 
skewers  which  were  fixed  through  the  cheek  or  tongue  of  the  swinger 
during  the  performance. 


214  Ji^SE  OF  HINDUISM. 

or  ascetics,  divide  their  time  between  begging  and  meditation. 
Some  of  them  adore,  without  rites,  Siva  as  the  third  person 
of  the  Aryan  triad.  Others  practise  an  apparently  non-Aryan 
ceremony  of  initiation  by  drawing  blood  from  the  inner  part 
of  the  novice's  knee,  as  an  offering  to  the  god  in  his  more 
terrible  form,  Bhairava.  The  Dandis  follow  the  non-Aryan 
custom  of  burying  their  dead,  or  commit  the  body  to  some 
Gradations  sacred  Stream.^  The  Yogis  include  every  class  of  devotee, 
worship  ^^°"^  ^^  speechless  mystic  who,  by  long  suppressions  of  the 
breath,  loses  the  consciousness  of  existence  in  an  unearthly 
union  with  Siva,  to  the  impostor  \vho  sits  upon  air,  and  the 
juggler  who  travels  with  a  performing  goat.  The  thirteen 
Sivaite  sects  descend,  through  various  gradations  of  self- 
mortification  and  abstraction,  to  the  Aghoris,  whose  abnegation 
extends  to  eating  carrion,  or  even  human  corpses,  and  gashing 
their  own  bodies  wath  knives. 
Sivaite  Within  the  last  few  years  a  small  Aghori  community  took 

corpse-        ^p  their  abode  in  a  deserted  building  on  the  top  of  a  mount 

caters.  ...  .         . 

near  Ujjain.  To  inspire  terror  and  respect,  they  descended  to 
the  burning  ghdf,  snatched  the  charred  bodies  from  the  funeral 
pile,  and  retreated  with  them  to  their  hill.  The  horror- 
stricken  mourners  complained  to  the  local  officer  of  the 
Maharaja  Sindhia,  but  did  not  dare  to  defend  their  dead 
against  the  squalid  ministers  of  Siva.  In  the  end,  the  Maha- 
raja's officer,  by  ensuring  a  regular  supply  of  food  for  the 
devotees,  put  a  stop  to  their  depredations. 
Non-  The  lowest  Sivaite  sects  follow  non-Aryan  rather  than  Aryan 

types,         types,  alike  as  regards  their  use  of  animal  food  and  their  bloody 
spiritual-     worship.     These  non-Aryan  types  are,  however,  spiritualized 
ized  by  the  j^to  a  mystic  symbolism  by  the  Sivaite  Sdktas,  or  worshippers 
of  the  creative  energy  in  nature  {Sakti).     The  '  right-hand ' 
adorers "   follow  the  Aryan  ritual,  with    the    addition    of   an 
Sakta  or     offering  of  blood. ^     Their    Tantras   or   religious  works    take 
Tantnl<      ^^e  form  of  a  dialogue  between  Siva   and  his  lovely  Aryan 
bride,^  in  which  the  god  teaches  her  the  true  forms  of  prayer 
and  ceremonial.     But  the  '  left-hand  '  worship  ^  is  an  organized 
five-fold  ritual,  of  incantation,  lust,  gluttony,  drunkenness,  and 
blood.     The  non-Aryan  origin  of  these  secret  rites  is  attested 

^  Cf.  the  Santals  and  the  Damodar  river,  attte,  chap.  iii. 

^  Dakshinas  or  Bhaktas.  ^  The  bali. 

*  Usually  in  tlie  form  of  Uma  or  Parvati. 

'  Vamis  or  Vamacharis,  whose  worship  comprises  the  five-fold  Makara, 
'  which  taketh  away  all  sin,'  namely — mdnsa  (flesh'),  viatsya  (fish,  the  symbol 
of  ovarian  fertility),  madya  (intoxicating  spirits),  maithiina  (sexual  inter- 
course), i/iudrd  (mystical  gesticulations). 


SIVA  AND   VISHNU  COMPARED.  215 

by  the  use  of  meats  and  drinks  forbidden  to  all  respectable 
Hindus ;  perhaps  also  by  the  community  of  women,  possibly  an 
unconscious  survival  of  the  non-Aryan  forms  of  polyandry  and 
primitive  marriage  by  capture.^  The  Kanchuliyas,  one  of  the  Secret 
lowest  of  the  Sivaite  sects,  not  only  enforce  a  community  of  oi^fa'"- 
women,  but  take  measures  to  prevent  the  exercise  of  indi- 
vidual selection,  and  thus  leave  the  matter  entirely  to  divine 
chance.  Even  their  orgies,  however,  are  spiritualized  into  a 
mystic  symbolism  ;  and  the  Dread  Goddess  surely  punishes 
the  votary  who  enters  on  them  merely  to  gratify  his  lusts. 

Siva-worship  thus  became  a  link  between  the  highest  and  Siva  and 
the  lowest  castes  of  Hindus.  Vishnu,  the  second  person  '^  ""  , 
of  the  Aryan  triad,  supplied  a  religion  for  the  intermediate 
classes.  Siva,  as  a  philosophical  conception  of  the  Brahmans, 
afforded  small  scope  for  legend ;  and  the  atrocities  told  of 
him  and  his  wife  in  their  terrible  forms,  as  adapted  to  the 
non  -  Aryan  masses,  were  little  capable  of  refined  literary 
treatment.  But  Vishnu,  the  Preserver,  furnished  a  congenial 
theme  for  sacred  romance.  His  religion  appealed,  not  to 
the  fears,  but  to  the  hopes  of  mankind.  Siva-worship  com- 
bined the  Brahmanical  doctrine  of  a  personal  God  with  non- 
Aryan  bloody  rites;  Vishnu -worship,  in  its  final  form  as  a 
popular  religion,  represents  the  coalition  of  the  same  Brah- 
manical doctrine  of  a  personal  God,  with  the  Buddhist 
principle  of  the  spiritual  equality  of  man. 

Vishnu  had  always  been  a  very  human  god,  from  the  time  Vishnu 
when  he  makes  his  appearance  in  the  Veda  as  a  solar  myth,  ^ .  ^^.j"  '■• 
the  '  Unconquerable  Preserver  '  striding  across  the  universe  in  god. 
three  steps.-     His  later  incarnations  made  him  the  familiar 
friend  of  man.     Of  these  '  descents  '  ^  on  earth,  ten  or  twenty-  Vishnu  as 
two  in  number,  Vishnu-worship,  with  the  unerring  instinct  of 

•*  Cf.  also  the  festival  of  the  I\i(kmini-Jiara}2-el-ddasizi  Puii.  See  Hunter's 
Orissa,  vol.  i.  p.  13 1. 

-  Probably  at  first  connected  with  the  rising,  zenith,  and  setting  of  tlie 
sun  in  his  daily  course. 

^  Avatdras.  The  ten  chief  ones  are  :  (l)  the  Fish  incarnation  ;  (2)  the 
Tortoise,  (3)  the  Boar,  (4)  the  Man-Lion,  (5)  the  Dwarf,  (6)  Parasu-rama 
or  Rama  with  the  Axe,  (7)  Rama  or  Rama-chandra,  (8)  Krishna,  (9) 
Buddha,  and  (10)  Kaiki,  the  White  Horse,  yet  to  come.  The  first  four 
are  mythological  beasts,  perhaps  representing  the  progress  of  animal  life 
through  the  eras  of  fishes,  reptiles,  and  mammals,  developing  into  half- 
formed  man.  From  another  aspect,  the  Fish  represents  the  yotti,  or  ovarian 
fertility  ;  the  Tortoise,  the  linga  ;  the  Boar,  the  terrestrial  fertilizer  ;  and 
the  Man-Lion,  the  celestial.     These  four  appeared  in  the  Satya  Yuga,  an 


2l6 


RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 


His  later 
(leveli'p- 
inents. 


The 
Vishnu 
Purana, 
cijr.  1045 
A.  D. 


The 

eighteen 
Puranas. 


a  popular  religion,  chose  the  two  most  beautiful  and  most 
human  for  adoration.  As  Rama  and  Krishna,  Vishnu  attracted 
to  himself  innumerable  loving  legends.  Rama,  his  seventh 
incarnation,  was  the  hero  of  the  Sanskrit  epic,  the  Ramdyana. 
In  his  eighth  incarnation,  as  Krishna,  Vishnu  becomes  the 
high-souled  prince  of  the  other  epic,  the  Mahabharata ;  he 
afterwards  grew  into  the  central  figure  of  Indian  pastoral 
poetry;  was  spiritualized  into  the  supreme  god  of  the  Vishnuite 
Puranas ;  and  now  flourishes  as  the  most  popular  deity  of  the 
Hindus. 

The  worship  of  Vishnu,  in  one  phase  or  another,  is  the 
religion  of  the  bulk  of  the  middle  classes ;  with  its  roots  deep 
down  in  beautiful  forms  of  non-Aiyan  nature-worship,  and 
its  top  sending  forth  branches  among  the  most  refined 
Brahmans  and  literary  sets.  It  is  a  religion  in  all  things 
graceful.  Its  gods  are  heroes  or  bright  friendly  beings,  who 
walk  and  converse  with  men.  Its  legends  breathe  an  almost 
Hellenic  beauty.  The  pastoral  simplicities  and  exquisite 
ritual  of  Vishnu  belong  to  a  later  age  than  Siva  -  worship, 
with  its  pandering  to  the  grosser  superstitions  of  the  masses. 
Whatever  may  be  the  philosophical  priority  of  the  two  creeds, 
Vishnuism  made  its  popular  conquests  at  a  later  period  than 
Sivaite  rites. 

In  the  nth  century,  the  Vishnuite  doctrines  were  gathered 
into  a  religious  treatise.  The  Vishnu  Purana  dates  from 
about  1045  A.D.,1  and  probably  represents,  as  indeed  its  name 
implies,  '  ancient '  traditions  which  had  co-existed  with  Sivaism 
and  Buddhism  for  centuries.  It  derived  its  doctrines  from 
the  Vedas,  not,  however,  in  a  direct  channel,  but  filtered 
through  the  two  great  epic  poems,  the  Ramayana  and  the 
Mahabharata.  The  Vishnu  Purana  forms  one  of  the  eighteen 
Puranas  or  Sanskrit  theological  works,  in  which  the  Brahman 
moulders  of  Vishnuism  and  Sivaism  embodied  their  rival  systems. 
These  works  especially  extol  the  second  and  third  members 
of  the  Hindu  triad,  now  claiming  the  pre-eminence  for  Vishnu 

astronomical  period  anterior  to  the  present  world.  The  fifth  or  dwarf 
incarnation  represents  early  man  in  theTreta  Yuga,  or  second  astronomical 
period,  also  long  anterior  to  the  present  mundane  one.  The  next  three 
incarnations  represent  the  Heroic  Age  ;  the  ninth  or  Buddha,  the  Religious 
Age.  The  tenth  stands  for  the  end  of  all  things,  according  to  the  Hindu 
apocalypse,  when  Vishnu  shall  appear  on  a  white  horse,  a  drawn  sword, 
blazing  like  a  comet,  in  his  hand,  for  the  destruction  of  the  wicked  and 
the  renovation  of  the  world.  The  Bhdgavata  Purdtia  gives  twenty-two 
incarnations  of  Vishnu. 

^  Preface  to  the  Vislinu  Ptiniiia.     H.  II.  Wilson,  p.  cxii.  (ed.  1S64). 


VISHNU-WORSHIP.  217 

as  the  sole  deity,  and  now  for  Siva ;  but  in  their  higher  flights 
rising  to  a  recognition  that  both  are  but  forms  for  representing 
the  one  eternal  God.  Their  interminable  dialogues  are  said 
to  run  to  1,600,000  lines.^  But  they  exhibit  only  the  , 
llrahmanical  aspect  of  what  were  destined  to  become  the  two  yj 
national  faiths  of  India,  and  they  are  devoid  of  any  genuine 
sympathy  for  the  people. 

The    VisJinu  Furana   starts   with   an    intolerance   equal    to  Brahmani- 
that   of  the   ancient   code   of   Manu.       It    still   declares  the*^^^^'^^" 

nuism, 

priests  to  have  sprung  from  the  mouth,  and  the  low-castes  1045  a.  u. 
liom  the  feet,  of  God.-  Its  stately  theogony  disdains  to  touch 
I  he  legends  of  the  people.  It  declares,  indeed,  that  there  is 
( )ne  God  ;  but  He  is  the  God  of  the  Brahmans,  to  whom  He 
^ives  the  earth  as  an  inheritance,  and  in  His  eyes  the  ruder 
Indian  races  are  as  naught.  This  is  the  general  tenor  of  its 
doctrines,  although  more  enlightened,  perhaps  because  later, 
passages  occur.  In  the  Vishnu  Purdna,  Buddha  is  still  an 
arch-heretic,  who  teaches  the  masses  to  despise  the  Veda,  but 
whose  disciples  are  eventually  crushed  by  the  bright  Aryan 
gods.  It  is  true  that  in  the  concluding  book,  when  treating 
of  the  last  Iron  Age,  to  which  this  world  has  now  come,  some 
nobler  idea  of  God's  dealing  with  man  gleams  forth.  In  that 
time  of  universal  dissolution  and  darkness,  the  sage  consoles 
us  with  the  assurance  that  devotion  to  Vishnu  will  suffice  for 
salvation  to  all  persons  and  to  all  castes.^ 

Vishnuism  had  to  preach  a  different  doctrine  before  it  could  TopuTar 
become,  as  it   has  for  ages  been,  a  religion   of  the  people.  ;'^hnu- 
The  first  of  the  line  of  Vishnuite  refoimers  was  Ramanuja,  a 
Brahman  of  Southern  India.     In  the  middle  of  the  12th  cen-  Ramanuja 
tury,  he  led  a  movement  against  the  Sivaites,  proclaiming  the  ''"'"■  "5° 
unity  of  God,  under  the  title  of  Vishnu,  the  Cause  and  the 
Creator  of  all  things.     Prosecuted   by  the  Chola  king,   who 
tried  to  enforce  Sivaite  conformity  throughout  his  dominions, 
Ramanuja  fled  to  the  Jain  sovereign  of  Mysore.     This  prince 
he  converted  to  the  Vishnuite  faith  by  expelling  an  evil  spirit 
from   his  daughter.      Seven   hundred  monasteries,   of  which 
four  still  remain,  are  said  to  have  marked  the  spread  of  his 
doctrine  before  his  death.     Ramanuja  accepted  converts  from 
every  class,  but  it  was  reserved  for  his  successors  to  formally 
Enunciate  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

At  the  end  of  the  13th  century   a.d.,  according    to  some 

'  Preface  to  the  Vishnti  Purdna,  p.  xxiv.     H.  H.  Wilson  (ed.  1864). 
^  VisJmu  Purdna,  lib.  i.  cap.  vi.  p.  89.      H.  H.  Wilson  (ed.  1864). 
^  Vishnu  Purdna,  lib.  vi.  cap.  ii.     H.  H.  Wilson,  p.  cxx.wiii. 


2i8  RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

authorities,  or  at  the  end  of  the  14th,  according  to  others,  the 

great   reformation,  which    made   Vishnu-worship    a    national 

Rama-        religion  of  India,  took  place.     Ramanand  stands  fifth  in  the 

nand^         apostolic  succession  from  Ram^nuja,  and  spread  his  doctrine 

A.D.  through   Northern    India.     He   had    his   head-quarters   in   a 

monastery   at   Benares,  but  wandered   from    place   to   place 

preaching   the   One   God    under   the   name  of  Vishnu,  and 

choosing  twelve  disciples,  not  from  the  priests  or  nobles,  but 

His  low-     among   the  despised    castes.      One  of  them  was  a   leather- 

j^^*^?  ,        dresser,  another  a  barber,  and  the  most  distinguished  of  all 
disciples.  '  '  .  ° 

was  the  reputed  son  of  a  weaver.     The  list  shows  that  every 
caste  found  free  entrance  into  the  new  creed. 

The  life  of  a  disciple  was  no  life  of  ease.  He  was  called 
upon  to  forsake  the  world  in  a  strictly  literal  sense,  and 
to  go  about  preaching  or  teaching,  and  living  on  alms.  His 
old  age  found  an  asylum  in  some  monastery  of  the  brother- 
hood. Ramanuja  had  addressed  himself  chiefly  to  the  pure 
Aryan  castes,  and  wrote  in  the  language  of  the  Brahmans. 
Ramanand  appealed  to  the  people,  and  the  literature  of  his 
sect  is  in  the  dialects  familiar  to  the  masses.  The  Hindi 
vernacular  owes  its  development  into  a  written  language, 
partly  to  the  folk-songs  of  the  peasantry  and  the  war-ballads  of 
the  Rajput  court-bards,  but  chiefly  to  the  literary  requirements 
of  the  new  popular  faith.  Vishnuism  has  deeply  impressed 
itself  on  the  modern  dialects  of  Northern  India.^ 


/ 


Kabir,  Kabir,  one  of  the  twelve  disciples  of  Ramanand,  carried  his 

1380-1420  doctrines  throughout  Bengal.      As  his  master  had  laboured  to 

A.D.  00 

gather  together  all  castes  of  the  Hindus  into  one  common 
faith,  so  Kabi'r,  seeing  that  the  Hindus  were  no  longer  the 
whole  inhabitants  of  India,  tried,  about  the  beginning  of  the 
15th  century,  to  build  up  a  religion  that  should  embrace 
His  doc-  Hindu  and  Muhammadan  alike.  He  rejected  caste,  denounced 
times.  image-worship,  and  condemned  the  hypocrisy  and  arrogance 
of  the  Brahmans.  According  to  Kabir,  the  chief  end  of  man 
is  to  obtain  purity  of  life,  and  a  perfect  faith  in  God.  The 
writings  of  his  sect  acknowledge  that  the  god  of  the  Hindu  is 
also  the  god  of  the  Musalman.     His  universal  name  is  The 

■*  The  three  best  known  sets  of  such  religious  treatises  are — (i)  the 
voluminous  works  ascribed  to  Kabir  [circ.  1400  A.D.)  and  his  followers, 
preserved  at  the  head-quarters  of  his  sect,  the  Kabir  Chaurd  at  Benares  ; 
(2)  the  Granth,  or  scriptures  of  various  Bhagats  or  Vishnuite  religious 
founders,  especially  of  Dadu  in  Rajputana,  and  of  the  Sikh  Guriis, 
beginning  with.Nanak  (1469);  and  (3)  the  Bhaktanidhi,  or  Roll  of  the 
Bhaktas  or  apostles,  the  Golde.T  Legend  of  Vishnuism  already  referred  to. 


VISHNUITE  REFORMERS;  KABIR.  219 

Inner,  whether  He  be  invoked  as  the  Ali  of  the  Muhammadans,  Coalition 

or  as  the  Rama  of  the  Hindus.    'To  Ah'  and  to  Rama  we  owe  pf^'shmi- 

ism  with 
our  hfe,'  say  the  scriptures  of  his  sect,^  'and  should  show  like  islam, 

tenderness  to  all  who  live.    What  avails  it  to  wash  your  mouth,  '•^-°  '^•^'• 

to  count  your  beads,  to  bathe  in  holy  streams,  to  bow  in  temples, 

if,  whilst  you  mutter  your  prayers  or  journey  on  pilgrimage, 

deceitfulness    is   in    your   heart  ?       The    Hindu  fasts   every 

eleventh  day ;  the  Musalman  on  the  Ramazan.      Who  formed 

the  remaining  months  and  days,  that  you  should  venerate  but 

one  ?     If  the  Creator  dwell  in  tabernacles,  w^hose  dwelling  is 

the  universe  ?      The    city  of  the  Hindu    god  is  to   the  east  The  One 

[Benares],  the   city  of    the    Musalman    god    is   to   the  west  f'°j^ ' 

[Mecca];   but  explore  your  own  heart,  for  there  is  the  god, 

both  of  the  Musalmans  and  of  the  Hindus.     Behold  but  One 

in  all  things.       He  to  whom  the  world  belongs.  He  is   the 

father  of  the  worshippers  alike  of  Ali  and  of  Rama.      He  is 

my  guide.  He  is  my  priest.'  ^     Kabi'r  was  pre-eminently  the 

Vishnuite   apostle   to    Bengal ;    but    his    followers   are    also 

numerous  in  the  Central  Provinces,  Gujarat,  and  the  Deccan. 

Kabir's  teaching  marks  another  great  stride  in   the  Vish-  Brother- 
nuite  reformation.     His  master,  Ramanand,  had  asserted  an  ^^^^ 
abstract  equality  of  castes,  because  he  identified  the  deity  with 
the  worshipper.     He  had  regarded  the  devotee  as  but  a  mani- 
festation of  the  divinity,  and  no  lowness  of  birth  could  degrade 
the  godhead.     As  Vishnu  had  taken  the  form  of  several  of  the 
inferior  animals,  such  as  the  Boar  and  the  Fish  incarnations, 
so  might  he  be  born  as  a  man  of  any  caste.      Kabir  accepted 
this  doctrine,  but  he  warmed  it  by  an  intense  humanity.      All 
the  chances  and  changes  of  life,  the  varied  lot  of  man,  his 
differences  in  religion,  his  desires,  hopes,  fears,  loves,  are  but 
the  work  of  Afdyd,  or  illusion.      To  recognise  the  one  Divine 
Spirit  under  these  manifold  illusions,  is  to  obtain  emancipation  The  Rest 
and  the  Rest  of  the  Soul.      That  Rest  is  to  be  reached,  not  by  °^'^^  '''""'• 
burnt-offerings  or  sacrifices,  but,  according  to  Kabir,  by  faith  Faith. 
(bhakti),  by  meditation  on  the  Supreme,  by  keeping  His  holy 
names,  Hari,  Ram,  Govi'nd,  for  ever  on  the  lips  and  in  the 
heart. 

The  labours  of  Kabir   may  be   placed  between  1380   and  Chaitanya, 
1420  A.D.     In    i486,  Chaitanya  was   born,  who    spread   the  ^'^^^  "'^27 
Vishnuite  doctrines,  under  the  worship  of  Jagannath,  through- 
out  the   deltas  of  Bengal  and  Orissa.      Signs  and  wonders 

1  The  Vtjak  of  Bhagodas,  one  of  Kabir's  disciples.     The  rival  claims  of 
the  Hindus  and  Musalmans  to  Kabir's  body  have  already  been  mentioned. 

2  Sahda,  Ivi.     Abridged  from  H.  H.  Wilson's  Works,  i.  Si  (ed.  1864). 


2  20  JilSE  OF  HINDUISM. 

Chait-         attended  Chaitanya  through  life,  and  during  four  centuries  he 

anya  s  life,  j^^g  been  worshipped  as  an  incarnation  of  Vishnu.  Extricat- 
ing ourselves  from  the  halo  of  legend  which  surrounds  and 
obscures  the  apostle,  we  know  little  of  his  private  life  except 
that  he  was  the  son  of  a  Brahman  settled  at  Nadiya  near 
Calcutta  ;  that  in  his  youth  he  married  the  daughter  of  a 
celebrated  saint ;  that  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  he  forsook  the 
world,  and,  renouncing  the  state  of  a  householder,  repaired  to 
Orissa,  where  he  devoted  the  rest  of  his  days  to  the  propagation 
of  the  faith.     He  disappeared  miraculously  in  1527  a.d. 

Cliait-  With  regard  to  Chaitanya's  doctrine  we  have  ample  evidence. 

anyas  -^^  ^^^^  ^^  caste  was  beyond  the  pale  of  salvation.  The 
IMusalmans  and  Hmdus  shared  his  labours,  and  profited  by  his 
preaching.  He  held  that  all  men  are  alike  capable  of  faith, 
and  that  all  castes  by  faith  become  equally  pure.  Implicit 
belief  and  incessant  devotion  were  his  watchwords.  Con- 
templation rather  than  ritual  was  his  pathway  to  salvation. 
Obedience  to  the  religious  guide  is  the  great  characteristic 
of  his  sect ;  but  he  warned  his  disciples  to  respect  their 
teachers  as  second  fathers,  and  not  as  gods.  The  great  end 
of    his   system,  as    of    all    Indian  forms    of   worship,  is   the 

'  Libera-     liberation  of  the  soul.      He   held  that  such   liberation   does 

tion   of      j^Q^   mean   the    mere   annihilation  of  separate  existence.     It 
the  soul.  .        .  ,  .  ,  .        .       ,         ^  , 

consists  in   nothing  more  than  an  entire   freedom  from  the 

stains  and  the  frailties  of  the  body.     The  liberated  soul  dwells 

for  ever,  either  in  a  blessed  region  of  perfect  beauty  and  sin- 

lessness,  or  it  soars  into  the  heaven  of  Vishnu  himself,  high 

above    the   myths    and   mirages  of    this  world,  where   God 

appears  no  more  in  his  mortal  incarnations,  or  in  any  other 

form,  but  is  known  in  his  supreme  essence.^ 

The  Chait-      The  followers  of  Chaitanya  belong  to  every  caste,  but  they 

anya  sect,   acknowledge    the   rule  of    the    descendants  of    the   original 

disciples   {gosdins).      These  gasdins   now   number    23,062    in 

Bengal  alone.     The  sect  is  open  alike  to  the  married  and  the 

unmarried.     It  has  its   celibates  and  wandering  mendicants, 

Its  but  its  religious  teachers  are  generally  married  men.      They 

ul  .?''!"^      live  with  their  wives  and  children  in  clusters  of  houses  around 

a   temple   to    Krishna ;    and   in    this  way  the   adoration   of 

1  Besides  the  notices  of  Chaitanya  in  H.  H.  Wilson's  works,  the  reader 
is  referred  to  a  very  careful  essay  by  Babu  Jogendra  Chandra  Ghosh, 
entitled  Chaitanya^s  Ethics  (Calcutta,  1SS4).  Mr.  Ghosh  bases  his  works 
upon  the  original  writings  of  Chaitanya  and  his  followers.  The  present 
author  is  indebted  to  him  for  a  correction  of  one  year  in  the  date  of 
Chaitanya's  birth,  calculated  from  the  Chaitanya  Chan'tdmrita. 


houses. 


VISHNUITE  CENO BITES.  221 

Chaitanya  has  become  a  sort  of  family  worship  throughout 
Orissa.  The  landed  gentry  worship  him  with  a  daily  ritual 
in  household  chapels  dedicated  to  his  name.  After  his 
death,  a  sect  arose  among  his  followers,  who  asserted  the 
spiritual  independence  of  women. ^  In  their  monastic  en- 
closures, male  and  female  cenobites  live  in  celibacy ;  the 
women  shaving  their  heads,  with  the  exception  of  a  single 
lock  of  hair.  The  two  sexes  chant  the  praises  of  Vishnu  and 
Chaitanya   together,  in   hymn  and  solemn  dance.      One  im-  The  place 

portant  doctrine  of  the  Vishnuite  sects  is  their  recognition  of  ^^  ^^^'g""^ 
,  .  °  to  women. 

the  value  of  women  as  mstructors  of  the  outside  female  com- 
munity. For  long,  their  female  devotees  were  the  only  teachers 
•  admitted  into  the  zandnas  of  good  families  in  Bengal.  Fifty 
years  ago,  they  had  effected  a  change  for  the  better  in  the 
state  of  female  education,  and  the  value  of  such  instruction  was 
assigned  as  the  cause  of  the  sect  having  spread  in  Calcutta.- 
Since  that  time,  Vishnuite  female  ascetics  of  various  sorts 
have  entered  the  same  field.  In  some  instances  the  bad 
crept  in  along  with  the  good,  and  an  effort  made  in  1863  to 
utilize  them  in  the  mechanism  of  Public  Instruction  failed.^ 

The  analogy  of  woman's   position    in  the   Vishnuite   sects  Modern 
to  that  assigned  to  her  by  ancient  Buddhism  is  striking.      But  ^"^d'^'-'^' 

nuns. 

the  analogy  becomes  more  complete  when  the  comparison  is 
made  with  the  extra-mural  life  of  the  modern  Buddhist  nun 
on  the  Punjab  frontier.  Thus,  in  Lahul  (Lahaul)  some  of  the 
nuns  have  not,  as  in  Tibet,  cloisters  of  their  own.  They  are 
attached  to  monasteries,  in  which  they  reside  only  a  few  months 
of  the  year ;  and  which  they  may  permanently  quit,  either  in 
order  to  marry  or  for  otlier  sufficient  reasons.  In  1868,  there 
were  seventy-one  such  Buddhist  nuns  in  Lahul,  able  to  read  and 
write,  and  very  closely  resembling  in  their  life  and  discipline 
the  better  orders  of  Vishnuite  female  devotees  in  Bengal. 
One  of  them  was  sufficiently  skilled  in  astronomy  to  calculate 
eclipses.'* 

The  death  of  Chaitanya  marked  the  beginning  of  a  spiritual  Vallabha- 
decline    in    Vishnu-worship.      About     1520,    Vallabha-Swami  Swdmi. 
preached  in    Northern  India  that   the  liberation  of  the  soul  a.d.    "'" 
did  not  depend  upon  the  mortification  of  the  body  ;  and  that 

'  The  Spashtha  Dayakas. 

-  Wilson's  Religion  of  Hindus,  vol.  i.  p.  17 1  (ed.  1S62). 

*  The  official  details  of  this  interesting  and  once  promising  experiment 
at  Dacca  will  be  found  in  Appendix  A.  to  the  Report  of  the  Director  of 
Public  Instruction,  Bengal,  for  1863-64,  pp.  83-90 ;  for  1S64-65,  pp. 
155-158  ;  and  in  each  subsequent  Annual  Report  to  1869. 

*  Sherring's  Hindu  Tribes,  vol.  ii.  p.  9  (4to,  Calcutta). 


22  2  RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 

God  was  to  be  sought,  not  in  nakedness  and  hunger  and 
solitude,  but  amid  the  enjoyments  of  this  life.  An  opulent 
sect  had,  from  an  early  period,  attached  itself  to  the  worship 
of  Krishna  and  his  bride  Radha  ;  a  mystic  significance  being, 
of  course,  assigned  to  their  pastoral  loves.  Still  more  popular 
among  women  is  the  modern  adoration  of  Krishna  as  the 
Bala  Gopala,  or  the  Infant  Cowherd, — a  faith  perhaps  uncon- 
Child-  sciously  stimulated  by  the  Catholic  worship  of  the  Divine 
up.  (ji-iii(j_  The  sect,  however,  deny  any  connection  of  their  Infant 
god  with  the  babe  Jesus,  and  maintain  that  their  worship  is  a 
legitimate  and  natural  development  of  Vishnuite  conceptions. 
Another  influence  of  Christianity  on  Hinduism  may  possibly  be 
traced  in  the  growing  importance  assigned  by  the  Krishna  sects 
to  bhaktt,  or  faith,  as  an  all-sufficient  instrument  of  salvation. 
Krishna-  Vallabhi-Swami  was  the  apostle  of  Vishnuism  as  a  religion 
worsiip.  ^£  pleasure.  When  he  had  finished  his  life's  work,  he  de- 
scended into  the  Ganges ;  a  brilliant  flame  arose  from  the 
spot ;  and,  in  the  presence  of  a  host  of  witnesses,  his  glorified 
form  ascended  to  heaven.  The  special  object  of  his  homage 
was  Vishnu  in  his  pastoral  incarnation,  m  which  he  took  the 
form  of  the  divine  youth  Krishna,  and  led  an  arcadian  life  in 
the  forest.  Shady  bowers,  lovely  women,  exquisite  viands, 
and  everything  that  appeals  to  the  sensuousness  of  a 
tropical  race,  are  mingled  in  his  worship.  His  daily  ritual 
consists  of  eight  services,  in  which  Krishna's  image,  as  a 
beautiful  boy,  is  delicately  bathed,  anointed  with  essences, 
splendidly  attired,  and  sumptuously  fed.  The  followers  of  the 
first  Vishnuite  reformers  dwelt  together  in  secluded  monasteries, 
or  went  about  scantily  clothed,  living  upon  alms.  But  the 
Vallabhi-Swami  sect  performs  its  devotions  arrayed  in  costly 
apparel,  anointed  with  oil,  and  perfumed  with  camphor  or 
sandal.  It  seeks  its  converts,  not  among  weavers,  or  leather- 
dressers,  or  barbers,  but  among  wealthy  bankers  and  mer- 
chants, who  look  upon  life  as  a  thing  to  be  enjoyed,  and 
upon  pilgrimage  as  a  holiday  excursion,  or  an  opportunity 
for  trade. 
A  religion  In  a  religion  of  this  sort,  abuses  are  inevitable.  It  was  a 
ofpieasurc.  j.gyQJ(-  against  a  system  which  taught  that  the  soul  could 
approach  its  Maker  only  by  the  mortification  of  the  body.  It 
declared  that  God  was  present  in  the  cities  and  marts  of  men, 
not  less  than  in  the  cave  of  the  ascetic.  Faith  and  love  were 
its  instruments  of  salvation,  and  voluptuous  contemplation  its 
approved  spiritual  state.  It  delighted  to  clothe  the  deity  in  a 
beautiful  human  form,  and  mystical  amorous  poems  make  a 


VISHNUITE  SECTS.  223 

large  part  of  its  canonical  literature.     One  of  its  most  valued 

theological   treatises   is   entitled  The  Ocean  of  Love,   Preni  Love 

Sdgar ;   and  although  its  nobler  professors  always  recognised  ^°^'"'^- 

its  spiritual  character,  to  baser  minds  it  has  become  simply  a 

religion  of  pleasure.     The  loves  of  Radha  and  Krishna,  that 

woodland  pastoral  redolent  of  a  wild-flower  aroma  as  ethereal 

as  the  legend  of  Psyche  and  Cupid,  are  sometimes  materialized 

into  a  sanction  for  licentious  rites. 

A  few  of  the  Vishnuite  sects  have  been  particularized  in  order  Numerous 

to  show  the  wide  area  of  religious  thought  which  they  cover,  ^  ishnuitu 

sects 
and   the   composite   conceptions   of  which   their   beliefs   are 

made  up.     But  any  attempt  at  a  complete  catalogue  of  them  The 

is  beyond  the  scope  of  this  work.      H.    H.   Wilson  divided  '7?"^)' 
1  •  •     •     1  1    ,      ,  ,  ,  chief 

them  mto  twenty  prmcipal  sects,  and  the  branches  or  lesser  vishnuite 

brotherhoods  number  not  less  than  a  hundred.     Their  series  ^^<^^s- 

of  religious  founders  continued  until  the  present  century,  when 

they  began  to  merge  into  the  more  purely  theistic  movements 

of  our  day.    Indeed,  the  higher  Vishnuite  teachers  have  always  Theistic 

been  theistic.     The  Statistical  Survey  of  India  has  disclosed  '""^f" 

■'  merits. 

many  such  reformations,  from  the  Kartabhajas^  of  the  Districts 
around  Calcutta,  to  the  Satnamis  ^  of  the  Central  Provinces. 

Some  of  these  sects  are  poor  local  brotherhoods,  with   a 
single   religious    house ;    others    have    developed    into   wide- 
spread and  wealthy  bodies ;   while  one   theistic  church  has 
grown  into  a  great  nation,  the  Sikhs,  the  last  military  power  The  Sikhs.    / 
which  we  had  to  subdue  in  India.^     Nanak  Shah,  the  spiritual  Ndnak 
founder  of  the  Sikhs,  was  nearly  contemporary  with  Kabir,  and  ^^^^^'^' 
taught  doctrines  in  the  Punjab  but  little  differing  from  those  of 
the  Bengal  apostle.*     The  Vishnuite  sects  now  include  almost 
the  whole  population  of  Lower  Bengal,  excepting  the  very 
highest  and  the  very  lowest  castes.     In  many  of  their  com-    / 
munities,  caste  is  not  acknowledged.    Such  sects  form  brother-  Brother- 
hoods which  recognise  only  spiritual  distinctions  or  degrees ;  ^^oo^s. 
and   a    new   social    organization    is    thus    provided   for    the 
unfortunate,  the  widow,  or  the  out-caste.     In  lately  Hinduized 
Provinces  like  Assam,  Vishnu-worship  has  become  practically 
the  religion  of  the  people. 

The  Car  Festival  of  Jagannath  is  perhaps  the  most  typical  Jagannath. 

'  See  Yiwnitrs  Siatisiical  Account  of  Bengal,  vol.  i.  pp.  73-75  (Twenty- 
P'ouR  Parganas)  ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  53-55  (Nadiva). 

*  See  T!ie  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  article  Cen'IRAL  Provinces. 

*  See  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  articles  Amritsar  and  PUNJAB. 
For  the  theological  aspects  of  the  Sikhs,  see  Wilson's  Religion  of  the 
Hindus,  vol.  i.  pp.  267-275  (ed.  1862). 

*  H.  H.  Wilson's  Keligioii  of  the  Hindus,  vol.  i.  p.  269. 


2  24  mSE  OF  BIXDUISM. 

ceremony  of  the  Vishnuite  faith.     Jagannath,   literally  '  Tlie 

Lord  of  the  World,'  represents,  with  unmistakeable  clearness, 

that  coalition  of  Brahman  and  Buddhist  doctrines  which  forms 

the  basis  of  Vishnu  -  worship.     In  his  temple  are  three  rude 

images,    unconsciously   representing   the    Brahmanical    triad. 

His  Brdh-  His  Car  Festival  is  probably  a  once-conscious  reproduction 

manica       ^j-  ^-^^  Tooth  Festival  of  the  Buddhists,  although  its  original 

Buddhist    significance  has  dropped  out  of  sight.     The  Chinese  pilgrim 

origin.        Fa-Hian  gives  an  account  of  the  yearly  procession  of  Buddha's 

Sacred  Tooth  from  its  chapel  to  a  shrine  some  way  off,^  and 

of  its  return  after  a  stay  there.     This  was  in  the  5th  century 

A.D. ;  but  the  account  applies  so  exactly  to  the  Car  Festival  at 

the  present  day,  that  Fergusson  pronounces  the  latter  to  be 

'  merely  a  copy.'  - 

A  similar  festival  is  still  celebrated  with  great  rejoicing  in 

Japan.    As  in  the  Indian  procession  of  Jagannath,  the  Japanese 

use  three  cars;^  and  Buddha  sits  in  his  temple,  together  with 

two  other  figures,  like  the  Jagannath  triad  of  Orissa.^     It  is 

needless  to  add,  that  while  Jagannath  is  historically  of  Buddhist 

or  composite  origin,  he  is  to  his  true  believers  the  one  supreme 

'Lord  of  the  World.' 

Car  Fesii-       The  calumnies  in  which  some  English  writers  have  indulged 

y    °    .  ,    with  regard  to  Jagannath,  are  exposed  in  Hunter's  work  on 
Jagannath.        .  *  -^    °  f 

Orissa.     That  work  carefully  examined  the  whole  evidence  on 

the  subject,  from  1580,  when  Abul  Fazl  wrote,  through  a  long 
series  of  travellers,  down  to  the  police  reports  of  iSyc*  It 
English  came  to  the  conclusion  which  H.  H.  Wilson  had  arrived  at 
caumnies.  fj-om  quite  different  sources,^  that  self-immolation  was  entirely 
opposed  to  the  worship  of  Jagannath,  and  that  the  deaths  at 
the  Car  Festival  were  almost  always  accidental.  In  a  closely- 
packed,  eager  throng  of  a  hundred  thousand  men  and  women 
at  Puri,  numbers  of  them  unaccustomed  to  exposure  or  hard 
labour,  and  all  of  them  tugging  and  straining  to  the  utmost  at 
the  car,  under  a  blazing  sun,  deaths  must  occasionally  occur. 

There  were   also    isolated   instances   of  pilgrims    throwing 

themselves  under  the  wheels  in  a  frenzy  of  religious  excite- 

Self-im-      ment.     At  one  time,  several   unhappy  people  were  killed  or 

molation     injured    every  year,    but   they    were   almost   invariably   cases 

tised.  ^  From  the  chapel  at  Anuradhapura  to  Mehentele. 

^  History  of  Architecture,  vol.  ii.  p.  590  (ed.  1867). 
■^  See,  among  many  interesting  notices  by  recent  travellers,  Miss  Bird's 
Unbeaten  Tracks  in  Japan,  vol.  i.  pp.  ill,  1 15,  etc.  (ed.  1880). 

*  Hunter's  Of-issa,  vol.  i.,  particularly  pp.  306-308  ;  also  pp.  132-136. 

*  Namely,  the  descriptions  of  the   Car  Festival  or  Rath-Jdtra   in  the 
work  of  Krishna  Das. 


LIBELS  OF  JAG  ANNA  TH.  225 

of  accidental  trampling.  At  an  early  period,  indeed,  the  priests 
at  Puri,  probably  by  permitting  a  midnight  sacrifice  once  a  year 
within  their  precincts  to  the  wife  ^  of  Siva,  had  fallen  under 
suspicion  of  bloody  rites. ^  But  such  rites  arose  from  the 
ambition  of  the  priests  to  make  Puri  the  sacred  city  of  all  wor- 
ships and  all  sects.  The  yearly  midnight  offerings  to  the  Dread 
Goddess  within  Jagannath's  sacred  precincts  represent  the 
efforts  made  from  time  to  time  towards  a  coalition  of  the  Sivaite 
and  Vishnuite  worship,  like  the  chakra  or  sacred  disc  of  Vishnu 
which  surmounts  the  pre-historic  temple  to  Kali  at  Tamluk.^ 
Such  compromises  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  worship  of  the  His 

true  Tagannath.     A  drop  of  blood  even  accidentally  spilt  in  ^iloodless 
1  •  ,1  ,/■,-••  •  1  11,     worship. 

his  presence  pollutes  the  ofnciatmg  priests,  the  people,  and  the 

consecrated  food.  The  few  suicides  that  occurred  at  the  Car 
Festival  were  for  the  most  part  those  of  diseased  and  miser- 
able objects,  who  took  this  means  to  put  themselves  out  of 
pain.*  The  official  returns  now  place  the  facts  beyond  doubt. 
Nothing  could  be  more  opposed  to  Vishnu-worship  than  self-im- 
molation. Any  death  within  the  temple  of  Jagannath  renders 
the  place  unclean.  The  ritual  suddenly  stops,  and  the  polluted 
offerings  are  hurried  away  from  the  sight  of  the  offended  god. 

According  to  Chaitanya,  the  Orissa  apostle  of  Jagannath,  Evidence 
the    destruction    of    the    least   of  God's   creatures  is  a   sin  ^'^out 
agamst  the  Creator.     Self-slaughter   he  would  have  regarded     '^ 
with   abhorrence.       The    copious   literature   of  his   sect   fre- 
quently describes  the  Car  Festival,  but  makes  no  mention  of 
self-sacrifice,  and  contains  not  a  single  passage  which  could 
be  twisted  into  a  sanction  for  it.^     Abul    Fazl,  the    minister 
of  Akbar,  who  conducted  the  survey  of  India  for  the  Mughal 
Emperor,    is    silent    about    self-immolation    to    Jagannath, 
although,  from  the  context,  it  is  almost  certain  that  had  he 
heard  of  the  practice  he  would  have  mentioned  it.     In  1870, 
the   present   author   compiled   an  index  to   all   accounts   by 
travellers  and  others  of  self-immolation  at   the  Car  Festival,  against 

from   the  14th    century   down  wards.''      It    proved   that   such  ^i^^' , 

^  ■'  ^  slaughter. 

'  Bimala,  the  '  Stainless  One.' 

-  See  statement  from  the  Haft-iklini  (14S5-1527  A.D.)  in  Hunter's 
Orissa,  vol.  i.  p.  306. 

*  See  The  Imperial  Gazetteer,  article  Tamluk. 

*  See  authorities  quoted  in  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  p.  134  ;  Stirling's 
account,  Asiatic  Researches,  vol.  xv.  p.  324 ;  Calcutta  Review,  vol.  x.  p. 
235  ;  Report  of  Statistical  Commissioner  to  the  Government  of  Bengal,  1868, 
part  ii.  p.  8  ;  Puri  Police  Reports ;  Lieut.  Laurie's  Orissa,  1850. 

*  H.  H.  Wilson's  Religion  of  the  Hindus ,  vol.  i.  p.  155  (ed.  1S62). 

*  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  pp.  305-308. 

P 


J 


226  J^/SIl   of  HINDUISM. 

suicides  did  at  rare  intervals  occur,  although  they  were  opposed 
to  the  spirit  of  the  worship. 
I-ibels  on  An  Indian  procession  means  a  vast  multitude  of  excitable 
jaganna  .  j^gjj^gg  j-e^fjy  for  any  extravagance.  Among  Indian  proces- 
sions, that  of  Jagannath  to  his  country-house  stands  first ; 
and  the  frenzied  affrays  of  the  Muharram  might  as  fairly 
be  assigned  to  the  deliberate  policy  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment, as  the  occasional  suicides  at  the  Car  Festival  may  be 
charged  against  the  god.  The  travellers  who  tell  the  most 
sensational  stories  are  the  ones  whose  narratives  prove  that 
they  went  entirely  by  hearsay,  or  who  could  not  them- 
selves have  seen  the  Car  Festival  at  Puri.  The  number  of 
deaths,  whether  voluntary  or  accidental,  as  registered  by  the 
dispassionate  candour  of  English  officials,  has  always  been 
insignificant,  indeed  far  fewer  than  those  incident  to  the  party 
processions  of  the  Musalmans ;  and  under  improved  police 
His  gentle  arrangements,  they  have  practically  ceased.  So  far  from  en- 
doctunes,  couraging  religious  suicides,  the  gentle  doctrines  of  Jagannath 
tended  to  check  the  once  common  custom  of  widow-burning. 
Even  before  the  Government  put  a  stop  to  sati  in  1829,  our 
officials  observed  its  comparative  infrequency  at  Puri.  Widow- 
burning  was  discountenanced  by  the  Vishnuite  reformers,  and 
is  stigmatized  by  a  celebrated  disciple  as  'the  fruitless  union 
of  beauty  with  a  corpse.' 

The  religi-  The  worship  of  Siva  and  Vishnu  operates  as  a  religious 
of  Hindu-  bond  among  the  Hindus,  in  the  same  way  as  caste  supplies 
ism.  the   basis    of    their   social    organization.      Theoretically,    the 

Hindu  religion  starts  from  the  Veda,  and  acknowledges  its 
divine  authorit)^  But,  practically,  we  have  seen  that  Hindu- 
ism takes  its  origin  from  many  sources.  Vishnu-worship  and 
Sivaite  rites  represent  the  two  most  popular  combinations  of 
The  these  various  elements.     The  highly-cultivated  Brahman  is  a 

'chosen  p^^g  theist ;  the  less  cultivated  worships  the  divinity  under 
%vatd.  '  some  chosen  form,  isJita-devata.  The  conventional  Brahman, 
especially  in  the  south,  takes  as  his  '  chosen  deity,'  Siva  in  his 
deep  philosophical  significance,  with  the  phallic  linga  as  his 
emblem.  The  middle  classes  and  the  mercantile  community 
adore  some  incarnation  of  Vishnu.  The  low-castes  propitiate 
Siva  the  Destroyer,  or  rather  one  of  his  female  manifestations, 
such  as  the  dread  Kali. 
Tiactical         But  every  Hindu  of  education  allows  that  his  special  object 

faith  of  the  q^  homage  is  merely  his  ishta-devaia,  or  own  chosen  form 
Hindus  ,         ,°  ,  ,  ,      T.  •       T-.  TT        1     ■ 

under  which  to  adore  the  Deity,  Param-eswara.     He  admits 


FATE  OF  THE  HINDU  TRIAD.  227 

that  there  is  ample  scope  for  adoring  God  under  other  Its  toler- 
manifestations,  or  in  other  shapes.  Unless  a  new  sect  takes  ^"*^*^' 
the  initiative,  by  rejecting  caste  or  questioning  the  autho- 
rity of  the  Veda,  the  Hindu  is  slow  to  dispute  the  orthodoxy 
of  the  movement.  Even  the  founder  of  the  Brahma  Samaj, 
or  modern  theistic  church  of  Bengal,  lived  and  died  a  Hindu. ^ 
The  Indian  vernacular  press  cordially  acknowledges  the  merits 
of  distinguished  Christian  teachers,  like  Dr.  Duff  of  Calcutta, 
or  Dr.  Wilson  of  Bombay.  At  first,  indeed,  our  missionaries, 
in  their  outburst  of  proselytizing  zeal,  spoke  disrespectfully 
of  Hinduism,  and  stirred  up  some  natural  resentment.  But 
as  they  more  fully  realized  the  problems  involved  in  con- 
version, they  moderated  their  tone,  and  now  live  on  friendly 
terms  with  the  Brahmans  and  religious  natives. 

An    orthodox    Hindu    paper,  which    had    been    filling   its  Hindu 
columns    with    a    vigorous    polemic    entitled    '  Christianity  p!'"^"^"*  ^" 
Destroyed,'  no  sooner  heard  of  the  death  of   the  late  Mr.  tianity. 
Sherring,  than  it  published  a  eulogium  on  that  devoted  mis- 
sionary.    It  dwelt  on  '  his  learning,  affability,  solidity,  piety, 
benevolence,    and   business   capacity.'      The   editor,   while   a 
stout  defender  of  his  hereditary  faith,  regretted  that  '  so  little 
of  Mr.  Sherring's  teaching  had  fallen  to  his  lot.'  ^     The  Hmdus 
are  among  the  most  tolerant  religionists  in  the  world. 

Of  the  three  members  of  the  Hindu  Triad,  the  first  person,  Modern 
Brahma,  has  now  but  a  few  scattered  handfuls  of  followers  ;  ^'^  , 

.  .  .  .  Hindu 

the  second  person,  Vishnu,  supplies  a  worship  for  the  middle  Triad. 

classes ;  around  the  third  person,  Siva,  in  his  twofold  aspects, 

has  grown  up  that  mixture  of  philosophical  symbolism  with 

propitiatory  rites  professed  by  the  highest  and  by  the  lowest 

castes.     But  the   educated    Hindu  willingly  recognises  that, 

beyond  and   above   his    chosen   Deity   of  the  Triad,  or   his 

favourite  incarnation,  or  his  village  fetish,   or  his  household 

sdlagrdm,  dwells   the  Param-eswara,  the   One   First  Cause,  The  One 

whom   the  eye  has  not   seen,  and  whom   the  mind  cannot  i.'"*^'' 

,  •        1  •  r   ,  Param- 

conceive,  but  who  may  be  worshipped  m  any  one  of  the  forms  e^swara. 

in  which  he  manifests  his  power  to  men. 

^  The  best  short  account  of  this  deeply  interesting  movement,  and  of 
its  first  leader  Rammohan  Roy,  will  be  found  under  the  title  of  Indian 
Theistic  Reformers,  by  Professor  Monier  Williams,  in  the  yoitrtial  of  the 
Royal  Asiatic  Society,  Jan.  l88l,  vol.  xiii.  See  also  his  Modern  India 
(Trlibner,  1879) ;  and  Miss  Collet's  Brahmo  Year  Book  (Williams  & 
Norgate,  annually). 

*  The  Kavi-bachan  Siidha,  quoted  in  the  Chronicle  of  the  Loiuion  Mis- 
sionary Society  for  November  iSSo,  p.  792. 


228 


RISE  OF  HINDUISM. 


Recapitu- 
lation. 


Three 

Western 

influences; 


(i)  Chris- 
tianity, 


(2)  Islam, 


3)  British 
Rule. 


The  foregoing  chapters  indicate  how,  out  of  the  early  Aryan 
and  non-Aryan  races  of  India,  as  modified  by  Greek  and 
Scythic  invasions,  the  Hindu  population  and  the  Hindu 
religion  were  built  up.  We  shall  next  consider  three  series  of 
influences  which,  within  historic  times,  have  been  brought  to 
bear,  by  nations  from  the  West,  upon  the  composite  people 
thus  formed.  The  first  set  of  these  influences  is  represented  by 
the  early  Christian  Church  of  India,  a  Church  which  had  its 
origin  in  a  period  long  anterior  to  the  medireval  Hinduism 
of  the  9th  century,  and  which  is  numerously  represented  by 
the  Syrian  Christians  of  Malabar  in  our  own  day.  The  second 
foreign  influence  brought  to  bear  upon  India  from  the  West 
consisted  of  the  Muhammadan  invasions,  which  eventually 
created  the  Mughal  Empire.  The  third  influence  is  repre- 
sented by  the  European  settlements,  which  culminated  in  the 
British  Rule. 


[    229    ] 


CHAPTER    IX. 

CHRISTIANITY    IN    INDIA    {ciixa    lOO   TO    1 88 1    A.D.). 

Christianity  now  forms  the   faith   of  over  two  millions  ofChristian- 

the  Indian  population.     Coeval  with   Buddhism  during  the  'li'th"^^'^ 

last   nine    centuries   of   its    Indian   history,  the    teaching   of  Buddhism 

Christ  has,  after   the  lapse  of  another   nine   hundred   years,  ^°''  9°° 

,  .  .  years. 

more  than  twelve  tunes  more  followers  than  the  teaching  of 

Buddha  upon  the  Indian  continent.     Adding  Burma,  where 

the  doctrines  of  Gautama  still  remain  the  creed  of  the  people, 

there  are  over  two  millions  of  Christians  to  under  three  and  a 

half  millions  of  Buddhists ;  or  to  four  millions  of  Buddhists 

and  Jains.     Christianity,  while   a  very  old  religion  in  India, 

is    also  one  of  the    most   active    at  the  present  day.      The 

Census  of  1881  disclosed  that  the  Christians  in  British  and 

Feudatory  India  had  increased  by  more  than  one-fifth  since 

1872;    and   this   increase,   while   partly   the   result    of  more 

perfect  enumeration,  represents  to  a  large  extent  a  real  growth. 

The   origin   of  Christianity   in    India   is    obscure.      Early  Origin 

tradition,  accepted  popularly  by  Catholics,  and  more  doubtfully  °.    •^^^' 

by  Protestants,   connects   it   with    St.    Thomas   the   Apostle,  India. 

who  is   said   to   have   preached   in   Southern    India,  on   the 

Malabar  and  Coromandel  coasts  ;   to   have  founded  several  The 

churches  ;  and  finally,  to  have  been  martyred  at  the  Little  ^''^nodox 
1  •  rr-i       V.     1     1-  T  •       tradition. 

Mount,    near   Madras,    in    68    a.d.      The   Catholic   tradition 

narrates  further,  that  a  persecution  arose  not  long  after,  in 
which  all  the  priests  perished  ;  that  many  years  later,  the 
Patriarch  of  Babylon,  while  still  in  communion  with  Rome, 
heard  of  the  desolate  state  of  the  Indian  Church,  and  sent 
forth  bishops  who  revived  its  faith  ;  that  about  486  a.d., 
Nestorianism  spread  from  Babylon  into  Malabar, 

To  orthodoxy  this  tradition  has  a  twofold  value.     It  assigns  Vahte 
an  apostolic  origin  to  the  Christianity  of  India ;  and  it  explains  ^'^^j^^. 
away  the  fact  that  Indian  Christianity,  when  it  emerges  into 
history,  formed  a  branch  of  the  unorthodox  Nestorian  Church. 
Modern  criticism  has  questioned  the  evidence  for  the  evangel- 
istic labours  of  the  Doubting  Apostle  in  Southern  India.     It 


Syrian 
Christians 


230  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

has  brought  to  light  the  careers  of  two  later  missionaries,  both 
bearing  the  name  of  Thomas,  to  whom,  at  widely  separated 
dates,  the  honour  of  converting  Southern  India  is  assigned. 
Gibbon  dismisses  the  question  of  their  respective  claims  in  a 
convenient  triplet: — 'The  Indian  missionary  St.  Thomas,  an 
Apostle,  a  Manichaean,  or  an  Armenian  merchant.'  ^ 

This   method   of  treatment   scarcely   satisfies    the    present 

of  India,     century ;  and  the  Statistical  Survey  of  India  has  thrown  fresh 

light  on  the  Syrian  Christians  of  the  Southern  Peninsula.     At 

this  day  they  number  304,410,- or  more  than  double  the  number 

of  Native  Protestants  in  India  in  1861.    Indeed,  until  within  the 

past  ten  years,  the  remnants  of  the  ancient  Syrian  Church  had 

still  a  larger  native  following  in  India  than  all  the  Protestant 

sects  put  together.^     It  would   be   unsuitable  to  dismiss  so 

ancient  and  so  numerous  a  body  without  some  attempt  to 

trace  their  history.     That  history  forms  the  longest  continuous 

narrative  of  any  religious  sect  in  India  except  the  Jains. 

Their  The   Syrian    Church    of   Malabar    had    its   origin    in    the 

"nd^  ^^^     period  when  Buddhism  was  still  triumphant ;  it  witnessed  the 

antiquity,    birth  of  the   Hinduism  which  superseded   the   doctrine   and 

national  polity  of  Buddha ;  it  saw  the  arrival  of  the  Muham- 

madans  who  ousted  the  Hindu  dynasties  ;  it  suffered  cruelly 

from    the  Roman    inquisitors  of  the    Portuguese ;   but  it  has 

survived  its  persecutors,  and  has  formed  a  subject  of  interest 

to  Anglican  inquirers  during  the  past  eighty  years.* 

'Ihe  tliree        The  three  legends  of  St.  Thomas,  the  missionary  of  Southern 

<ii\sr^  ^      India,   may  be    summarized   as   follows.      According   to   the 

Thomas.     Chaldsean  Breviary  and  certain  Fathers  of  the  Catholic  Church, 

'  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  (quarto  edition,  1788),  vol.  iv. 
p.  599,  footnote  122. 

-  Census  of  India,  1881,  vol.  ii.  pp.  20,  21.  The  Census  officers  return 
•  the  whole   as   'Syrians,'  without   discriminating   between  Jacobites    and 

.Syrian  Catholics.  A  statement  kindly  supplied  to  the  author  by  the  Vicar- 
Apostolic  of  Verapoli  returns  the  Syrian  Catholics  within  his  jurisdiction 
at  over  200,000,  and  the  Jacobites  at  about  100,000.  The  latter  are 
chiefly  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  vicars-apostolic  of  Verapoli 
and  Quilon,  but  are  still  distinguished  as  'Catholics  of  the  Syrian  rite.' 

■*  .See  Protestant  Missions  in  India,  Burma,  and  Ceylon,  Statistical 
Tables,  1881,  drawn  up  under  the  authority  of  the  Calcutta  Missionary 
Conference.  This  valuable  compilation  returns  138,731  Native  Protestant 
Christians  in  1861,  and  224,258  in  1871,  in  India,  exclusive  of  Burma. 

*  From  the  time  of  Claudius  Buchanan  and  Bishop  Heber  downwards. 
See  Asiatic  Researches,  vol.  vii.,  'Account  of  St.  Thome  Christians  on  the 
coast  of  Malabar,'  by  Mr.  Wrede  ;  Buchanan's  Christian  Researches  in 
Asia,  4th  ed.  (1811),  pp.  106,  145  ;  Heber's  Journal,  vol.  ii.;  Bishop 
Middleton's  Life  of  Le  Bas,  chapters  ix.-xii,  (1831)  ;  Hough's  Hist,  of 
Christianity  in  India,  5  vols.  (1839-60). 


THREE  LEGENDS  OF  ST.  THOMAS.        231 

St.  Thomas  the  Apostle  converted  many  countries  of  Asia,  and  52  to  68 
found  a  martyr's  death  in  India.     The  meagre  tradition  of  the  ^'^'     ' 
early  Church  was  expanded  by  the  CathoUc  writers  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.     The  abstract  by  Vincenzo 
Maria  makes  the  Apostle  commence  his  work  in  Mesopotamia,  First 

and  includes  Bactria,  Central  Asia,  China,  '  the  States  of  the  e%u    ' 

'  '  '  bt.  Thomas 

Great  Mogul,'  Siam,  Germany,   Brazil,  and  Ethiopia,  in  the  the 

circle  of  his  missionary  labours.     The  apostolic  traveller  then  -Apostle 

sailed  east  again  to  India,  converting  the  island  of  Socotra  on 

the  way,  and  after  preaching  in  Malabar,  ended  his  labours 

on  the  Coromandel  coast.^     The  final   development   of  the 

tradition  fills  in  the  details  of  his  death.     It  would  appear  that 

Gin   the    2ist    December   68  a.d.,  at   Mailapur,   a  suburb  of 

Madras,  the  Brahmans  stirred  up  a  tumult  against  the  Apostle, 

who,  after  being  stoned  by  the  crowd,  was  finally  thrust  through 

with  a  spear  upon  the  spot  now  known  as  St.  Thomas'  Mount. 

The   second   legend   assigns   the   conversion    of    India   to  Second 
Thomas  the  Manichcean,  or  disciple  of  Manes,  towards  the  3^,^send: 
end  of  the  third  century.     Another  legend  ascribes  the  honour  the  Mani- 
to  an  Armenian  merchant,  Thomas  Cana,  in  the  eighth  century.  chKan(277 
The  story  relates  that  Alar  Thomas,  the  Armenian,  settled  in 
Malabar  for  purposes  of  trade,  married  two  Indian  ladies,  and  Third 
grew  into  power  with  the  native  princes.     He  found  that  such  Legend  : 
Christians  as  existed   before   his   time  had    been   driven  by  t^g  ;^,'.' 
persecution  from  the  coast  into  the  hill-country.     Mar  Thomas  menian 
secured  for  them  the  privilege  of  worshipping  according  to  ^^  oa.d.  ) 
their  faith,  led  them  back  to  the  fertile  coast  of  Malabar,  and 
became  their  archbishop.     On  his  death,  his  memory  received 
the  gradual  and  spontaneous  honours  of  canonization  by  the 
Christian  communities  for  whom  he  had  laboured,  and  his 
name  became  identified  with  that  of  the  Apostle. 

Whatever  may  be  the  claims  of  the  Armenian  Thomas  as  the  Tlie  three 

re-builder  of  the  Church  in  Southern  India,  he  was  certainly  Legends 

'  •'  examined ; 

not  its  founder.  Apart  from  the  evidence  of  Patristic  litera- 
ture, there  is  abundant  local  proof  that  Christianity  flourished 
in  Southern  India  long  before  the  eighth  century.  In  the  sixth  the  third ; 
century,  while  Buddhism  was  still  at  the  height  of  its  power, 
Kalyan,  on  the  Bombay  coast,  was  the  seat  of  a  Christian  bishop 
from  Persia.- 

^  The  Book  of  Scr  Marco  Polo  the  Venetian.  Colonel  Yule's  second 
edition,  vol.  ii.  p.  343,  note  4  (1875). 

-  Gazetteer  of  the  Bombay  Presidency,  vol.  xiii.  part  i. ,  Thana  District, 
pp.  66,  200,  etc.  It  is  not  necessary  to  dispute  whether  the  seat  of  this 
bishopric  was  the  modern  Kalyan  or  Quilon  (Coilam)^  as  the  coast  from 
Bombay  southwards  to  Quilon  bore  indefinitely  the  name  of  Caliana, 


first 


232  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

the  second  The  claims  of  Thomas  the  INIanichaean  have  the  European 
legend ;  support  of  the  Church  historians,  La  Croze,^  Tillemont,  and 
others.  The  local  testimony  of  a  cross  dug  up  near  Madras 
in  1547,  bearing  an  inscription  in  the  Pehlvi  tongue,  has 
also  been  urged  in  his  favour.  The  inscription  is  probably  of 
the  seventh  or  eighth  century  a.d.,  and,  although  somewhat 
variously  deciphered,  bears  witness  to  the  sufferings  of 
Christ.2 
and  the  For  the  claims  of  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle,  a  longer  and  more 

ancient  series  of  authorities  are  cited.  The  apocryphal  history 
of  St.  Thomas,  by  Abdias,  dating  perhaps  from  the  end  of  the 
first  century,  narrates  that  a  certain  Indian  king,  Gondaphorus, 
sent  a  merchant  called  Abban  to  Jesus,  to  seek  a  skilful 
architect  to  build  him  a  palace.  The  story  continues  that  the 
Lord  sold  Thomas  to  him  as  a  slave  expert  in  that  art.^  The 
Apostle  converted  King  Gondaphorus,  and  then  journeyed  on 
to  another  country  of  India,  under  King  Meodeus,  where  he 

^  Hisloire  du  Christiaiiisme  des  Indes,  2  vols.  l2mo  (The  Hague,  175S). 
■^  Professor  Haug  reads  it  thus  :  '  Whoever  believes  in  the  Messiah,  and 
in  God  above,  and  also  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  in  the  grace  of  Him  who 
bore  the  pain  of  the  cross.'  Dr.  Burnell  deciphers  it  more  diffidently: — 
'  In  punishment  [?]  by  the  cross  [was]  the  suffering  of  this  [one]  :  [He]  who 
is  the  true  Christ  and  God  above,  and  Guide  for  ever  pure.'  Yule's  Marco 
Polo,  2nd  ed.,  p.  345,  vol.  ii. ;  also  p.  339,  where  the  cross  is  figured. 

^  This  legend  forms  the  theme  of  the  Hyviniis  in  Festo  Sancti  Thomac 
Apostoli,   ad   Vespemm,   in  the   Mozarabic  Breviary,  edited  by  Cardinal 
Lorenzana  in  1775.     Its  twenty-one  verses  are  given  as  an  appendix  in  Dr. 
Rennet's  Madras  monograph.     Three  stanzas  will  here  suffice  : — 
'  Nuncius  venit  de  Indis 
Quaerere  artificem  : 
Architectum  construere 

Regium  palatium  : 
In  foro  deambulabat 
Cunctorum  venalium, 

Habeo  servum  fidelem, 
Locutus  est  Dominus, 
Ut  exquiris  talem,  aptum 

Esse  hunc  artificem  : 
Abbanes  videns,  et  gaudens, 
Suscepit  Apostolum.' 
The  hymn  assigns  the  death  of  the  Apostle  to  the  priest  o-f  a  sun  temple 
■which  had  been  overthrown  by  St.  Thomas  : — 

*  Tunc  sacerdos  idolorum 

Furibundus  astitit, 

Gladio  transverberavit 

Sanctum  Christi  martyrem. 
Glorioso  passionis 
Laureatum  sanguine. ' 


THE  'INDIA'  OF  HIE  FATHERS.  233 

was  slain  by  lances.'^     The  existence  of  a  King  Gondaphorus 

has  been  established  by  coins,  which  would  place  him  in  the 

last  century  r.c,  or  within  the  first  half  of  the  first  century  of 

our   era. 2      But,  apart  from   difficulties  of  chronology,  it   is 

clear  that  the  Gondaphorus  of  the  coins  was  an  Indo-Scythic 

monarch,  reigning  in  regions  which  had  no  connection  with 

Malabar.     His  coins  are  still  found  in  numbers  in  Afghanistan 

and  the  Punjab,  especially  from  Peshawar  to  Ludhiana.     He 

was  essentially  a  Punjab  potentate. 

The  mention  of  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle  in  connection  with  Wide 

India  by  the  Fathers,  and  in  the  Offices  of  the  Church,  does  meaning  of 

1    •  1     •         /- 1  •       India, 

not  brmg  him  nearer  to  Malabar,  or  to  the  supposed  site  of  his 

martyrdom  at  Madras.     For  the  term  'India,'  at  the  period 

to  which  these   authorities   belong,  referred  to  the  countries 

beyond   Persia,  including  Afghanistan  and  the  basins  of  the 

Upper  Oxus,  Indus,  and  Ganges,  rather  than  to  the  southern 

half  of  the  peninsula.     In  the  early  accounts  of  the  labours  of  in  the 

St.  Thomas,  the  vague  term  India  is  almost  always  associated  fathers, 

with  Persia,  Media,  or  Bactria.^     Nor  does  the  appellation  of 

St.  Thomas  as  the  Apostle  of  India  in  the  Commemorations 

of  the  Church,  help  to  identify  him  with  the  St.  Thomas  Avho 

preached  on  the  Malabar  and  Coromandel  coasts.     Fur  not 

only  does  the  indeterminate  character  of  the  word  still  adhere 

to  their  use  of  '  India,'  but  the  area  assigned  to  the  Apostle's 

labours  is  so  wide  as  to  deprive  them  of  value  for  the  purpose 

of  local  identification.     Thus,  the  Chaldeean  Breviary  of  the 

]\Ialabar  Church  itself  states  that  'by  St.  Thomas  were   the 

^  Colonel  Yule's  Marco  Polo,  second  edition,  vol.  ii.  p.  243.  Dr.  Kennet, 
in  an  interesting  monograph  entitled  St.  1  Iwiiias,  the  Apostle  of  India, 
p.  19  (Madras,  1^:82),  says: — 'The  history  of  Abdias  was  published  for 
the  first  time  by  Wolfgang  Lazius,  under  the  title  of  Abdiiz  Babylonits, 
Episcopi  et  Apostoloriim  Discipuli,  de  Historia  certajuuiis  Apostolici,  libri 
deceiii  ;  Jtdio  Africano  Interprete.     Basilire,  1532.' 

'^  For  the  various  dates,  see  Colonel  Yule's  Marco  Polo,  second  edition, 
vol.  ii.  p.  343.  Colonel  Yule's  Cathay  deals  with  the  Chinese  and  Central 
Asian  aspects  of  the  legend  of  St.  Thomas  (2  vols.  1866). 

^  Thus  the  Paschal  Chronicle  of  Bishop  Dorotheus  (born  A.D.  254)  says  : 
'  The  Apostle  Thomas,  after  having  preached  the  gospel  to  the  Parthians, 
Medes,  Persians,  Germanians  [an  agricultural  people  of  Persia  mentioned 
by  Herodotus,  i.  125],  Bactrians,  and  Magi,  suffered  martyrdom  at  Cala- 
mina,  a  town  of  India.'  Hippolytus,  Bishop  of  Portus  {circa  220  A.D.), 
assigns  to  St.  Thomas,  Parthia,  Media,  Persia,  Hercania,  the  Bactri,  the 
Mardi,  and,  while  ascribing  the  conversion  of  India  to  St.  Bartholomew, 
mentions  Calamina,  a  city  of  India,  as  the  place  of  St.  Thomas'  martyr- 
dom. The  Metropolitan  Johannes,  who  attended  the  Council  of  Nicrea  in 
325,  subscribed  as  Bishop  of  'India  Maxima  and  l*ersia.'  Dr.  Rennet's 
monograph  (Madras,  1SS2) ;  Ilough,  i.  pp.  30  to  1 16. 


234 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


and 

Church 

Offices. 


First 

i;limpse  at 
Indian 
Christians, 
circa  190 

A.D. 


The 
Roman 
fleet  from 

Kgypt. 


Jew 
settle- 
ments 
in  ancient 
Malaljar. 


Chinese  and  the  Ethiopians  converted  to  the  Truth,'  while  one 
of  its  anthems  proclaims :  '  The  Hindus,  the  Chinese,  the 
Persians,  and  all  the  people  of  the  Isles  of  the  Sea,  they  who 
dwell  in  Syria  and  Armenia,  in  Javan  and  Roumania,  call 
Thomas  to  remembrance,  and  adore  Thy  Name,  O  Thou  our 
Redeemer ! ' 

Candid  inquiry  must  therefore  decline  to  accept  the  con- 
nection of  St.  Thomas  with  the  '  India '  of  the  early  Church 
as  proof  of  the  Apostle's  identity  wath  Thomas,  the  missionary 
to  Malabar.  Nevertheless,  there  is  evidence  to  indicate  that 
Christianity  had  reached  Malabar  before  the  end  of  the  second 
century  a.d.,  and  nearly  a  hundred  years  previous  to  the  sup- 
posed labours  of  Thomas  the  Manichsan  {circa  277  a.d.).  In 
the  2nd  century  a  Roman  merchant  fleet  of  one  hundred  sail 
steered  regularly  from  Myos  Hormus  on  the  Red  Sea,  to 
Arabia,  Ceylon,  and  Malabar.  It  found  an  ancient  Jewish 
colony,  the  remnants  of  which  still  remain  to  this  day  as  the 
Beni-Israels,^  upon  the  Bombay  coast.  Whether  these  Jews 
emigrated  to  India  at  the  time  of  the  Dispersion,  or  at  a  later 
period,  their  settlements  probably  date  from  before  the  second 
century  of  our  era. 

The  Red  Sea  fleet  from  ]\Iyos  Hormus,  which  traded  with 
this  Jewish  settlement  in  India,  must  in  all  likelihood  have 
brought  with  it  Jewish  merchants  and  others  acquainted  with 
the  new  religion  of  Christ  which,  starting  froin  Palestine,  had 
penetrated  throughout  the  Roman  world.  Pajt  of  the  fleet, 
moreover,  touched  at  Aden  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  themselves 
early  seats  of  Christianity.  Indeed,  after  the  direct  sea-course 
to  Malabar  by  the  trade  winds  was  known,  the  main  navigation 
to  India  for  some  time  hugged  the  Asiatic  coast.  Christian 
merchants  from  that  coast,  both  of  Jewish  and  other  race, 
would  in  the  natural  course  of  trade  have  reached  Malabar 
within  the  second  century  a.d.-  The  Buddhist  polity  then 
supreme  in  Southern  India  was  favourable  to  the  reception  of 
a  faith  whose  moral  characteristics  were  humanity  and  self- 
sacrifice.  Earlier  Jewish  settlers  had  already  familiarized  the 
native  mind  with  the  existence  of  an  ancient  and  imposing 

^  For  their  present  numbers  and  condition,  see  the  Bombay  Gazetteer,  Ijy 
Mr.  J.  M.  Campbell,  LL.D.,  of  the  Bombay  Civil  Service,  vol.  xi.  pp.  S5 
and  421  ;  vol.  xiii.  p.  273. 

-  The  Roman  trade  with  the  southern  coast  of  India  probably  dates 
from,  or  before,  the  Apostolic  period.  Of  522  silver  denarii  found  near 
Coimbatore  in  1842,  no  fewer  than  135  were  coins  of  Augustus,  and  378  of 
Tiberius.  Another  find  near  Calicut  about  1850  contained  an  aureus  of 
Augustus,  with  several  hundred  coins,  none  later  than  the  Emperor  Xero. 


INDIAN  CHRISTIANS,  190  a.  a  235 

religion  in  Palestine.  \\'hen  that  religion  was  presented  in  its 
new  and  more  attractive  form  of  Christianity,  no  miraculous 
intervention  was  probably  required  to  commend  it  to  the 
tolerant  Buddhist  princes  of  Southern  India. 

About  190  A.D.,  rumours,  apparently  brought  back  by  the  ^^alabar 
Red  Sea  fleet,  of  a  Christian  community  on  the  Malabar  coast,  .-^.^     '^ ^' 
fired  the  zeal  of  Pantsenus  of  Alexandria.     Panta^nus,  in  his  a.d. 
earlier  years  a  Stoic  philosopher,  was  then  head  of  the  cele-  Pantcenus. 
brated  school  which  formed  one  of  the  glories  of  his  city.     He 
started  for  India  ;  and  although  it  has  been  questioned  whether 
he  reached  India  Proper,  the  evidence  seems  in  favour  of  his 
having  done  so.     He  '  found  his  own  arrival  anticipated  by 
some  who  were  acquainted  with  the  Gospel  of  Matthew ;  to 
whom  Bartholomew,  one  of  the  apostles,  had  preached ;  and 
had  left  them  the  same  Gospel  in  the  Hebrew,  which  also  was 
preserved   until  this  time.'^     His  mission  may  be  placed  at 
the  end  of  the  2nd  century.     Early  in  the   3rd  century,  St.  Hippoly- 
Hippolytus,  Bishop  of  Portus  {circ.  220  a.d.),  also  assigns  the  220  ad' 
conversion  of  India  to  the  Apostle  Bartholomew.     To  Thomas 
he  ascribes  Persia  and  the  countries  of  Central  Asia,  although 
he  mentions  Calamina,  a  city  of  India,  as  the  place  where 
Thomas  suffered  death. 

Indeed,  the  evidence  of  the  early  Christian  writers,  so  far 

as  it  goes,  tends  to  connect  St.  Thomas  with  the  India  of  the 

ancient  world, — that  is  to  say,  with  Persia  and  Afghanistan, — 

and  St.  Bartholomew  with  the  Christian  settlements  on  the 

Malabar  coast.     Cosmos  Indicopleustes  writes  of  a  Christian  Cosmos 

Church  in  Ceylon,  and  on  the  Callian  or  Malabar  seaboard  ^""''^"' 

.  .       pleustes, 

{circ.  547  A.D.).     But  he  makes  no  mention  of  its  foundation  drc  547 

by  St.  Thomas,  which,  as  an  Alexandrian  monk,  he  would  have  •^•^• 

been  almost  sure  to  do  had  he  heard  any  local  tradition  of 

the  circumstance.      He  states  that  the  Malabar  Bishop  was 

consecrated  in    Persia ;   from  which  we   may  infer   that  the 

Christians  of  Southern  India  had  already  been  brought  within 

the   Nestorian  fold.     There  is  but  slight  evidence  for  fixing 

upon  the  Malabar  coast  as  the  seat  of  the  orthodox  Bishop 

Frumentius,  sent  forth  by  Athanasius  to  India  and  the  East, 

^'>^-  355  A.D. 

The  truth  is,  that  the  Christians  of  Southern  India  belonged  Nestorian 

from  their  first  clear  emergence  into   history  to  the   Syrian  ^"."'"'^  •" 

rite.     If,  as  seems  probable,  Christianity  was  first  brought  to 

Malabar  by  the  merchant  fleet  from  the  Persian  Gulf,  or  the 

^  Dr.  Kennet,  quoting  Eusebius,  in  his  monograph  on  St.  Thomas,  the 
Apostle  of  India,  p.  9  (Madras,  1SS2). 


236  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

Asiatic  coast  of  the  Arabian  Sea,  the  IMalabar  Christians  would 
follow  the  Asiatic  forms  of  faith.  When,  therefore,  in  the  5th 
century,  Nestorianism,  driven  forth  from  Europe  and  Africa, 
conquered  the  allegiance  of  Asia,  the  Church  of  Southern 
India  would  naturally  accept  the  Nestorian  doctrine. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  during  the  thousand  years  when 

Christianity  flourished  in  Asia,  from  the  5th  to  the  15th  century, 

it  was  the  Christianity  of  Nestorius.     The  Jacobite  sect  dwelt 

.Side  by      fj-^  j-j^g  midst  of  the  Nestorians  ;  and  for  nearly  a  thousand 

side  with  ,       ^,     .     .      .  .    ,  ,  .  ,     ^     ,  ,,  . 

Buddhism  ye^^s,  the  Christianity  of  these  types,  together  with  Buddhism, 
for  1000  formed  the  two  intelligent  religions  of  Central  Asia.  How  far 
jeaia.  Buddhism  and  Christianity  mutually  influenced  each  other's 
doctrine  and  ritual  still  remains  a  complex  problem.  But 
Christianity  in  western  Central  Asia  appears  to  have  oftered  a 
longer  resistance  than  Buddhism  to  the  advancing  avalanche 
of  Islam  ;  and  in  the  countries  to  the  west  of  Tibet  it  survived 
its  Buddhist  riv^al.  '  Under  the  reign  of  the  Caliphs,'  says 
Gibbon,  '  the  Nestorian  Church  was  diffused  from  China  to 
Jerusalem  and  Cyprus ;  and  their  numbers,  with  those  of  the 
Jacobites,  were  computed  to  surpass  the  Greek  and  Latin 
communions.'  ^ 

The  marvellous  history  of  the  Christian  Tartar  potentate, 
Prester  John,  king,  warrior,  and  priest,  is  a  mediaeval  legend 
based  on  the  ascendancy  of  Christianity  in  some  of  the 
Central  Asian  States. ^  The  travellers  in  Tartary  and  China, 
Its  wide  from  the  12th  to  the  15  th  century,  bear  witness  to  the 
extensive  survival,  and  once  flourishing  condition,  of  the 
Nestorian  Church,  and  justify  Pierre  Bergeron's  description 
of  it  as  '  epandue  par  toute  I'Asie.'  ^  The  term  Catholico^, 
which  the  Nestorians  applied  to  their  Patriach,  and  the 
Jacobites  to  their  Metropolitan,  survives  in  the  languages  of 
Central  India.  The  mediaeval  travellers  preserve  it  in  various 
forms;'*   and  the  British  Embassy  to  Yarkand,  in  1873,  still 

^  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Einpii-e,  p.  598,  vol.  iv.  (quarto  ed. 
1788).  Gibbon  quotes  his  authorities  for  this  statement  in  a  footnote. 
The  whole  subject  of  early  Christianity  in  Central  Asia  and  China  has 
been  discussed  with  exhaustive  learning  in  Colonel  Yule's  Cathay,  and  the 
Way  Thither.     Hakluyt  Society,  2  vols.  1866. 

2  'Voyage  de  Rubruquis  en  Tartarie,'  chap,  xix.,  in  the  quarto  volume 
of  Voyages  en  Asie,  published  at  the  Hague  in  1735.  Guillaume  de  Rubru- 
quis was  an  ambassador  of  Louis  ix.,  sent  to  Tartary  and  China  in  1253 
A.D.  Colonel  Yule  also  gives  the  story  of  Prester  John  in  Marco  Polo, 
vol.  i.  pp.  229-233  (ed.  1875). 

3  'Traite  des  Tartares,'  par  Pierre  Bergeron,  chap.  iii.  in  the  Hague 
quarto  of  Voyages  en  Asie,  above  quoted  (1735). 

*  ldthalik,Jalolie,  Jatclie  ;  originally  GalJialik. 


diffusion. 


ST.   THOMAS  OF  MADRAS.  237 

came  upon  a  story  of  '  a  poor  and  aged  Jatlik,  or  Christian 
priest.'  ^ 

Whether  the  Christians  on  the  coast  of  Malabar  were  a  direct  'Thomas  ^ 
offshoot  of  the  Nestorian  Church  of  Asia,  or  the  result  of  an  of  Persia'- 
earlier  seedling  dropped  by  St.  Thomas  or  St.  Bartholomew 
on  their  apostolic  travels,  it  is  certain  that  from  their  first 
appearance  in  local  history,  the  Malabar  Christians  obeyed 
bishops  from  Persia  of  the  Nestorian  rite.^  By  the  7th  cen- 
tury, the  Persian  Church  had  adopted  the  name  of  Thomas 
Christians,  and  this  title  would  in  time  be  extended  to  all  its 
branches,  including  that  of  Malabar.  The  early  legend  of  the  and  of 
Manichsan  Thomas  in  the  3rd  century,  and  the  later  labours 
of  the  Armenian  Thomas,  the  rebuilder  of  the  Malabar  Church, 
in  the  8th,  had  endeared  that  name  to  the  Christians  of 
Southern  India.  In  their  isolation  and  ignorance,  they  con- 
founded the  three  names,  and  concentrated  their  legends  of 
the  three  Thomases  in  the  person  of  the  Apostle.^  Before  the 
14th  century,  they  had  completed  the  process  by  believing  that 
St.  Thomas  was  Christ. 

The  fitness  of  things  soon  required  that  the  life  and  death  Legend 

of  the  Apostle  should  be  localized  by  the  Southern   Indian  ?1^^' 

^  ■'  Thomas 

Church.     Patristic  literature  clearly  declares  that  St.  Thomas  localized  ; 

had  suffered  martyrdom  at  Calamina,  probably  in  some  country 

east  of  Persia,  or  in  Northern  India  itself.     The  tradition  of 

the  Church  is  equally  distinct,  that  in  394  a.d.  the  remains  of 

the  Apostle  were  transferred  to  Edessa  in  Mesopotamia.'*    The 

attempt  to  localize  the  death  of  St.  Thomas  on  the  south-  in  spite  of 

western  coast  of  India  started,  therefore,  under  disadvantages,  difficulties, 

at  Madias, 
A  suitable  site  was,  however,  found  at  the  Mount  near  Madras, 

one  of  the  many  hill  shrines  of  ancient   India  which  have 

formed  a  joint  resort  of  religious  persons  of  diverse  faiths, — 

Buddhist,  Muhammadan,  and  Hindu  {ajite,  p.  203). 

^Marco  Polo,  the  first  European  traveller  who  has  left  an  13th  cen- 
account  of  the  place,  gives  the  legend  in  its  undeveloped  form  QfYhe""" 

legend. 

'  Dr.  Bellevv's  '  History  of  Kashgar,'  in  the  Official  Report  of  Sir 
Douglas  Forsyth's  Mission,  p.  127.  (Quarto,  Foreign  Office  Press,  Cal- 
cutta, 1875.) 

^  Mr.  Campbell's  Bombay  Gazetteer,  Thana  District,  chap.  iii.  (Bombay, 
1882.) 

^  The  Jacobites,  or  followers  of  Jacobus  Baradaeus,  prefer  in  the  same 
way  to  deduce  their  name  and  pedigree  from  the  Apostle  James.  Gibbon, 
iv.  603,  footnote  (ed.  1788). 

*  For  the  authorities,  see  Dr.  Kennet's  Madras  monograph,  St.  TJiomas, 
the  Apostle  of  India  (1882) ;  and  Colonel  Yule's  critical  note,  Marco  Polo, 
vol.  ii.  p.  342  (2nd  edition,  1S75). 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Mixed 
worship 
at  the 
shrine. 


The 

legend  as 
developed 


by  the 
Portu- 
guese. 


Relics  at 
Goa. 


Final  form 
of  the 
legend. 


ill  the  i3tli  century.     The  Apostle  had,  it  seems,  been  acci- 
dentally killed  outside  his  hermitage  by  a  fowler,  who,  '  not 
seeing  the  saint,  let  fly  an  arrow  at  one  of  the  peacocks.     And 
this  arrow  struck  the  holy  man  in  the  right  side,  so  that  he 
died  of  the  wound,  sweetly  addressing  himself  to  his  Creator.' i 
Miracles  were  wrought  at  the  place,  and   conflicting  creeds 
claimed   the   hermit   as   their   own.       '  Both   Christians   and 
Saracens,  however,  greatly  frequent  the  pilgrimage,'  says  Marco 
Polo  truthfully,  although  evidently  a  little  puzzled.^     '  For  the 
Saracens  also  do  hold  the  Saint  in  great  reverence,  and  say 
that  he  was  one  of  their  own  Saracens,  and  a  great  prophet.' 
Not  only  the    Muhammadans   and  Christians,   but  also  the 
Hindus  seem  to  have  felt  the  religious  attractions  of  the  spot. 
About  thirty  years  after  Marco  Polo,  the  Church  itself  was, 
according  to  Odoric,  filled  with  idols.^     Two  centuries  later, 
Joseph  of  Cranganore,  the  Malabar  Christian,  still  testifies  to 
the  joint  worship  of  the  Christian  and  the  heathen   at  St. 
Thomas'  Mount.     The  Syrian  bishops  sent  to  India  in  1504 
heard   '  that  the  Church  had  begun  to  be  occupied  by  some 
Christian  people.     But  Barbosa,  a  few  years  later,  found  it  half 
in  ruins,  and  in  charge  of  a  Muhammadanyi7/&/;-,  who  kept  a 
lamp  burning.'  ^ 

Brighter  days,  however,  now  dawned  for  the  Madras  legend. 
Portuguese  zeal,  in  its  first  fervours  of  Indian  evangelization, 
felt  keenly  the  want  of  a  sustaining  local  hagiology.  Saint 
Catherine  had,  indeed,  visibly  delivered  Goa  into  their  hands  ; 
and  a  parish  church,  afterwards  the  cathedral,  was  dedicated 
to  her  in  1512.  Ten  years  later,  the  viceroy  Duarte  Menezes 
became  ambitious  of  enriching  liis  capital  with  the  bones  of  an 
apostle.  A  mission  from  Goa  despatched  to  the  Coromandel 
coast  in  1522,  proved  itself  ignorant  of,  or  superior  to,  the 
well-established  legend  of  the  translation  of  the  Saint's  remains 
to  Edessa  in  394  a.d.,  and  found  his  sacred  relics  at  the 
ancient  hill  shrine  near  Madras,  side  by  side  with  those  of  a 
king  whom  he  had  converted  to  the  faith.  They  were  brought 
with  pomp  to  Goa,  the  Portuguese  capital  of  India,  and  there 
they  lie  in  the  Church  of  St.  Thomas  to  this  day.^ 

The  finding  of  the  Pehlvi  cross,  mentioned  on  a  previous 
page,  at  St.  Thomas'  Mount  in  1547,  gave  a  fresh  colouring  to 


1  Colonel  Yule's  Marco  Polo  (2nd  edition,  1875),  vol.  ii.  p.  340. 

2  Idem,  ii.  pp.  337-338-  ^  Idem,  ii.  p.  344-  *  Il>id. 

*  Ibid.  Colonel  Yule's  Cathay  (2  vols.  1866)  should  also  be  referrefl  to 
by  students  of  the  legend  of  St.  Thomas,  and  his  alleged  labours  in  Asia 
and  India. 


KING  ALFREUS  EMBASSY.  239 

the  legend.  So  far  as  its  inscription  goes,  it  points  to  a  Persian, 
and  probably  to  a  ManicliKan  origin.  But  at  the  period  when 
it  was  dug  up,  no  one  in  Madras  could  decipher  its  Pehlvi 
characters.  A  Brahman  impostor,  knowing  that  there  was  a 
local  demand  for  martyrs,  accordingly  came  forward  with  a 
fictitious  interpretation.  The  simple  story  of  Thomas'  acci- 
dental death  from  a  stray  arrow,  had  before  this  grown  into  a 
cruel  martyrdom  by  stoning  and  a  lance-thrust,  with  each  spot 
in  the  tragedy  fixed  at  the  Greater  and  Lesser  Mount  near 
INIadras.  The  Brahman  pretended  to  supply  a  confirmation 
of  the  legend  from  the  inscription  on  the  cross — a  confirma- 
tion which  continued  to  be  accepted  until  Dr.  Burnell  and 
Professor  Haug  published  their  decipherments  in  our  own 
day.  'In  the  i6th  and  17th  century,'  says  Colonel  Yule, 
'  Roman  Catholic  ecclesiastical  story-tellers  seem  to  have 
striven  in  rivalry  who  should  most  recklessly  expand  the  travels 
of  the  Apostle.' 

The  lying  interpretation  of  the   Brahman,  and  the  visible  King 

relics   in  the  church  at  Goa,    seem  to   have  influenced  the  ^   ,     ^ 

.  Embassy, 

popular  imagination  more  powerfully  than  the  clear  tradition  of 

the  early  Church  regarding  the  translation  of  the  Apostle's  relics 

to  Edessa.     Our  own  King  Alfred  has  been  pressed  into  the 

service  of  St.  Thomas  of  Madras.     '  This  year,'  883  a.d.,  says 

the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  '  Sighelm  and  Athelstane  carried 

to  Rome  the  alms  which  the  king  had  vowed  to  send  thither, 

and  also  to  India  to  St.  Thomas  and  to  St.  Bartholomew.'  ^ 

Gibbon    suspects    '  that   the    English   ambassadors    collected 

their  cargo   and   legend   in    Egypt.'  ^     There  is  certainly  no 

evidence  to  show  that  they  ever  visited  the  Coromandel  coast,  but  to 

and  much  to  indicate  that  the  '  India'  of  Alfred  was  the  India  ^Y"!*^" 

shrine 

of  the  early  Church,  and  far  north-west  of  the  Madras  exploits 
of  the  Apostle.  The  legend  of  St.  Thomas'  Mount  has  in  our 
own  century  been  illustrated  by  the  eloquence  and  learning 
of  bishops  and  divines  of  the  Anglo-Indian  Church.  '  But,' 
concludes  Colonel  Yule,  '  I  see  that  the  authorities  now 
ruling  the  Catholics  at  Madras  are  strong  in  disparagement 
of  the  special  sanctity  of  the  localities,  and  of  the  whole  story 
connecting  St.  Thomas  with  Mailapur,'  the  alleged  scene  of  his 
martyrdom.-' 

'  Hough,  i.  p.  104  (1839);  Dr.  Rennet's  Madras  monograph,  St.  Thomas, 
the  Apostle  of  India,  pp.  6,  7  (1882). 

-  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  vol.  iv.  p.  599,  footnote  1 23 
(ed.  1788)  ;  Hough,  vol.  i.  pp.  105-107. 

^  Colonel  Vule's  Marco  Polo,  ii.  p.  344  (ed.  1S75;. 


240 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Troubles 
of  the 
Ancient 
Indian 
Church. 


The  St. 
Thomas 
Christians 
a  military 
caste  ; 


As  a  matter  of  history,  the  Ufe  of  the  Nestorian  Church  in 
India  has  been  a  troubled  one.  A  letter  from  the  Patriarch 
Jesajabus  to  Simeon,  Metropolitan  of  Persia,  shows  that  before 
660  A.D.,  the  Christians  along  the  Indian  coast  were  destitute 
of  a  regular  ministry.^  In  the  8th  century,  the  Armenian 
friar  Thomas  found  the  Malabar  Christians  driven  back  into 
the  recesses  of  the  mountains.  In  the  14th  century,  Friar 
Jordanus  declared  them  to  be  Christians  only  in  name, 
without  baptism.  They  even  confounded  St.  Thomas  with 
Christ.^  A  mixed  worship.  Christian,  Muhammadan,  and 
Hindu,  went  on  at  the  old  high  place  or  joint  hill  shrine  near 
Madras.  In  some  centuries,  the  Church  in  Southern  India 
developed,  like  the  Sikhs  in  the  Punjab,  into  a  military  sove- 
reignty. In  others,  it  dwindled  away ;  its  remnants  lingering 
in  the  mountains  and  woods,  or  adopting  heathen  rites.  The 
family  names  of  a  forest  tribe  ^  in  Kanara,  now  Hindus,  bear 
witness  to  a  time  when  they  were  Christians  ;  and  there  were 
probably  many  similar  reversions  to  paganism. 

The  downfall  of  the  Nestorian  Church  in  India  was  due, 
however,  neither  to  such  reversions  to  paganism  nor  to  any 
persecutions  of  native  princes ;  but  to  the  pressure  of  the 
Portuguese  Inquisition,  and  the  proselytizing  energy  of  Rome. 
Before  the  arrival  of  Vasco  da  Gama  in  1498,  the  St.  Thomas 
Christians  had  established  their  position  as  a  powerful  military 
caste  in  Malabar.  The  Portuguese  found  them  firmly  organized 
under  their  spiritual  leaders,  bishops,  archdeacons,  and  priests, 
who  acted  as  their  representatives  in  dealing  with  the  Indian 
princes.  For  long  they  had  Christian  kings,  and  at  a  later  period 
chiefs,  of  their  own.^  In  virtue  of  an  ancient  charter  ascribed 
to  Cherumal  Perumal,  Suzerain  of  Southern  India  in  the  ninth 
century  a.d.,  the  Malabar  Christians  enjoyed  all  the  rights  of 
nobility.^  They  even  claimed  precedence  of  the  Nairs,  who 
formed  the  heathen  aristocracy.     The  St.  Thomas  Christians 

'  Assemani  Bibliotheca,  quoted  by  Bishop  Caldwell,  Comparative 
Grammar  of  the  Dravidian  Languages,  p.  27,  footnote  (ed.  1875). 
Jesajabus  died  660  A.D. 

^  Jordanus,  quoted  in  Mr.  J.  M.  Campbell's  Bombay  Gazetteer,  vol.  xiii. 
part  i.  p.  2CO  (ed.  1882). 

^  The  Mardthi  Sidis.  For  an  interesting  account  of  them,  see  Mr.  J.  M. 
Campbell's  Bombay  Gazetteer,  Kanara  District,  vol.  xv.  part  i.  p.  397 
(ed.  1883). 

*  Histoi)-e  du  Ckristianisme  dcs  hides,  par  M.  V.  La  Croze,  vol.  i.  p.  72, 
ii.  p.  133,  etc.  (2  vols.  i2mo,  The  Hague,  1758). 

*  Idem,  i.  p.  67.  For  details,  see  The  Syrian  Church  of  Malabar,  by 
Edavalikel  Philipos,  p.  23,  and  footnote  (Oxford,  1869).  Local  legend 
vainly  places  Cherumal  Perumal  and  his  grant  as  far  back  as  345  A.D. 


syyon  of  diamper.  241 

and  the  Nairs  were,  in  fact,  the  most  important  military  castes 

on  the  south-west  coast.  ^     They  suppHed  the  bodyguard  of  the  Powerful 

local  kin^s  ;  and  the  Christian  caste  was  the  first  to  learn  the  ^     ^^\ 

spected. 
use   of  gunpowder   and   fire-arms.      They  thus   became   the 

matchlockmen  of  the  Indian  troops  of  Southern  India,  usually 

placed  in  the  van,  or  around  the  person  of  the  prince. 

The  Portuguese,  by  a  happy  chance,  landed  on  the  very  Portu- 
Province  of  India  in  which  Christianity  was  most  firmly  estab-  S"^se 
lished,  and  in  which  Christians  had  for  long  formed  a  recog-  their  con- 
nised  and  respected  caste.    The  proselytizing  energy  of  the  new-  version  to 
comers  could  not,  however,  rest  satisfied  with  their  good  fortune.     °""^' 
That  energy  was  vigorously  directed  both  against  the  natives 
and  the  ancient  Christian  communities.     Indeed,  the  Xestorian 
heresy  of  the  St.  Thomas  Christians  seemed  to  the  fervour  of  the 
friars  to  be  a  direct  call  from  heaven  for  interference  by  the 
orthodox  Church,    The  Portuguese  established  the  Inquisition, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  at  Goa  in  1560.     After  various  Portu- 
guese attempts,  strongly  resisted  by  the  St.  Thomas  Christians, 
the  latter  were  incorporated  into  the  Catholic  Church,  by  the 
labours  of  Alexis  de  IMenezes,  Archbishop  of  Goa,  in  1599. 
The  Synod  held  by  him  at  Udayampura  (or  Diamper),  near 
Cochin,  in  that  year  denounced  Nestorius  and  his  heresies,  and 
put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  the  Indian  Nestorian  Church. 

No  document  could  be  more  exhaustively  complete  than  Synod  of 
the  Acts  and  Decrees  of  the  Synod  of  Diamper,  in  its  pro-  Troo"^^'^' 
visions  for  bringing  the  Malabar  Christians  within  the  Roman 
fold. 2  The  sacred  books  of  the  St.  Thomas  congregations,  their 
missals,  their  consecrated  oil  and  church  ornaments,  were 
publicly  burned  ;  and  their  religious  nationality  as  a  separate 
caste  was  abolished.  But  when  the  firm  hand  of  Archbishop 
Menezes  was  withdrawn,  his  parchment  conversions  began  to 
lose  their  force.  Notwithstanding  the  watchfulness  of  the 
Goa  Inquisition  over  the  new  converts,  the  Decrees  of  the 
Synod  of  Diamper  fell  into  neglect,^  and  the  ]\Ialabar  Christians 
chafed  under  a  line  of  Jesuit  prelates  from  1601  to  1653. 

In  1653   they  renounced   their   allegiance   to   their   Jesuit 

'  For  the  military  aspects  of  the  Christian  caste  of  St.  Thomas,  see 
La  Croze  (0/.  cit.),  ii.  pp.  128,  129,  130,  140,  155,  etc.  The  History  of 
the  Church  of  Malabar  and  Synod  of  Diamper,  by  the  learned  Michael 
Geddes,  Chancellor  of  the  Cathedral  Church  of  Sarum  (London,  1694),  an 
earliet  and  independent  work,  bears  out  this  view. 

^  The  Acts  and  Decrees  of  the  Synod  of  Diamper  (i.e.  Udayampura) 
occupy  346  pages  of  the  Chancellor  of  Sarum's  History  of  the  Chtirch  of 
Malabar,  pp.  97-443  (ed.  1 694). 

•^  La  Croze,  ii.  p.  193. 

Q 


242  CHRISTIANITY  IX  INDIA. 

Reversions  bishop.     A  Carmelite  mission  was  despatched  from  Rome  in 

version^      -^^5^  ^°  restore  order.     The  vigorous  measures  of  its  head, 

1653- 1663.  Joseph  of  St.  Mary,  brought  back  a  section  of  the  old  Christian 

communities ;    and  Joseph,  having   reported   his  success    at 

Rome,  returned  to  India  as  their  bishop  in  1661.     He  found 

the   Protestant   Dutch  pressing   the  Portuguese  hard   on  the 

Malabar   coast,   1 661-1663.     But   the   old   military  caste   of 

Malabar  Christians  rendered  no  assistance  to  their  Catholic 

superiors,  and   remained   tranquil  spectators  of  the  struggle, 

till  the  capture  of  Cochin  by  the   Dutch  brought  about  the 

ruin  of  the  Portuguese  power  in  1663. 

Malabar         The  Malabar  Christians,  thus  delivered  from  the  temporal 

fre"rf  b^"^  power  of  the  Portuguese,  re-asserted  their  spiritual  independ- 

the  Dutch,  ence.     The  Portuguese  had  compelled  the  native  princes  to 

1663  ;         persecute  the  old  Christian  communities  ;  and  by  confiscations, 

imprisonments,  and  various  forms  of  pressure,   to   drive   the 

Indian  Nestorians  into  reconciliation  with   Rome.^     Such    a 

persecution  of  a  long  recognised  caste,  especially  of  a  valued 

military  caste,  was  as  foreign  to  the  tolerant  spirit  of  Hinduism, 

as  it  was  repugnant  to  the  policy  of  the  Indian  princes,  and  it 

has  left  a  deep  impression  on  the  traditions  of  the  south-western 

coast.     The  native  Jacobite  historian  of  the  Church  of  Malabar 

rises  to  the  righteous  wrath  of  an  old  Scottish  covenanter  in 

recounting  the  bribing  of  the  poorer  chiefs  by  the  Portuguese, 

and  the  killings,  persecutions,  and  separations  of  the  married 

clergy  from  their  wives.    The  new  Dutch  masters  of  the  southern 

coast,  after  a  short  antagonism  to  the  Carmelite  prelate  and 

the  native  bishop  whom  he  left  behind,  lapsed  into  indifference. 

They  allowed  the  Roman  missionaries  free  scope,  but  put  an 

end  to  the  exercise  of  the  temporal  power  in  support  of  the 

Catholic  bishop.- 

The    chief    spiritual    weapon     of    conversion,   a    weapon 

dexterously  used  by  the   Portuguese  Viceroys,  had  been  the 

interruption  of  the  supply  of  Nestorian  bishops  from  Persia. 

receive  a     This   they  effected   by  watching   the    ports   along   the   west 

Jacobite      coast  of  India,  and  preventing  the  entrance  of  any  Nestorian 

bishop,  .  . 

1665.  prelate.     The  Syrian  Church  in  India  had  therefore  to  struggle 

on   under  its  archdeacon,  with  grave   doubts   disturbing  the 

mind  of  its  clergy  and   laity  as  to  whether  the  archidiaconal 

consecration  was  sufficient  for  the  ordination  of  its  priests. 

The  overthrow  of  the  Portuguese  on  the  seaboard  put  an  end 

to  this  long  episcopal  blockade.     In   1665,  the  Patriarch   of 

'  La  Croze,  vol.  ii.  pp.  169,  176,  1S3,  1S9,  192,  19S,  203,  etc. 
"  La  Croze,  vol.  ii.  pp.  204,  205. 


MALABAR  CHRISTIANS  SINCE  1665.        243 

Antioch  sent  a  bishop,  Mar  Gregory,  to  the  orphaned  Syrian 

Church    of   India.      But    the   new   bishop   belonged  to   the 

Jacobite  instead  of"  the  Nestorian  branch  of  the  Asiatic  Church. 

Indian  Nestorianism  may  therefore  be  said  to  have  received 

its  death-blow  from  the  Synod  of  Diamper  in  1599. 

Since  the  arrival  of  Mar  Gregory  in   1665,  the  old  Syrian  Malabar 

Church  of  India  has  remained  divided  into  two  sects.     The  Christians 

since 
PazJieia  ki'ittakdr,  or  Old  Church,  owed  its  foundation  to  Arch-  1665 ; 

bishop  Menezes  and  the  Synod  of  Diamper  in  1599,  and  its 

reconciliation,  after  revolt,  to  the  Carmelite  bishop,  Joseph  of 

St.  Mary,  in  1656.     It  retains  in  its  services  the  Syrian  language  (i)  Syrian 

and   in   part   the   Syrian    ritual.      But   it   acknowleds:es   the  Catholics, 

^  -'  .        .  .  ^  200,000  ; 

supremacy  of  the  Pope,  and  his  vicars-apostolic.     Its  members 

are  now  known  as  Catholics  of  the  Syrian  Rite,  to  distinguish 

them  from  the  converts  made  direct  from  heathenism  to  the 

Latin  Church  by  the  Roman  missionaries.     The  other  section 

of  the  Syrian  Christians  of  Malabar  is  called  the  Piitten  ktUtakdr, 

or  New  Church.     It  adheres  to  the  Jacobite  tenets  introduced  i^jteg 

by  its  first  Jacobite  bishop.  Mar  Gregory,  in  1665.  100,000? 

The   present   Jacobites   of  Malabar   condemn    equally  the  Tenets  of 
errors  of  Arius,  Nestorius,  and  the  bishops  of  Rome.^     They  l}^,  , 
hold  that  the  Bread  and  Wine  in  the  Eucharist  become  the  Jacobites. 
Real  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  and  give  communion  in  both 
kinds  mixed  together.     They  pray  for  the  dead,  practise  con- 
ft;ssion,  make  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  observe  fasts.     But 
they  reject  the  use  of  images  ;  honour  the  Mother  of  Jesus 
and  the  Saints  only  as  holy  persons  and  friends  of  God ;  allow 
the  consecration  of  a  married  layman  or  deacon  to  the  office 
of  priest ;  and   deny  the   existence   of  purgatory.       In   their 
Creed  they  follow  the  Council  of  Nicasa  (325  a.d.).     They 
believe  in  the  Trinity;  assert  the  One  Nature  and  the  One 
Person  of  Christ,  and  declare  the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
to  be  from  the  Father,  instead  of  from  the  Father  and  the  Son.- 

The  Syrian  Catholics  and  Syrian  Jacobites  of  Malabar  main-  Nesto- 
tain  their  differences  with  a  high  degree  of  religious  vitality  at  riamsm 
the  present  day.     Their  congregations  keep  themselves  distinct  Malabar. 
from  the  Catholics  of  the  Latin  Rite  converted  direct  from 
heathenism,  and  from   the    Protestant   sects.     No   Nestorian 
Church   is   now   known  to   exist   in    Malabar.^     The   Syrian 

^  The  Syrian  Christians  of  Malabar,  being  a  Catechism  of  their  doctrine 
and  ritual,  by  Edavalikel  Philipos,  Chorepiscopus  and  Cathanar  {i.e. 
priest)  of  the  Great  Church  of  Cottayam  in  Travancore,  pp.  3,  4,  8 
(Parker,  1869). 

^  The  above  summary  is  condensed  from  the  Catechism  of  Edavalike 
Philipjj,  op,  cit.  pp.  9-13,  17,  19.  ^  Idiin,  p.  29. 


244 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Portu- 
i^uese  mis- 
sionaries, 
1500  A.D., 


identified 
with  Portu- 
guese 
aggres- 
sions. 

Native  re- 
prisals or 
'  persecu- 
tions.' 


Slow 
progress. 


Xavierand 
the  Jesuits, 
1542. 


Christians  were  returned  in  1871  at  about  one-third  of  a 
million  ;  but  the  Census  officers  omitted  to  distinguish  between 
Catholic  Syrian  and  Jacobites.  The  Catholic  Archbishop 
and  Vicar- Apostolic  of  Verapoli,  to  whose  kind  assistance 
this  chapter  is  indebted  in  many  ways,  estimates  the  Syrian 
Catholics  at  200,000,  and  the  Jacobites  at  100,000.  The  totals 
for  all  Southern  India  cannot,  however,  be  ascertained  until 
the  next  Census  of  1891. 

Roman  friars  had  visited  India  since  the  13th  century.  The 
first  regularly  equipped  Catholic  mission,  composed  of  Fran- 
ciscan brethren,  arrived  from  Portugal  in  1500.  Their  attacks 
on  the  native  religions  seemed  part  of  the  Portuguese  policy  of 
aggression  on  the  Native  States.  The  pious  Portuguese  monks 
were  popularly  identified  with  the  brutal  Portuguese  soldiery, 
whose  cruelties  have  left  so  deep  a  stain  on  early  European 
enterprise  in  India.  The  military  attempts  of  the  Portuguese, 
and  their  ill-treatment  of  the  native  princes  and  the  native 
population,  provoked  unmerited  hatred  against  the  disinterested, 
if  sometimes  ill-judged,  zeal  of  the  Portuguese  missionaries. 

Native  reprisals,  which  certain  writers  have  dignified  by  the 
name  of  persecutions,  occasionally  took  place  in  return  for 
Portuguese  atrocities.  But  the  punishments  suffered  by  the 
friars  were  usually  inflicted  for  disobedience  to  the  native  civil 
power,  or  for  public  attacks  on  native  objects  of  veneration  ; 
such  attacks  as  are  provided  for  by  the  clauses  in  the  Anglo- 
Indian  Penal  Code,  which  deal  with  words  or  signs  calculated 
to  wound  the  religious  feelings  of  others.  Attacks  of  this  kind 
lead  to  tumults  among  an  excitable  population,  and  to  serious 
breaches  of  the  peace,  often  attended  with  bloodshed.  The 
native  princes,  alarmed  at  the  combined  Portuguese  assault  on 
their  territory  and  their  religion,  could  not  be  expected  to 
decide  in  such  cases  with  the  cold  neutrality  of  an  Anglo-Indian 
magistrate.     Father  Pedro  de  Covilhaiu  was  killed  in  1500. 

For  some  time,  indeed,  missionary  work  was  almost  con- 
fined to  the  Portuguese  settlements,  although  King  Emmanuel 
(1498-1521)  and  his  son  John  iii.  (1521-57)  had  much  at 
heart  the  conversion  of  the  Indians.  The  first  bishop  in  India 
was  Duarte  Nunez,  a  Dominican  (15 14-17);  and  John  de 
Albuquerque,  a  Franciscan,  was  the  first  bishop  of  Goa  (1539- 
53).  With  St.  Francis  Xavier,  who  arrived  in  1542,  began  the 
labours  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  the  East,  and  the  progress  of 
Christianity  became  more  rapid. 

St.  Francis'  name  is  associated  with  the  Malabar  coast, 
and  with  the  maritime  tracts  of  Madura  and  Southern  Madras. 


EARL  V  JESUIT  MISSIONS.  245 

He  completed  the  conversion  of  the  Paravars  in  Tinnevelli  St.  Francis 

District.^      His   relics   repose   in    a    silver   shrine    at   Goa.^  Xavicr. 

Punnaikayal,  in  Tinnevelli,    was   the   scene,   in   1549,  of  the 

death   of  Father  Antonio  Criminale,  the  protomartyr  of  the 

Society  of  Jesus  ;   and   in   the  following  year,  several   other 

lives  were   lost   in  preaching  the   gospel.      Goa   became   an 

Archbishopric  in  1577.     In  1596  to  1599,  the  Archbishop  of 

Goa,  Alexis  de  Menezes,  an  Augustinian,  succeeded  in  recon-  Alexis  de 

ciling  the  Indian  Nestorians  to  Rome ;  and  at  the  Synod  of     ^"^^^^• 

Diamper  (Udayampura,  near  Cochin)  in  1599,  the  affairs  of  the 

Indian  Christians  were  settled.     The  use  of  the  Syrian  rite  was  Syrian  rite 

retained  after  it  had  been  purged  of  its  Nestorianism.     The  [,u?'"l^  ' 

later  history  of  the  Syrian  Christians  in  Malabar  has  already  tained, 

been  traced.  ^599- 

The  Jesuit  mission  to  the  Madras  coast  dates  from   1606,  Tiie 

and    is    associated  with  the   names  of  Robert  de  Nobili  (its  -^^^"'-'^^ 

,    .  ,         Jesuits, 

founder,  who  died   1656),  John  de  Britto  (killed  in  Madura 

1693),  Beschi  the  great  scholar  (who  died  about  1746),  and 

other  illustrious  Jesuits,  chiefly  Portuguese.^     They  laboured 

in  Madura,  Trichinopoli,  Tanjore,  Tinnevelli,  Salem,  etc.    The 

mission  of  the  Karnatic,  also  a  Jesuit  mission,  was  French  in 

its  origin,  and  due  in  some  measure  to  Louis  xiv.  in  1700. 

Its  centre  was  at  Pondicherri. 

The  early  Jesuit  missions  are  particularly  interesting.  Their  Good 
priests  and  monks  became  perfect  Indians  in  all  secular  ^^  "^j^  ^'^'^ 
matters,  dress,  food,  etc.,  and  had  equal  success  among  all  Jesuits, 
castes,  high  and  low.  In  the  south  of  the  peninsula  they 
brought,  as  we  have  seen,  the  old  Christian  settlements  of  the 
Syrian  rite  into  temporary  communion  with  Rome,  and  con- 
verted large  sections  of  the  native  population  throughout 
extensive  districts.  The  Society  of  Jesus  had  also  numerous 
although  less  important  missions  in  the  north  of  India. 
During  the  17th  and  i8th  centuries,  religious  troubles  and 
difficulties  arose  in  Western  India  through  the  action  of 
the  missionaries  in  regard  to  caste  observances.  Schisms 
troubled  the  Church.  The  Portuguese  king  claimed,  as  against 
the  Pope,  to  appoint  the  Archbishop  of  Goa  ;  and  the  Dutch 
adventurers  for  a  time  persecuted  the  Catholics  along  the 
coast. 

But  in   the  i6th  century  it  seemed  as  if  Christianity  was 
destined   to  be   established   by  Jesuit   preachers   throughout 

'  See  article  Tinnevelli  District,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
^  See  article  Goa,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
^  See  articles  Madura  and  Tinnevelli,  idem. 


stations  in 
India 


246  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

a  large  part  of  India.      The  literary  activity  of  missionaries 

belonging  to  the  Order  was  also  very  great.     Their  early  efforts 

in   the   cause   of  education,   and   in   printing   books   in   the 

various  languages,   are  remarkable.       De   Nobili  and  Beschi 

have  been  named.     Fathers  Arnauld  and  Calmette  should  not 

be  forgotten. 

Letters  But   apart   from   works   of  scholarship,    the    early    Indian 

Tesiihs        Jesuits  have  left  literary  memorials  of  much  interest  and  value. 

16th  and     Their  letters,  addressed  to  the  General  of  the  Order  in  Europe, 

17th  cen-    afford  a  vivid  glimpse  into  the  state  of  India  during  the  i6th 

tunes.  11-  •  -1 

and  lytli  centuries.     One  volume,^  which  deals  with  the  period 

ending  in  1570,  furnishes  by  way  of  preface  a  topographical 

Jesuit         guide  to  the  Jesuit  stations  in  the  East.     Separate  sections  are 

devoted  to  Goa,  Cochin,  Bassein,  Thana,  and  other  places  in 

AVestern  India,  including  the  island  of  Socotra,  in  which  the 

Jesuit  brethren  still  found  remnants  of  the  Christians  of  St. 

Thomas. 

Easts  of  The  letters,  as  a  whole,  disclose  at  once  the  vitality  and  the 

Portu-        weakness  of  the  Portuguese  position  in  the  East.     The  Lusi- 
yuese  nile.         .  . 

tanian   conquest   of   India    had    a    deeper    fascination,    and 

appeared  at  the  time  to  have  a  higher  moral  significance  for 
Christendom  than  afterwards  attached  to  our  more  hesitating 
and  matter-of-fact  operations.  Their  progress  formed  a 
brilliant  triumph  of  military  ardour  and  religious  zeal.  They 
resolved  not  only  to  conquer  India,  but  also  to  convert  her. 
Only  by  slow  degrees  w-ere  they  compelled  in  secret  to  realize 
that  they  had  entered  on  a  task,  the  magnitude  of  which  they 
had  not  gauged,  and  the  execution  of  which  proved  to  be 
altogether  beyond  their  strength.  All  that  chivalry  and 
Coiiquest  enthusiastic  piety  could  effect,  they  accomplished.  But  they 
failed  to  fulfil  either  their  own  hopes,  or  the  expectations  which 
they  had  raised  in  the  minds  of  their  countrymen  at  home. 
Their  viceroys  had  to  show  to  Europe  results  which  they  were 
not  able  to  produce ;  and  so  they  were  fain  to  accept  the 
shadow  for  the  substance,  and  in  their  official  despatches  to 
represent  appearances  as  realities.  In  their  military  narratives, 
every  petty  Raja  or  village  chief  who  sent  them  a  few  pump- 
kins or  mangoes,  becomes  a  tributary  Rex,  conquered  by  their 
arms  or  constrained  to  submission  by  the  terror  of  their  name. 
In  their  ecclesiastical  epistles,  the  whole  country  is  a  land 

^  KciuDi  a  Societate Jcsti  in  Oriente  Gcstaritin  Vohimen,  Colonioe,  Anno 
1574.  It  purports  to  have  been  translated  into  Latin  from  the  Spanish. 
The  author  has  to  thank  Mr.  Ernest  Satow,  of  II.B.M.'s  Japanese  Lega- 
tion, for  a  loan  of  this  curious  volume. 


and  con- 


JESUIT  SYSTEM  OF  WORK.  247 

flowing  with  milk  and  lioncy,  and  teeming  with  a  population 
eager  for  sacramental  rites. 

The  swift  downfall  of  the  Portuguese  power,  based  upon  Parochial 
conquest  and  conversion,  will  be  exhibited  in  a  later  chapter.  o''g^"'i'-^- 
But  the  Portuguese  are  the  only  European  nation  who  have  Purtu- 
created,  or  left  behind  them,  a  Christian  State  polity  in  India.  S"^^^ 
To   this   day,  their    East    India    settlements   are   territorially 
arranged  in  parishes;  and  the  traveller  finds  himself  surrounded 
by  churches  and  other   ecclesiastical  features  of  a  Christian 
country,  among  the  rice-fields  and  jungles  of  Goa  and  Daman. 
This  parochial  organization  of  Portuguese  India  was  the  direct 
result  of  the  political    system  imposed  on  the  viceroys  from 
Europe.     But,  indirectly,  it  represents  the  method  adopted  by 
the  Society  of  Jesus  in  its  efforts  at  conversion.     The  Jesuits 
worked  to  a  large  extent  by  means  of  industrial  settlements. 
Many  of  their  stations  consisted  of  regular  agricultural  com- 
munities,  with  lands  and  a  local  jurisdiction  of  their  own. 
Indeed,  both  in  the  town  and  country,  conversion  went  hand 
in  hand  with  attempts  at  improved  husbandry,  or  with  a  train- 
ing in  some  mechanical  art. 

This  combination  of  Christianity  with  organized  labour  may  Thana,  a 
best  be  understood  from  a  description  of  two  individual  settle-  Jesuit 

1    rn,    ,  •,'■  ■      ,  ,  ■  1     ^.      ,  •       station, 

ments  :  ^  1  hana,  a  military  agricultural  station;  and  Cochm,  iccoa.d. 
a  collegiate  city  and  naval  port.  Thana,  says  a  Jesuit  letter- 
writer  in  the  middle  of  the  i6th  century,  is  a  fortified  town 
where  the  Brethren  have  a  number  of  converts.  Once  on  a 
time  a  wrinkled  and  deformed  old  man  came  to  them  from 
distant  parts,  greatly  desiring  to  be  made  a  Christian.  He  was 
accordingly  placed  before  a  picture  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and, 
having  sought  to  kiss  the  Child,  was  forthwith  baptized.  He 
died  in  peace  and  joy  next  morning.  Many  boys  and  girls 
were  likewise  bought  from  the  barbarians  for  a  few  pence 
a-piece.  These  swelled  the  family  of  Christ,  and  were  trained 
up  in  doctrine  and  handicrafts.  During  the  day  they  plied 
their  trades  as  shoemakers,  tailors,  weavers,  and  iron-workers ;  Cliristian 
on  their  return  at  evening  to  the  College,  they  sang  the  craftsmen, 
catechism  and  litanies  in  alternate  choirs.  Others  of  them 
were  employed  in  agriculture,  and  went  forth  to  collect  fruits 
or  to  work  with  the  Christian  cultivators  in  the  fields. 

There   was   also   a   Christian  village,  the    Hamlet    of  the 

'  The  following  details  were  chiefly  condensed  from  the  Rcriim  a 
Socktate  Jesit  in  Oricnte  Gestariim  Vohimcn,  already  referred  to.  This 
book  is  no  longer  in  the  author's  possession,  and  as  no  copy  is  procurable 
in  India,  the  pages  cannot  be  cited   nor  the  exact  words  verified. 


248  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

Trinity,  3000  paces  off,  upon   temple  lands    bought   up  and 
consecrated  by  the  Order.     The  Society  had,  moreover,  certain 
and  culti-    farms,  yielding  300  pieces  of  gold  a  year.     This  money  sup- 
vators.        ported  the  widows  and  orphans,  the  sick,  and  catechumens 
while  engaged  in  their  studies.     The  poorer  converts  were 
encouraged  in  agriculture  by  a  system  of  advances.     Every- 
thing seemed  to  prosper  in  the  hands  of  the  Jesuit  Brethren, 
and  their  very  goats  had  kids  by  couplets  and  triplets  every  year. 
The  husbandmen  '  are  all  excellent  cultivators  and  good  men,' 
well  skilled  in  the  Mysteries,  and  constant  in  the  practice 
of  their  faith,  assembling   daily  together  ad  signiim  angelicm 
saliitationis.     '  Even  in  the  woods,  boys  and  men  are  heard 
chanting  the  Ten  Commandments  in  a  loud  voice  from  the 
tops  of  the  palm-trees.' 
Jesuit  rural      The  management  of  the  mission  stations  seems  to  have  been 
do^  "'^^'     admirable.     Four  or  five  Brothers  of  the  Order  regulated  alike 
the  secular  and  the  spiritual  affairs  of  each  community.     One 
of  them  was  a  surgeon,  who  cured  ulcers,  sores,  and  dangerous 
maladies.     The  Christian  village  of  the  Trinity  had,  moreover, 
certain  gardens  which  the  inhabitants  held  in  common,  well 
irrigated  and  rich  in  vines^  figs,  and  medicinal  fruits.     The 
catechism  was  publicly  rehearsed  once  on  ordinary  days,  twice 
on  holidays.     They  held  frequent  musical  services ;  the  youths 
chanting  the  psalms,  robed  in  white.     The  Thana  choristers, 
indeed,  enjoyed  such  a  reputation  that  they  were  invited  to 
sing  at  the  larger  gatherings  at  Bassein ;  and  were  much  em- 
ployed at  funerals,  at  which  they  chanted  the  '  Misericordia ' 
to  the  admiration  alike  of  Christians  and  heathens.     Besides 
their  civil  and  secular  duties  in  the  town  of  Thana,  and  at  the 
Christian  village  and  farms,  the  Brethren  of  the  Order  visited  a 
circle  of  outposts  within  a  distance  of  thirty  thousand  paces ; 
'  to  the  great  gain  of  their  countrymen,  whom  they  strengthen 
in   their  faith ;    and   of  the   natives  {harbari),  whom   they  re- 
claim from    their   errors   and  superstitions  to  the  religion  of 
Christ.' 
Cochin,  a       The   Station   of  Thana    discloses    the   regulated   industry, 
co'ileqiate    spiritual  and  secular,  which  characterized  the  Jesuit  settlements 
in  India.     Cochin  may  be  taken  to  illustrate  the  educational 
labours  of  the  Order  and  its  general  scheme  of  operations. 
The  College  of  the  Society,   writes   brother   Hieronymus  in 
1570,^  has  two  grammar  schools,  attended  by  2C0  pupils,  who 
have  made  excellent  progress  both  in  their  studies  and  in  the 
practice  of  the  Christian  sacraments.     They  are  all  skilled  in 
^  Letter  to  the  General  of  the  Order,  dated  Cochin,  February  1570. 


city. 


JESUIT  COLLEGE  AT  COCIJIN.  249 

the  tenets  of  the  faith ;  many  of  them  have  learned  the 
catechism,  arranged  in  questions  and  answers,  and  are  now 
teaching  it  to  the  heathen.  The  rites  of  confession  and  com- 
munion are  in  constant  use,  and  resorted  to  on  saints'  days  by 
300  or  400  persons.  An  equal  concourse  takes  place  when 
Indulgences  are  promulgated ;  and  on  a  late  occasion,  when 
the  jubilee  granted  by  the  Pope  in  1568  was  celebrated,  'such 
was  the  importunity  of  those  seeking  confession,  that  our  priests 
could  not  find  a  breathing  space  for  rest  from  morning  to 
night.'  At  the  College  Church  alone  a  thousand  persons 
received  the  Eucharist,  chiefly  new  communicants.  A  whole- 
sale restitution  of  fraudulent  gains  took  place,  with  a  general 
1-econciliation  of  enemies,  and  a  great  quickening  of  the  faith 
in  all.  '  So  vast  was  the  concourse  at  this  single  church,  with- 
out mentioning  the  other  churches  in  the  city,  that  we  had 
from  time  to  time  to  push  out  the  throngs  from  the  edifice  into 
the  courtyard,  not  without  tears  and  lamentation  on  their  part.' 

The  College  of  the  Order  likewise  ministered  to  the  Portu-  Jesuit 
guese  fleet  stationed  off  Cochin  ;  and  the  writer  relates,  with  College  at 
perhaps  pardonable  exaggeration,  the  strict  discipline  which 
the  Brethren  maintained  among  both  officers  and  men.  During 
the  winter  they  had  also  collected  a  fund,  and  with  it  redeemed 
five  Portuguese  who,  the  year  before,  had  fallen  into  captivity 
among  '  the  Moors.'  These  men,  on  coming  to  offer  up  public 
thanksgiving  in  church,  edified  the  worthy  fathers  by  relating 
how  the  Christians  still  remaining  in  captivity  continued  firm 
in  the  Catholic  faith,  although  sorely  tormented  incommodis  et 
cniciatibus.  They  told  how  one  youth,  in  particular,  '  who  had 
attended  our  school,  on  being  tied  to  a  tree  and  threatened  by 
the  Moors  with  bows  and  arrows,  had  bravely  answered  that 
he  would  give  up  his  life  rather  than  his  faith.'  Upon  which 
the  Moors  seem  to  have  laid  aside  their  lethal  weapons,  and 
let  the  lad  off  with  a  few  kicks  and  cuffs.  Another  boy  had  at 
first  apostatized  ;  but  his  fellow-captives,  foremost  among  them 
a  nobleman  of  high  station,  threw  themselves  at  his  feet,  and 
begged  him  to  stand  firm.  The  boy  burst  into  tears,  and 
declared  that  he  had  been  led  astray  by  terror,  but  that  he 
would  now  rather  die  than  abandon  his  religion.  He  proved 
himself  as  good  as  his  word,  rushed  in  front  of  his  persecutors, 
and  openly  ]jroclaimed  himself  to  be  still  a  Christian.  '  The 
Moors,'  as  usual,  seem  to  have  taken  the  affair  with  much  good 
nature ;  and,  after  another  little  comedy  of  tying  him  to  a  tree 
and  threatening  to  shoot  him  and  cut  his  throat,  let  their  young 
apostate  go. 


250  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

Jesuit  '  I  come  now,'  continues  Father  Hieronymus,  '  to  the  harvest 

itineraries,     r  ,1  •  j      tt  1         -i      .1  ^       c  v 

of  this  year/     He  goes  on  to  describe  the  work  of  itinerating, 

from  which  we  gather  that  the  King  of  Cochin  was  friendly 
rather  than  otherwise  to  the  members  of  the  Order  and  their 
converts,  protecting  them  by  letters  patent,  and  even  giving  rise 
to  hopes  of  his  own  conversion.  No  fewer  than  220  natives 
were  baptized  in  one  day ;  and  the  Father  adduces,  as  a  proof 
of  their  sincerity,  the  fact  that  they  did  not  expect  any  material 
advantage  from  their  conversion.  '  For  neither  do  they  look 
for  a  present  of  new  clothes  at  their  baptism,  nor  for  anything 
else  from  us,  excepting  spiritual  food.  They  think  themselves 
greatly  honoured  by  the  name  of  Christians,  and  labour  to 
bring  others  to  the  truth.'  Among  the  converts  the  Nairs 
figure  a  good  deal ;  and  an  acolyte  of  this  race,  notwithstand- 
ing that  he  was  harassed  by  the  'older  Christians,'  brought  in 
other  Nairs,  by  twos  and  threes,  for  baptism.  The  worthy 
Father  uses  '  Nair '  as  the  name  of  '  a  certain  military  class,' 
and  so  touches  on  the  actual  position  held  by  this  tribe 
three  hundred  years  ago. 
Conver-  Conversion  was  not,  however,  always  without  its  troubles. 

The  story  of  a  young  Moor,  whose  mother  was  a  cruel  woman, 
and  buried  him  in  the  ground  up  to  his  mouth  for  turning  a 
Christian,  is  told  with  honest  pride.  His  unkind  parent  likewise 
placed  a  huge  stone  round  his  head,  designing  that  he  should 
die  a  slow  and  painful  death.  But  the  boy  managed  to  peep 
through  a  cleft  in  the  stone,  and  spied  some  travellers  passing 
that  way,  whereupon,  although  he  had  formerly  known  nothing 
of  Latin,  he  managed  to  shout  out  the  two  words,  ^  exopto 
Christum.^  On  hearing  this,  the  travellers  dug  up  the  lad  and 
took  him  before  the  Governor,  who,  in  an  obliging  manner, 
gave  over  the  boy  to  the  College  to  be  baptized,  and  sent  the 
mother  to  prison.  The  neophytes  seem  to  have  been  spirited 
lads  ;  and  the  Father  narrates  how  about  two  thousand  of  them 
took  part  in  the  military  games  held  when  the  fleet  was  lying 
off  Cochin,  and  distinguished  themselves  so  greatly  with  various 
sorts  of  darts  and  weapons,  that  '  they  came  next  to  the  Portu- 
guese soldiers.' 
Efforts  at  The  College  took  advantage  of  the  illness  of  the  king  during 
royal  con-  the  course  of  the  year  to  try  to  convert  him  ;  but  his  majesty, 
although  civil  and  friendly,  declined  their  well-meaning  efforts. 
They  were  more  successful  with  two  '  petty  Rajas '  {regiili)  in 
the  neighbourhood,  who,  'being  desirous  of  the  Portuguese 
friendship,'  professed  an  interest  in  spiritual  matters  on  behalf 
of  themselves  and  people.    Three  hundred,  apparently  of  their 


CONVERSION  AND  CASTE.  251 

subjects,  promised  to  get  themselves  baptized  as  soon  as  a 
church  should  be  built.  '  But,'  concludes  the  candid  chronicler, 
'  as  this  particular  people  have  a  grievously  bad  reputation  as 
liars,  it  is  much  to  be  prayed  for  that  they  ^Yill  keep  their 
word.'  From  another  instance  of  a  royal  conversion,  it  appears 
that  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  with  '  letters  of  privilege ' 
to  converts,  was  a  favourite  method'  among  the  weaker  Rajas 
for  securing  a  Portuguese  alliance. 

The  story  of  the  Catholic  missions  thus  graphically  told  by  The 

the  Rem  in   Gestaruiii    Voluinai    of  the   i6th   century,  is  con- :/^ '^. '^"^ 

-"  .    Mission, 

tinned  for  the  17th  and  iSth  by  the  letters  from  the  Jesuit  17th  and 
Fathers  in  Malabar.  These  letters  have  been  edited  by  Le  '^^^  '^'-'"" 
Pere  Bertrand  in  four  volumes,  which  throw  an  important  light, 
not  only  upon  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  India,  but  also 
upon  the  social  and  political  state  of  the  native  kingdoms  in 
which  that  progress  was  made.^  The  keynote  to  the  policy 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  in  its  work  of  Indian  evangelization,  is 
given  in  the  following  words  : — '  The  Christian  religion  cannot 
be  regarded  as  naturalized  in  a  country,  until  it  is  in  a  position 
to  propagate  its  own  priesthood.'  ^ 

This  was  the  secret  of  the  wide  and  permanent  success 
of  the  Catholic  missions  ;  it  was  also  the  source  of  their 
chief  troubles.  For  in  founding  Christianity  on  an  indigenous  Question 
basis,  the  Fathers  had  to  accept  the  necessity  of  recognis-  " 
ing  indigenous  customs  and  native  prejudices  in  regard  to 
caste.  The  disputes  which  arose  divided  the  Jesuit  mission- 
aries for  many  years,  and  had  to  be  referred,  not  only  to  the 
General  of  the  Order,  but  to  the  Pope  himself  The  Qtiestion 
des  Rites  Malabares  occupies  many  pages  in  Pere  Bertrand's 
volumes.3  In  the  end,  a  special  class  of  native  priests  was 
assigned  to  the  low  castes,  while  an  upper  class  ministered  to 
the  Indians  of  higher  degree.  The  distinction  was  rigidly  main- 
tained in  the  churches.     Pere  Bertrand  gives  the  plan  of  a 

'  Mcmoires  Historiqius  stir  les  Missions  des  ordres  religicux  (l  vol.  2nd 
ed.,  Paris,  1862)  :  La  Mission  dii  Madiire  (fapns  des  doeuments  inedits 
(3  vols.,  Paris,  1848,  1850,  1854).  The  first  edition  of  the  Memoires 
Historicities  (Paris,  1847)  formed  apparently  an  introduction  to  the  three 
volumes  of  Letters  which  constitute  Pere  Bertrand's  Z«  J/ww/i  t/«  Madurc. 
The  author  takes  this  opportunity  of  acknowledging  his  obligations  to  the 
authorities  of  St.  Xavier's  College,  Calcutta,  for  the  loan  of  Pere  Bertrand's 
works,  and  for  much  kind  assistance  in  his  inquiries. 

''^  Condensed  from  Pere  Bertrand,  Missions,  vol.  i.  p.  I. 

'^  For  example,  Memoires  Historiqius,  vol.  i.  pp.  353  et  seq.  Indeed,  this 
vi)lume  is  largely  devoted  to  the  polemics  of  the  question.  Also  La  Mission 
du  Madure,  vol.  ii.  pp.  140  et  seq.  ;  vol.  iv.  pp.  404  to  496  ;  and  in  many 
other  places  of  Pere  Bertrand's  work. 


252 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Letters 
from 
Malabar, 
17th  and 
1 8th  cen- 
turies. 


Political 
events. 


Miracles. 


Martyr- 
doms. 


Malabar  church  as  laid  before  the  sovereign  Pontiff  in  1725, 
which  shows  a  systematic  demarcation  between  the  high  and 
low  castes  even  during  divine  service,  '\^'hatever  may  have 
been  lost  of  the  primitive  Christian  equality  by  this  system,  it 
had  the  merit  of  being  adpated  to  native  habits  of  thought, 
and  it  was  perhaps  unavoidable  in  an  Indian  church  which 
endeavoured  to  base  itself  upon  an  indigenous  priesthood.^ 
The  adoption  of  native  terms  by  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  such  3.sguru, 
teacher;  saji)  a  si, htrrmi,  etc.,  also  led  to  embittered  discussions. 

The  letters  disclose,  however,  other  and  more  agreeable 
aspects  of  the  early  missions  to  India.  A  few  of  them  complain 
of  the  dangers  and  discomforts  of  missionary  life  in  a  tropical 
climate  and  among  a  suspicious  people.-  But,  as  a  rule,  they 
are  full  of  keen  observation  and  triumphant  faith.  Some  of 
them  are  regularly  divided  into  two  parts ;  the  first  being 
devoted  to  the  secular  history  of  the  period,  or  '  Evenements 
politiques ; '  the  second  to  the  current  affairs  and  progress  of 
the  mission.  Others  are  of  a  topographical  and  statistical 
character.  Many  of  them  record  signs  and  wonders  vouch- 
safed on  behalf  of  their  labours.  A  pagan  woman,  for  ex- 
ample, who  had  been  possessed  of  a  devil  from  birth,  is 
delivered  from  her  tormentor  by  baptism,  and  enters  into  a 
state  of  joy  and  peace.  Another  native  lady,  who  had  deter- 
mined to  burn  herself  on  her  husband's  funeral  pile,  and  had 
resisted  the  counter  entreaties  of  her  family  and  the  Village 
Head,  miraculously  renounced  her  intention  when  sprinkled 
with  ashes  consecrated  by  the  priest.  Throughout,  the  letters 
breathe  a  desire  for  martyrdom,  and  a  spiritual  exultation  in 
sufferings  endured  for  the  cause. 

One  very  touching  epistle  is  written  by  de  Britto  from 
his  prison  the  day  before  his  execution.  '  I  await  death,'  he 
writes  to  the  Father  Superior,  '  and  I  await  it  with  impatience. 
It  has  always  been  the  object  of  my  prayers.  It  forms  to-day 
the  most  precious  reward  of  my  labours  and  my  sufferings.''^ 
Another  letter  relates  the  punishment  of  Father  de  Saa,  several 
of  whose  teeth  were  knocked  out  by  blows,  so  that  he  almost 
died  under  the  pain  (a.d.  1700).  His  tormentor  was,  however, 
miraculously  punished  and  converted  to  the  faith.'*     The  more 

'  The  plan  of  the  church  is  given  at  p.  434  of  Pere  Ber;rand"s  Mission 
du  Madiire,  vol.  iv.  ed.  1854.  The  merits  of  the  question  are  so  fully 
di.«cussed  in  that  volume  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  reopen  the  question  here. 

2  For  example,  Lctlre  du  Pae  Balthazar,  dated  Tanjore,  1653,  op.  cii. 
vol.  iii.  pp.  I  et  scq. 

•'  La  Mission  du  Madiire,  vol.  iii.  p.  447.  Letter  dated  3rd  February 
1693.  ■>  Vol.  iv.  pp.  63-6S. 


JES  i  Vr  IXDIA  N  LITER  A  TURE.  2  5  3 

striking  events  take  pLice  in  Malabar  and  Cochin.  But  in  other 
parts  of  India,  also,  there  were  triumphs  and  sufferings.  '  Even 
here,' writes  Pere  Petit  from  Pondicherri,  'we  are  not  altogether 
without  some  hope  of  martyrdom,  the  crown  of  apostleship.'  ^ 
It  is  natural  that  such  writers  should  regard  as  martyrs,  their 
brethren  who  fell  victims  to  popular  tumults  stirred  up  by  their 
own  preaching.  Penalties  for  sectarian  affrays,  or  for  insults 
to  the  native  religions,  such  as  would  now  be  punished  by  the 
Indian  Penal  Code,  figure  as  '  persecutions.'  The  Salvationists 
have  of  late  suffered  several  'persecutions'  of  this  sort  from 
Anglo-Indian  magistrates. 

Nor  are  the  literary  labours  of  the  Fathers  without  a  fitting  Literary 
record.  Bishop  Caldwell  lately  expressed  his  regret  that  the  theTesuiis. 
biography  of  Father  Beschi,  the  Tamil  scholar  and  poet, 
should  yet  be  unwritten.-  But  the  defect  is  supplied,  not  only 
in  an  elaborate  notice  of  Beschi's  life  and  works,  but  also 
by  Beschi's  own  letters  to  the  General  of  the  Order.^  Several 
epistles  of  de  Nobili  are  of  scarcely  less  interest  in  the  annals 
of  Indian  Christianity. 

The  arguments  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  were  enforced  The  Portu- 
by  the  weapons  of  the  secular  power.     In  1560,  the  Portuguese  "^^^^f-   "" 
established   the    Inquisition   at   Goa,    under   the    Dominican  1560-1812. 
Order.     At  first  the  establishment  was  of  a  modest  and  tenta- 
tive character ;  the  functionaries  numbering  only  five,  and  the 
whole  salaries  amounting  in  1565  to  ;^7i  a  year."^     But  by 
degrees  it  extended  its  operations,  until  in  1800  the  functionaries 
numbered  47.     The  Goa  Inquisition  has  formed  the  subject 
of  much  exaggerated  rumour,  and  the  narrative  of  one  of  its 
prisoners  startled  and  shocked  Europe  during  the  seventeenth 
century.5     Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  recalled  public  attention  to 
the  subject  by  his  vividly  coloured  letters  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century.*^    The  calmer  narrative  of  Da  Fonseca, 
derived  from  the  archives  of  Goa,  proves  that  the  reality  was 
sufficiently  terrible.       No   continuous   statistics   exist   of  the 

'  Vol.  iv.  p.  158. 

"  A  Political  and  General  History  of  the  District  of  Tinucvclli,  by 
Bishop  Caldwell  (Madras  Government  Press,  1881),  p.  239. 

^  Pere  Bertrand,  vol.  iv.  pp.  342-375. 

*  0  Chroiiista  de  Tisstiary,  vol.  iv.  p.  51.  Quoted  in  Fonseca's  Goa, 
p.  217  (Bombay,  1878). 

'■'  delation  de  r Inquisition  de  Goa,  by  the  Physician  Dellon,  who  was 
confined  in  one  of  its  cells  in  1674.  Pyrard,  Fryer,  and  other  travellers 
have  also  left  notices  of  the  Goa  Inquisition. 

^  See  his  Letters  and  Journal  dated  1808,  pp.  150-176  of  Christian 
Researches  in  Asia,  4th  ed.  (181 1). 


254  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

punishments  inflicted.      But  the  records  repeatedly  speak  of 
the  necessity  for  additional  cells,  and  in  1674  they  numbered 
Number  of  ^^^q  hundred.    Seventy-one  autos  da  fe,  or  general  jail  deliveries, 
are  mentioned  between  1600  and  1773.     The  total  number  of 
persons  condemned  on  these  occasions  is  unknown.     But  at 
a  few  of  the  aiitos  it  is  said  that  '  4046  persons  were  sentenced 
to  various  kinds  of  punishment,  of  whom   3034  were  males 
and  1012  females.'^     These  punishments  included  105  men 
and  16  women  condemned  to  the  flames,  of  whom  57  were 
burned  alive  and  64  in  eftigy. 
Christians       \^  [^  ^ot  necessary  to  inquire  how  far  such  examples  of 
ample  of     religious  punishment  in  Portuguese  territory  were  responsible 
i-eligious      for  the  persecution  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  in  Cochin  and 
tion^'^""      Malabar.     Nor,  in  passing  judgment  on  the   Hindu  princes, 
should   we    forget    the    perpetual    military   aggressions    and 
occasional  cold-blooded  massacres  by  the  Portuguese  on  the 
southern  and  western  coasts.     Christian  missions  in  Northern 
India  had  scarcely  anything  to  fear  from  the  native  powers. 
Indeed,  under  Akbar,  and  almost  throughout  the  entire  period 
of  the   Mughal  Emperors  until  the  accession  of  Aurungzeb, 
Christianity  seems  to  have  been  regarded  with  an  enlightened 
interest,  and  certainly  without  disfavour,  by  the  Delhi  court. 
More  than  one  of  the  Mughal  queens  and  princes  are  said  to 
have  been  Christians ;  and  the  faith  was  represented  both  by 
Imperial  grants  and  in  the  Im])erial  seraglio.     Many  of  the 
great  Hindu  Feudatories  also  displayed  a  courteous  indiffer- 
ence to  the  Christian  missionaries,  and  a  liberal  recognition 
of  their  scientific  and  secular  attainments. 
Inquisition      "yIiq  Inquisition  at  Goa  was  temporarily  suspended  in  1774, 
1812.  ^^^  re-established  in  1779.     It  was  abolished  in  1812,  and  the 

ancient  palace  in  which  it  had  been  held  was  pulled  down  in 
1S20.    The  debris  were  finally  removed  in  1859  on  the  occasion 
of  the  exposition  of  the  body  of  St.  Francis  Xavier.- 
The  In  1759,  Portugal  broke  up  the   Society  of  Jesus,   seized 

press^f"^'  ^^^  property,   and  imprisoned  its  members.      France  did  the 
1759-73-     same  in  1764;  and  to  prevent  greater  evils,  Clement  xiv.  in 
1773   was  forced  to  suppress  the  Society  altogether.       The 
French  Revolution  followed.     These  events  deprived  the  Indian 

^  Da  Fonseca's  Goa,  p.  220.  The  original  authorities  quoted  are 
0  Chronista  de  Tissttary,  Historia  dos  Priiicipaes  ados  c  Procediniailos  da 
Iiiqiiisifao  em  Portugal,  Lisboa,  1845,  p.  38 ;  and  F.  N.  Xavier  in  the 
Gabinete  Litterario,  vol.  iii.  pp.  £9  and  280 ;  Narra:Tio  d.i  lupiisicao  dc 
Goa,  pp.  143  et  seq.  {Nova  Goa,  1866). 

-  A  popular  account  of  its  history  will  be  found  in  Mr.  E.  Rehatsek'^ 
'Holy  In]uisition  at  Goa,'  Caku'.ta  Rcv'u-v,  No.  145,  April  iSSi. 


li 


CA  THOLIC  OR GANIZA  TION  IN  INDIA.     2  5  5 

Jesuit  missions  alike  of  priests  and  of  funds,  and  for  a  long 
time  they  languished,  served  in  the  south  only  by  a  few  priests 
from  Goa  and  Pondicherri.  That  dismal  period,  however,  pre- 
sents some  illustrious  names;  among  them  two  well-known  writers, 
the  Abbe  Dubois  of  Mysore,  and  the  Carmelite  Fra  Paolino 
de  San  Bartholomeo  (in  India  1774-90).  In  the  absence  of 
priests  to  sustain  the  courage  of  the  Christians,  every  occa- 
sional or  local  persecution  told.  Tipii,  about  1784,  forcibly 
circumcised  30,000  Catholics  of  Kanara,  and  deported  them 
to  the  country  above  the  Ghats.  Many  native  Christians 
lived  and  died  without  ever  seeing  a  priest ;  they  baptized 
their  own  children,  taught  them  the  prayers,  and  kept  up 
daily  worship  in  their  churches. 

Better  days,  however,  dawned.      In    1814,   the    Society  of  The 
Tesus  was   re-established:   under  Gregory  xvi.,  its   missions  J^^'"''^, 
began  a  new  life,  and  have  since  made  great  progress.     Their  lished, 
])rosperity  is,  however,  hampered  by  the  action  taken  in  Europe  '^'4- 
against  the  religious  orders.     The  claims  of  Portugal  to  appoint 
the  Archbishop  of  Goa,  and  through  him  to  regulate  clerical 
patronage,  as  opposed  to  the  right  of  the  Pope,  have  occasioned 
schisms  in  the  past,  and  still  give  rise  to  discord. 

The  Roman  Catholics  throughout  all  India,  British,  Feuda-  Number  of 
tory,    and    Foreign,    riumber    altogether    1,356,037    souls,    as  l^^jl^oj]^,^ 
returned  in  the  table  to  be  presently  given  from  the  Madras  in  India. 
Catholic  Directory  for   1885.      The  Census  Report  of   18S1, 
adding  the  latest  figures  for  Portuguese  and   French   India, 
gives  a  total  of  1,248,801. 

The  Roman  Catholic  missions  are  maintained  by  many  of  Organiza- 
the  European  nations,  and  are  nearly  equally  divided  between  tionof  ilic 

/  1  ,1  A1--  •       Roman 

the  secular  and  regular  clergy.     Almost  every  mission  contains  catholic 
a   mixture  of  races   among  its  priests  ]   even   Holland,   Scot-  missions, 
land,  and  Germany  being  ably  represented.     Although  all  are 
directed    by    Europeans,    seven  -  eighths   of    the    priests    are 
natives.     It  is  also  worthy  of  remark  that,  in  the  list  of  bishops 
during  the    last  300  years,  the  names  of  several    natives  are 
found,  some  of  them  Brahmans.     The  Roman  Catholic  mis- 
sions are  presided  over  by  sixteen  bishops  (vicars  and  prefects 
apostolic),  the  delegates  of  the  Pope,  who  governs  the  missions 
himself,  without  the    intervention  of  the  Camera.      Side   by 
side  with  these  papal  vicars-apostolic,  who  are  also  bishops, 
the  Archbishop  of  Goa  (appointed  by  the  King  of  Portugal)  Arch- 
has  an  independent   jurisdiction    over   a    certain  number   of^^j^hopuf 
Catholics  outside  his  diocese,  who  are  scattered  over  India, 
but  chiefly  in  the  south.     The  prefect-apostolic  of  Pondicherri 


256  CHRISTIAXITY  IN  INDIA. 

presides  over  the   Catholics  in   several  British  Districts  and 

throughout  the  southern  French  possessions.     In  Pondicherri 

he  has  technically  jurisdiction  only  over  '  those  who  wear  hats.' 

His  sepa-        The  independent  jurisdiction  of  the  Archbishop  of  Goa,  and 

rate  juris-   ^.j^g  dissensions  to  which  it  2:ave  rise,  have  been  referred  to. 

diction.  ° 

T    ^  ,        It   had   Its   ormin   in   the    Its  patronatiis   granted   by  Pope 

Juspatron-  °  j         r  o  j  i 

atus  i6co.  Clement  viii.  to  King  Philip.  By  the  Pontifical  Bull,  the 
Portuguese  king  was  charged  with  the  support  of  the  Catholic 
churches  in  India,  and  in  return  was  invested  with  the 
patronage  of  their  clergy.  On  the  ruin  of  the  Portuguese 
power  in  India  by  the  Dutch,  it  was  held  that  the  sovereign 
was  no  longer  in  a  position  to  fulfil  his  part  of  the  agreement. 
The   Indian   clergy  became   a  growing  charge  upon  Rome. 

Curtailed,   In  1673,  therefore,  Clement  x.  abrogated  the  jurisdiction  of 
73-  the  Portuguese  Archbishop  of  Goa  beyond  the  limits  of  the 

Portuguese  settlements.  In  1674,  two  Briefs  declared  that 
the  Portuguese  bishops  had  no  authority  over  the  vicars  and 
missionaries  -  apostolic  sent  from  Rome  to  India.  These 
orders  only  produced  a  long  ecclesiastical  dispute.  Accord- 
ingly, in  1837,  Gregory  XVI.  published  his  Bull,  Aliilta  pradare. 
dividing  the  whole  of  India  into  vicariates -apostolic,  and 
forbade  the  Goanese  prelates  to  interfere  in  their  manage- 
ment. 

Concordat       The  Portuguese  Archbishop  of  Goa  disregarded  this  decree, 

o'  1857.  ^^j^(^  thg  Indo-Lusitamim  schisma  continued  until  1861.  In 
1857,  a  concordat  was  agreed  to  by  the  Pope  and  the  King 
of  Portugal,  by  which  such  churches  as  were  then  under  the 
apostolic  vicars  should  remain  under  the  same,  while  those 
which  then   acknowledged   the   Goanese   jurisdiction   should 

Settlement  continue  under  the  Archbishop  of  Goa.  In  1S61,  joint  com- 
"'•  raissioners  were  sent  out  from  Rome  and  Portugal  to  put  this 
arrangement  into  execution.  In  the  end,  the  Pope  granted  for 
some  time,  ''ad  tcmptis^'  to  the  Archbishop  of  Goa  an  extra- 
ordinary jurisdiction  over  certain  churches,  served  by  Goanese 
priests,  but  beyond  the  Portuguese  dominions.  Such  churches 
are  still  to  be  found  in  Malabar,  jNIadura,  Ceylon,  Madras, 
Bombay,  and  apparently  in  the  lower  delta  of  Bengal.  It  is 
intended  that  this  independent  jurisdiction  of  the  Portuguese 
Archbishop  of  Goa  shall  in  time  lapse  to  the  vicars-apostolic 
appointed  from  Rome.  But  meanwhile  it  continues  to  this  day, 
and  still  gives  rise  to  occasional  disputes.^ 

'  The  foregoing  two  paragraphs  on  the  extraordinary  jurisdiction  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Goa  are  condensed  from  MS.  materials  supplied  to  the 
author  by  the  papal  Vicar-Apostolic  of  Verapoli. 


INDIAN  CATHOLIC  STA2VSTICS.  257 

As  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil  divisions  of  India   do  not  DistriLu- 

correspond,  it  is  difficult  to  comi)are  missionary  with  official  il"" 

^  '  '  ■'  Roman 

statistics.  The  Catholics  in  French  territory  numbered,  Catholics, 
according  to  the  Madras  Catholic  Directory  for  18S5,  33,226, 
and  in  Portuguese  territory  in  1881,  252,477.  This  leaves 
1,070,334  Catholics  for  British  India  and  the  Native  States, 
according  to  the  Madras  Directory  for  1885,  or  963,058 
according  to  the  Census  Report  of  i88t.  Catholics  are  most 
numerous  in  the  Native  States  of  Travancore  and  Cochin 
(comprised  in  the  vicariates  of  Verapoli  and  Quilon).  The 
archdiocese  of  Goa,  with  660  priests,  nearly  all  natives,  for  a 
very  small  territory  containing  over  250,000  Catholics,  is  a 
witness  to  the  sternly  proselytizing  system  of  the  Portuguese. 

Verapoli,   the  smallest   in   area   of  the    Roman  vicariates,  The 
contains  the  largest  number  of  priests  and  Catholics.     These  X^i'^po" 

1  ■    n        1         1  1  •  vicariate 

are  chiefly  the  descendants    of  the   Nestonans  converted  to  (Travan- 
Rome  in  the  i6th  century,  and  were  divided  by  the  Census  core). 
of  1881  into  two  classes — of  the  Syrian  rite,  141,386,  and  of 
the  Latin  rite,  80,600.     They  were  directed  by  14  European 
Carmelite  priests,  and  by  375  native  priests,  39  of  the  Latin 
rite,  and  336  of  the  Syrian  rite. 

The  Census  of  1881  returned  the  Syrian  Christians  alto- Syrian  and 
gether  apart  from  the  Roman  Catholics,  but  did  not  distin-  c^thojlc 
guish  between  Jacobites  and  Catholics  of  the  Syrian  rite.  Out  Christians, 
of  a  total  of  304,410  Syrians  in  all  India,  301,442  are  returned 
by  the  Census  Report  as  within  the  Native  States  of  Travan- 
core and  Cochin  (the  vicariates  of  Verapoli  and  Quilon).  The 
Census  Report  returned  the  total  number  of  Roman  Catholics 
in  Travancore  and  Cochin  at  274,734;  while  the  returns  officially 
accepted  by  the  heads  of  the  Catholic  Church  give  the  number 
in  the  Madras  CatJwlic  Directory  at  378,096.  From  private 
inquiries  since  made,  it  appears  that  the  discrepancy  arises 
from  the  fact  that  the  number  of  Catholics  was  underrated  at 
the  time  of  the  Census.  About  100,000  Roman  Catholics  of 
the  Syrian  rite,  belonging  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  vicars- 
apostolic  of  Verapoli  and  Quilon,  seem  to  have  been  included 
among  the  Syrian  Jacobites. 

The  Pondicherri  and  Madura  vicariates  represent  parts  of 
the  famous  Jesuit  missions  of  Madura  and  of  the  Karnatic. 
In  Bombay  city,  and  along  the  fertile  maritime  strip  or  Konkan 
between  the  Western  Ghats  and  the  sea,  the  Roman  Catholics 
form  an  important  section  of  the  native  population. 

The  following  table  shows  the  Roman  Catholic  population 
for  all  India,  as  returned  by  the  authorities  of  the  Church. 

K 


258 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Roman  Catholic  Population  of  British  India  and 
Native  States. 

{According to  the  ^Madras  Catholic  Directory'' for  1885.) 


Vicariate-Apostolic  of  Madras,      ..... 

,,  ,,  Haidarabad  (Nizam's  Dominions), 

,,  ,)  Vizagapatam, 

,,  ,,  Mysore, 

,,  ,,  Coimbatore, 

,,  ,,  Madura,     . 

,,  ,,  Quilon  (South  Travancore 

,,  ,,  Verapoli(NorthTravancoreandCochin 

,,  ,,  Mangalore,  .... 

„  ,,  Pondicherri  (within  British  Territory) 

,,  ,,  Bombay,    . 

Agra, 

,,  ,,  Patna,        . 

,,  ,,  Punjab, 

,,  ,,  Western  Bengal, 

Prefecture-Apostolic  of  Central  Bengal, 
Vicariate-Apostolic  of  Eastern  Bengal, 

,,  ,,  Southern  Burma, 

,,  ,,  Eastern  Burma, 

Total  in  British  India  and  Native  States, 


Number. 


56,548 
9,100 
13,287 
27,429 
24,027 

176,169 
97,496 

280,600 
76,000 

174.441 

51,025 

8,400 
10,000 

5,900 
18,000 

1,678 
16,000 
17,580 

6,654 


1,070,334 


Roman  Catholic  Population  of  Portuguese 
Settlements  in  India, 


{According  to  tlie  Census  of  February  \']th,  1881.) 


Goa, 

Uaman, 

Diu, 


Total  in  I'ortuguese  Settlements  in  India, 


250,645 

1,497 

335 


252,477 


Roman  Catholic  Population  of  French 
Settlements  in  India. 

{According  to  the  '  Madras  Catholic  Directory  'for  1SS5.) 


Pondicherri, 
Karikal,     . 
Chandarnagar, 
Vanaon,    . 
Mahe, 


Total  in  French  Settlements  in  India,    . 
Grand  Total  in  British,  Native,  and  Foreign  India,  . 


18,889 

12,787 

300 

450 

800 


33,226 


1.356,037 


INDIAN  CA  THOLIC  PR  O  GRESS.  2  5  9 

The  Roman  Catholics  in  India  steadily  increase ;  and  as  in  Catholic 
former  times,  the  increase  is  chietiy  in  the  south,  especially  in  P''og''ess. 
the  missions  of  Pondicherri   and  Madura.      The  number  of 
Catholics  in  British  and  French  India  and  the  Native  States, 
but  exclusive  of  the  Portuguese  Possessions,  rose  from  732,887 
in  1851,  to  934,400  in  187 1,  and  to  1,103,560  in  1881.     The  Ponc'.i- 
Pondicherri  mission  lately  performed  over  50,000  adult  baptisms  Mrss?on 
in  three  years.     In  the  Madura  vicariate,  the  increase  is  princi- 
]ially  in  Tinnevelli   and  Ramnad.     The  converts  are  chiefly 
agriculturists,  but  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the  low  castes. 

The  principal  Catholic  colleges  in  India  are  those  of  the  Catholic 
Society   of    Jesus,    at    Calcutta,    Bombay,    and    Negapatam.  '^°  ^^^'''' 
Another  Jesuit  college  has  lately  been  opened  at  Mangalore 
in    South  Kanara,  a    District  in  which  there    are  over    3000 
Catholic  Brahmans.      England,  being    a    Protestant  country, 
supplies  few  priests,  and  hence  Catholic  missions  have  much 
difficulty  in  maintaining  colleges  where  English  is  the  vehicle 
of  higher  education.     The  statistics  of  the  Catholic   schools 
are  incomplete,   owing  to  want  of  information  about  certain 
parts  of  the  Goa  jurisdiction.      But  the  number  of  Catholic  and 
schools  actually  returned  in   1880,  including  Goa,  was  1514,^'^°'" 
with  51,610  pupils.     In  British  India  and  the  Native  States, 
the  children  in  Catholic  schools  increased  from  28,249  •'''  187 1, 
to  44,699  in  1881. 

The  Roman  Catholics  work  in  India  with  slender  pecuniary 
resources.  They  derive  their  main  support  from  two  great 
Catholic  organizations,  the  Association  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Faith,  and  the  Society  of  the  Holy  Childhood.  The 
former  contributes  ^24,464  yearly  to  Indian  missions,  and  the 
latter  _;;^i  2,300,  making  a  total  of  £z^^1^^-  This  is  exclusive 
of  the  expenditure  within  the  Archbishopric  of  Goa ;  but  it 
represents  the  European  contributions  to  the  whole  Vicariates 
under  the  Pope.  In  1880  they  maintained  a  stafi"  of  16  bishops 
and  1118  priests,  teaching  1236  schools,  with  40,907  pupils, 
and  giving  religious  instruction  to  1,002,379  native  Christians. 
The  Roman  Catholic  priests  deny  themselves  the  comforts 
considered  necessaries  for  Europeans  in  India.  In  many  Dis- 
tricts they  live  the  frugal  and  abstemious  life  of  the  natives, 
and  their  influence  reaches  deep  into  the  social  life  of  the 
communities  among  whom  they  dwell. 


The  first  Protestant  missionaries  in  India  were  Lutherans,  First  Pro- 

Ziegenbalg  and  Plutschau,  who  in  170^  began  work  under  the  '^^^^."'• 

*  °  .  .  missions, 

patronage  of  the  Kmg  of  Denmark  at  the  Danish  settlement  1705. 


26o  CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 

of  Tranquebar.     Ziegenbalg  and  many  of  the  early  Lutheran 
missionaries  were  men  of  great  ability ;    and,   besides   their 
translations  of  the  Scriptures,  some  of  their  writings  still  hold 
Transia-     a  high  place  in  missionary  literature.     Ziegenbalg  began  the 
Kble*  ^^^  translation  of  the  Bible  into  Tamil,  and  his  successor  Schultze 
1725.  completed  it  in  1725.     This  was  the  first  Protestant  transla- 

tion of  the  Scriptures  in  India.     Schultze  also  translated  the 
whole  Bible  into  Hindustani.    Ziegenbalg  died  in  17 19,  leaving 
355  converts.     In  spite  of  the  patronage  of  the  Kings  of  Den- 
mark and  England,   and  the  liberal  assistance  of  friends  in 
Europe,  the  Lutheran  mission  made  at  first  but  slow  progress, 
and  was  much  hindered  and  opposed  by  the  local  Danish 
authorities.     Gradually  it  extended  itself  into  Madras,  Cudda- 
lore,  and  Tanjore  ;  schools  were  set  up,  and  conversion  and 
education  went  hand  in  hand. 
Schwartz         In  1750,  arrived  the  pious  Schwartz,  whose  name  is  bound 
iore^""      ^P  ^^'^'■'^  ^^^  history  of  Tanjore  and  adjacent  Districts  until  his 
1750-9S.     death  in    1798.     He  was  the  founder  of  the  famous  Tinne- 
Serampur  velli  missions.^     Next  to  the  Lutherans  come  the  Baptists  of 
^ies""'     Serampur,  with  the    honoured    names    of  Carey,  Marshman, 
and  Ward.     In    the    i8th    century,  the    English    East  India 
Company  did  not  discourage  the  labours  of  Protestant  mis- 
Kier-  sionaries.     It  had  allowed  Kiernander,  originally  sent  out  by 

Calcuui"  ^^^^  Danes,  to  establish  himself  at  Calcutta  in  1758.  But 
1758,  subsequently,  it  put  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  missionaries, 

Carey,  and  deported  them  back  to  England  on  their  landing.  Carey 
1793-  arrived  in  1793.     In  1799,  to  avoid  the  opposition  of  the  English 

East  India  Company,  he  established  himself  with  four  other 
missionaries  at  Serampur  (15  miles  from  Calcutta),  at  that  time, 
[  like  Tranquebar,  a  Danish  possession.     Then  began  that  won- 
'   derful  literary  activity  which  has  rendered  illustrious  the  group 
31  transia-  of  'Serampur  missionaries.'     In  ten  years,  the  Bible  was  trans- 
tionsofthe  j^ted,  and  printed,  in  whole  or  part,  in  31  languages;  and  by 
181 6,  the  missionaries  had  about  700  converts.     The  London 
jNIissionary  Society  (established  1795)  entered  the  field  in  1798, 
and  its  missions  have  gradually  grown  into  importance. 
Official  The  opposition  of  the  East  India  Company  continued  till 

opposi-  I  1S13,  when  it  was  removed  by  the  new  Charter.  The  same 
drawn'  ^  document  provided  for  the  establishment  of  the  bishopric  of 
i8i3-  Calcutta,  and  three  archdeaconries,  owe  for  each  Presidency. 

Up  to  this  period  the  Established  Church  of  England   had 
attempted  no  direct  missionary  work,  although  some  of  the  East 
India  Company's  chaplains  had   been  men  of  zeal,  like   the 
-  .See  article  Ti.nnevelli,  T/ic  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


ENGLISH  AND  SCOTCH  MISSIONS.         261 

ardent  Henry  Martyn  (1806-11).     The  first  Bishop  of  Calcutta  Bishopric 
(Middleton)  arrived  in  1814.     From  this  time  the  Church  of°^5'^'' 
England  has  constantly  kept  up  a  missionary  connection  with  1S14.' 
India,  chiefly  by  means  of  its  two  great  societies — the  Church 
Missionary  Society,  which  sent  out  its  first  representative  in  18 14; 
and  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  which  did 
so  in  1826.    Their  most  successful  stations  are  in  Southern  India, 
where  they  have  gathered  in  the  seed  sown  by  the  Lutheran 
missions.     The  second  Bishop  of  Calcutta  was  the  well-known 
Heber  (1823-26).     In  1835,  i-inder  a  new  Charter  of  the  East  Indian 
India  Company,  the  see  of   Madras  was  established,  and  in  '^^'^^* 
1837,  that  of  Bombay.     In  1877,  owing  to  the  extension  of 
mission  work  in  Tinnevelli,  two  missionaries  were  appointed 
bishops,  as  assistants  to  the  Bishop  of  Madras  ;  the  dioceses  of 
Lahore  and  Rangoon  also  were  separated  from  Calcutta,  and 
bishops  appointed.     The  missionary  bishopric  of  Travancore 
and    Cochin  was    established   in    1879.      It   has  no  connec- 
tion  with  Government,    nor   have    the   assistant   bishops    in 
Madras. 

The  first  missionary  of  the   Church   of  Scotland  was  Dr.  rresby- 
Alexander  Duff  (1830-63),  to  whom  the  use   of  English  as  ^^"^"^  "^'^^ 

sions 

the  vehicle  of  higher  education  in  India  is  largely  due.     Mis-  1830-6 \ 
sionaries   of  numerous   other   Protestant  societies  (European  other 
and   American)   have   since   entered    India,    and   established  missions. 
numbers   of  churches   and   schools.      They    have    furnished 
memorable  names  to  the  roll  of  Indian  educators,  such   as 
Judson  (Baptist)  in  Burma,  1813-50,  and  John  Wilson  (Pres- 
byterian) of  Bombay,  1843-75. 

The   progress   of  the  several  Protestant  missions  in  India  Statistics 
may  be   thus   stated:  —  In   1830   there   were    9   societies  at°ff*™" 
work,    and   about    27,000    native    Protestants    in    all    India,  missions. 
Ceylon,  and  Burma.      By  1870  there  were  no  less  than   35 
societies  at  work;  and  in   1871  there  were  318,363  converts 
(including    Ceylon,    etc.,    as    above).       In    1852    there   were 
459    Protestant   missionaries,   and  in    1872   there   were    606. 
Between  1856  and  1878,  the  converts  made  by  the   Baptist  Progress, 
Societies   of  England   and   America,   in    India,   Ceylon,   and  ^^^\ '" 
Burma,   increased    from    about    30,000    to   between    80,000 
and   90,000.       Those   of    the    Basle    missions    of    Germany 
multiplied   from    1060    to    upwards    of  6000;    those    of  the 
Wesleyan  Methodist  missions  of  England  and  America,  from 
7500  to  12,000;  those  of  the  American  Board,  from  3302  to 


262 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Protestant 

progress, 

1S56-1878. 


Great 
increase  of 
native 
Protest- 
ants, 1851- 
1S81. 


Extendetl 
use  of 
native 
ngency. 


School 
work  of 
Protestant 
missions. 


Its  rapid 
develop- 
ment, 
1851-81. 

Female 
education. 


about  12,000  ;  those  of  the  Presbyterian  missions  of  Scotland, 
England,  Ireland,  and  America,  connected  with  10  societies, 
from  821  to  10,000;  those  of  the  missions  of  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  from  20,077  to  48,000;  and  those  of  the 
Church  Missionary  Society  and  of  the  Society  for  the  Propa- 
gation of  the  Gospel,  from  61,442  to  upwards  of  164,000.^ 

The  increased  activity  of  the  Protestant  missionary  bodies 
in  India,  during  the  past  third  of  a  century,  may  be  seen  from 
the  table  2  on  the  following  page.  Between  185 1  and  1881,  the 
number  of  mission  stations  has  increased  nearly  threefold ; 
while  the  number  of  Native  Protestant  Christians  has  multiplied 
by  more  than  fivefold,  the  number  of  communicants  by  nearly 
tenfold,  and  the  number  of  churches  or  congregations  by 
sixteenfold.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  extended  employment 
of  native  agency  in  the  work.  The  native  ordained  pastors 
have  been  increased  from  21  in  1851  to  575  in  1881,  and  the 
native  lay  preachers  from  493  to  2856.  The  Protestant  Church 
in  India  has  greatly  gained  in  strength  by  making  a  freer  use  of, 
and  reposing  a  more  generous  confidence  in,  its  native  agents. 
Its  responsible  representatives  report  the  increase  of  Native 
Christians  in  India,  Burma,  and  Ceylon,^  from  1851  to  i86r, 
at  53  per  cent. ;  from  1861  to  187 1,  at  61  percent. ;  and  from 
1871  to  1881,  at  86  per  cent. 

The  activity  of  the  Protestant  missions  has  not,  however, 
been  confined  to  the  propagation  of  their  faith.  Their  services 
to  education,  and  especially  in  the  instruction  of  the  people  in 
the  vernacular  languages,  will  hereafter  be  referred  to.  But 
the  vast  extension  of  these  services  during  late  years  is  less 
generally  recognised.  The  number  of  pupils  in  Protestant 
mission  schools  and  colleges  has  risen  from  64,043  in  1851  to 
196,360  in  1881,  or  more  than  threefold.  The  standard  of 
instruction  has  risen  at  an  equal  pace,  and  the  mission 
institutions  successfully  compete  with  the  Government  colleges 
at  the  examinations  of  the  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay 
Universities.     Female  education  has  always  formed  a  subject 

'  The  Rev.  M.  A.  Sherring,  in  the  Chronicle  of  the  Londojt  Missionary 
Society,  August  1879. 

^  Compiled  from  TJte  Siatistical  Tables  for  1881,  issued  under  instruc- 
tions of  the  Calcutta  Missionary  Conference  (Thacker,  Spink,  &  Co., 
Calcutta,  1S82).  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  statistical  organization 
was  more  perfect  in  1881  than  in  1851.  To  Mr.  W.  Rees  Philipps  this 
cliapter  is  indebted  for  many  materials  and  figures  regarding  Indian 
Christian  missions  in  their  earlier  years. 

^  The  table  given  on  next  page  deals  only  with  India  and  Durma,  an<l 
excluiles  Ceylon.      Of.  cit.  pp.  x.  and  xiii. 


INDIAN  PROTESTANT  STATISTICS. 


^63 


of  peculiar  care  among  the  missionary  bodies.  The  number 
of  girls'  day  schools  belonging  to  Protestant  missions  in  India 
alone  has  risen  from  285  in  1851  to  1120  in  1881,  This  is 
exclusive  of  girls'  boarding  schools  and  zandna  work.  The 
total  number  of  female  pupils,  under  Protestant  mission 
teaching  in  India  alone,  exclusive  of  Burma,  has  multiplied 
from  11,193  i'^  1S51  to  57,893  in  1881. 

The  great  success  of  the  missionaries  of  late  years  in  their  Extended 
school   work,   as    in  their  preaching,  is  due  to  the  extended  native 
use  of  native  agency.      Complete   statistics   are  available  on  agency, 
this  point  only  for  187 1  and  1881.     The  number  of  'Foreign'^ 
and  Eurasian  male  teachers  belonging  to  Protestant  missions 
in    India   and    Burma,  has   decreased   from    146  in  187 1  to 
loi  in  i8Sr  ;  while  the  native  Christian  teachers  have  been 
doubled,  from  1978  in  1851  to  3675  in  1881.     In  1881,  there 
were  also  2468  non-Christian  native  teachers  employed ;  making 
a  total  of  6143  native  teachers  in  missionary  employ  in  1881, 
against  loi  'Foreign'  and  Eurasian  teachers.    The  native  female 
teachers.   Christian    and    non-Christian,   have  increased  from 
863   in   India  and  Burma  in  1871,  to  1996  in  1881.      The 
following  table  may  now  be  left  to  speak  for  itself: — 

Summary  of  Protestant  Missions  in  India 
AND  Burma. 


Stations,    .         .         .         . 
Foreign  a  and  Eurasian  or- 
dained agents, 
Native  ordained  agents, 
Foreign    and    Eurasian  lay 

preachers, 
Native  lay  preachers, 
Churches  or  congregations 
Native  Christians, 
Communicants, 
Male  pupils  in  schools, 
Female  pupils  in  schools. 
Total     male      and     female 
pupils,    .         .         .  . 


Number 

Number 

Number 

Number 

in 

in 

in 

in 

1S51. 

1861. 

1871. 

1881. 

222 

337 

448 

601 

339 

501 

517 

622 

21 

143 

... 

302 

575 
77 

493 

1,677 

2,344 

2,856 

267 

643 

2,631 

4,  iSo 

91,092 

198,097 

286,987 

492,882 

14,661 

43,415 

73,330 

138,254  1 

52,850/' 

64,828 

100,750 

138,477  1 

11,193-^ 

17,035 

27,627 

57,893 

64,043^ 

81,863 

128,377 

196, 360*: ' 

rt  Including  British,  European,  American,  and  all  others,  not  natives  of 
India. 

/'  The  pupils  for  185 1  were  in  India  only  ;  no  returns  being  available  for 
Burma  for  that  year. 

c  The  return  of  total  pupils  is  exclusive  of  65,728  boys  and  girls  attending 
Sunday  schools.  The  returns  for  185 1  and  1861  are  as  a  whole  less  com- 
plete than  those  for  1871  and  1881. 


'■  Including  British,  European,  American,  and  all  non-Indian  teachers. 


264 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


General 
Statistics 
of  Chris- 
tian popu- 
lation in 
India. 


European 

and 

Native. 


The  foregoing  pages  have  briefly  traced  the  history  of 
Christianity  in  India,  and  disclose  the  recent  progress  made 
by  its  main  branches,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  among  the 
natives.  It  remains  to  exhibit  the  Christian  population  as  a 
whole,  including  both  Europeans  and  Indians.  In  comparing 
the  results,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  figures  have 
been  derived  from  various  sources,  and  that  the  areas  of 
enumeration  in  some  cases  overlap  each  other.  Thus,  the 
jurisdictions  of  the  Catholic  vicars-apostolic  supply  a  basis  for 
calculation  which  differs  from  the  territorial  areas  adopted 
by  the  Census  of  British  India.  Every  effort  has  been 
made  to  allow  for  such  causes  of  error,  and  to  render  the 
following  tables  a  true  presentment  of  the  Christian  popula- 
tion of  India,  British,  Feudatory,  and  Foreign.  It  will  be 
observed  that  the  total  number  of  Christians  has  increased 
during  the  nine  years  from  1872  to  1S81  by  365,251.  In 
British  India  alone  the  increase  has  been  270,807,  or  30*2  per 
cent.  The  total  number  of  Christians  was  2,148,228  in  1881, 
as  against  1,782,977  in  1872. 


Total  Christian  Population  in  India  in  1872  and 
IN  i88r. 


1872. 

1881. 

Increase. 

Percentage 

of 
Increase. 

[Figures  for 
1  1872  less 
\    complete 

than    for 

1881. 

In  British  India,     . 

In  Native  States,    . 
In  Portuguese  India, 
In  French  India,     . 

897,682 

620,295 

235,000 

30,000 

1,168,489 
694,036 

252,477 
33,226 

270,807 

73,741 

17,477 

3,226 

30-2 
119 

7 '4 
107 

Total,     . 

1,782,977 

2,148,228 

365,251 

20 '4 

Denomi- 
national 
Statistics, 
18S1. 


The  Census  of  1881  returned  the  Christian  population  in 
British  and  Native  India,  according  to  sect.  This  return  is 
useful  as  affording  a  test  of  the  figures  given  in  the  foregoing 
pages  from  the  Roman  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions.  It 
will  be  observed  that  the  two  sets  of  figures  practically  agree, 
allowing  for  differences  in  the  areas  of  the  enumeration.  In 
the  total  for  all  India  these  sources  of  discrepancy  disappear  ; 
but  it  must  be  remembered  that  that  total  includes  both 
Europeans  and  natives. 


CHRISTIAN  SECTS,  iSSi. 


265 


2   g 
<  ^ 


o 

3 

o 
u 


Q 


Cj     -£2 


J.r,g0  52=^^«^ 

0 

t^*0\t-    m^     -*C\'<*-N 

t^o  00 

rn  «    fN.  r>.vD  0    "-•    "v  O^  ^     O 

?  Pi  «    ^0    ^  .^  P->  N^  w    N 

00' 

00         «   c>i  0   rn«c   <N    N   m      CO 

«o 

fT  pooo 

•-'  00  oc   f^  rC  hT  t^  M  cT  rn  -^ 

•O*                 t^vo"  r-,  0\  i-'oo" 

u 

M    r^;  w    m  -^  M                         CO 

>o 

rn  M  N        0\ 

*o 

10  f-ri, 

Cn,    l-t      H> 

o> 

VO 

M 

« 

T3-d 

C    41 

rtu: 

•^  ^  «  M  \c   in  p- inoo        m 

>n 

u-i  r>.  '^        0\       fo  «  "^ 

0 

10 

•"'ii 

0^^    ■^mc^lN(N3^0\:« 

0 

0 

SS. 

ON  in  r^oo  0  ^   IN  m        -  %c 

'■'. 

vo  "       :  0   :  **.^oo  -   : 

5; 

t>. 

^   trt 

ro       1^        t^ 

C^ 

*-    C 

c^ 

00 

C^ 

■^  ,«• 

Si 

'^vo  rn*»-tn-^»nft    m      0 

„ 

«    •  -  r.   •    • 

0 

^ 

Is" 

IT 

h- 

•^ 

w 

« 

o< 

^^^^^ 

00 

m                 o» 

0 

_ 

c 

00     '  vo    - 

0 

^   ,    .    ,  °       -^ 

rt 

M                  :::::: 

o> 

■* 

r«"                         ..•••. 

cT 

I    «    1    •    I     -    '    -    *  c^      fcT 

0 

>, 

**                        03          0 

0 

W 

T 

1 

■«    . 

C  u 

NVO   iri-    •'j-ro^    00000   •-' 

0 

0        W   •'^  «  'OvO    0    '-   »n       0 

00 

^-§ 

cj.- 

mi/^«    (Noo    rnin^so    ooo 

0 

»0          h^OOO--OM«i-i|io 

CJ 

So 

o> 

0  :      -^00^  '^  ^  *C    °°- '  °- 

0 

OJ= 

rn  00  Qo"  c^  10                  cT-c" 

«* 

\o    '            M  d^o  cT       en  ;    0 

CO 

"n 

«c3 

r~  0   M                                         1- 

vo 

2     "     ITj  S, 

^ 

0 

c     -5 

2  " 

•    «ONf5«r.o— -inN 

00 

-.  ,r,          *  N    -               00 

»o 

1     ^ 

&Hcn 

.     «              T  !>    .  00    -   «     .      ^ 

2i  ^  c^ 

0  rt 

m        •    :      -    :  r-  0       :  ;  'J- 

fee 

-    0"  N  00"  i-T  fn      CO               vo" 

in 

a        •    •           ■      «       ■     N 

tC 

i;o  « 

J=  « 

0 

h 

0 

u       .- 

< 

M 

u      -c 

0  « 

V. 

Q  

— 

t>3 

M     _ 

a 

2      "^ 

r 

> 

s 

c?;     rN.  0    f^.  ■'T  '^.  hv  «    m        «  0 

^       0 

« 

^jgoor;^      or-?j              in-* 

vo 

0 

1^ 

c   .>i: 

L- 

rv 

>-i  rt_ 

4> 

J3 

5     -^        pn                              • 

t> 

:z;     • 

*c 

u^5 

K               "^ 

C\ 

S  =  0 

3 

k.   31   ^ 

rN,(N   oCN'^tnO   *•    CNinin 

tn 

in      0  p  m      0  N  0 

01 

* 

0  s.  >- 

cv      o\ «            >«  -a- 

0 

p  JS 

•O    r-.  a;0    -^r  cn.  w       0        sO 

:          f.  :  f  N       : 

0 

3  0 

0 

X  <-> 

Cjoi 

<« 

Ot5 

00   0\  0  ao    Tj-  f/^vo         '(TWO 

f 

m  r^  t^  >-■  00   Ov  00   000 

o> 

ro 

-55 

»-«OOs<^CJflt>.          f^,  osco 

■^       m  -  00  0  c  00  0  •^ 

(N     w  \0  00     0  "-.vO      :    O-  CO  0\ 

N 

•* 

r^ 

cS  """  ^  s"  jf  "^  ■"  '        ^ 

"  "  "^  ■"     £^ 

t^ 

■0 

■c,'; 

uw 

—  *— 

■   ...•*•••• 

J= 

•a 

c    • 

rt 

'6 

cf 

u 

rj 

-a 

■5 

rt 

^     • 

•    .    •    •  c 

c 

(fl 

C 



j: 

«) 

J=  oT 

6 

I 

> 

■s  S 

B 

....§-. 

^ 

2: 

.s 

ax 

''''&.£ 

■-" 

4/ 

—  > 

P   =                         c- 

0 

C 

0 

s'5 

•so                C 

H 

'S    "    '1     t     „-£ 

c-i 

"  0  u  =  =  u  ^  c.=,  0  C 

i  S  5  S  S  «3^-:J.2  1 

c 
n 

ore 

t!  o  g 
„'o  2 


_c   ~* 

~  M 

0    ■/•• 

"S  S.2 

D.F 

5w 

5  5^'"^ 

-;    ;-    M        —    u  t: 


O   u   o   3 
U    =    CJ= 


-g'J    3 

4J  r^J4 


4;  "J J 
o  g  ^1i 


ca 


■c  <":2      Sx  ■?  c 
3  a.S-S  o  g  §•£ 


,rt  o  5  0.0    .  ^  c 


nr 

y^ 

^ 

" 

L>i 

0 

C 

> 

c. 

c 
0 

3; 

0 

^x 

C3 

— 

-3 

r- 

3 

*-• 

-^ 

0 

■n 

-3 

tr- 

< 

04 

I 

0 

r; 

J3 

s 

•a 
j2 

5 

"^ 

0 

0 

>> 

■^ 

CS 

n 

rt 

u 

,^ 

C 

" 

c. 

0 

(/2 

,^ 

3 

0 

u 

0 

r: 

X 

s 

>. 

= 

rt 

> 

rt 

■n 

3 

0 

C 

c 
0 

^  2'  - 

Uoo" 


%\n        X  HO* 


266 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  INDIA. 


Eccle- 
siastical 
establish- 
ment. 


The  Government  of  India  maintains  an  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment for  its  European  soldiers  and  officials.  It  devotes 
on  an  average  ;^66o,ooo  a  year  to  their  medical  require- 
ments, and  ;^ 1 60,000  to  their  spiritual  wants.^  The  two 
following  tables  show  the  ecclesiastical  staff,  and  the  number 
of  soldiers  and  Government  servants  who  attend  their  minis- 
trations. In  making  up  the  second  table,  it  has  not  been 
found  practicable  to  bring  the  statistics  of  attendance  bej'ond 
the  date  of  the  last  Parliamentary  return  of  1880.  During  the 
year  1879,  to  which  the  attendance  columns  in  the  second 
table  refer,  a  large  European  force  was  absent  in  the  field,  and 
the  church  attendance  of  European  troops  was  decreased  by 
about  13,000  officers  and  men. 


Indian  Ecclesiastical 

Staff,  1884. 

Bishops. 

Arch- 
deacons. 

Chaplains. 

Registrars. 

No. 

Pay. 

No. 

Pay. 

^°!(S. 

Pay 
(jun.). 

No. 

Pay. 

£ 

£ 

£ 

£ 

£ 

Church  of  England — 

Calcutta, 

I    4598 

1280 

) 

irt 

480 

Lahore, 

I 

960 

960 

;-  92     960 

600 

Rangoon, 

I 

960 

960 

i 

I 

"60 

Madras, 

I 

2560 

1280 

39 

960 

600 

I 

256 

Bombay, 

I 

2560 

1280 

26 

960 

600 

I 

180 

Church  of  Scotland — 

Bengal, 

i.b 

1351 

4 

960 

600 

Madras, 

\b 

1 140 

3 

960 

600 

Bombay, 

lb 

1 140 

3 

990 

600 

Roman  Catholic 

Priests- 

Bengal, 

2 

6oof 

42 

2,6od 

240 

Madras, 

I 

6oo^' 

15 

36od 

240 

Bombay, 

Total,      . 

I 

6oor 

... 

18 

3  60" 

240 

9 

8 

242 

...     1     4 

a  The  registrar  of  the  Calcutta  Diocese  is  also  registrar  of  the  Lahore  Diocese. 

b  These  are  the  senior  Presbyterian  Chaplains  in  the  three  Presidencies. 

c  This  is  an  allowance  for  furnishing  ecclesiastical  returns  for  transmission  to 
England,  paid  to  certain  Roman  Catholic  Bishops  in  official  communication 
with  the  British  Government.  The  number  of  Catholic  Bishops  is  si.xteen  for 
all  India. 

d  There  is  also  an  intermediate  class  on  ;^30o  per  annum.  In  addition  to 
their  rates  of  pay,  Roman  Catholic  priests  receive  horse  allowance  at  ^36  per 
annum. 

In  the  following  table,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  salaries  and  number  of  chaplains  refer  to  1884,  while 
the  attendance  is  that  of  1879,  when  a  large  force  was  in 
the  field.       The  attendance  in  ordinary  years   is   estimated 

^  The  average  cost  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment  during  the  ten  years 
ending  1S83  was^i60j657j 


E CCLESIASTICAL  ESTABLISHMENT. 


;67 


at  over  50,000.  This  would  raise  the  total  Church  attendance 
of  British  troops  and  Government  servants  (exclusive  of  women 
and  children)  to  about  55,000. 

Indian  Ecclesiastical  Ministrations. 


-   /- 

•S       1 

-J    IT      > 

tfl 

C   ^ 

i-« 

S  >  rt 

C      , 

0 

e>, . 

§'^-^ . 

>s 

Hi 

S 

|s 

^  w^l 

■■r-Cy 

nd  Alio 
18S4). 

•"    Ul    ** 

ither  Go 
[excludii 
ren)  ord 
hurch (i 

E  3 

.1! 

•5  = 

Tiber  of 
id   Offic 
Iiding  C 

Tiber  of 
:rvaiits 
id  Child 
nding  C 

°  0 

Ui 

cCJC- 

=  52 

=  x  n  ii 

0  ^5 

y. 

y. 

z 

Church  of  England, 

;^I24,I75 

167 

23,842 

3I9I 

27,033 

Church  of  Scotland, 

10,445 

13 

2,782 

479 

3,261 

Church  of  Rome,   . 

Total 

31.251 

79 

10,586 

621 

11,207 

i:i6s,87i 

259 

37,210 

4291 

4I-50I 

[  268 


CHAPTER    X. 

EARLY    MUHAMMADAN    RULERS  (7 1  I   TO   1526  A.D.). 

While  Buddhism  was  giving  place  to  Hinduism  throughout 
India,  and  Christianity  under  Nestorian  bishops  was  spread- 
ing along  the  coast  of  Malabar,  a  new  faith  had  arisen  in 
EarlyArab  Arabia.     Muhammad,  born  in  570  a.d.,  created  a  conquering 
dont  to      religion,   and  died    in    632.     Within    a   hundred   years   after 
Bombay      his  death,  his  followers  had  invaded  the  countries  of  Asia  as 

coast,  636-  f^Y  ^g  ^i^g   Hindu    Kush.     Here  their   pro2;ress   was   staved, 
711  A.i:).  10  -       ' 

and  Islam  had  to  consolidate  itself,  during  three  more  cen- 
turies, before  it  grew  strong  enough  to  grasp  the  rich  prize  of 
India.  But,  almost  from  the  first,  the  Arabs  had  fixed  eager 
eyes  upon  that  wealthy  country.  Fifteen  years  after  the  death 
of  the  prophet,  Usman  sent  a  sea-expedition  to  Thana  and 
Broach  on  the  Bombay  coast  (647  ?  a.d.).  Other  raids  towards 
Sind  took  place  in  662  and  664,  with  no  results. 
Muham-  In  71 1,  however,  the  youthful  Kasim  advanced  into  Sind,  to 

madau        claim  damages  for  an  Arab  ship  which  had  been  seized  at  an 

settlement  .  °  ...  ... 

in  Sind,      Indian  port.    After  a  brilliant  campaign,  he  settled  himself  m  the 
711-S28?    Indus  valley;   but  the  advance  of  the  Musalmans  depended 
on  the  personal  daring  of  their  leader,  and  was  arrested  by 
his  death  in  714  a.d.     The  despairing  valour  of  the  Hindus 
struck  the  invaders  with  wonder.     One  Rajput  garrison  pre- 
ferred  extermination   to   submission.       They   raised   a    huge 
funeral  pile,  upon  which  the  women  and  children  first  threw 
themselves.      The  men  then  bathed,  took  a  solemn  farewell 
of  each  other,  and,  throwing  open  the  gates,  rushed  upon  the 
Their  ex-    besiegers  and  perished  to  a  man.      In  750,  the  Rajputs  are 
828  °"'      ^^^^  ^°  h^ye  expelled  the  Muhammadan  governor,  but  it  was 

not  till  828  a.d.  that  the  Hindus  regained  Sind. 
India  on  The  armies  of  Islam  had  carried  the  crescent  from  the 
the  eve  Hindu  Kush  westwards,  through  Asia,  Africa,  and  Southern 
Muham-  Europe,  to  distant  Spain  and  Gaul,  before  they  obtained  a  foot- 
madan  hold  in  the  Punjab.  This  long  delay  was  due,  not  only  to 
^oS"a^d    '•'^^  daring  of  individual  tribes,  such  as  the  Sind  Rajputs  just 


HINDU  RESISTANCE.  269 

mentioned,  but  to  the  military  organization  of  the  Hindu 
kingdoms.  To  the  north  of  the  Vindhyas,  three  separate 
groups  of  princes  governed  the  great  river  -  valleys.  The 
Rajputs  ruled  in  the  north-west,  throughout  the  Indus  plains,  Hindu 

111  ,  r      1         T  rr.1  •      .   kingdoms 

and   along   the   upper  waters  of  the   Jumna.       Ihe   ancient  _(i)Qfj]jg 
Middle  Land  of  Sanskrit  times  (Madhya-desha)  was  divided  north ; 
among   powerful   kingdoms,  with    their   suzerain    at    Kanauj. 
The  lower  Gangetic  valley,  from  Behar  downwards,  was  still 
in  part  governed  by  Pal  or  Buddhist  dynasties,  whose  names 
are  found  from  Benares  to  jungle-buried  hamlets  deep  in  the 
Bengal  delta. ^      The  Vindhya  ranges  stretched  their  wall  of 
forest  and  mountain  between  the  northern  and  southern  halves 
of  India.     Their  eastern  and  central  regions  were  peopled  by  (2)  of  the 
fierce  hill  tribes.      At  their   western   extremity,   towards   the  '^ 
Bombay  coast,   lay  the  Hindu   kingdom  of   Malwa,   with  its 
brilliant  literary  traditions  of  Vikramaditya,  and  a  vast  feudal 
array  of  fighting  men.     India  to  the  south  of  the  Vindhyas  was 
occupied  by  a  num.ber  of  warlike  princes,  chiefly  of  non-Aryan 
descent,   but  loosely  grouped   under  three   great    over-lords, 
represented  by  the  Chera,  Chola,  and  Pandya  dynasties.^ 

Each  of  these  groups  of  kingdoms,  alike  in  the  north  and  Hindu 
in  the  south,  had  a  certain  power  of  coherence  to  oppose  to  a  P°^^y  '^\ 
foreign  invader ;   while,  the  large  number  of  the  group?  and 
units  rendered  conquest  a  very  tedious  process.    For  even  when 
the  over-lord  or  central  authority  was  \'anquished,  the  separate 
groups  and  units  had  to  be  defeated  in  detail,  and  each  State 
supplied  a  nucleus  for  subsequent  revolt.     We  have  seen  how 
the  brilliant  attempt  in  71 1,  to  found  a  lasting  Muhammadan 
dynasty  in  Sind,  failed.      Three   centuries  later,   the  utmost 
efforts  of  two  great  Musalman  invaders  from  the  north-west  only 
succeeded  in  annexing  a  small  portion  of  the  frontier  Punjab 
Province,  between  977  and   1176.^.0.     The  Hindu  power  in  Slow  pro- 
Southern  India  was  not  completely  broken  till  the  battle  ofSJ'^^soi 
Talikot  in  1565  ;  and  within  a  hundred  years,  in  1650,  the  great  madans  in 
Hindu  revival  had  commenced  which,  under  the  form  of  the  India. 
Maratha  confederacy,  was  destined  to  break  up  the  Mughal 

1  For  example,  at  Sabhar,  on  the  northern  bank  of  the  Buriganga,  once 
the  capital  of  the  Bhuiya  or  Buddliist  Pal  Raja  Harischandra.  In  1839, 
the  only  trace  that  remained  of  his  traditional  residence  was  a  brick  mound, 
covered  with  jungle.  See  Hunter's  Statistical  Account  of  Bengal,  vol. 
V.  pp.  72,  73,  118.  In  Lower  Bengal,  the  Buddhist  Pals  had  given  place 
to  the  Brahmanized  Sens  of  Nadiya  before  the  Muhammadans  reached  that 
Province  for  the  first  time  in  1199. 

^  vSee  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  articles  CllERA,  CiiOhA,  and 
Pandya, 


270 


EARLY  MUHAMMAD  AN  RULERS. 


Their 
success 
short- 
lived. 


Muhani- 
madan 
conquests 
only  par- 
tial, 


and  tem- 
porary. 


Hindus 
reconquer 
India  from 
the  Musal- 
mans, 
1707-61. 


Empire  in  India.  That  Empire,  even  in  the  north  of  India, 
had  only  been  consoHdated  by  Akbar's  policy  of  incorporating 
Hindu  chiefs  and  statesmen  into  his  government  (1556-1605). 
Up  to  Akbar's  time,  and  even  during  the  earlier  years  of  his 
reign,  a  series  of  Rajput  wars  had  challenged  the  Muhani- 
madan  sui)remacy.  In  less  than  two  centuries  after  his  death, 
the  successor  of  A kbar  was  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the  Hindu 
Marathas  at  Delhi. 

The  popular  notion  that  India  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the 
Musalmans  is  opposed  to  the  historical  facts.  Muhammadan 
rule  in  India  consists  of  a  series  of  invasions  and  partial 
conquests,  during  eleven  centuries,  from  Usman's  raid,  circ.  647, 
to  Ahmad  Shah's  tempest  of  invasion  in  1761  a.d.  They 
represent  in  Indian  history  the  overflow  of  the  nomad  tribes  of 
Central  Asia,  towards  the  south-east ;  as  the  Huns,  Turks,  and 
various  Tartar  tribes  disclose  in  early  European  annals  the 
westward  movements  from  the  same  great  breeding-ground  of 
nations.  At  no  time  was  Islam  triumphant  throughout  the 
whole  of  India.  Hindu  dynasties  always  ruled  over  large 
areas.  At  the  height  of  the  Muhammadan  power,  the  Hindu 
princes  paid  tribute,  and  sent  agents  to  the  Imperial  Court.  But 
even  this  modified  supremacy  of  Delhi  lasted  for  little  over  a 
century  (15 78-1 707).  Before  the  end  of  that  brief  period, 
the  Hindus  had  begun  the  work  of  reconquest.  The  native 
chivalry  of  Rajputana  was  closing  in  upon  Delhi  from  the 
south;  the  religious  confederation  of  the  Siklis  was  growing 
into  a  miUtary  power  on  the  north-west.  The  Marathas  had 
combined  the  fighting  powers  of  the  low-castes  with  the  states- 
manship of  the  Brahmans,  and  were  subjecting  the  Muham- 
madan kingdoms  throughout  all  India  to  tribute.  So  far  as 
can  now  be  estimated,  the  advance  of  the  English  power  at  the 
beginning  of  the  present  century  alone  saved  the  Mughal 
Empire  from  passing  to  the  Hindus. 

This  chapter  will  necessarily  confine  its  survey  to  the 
essential  stages  in  the  spread  of  the  Musalman  conquest, 
and  will  pass  lightly  over  the  intermediate  princes  or  minor 
dynasties  who  flit  across  the  scene.^  The  annexed  summary 
presents  a  view  of  the  whole  : — 


1  The  Hon.  MountsUiart  Elphinstonc's  History  of  Iiulia  is  still  the 
standard  popular  work  on  the  Muhammadan  period.  Professor  Cowell's 
edition  (Murray,  1866)  incorporated  some  of  the  new  materials  accumu- 
lated since  Mr.  Elphinstone  wrote.  But  much  of  the  original  work  is  a 
reproduction  of  Firishta,  and  requires  to  he  re-written  from  Sir  Henry 
Elliot's    Persian   Historians   and    the    results   of   the    Archaeological   and 


MUHAMMAD  AN  DYNASTIES. 


Summary  of  Muhammadan 
OF  India  ( 

I.  House  of  Ghazm  (Tuiki). 
1001-1186.  Mahmud    of  Ghazni 
to  Sultan  Khusru.    Pp.  272-75. 

II.  House  OF  Ghor  (Afghan?). 
I1S6-1206.   Muhammad     Ghori 
(Shahab-ud-din).     Pp.  275-78. 

III.  Slave  Kin'GS  (chiefly  Turki). 
1206-1290.    Kutab-ud-din  to  Bal- 

ban  and  Kaikubad.  Pp.  278-80. 

IV.  House  of  Khilji  (Turki?). 
1290-1320.  Jalal-ud-dinto  Nasi'r- 

ud-din  Khusru.     Pp.  280-83. 

V,  House  of  Tughlak  (Punjab 

Turks),  1320-1414.  Pp.  283-86. 

1320.  Ghiyas  -  ud  -  din    Tughlak. 

P.  283. ' 
1324.   Muhammad  Tughlak.    Pp. 

283-85. 
1351.   Fiiuz  Tughlak.     P.  285. 
1414.    End  of  the  dynasty.    P.  286, 
[Irruption  of  the  Mughals  under 
Timi'ir  (Tamerlane)  in  1398- 
99,  leaving  behind  him  a  fifteen 
years'  anarchy  under  the  last 
of  the  line  of  Tughlak,  until 
the  accession  of  the  Sayyids 
in  1414.     P.  285.] 
VI.  The  Sayyids. 
1414-1450.  Curtailed    power    of 

Delhi.     P.  286  passim. 
VII.  The  Lodis  (Afghans). 
1450-1526.   Feeble  reigns  ;  inde- 
pendent States.     P.  286. 

VIII.  House  OF  Timur  (Mughal), 
1526-1857. 
1526-1530.   Babar.     P.  290. 
1 530-1 556.  Ilumayun.  Pp.  290-91. 


COXQUF.RORS    AND    DYNASTIES 
1 001-1857). 

[Sher  Shah,  the  Afghan  gover- 
nor of  Bengal,  drives  Huma- 
yun  out  of  India  in  1540, 
and  his  Afghan  dynasty  rules 
till  1555.  P.  291.] 
1556 -1605.  Akbar     the    Great. 

Pp.  291-300. 
1 605 -1 627.  Jahangir.  Pp.  300-302. 
1628-1658.  Shah  Jahan,  deposed. 

Pp.  302-305. 
1658-1707.  Aurangzeb  or  Alam- 

gir  I.     Pp.  306-312. 
1707-1712.    Bahadur     Shah,    or 

Shah  Alam  i.     P.  312. 
1712.  Jahandar  Shah.      P.  312. 
1 7 1 3- 1 7 1 8.  Farrukhsiyyar.  P.  3 1 2. 
1719-1748.     Muhammad     Shah 
(after  two  boy  Emperors).    Pp. 

312-313- 

[Irruption    of  Nadir    Shah  the 
Persian,     1738 -1739.      Pp. 

313-15-] 

1 74S- 1754.   Death  of  Muhammad 

Sliali ;  and  accession  of  Ahmad 

Shah,  deposed  1754.      P.  313. 

1754-1759-   Alamgir  11.      P.  313. 

[Six    invasions    of    India     by 

Ahmad    Shah     Durani,    the 

Afghan,    1748-1761.       Pp. 

313-15-] 

1759-1806.  Shah  Alam  11.,  titular 
Emperor.     P.  313. 

1806-1834.  Akbar  11.,  titular  Em- 
peror.    P.  313. 

1834-1857.  Muhammad  Bahadur 
Shah,  titular  Emperor  ;  the 
seventeenth  and  last  Mughal 
Emperor  ;  died  a  State  prisoner 
at  Rangoon  in  1S62.     P.  313. 


Statistical  Surveys.  1  he  present  chapter  has  chiefly  used,  besides 
Elphinstone,  the  following  works  for  the  Muhammadan  period: — (i)  Sir 
Henry  Elliot's  History  of  India  as  iold  by  its  07uu  Historians,  i.e.  the 
Arab  and  Persian  travellers  and  writers,  edited  by  Professor  Dowson, 
8  vols.  1867-77  (Triibner) ;  (2)  Mr.  Edward  Thomas'  Chrotiides  of 
the  Pathan  Kings  of  Delhi,  especially  for  reigns  from  1193  to  1554,  for 
which  period  he  gives  the  initial  dates  of  the  Hijra  years  (Triibner,  1871) ; 
(3)  Mr.  Edward  Thomas'  Rroemie  Resources  of  the  Mughal  Empire,  with 
his  manuscript  marginal  notes  ;  (4)  Lieut. -Colonel  Brigg's  Translation  of 
Muhammad   Kasim  Firishta's  History  of  the  Rise  of  the  Muhammadan 


2  7  2  EARL  Y  MUHAMMAD  AN  R  ULERS. 

First  The  first  collision    between   Hinduism   and  Islam   on    the 

lurki         Punjab  frontier  was  the  act  of  the  Hindus.     In  077,  Taipal, 
invasions.  ^    .  .  .  .    .  . 

the  Hmdu  chief  of  Lahore,  annoyed  by  Afghan  raids,  led  his 

troops  up  the  passes  against  the    Muhammadan  kingdom  of 
Ghazni,  in  Afghanistan.     Subuktigi'n,  the   Ghaznivide  prince, 
after  severe  fighting,  took  advantage  of  a  hurricane  to  cut  off 
the  Hindu  retreat  through  the  pass.     He  allowed  them,  how- 
Subukti-     ever,  to  return  to  India  on  the  surrender  of  fifty  elephants, 
Kin.  977      and  the  promise  of  one  million  dirhams  (about  ;^2  5,000).^ 
Tradition  relates  how  Jaipal,  having  regained  his  capital,  was 
counselled  by  the  Brahman,  standing  at  his  right  hand,  not  to 
disgrace  himself  by  paying  ransom  to  a  barbarian  ;  while  his 
nobles  and  warrior  chiefs,  standing  at  his  left,  implored  him  to 
keep  faith.     In  the  end,  Subuktigi'n  swept  down  the  passes  to 
enforce  his  ransom,  defeated  Jaipal,  and  left  an  Afghan  officer 
with  10,000  horse  to  garrison  Peshawar.     Subuktigi'n  was  soon 
afterwards  called  away  to  fight  in  Central  Asia,  and  his  Indian 
raid  left  behind  it  only  this  outpost.-      But  henceforth,  the 
Afghans  held  both  ends  of  the  passes. 
Wahmud         In  997,  Subuktigin   died,   and  was  succeeded  by  his  son, 
of  Ghazni,  Mahmiid   of  Ghazni,   aged   sixteen.      This   valiant   monarch 
*  reigned  for  thirty-three  years,^  and  extended  the  limits  of  his 
father's  little  Afghan  kingdom  from  Persia  on  the  west,  to  deep 
into  the  Punjab  on  the  east.     Having  spent  four  years  in  con- 
solidating his  power  to  the  west  of  the  Khaibar  Pass,  he  led 

His  seven-  forth  in  looi  a.d.  the  first  of  his  seventeen*  invasions  of  India, 
teen  inva- 
sions Power  in  India ;  (5)  Reports  of  the  Archaeological  Survey  of  Western 

1001-1026.  India,  and  materials  supplied  by  the  Statistical  Survey  of  the  various 
Provinces  of  India ;  (6)  Professor  Blochmann's  Ain-i-Akbari  (Calcutta, 
1873),  together  with  Gladwin's  older  translation  (2  vols.  1800).  When  the 
dates  or  figures  in  this  chapter  differ  from  Elphinstone's,  they  are  derived 
from  the  original  Persian  authorities,  as  adopted  by  Sir  Henry  Elliot  and 
Mr.  Thomas. 

^  The  Tdrikh  Yantini,  written  circ.  1020,  by  Al  'Utbi,  a  secretary  of 
Sultan  Mahmiid,  is  the  contemporary  authority  for  this  invasion.  It  is 
translated  in  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii.  pp.  18-24.  The 
materials  for  the  invasions  of  Subuktigin  are  Firishta,  i.  pp.  II-25  (ed. 
1829)  ;  and  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  ii.  iii.  iv.  and  vi. 

2  His  chronicler,  Al  'Utbi,  never  once  mentions  Delhi  or  Lahore. 

^  The  Tahakdt-i-Ndsiri  (Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii. 
p.  270)  speaks  of  the  '  36th  year  of  his  reign.'  But  the  dates  997  to  1030 
seem  authoritative.  The  original  materials  for  the  invasions  of  Mahmiid 
are  Firishta,  i.  pp.  37-82  ;  and  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians, 
vols.  i.  ii.  iii.  and  iv. 

*  This  number,  and  subsequent  details,  are  taken  from  the  authorities 
translated  in  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  ii.  iii.  iv. ;  and 
critically  examined  in  the  Appendix  to  his  second  volume,  pp.  434-478(1869). 


MAHAIUD  OF  GIIAZNI.  273 

Of  these,  thirteen  were  directed  to  the  subjugation  of  the 
Punjab;  one  was  an  unsuccessful  incursion  into  Kashmir;  the 
remaining  three  were  short  but  furious  raids  against  more 
distant  cities — Kanauj,  GwaUor,  and  Somnath. 

Jaipal,    the    Hindu   frontier    chief   of   Lahore,    was    again 
defeated.      According  to    Hindu  custom,   a  twice-conquered 
prince  was    deemed  unworthy  to  reign ;  and  Jaipal,  mount- 
ing a  funeral  pile,  solemnly  made  over  his  kingdom  to  his  Patriotic 
son,  and  burned  himself  in  his  regal  robes.     Another  local  ^'fyo^'"" 

'  .  °  of  the 

chief,  rather  than  yield  himself  to  the  victor,  fell  upon  his  Hindus, 
own  sword.  In  the  sixth  expedition  (1008  a. d.),  the  Hindu '°°^ '^•" 
ladies  melted  their  ornaments,  while  the  poorer  women  spun 
cotton,  to  support  their  husbands  in  the  war.  In  one  great 
battle,  the  fate  of  the  invaders  hung  in  the  balance.  Mahmiid, 
alarmed  by  a  coalition  of  the  Indian  kings  as  far  as  Oudh 
and  Malwa,  entrenched  himself  near  Peshawar.  A  sortie 
which  he  made  was  dri\-en  back,  and  the  wild  Ghakkar 
tribe  ^  burst  into  the  camp  and  slaughtered  nearly  4000 
Musalmans. 

But    each    expedition  ended  by  further  strengthening   the  Mahmud'^; 
IMuhammadan    foothold    in    India.       Mahmud   carried   away  P'^S'^sss '" 

^   India, 

enormous  booty  from  the  Hmdu  temples,  such  as  Thaneswar  1001-1024. 
and  Nagarkot,  and  his  sixteenth  and  most  famous  expedition 
was  directed  against  the  temple  of  Somnath  in  Gujarat  (1024 
A.D.).     After  bloody  repulses,  he  stormed  the  town  ;  and  the 
Hindu  garrison,  leaving  5000  dead,  put  out  in  boats  to  sea. 
The  famous  idol  of  Somnath   was  merely  one  of  the  twelve 
lingas  or  phallic  emblems  erected  in  various  parts  of  India. 
But  Mahmud  having  taken  the  name  of  the  '  Idol-Smasher,'  Expedition 
the  modern  Persian  historians  gradually  converted  the  plunder  ^°.  \^^\ 
of  Somnath  into  a  legend  of  his  pious  zeal.     Forgetting  the 
contemporary  accounts  of  the   idol  as  a  rude  stump  of  stone, 
Firishta  tells  how  Mahmud,  on  entering  the  temple,  was  offered 

^  Firishta  says,  '  30,000  Ghakkars  with  their  heads  and  feet  bare.' 
Colonel  Brigg's  Firishta,  vol.  i.  p.  47  ^ed.  1829).  Elphinstone  gives  the 
number  of  Mahmud's  expeditions  somewhat  differently  from  the  number 
and  order  adopted  in  the  above  text  from  the  Persian  authorities,  translated 
by  Sir  Henry  Elliot.  Thus  Elphinstone  gives  the  expedition  of  1008  A.D. 
as  the  fourth  (p.  328),  while  Sir  Henry  Elliot  gives  it  as  the  sixth 
{Persian  Historians,  vol.  i.  p.  444).  In  the  same  way,  Elphinstone  gives  the 
Somnath  expedition  as  the  twelfth  (p.  334,  ed.  1866),  while  Sir  Plenry 
Elliot  gives  it  as  the  sixteenth  (vol.  ii.  p.  468).  These  instances  must 
suffice  to  indicate  the  differences  between  Elphinstone  and  the  later 
materials  derived  from  Sir  Henry  Elliot  and  Mr.  Edward  Thomas.  In 
subsequent  pages,  the  more  accurate  materials  will  be  used  without  pausing 
to  point  out  such  diflerences. 

S 


2  7  4  EARL  V  MUHAMMAD  AN  R  ULERS. 

an  enormous  ransom  by  the  priests  if  he  would    spare    the 

liction  of  image.^      But    INIahmud    cried  out   that  he  would  rather  be 

the  lewel- 

bellied        remembered  as  the  breaker  than  the  seller  of  idols,  and  clove 

god.  the  god  open  with  his  mace.     Forthwith  a  vast  treasure  of 

jewels  poured  forth  from  its  vitals,  which  explained  the 
liberal  offers  of  the  priests,  and  rewarded  the  disinterested 
piety  of  the  monarch.  The  growth  of  this  myth  can  be  clearly 
traced,-  but  it  is  still  repeated  by  uncritical  historians.  The 
linga  or  solid  stone  fetish  of  Somnath,  had  no  stomach,  and 
could  contain  no  jewels. 
The  Mahmiid  carried  off  the  temple  gates,  with  fragments  of  the 

wood  phallic  emblem,  to  Ghazni,^  and  on  the  way  nearly  perished 

gates.  with  his  army  in  the  Indus  desert.  But  the  famous  '  Sandal- 
wood gates  of  Somnath,'  brought  back  as  a  trophy  from  Ghazni 
by  our  troops  in  1842,  and  paraded  through  Northern  India, 
were  as  clumsy  a  forgery  as  the  story  of  the  jewel-bellied  idol 
itself  jSIahmiid  died  at  Ghazni  in  1030  a.d. 
Results  of  As  the  result  of  seventeen  invasions  of  India,  and  twenty- 
-lahniuds  ^^.^  ygg^j-g'  fiahting,  Mahmud  had  reduced  the  western  districts 

invasions,  ^  o         o' 

1030  A.D.  of  the  Punjab  to  the  control  of  Ghazni,  and  left  the  remem- 
brance of  his  raids  as  far  as  Kanauj  on  the  east,  and  Gujarat 
in  the  south.  He  never  set  up  as  a  resident  sovereign  in 
India.  His  expeditions  beyond  the  Punjab  were  the  adven- 
tures of  a  religious  knight-errant,  with  the  plunder  of  a  temple- 
city,  or  the  demolition  of  an  idol,  as  their  object,  rather  than 
serious  efforts  at  conquest.     But  as  his  father  had  left  Pesha- 

p    .  ,         war  as  an  outpost  garrison,  so  Mahmiid  left  the  Punjab  as  an 

conquered,  outlying  Province  of  Ghazni. 

Mahmud's       The  Muhammadan  chroniclers  tell  many  stories,  not  only  of 

thrifr  ^"^'  ^rahmiid's  valour  and  piety,  but  also  of  his  thrift.  One  day  a 
poor  woman  complained  that  her  son  had  been  killed  by  robbers 
in  a  distant  desert  of  Irak.  Mahmiid  said  he  was  very  sorry, 
but  that  it  was  difficult  to  prevent  such  accidents  so  far  from 
the  capital.     The  old  woman  rebuked  him  with  these  words, 

^  Col  )nel  Biigg's  Firishta,  vol.  i.  pp.  72,  73  (ed.  1829^. 

"  Sir  II.  Elliot's  History  of  India  from  the  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii.  p. 
270,  from  the  Tabakdt-i-Nasiri ;  also  Appendix,  vol.  ii.  p.  476  ;  vol.  iv. 
pp.  182,  183,  from  the  Habihii-s-Siyar  of  Khondamir.  But  see,  even  in 
1832,  H.  H.  Wilson  in  the  Asiatic  Kcscarclies,  vol.  xvii.  pp.  194  ct  sec], 
A  foundation  for  Firishta's  in%-ention  is,  however,  to  be  found  in  the  con- 
temporary account  of  Al  Biruni  (970-1029  a.d.),  who  says  that  the  top  of 
the  linga  was  garnished  with  gems  of  gold. 

•*  Of  the  four  fragments,  he  deposited  one  in  the  Jama  Masjid  at  Ghazri, 
another  at  the  entrance  of  his  palace,  and  the  third  he  sent  to  Mecca,  and 
the  fourth  to  Medina.      Tahakat-i-Ndsirl. 


\ 


HOUSE  OF  GHOR,  1152-1186.  275 

'  Keep  therefore  no  more  territory  than  you  can  rightly  govern.' 

'J'he  Sultan  forthwith  rewarded  her,  and  sent  troops  to  guard 

all  caravans  passing  that  way.     Mahmiid  was  an  enlightened 

patron  of  poets,  and  his  liberality  drew  the  great  Ferdousi  to  Ferdousi. 

his  court.     The  Sultan  listened  with  delight  to  his  Shdh-ndmah, 

or  Book  of  Kings,  and  promised  him  a  dir/iam,  meaning  a 

golden  one,   for  each  verse  on  its  completion.     After  thirty 

years  of  labour,  the  poet  claimed  his  reward.     But  the  Sultan 

finding  that  the  poem  had  run  to  60,000  verses,  offered  him 

60,000  silver  dir/iains,  instead  of  dirhams  of  gold.     Ferdousi 

retired  in  disgust  from  the  court,  and   wrote  a  bitter  satire 

which  records  to  this  day  the  base  birth  of  the    monarch. 

Mahmud  forgave  the  satire,  but  remembered  the  great  epic, 

and,  repenting  of  his  meanness,  sent  100,000  golden  dirhams 

to  the  poet.     The  bounty  came  too  late.     For  as  the  royal 

messengers  bearing    the   bags    of  gold   entered  one  gate  of 

Ferdousi's  city,   the   poet's   corpse   was   being  borne  out  by 

another. 

During  a  century  and  a  half,  the  Punjab  remained  under  House  of 

Mahmud's  successors,  as  a  Province  of  Ghazni.     But  in  11^2,  *^"°'''    .. 
'  ,  .  '^  '  1152-iibC. 

the  Afghans  of  Ghor^  overthrew  the  Ghaznivide  dynasty;  and 
Khusru,  the  last  of  Mahmud's  line,  fled  to  Lahore,  the  capital 
of  his    outlying   Indian   territory.       In    1186,    this   also   was  Obtains 
wrested  from  him  ;  -  and  the  Ghorian  prince  Shahab-ud-di'n,  p    .  , 
better  known  as  Muhammad  of  Ghor,  began  the  conquest  of  11S6. 
India  on  his  own  account.     But  each  of  the  Hindu  princi- 
palities fought   hard,  and  some  of  them   still  survive   seven 
centuries  after  the  torrent  of  Afghan  invasion  swept  over  their 
heads. 

On  his  first  expedition  towards  Delhi,  in  1191,  Muhammad  Muham- 
of  Ghor  was  utterly  defeated  by  the  Hindus  at   Thaneswar,  ™^    ? 
badly  wounded,  and  barely  escaped  with  his  life.    His  scattered  invasions, 
hosts  were  chased  for  40  miles.      But  he  gathered  together  ''.9i~'2o6. 
the  wreck  at  Lahore,  and,  aided  by  new  hordes  from  Central  defeat 
Asia,  again  marched  into  Hindustan  in  1193.    Family  quarrels  ii9i- 
among  the  Rajputs   prevented   a   united  effort   against  him. 

■*  Ghor,  one  of  the  oldest  seats  of  the  Afghan  race,  is  now  a  ruined 
town  of  Western  Afghanistan,  120  miles  south-east  of  Herat.  The  feud 
between  Ghor  and  Ghazni  was  of  long  standing  and  great  bitterness. 
Mahmud  of  Ghazni  had  subdued  Ghor  in  loio  a.d.  ;  but  about  1051 
the  Ghorian  chief  captured  Ghazni,  and  dragged  its  chief  inhabitants  to 
Ghor,  where  he  cut  their  throats,  and  used  their  blood  for  making  mortar 
for  the  fortifications.  After  various  reprisals,  Ghor  finally  triumphed  over 
Ghazni  in  1152. 

^  Tabakdt-i-Ndsiii.     Sir  H.  Elli  )t"s  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii.  p.  2S1. 


276 


EARLY  MUHAMMADAN  RULERS. 


Dissen- 
sions 

among  the 
Hindu 
princes. 


Court 
pageant  at 
Kanauj, 
12th  cen- 
tury A.D. 


A  sivay- 
amvara,  ( 
maiden's 
choice. 


Distribu- 
tion of 
Rajputs, 
circ.  1 1 S4. 


The  cities  of  Delhi  and  Kanauj  stand  forth  as  the  centres  of 
rival  Hindu  monarchies,  each  of  which  claimed  the  first  place 
in  Northern  India.  A  Chauhan  prince,  ruling  over  Delhi  and 
Ajmere,  bore  the  proud  name  of  Prithwi  Raja  or  Suzerain. 
The  Rah  tor  king  of  Kanauj,  whose  capital  can  still  be  traced 
across  eight  square  miles  of  broken  bricks  and  rubbish,^  cele- 
brated a  feast,  in  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  Horse-sacrifice,- 
to  proclaim  himself  the  Over-lord. 

At  such  a  feast,  all  menial  offices  had  to  be  filled  by  royal 
vassals ;  and  the  Delhi  monarch  was  summoned  as  a  gate- 
keeper, along  with  the  other  princes  of  Hindustan.  During 
the  ceremony,  the  daughter  of  the  King  of  Kanauj  was  nomin- 
ally to  make  her  sicayamvaf-a,  or  'own  choice'  of  a  husband, 
a  pageant  survival  of  the  reality  in  the  Sanskrit  epics.  The 
Delhi  Raja  loved  the  maiden,  but  he  could  not  brook  to  stand 
at  another  man's  gate.  As  he  did  not  arrive,  the  Kanauj 
king  set  up  a  mocking  image  of  him  at  the  door.  When 
the  princess  entered  the  hall  to  make  her  choice,  she  looked 
calmly  round  the  circle  of  kings,  then  stepping  proudly  past 
them  to  the  door,  threw  her  bridal  garland  over  the  neck 
of  the  ill-shapen  image.  Forthwith,  says  the  story,  the 
Delhi  monarch  rushed  in,  sprang  with  the  princess  on  his 
horse,  and  galloped  off  towards  his  northern  capital.  The 
outraged  father  led  out  his  army  against  the  runaways, 
and,  having  called  in  the  Afghans  to  attack  Delhi  on  the 
other  side,  brought  about  the  ruin  of  both  the  Hindu 
kingdoms. 

The  tale  serves  to  record  the  dissensions  among  the  Rajput 
princes,  which  prevented  a  united  resistance  to  Muhammad  of 
Ghor.  He  found  Delhi  occupied  by  the  Tomara  clan,  Ajmere 
by  the  Chauhans,  and  Kanauj  by  the  Rahtors.  These  Rajput 
States  formed  the  natural  breakwaters  against  invaders  from 
the  north-west.  But  their  feuds  are  said  to  have  left  the  King 
of  Delhi  and  Ajmere,  then  united  under  one  Chauhan  Over- 
lord, only  64  out  of  his  loS  warrior  chiefs.  In  1193,  the 
Afghans  again  swept  down  on  the  Punjab.  Prithwi  Raja  of 
Delhi  and  Ajmere '  was  defeated  and  slain.  His  heroic 
princess  burned  herself  on  his  funeral  pile.  Muhammad  of 
Ghor,  having  occupied   Delhi,  pressed  on  to  Ajmere;  and  in 

^  See  article  Kanauj,  The  Imf^erial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

^  As7va-vtedha,  described  in  a  previous  chapter. 

^  Descended  from  tlie  eponymous  Raja  Aja  of  Ajmere,  circ.  145  a.d.  ; 
and  on  the  mother's  side,  from  Anang  Pal  Tuar,  Raja  of  Delhi,  who 
adopted  him  ;  thus  uniting  Delhi  to  Ajmere.  See  article  Ajmere-Mek- 
WARA,  in  The  Jiufcrial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


MUIIAMMA  DAN  CONQ  VEST  OF  BENGAL.     2  7  7 

1 194,  overthrew  the  rival  Hindu  monarch  of  Kanauj,  whose 

body  was  identified  on  the  field  of  battle  by  his  false  teeth. 

The   brave   Rahtor   Rajputs   of   Kanauj,    with  other   of  the  Rajput 

Rajput  clans  in  Northern  India,  quitted  their  homes  in  lartre  |T'i5,'i'^[\'^ns 

-"_  '    ^  _         °     into  l\aj- 

bodies  rather  than  submit  to  the  stranger.     They   migrated  putana. 
to  the  regions  bordering  on  the  eastern   desert  of  the  Indus, 
and  there   founded  the  military  kingdoms  which  bear  their 
race-name,  Rajputana,  to  this  day. 

History  takes  her  narrative  of  these  events  from  the  matter- 
of-fact  statements  of  the  Persian  annalists.^  But  the  Hindu 
court-bard  of  Prithwi  Raja  left  behind  a  patriotic  version 
of  the  fall  of  his  race.  His  ballad-chronicle,  known  as  the 
Prith-ii'irdj  Rdsau  of  Chand,  is  one  of  the  earliest  poems  in 
Hindi.  It  depicts  the  Musalman  invaders  as  beaten  in  all  the 
battles  except  the  last  fatal  one.  Their  leader  is  taken  prisoner 
by  the  Hindus,  and  released  for  a  heavy  ransom.  But  the 
quarrels  of  the  chiefs  ruined  the  Hindu  cause. 

Setting  aside  these  patriotic  songs,  Benares  and  Gwalior  mark 
the  south-western  limits  of  Muhammad  of  Ghor's  own  advance. 
But  his  general,  Bakhtiyar  Khilji,  conquered  Behar  in  1199,2  Muham- 
and  Lower  Bengal  down   to   the   delta   in    1203.      On   the  (.^^quest  of 
approach  of  the  Musalmans,  the  Brahmans  advised  Lakshman  Bengal, 
Sen,  the  King  of  Bengal,  to  remove  his  residence  from  Nadiya  ^"°^' 
to  some   more   distant   city.      But  the  prince,   an  old   man 
of  eighty,   could  not   make   up  his  mind  until   the   Afghan 
general  had  seized  his  capital,  and  burst  into  the  palace  one 
day  while'his  majesty  was  at  dinner.     The  monarch   slipped 
out  by  a  back  door  without  having  time  to  put  on  his  shoes, 
and   fled  to   Puri   in   Orissa,   where  he  spent   his   remaining 
days  in  the  service  of  Jagannath.^ 

Meanwhile  the  Sultan,  Muhammad  Ghori,  divided  his  time 
between  campaigns  in  Afghanistan  and  Indian  invasions ; 
and  he  had  little  time  to  consolidate  his  Indian  conquests. 
Even  in  the  Punjab,  the  tribes  were  defeated  rather  than  sub- 
dued.    In  1203,  the  Ghakkars  issued  from  their  mountains, 

1  Firishta  (i.  161-187),  the  Tahakdt-i-Ndsiri  of  Minhaju-s-Siraj,  and 
others  ;  translated  in  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  ii.  v. 
and  vi. 

^History  of  Bengal  from  the  first  Miihammadan  Invasion  to  1757,  by 
Major  Charles  Stewart,  p.  25  (Calcutta,  1847).  The  nearly  contemporary 
authority  is  the  Tahakdt-i-Ndsiri  {\2Z-j-/^\)  \  Sir  H.  Y\\vo\^?,  Persian  His- 
torians, vol.  ii.  pp.  307-309. 

^  Stewart,  p.  27.  The  Tabakdt-i-Ndsiri  merely  says  'he  went  towards 
Sanknat '  {sic)  (Jagannath?)  ;  Sir  H.  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii. 
P-  309- 


India  sub- 
dued. 


278         EARLY  MUHAMMADAN  R ULERS. 

took  Lahore/  and  devastated  the  whole  Province.-     In  1206, 
a  party  of  the  same  clan  swam  the  Indus,  on  the  bank  of 
which  the  Afghan  camp  was  pitched,  and  stabbed  the  Sultan 
to  death  while  asleep  in  his  tent.^ 
]\Iuham-  Muhammad  of  Ghor  was  no   religious   knight-errant   like 

mad  of        Mahmiid  of  Ghazni,  but  a  practical  conqueror.     The  objects 
work  in       of  his  distant  expeditions  were  not   temples,  but  Provinces. 
^"'^'^'  -,  f.  Subuktigin  had  left  Peshawar  as  an  outpost  of  Ghazni  (977 
'a.d.);  and   Mahmud  had  reduced  the  western  Punjab  to  an 
outlying  Province  of  the  same  kingdom  (1030  a.d.).     That 
was  the  net  result  of   the  Tiirki  invasions   of   India.      But 
Muhammad  of  Ghor  left  the   whole  north  of  India,  from  the 
delta  of  the  Indus  to  the  delta  of  the  Ganges,  under  Muham- 
madan  generals,  who  on  his  death  set  up  for  themselves. 
Northern         His    Indian    Viceroy,    Kutab  -  ud  -  din,    proclaimed    him- 
self sovereign   of  India  at  Delhi,  and  founded  a  line  which 
lasted  from  1206  to  1290.      Kutab  claimed  the  control  over 
Kutab-ud-  all    the  Muhammadan   leaders   and    soldiers    of   fortune    in 
1 2*6       •    ^"^^^"^  ixovix  Sind  to   Lower  Bengal     His  name  is  preserved 
at    his    capital    by    the    Kutab    Mosque,   with    its    graceful 
colonnade  of  richly -sculptured    Hindu  pillars,    and   by   the 
Kutab  Mindr,^  which  raises  its  tapering  shaft,  encrusted  with 
chapters  from  the  Kuran,  high  above  the  ruins  of  old  Delhi, 
first  Kutab-ud-din  had  started  life  as  a  Tiirki  slave,  and  several  of 

Slave        Yn<,  successors  rose  by  valour  or  intrigue  from  the  same  low 

Kuig.  .  .  -'  .  °     . 

condition  to  the  throne.  His  dynasty  is  accordingly  known 
as  that  of  the  Slave  Kings.  Lender  them  India  became  for 
the  first  time  the  seat  of  resident  Muhammadan  sovereigns. 
Kutab-ud-din  died  in  1210.^ 

The  Slave       The  Slave  Dynasty  found  itself  face  to  face  with  the  three 

Dynasty,     perils  which  have  beset  the  Muhammadan  rule  in  India  from 
1206-90.      \ 

the  outset,  and  beneath  which  that  rule  eventually  succumbed. 

First,    rebellions    by   its    own    servants,  Musalman    generals, 

or  viceroys   of  Provinces ;    second,    revolts    of  the    Hindus  ; 

^  Firishta,  vol.  i.  pp.  182-184. 

-As  far  south  as  the  country  near  Multan,  Tajii-l-RIa-dsir ;  Sir  If. 
Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii.  pp.  233-235  ;  Tdrik/i-i-A/fi,  v.  163. 
The  Muhammadan  historians  naturally  minimize  tliis  episode. 

^  Sir  H.  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  ii.  pp.  235,  297,  393.  Brigg's 
firishta,  vol.  i.  pp.  185,  186. 

■*  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  Indian,  article  Delhi  City. 

^  The  original  materials  for  Kutab-ud-din  Aibak's  reign  are  to  be  found 
in  Firi  hta,  vol.  i.  pp.  189-202  (ed.  1829)  ;  and  the  Persian  Historians, 
translated  by  Sir  Heniy  Elliot,  vols.  ii.  iii.  iv.  and  v. 


y 
I 


THE  SLA  VE  D  \ 'NASTY.  279 

third,    fresh    invasions,    chiefly   by    Mughals,    from    Central 
Asia. 

Altamsh,  the   third  and   greatest  Sultan  of  the   Slave  line  Its  difficul- 
(1211-36  A.D.),  had  to  reduce  the  Muhammadan  Governors  of '''^^■ 
Lower  Bengal  and  Sind,  both  of  whom  had  set  up  as  inde- 
pendent rulers  ;  and  he  narrowly  escaped  destruction  by  a 
Mughal  invasion.     The  Mughals  under  Changiz  Khan  swept 
through  the  Indian  passes  in  pursuit  of  an  Afghan  prince;  but 
their  progress  was  stayed  by  the  Indus,  and  Delhi  remained  un- 
touched.   Before  the  death  of  Altamsh  (1236  a.d.),  the  Hindus  Altamsli. 
had  ceased  for  a  time  to  struggle  openly;  and  the  Muhammadan  121 1-36. 
Viceroys  of  Delhi  ruled  all  India  on  the  north  of  the  Vindhya 
range,   including  the   Punjab,  the    North-Western   Provinces, 
Oudh,  Behar,  Lower  Bengal,  Ajmere,   Gwalior,  Malwa,  and 
Sind.      The    Khalif  of  Baghdad    acknowledged   India   as   a 
separate  Muhammadan  kingdom  during  the  reign  of  Altamsh, 
and  struck  coins  in  recognition  of  the  new  Empire  of  Delhi 
(1229  A.D.).^     Altamsh  died  in  1236, 

His  daughter  Raziya  was  the  only  lady  who  ever  occupied  The 
the  Muhammadan  throne  of  Delhi  (1236-39  a.d.).     Learned  ^"^i."'^^'* 
in  the  Kuran,  industrious  in  public  business,  firm  and  energetic  i2-'6---''q 
in  every  crisis,  she  bears  in  history  the  masculine  name  of 
the  Sultan  Raziya.     But  the  favour  which  she  showed  to  the 
master  of  the  horse,  an  Abyssinian  slave,  offended  her  Afghan 
generals ;  and  after  a  troubled  reign  of  three  and  a  half  years, 
she  was  deposed  and  put  to  death. - 

Mughal  irruptions  and  Hindu  revolts  soon  began  to  under-  Mughal 
mine  the  Slave  dynasty.  The  Mughals  are  said  to  have  burst  irruptions 
through  Tibet  into  North  -  Eastern  Bengal  in  1245;^  and 
during  the  next  forty-four  years,  repeatedly  swept  down  the 
Afghan  passes  into  the  Punjab  (1244-88).  The  wild  Indian 
tribes,  such  as  the  Ghakkars^  and  the  hillmen  of  Mewat, 
ravaged  the  jMuhammadan  lowlands  almost  up  to  the  capital. 

^  Chronicles  of  the  Pathan  A'iugs  of  Dcllii,  by  Edward  Thomas,  p.  46 
(Milne,  1871).  Original  materials  for  Shams-ud-di'n  Altamsh  :  Firishla, 
vol.  i.  pp.  205-212  (1829);  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols, 
ii.  iii.  iv. 

*  Thomas'  Chronicles  of  the  Pathan  ICiiigs,  pp.  104- 108  ;  Firishta,  vol.  i. 
pp.  217-222  ;  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  ii.  and  iii. 

■*  This  invasion  of  Bengal  is  discredited  by  the  latest  and  most  critical 
historian,  Mr.  Edward  Thomas,  in  his  Pathan  Kings  of  Delhi,  p.  121, 
note  (ed.  1871).  On  the  other  side,  see  Firishta,  vol.  i.  p.  231,  but  cf. 
Col.  Brigg's  footnote ;  and  the  Tabakdl-i-Ndsiri  in  Sir  H.  Elliot's  Persian 
Historians,  vol.  ii.  pp.  264,  344  ;  '  In  March  1245,  the  infidels  of  Changiz 
Khan  came  to  the  gates  of  Lakhnauti '  (Gaur). 

■*  For  an  account  of  the  Ghakkars,  ride  ante,  p.  1 86,  chap,  vii 


28o  EARL  Y  MUHAMMAD  AN  R  ULERS. 

Rajput        Rajput  revolts  foreshadowed  that  inextinguishable  vitality  of 

revolts.        j-j^g  Hindu  military  races,  which  was  to  harass,  from  first  to 

last,  the  Mugiial  Empire,  and  to  outlive  it.     Under  the  Slave 

kings,  even  the  north  of  India  was  only  half  subdued  to  the 

Muhammadan  sway.      The   Hindus  rose  again  and  again  in 

Malwa,  Rajputana,  Bundelkhand,  along  the  Ganges,  and  in  the 

Jumna  valley,  marching  to  the  river  bank  opposite  Delhi  itself.^ 

Balban,  The  last  monarch  but  one  of  the  Slave  line,  Balban  (i26'5-87 

126"— S?  \         »/       » 

^    ''     A.D.),  had  not  only  to  fight  the  Mughals,  the  wild  non-Aryan 

tribes,   and   the   Rajput   clans ;    he   was   also    compelled    to 

massacre  his  own  viceroys.      Having  in    his   youth    entered 

into  a  compact   for   mutual   support   and  advancement  with 

forty  of  his  Tiirki  fellow-slaves  in  the  palace,  he  had,  when 

he  came  to  the  throne,   to  break   the   powerful   confederacy 

thus  formed.      Some  of  his  provincial  governors  he  publicly 

scourged ;   others  were    beaten   to    death    in    his    presence ; 

and  a  general,  who  failed  to  reduce  the  rebel  Muhammadan 

His  Viceroy  of  Bengal,  was  hanged.     Balban  himself  moved  down 

('  riid  t  ics 

Kj  the         ^°  ^^^  delta,  and  crushed  the  Bengal  revolt  with  a  merciless 

Iliniliis.      skill.     His  severity  against   Hindu   rebels  knew  no  bounds. 

He  nearly  exterminated  the  Jadiin  Rajputs  of  Mewat,  to  the 

south  of  Delhi,  putting  100,000  persons  to  the  sword.     He 

then  cut  down  the  forests  which  formed  their  retreats,  and 

opened  up  the  country  to  tillage.     The  miseries  caused  by  the 

?klughal  hordes  in  Central  Asia,  drove  a  crowd  of  princes  and 

His  fifteen  poets  to  seek  shelter  at  the  Indian  court.     Balban  boasted  that 

sioners"^""  "°  ^e^^'cr  than  fifteen  once  independent  sovereigns  had  fed  on 

his  bounty,  and  he  called  the  streets  of  Delhi  by  the  names  of 

their  late  kingdoms,  such  as  Baghdad,  Kharizm,  and  Ghor. 

He  died  in  1287  a.d.-     His  successor  was  poisoned,  and  the 

Slave  dynasty  ended  in  1290.-' 


12J0-1320. 


llniisc  of  In  that  year  Jalal-ud-din,  a  ruler  of  Khilji,  succeeded  to 
iVio-'i';2o.  ^^^^  Delhi  throne,  and  founded  a  line  which  lasted  for  thirty 
years  (i29o--i320  .a.d.).  The  Khilji  dynasty  extended  the 
-Muhammadan  power  into  Southern  India.  Ala-ud-di'n,  the 
nephew  and  successor  of  the  founder,  when  Governor  of 
Karra,'*  near  Allahabad,  pierced  through  the  Vindhya  ranges 

^  Themes'  Pathdn  A'in-^s,  131. 

-  Materials  for  tiie  reiga  of  lialbau  (Ghiyas-ud-din  Balban)  :  Sir  Henry 
]'-lliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  iii.  pp.  38,  97,  546,  593  (1871) ;  Firishta, 
vol.  i.  pp.  247-272  (1829). 

^  Mr.  E.  Thomas'  Pathdn  A'in^s,  pp.  1 38- 142. 

*  Forty  miles  north-west  of  Allahabad,  once  the  capital  of  an  important 
fief,  now  a  ruined  town.    See  T/ie  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  article  Kakra. 


Kllirjl  D  YXASTY,   1290-1320.  281 

uith  his  cavalry,  and  plundered  the  lUuldhist  temple  (-ity  of 

lihilsa,  300   miles  off.      After  trying  his  jjowers   against  the  Alau.l- 

rebellious    Hindu    princes    of  Bundelkhand    and    Malwa,    he  c'"  fu 

i  '  Southern 

•  onceived  the  idea  of  a  grand  raid  into  the  Deccan.  With  raids, 
a  band  of  8000  horse,  he  rode  into  the  heart  of  Southern  '^94- 
India,  On  the  way  he  gave  himself  out  as  flying  from  his 
uncle's  court,  to  seek  service  with  the  Hindu  King  of  Rajama- 
Iiendri.  The  generous  Rajput  princes  abstained  from  attacking 
a  refugee  in  his  flight,  and  Ala-ud-din  surprised  the  great  city  of 
Deogiri,  the  modern  Daulatabad,  at  that  time  the  capital  of  the 
Hindu  kingdom  of  Maharashtra.  Having  suddenly  galloped 
into  its  streets,  he  announced  himself  as  only  the  advance 
guard  of  the  whole  imperial  army,  levied  an  immense  booty, 
and  carried  it  back  700  miles  to  the  seat  of  his  Oovernorship 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges.  He  then  lured  the  Sultan 
Jalal-ud-di'n,  his  uncle,  to  Karra,  in  order  to  divide  the  spoil ; 
and  murdered  the  old  man  in  the  act  of  clasping  Iiis  hand 
(1295  A.D.).l 

Ala-ud-din  scattered  his  s]xnls  in  gifts  or  charity,  and  i)ro-  Reign  of 
claimed  himself  Sultan  (1295-1315  a.d.).-'     The  twenty  years  ^{^^"^jy 
of  his  reign    founded   the    Muhammadan    sway  in    Southern  1315. 
India.      He  reconquered  Gujarat  from  the  Hindus  in  1297  ;  Aia-ud- 
captured   Rintimbur,-^  after  a  difficult  siege,  from  the  Jaipur       ^  ^'^'    , 

'.  .  '  °   '  .  '        conquest  of 

Rajputs  in  1300;  took  the  fort  of  Chittor,  and  partially  sub- n.  India, 
jected  the  Sesodia  Rajputs  (1303);  and  having  thus  reduced  1295-1303. 
the  Hindus  on  the  north  of  the  Vindhyas,  prepared  for  the 
conquest  of  the  Deccan.  But  before  starting  on  this  great 
expedition,  he  had  to  meet  five  Mughal  inroads  from  the  north. 
In  1295  he  defeated  a  Mughal  invasion  under  the  walls  of  his 
capital,  Delhi ;  in  1304-5  he  encountered  four  others,  sending 
all  prisoners  to  Delhi,  where  the  chiefs  were  trampled  by 
elephants,  and  the  common  soldiery  slaughtered  in  cold  blood. 
He  crushed  with  equal  severity  several  rebellions  which  took 
place  among  his  own  family  during  the  same  i)eriod  ;  first 
putting  out  the  eyes  of  his  insurgent  nephews,  and  then 
beheading  them  (i  299-1 300). 

Having  thus  arranged  his  affairs  in  Northern  India,  he  under-  His  con- 
took  the  conquest  of  the  South.     In   1303  he  had  sent  his  jl^^^^^j^^^^^^ 
eunuch  slave,  Malik  Kafur,  with  an  army  through  Bengal,  to  India, 
attack  Warangal,  the  capital  of  the  Hindu  kingdom  of  Teling-  J303-i5- 

'  Thomas'  Pathan  Kings,  p.  144. 

-  Materials   for   the   reign   of  Ala-ud-dm   Khilji  :    Sir    Henry   Elliot's 
rcrsian  Historians,  vol.  iii.  (1871)  ;  Firishta,  vol.  i.  pp.  321-382  (1S29). 
*  See  article  RiNTlMBUR,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  Jndia. 


282  EARL  Y  MUHAMMADAN  R  ULERS. 

ana.      In  1306,  Kafur  marched  victoriously  through    Mahva 
and  Khandesh  into  the  Maratha  country,  where  he  captured 
Deogiri,  and  persuaded  the  Hindu  king  Ram  Deo  to  return 
with  him  to  do  homage  at  Delhi.    While  the  Sultan  Ala-ud-din 
His  gene-    was  conquering  the    Rajputs   in    Marwar,  his  slave  general, 
V^.V    '^'^  Kafur,   made  expeditions  through   the    Karnatic  and   Maha- 
rashtra, as  far  south  as  Adam's  Bridge,  at  the  extremity  of 
India,  where  he  built  a  mosque. 
Extent  of        The  Muhammadan  Sultan  of  India  was  no  longer  merely  an 
the  Mu-      Afghan  king  of  Delhi.     Three  great  waves  of  invasion  from 

hammadan  .     ,  .        . 

power  in     Central  Asia  had  created  a  large  Muhammadan  population  in 

India,         Northern  India.     First  came  the  Tiirki's,  represented  by  the 

^    '  house  of  Ghazni ;   then  the   Afghans  (commonly  so  called), 

represented  by  the  house  of  Ghor ;  finally  the  Mughals,  having 

failed  in  their  repeated  attempts  to  conquer  the  Punjab,  took 

service  in  great  numbers  with  the  Sultans  of  Delhi.     Under 

the  Slave  Kings  the  Mughal  mercenaries  had  become  so  power- 

Muham-     ful  as  to  require  to  be  massacred  (1286).     About  1292,  three 

DOTulation  thousand  Mughals,  having  been  converted  from  their  old  Tartar 

in  India,     rites   to  Muhammadanism,  received  a  suburb  of  Delhi,  still 

1266-1311.  caiigfi  Mughalpur,  for  their  residence.     Other  immigrations  of 

INIughal  mercenaries  followed.     After  various  plots,  Ala-ud-din 

slaughtered   15,000  of  the  settlers,  and  sold  their  families  as 

slaves  (131 1  A.D. ). 

Mughal  The   unlimited  supply  of  soldiers  which  Ala-ud-din  could 

ades^""      thus  draw  upon  from  the  Tiirki,  Afghan,  and  Mughal  races 

1286-1311.  in   Northern  India  and  the    countries   beyond,  enabled   him 

to   send   armies   farther  south    than  any  of  his  predecessors. 

But  in  his  later  years,  the  Hindus  revolted  in  Gujarat ;  the 

Rajputs    reconcjuered    Chittor;    and   many   of   the    Muham- 

Hindu        madan    garrisons  were  driven  out  of  the    Deccan.      On  the 

revolts.       capture  of  Chittor  in  1303,  the  garrison  had  preferred  death  to 

submission.     The  peasantry  still  chant  an  early  Hindi  ballad, 

telling  how  the  queen  and  thirteen  thousand  women   threw 

themselves  on  a  funeral  pile,  while  the  men  rushed  upon  the 

swords  of  the  besiegers.      A  remnant  cut  their  way  to  the 

Aravalli   Hills  ;   and  the    Rajput  independence,  although  in 

abeyance  during  Ala-ud-din's  reign,  was  never  crushed.    Having 

imprisoned  his  sons,  and  given  himself  up  to  paroxysms  of  rage 

and  intemperance,  Ala-ud-di'n   died    in   1315,   helped  to  the 

grave,  it  is  said,  by  poison  given  by  his  favourite   general, 

A  renegade  ^•^'^r. 

Hindu  During  the  four  remaining  years  of  the  house  of  Khilji,  the 

I  "i'6^''o'^-    actual  power  passed  to  Khusrii  Khcin,  a   low-caste  renegade 


TUGHLAK  DYNASTY,   13 20-1 4 14.  283 

Piindu,  who  imitated  the  military  successes  and  vices  of  his  Khusn'i. 
patron,  Malik  Kafur,  and  then  personally  superintended  his 
murder.^  Khusrii  now  became  all  in  all  to  the  debauched 
Emperor  Mubarik  :  slew  him,  and  seized  the  throne.  While 
outwardly  professing  Islam,  Khusrii  desecrated  the  Kuran  by 
using  it  as  a  seat,  and  degraded  the  pulpits  of  the  mosques 
into  pedestals  for  Hindu  idols.  In  1320  he  was  slain,  and 
the  Khilji  dynasty  disappeared.- 

The  leader  of  the  rebellion  was  Ghiyas-ud-di'n  Tughlak, 
who  had  started  life  as  a  Tiirki  slave,  and  risen  to  the  frontier 
Governorship  of  the  Punjab.  He  founded  the  Tughlak  House  of 
dynasty,  which  lingered  on  for  ninety-four  years  (1320-1414),  .",^  ,' 
.although  submerged  for  a  time  by  the  invasion  of  Timur 
(Tamerlane)  in  1398.  Ghiyas-ud-din  Tughlak  (1320-24  a.d.) 
removed  the  capital  from  Delhi  to  a  spot  about  four  miles 
farther  east,  and  called  it  Tughlakabdd. 

His   son  and    successor,  Muhammad    Tughlak  (1324-51),  Muham- 
was  an  accomplished  scholar,  a  skilful  captain,  and  a  severely  "?    , ,  , 
abstinent  man.^     But  his  ferocity  of  temper,  perhaps  inherited  1324  51.' 
from  the  tribes  of  the  steppes,  rendered  him  merciless  as  a  judge 
and  careless  of  human  suffering.  The  least  opposition  drove  him 
into  outbursts  of  insane  fury.     He  wasted  the  treasures  accumu-  Muham- 
lated  by  Ala-ud-din  in  buying  off  the  Mughal  hordes,  who  again  J?^^, ,    . 
and  again  swept  down  on  the  Punjab.      On  the  other  hand,  in  mad  ex-^ 
fits  of  ambition,  he  raised  an  army  for  the  invasion  of  Persia,  peditioiT;, 
and  sent  out  an  expedition  of   100,000  men  against    China.    ^      ^ 
The  first  force  broke  up  for  want  of  pay,  and  plundered  his  own 
dominions ;  the  second  perished  almost  to  a  man  in  the  Hima- 
layan   passes.       He    planned  great  conquests    into  Southern 
India,  and  dragged  the  whole  inhabitants  of  Delhi,  800  miles  His 
off,  to  Deogiri,  to  which  he  gave  the   name  of   Daulatabad.  cruelties. 
Twice  he  allowed  the  miserable  suppliants  to  return  to  Delhi ; 
twice  he  compelled  them  on  pain  of  death  to  quit  it.      One 
of  these  forced  migrations  took  place  amid  the  horrors  of  a 
famine ;  the  citizens  perished  by  thousands,  and  in  the  end 
the  king  had  to  give  up  the  attempt.     Having  drained   his 
treasury,  he    issued  a  forced   currency  of  copper   coins,  by  His  forced 
which  he  tried  to  make  the  king's  brass  equal  to  other  men's  '^"^''"^"cy. 

1  Thomas'  PatJubi  Kings,  pp.  17S,  179.  "  Idem,  pp.  184,  1S5. 

■*  iMaterials  for  his  reign  :  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  i. 
iii.  V.  vi.  vii.  ;  Firishta,  vol.  i.  pp.  408-443  (ed.  1829)  ;  Elphinstone's 
narrative  of  this  reign  is  an  admirable  specimen  of  his  spirited  style  of 
work,  pp.  403-410  (ed.  1S66). 


2  84  EARL  V  MUHAMMA DAN  R  ULE RS. 

silver.^  During  the  same  century,  the  Mughal  conqueror  of 
China,  Kublai  Khan,  had  expanded  the  use  of  paper  notes, 
early  devised  by  the  Chinese ;  and  Kai  Khatii  had  introduced 
a  bad  imitation  of  it  into  Persia.  Tughlak's  forced  currency 
quickly  brought  its  own  ruin.  Foreign  merchants  refused  the 
worthless  brass  tokens,  trade  came  to  a  stand,  and  the  king 
had  to  take  payment  of  his  taxes  in  his  own  depreciated 
coinage. 
Revolt  of        Meanwhile  the  Provinces  began  to  throw  off  the  Delhi  yoke. 

the  Pro- 

vinces         Muhammad  Tughlak  had  succeeded  in  1324  to  the  greatest 
1338-51.     Empire  which  had,  up  to  that  time,  acknowledged  a  Muham- 
raadan  Sultan  in  India.     But  his  bigoted  zeal  for  Islam  forbade 
him  to  trust  either  Hindu  princes  or  Hindu  officers  ;  and  he 
thus  found   himself  compelled   to  fill    every  high   post  with 
foreign    Muhammadan   adventurers,  who   had  no  interest   in 
the  stability  of  his  rule.      The  annals  of  the  period  present  a 
long  series  of  outbreaks,  one  part  of  the  Empire  renouncing 
its  allegiance  as  soon  as  another  had  been  brought  back  to 
lie  flays     subjection.      His  own  nephew  rebelled  in  Malwa,  and  being 
^^^ ,  caught,  was  flayed  alive  (1338).     The  Punjab  governor  revolted 

(1339)?  was  crushed,  and  put  to  death.      The  Musalman  Vice- 
roys of  Lower  Bengal  and  of  the  Coromandel  coast  set  up 
for    themselves    (about    1340),  and   could   not   be   subdued. 
The  Hindu  kingdoms  of  Karnata  and   Telingana  recovered 
their    independence    (1344),    and    expelled   the     Musalman 
His  reign    garrisons.     The  Muhammadan  governors  in  the  Deccan  also 
revok"^     revolted,  while  the  troops  in  Gujarat  rose  in  mutiny.       Mu- 
hammad Tughlak  rushed  with  an  army  to  the  south  to  take 
vengeance  on  the  traitors,  but  hardly  had  he  put  down  their 
rising  than  he  was  called  away  by  insurrections  in  Gujarat, 
Malwa,  and  Sind.      He  died  in  1351,  while  chasing  rebels  in 
the  lower  valley  of  the  Indus. 
Muham-  ISIuhammad  Tughlak  was  the  first  ]\Iusalman  ruler  of  India 

Tughlak's  ^^'^°  ^^"  ^^  ^^^^  ^^  have  had  a  revenue  system.     He  increased 
revenue      the  land-tax  between  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna  ;   in  some 
exactions,   j^fstj-ifts  ten-fold,  in  others  twenty-fold.    The  husbandmen  fled 
before   his    tax-gatherers,  leaving  their  villages  to  lapse  into 
jungle,  and  formed  themselves  into  robber  clans.      He  cruelly 
punished  all  who  trespassed  on  his  game  preserves  ;  and  he 
invented  a  kind  of  man-hunt  without  precedent  in  the  annals 
His  'man-  of  human  wickedness.     He  surrounded  a  large  tract  with  his 
^""^"  army,    'and   then   gave  orders   that    the  circle   should   close 

'  Tiiomas'  Pathdit  Kings,  p.  243.     See  his  valuable  monograph  entitled 
'  Muhammad  Bin  Tughlak's  Forced  Currency,'  op.  cit.  pp.  239-261. 


TIMUR'S  INVASION,   1398.  285 

towards  tlie  centre,  and  that  all  within  it  (mostly  inoffensive 

peasants)  should  be  slaughtered  like  wild  beasts.     This  sort  of 

hunt  was   more  than   once  repeated  ;   and  on  a  subsequent 

occasion,  there  was  a  general  massacre  of  the  inhabitants  of 

the  great  city  of  Kanauj.     These  horrors  led  in  due  time  to 

famine ;  and  the  miseries  of  the  country  exceeded  all  powers 

of  description.'  ^ 

His   son,  Fi'ruz  Tughlak   (1351-8S),  ruled  mercifully,  but  Firuz  Shah 

had    to   recognise   the    independence   of    the    Muhammadan      shlak, 

1351-08. 
kmgdoras  of  Bengal  and  the  Deccan,  and  suffered  much  from 

bodily  infirmities  and  court  intrigues.^     He  undertook  many 

;Hiblic  works,  such  as  dams  across  rivers  for .  irrigation,  tanks, 

caravan-sarais,  mosques,  colleges,  hospitals,  and  bridges.     But 

his  greatest    achievement  was    the  old   Jumna  Canak      This  Hiscanals. 

work  drew  its  waters  from  the  Jumna,  near  a  point  where  it 

leaves    the   mountains,  and    connected    that    river  with    the 

(Ihaggar  and  the  Sutlej  by  irrigation  channels.^     Part  of  it  has 

l)een  reconstructed  by  the  British  Government,  and  spreads  a 

margin  of  fertility  on  either  side  to  this  day.     But  the  dynasty 

of  Tughlak   soon   sunk   amid    Muhammadan    mutinies    and 

Hindu   revolts ;    and    under    Mahmud,    its    last    real    king,  iNiahmud 

Northern  India  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the  great  Mughal  invasion  l^c'i''^'^- 

of  1398. 

In  that  year,  Timiir  (Tamerlane)  swept  through  the  Afghan  Timur's 
])asses   at  the  head  of  the    united  hordes  of  Tartary.      He  (Tamer- 
defeated   the   Tughlak    King,  Mahmud,  under   the  walls   of  invasion, 
Delhi,  and  entered  the  capital     During  five  days,  a  massacre  i398. 
raged  ;  '  some  streets  were  rendered  impassable   by  heaps  of 
dead,''*  while  Timiir  calmly  looked  on  and   held  a  feast   in 
honour  of  his  victory.      On  the  last  day  of  1398  he  resumed 
his    march,  with    a    'sincere  and  humble  tribute  of  grateful 
praise '  to  God,  in  Ffi-uz's  marble  mosque  on  the  banks  of  the 
Jumna.      He    crossed  the  Ganges,  and  proceeded  as  far   as 
Hardwar,   after   another   great  massacre    at  Meerut.      Then, 
skirting  the  foot  of  the  Himalayas,  he  retired  through  their 
north-western  passes  into  Central  Asia  (1399). 

Timiir  left  no  traces  of  his  power  in   India,  save  ruined  Ruin  of 

cities.     On  his  departure,  Mahmud  Tughlak  crept  back  from  P\^  Tugh- 

laks,  1399. 

1  Elphinstone's  Ihs/ory  of  India,  pp.  405,  406  (ed.  1866). 

-  Materials  for  liis  reign  :  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  i. 
ill.  iv.  vi.  viii.  ;  Firishla,  vol.  i.  pp.  444-465  (ed.  1S29). 

■'  Thomas'    Pathan    Kings,    p.     294.       See    article     JUMNA     Canal, 
Wkstern,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

*  Firishta,  vol.  i.  p.  493.     His  whole  account  of  Timur's  invasion  is  very 
vivid,  vol.  i.  pp.  485-497  (ed.  1829). 


2S6  EARL  V  MUHAMMAD  AN  R  ULERS. 

his  retreat  in  Gujarat,  and  nominally  ruled  till   141 2.     The 
Tughlak  line  ended  in  1414. 
The  It  was  succeeded  by  the  Sayyid  dynasty,  who  ruled  from 

Sayyici*;,  i_|.i^.  till  1450.  The  Afghan  house  of  Lodi  followed,  from  1450 
to  1526.  But  some  of  these  Sultans  reigned  over  only  a  few 
miles  round  Delhi ;  and  during  the  whole  period,  the  Hindu 
princes  and  the  local  Muhammadan  kings  were  practically  inde- 
pendent throughout  the  greater  part  of  India.     The  house  of 

TheLodis,  Lodi  was  crushed  beneath  the  Mughal  invasion  of  Babarin  1526. 
1450-1526. 

Hindu  Babar  founded    the  Mughal    Empire  of  India,  whose    last 

kingdoms   representative  died    a    British  State   prisoner  at  Rangoon  in 

Deccan.      1862.      Before  entering  on  the  story  of  that  great  Empire,  we 

must  survey  for  a  moment  the  kingdoms,  Hindu  and  Muham- 

madan,  on  the  south  of  the  Vindhya  range.     The  three  ancient 

Chera,        kingdoms,  Chera,  Chola,   and   Pandya  occupied,  as  we  have 

Pandv'a^"'^  seen,^  the  Dravidian  country  peopled  by  Tamil-speaking  races. 

Pandya,  the  largest  of  them,  had  its  capital  at  Madura,  and 

traces   its    foundation   to  the    4th   century  B.C.      The  Chola 

kingdom  had  its  head-quarters  successively  at   Combaconum 

and  Tanjore.     Talkad,  in  Mysore,  now  buried  by  the  sands 

of  the  Kaveri,  was  the  capital  of  the  Chera  kingdom.     The 

1 16th   king  of  the    Pandya   dynasty  was  overthrown  by  the 

Muhammadan  general  Malik  Kafur,  circ.  1304.    But  the  Musal- 

mans  failed  to  establish  their  power  in  the  extreme  south, 

and  a  series  of  Hindu  dynasties  ruled  from  Madura  over  the 

old  Pandya  kingdom  until  the  i8th  century.      No  European 

kingdom  can  boast  a  continuous   succession  such  as  that  of 

Madura,  traced  back  by  the  piety  of  genealogists  to  the  4th 

century  B.C.     The  Chera  kingdom  enumerates  fifty  kings,  and 

the  Chola  sixty-six,  besides  minor  dynasties. 

Kingdom        But  authentic  history  in    Southern   India   begins  with  the 

of  vijaya-    j|ij^(;iQ  kingdom  of  Viiayanagar  or  Xarsinha,  which  flourished 

iiagar,  °  j    y         o 

11x8-1565.  from  1 1 18  to  1565  A.D.  The  capital  can  still  be  traced  within 
the  Madras  District  of  Bellar}-,  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Tungabhadra  river, — vast  ruins  of  temples,  fortifications,  tanks, 
and  bridges,  now  inhabited  by  hyc'enas  and  snakes.  For  at  least 
three  centuries,  Vijayanagar  dominated  the  southern  part  of 
the  Indian  peninsula.  Its  Rajas  waged  war  and  made  peace 
on  equal  terms  with  the  Muhammadan  Sultans  of  the  Deccan. 

Those   Sultans  derived  their  origin   from  the  conquest  of 

'  At   the    beginning   of   this   chapter  ;   and   articles    Chera,    Chola, 
Pandya,  in  The  Imperial  Gazctlcer  of  India. 


B ABM AA'I  KINGS,  1 347-1 525.  28 7 

Ala-ud-di'n  {post  1303  a.d.).    After  a  period  of  confused  fighting,  Muham- 
the  Bahmani  kingdom  of  the  Deccan  emerged  as  the  represen-  "^^'^'''^" 
tative  of  Muhammadan  rule  in  Southern  India.     Its  founder,  in  the 
Zafar  Khan,  an  Afghan  general  during  the  reign  of  Muhammad  I^eccan, 
Tughlak  (1325-51),  defeated  the  Delhi  troops,  and  set  up  as  ^^°^' 
Musalman  sovereign  of  the  Deccan,     Having  in  early  youth 
been  the  slave  of  a  Brahman  who  had  treated  him  kindly  and 
foretold  his  future  greatness,  he  took  the  title  of  Bahmani^ 
and  transmitted  it  to  his  successors. 

The  rise  of  the    Bahmani   dynasty  is  usually  assigned  to  The 
the  year  1347,  and  it  lasted  for  178  years,  until  1^2^:,.-     i^^  ^^\-^m:^r\i 

(lynastv, 

successive  capitals  were  Gulbargah,  Warangal,  and  Bidar,  all  in  1347.1525. 
the  Haidarabad  territory  ;  and  it  loosely  corresponded  with  the 
Nizam's  Dominions  of  the  present  day.  At  the  height  of 
their  power,  the  Bahmani  kings  claimed  sovereignty  over  half 
the  Deccan,  from  the  Tungabhadra  river  in  the  south  to  Orissa 
in  the  north,  and  from  Alasulipatam  on  the  east  to  Goa  on  the 
west.  Their  direct  government  was,  however,  much  more 
confined.  In  their  early  struggle  against  the  Delhi  throne,  they 
derived  support  from  the  Hindu  southern  kingdoms  of  Vijaya- 
nagar  and  Warangal.  But  during  the  greater  part  of  its  career, 
the  Bahmani  dynasty  represented  the  cause  of  Islam  against 
Hinduism  on  the  south  of  the  Vindhyas.  Its  alliances  and 
its  wars  alike  led  to  a  mingling  of  the  iNlusalman  and  Hindu 
populations. 

For  example,  the    King  of   Malwa   invaded  the   Bahmani  Composite 


armies: 


dominions  with  a  mixed  force  of  12,000  Afghans  and  Rajputs.  1^,7.1-^- 
The  Hindu   Raja  of  Vijayanagar  recruited  his  armies  from 
Afghan  mercenaries,  whom  he  paid  by  assignments  of  land, 
and  for  whom  he  built  a  mosque.    The  Muhammadan  Bahmani 
troops,  on  the  other  hand,  were  often  led  by  converted  Hindus. 
The    Bahmani    army   was    itself    made    up   of    two   hostile  Mingling 
sects  of  Musalmans.      One  sect  consisted  of  Shias,  chiefly  °j^^^^J'^!^'j_ 
Persians,  Turks  or  Tartars  from  Central  Asia ;  the  other,  of  mans, 
native-born  Musalmans  of  Southern  India,  together  with  Abys- 
sinian mercenaries,  both  of  whom  professed  the  Sunni  faith. 
The  rivalry  between  these  Musalman  sects  frequently  imperilled 
the  Bahmani  throne.     The  dynasty  reached  its  highest  power  Fall  of 
under  the  Bahmani  Ald-ud-din  11.  about  1437,  and  was  broken  j^^™f"' 
up  by  its  discordant  elements  between  1489  and  1525.  1489-1525. 

1  His  royal  name  in  full  was  Sultan  (or  Shah)  Ala-ud-din  Gango  Bahmani. 

2  These  extreme  dates  are  taken  from  Thomas'  Pathdn  Kings,  pp. 
340,  341.  Materials  for  the  Bahmani  dynasty  :  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian 
Historians,  vols.  iv.  vii.  viii.  ;  Firishta,  vol.  ii.  pp.  2S3-558  (ed.  1829). 


288  EARL  Y  MUHAMMAD  AX  R  ULERS. 

Five  Mu-        Out  of  its  fragments,  five  independent  Muhammadan  king- 

Su"es^'  '^"  doms  in  the  Deccan  were  formed.     These  were — (i)  The  Adil 

of  the         Shahi  dynasty,  with  its  capital  at  Bijapur,  founded  in  1489  by 

Deccan,      ^  ^^^  of  Amurath  II.,  Sultan  of  the  Ottomans  ;  annexed  by  the 
1489-1688.  .  ■'   , 

Mughal  Emperor  Aurangzeb  in  1686--88.     (2)  The  Kutab  Shahi 

dynasty,  with  its  capital  at  Golconda,  founded  in  1512  by  a 

Turkoman  adventurer  ;  also  annexed  by  Aurangzeb  in^i687-88. 

(3)  The  Nizam  Shahi  dynasty,  with  its  capital  at  Ahmadnagar, 
founded  in  1490  by  a  Brahman  renegade  from  the  Vijayanagar 
Court ;  subverted  by  the  Mughal  Emperor  Shah  Jahan  in  1636. 

(4)  The  Imad  Shahi  dynasty  of  Berar,  with  its  capital  at 
Ellichpur,  founded  in  1484  also  by  a  Hindu  from  Vijayanagar; 
annexed  to  the  Ahmadnagar  kingdom  (No.  3)  in  1572.  (5) 
The  Bari'd  Shahi  dynasty,  with  its  capital  at  Bfdar,  founded 
1492-1498  by  a  Turki  or  Georgian  slave.  The  Barid  Shahi 
territories  were  small  and  undefined  ;  independent  till  after 
1609.     Bidar  fort  was  finally  taken  by  Aurangzeb  in  1657. 

Fall  of  Space  precludes  any  attempt  to  trace  the  history  of  these  local 

kingdom  ^luhammadan  dynasties  of  Southern  India.  They  preserved 
of  \ijaya-  their  independence  until  the  firm  establishment  of  the  Mughal 
nagar.  Empire  in  the  north,  under  Akbar's  successors.  For  a  time 
they  had  to  struggle  against  the  great  Hindu  kingdom  of 
Battle  of  Vijayanagar.  In  1565  they  combined  against  that  power,  and, 
I -6-.  '  aided  by  a  rebellion  within  Vijayanagar  itself,  they  overthrew 
it  at  Talikot  in  1565. 

The  battle  of  Talikot  marks  the  final  downfall  of  Vijaya- 
nagar   as    a    centralized    Hindu    kingdom.       But    its    local 
Hindu  chiefs  or   Nayaks  seized   upon   their  respective   fiefs, 
and    the  Muhammadan   kings  of  the    south  were    only  able 
Indepcnd-  to  annex  a  part  of  its   dominions.       From    the    Nayaks   are 
^""'^p^X^*^*  descended  the  well-known  Palegars  of  the  Madras  Presidency, 
gars  of       and  the   present   Maharaja  of  Mysore.     One  of  the    blood- 
.Southcrn    j-Qyal  of  Vijayanagar  fled  to  Chandragiri,  and  founded  a  line 
which   exercised  a  prerogative   of  its   former   sovereignty  by 
granting  the  site  of  Madras  to  the  English  in   1639.     Another 
scion,  claiming  the  same  high  descent,  lingers  to  the  present 
day  near  the  ruins  of  Vijayanagar,  and  is  known  as  the  Raja 
of  Anagundi,  a  feudatory  of  the  Nizam  of  Haidarabad.     The 
independence  of  the  local  Hindu  chiefs  in  Southern  India, 
throughout    the    Muhammadan   period,    is   illustrated   by  the 
Manjarabad  family,  which  maintained  its  authority  from   1397 
to  1799.^ 

Lower  Bengal  threw  off  the  authority  of  Delhi  in  1340.     Its 
'  See  article  Manjarabad,  The  I jn ferial  Gazetteer  of  JnJia. 


INDErENDENT  BENGAL  KINGS.  289 

Muhammadan  governor,  Fakir-ud  din,  set  up  as  sovereign,  with  Indepen- 
his  capital  at  Gaur,  and  stamped  coin  in  his  own  name.     A  '^^^^^^  o^ 
succession  of  twenty  independent  kings  ruled  Bengal  until  1538,  1340-1576; 
when  it  was  temporarily  annexed  to  the  Mughal  Empire  by 
Humayiin.      It  was  finally  incorporated  with  that  Empire  by 
Akbar  in  1576.    The  great  province  of  Gujarat  in  Western  India  Of  Guja 
had  in  like  manner  grown  into  an  inciependent  Muhammadan  j^.'  ':^^'~ 
kingdom,  which  lasted  for  two  centuries,  from  1391  till  con- 
quered by  Akbar  in  1573.     Malwa,  which  had  also  set  up  as 
an  independent  State  under  its  Muhammadan  governors,  was 
annexed  by  the  King  of  Gujarat  in   1531.      Even  Jaunpur,  Of  Jaun- 
including  the  territory  of  Benares,  in  the  very  centre  of  the  P")_'  '39t- 
Gangetic  valley,  maintained  its  independence  as  a  separate      ' 
Musalman  State  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  from  1394  to  1478, 
imder  the  disturbed  rule  of  the  Sayyids  and  of  the  first  Lodi  at 
Delhi. 


[    290    ] 


chaptp:r  XI. 

THE    MUGHAL    EMPIRE  (1526  To   1761   A.D.). 

State  of      When,  therefore,  Babar  invaded  India  in  1526,  he  found  it 

Iniiia  in      divided  among  a  number  of  local   Muhammadan  kings  and 

Hindu  princes.      An  Afghan  Sultan  of  the  house  of  Lodi, 

with  his  capital  at  Agra,  ruled  over  what  little  was  left  of  the 

Early  life    historical  kingdom  of  Delhi.     Babar,  literally  the  Lion,  born 

of  Babar,    ^^  1482,  was  the  sixth  in  descent  from  I'imiir  the  Tartar.     At 
1482-1526.         ^     '  .... 

the  early  age  of  twelve,  he  succeeded  his  father  m  the  petty 

kingdom    of  Ferghana   on   the   Jaxartes   (1494);    and    after 

romantic   adventures,    conquered   Samarkand,    the   capital   of 

Tamerlane's   line  in   1497.      Overpowered   by  rebellion,  and 

driven  out  of  the  Valley  of  the  Oxus,  he  seized  the  kingdom  of 

Kabul  in  1504.      During  twenty-two  years  he  grew  in  strength 

Invades      on  the  Afghan  side  of  the  Indian  passes,  till  in  1526  he  burst 

India,         through  them  into  the  Punjab,  and  defeated  the  Delhi  sovereign 

^    ■  Ibrahim  Lodi  at  Pani'pat.     This  was  the  first  of  the  three  great 

Battles  of  battles  which  decided  the  fate  of  India  on  that  same  plain,  viz. 

Tanipat.      jj^  1526,  1556,  and  1761.     Having  entered  Delhi,  he  received 

the  allegiance  of  the  Muhammadans,  but  was  speedily  attacked 

Conquers    by  the  Rajputs  of  Chittor.     In  1527,  Babar  defeated  them  at 

Northern    Fatehpur  Sikri  near  Agra,  after  a  battle  memorable  for  its  perils 

India,  1    /-        Ti  ■  1       )  •       1  •  •  •  1 

i-26--'o.  '^"'^  ^°^  Babar s  vow,  m  his  extremity,  never  again  to  touch 
wine.  He  rapidly  extended  his  power  as  far  as  Miiltan  and 
Behar.  He  died  at  Agra  in  1530,  leaving  an  Empire  which 
stretched  from  the  river  Amu  in  Central  Asia  to  the  borders 
of  the  Gangetic  delta  in  Lower  Bengal. 
Ilumayun,  His  son,  HuMAVUx,  succeeded  him  in  India,  but  had  to 
j'^^^^g*^'  make  over  Kabul  and  the  Western  Punjab  to  his  rival  brother 
Kamran.^     Humayiin  was  thus  left  to  govern  a  new  conquest, 

A.D.  ^  Reign  of  Humavu.x  : — . 

1530.  Accession  to  the  throne.  Capture  of  Laliore  and  occupation  of  the 
Punjab  by  his  rival  brother  Kamran.  Final  defeat  of  the  Lodis  under 
Mahmud  Lodi,  and  acquisition  of  Jaunpur  by  Humayun. 

1532.   Humayun's  campaigns  in  Malwa  and  Gujarat. 

[/■'ootno/c  contimtcd  on  next  fa^c. 


HUM  A  YUN  AND  A  KB  A  R.  2  9 1 

and  at  the  same  time  was  deprived  of  the  base  from  which  his 

father  had  drawn  his  suppHes.     The  Mughal  hordes  who  had 

accompanied    Babar  were    more   hateful  to  the   long-settled 

Indian  Afghans  than  the  Hindus  themselves.     After  ten  years 

of  fighting,  Humayiin  was  driven  out  of  India  by  the  Bengali  Humayun 

Afghans  under  Sher  Shah,  the  Governor  of  Bengal.     While  fly-  u'' ^u 

ing  through  the  desert  of  Sind,  as  an  exile  to  Persia,  his  famous  Shah. 

son  Akbar  was  born  to  him  in  the  petty  fort  of  Umarkot  (1542). 

Sher  Shah  set  up  as  Emperor,  but  was  killed  while  storming  Afghan 

the  rock-fortress  at  Kalinjar  (1545).      His  son  succeeded  to  ^",?^^^  " 

his  power.     But  under  his  grandson,  the  third  of  the  Afghan  1540-56. 

house,  the  Provinces  revolted,  including  Malwa,  the  Punjab, 

and  Bengal.     Humayun  returned  to  India,  and  with  Akbar,  then 

only  in  his  thirteenth   year,  defeated  the  Indo-Afghan  army 

after  a  desperate  battle  at  Panipat  (1556).     India  now  passed 

finally  from  the  Afghans  to  the  Mughals.     Sher  Shah's  line  dis-  Humayun 

appears  :  and  Humayun,  having  recovered  his  Kabul  dominions,  regains 

reigned  again  for  a  few  months  at  Delhi,  but  died  in  1556. 

Akbar  the  Great,  the  real  founder  of  the  Mughal  Empire  Akbar  the 
as  it  existed  for  two  centuries,  succeeded  his  father  at  the  age  of  ^^^^^\ 
fourteen.^  Born  in  1542,  his  reign  lasted  for  almost  fifty  years, 
from  1556  to  1605,  and  was  therefore  contemporary  with  that 
of  our  own  Queen  Elizabeth  (1558-1603).  His  father,  Huma- 
yun, left  but  a  small  kingdom  in  India,  scarcely  extending 
beyond  the  districts  around  Agra  and  Delhi.  At  the  time  of 
Humayiln's  death,  Akbar  was  absent  in  the  Punjab  under  the 
guardianship  of  Bairam  Khan,  fighting  the  revolted  Afghans. 
Bairam,  a  Turkoman  by  birth,  had  been  the  support  of  the 
exiled  Humayun,  and  held  the  real  command  of  the  army 
which  restored  him  to  his  throne  at  Panipat  in  1556.     He  now 

1539.  Humayun  defeated  by  Sher  Sliah,  the  Afghan  ruler  of  Bengal,  at 
Chapar  Ghat,  near  Baxar,  the  Mughal  army  being  utterly  routed. 
Retreats  to  Agra. 

1540.  Humayun  finally  defeated  by  Sher  Shah  near  Kanauj,  and  escapes 
to  Persia  as  an  exile.     Sher  Shah  ascends  the  Delhi  throne. 

1556.  Humayun's  return  to  India,  and  defeat  of  the  Afghans  at  Panipat  by 
his  young  son  Akbar.  Remounts  the  throne,  but  dies  in  a  few 
months,  and  is  succeeded  by  Akbar. 
For  dates  see  Thomas'  Pathdn  Kings,  pp.  379,  380.  Materials  for  Huma- 
yun's reign  :  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  iv.  v.  vi. ;  Firishta, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  154-180  (1829)  ;  Elphinstone,  pp.  441-472  (1866). 

1  Materials  for  reign  of  Akbar  :  the  Ain-t-Akbari,  of  Abul  Fazl  (old 
translation  by  Francis  Gladwin,  2  vols.,  i8oo ;  best  edition  by  Professor 
Blochmann  (Calcutta,  1873),  left  unfinished  at  his  death);  Sir  Henry 
Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vols.  i.  v.  and  vi. ;  Firishta,  vol.  ii.  pp.  1812-82 ; 
Elphinstone,  495-547  (1866). 


292 


THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,   1526-1761. 


Eaiiam 
Regent, 
1556-G0. 

Akbar 

reigns  for 

himself, 

1560. 


Akbar's 
work  in 
India, 


became  the  Regent  for  the  youthful  Akbar,  under  the  honoured 
title  of  Khan  Baba,  equivalent  to  'the  King's  Father.'  Brave 
and  skilful  as  a  general,  but  harsh  and  overbearing,  he  raised 
many  enemies ;  and  Akbar,  having  endured  four  years  of 
thraldom,  took  advantage  of  a  hunting  -  party  to  throw  off  his 
minister's  yoke  (1560).  The  fallen  Regent,  after  a  struggle 
between  his  loyalty  and  his  resentment,  revolted,  was  defeated, 
but  pardoned.  Akbar  granted  him  a  liberal  pension  ;  and 
Bairam  was  in  the  act  of  starting  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca, 
when  he  fell  beneath  the  knife  of  an  Afghan  assassin,  whose 
father  he  had  slain  in  battle. 

The  chief  events  in  the  reign  of  Akbar  are  summarized 
below.^  India  was  seething  with  discordant  elements.  The 
earlier  invasions  by  Turks,  Afghans,  and  Mughals  had  left  a 
powerful  Muhammadan  population  in  India  under  their  own 
chiefs.  Akbar  reduced  these  Musalman  States  to  Provinces 
of  the  Delhi  Empire.  Many  of  the  Hindu  kings  and  Rajput 
nations  had  also  regained  their  independence  ;  Akbar  brought 
them  into  political  dependence  to  his  authority.  This  double 
task  he  effected  partly  by  force  of  arms,  but  in  part  also  by 

^  Reign  of  Akbar,  i  556-1605  : — 
1542.   Born  at  Uniarkot  in  Sind. 
1555-56.   Regains  the  Delhi  throne  for  his  father  by  the  great  victory  over 

the  Afghans  at  Panipat  (Bairam  Khan  in  actual  command).     Succeeds 

his  father  after  a  few  months  in  1556,  under  regency  of  Bairam  Khan. 
1560.  Akbar  assumes  the  direct  management  of  the  kingdom.     Revolt  of 

Bairam,  who  is  defeated  and  pardoned. 
1566.   Invasion   of  the    Punjab   by  Akbar's   rival  brother  Hakim,   who  is 

defeated. 
1561-68.   Akbar  subjugates  the  Rajput  kingdoms  to  the  Mughal  Empire. 
1572-73.   Akbar's  campaign  in  Gujarat,  and  its  re-annexation  to  the  Empire. 
1576.  Akbar's  re-conquest  of  Bengal  ;  its  final  annexation  to  the  Mughal 

Empire. 
1581-93.   Insurrection  in   Gujarat.      The  Province    finally   subjugated    in 

1593  to  the  Mughal  Empire. 
1586.   Akbar's  conquest  of  Kashmir  :  its  final  revolt  quelled  in  1592. 
1592.   Akbar's  conquest  and  annexation  of  Sind  to  the  Mughal  Empire. 

1594.  Hissubjugationof  Kandahar,  and  consolidation  of  the  Mughal  Empire 
over  all  India  north  of  the  Vindhyas  as  far  as  Kabul  and  Kandahar. 

1595.  Unsuccessful  expedition  of  Akbar's   army   to   the  Deccan   against 
Ahmadnagar  under  his  son  Prince  Murad. 

1599.   Second  expedition  against  Ahmadnagar  by  Akbar  in  person.     Cap- 
tures the  town,  but  fails  to  establish  Mughal  rule. 
1601.  Annexation  of  Khandesh,  and  return  of  Akbar  to  Northern  India. 
1605.    Akbar's  death  at  Agra. 

N.fi. — Such  phrases  as  'Akbar's  conquest'  or  'Akbar's  campaign' 
mean  the  conquest  or  campaign  by  Akbar's  armies,  and  do  not  necessarily 
imply  his  personal  presence. 


AKBAR'S  HINDU  POLICY.  293 

alliances.     He   enlisted  the  Rajput  princes  by  marriage  and  Concilia- 
by  a  sympathetic  policy  in  the  support   of  his    throne.     He  j'°"  '^^ 
then  employed  them  in  high  posts,  and  played  off  his  Hindu 
generals    and    Hindu    ministers  against  the  Mughal  party  in 
Upper  India,  and  against  the  Afghan  faction  in  Bengal. 

On  his  accession  in   1556,  he  found   the   Indian   Empire 
confined  to  the   Punjab,  and  the  districts  around  Agra  and 
Delhi.     He  quickly  extended  it  at  the  expense  of  his  nearest  Akbar 
neighbours,  namely,  the  Rajputs.     Jaipur   was   reduced  to  a  e^^tend.s 
fief  of  the  Empire ;    and   Akbar  cemented  his  conquest  by  Empire, 
marrying  the  daughter  of  its  Hindu  prince.     Jodhpur  was  in 
like  manner  overcome ;   and  Akbar  married  his  heir,  Sali'm, 
who  afterwards  reigned  under  the  title  of  Jahangir,   to  the 
.grand-daughter  of  the   Raja.     The  Rajputs  of  Chittor  were 
overpowered  after  a  long  struggle,  but  disdained  to  mingle  their  Reduction 
high-caste  Kshattriyan  blood  even  with  that  of  an  Emperor,  "^^gf-es^^' 
They  found  shelter  among  the  mountains  and  in  the  deserts 
of  the   Indus,   whence  they   afterwards    emerged   to   recover 
most  of  their  old  dominions,  and  to  found  their  capital   of 
Udaipur,  which  they  retain  to  this  day.     They  still  boast  that 
alone,    among   the   great   Rajput    clans,    they   never   gave   a 
daughter  in  marriage  to  a  Mughal  Emperor. 

Akbar  pursued  his  policy  of  conciliation  towards  all  the  Hindu 
States.     He  also  took  care  to  provide  a  career  for  the  lesser  Employ- 
Hindu  nobility.     He  appointed  his  Hindu  brother-in-law,  the  "^^"'-  °* 
son  of  the  Jaipur  Raja,  to  be  Governor  of  the  Punjab.     Raja 
Man  Singh,  also  a  Hindu  relative,  did  good  war-service  for  Akbar  >ran 
from    Kabul   to  Orissa.      He   ruled  as  Akbar's   Governor  of  ^'"S'l- 
Bengal  from  1589  to  1604;  and  again  for  a  short  time  under 
Jahangir  in    1605-06.     Akbar's   great  finance  minister.  Raja  Todar 
Todar  Mall,  was  likewise  a  Hindu,  and  carried  out  the  first  "^^^'^• 
land  settlement  and  survey  of  India.     Out  of  415  mansabddrs, 
or  commanders  of  horse,  51  were  Hindus.     Akbar  abolished 
ihejaziah,  or  tax  on  non-Musalmans,  and  placed  all  his  sub- 
jects upon  a  political  equality.     He  had  the  Sanskrit  sacred 
books  and  epic  poems  translated  into  Persian,  and  showed  a 
keen  interest  in  the  literature  and  religion  of  his  Hindu  sub- 
jects.    He  respected  their  laws,  but  he  put  down  their  in-  Reform  of 

human  rites.     He  forbade  trial  by  ordeal,  animal  sacrifices,  Hindu 

1-      J  customs. 
and  child-marriages  before  the  age  of  puberty.      He  legahzed 

the  re-marriage  of  Hindu  widows,   but   he  failed   to  abolish 

widow-burning  on  the  husband's  funeral  pile,  although  he  took 

steps  to  ensure  that  the  act  should  be  a  voluntary  one. 

Akbar    thus    incorporated    his    Hindu    subjects    into    the 


294  THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,   1526-1761. 

Indian        effective  machinery  of  his  Empire.     With  their  aid  he  reduced 

madan^"     ^^^  independent  Muhammadan  kings  of  Northern  India.     He 

States         subjugated   the    Musahnan    potentates   from   the    Punjab   to 

^kI^'^':'^  ^^  Behar.     After  a  struggle,  he  wrested  Bengal  from  its  Afghan 

princes  of  the  house  of  Sher   Shah,  who  had  ruled  it  from 

1539  to  1576.     From  the  latter  date,  Bengal  remained  during 

two   centuries   a    Province    of    the    Mughal    Empire,    under 

governors  appointed  from    Delhi   (1576-1765).      In   1765   it 

passed  by  an  imperial  grant  to  the  British.      Orissa,  on  the 

Bengal  seaboard,  submitted  to  Akbar's  armies  under  his  Hindu 

general,  Todar  Mall,  in  1574. 

On  the  opposite  coast  of  India,  Gujarat  was  reconquered  from 
its  Muhammadankingin  1572-73,  although  not  finally  subjugated 
until  1593.  Malwa  had  been  reduced  in  1570-72.  Kashmir 
was  conquered  in  15 86,  and  its  last  revolt  quelled  in  1592.  Sind 
was  also  annexed  in  1591-92;  and  by  the  recovery  of  Kandahar 
in  1594,  Akbar  had  extended  the  Mughal  Empire  from  the 
heart  of  Afghanistan  across  all  India  north  of  the  Vindhyas  to 
Orissa  and  Sind.  The  magnificent  circumference  of  Mughal 
conquest  in  Northern  India  and  Afghanistan  was  thus  complete. 
Capital  Akbar  also  removed  the  seat  of  the  Mughal  government 

Aom^elhi  ^""^"^  Delhi  to  Agra,  and  founded  Fatehpur  Sikri  to  be  the  future 
to  Agia.  capital  of  the  Empire.  From  this  latter  project  he  was,  how- 
ever, dissuaded,  by  the  superior  position  of  Agra  on  the  great 
water-way  of  the  Jumna.  In  1566  he  built  the  Agra  fort,  whose 
red  sandstone  battlements  majestically  overhang  the  river  to 
this  day. 
Akbar's  His  efforts  to  establish  the  Mughal  Empire  in  Southern  India 

Sou'thein  ^'^^^  ^^^^  successful.  Those  efforts  began  in  1586,  but  during 
India.  the  first  twelve  years  were  frustrated  by  the  valour  and  states- 
manship of  Chand  Bibi,  the  queen  -  regent  of  Ahmadnagar. 
This  celebrated  lady  skilfully  united  the  Abyssinian  and  the 
Persian  factions  ^  in  the  Deccan,  and  strengthened  herself  by 
an  alliance  with  Bijai)ur  and  other  Muhammadan  States  of 
the  south.  In  1599,  Akbar  led  his  armies  in  person  against 
the  princess ;  but,  notwithstanding  her  assassination  by  her 
mutinous  troops,  Ahmadnagar  was  not  reduced  till  the  reign 
Only  of  Shah  Jahan,  in  1637.     Akbar  subjugated  Khandesh  ;  and 

Klidiuieili  ^^'^^^  ^^'^  somewhat  precarious  annexation,  his  conquests  in 
the  Deccan  ceased.  He  returned  to  Northern  India,  perhaps 
feeling  that  the  conquest  of  the  south  was  beyond  the  strength 
of  his  young  Empire.  His  last  years  were  rendered  miserable 
by  the  intrigues  of  his  family,  and  by  the  misconduct  of  his 
^  Professin":  the  hostile  Sunni  and  Shiah  creeds. 


AKBARS  NEW  RELIGION.  295 

beloved  son,  Prince  Sali'm,  afterwards  Jahangi'r.  In  1605  he  His  death, 
died,  and  was  buried  in  the  noble  mausoleum  at  Sikandra, 
whose  mingled  architecture  of  Buddhist  design  and  Arabesque 
tracery  bear  witness  to  the  composite  faith  of  the  founder  of 
the  Mughal  Empire.  In  1873,  ^'''^  British  Viceroy,  Lord 
Northbrook,  presented  a  cloth  of  honour  to  cover  the  plain 
marble  slab  beneath  which  Akbar  lies. 

Akbar's  conciliation  of  the  Hindus,  and  his  interest  in  their 
literature  and  religion,  made  him  many  enemies  among  the 
pious  Musalmans.  His  favourite  wife  was  a  Rajput  princess ; 
another  of  his  wives  is  said  to  have  been  a  Christian  ;  and  he 
ordered  his  son  Prince  INIurdd,  when  a  child,  to  take  lessons  in 
Christianity.  On  Fridays  (the  Sabbath  of  Islam)  he  loved  to  Akbar's 
collect  T)rofessors  of  many  religions  around  him.     He  listened  i"el'g>p"s 

principles. 

impartially  to  the  arguments  of  the  Brahman  and  the  Musalman, 
the  Parsi,  the  ancient  fire-worshipper,  the  Jew,  the  Jesuit,  and  the 
sceptic  philosopher.  The  history  of  his  life,  the  Akba7'-7id>na/i, 
records  such  a  conference,  in  which  the  Christian  priest  Redif 
disputed  with  a  body  of  Muhammadan  viuUds  before  an  assembly 
of  the  doctors  of  all  religions,  and  is  given  the  best  of  the  argu- 
ment. Starting  from  the  broad  ground  of  general  toleration, 
Akbar  was  gradually  led  on  by  the  stimulant  of  cosmopolitan 
discussion  to  question  the  truth  of  his  inherited  beliefs. 

The  counsels  of  his  friend  Abul  Fazl,^  coinciding  with  that 
sense  of  superhuman  omnipotence  which  is  bred  of  despotic 
power,  led  him  at  last  to  promulgate  a  new  State  religion, — '  the  His  new 
Divine  Faith,'  based  upon  natural  theology,  and  comprising  ^'^  ^- 
the  best  practices  of  all  known  creeds.     Of  this  eclectic  creed 
Akbar  himself  was  the  prophet,  or  rather  the  head  of  the  Church. 
Every  morning  he  worshipped  in  public  the  sun,  as  the  repre- 
sentative  of  the   divine   soul   which   animates   the   universe, 
while  he  was  himself  worshipped  by  the  ignorant  multitude.  Divine 
It  is  doubtful  how  far  he  encouraged  this  popular  adoration,  jj^^j°"j.'^   " 
but  he  certainly  allowed  his  disciples  to  prostrate  themselves 
before  him  in  private.     The  stricter  Muhammadans  accused 
him,  therefore,  of  accepting  a  homage  permitted  only  to  God.- 

1  Abul  Fazl  is  accused,  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the  Muhammadan 
historians,  of  leading  away  Akbar's  religious  sympathies  from  Islam.  See 
the  valuable  biography  of  Shaikh  Abul  Fazl-i-  Alldmi,  prefixed  to  Bloch- 
mann's  Aui-i-Ak'iari,  p.  xxix.,  etc. 

*  Akbar's  perversion  from  Islam  has  formed  the  subject  of  much  learned 
censure  by  Mulla  'Abdul  Kadir  Badauni  and  other  Musalman  writers. 
The  question  is  exhaustively  dealt  with  by  Blochmann  in  a  '  Note '  of  46 
]iages :  Ahi-i-Akbari,  pp.  167-213.  See  also  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian 
historians,  vol.  v.  pp.  477  et  srq. 


system  of 
justice, 


296         THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  1 526-1 761. 

Akbar's  Akbar  not   only   subdued  all    India  to    the   north  of  the 

ticm  of  The  ^^^"*^hya  Mountains,   he  also  organized   it   into  an  Empire. 

Empire.  He  partitioned  it  into  Provinces,  over  each  of  which  he  placed 
a  Governor,  or  Viceroy,  with  full  civil  and  military  control. 
This  control  was  divided  into  three  departments — the  military, 

Army  the  judicial,  including  the  police,  and  the  revenue.  With  a 
view  to  preventing  mutinies  of  the  troops,  or  assertions  of 
independence  by  their  leaders,  he  reorganized  the  army  on 
a  new  basis.  He  substituted,  as  far  as  possible,  money 
payments  to  the  soldiers,  for  the  old  system  of  grants  of  land 
(jagirs)  to  the  generals.  Where  this  change  could  not  be 
carried  out,  he  brought  the  holders  of  the  old  military  fiefs 
under  the  control  of  the  central  authority  at  Delhi.  He  further 
checked  the  independence  of  his  provincial  generals  by  a  sort 
of  feudal  organization,  in  which  the  Hindu  tributary  princes 
took  their  place  side  by  side  with  the  Mughal  nobles. 

Akbar's  ^  The  judicial  administration  was  presided  over  by  a  lord  justice 
{Mir-i-adl)  at  the  capital,  aided  by  Kdzis  or  law-officers  in 
the  principal  towns.  The  police  in  the  cities  were  under  a 
superintendent  or  kotivdl,  who  was  also  a  magistrate.  In 
country  districts  where  police  existed  at  all,  they  were  left 
to  the  management  of  the  landholders  or  revenue  officers. 
But  throughout  rural  India,  no  regular  police  force  can  be  said 
to  have  existed  for  the  protection  of  person  and  property  until 

and  police,  after  the  establishment  of  British  rule.  The  Hindu  village 
had  its  hereditary  watchman,  who  in  many  parts  of  the 
country  was  taken  from  the  predatory  castes,  and  as  often 
leagued  with  the  robbers  as  opposed  them.  The  landholders 
and  revenue-officers  had  each  their  own  set  of  myrmidons 
who  plundered  the  peasantry  in  their  names. 

Akbar's  Akbar's  revenue  system  was  based  on   the  ancient  Hindu 

revenue      customs,  and  survives  to  this  day.     He  first  executed  a  survey 

system.  i         i        i  ^^-  rr-  r  i 

to  measure  the  land.  His  officers  then  found  out  the 
produce  of  each  acre  of  land,  and  settled  the  Government 
share,  amounting  to  one-third  of  the  gross  produce.  Finally, 
they  fixed  the  rates  at  which  this  share  of  the  crop  might  be 
commuted  into  a  money  payment.  These  processes,  known 
as  the  land  settlement,  were  at  first  repeated  every  year. 
But  to  save  the  peasant  from  the  extortions  and  vexations 
incident  to  an  annual  inquiry,  Akbar's  land  settlement  was 
afterwards  made  for  ten  years.  His  officers  strictly  enforced 
the  payment  of  a  third  of  the  whole  produce,  and  Akbar's 
land  revenue  from  Northern  India  exceeded  what  the  British 
take  at  the  present  day. 


AKBAR'S  LAND-TAX. 


297 


From   his    fifteen  Provinces,  including  Kabul  beyond  the 

Afghan   frontier,    and   Khandesh   in   Southern    India,   Akbar  Akbav's 

demanded  14  millions  sterling  per  annum  ;  or  excluding  Kabul, 

"t  f  1  5      ^  o  '  revenue. 

Khandesh,  and  Sind,  12/j  millions.  The  British  land-tax  from 
a  much  larger  area  of  Northern  India  was  only  iif  millions 
m  1883.1  Allowing  for  the  difference  in  area  and  in  the 
purchasing  power  of  silver,  Akbar's  tax  was  about  three  times 
the  amount  which  the  British  take.  Two  later  returns  show 
the  land  revenue  of  Akbar  at  16J  and  17^-  millions  sterling.  His  total 
The  Provinces  had  also  to  support  a  local  militia  {bumi  =  ^^^^""*^' 
hhiim'i)  in  contradistinction  to  the  regular  royal  army,  at  a  cost 
of  at  least  10  millions  sterling.  Excluding  both  Kabul  and 
Khandesh,  Akbar's  demand  from  the  soil  of  Northern  India 
exceeded  22  millions  sterling  per  annum,  under  the  two  items 
'  )f  land  revenue  and  militia  cess.  There  v/ere  also  a  number 
of  miscellaneous  taxes.  Akbar's  total  revenue  is  estimated  at 
42  millions.- 


*  Namely,    Bengal,   ;i^3,8i6,796  ; 
Provinces    and    Oudli,    ;^5,7cx),8i6 
£\l,'J(j2,()2T,.  —  Adniinisl7-ation  J\epo) 


Assam,  £l?>S,S°A-'-  North -Western 
;  and  Punjab,  ;^I, 889,807  :  total, 
"A  (1882-83). 


ROVINCES   OF   THE   DELHI    EMPIRE   UNDER 

Akbar,  circ.   1580. 

Lai 

id-tax  in  Rupees 

I.   Allahabad,    . 

5,310,677 

2.   Agra, 

13,656,257 

3.   Oudh, 

5,043,954 

4.  Ajmere, 

7,153,449 

5.  Gujarat, 

10,924,122 

6.   Behar, 

5,547,985 

7.  Bengal, 

14,961,482 

8.  Delhi, 

15,040,388 

9.   Lahore, 

13,986,460 

10.  Mill  tan, 

9,600,764 

II,  Malwa, 

6,017,376 

12.  Berar, 

17,376,117 

13.  Khandesh,    . 

7,563,237 

14.  Ahmadnagar 

(only 

nominally  a    Province, 

yielded  no 

revenue), 

. 

15.  Tatta  (Sind), 

1,656,284 

Total, 
16.    Kabul  (omitting  payments  in  kind). 

Grand  Total, 


133,838,552 
8,071,024 

141,909,576 


The  land  revenue  was  returned  at  i6i  millions  sterling  in  1594,  and 
;i^i7, 450,000  at  Akbar's  death  in  1605.  The  aggregate  taxation  of  Akbar 
was  32  millions  sterling ;  with  10  millions  for  militia  cess  {Inimi)  ;  total, 
42  millions  sterling.  See  Thomas'  Revenue  Resources  of  the  Mughal  Empire, 
pp.  5-21  and  p.  54  (Triibner,  1871).     These  and  the  following  conversions 


298         THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  1 526-1 761. 

The  large        Since  the  first  edition  of  this  work  was  written,  the  author 
Muf'hal       '^^^  carefully  reconsidered  the  evidence  for  the  large  revenue 
taxation,     totals  Under  the  Mughal  Emperors.     The  principal  authority 
on  the  subject  is  Mr.  Edward  Thomas,  F.R.S.,  who  has  summed 
up  the  results  of  a  lifetime  devoted  to  Indian  numismatics,  in 
his  Revenue  Resources  of  the  MitgJial  Eiiipire  from  a.d.  1593 
to  A.D.  1707.^     No  one  can  study  that  work  without  acknow- 
ledging the  laborious  and  accurate  research  which  Mr.  Thomas 
Are  they  to  has  devoted  to  the  points  involved.     His  results  were  accepted 
1)6  relied     ^yithout  reserve  in  the  first  edition  oi  The  Imperial  Gazetteer 
of  India.     Since  the  publication  of  this  work,  however,  the 
author  has  received  several  communications  from  Mr.  H.  G. 
Keene,  questioning  the  soundness  of  Mr.  Thomas'  conclusions. 
Those  conclusions  point  to  a  comparatively  heavier  taxation 
under  the   Mughal  Emperors  than  under    British  rule ;    and 
have  been  made  the  basis  of  contrasts  flattering  to  the  British 
administration.    The  author  felt  it,  therefore,  incumbent  on  him 
to  submit  Mr.  Keene's  views  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  two  most 
eminent  numismatists  now  living,  namely  General  Cunningham 
and  Mr.  Edward  Thomas  himself. 

Mr.  Thomas,  after  examining  the  counter-statements,  ad- 
General  heres  to  his  former  conclusions.  General  Cunningham  is 
Cunning-  inclined  to  think  that  the  great  totals  of  revenue  recorded  by 
Muhammadan  writers,  could  not  have  been  actually  enforced 
from  India  at  the  different  periods  to  which  they  refer.  He 
thinks  that  individual  items  may  be  reduced  by  a  technical 
scrutiny."  But  that  scrutiny  only  aftects  certain  of  the  entries. 
He  rests  his  general  conclusion  on  wider  grounds,  and  believes 
that  the  revenues  recorded  by  the  Muhammadan  writers  re- 
present rather  the  official  demand  than  the  amounts  actually 
realized.  The  following  pages  will  reproduce  Mr.  Edward 
Thomas'  conclusions,  as  revised  by  himself  for  the  first  edition 
of  this  work.  But  they  are  reproduced  subject  to  the  con- 
siderations stated  in  the  present  paragraph. 

are  made  at  the  nominal  rate  of  10  rupees  to  the  pound  sterling.  But 
the  actual  rate  was  then  about  8  or  9  rupees  to  the  £.  The  real  revenues 
of  the  Mughal  Emperors  represented,  therefore,  a  considerably  larger  sum 
in  sterling  than  the  amounts  stated  in  the  text  and  footnotes.  The  pur- 
chasing power  of  silver,  expressed  in  the  staple  food-grains  of  India,  was 
two  or  three  times  greater  than  now. 

'  This  monograph  was  written  as  a  supplement  to  Mr.  Thomas'  Chronic  hs 
of  the  Patltdn  Kings  of  Delhi.     (Trlibner  &  Co.,  1S71.) 

^  See  General  Cunningham's  Letter,  dated  5lh  July  18S3,  printed  in 
the  paper  'On  some  Copper  Coins  of  Akbar,'  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal,  vol.  liv.  Part  I.,  1SS5. 


I 


view. 


GROWTH  OF  MUGHAL  REVE^'UES. 


299 


It  may  be  here  convenient  to  exhibit  the  revenues  of  the  Mu^lial 

Mucrhal  Emi)ire  in  India,  as  compiled  by  Mr.  Edward  Thomas  ''^'^'emies. 
.  1697- 1 76 1 

tiom  Miihammadan  authorities  and  European  travellers,  during  a.d. 

the  century  from  its  practical  foundation  by  Akbar  to  its  final 

expansion  under  Aurangzeb  in   1697,  and  thence  to  its  fall  in 

1 761  : — 


0  0 

0 

0 

0  0 

0  0 

0 

0 

0  0 

0  0 

0 

0 

0  >D 

0  0 

0" 

0 

c  yj 

0 

.  .  .S7  .     . 

0  0 

0 

.       .    0       .       .      . 

M    0 

M       • 

:     :  0     :    :    : 

;    :    ;  0  1^   :       : 

ro  « 

^ 

u-i 

CO    I>^ 

s? 

■-^ 

CO  o  o 
CO   ^  o 

*"?  t^  ° 
Tt  rT  o" 

Ln  Lo  rj* 


000^-0 


O  O  rOO  —  "^ 
O  O  rt-  Ln  ^  O 
1^0  t^  O  O  >J~t 


K 

vo'vo'  t^     '■ 

r^ 

rf  vO~  "^ 

L(1    TT        '■ 

c<r  0' 

•^ 

•a 

>-r     i-H     »-i 

»-( 

N 

W  rj 

CO  fO 

CO  CO      CO 

"^ 

•-) 

<-i 

>4 

'-.    -Vi 

Vi   -v. 

?>  "^ 

^    v 

%i     s;     ■>! 

^ 

Jj 

k   ^ 

"^   <;l 

ij 

n  *  '*" 

S  S: 

^ 

5;  Sc  S; 

^ 

c<;  ^ 

"■' 

^ 



Z^^ 

— -^ 

, . 

_cf 

^ 

—    . 

^■^ 

rt 

^ 

<:t    ^ 

c 

^^ 

t~      r~ 

'"' 

2:- 

cT  -    , 

' 

" 

<      0 

Ch 

^  ^-,    ii 

^ 

0 

'"'">->' 

0    :-H 

0 

C"" 

"CJ    u£    ,-; 

,- 

>, 

C 

"0 

p 

^-.     -*-J      0 

0   C 

0 

3 

c 

vT 

0 

<; 

rSZ 

r^      0     V. 

~ci 

c 

"^ 

?    C 

t/:    =   C    > 

5 

CJ 

0 

0 

0 

0    ^ 

-rt 

0 

ct 

."2 
'0 

0 

1| 

S 

I^ 

<c^S-J 

< 

0 

-^' 

?.  Si 

0 

• 

_ 

• 

cR 

• 

• 

•    - 

•^•'~-' 

^.1 

■* 

i 

^ 

-  1 

^ 

.» 

n-. 

. 

-    -. 

^ 

0 

fO 

rj-         »y-i  0\X!  CO 

1/1 

0 

lii  r^  t-^ 

0 

0-00 

C4 

rf 

m 

i^ 

0 

GN  0 

0 

LO 

W-,     "0  0 

0  0 

0 

^3 

VC 

0  I-^ 

t->» 

p 

i-m           ^    ►-. 

^ 

■-• 

»-• 

^-« 

»-• 

1-1    -1 

►-• 

w 

^■ 

^*• 

(— 

^- 

*-* 

rt 

^ 

c 

j= 

< 

j^ 

c» 

n 

y 

J_p 

'So 

&3 

< 

13 

Cj 

r 

J2 

5 

: 

:: 

r  ; 

-"§ 

< 

1— > 

-T. 

< 

7. 

„ 

N   en  •<d-"^vO 

t-« 

00 

CT> 

0 

►"    N 

ri 

*^ 

i-H  "1 

'"' 

^t. 


'<:^ 


300  THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  15 26-1 761. 

RajaTodar      Akbar's  Hindu  minister,  Raja  Todar  Mall,  conducted  the 

^  ^  *  revenue  settlement,  and  his  name  is  still  a  household  word 

Abul  Fazl.  among  the  husbandmen  of  Bengal.     Abul  Fazl,  the  man  of 

letters  and  Finance  Minister  of  Akbar,  compiled  a  Statistical 

Survey  of  the  Empire,  together  with  many  vivid  pictures  of  his 

master's  court  and  daily  life,  in  the  Ain-i-Akbari — a  work  of 

perennial  interest,  and  one  which  has  proved  of  great  value  in 

.     carrying  out  the  Statistical  Survey  of  India  at  the  present  day.^ 

Abul  Fazl  was   killed   in   1602,   at   the  instigation  of  Prince 

Salim,  the  heir  to  the  throne. 

Salim,  the  favourite  son  of  Akbar,  succeeded  his  father  in 

Jahangir,     1 605,  and  ruled  until  1627  under  the  title  of  Jahangir,  or 

160S-2T'    Conqueror  of  the  World.     The  chief  events  of  his  reign  are 

summarized  below.^     His  reign  of  twenty-two  years  was  spent 

in  reducing  the  rebellions  of  his  sons,  in  exalting  the  influence 

'  The  old  translation  is  by  Gladwin  (iSoo) ;  the  best  is  by  the  late  IMr. 
Blochmann,  Principal  of  the  Calcutta  Madrasah,  or  Muhammadan  college, 
whose  early  death  was  one  of  the  greatest  losses  which  Persian  scholarship 
has  sustained  in  this  century. 

^  Reign  ov  Jahangir,   1605-27: — 

1605.  Accession  of  Jahangir. 

1606.  Flight,  rebellion,  and  imprisonment  of  his  eldest  son,  Khusrii. 

1610.  Malik  Ambar  recovers  Ahmadnagar  from  the  Mughals,  and  re-asserts 
independence  of  the  Deccan  dynasty,  with  its  new  capital  at  Aurang- 
abad. 

1611.  Jahangir's  marriage  with  Nur  Jahan. 

1612.  Jahangir  again  defeated  by  Malik  Ambar  in  an  attempt  to  recover 
Ahmadnagar. 

1613-14.  Defeat  of  the    Udaipur    Raja  by  Jahangir's   son   Shah  Jahan. 

Unsuccessful  revolt  in  Kabul  against  Jahangir. 
1615.   Embassy  of  Sir  T.  Roe  to  the  Court  of  Jahangir. 
1616-17.   Temporary  re-conquest  of  Ahmadnagar  by  Jahangir's  son  Shah 

Jahan. 
1621.    Renewed  disturbances  in  the  Deccan  ;  ending  in  treaty  with  Shah 

Jahan.     Capture  of  Kandaliar  from  Jahangir's  troops  by  the  Persians. 
1623-25.   Rebellion  against  Jahangir  by  his  son  Shah  Jahan,  who,  after 

defeating  the  Governor  of  Bengal  at  Rajmahal,  seized  that  Province 

and  Behar,  but  was  himself  overthrown  by  Mahabat  Khan,  his  father's 

general,  and  sought  refuge  in  the  Deccan,  where  he  unites  with  his  old 

opponent  Malik  Ambar. 

1626.  The  successful  general  Mahabat  Khan  seizes  the  person  of  Jahangir. 
Intrigues  of  the  Empress  Niir  Jahan. 

1627.  Jahangir  recovers  his  liberty,  and  sends  Mahabat  Khan  against 
Shah  Jahan  in  the  Deccan.  Mahabat  joins  the  rebel  prince  against 
the  Emperor  Jahangir. 

1627.   Death  of  Jahangir, 

Materials  for  Jahangir's  reign  :  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians, 
vols.  V.  vi.  and  vii.  ;  Elphinstone,  pp.  550-603. 


JAHANGIR,   1605-1627.  301 

of  his  wife,  and  in  drunken  self-indulgence.     In  spite  of  long 
wars  in  the  Deccan,  he  added  little  to  his  father's  territories. 
India  south  of  the  Vindhyas  still  continued  apart  from  the 
northern   Empire   of  Delhi.      Malik   Ambar,   the  Abyssinian 
minister  of  Ahmadnagar,  maintained,  in  spite  of  reverses,  the 
independence  of  that   kingdom.      At  the  end  of  Jahangir's  Rebellion 
reign,  his  rebel  son,  Prince  Shah  Jahan,  was  a  refugee  in  the  °     ^^  ^""' 
Deccan,   in   alliance  with   Malik  Ambar  against  the  Mughal 
troops.     The  Rajputs  also  began   to  re-assert  their  indepen- 
dence.    In  16 14,  Prince  Shah  Jahan  on  behalf  of  the  Emperor 
defeated   the   Udaipur    Raja.      But   the   conquest   was    only 
partial  and  for  a  time.     Meanwhile,  the  Rajputs  formed  an  Revolt 
important   contingent   of  the   imperial   armies,  and    5000  of  °  ,.  ^ 
their  cavalry  aided  Shan  Jahan  to  put  down  a  revolt  in  Kabul. 
The  Afghan  Province  of  Kandahar  was  wrested  from  Jahangfr 
by  the  Persians  in  1621.     The  land-tax  of  the  Mughal  Empire 
remained  at  lyi  millions  under  Jahangir,  but  his  total  revenues 
were  estimated  at  50  millions  sterling.^ 

The  principal  figure  in  Jahangir's  reign  is  his  Empress,  Niir  The  Em- 
Jahan,'-  the  Light  of  the  World.  Born  in  great  poverty,  but  ?^^^j^^'"'^ 
of  a  noble  Persian  family,  her  beauty  won  the  love  of  Jahangir 
while  they  were  both  in  their  first  youth,  during  the  reign  of 
Akbar.  The  old  Emperor  tried  to  put  her  out  of  his  son's 
way,  by  marrying  her  to  a  brave  soldier,  who  obtained  high 
employment  in  Bengal.  Jahangir  on  his  accession  to  the 
throne  commanded  her  divorce.  Her  husband  refused,  and 
was  killed.  His  wife,  being  brought  into  the  imperial  palace, 
lived  for  some  time  in  chaste  seclusion  as  his  widow,  but  in 
the  end  emerged  as  Niir  Jahan,  the  Light  of  the  World.  She 
surrounded  herself  with  her  relatives,  and  at  first  influenced 
Jahangir  for  his  good.  But  the  jealousy  of  the  imperial 
princes  and  of  the  Mughal  generals  against  her  party  led  to 
intrigue  and  rebellion.  In  1626,  her  successful  general, 
Mahabat  Khan,  found  himself  compelled,  in  self-defence,  to 
turn  against  her.  He  seized  the  Emperor,  whom  he  kept, 
together  with  Niir  Jahan,  in  captivity  for  six  months.  Jahangir 
died  in  the  following  year,  1627,  in  the  midst  of  a  rebellion 
against  him  by  his  son  Shah  Jahan  and  his  greatest  general, 
Mahabat  Khan. 

Jahangir's  personal   character   is  vividly   portrayed  by   Sir  Jahangir's 

Thomas  Roe,  the  first  British  Ambassador  to   India  (161  s).  ^5"^^°"^' 
'  \        Ji    character. 

^  Mr.    Edward   Thomas'    Rrveniie  Resources  of  the   Mughal  Empire, 

pp.  21-26  and  p.  54. 

-  Otherwise  known  as  Nur  Mahal,  the  Light  of  the  Palace. 


302         THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  1526-1761. 

Agra  continued  to  be  the  central  seat  of  the  government, 
but  the  imperial  army  on  the  march  formed  in  itself  a  splendid 
capital,  Jahangir  thought  that  Akbar  had  too  openly  severed 
himself  from  the  Muhammadan  faith.  The  new  Emperor  con- 
formed more  strictly  to  outward  observances,  but  lacked  the 
His  inward  religious  feeling  of  his  father.     While  he  forbade  the 

feasts '^'^  use  of  wine  to  his  subjects,  he  spent  his  own  nights  in  drunken 
revelry.  He  talked  religion  over  his  cups  until  he  reached 
a  certain  stage  of  intoxication,  when  he  '  fell  to  weeping,  and 
to  various  passions,  which  kept  them  to  midnight.'  In  public 
he  maintained  a  strict  appearance  of  virtue,  and  never  allowed 
any  person  whose  breath  smelled  of  wine  to  enter  his  presence. 
A  courtier  who  had  shared  his  midnight  revels,  and  indiscreetly 
referred  to  them  next  morning,  was  gravely  examined  as  to 
who  were  the  companions  of  his  debauch,  and  one  of  them 
was  bastinadoed  so  that  he  died. 
Jabangir's  During  the  day-time,  when  sober,  Jahangir  tried  to  work 
ju.-,  ice.  vvisely  for  his  Empire,  A  chain  hung  down  from  the 
citadel  to  the  ground,  and  communicated  with  a  cluster  of 
golden  bells  in  his  own  chamber,  so  that  every  suitor  might 
apprise  the  Emperor  of  his  demand  for  justice  without  the 
intervention  of  the  courtiers.  Many  European  adventurers 
repaired  to  his  court,  and  Jahangir  patronized  alike  their  arts 
and  their  religion.  In  his  earlier  years  he  had  accepted  the 
eclectic  faith  of  his  father.  It  is  said  that  on  his  accession  he 
had  even  permitted  the  divine  honours  paid  to  Akbar  to  be 
continued  to  himself.  His  first  wife  wa^  a  Hindu  princess  ; 
^^y  .  figures  of  Christ  and  the  Virgin   Mary  adorned  his    rosary  ; 

"     *      and  two  of  his  nephews  embraced  Christianity  with  his  full 
approval.^ 
Shah  Shah  Jahan  hurried  north  from  the  Deccan  in  1627,  and 

proclaimed  himself  Emperor  at  Agra  in  January  1628.^     He 


fahan, 

lunpeior 

1628-58. 


^  Elphinstone's  Hist.,  p.  560  (ed.  1866),  on  the  authority  of  Roe, 
Hawkins,  Terry,  Coryat. 

^  Materials  for  Shah  Jahan's  reign  :  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  His- 
torians, vols.  vi.  vii,  and  viii.  ;  Elphinstone,  pp.  574-603. 

Reign  of  Shah  Jahan,  1628-58 : — 

1627.  Imprisonment  of  Nur  Jahan  on  the  death  of  Jahangir,  by  Asaf  Khan 
on  behalf  of  Shah  Jahan. 

1628.  Shah  Jahan   returns    from   the  Deccan   and    ascends    the    throne 
(January).     He  murders  his  brother  and  kinsmen. 

162S-30.   Afghan  uprisings  against  Shah  Jahan  in  Northern  India  and  in 
the  Deccan. 

\Footnotc  continued  on  next  pa^e. 


SHAH  JA HAN,    162S-1658.  303 

put  down  for  ever  the  court  faction  of  the  Empress  Xur  Jahan, 

by  confining  her  to  private  life  upon  a  liberal  allowance  ;  and 

by  murdering  his  brother  Shahriyar,  with  all  members  of  the 

house  of  Akbar  who  might  prove  rivals  to  the  throne.     He  was, 

however,  just  to  his  people,  blameless  in  his  private  habits,  a 

good   financier,  and  as   economical   as   a   magnificent    court, 

splendid  public  works,  and  distant  military  expeditions  could 

permit. 

Under  Shah  Jahan,  the  Mughal  Empire  was  finally  shorn  of  shah 

its  Afghan  Province  of  Kandahar ;  but  it  extended  its  con-  .T^nan 
°  .....     loses 

quests  in  the  Deccan,  and  raised  the  magnificent  buildmgs  m  Kandahar. 

Northern  India  which  now  form  its  most  splendid  memorials.  ^"'^1]^  '" 

After  a  temporary  occupation  of  Balkh,  and  the  actual  re-con-     ^^' 

quest  of  Kandahar  by  the  Delhi  troops  in  1637,  Shah  Jahan 

lost   much    of  his   Afghan    territories,    and   the   Province   of 

Kandahar   was   severed    from    the    Mughal    Empire    by   the 

Persians  in   1653.     On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Deccan,  the 

kingdom  of  Ahmadnagar  (to  which  EUichpur  had  been  united 

in  1572)  was  at  last  annexed  to  the  Mughal  Empire  in  1636. 

Bi'dar  fort  was  taken  in  1657,  while  the  remaining  two  of  the  Conqnesis 

five    Muhammadan    kingdoms   of   Southern   India,^   namely  Qgj,^^;!^^ 

Bijapur  and  Golconda,  were  forced  to  pay  tribute,  although 

not  finally  reduced  until  the  succeeding  reign  of  Aurangzeb. 

But  the  Marathas  now. appear  on  the  scene,  and  commenced, 

1629-35.  Shah  Jahan's  wars  in  the  Deccan  with  Ahmadnagar  and  Bijapur  ; 
unsuccessful  siege  of  Bijapur. 

1634.  Shahji  Bhonsla,  grandfather  of  Sivaji,  the  founder  of  the  Maratha 
power,  attempts  to  restore  the  independent  King  of  Ahmadnagar,  but 
fails,  and  in  1636  makes  peace  with  the  Emperor  Shah  Jahan. 

1636.  Bijapur  and  Golconda  agree  to  pay  tribute  to  Shah  Jahan.  Final 
submission  of  Ahmadnagar  to  the  Mughal  Empire. 

1637.  Re-conquest  of  Kandahar  by  Shah  Jahan  from  the  Persians. 

1645.  Invasion  and  temporary  conquest  of  Balkh  by  Shah  Jahan.  Balkh 
was  abandoned  two  years  later. 

1647-53.  Kandahar  again  taken  by  the  Persians,  and  three  unsuccessful 
attempts  made  by  the  Emperor's  sons  Aurangzeb  and  Dara  to  recap- 
ture it.     Kandahar  finally  lost  to  the  Mughal  Empire,  1653. 

1655-56.  Renewal  of  the  war  in  the  Deccan  under  Prince  Aurangzeb. 
His  attack  on  Haidarabad,  and  temporary  submission  of  the  Golconda 
king  to  the  Mughal  Empire. 

1656.   Renewed  campaign  of  Shah  Jahan's  armies  against  Bijapur. 

1657-58.  Dispute  as  to  the  succession  between  the  Emperor's  sons. 
Aurangzeb  defeats  Dara  ;  imprisons  Murad,  his  other  brother  ;  deposes 
his  father  by  confining  him  in  his  palace,  and  openly  assumes  the 
government.  Shah  Jahan  dies,  practically  a  State  prisoner  in  the 
fort  of  Agra,  in  1666. 
^   Vide  ante,  end  of  chap.  x. 


304         THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  15 26-1 761. 

unsuccessfully  at  Ahmadnagar  in  1637,  that  series  of  persistent 
Hindu  attacks  which  were  destined  in  the  next  century  to  break 
down  the  Mughal  Empire. 

Aurangzeb  and  his  brothers  carried  on  the  wars  in  Southern 
India   and    in   Afghanistan    for    their    father,    Shah    Jahan. 
Shah  ^        Save  for  one  or  two  expeditions,  the  Emperor  lived  a  mag- 
ibuildings.    nificent  life  in  the  north  of  India.     At  Agra  he  raised  the 
Taj  Mahal,  exquisite  mausoleum  of  the  Taj   Mahal,  a  dream   in  marble, 
designed  by  Titans   and  finished  by  jewellers.^      His  Pearl 
Mosque,  the  Moti  Masjid,  within  the  Agra  fort  is  perhaps  the 
purest  and  loveliest  house  of  prayer  in  the  world.     Not  con- 
tent with  enriching  his  grandfather  Akbar's  capital,  Agra,  with 
these  and  other  architectural  glories,  he  planned  the  re-transfer 
of  the  seat  of  Government  to  Delhi,  and  adorned  that  city  with 
Delhi  buildings  of  unrivalled  magnificence.     Its  Great  Mosque,  or 

Jama  Masjid,  was  commenced  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign 
Shah  and  completed  in  the  tenth.     The  palace  at  Delhi,  now  the 

i)alace\t  ^°'"'^'  ^^ov^^^^^  ^  ^'^^^  parallelogram,  1600  feet  by  3200,  with 
Delhi.  exquisite  and  sumptuous  buildings  in  marble  and  fine  stone. 
A  deeply-recessed  portal  leads  into  a  vaulted  hall,  rising  two 
storeys  like  the  nave  of  a  gigantic  Gothic  cathedral,  375  feet 
in  length ;  '  the  noblest  entrance,'  says  the  historian  of  archi- 
tecture, 'to  any  existing  palace.' ^  The  Diwdn-i-Khds,  or 
Court  of  Private  Audience,  overlooks  the  river,  a  masterpiece 
of  delicate  inlaid  work  and  poetic  design.  Shah  Jahan 
spent  many  years  of  his  reign  at  Delhi,  and  prepared  the 
city  for  its  destiny  as  the  most  magnificent  capital  in  the 
world  under  his  successor  Aurangzeb.  But  exquisite  as  are 
its  public  buildings,  the  manly  vigour  of  Akbar's  red-stone 
fort  at  Agra,  with  its  bold  sculptures  and  square  Hindu  con- 
struction, has  given  place  to  a  certain  effeminate  beauty  in  the 
marble  structures  of  Shah  Jahan.' 

'  Shah  Jahan's  architectural  works  are  admirably  described  in  Dr. 
James  Fergusson's  Hist.  Archilectiire,  vol.  iii.  pp.  589-602  (ed.  1876). 
See  also  article  Agra  City,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

^  Fergusson's  Hist.  Architecture,  vol.  iii.  p.  592-  See  also  article 
Delhi  City,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

3  Provinces  of  the  Delhi  Empire  under  Sh.\h  Jahan, 
164S-49  : — 
In  India —  Land-tax  in  Rupees. 

1.  Delhi,     .....       25,000,000 

2.  Agra,      .....       22,500,000 

3.  Lahore,  .....       22,500,000 

4.  Ajmere, .....       15,000,000 

Carry  forward,  .  .       85,000,000 


SHAH  JAHAN'S  REVENUES. 


305 


Akbar's  dynasty  lay  under  the  curse  of  rebellious  sons.  As 
Jahangir  had  risen  against  his  most  loving  father,  Akbar  ;  and 
as  Shah  Jahan  had  mutinied  against  Jahangir  ;  so  Shah  Jahan 
in  his  turn  suffered  from  the  intrigues  and  rebellions  of  his 
family.  In  1658,  Shah  Jahan,  old  and  worn  out,  fell  ill  ;  and 
in  the  following  year  his  son  Aurangzeb,  after  a  treacherous 
conflict  with  his  brethren,  deposed  his  father,  and  proclaimed 
himself  Emperor  in  his  stead.  The  unhappy  Shah  Jahdn  was 
kept  in  confinement  for  seven  years,  and  died  a  State  prisoner 
in  the  fort  of  Agra  in  1666. 

Under  Shah  Jahan,  the  Mughal  Empire  attained  its  highest 
union  of  strength  with  magnificence.  His  son  Aurangzeb 
added  to  its  extent,  but  at  the  same  time  sowed  the  seeds 
of  its  decay.  Akbar's  land  revenue  of  17^-  millions  had 
been  raised,  chiefly  by  new  conquests,  to  22  millions  sterling 
under  Shah  Jahan.  But  this  sum  included  Kashmir,  and  five 
Provinces  in  Afghanistan,  some  of  which  were  lost  during  Shah 
Jahan's  reign.  The  land  revenue  of  the  Mughal  Empire  within 
India,  under  Shah  Jahan,  was  2o|  millions.  The  magnificence 
of  Shah  Jahan's  court  was  the  wonder  of  European  travellers. 
His  Peacock  Throne,  with  its  tail  blazing  in  the  shifting  natural 
colours  of  rubies,  sapphires,  and  emeralds,  was  valued  by  the 
jeweller  Tavernier  at  6J-  millions  sterling. 

Brought  forward,  .  Rs.  85,000,000 


Rcliellion 
of  Prince 
Aurang- 
zeb, 1657. 


Shah 
Jahan 
deposed, 
165S. 


Shdh 

Jahan's 

revenues. 


5.   Daulatabad, 

13,750,000 

6.    Berar,     . 

13,750,000 

7.   Ahmadabad, 

13,250,000 

8.   Bengal,  . 

12,500,000 

9.    Allahabad, 

10,000,000 

10.   Behar,    . 

10,000,000 

II.    Malwa,  . 

10,000,000 

12.   Khandesh, 

10,000,000 

13.  Oudh,     . 

7,500,000 

14.   Telingana, 

7,500,000 

15.   Multan,  . 

7,000,000 

16.   Orissa,    . 

5,000,000 

17.  Tatta  (Sind),      . 

2,000,000 

18.   Baglanah, 

a, 

500,000 

Land  Revenue  of  Ind 

207,750,000 

19.   Kashmir, 

3,750,000 

20.   Kabul,    . 

4,000,000 

21.   Balkh,    . 

2,000,000 

22.   Kandahar, 

1,500,000 

23.   Badakhshan, 

1,000,000 

Total  Rs.  220,030,000 
Mr.  Edward  Thomas  Revenue  Resources  of  the  Mugltal  Empire,  p.  28. 

U 


3o6  THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,   15 26-1 761. 

Aurang-  AuRANGZEC  proclaimed  himself  Emperor  in   1658,   in   the 

^'^'"^  room  of  his  imprisoned  father,  with  the  tide  of  Alamgir,  the 

usurpa-  '  .  .  .  TT    J 

tion,  1658.  Conqueror  of  the  Universe,  and  reigned  until  1707.  Under 
Aurangzeb,  the  Mughal  Empire  reached  its  widest  limits.^ 
But  his  long  rule  of  forty-nine  years  merely  presents  on  a 
more  magnificent  stage  the  old  unhappy  type  of  a  Mughal 
His  reign,  reign.  In  its  personal  character,  it  commenced  with  his 
'^58-1707- j-ebellion  against  his  father;  consolidated  itself  by  the  murder 
(jf  his  brethren  ;  and  darkened  to  a  close  amid  the  mutinies, 
intrigues,  and  gloomy  jealousies  of  his  own  sons.  Its  public 
aspects  consisted  of  a  magnificent  court  in  Northern  India  ; 
<-onquests  of  the  independent  Muhammadan  kings  in  the  south  ; 
and  wars  against  the  Hindu  powers,  which,  alike  in  Rajputana 
and  the  Deccan,  were  gathering  strength  for  the  overthrow  of 
the  Mughal  Empire. 

The  chief  events  of  the  reign  of  Aurangzeb  are  summarized 
below. "^  The  year  after  his  accession,  he  defeated  and  put 
to  death   his  eldest  brother,   the  noble  but  impetuous  Uara 

■  Materials  for  Aurangzelj's  reign  :  Sir  Henry  YAViQi's  Persian  Historians, 
V(j1s.  vii.  and  viii.  ;  Elphinstone,  pp.  598-673. 

^  Reign  of  Aurangzeb,  1658  1707  : — 

1658.  Deposition  of  Shah  Jahan,  and  usurpation  of  Aurangzeb. 

1659.  Aurangzeb  defeats  his  brothers  Shuja  and  Dara.  Dara,  his  flight 
l^eing  betrayed  by  a  chief  with  whom  lie  sought  refuge,  is  put  to  death 
by  order  of  Aurangzeb. 

1660.  Continued  struggle  of  Aurangzeb  with  his  brother  Shuja,  who 
ultimately  fled  to  Arakan,  and  there  perished  miserably. 

1661.  Aurangzeb  executes  his  youngest  brother,  Murad,  in  prison. 

1662.  Unsuccessful  invasion  of  Assam  by  Aurangzeb's  general  Mir  Jumla. 
Disturbances  in  the  Deccan.  War  between  Bijapur  and  the  Marathris 
under  Sivaji.  Alter  various  changes  of  fortune,  Sivaji,  the  founder  vi 
the  Maratha  power,  retains  a  considerable  territory. 

1662-1665.  Sivaji  in  rebellion  against  the  Mughal  Empire.  In  1664  he 
assumed  the  title  of  Raja,  and  asserted  his  independence  ;  but  in  1665, 
on  a  large  army  being  sent  against  him,  he  made  submission,  and 
j)roceeded  to  Delhi,  where  he  was  placed  under  restraint,  but  soon 
afterwards  escaped, 

1666.  Death  of  the  deposed  Emperor,  Shah  Jahan.  War  in  the  Deccan, 
and  defeat  of  the  Mughais  by  the  King  of  Bijapur. 

1667.  Sivaji  makes  peace  on  favourable  terms  with  Aurangzeb,  and  ob- 
tains an  extension  of  territory.  Sivaji  levies  tribute  from  Bijapur  and 
(jolconda. 

1670.   Sivaji  ravages  Khandesh  and  the  Deccan,  and  there  levies  for  the 

first  time  chaiith,  or  a  contribution  of  one-fourth  of  the  revenue. 
1672.  Defeat  of  the  Mughais  by  the  Maratha  Sivaji. 
1677.  Aurangzeb  revives  \\\q  jaziah  or  poll-tax  on  non-Muhammadans. 

\^Footnotc  continued  on  next  fa^e. 


AURANGZEES  SOUTHERN  WARS.  307 

(1659).    After  another  twelve  months'  struggle,  he  drove  out  of  lie  miir- 

India  his  second  brother,  the  self-indulgent  Shuia,  who  perished  j'^^'s  '^'^ 
,  ,  ,     .  .  '  t    K      i         ,    rr      ^    s^  brothers, 

miserably  among  the  msolent  savages  of  Arakan  ( 1 660-6 1).^ 

His  remaining  brother,  the  brave  young  Murad,  was  executed 

in  prison  the  following  year  (1661).     Aurangzeb,  having  thus 

killed  off  his  brethren,  set  up  as  an  orthodox  sovereign  of  the 

strictest  sect  of  Islam ;  while  his  invalid  father,  Shah  Jahan, 

lingered  on  in  prison,  mourning  over  his  murdered  sons,  until 

1666,  when  he  died. 

Aurangzeb  continued,  as  Emperor,  that  persistent  policy  of  Subjuga- 

the  subjugation  of  Southern  India  which  he  had  so  brilliantly  southern 

commenced  as  the  lieutenant  of  his  father.  Shah  Jahan.     Of  India. 

the  five  Muhammadan  kingdoms  of  the  Deccan,  three,  namely 

Bidar,  and  Ahmadnagar-with-Elichpur,  had  fallen  to  Aurang- 

zeb's  arms  before  his  accession  to  the    Delhi  throne.^    The 

two    others,    Bijapur    and    Golconda,    struggled    longer,    but 

Aurangzeb   was   determined   at   any   cost  to  annex  them  to 

the    Mughal    Empire.       During   the    first   half  of  his  reign, 

or    exactly   twenty  -  five   years,    he  waged  war    in   the    south 

by  means  of  his  generals  (1658-83).      A  new  Hindu  power  Rise  of  the 

had  arisen  in  the  Deccan,  the  Marathas.^     The  task  before  ^^^''^t^ha 

Aurangzeb's  armies  was   not  only  the  old  one   of  subduing 

the    Muhammadan    kingdoms    of    Bijapur    and    Golconda, 

1679.  Aurangzeb  at  war  with  the   Rajputs.     Rebellion  of  Prince  Akbar, 

Aurangzeb's  youngest  son,  who  joins  the   Rajputs,   but  whose  army 

deserts  him.     Prince  Akbar  is  forced  to  fly  to  the  ^larathas. 
1681.   Aurangzeb  has  to  continue  the  war  with  the  Rajputs. 
[1672-16S0.  Maratha  progress  in  the   Deccan.     Sivaji  crow^ls  himself  an 

independent   sovereign   at   Raigarh  in  1674.      His  wars  with  Bijapur 

and  the  Mughals.      Sivaji  dies  in   1680,  and  is  succeeded  by  his  son, 

Sambhaji.] 
16S3.  Aurangzeb  invades  the  Deccan  in  person,  at  the  head  of  his  Grand 

Army. 
1686-88.   Aurangzeb  conquers  Bijapur  and  Golconda,  and  annexes  them  to 

the  Empire  (16S8). 
1689.   Aurangzeb    captures     Sambhaji,     and     barbarously    puts     him     to 

death. 
1692.   Guerilla  war  with  the  Marathas  under  independent  leaders. 
1698.   Aurangzeb  captures  Jinji  from  the  Marathas. 
1699-1701.   The  Maratha  war.     Capture   of  Satara  and  Maratha  forts  l)y 

the  Mughals  under  Aurangzeb.     Apparent  ruin  of  Marathas. 
1 702-05.  Successes  of  the  Marathas. 

1706.  Aurangzeb  retreats  to  Ahmadnagar,  and 

1707.  Miserably  dies  there  (February). 

'  See  article  Akyab,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
-  The  five  kingdoms  have  been  described  in  chapter  x. 
^  For  the  rise  and  history  of  the  Marathas,  see  next  chapter,  xii. 


3o8  THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  1526-1761. 

but  also  of  crusliing  the  quick  growth  of  the  Maratha  con- 
federacy. 

During  a  quarter  of  a  century  his  efforts  failed.     Bijapur  and 

Golconda  were  not  conquered.     In  1670,  the  Maratha  leader, 

Sivaji,  levied  chaielh,  or  one-fourth  of  the  revenues,  as  tribute 

from  the  Mughal  Provinces  in  Southern  India;  and  in  1674, 

vSivaji         enthroned  himself  an  independent  sovereign  at  Raigarh.     In 

hinisdf       1680-81,    Aurangzeb's    rebel    son.    Prince    Akbar,    gave   the 

prestige   of  his  presence  to  the   Maratha  army.     Aurangzeb 

felt  that  he  must  either  give  up  his   magnificent  life  in  the 

north  for  a  soldier's  lot  in  the  Deccan,  or  he  must  relinquish 

his  most  cherished    scheme    of  conquering   Southern    India. 

He  accordingly  prepared  an  expedition  on  an  unrivalled  scale 

Aurang-      of  numbers  and  splendour,  to  be  led  by  himself.     In  1683  he 

southern     arrived  at  the  head  of  his  Grand  Army  in  the  Deccan,  and 

campaign,  spent  the  next  half  of  his  reign,  or  twenty-four  years,  in  the 

ioi>3-i7o7.  ^gj(j^     Golconda  and  Bijapur  fell  after  another  long  struggle, 

and  were  finally  annexed  to  the  Mughal  Empire  in  1688. 
His  20  j>m-  [\^Q  conquests  of  these  two  last   of  the  five   Muham- 

Maritha     madan  kingdoms  of  the  Deccan  only  left  the  arena  bare  for 
war,  the  Marathas.      Indeed,  the  attacks  of  the  Marathas  on  the 

-1707-  j^^Q  Muhammadan  States  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  annexa- 
tion of  those  States  by  Aurangzeb.  The  Emperor  waged 
war  during  the  remaining  twenty  years  of  his  life  (1688-1707) 
against  the  rising  Hindu  power  of  the  Marathas.  Their  first 
great  leader,  Sivaji,  had  proclaimed  himself  king  in  1674,  and 
died  in  1680.  Aurangzeb  captured  his  son  and  successor 
Sambhaji  in  1689,  and  cruelly  put  him  to  death;  seized  the 
Maratha  capital,  with  many  of  their  forts,  and  seemed  in  the 
first  year  of  the  new  century  to  havve  almost  stamped  out  their 
existence  (1701).  But  after  a  guerilla  warfare,  the  Marathas 
His  again  sprang  up  into  a  vast  fighting  nation.    In  1705  they  re- 

Grand      covered  their  forts  ;  while  Aurangzeb  had  exhausted  his  health. 

Army  . 

worn  out,    his  treasures,  and  his  troops,  in  the  long  and  fruitless  struggle. 

'705-  His  soldiery  murmured  for  arrears;  and  the  Emperor,  now  old 

and  peevish,  told  the  malcontents  that  if  they  did  not  like  his 
service  they  might  quit  it,  while  be  disbanded  some  of  his 
cavalry  to  ease  his  finances. 

Aurangzeb      Meanwhile  the    Marathas    were    pressing   hungrily  on  the 

hemmed  imperial  camp.  The  Grand  Army  of  Aurangzeb  had  grown 
during  a  quarter  of  a  century  into  an  unwieldy  capital.  Its 
movements  were  slow,  and  incapable  of  concealment.  If 
Aurangzeb  sent  out  a  rapid  small  expedition  against  the  Mar- 
athas who  plundered  and  insulted  the  outskirts  of  his  camp, 


AURANGZEBS  DEATH,  1707.  309 

they  cut  it  to  pieces.     If  he  moved  out  against  them  in  force, 
they  vanished.     His  own  soldiery  feasted  with  the  enemy,  who 
prayed  with  mock  ejaculations  for  the  health  of  the  Emperor 
as  their  best  friend.     In   1706,  the  Grand  Army  was  so  disor-  His 
ganized  that  Aurangzeb  opened  negotiations   with    the    Mar-  j^'^'g^"' 
athas.     He  even  thought  of  submitting  the  Mughal  Provinces 
to  their  tribute  or  chauth.     But  their  insolent  exultation  broke 
off  the  treaty,  and  the  despairing  Aurangzeb,  in  1706,  sought 
shelter  in  Ahmadnagar,  where  he  died  the  next  year.     Dark 
suspicion  of  his  sons'  loyalt}^  and  just  fears  lest  they  should 
subject  him  to  the  fate  which  he  had  inflicted  on  his  own  father, 
left  him  alone  in  his  last  days.     On  the  approach  of  death,  he  Auiang- 
gave  utterance  in  broken  sentences  to    his  worldly  counsels  ^I^^Y\ 
and   adieus,   mingled  with  terror   and   remorse,  and   closing  1707.' 
in  an  agony  of   desperate   resignation  r  '  Come  what  may,  I 
have  launched  my  vessel  on  the  waves.     Farewell !  Farewell ! 
Farewell ! '  ^ 

The   conquest   of  Southern   India  was    the   one   inflexible 
purpose   of  Aurangzeb's   life,  and   has   therefore  been   dealt 
with  here  in  a  continuous  narrative.     In  tlTe  north  of  India, 
great  events  had  also  transpired.     Mir  Jurn'M  led  the  imperial  Mfr 
troops   as   far   as   Assam,    the   extreme   eastern    Province   ofJ^'^^j'.f. 

i  '  .        expedition 

India  (1662).     But  amid  the  pestilential  swamps  of  the  ramy  to  Assam, 
season,  the  army  melted  away,  its  supplies  were  cut  off,  and  '662. 
its    march   was   harassed   by   swarms   of  natives    who   knew 
the  country  and  defied  the  climate.     Mir  Jumla  succeeded  in 
extricating  the  main  body  of  his  troops,  but  died  of  exhaustion 
and  a  broken  heart  before  he  reached  Dacca. 

In  the  west  of  India,  Aurangzeb  was  not  more  fortunate. 
During  his  time  the  Sikhs  were  growing  into  a  power,  but  it 
was  not  till  the  succeeding  reigns  that  they  commenced  the 
series  of  operations  which  in  the  end  wrested   the   Punjab 
from    the    Mughal    Empire.      Aurangzeb's    bigotry    arrayed  Aurang- 
against  him  the  Hindu  princes  and  peoples  of  Northern  India,  ^e^  ^ 
He  revived  the  jaziah  or  insulting  poll-tax  on  non-Musalmans  policy. 
(1677),    drove   the    Hindus   out   of  the   administration,    and  Oppresses 
oppressed   the   widow   and   children    of    his   father's   faithful  j'^^^^^j^^^ 
Hindu  general  Jaswant  Singh.     A  local  sect  of  Hindus  was 
forced  into  rebellion  in  1676  ;  and  in  1677,  the  Rajput  States  The  Raj- 
combined  against  him.     The  Emperor  waged  a  protracted  war  P"ts  revolt, 

1  Aurangzeb's  Letters  form  a  popular  Persian  book  in  India  to  this  day. 
His  counsels  to  his  sons  are  edifying  and  most  pathetic  ;  and  the  whole 
work  is  written  in  a  deeply  religious  tone,  which  could  scarcely  have  been 
assumed. 


310 


THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,   15 26-1 761. 


and  can- 
not be 
subdued. 


Aurang- 

zeb's 

revenues. 


The  land 
revenue, 
30  to  3 

millions. 


Maximum 

Mughal 

land-tax. 


against  them ;  at  one  time  devastating  Rajputana,  at  another 
time  saving  himself  and  his  army  from  extermination  only  by  a 
stroke  of  genius  and  rare  presence  of  mind.  In  1679,  his  son, 
Prince  Akbar,  rebelled  and  joined  the  Rajputs  with  his  division 
of  the  Mughal  army.  From  that  year,  the  permanent  alienation 
of  the  Rajputs  from  the  Mughal  Empire  dates ;  and  the 
Hindu  chivalry,  which  had  been  a  source  of  strength  to  Akbar 
the  Great,  became  an  element  of  ruin  to  Aurangzeb  and  his 
successors.  The  Emperor  sacked  and  slaughtered  throughout 
the  Rajput  States  of  Jaipur,  Jodhpur,  and  Udaipur.  The 
Rajputs  retaliated  by  ravaging  the  Muhammadan  Provinces 
of  Malwa,  defacing  the  mosques,  insulting  the  ministers 
of  Islam,  and  burning  the  Kuran.  In  1681,  the  Emperor 
patched  up  a  peace  in  order  to  allow  him  to  lead  the  Grand 
Army  into  the  Deccan,  from  which  he  was  destined  never  to 
return. 

All  Northern  India  except  Assam,  and  the  greater  part  of 
Southern  India,  paid  revenue  to  Aurangzeb.  His  Indian 
Provinces  covered  nearly  as  large  an  area  as  the  British 
Empire  at  the  present  day,  although  their  dependence  on 
the  central  Government  was  less  direct.  From  these  Pro- 
's vinces  his  net  land-revenue  demand  is  returned  at  30  to  38 
millions  sterling ;  a  sum  which  represented  at  least  three 
times  the  purchasing  power  of  the  land  revenue  of  British 
India  at  the  present  day.  But  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
enormous  demand  of  38  millions  was  fully  realized  during 
any  series  of  years,  even  at  the  height  of  Aurangzeb's  power 
before  he  left  Delhi  for  his  long  southern  wars.  It  was 
estimated  at  only  30  millions  in  the  last  year  of  his  reign, 
after  his  absence  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  the  Deccan. 
Fiscal  oppressions  led  to  evasions  and  revolts,  while  some  or 
other  of  the  Provinces  were  always  in  open  war  against  the 
Emperor. 

The  following  statements  exhibit  the  Mughal  Empire  in  its  final 
development,  just  before  it  began  to  break  up.  The  standard 
return  of  Aurangzeb's  land  revenue  was  7iet  ;!{^34,505,89o ; 
and  this  remained  the  nominal  demand  in  the  accounts  of 
the  central  exchequer  during  the  next  half-century,  notv/ith- 
standing  that  the  Empire  had  fallen  to  pieces.  When  the 
Afghan  invader,  Ahmad  Shah  Duranf,  entered  Delhi  in  1761, 
the  treasury  officers  presented  him  with  a  statement  showing 
the  land  revenue  of  the  Enipire  at  ^34,506,640.  The  highest 
land  revenue  of  Aurangzeb,  after  his  annexations  in  Southern 
India,  and  before  his  final  reverses,  was  38^  millions  sterling; 


FROJVXCES  UNDER  AURANGZEB. 


311 


of  which  close  on  38  millions  were  from  Indian  Provinces.' 
The  total  revenue  of  Aurangzeb  was  estimated  in  1695  at  80 
millions,  and  in  1697  at  77^  millions  sterling.'-  The  gross 
taxation  levied  from  British  India,  deducting  the  opium  excise, 
which  is  paid  by  the  Chinese  consumer,  averaged  35^  millions 
sterling  during  the  ten  years  ending  1879;  and  4o|  millions 
from  1879  to  1SS3.  The  table  on  a  previous  page,  showing  the 
growth  of  the  revenues  of  the  Mughal  Empire  from  Akbar  to 
Aurangzeb,  may  be  contrasted  with  the  taxation  of  British 
India,  as  given  in  chapter  xv. 

1  Provinces  of  the  Delhi  Empire  under  Aurangzeb. 


Highest 
total  re- 
venue, So 
millions, 
1695. 


Land   Revenue  of 

Aurangzeb 

Land   Revenue  of 

Aurangzeb 

IN  1697  (.according,'  to  Manucci). 

in  1707  (according  to  Ramusio). 

Rupees. 

Rupees. 

I. 

Delhi,  . 

12,550,000 

I. 

Delhi,  . 

30,548,753 

2. 

Agra,  . 

22,203,550 

2. 

Agra,  . 

28,669,003 

3- 

Lahore, 

23,305,000 

3- 

Ajmere, 

16,308,634 

4- 

Ajmere, 

21,900,002 

4- 

AUahibad,   . 

11,413,581 

5- 

Gujarat, 

23,395.000 

5- 

Punjab, 

20,653,302 

6. 

Malvva, 

9,906,250 

6. 

Oudh, . 

8,058,195 

7. 

Behar, 

12,150,000 

7. 

Mill  tan. 

5>36i,o73 

8. 

Miiltan, 

5,025,000 

8. 

Gujarat, 

15,196,228 

9- 

Tatta  (Siud), 

6,002,000 

9- 

Behar, 

10,179,025 

10. 

Bakar, 

2,400,000 

10. 

Sind,    . 

2,295,420 

II. 

Orissa, 

5,707,500 

II. 

Daulatabad, 

25,873.627 

12. 

Allahabad,   . 

7,738,000 

12. 

MaKva, 

10,097,541 

13- 

Deccan, 

16,204,750 

13- 

Berar,  . 

15,350,625 

14- 

Berar,  . 

15,807,500 

14. 

Khandesh,    . 

11,215,750 

IS- 

Khandesh,    . 

11,105,000 

15- 

Bfdar,  . 

9.324.359 

16. 

Baglana, 

6,885,000 

16. 

Bengal, 

13,115,006 

17- 

Nande  (Nandair), 

7,200,000 

17- 

Orissa, 

3,570,500 

iS. 

Bengal, 

40,000,000 

18. 

Haidarabad, 

27,834,000 

19. 

Ujjain, 
Rajmahal,    . 

20,000,000 

19. 

Bijapur, 

26,957,625 

20. 

10,050,000 

21. 

Bijapur, 

50,000,000 

Total, 

292,023,147 

22. 

Golconda,     . 

50,000,000 

20. 

Kashmir, 

5,747.734 

2 1. 

Kabul, 

4,025,983 

Total,     . 

379.534>552 

23- 

Kashmir, 

3,505,000 

Grand  Total, 

301,796,864 

24. 

Kabul, 

3,207,250 

Ul 

;{:30, 1 79,686 

Grand  Total,     .   386,246,802 
or  ^^38, 624, 680 

The  above  lists  are  taken  from  Mr.  Edward  Thomas'  Kevemti:  Resources 
of  the  Mughal  Empire,  pp.  46  and  50.  The  whole  subject  is  admirably 
discussed  in  his  chapter  entitled  'Aurangzeb's  Revenues,'  pp.  33  et  seq. 
The  four  returns  of  the  land  revenue  for  his  reign  are,  nett,  24  millions 
in  1655;  34^  millions  in  later  official  documents;  38I  millions  in  1697; 
30  millions  in  1 707. 

^  Mr.  Edward  Thomas'  Revenue  Resources  of  tlie  Mughal  Empire,  p.  54, 
etc.  (1871). 


312  THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  15 26-1 761. 


Character        Aurangzeb  tried  to  live  the  life  of  a  model  Muhammadan 
of  /■ 

zeb, 


"rang-  Emperor.      Magnificent  in  his  public  appearances,  simple  in 


his  private  habits,  diligent  in  business,  exact  in  his  religious 
observances,  an  elegant  letter -writer,  and  ever  ready  with 
choice  passages  alike  from  the  poets  and  the  Kuran,  his  life 
would  have  been  a  blameless  one,  if  he  had  had  no  father 
to  depose,  no  brethren  to  murder,  and  no  Hindu  subjects  to 
oppress.  But  his  bigotry  made  an  enemy  of  every  one  who 
did  not  share  his  own  faith ;  and  the  slaughter  of  his  kindred 
compelled  him  to  entrust  his  government  to  strangers. 
The  Hindus  never  forgave  him  ;  and  the  Sikhs,  the  Rajputs, 
and  the  Marathds,  immediately  after  his  reign,  began  to  close 
in  upon  the  Empire.  His  Muhammadan  generals  and  viceroys, 
as  a  rule,  served  him  well  during  his  vigorous  life.  But  at  his 
death  they  usurped  his  children's  inheritance.  The  succeed- 
ing Emperors  were  puppets  in  the  hands  of  the  too  powerful 
soldiers  or  statesmen  who  raised  them  to  the  throne,  controlled 
them  while  on  it,  and  killed  them  v/hen  it  suited  their  purposes 
Decline  to  do  SO.  The  subsequent  history  of  the  Empire  is  a  mere 
»if    u  1       record  of  ruin.     The  chief  events  in  its  decline  and  fall  are 

Mughal 

Empire,      summarized  below. ^ 

^  The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Mughal  Empire, 
From  death  of  Aurangzeb  to  that  of  Muhammad  Bahadur  Shah,  1 707-1862. 

1707.  Succession  contest  between  Muazzim  and  Alam,  two  sons  of 
Aurangzeb  ;  victory  of  the  former,  and  his  accession  under  the  title 
of  Bahadur  Shall ;  controlled  by  the  General  Zul-fikar  Khan.  Revolt 
of  Prince  Kambaksh  ;  his  defeat  and  death. 

1 710.   Expedition  against  the  Sikhs. 

1 712.  Death  of  Bahadur  Shah,  and  accession  of  his  eldest  son,  Jahandar 
Shah,  after  a  struggle  for  the  succession  ;  an  incapable  monarch,  who 
only  ruled  through  his  7vazli;  Zul-fikar  Kiian.  Revolt  of  his  nephew, 
Farukhsiyyar ;  defeat  of  the  Imperial  army,  and  execution  of  the 
Emperor  and  his  prime  minister. 

1 7 13.  Accession  of  Farukhsiyyar,  under  the  auspices  and  control  of 
Husain  Ah',  Governor  of  Behar,  and  Abdulla,  Governor  of  Allahabad. 

1 7 16.   Invasion  by  the  Sikhs  ;  their  defeat,  and  cruel  persecution. 

1 7 19.  Deposition  and  murder  of  Farukhsiyyar  by  the  Sayyid  chiefs 
Husain  AH  and  Abdulla.  They  nominate  in  succession  three  boy 
Emperors,  the  first  two  of  whom  died  within  a  few  months  after 
their  accession.  The  third,  Muhammad  Shah,  commenced  his  reign 
in  .September  17 19. 

1720.  Murder  of  Husain  Ali,  and  overthrow  of  the  Sayyid  '  king-makers." 
1720-48.   The  Governor  of  the  Deccan,  or  Nizam-ul-Mulkh,  establishes  his 

independence,  and  severs  the  Haidarabad  Provinces  from  the  Mughal 
Empire. 
1732-43.  The  Governor  of  Oudh,  who  was  also   IVazir  of  the  Empire, 
becomes  practically  independent  of  Delhi. 

\I-ootiiotc  c out i mud  on  next  f  age. 


FALL  OF  TLIF  MUGLLAL  FMPIRE.  313 

For  a  time,  Mughal  Emperors  still  ruled  India  from  Delhi. 
P>ut  of  the  six  immediate  successors  of  Aurangzeb,  two  were  The  six 
imler  the  control  of  an  unscrupulous  general,  Zul-fikar  Khan,^  kin"s'^'^^ 
while  the  four  others  were  the  creatures  of  a  couple  of  Sayyid 
adventurers  who  well  earned  their  title  of  the  'king-makers.' 
From  the  year  1720,  the  breaking  up  of  the  Empire  took  a 
more  open  form.     The  Xizam-ul-Mulkh,  or  Governor  of  the 

1735-51.  General  decline  of  the  Empire;  revolts  within,  and  invasion  of 
Nadir  Shah  from  Persia  (1739).  The  Marathas  obtain  Mahva  (1743), 
f(jllo\ved  by  the  cession  of  Southern  Orissa  and  tribute  from  Bengal 
(1751).  First  invasion  of  India  by  Ahmad  Shah  Durani,  who  had 
obtained  the  throne  of  Kandahar  (1747)  ;  his  defeat  in  Sirhind 
(174S). 

1748.   Death  of  JMuhammad  Shah. 

1748-50.  Accession  of  Ahmad  Shah,  his  son  ;  disturbances  by  the  Rohilla 
Afghans  in  Oudh,  and  defeat  of  the  Imperial  troops. 

1751.   The  Rohilla  insurrection  crushed  with  the  aid  of  the  Marathas. 

1751-52.  .Second  invasion  of  India  by  Ahmad  Shah  Durdni,  and  cession 
of  the  Punjab  to  him. 

1754.   Deposition  of  the  Emperor,  and  accession  of  Alamgir  11. 

1756.  Third  invasion  of  India  by  Ahmad  Shah  Durani,  and  sack  of 
Delhi. 

1759-61.  Fourth  invasion  of  India  by  Ahmad  Shah  Durani,  and  murder 
of  the  Emperor  Alamgir  II.  by  his  zi'azlr,  Ghazi-ud-din.  The  Maratha 
conquests  in  Northern  India.  The  Warathas  complete  their  organiza- 
tion for  the  conquest  of  Hindustan  ;  capture  of  Delhi. 

1761-1805.  The  third  battle  of  Panipat,  between  the  Afghans  under 
Ahmad  Shah  and  the  Marathas  ;  defeat  of  the  latter.  From  this 
time  the  INIughal  Empire  ceased  to  exist,  except  in  name.  The 
victory  of  Baxar,  gained  by  Major  Munro,  breaks  the  INIughal  power 
in  Bengal.  The  Diwani,  or  administration,  of  Bengal,  Behar,  and 
Orissa  is  granted  by  the  Emperor  to  the  British  in  1765.  The  nominal 
Emperor  on  the  death  of  Alamgir  11.  was  Shah  Alam  11.,  an  exile, 
who  resided  till  1771  in  Allahabad,  a  pensioner  of  the  British.  In 
1 77 1  he  threw  in  his  fortunes  with  the  Marathas,  who  restored  him 
to  a  fragment  of  his  hereditary  dominions.  The  Emperor  was  blinded 
and  imprisoned  by  rebels.  He  was  afterwards  rescued  by  the  Marathas, 
])ut  was  virtually  a  prisoner  in  their  hands  till  1803,  when  the  Maratha 
power  was  overthrown  by  Lord  Lake.  Shah  Alam  died  in  1806,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son, 

1806-1837.  Akbar  II.,  who  succeeded  only  to  the  nominal  dignity,  and 
lived  till  1837  ;  when  he  was  followed  by 

1S37-62.  Muhammad  Bahadur  Shah,  the  seventeenth  INIughal  Emperor, 
and  last  of  the  race  of  Timur.  For  his  complicity  in  the  ^lutiny  of 
1857  he  was  deposed  and  banished  for  life  to  Rangoon,  where  he 
died,  a  British  State  prisoner,  in  1862.  Two  of  his  sons  and  grand- 
son were  shot  by  Hodson  in  1857,  to  prevent  a  rescue,  and  for  their 
participation  in  the  murder  of  English  women  r.nd  children  at  Delhi. 
'  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  Persian  Historians,  vol.  vii.  pp.  348-55S  (Triibner, 
1877). 


Indepen- 
dence 
of  the 
.Deccan, 
1720-4S  ; 

of  Oudh, 
i732-43- 

Hindu 
risings. 

Oppres- 
sion of 
the  Sikhs, 
1710-16. 


Rajput 
indepen- 
dence. 
1715. 

The 

Maratha 
citauth, 
1751- 


314         THE  MUGHAL  EAT  PI  RE,   15  26-1 761. 

Deccan,^  established  his  independence,  and  severed  the  largest 
part  of  Southern  India  from  the  Delhi  rule  (1720-48).  The 
Governor  of  Oudh,-  originally  a  Persian  merchant,  who  had 
risen  to  the  post  of  Wazi'r  or  Prime  Minister  of  the  Empire, 
established  his  own  dynasty  in  the  Provinces  which  had  been 
committed  to  his  care  (1732-43). 

The  Hindu  subjects  of  the  Empire  were  at  the  same  time 
establishing  their  independence.  The  Sikh  sect  in  the  Punjab, 
driven  by  oppression  into  revolt,  had  been  mercilessly  crushed 
in  1 7 10-16.  The  indelible  memory  of  the  cruelties  then 
inflicted  by  the  Mughal  troops  nerved  the  Sikh  nation  with 
that  hatred  to  Delhi  which  served  the  British  cause  so  well  in 
1857.  In  1716,  the  Sikh  leader,  Banda,  was  carried  about 
by  the  insulting  Mughals  in  an  iron  cage,  tricked  out  in  the 
mockery  of  imperial  robes,  with  scarlet  turban  and  cloth 
of  gold.  His  son's  heart  was  torn  out  before  his  eyes, 
and  thrown  in  his  face.  He  himself  was  then  pulled  to 
pieces  with  red-hot  pincers,  and  the  Sikhs  were  exterminated 
like  mad  dogs  (17 16).  The  Hindu  princes  of  Rajputana  were 
more  fortunate.  Aji't  Singh  of  Jodhpur  asserted  his  independ- 
ence, and  Rajputana  practically  severed  its  connection  with 
the  Mughal  Empire  in  17 15.  The  Marathas  having  enforced 
their  claim  to  black-mail  {chaiith)  throughout  Southern  India, 
burst  through  the  Vindhyas  upon  the  north,  obtained  the  cession 
of  Malwa  (1743)  and  Orissa  (1751),  with  an  Imperial  grant  for 
tribute  from  Bengal  (1751).  But  the  great  Hindu  military 
revival  represented  by  the  Maratha  power  demands  a  separate 
section  for  itself,  and  will  be  narrated  in  the  next  chapter. 


Invasions 
from  the 
north- 
west, 
1739-61. 
Nadir 
Shah, 
1739- 


While  the  Muhammadan  governors  and  Hindu  subjects  of 
the  Empire  were  thus  asserting  their  independence,  two  new 
sets  of  external  enemies  appeared.  The  first  of  these  con- 
sisted of  invasions  from  the  north-west.  In  1739,  Nadir  Shah, 
the  Persian,  swept  down  with  his  destroying  host,  and,  after  a 
massacre  in  the  streets  of  Delhi  and  a  fifty-eight  days'  sack, 
went  off  with  a  booty  estimated  at  32  millions  sterling.^  Six 
times  the  Afghans  burst  through  the  passes  under  Ahmad  Shah 
Durani,  plundering,  slaughtering,  and  then  scornfully  retiring  to 
their  homes  with  the  plunder  of  the  Empire.  In  1738,  Kabul, 
the  last  Afghan  Province  of  the  Mughals,  had  been  severed 
from  Delhi;  and  in  1752,  Ahmad  Shah  the  Afghan  obtained  the 

'  Chin  Khilich  Khan  or  Azaf  Shah,  a  Turkoman  Sunnf. 

-  Saadat  AH  Khan,  a  Persian  Shiah. 

^  Mill's  Hislory  of  British  India,  vol.  ii.  p.  456  (Wilson's  edition,  1S40). 


IiYFAS/O.VS  FROM  THE  NORTH.  315 

cession  of  the  Punjab.     The  cruelties  inflicted  upon  Delhi  and  Ahmad 

Northern  India  during  these  six  invasions  form  an  appalling  ^    o' V 

tale  of  bloodshed  and  wanton  cruelty.     The  miserable  capital  .  ^  ,  , 

opened  her  gates,  and  was  fain   to  receive  the  Afghans  as  invasions, 

guests.     Yet  on  one  occasion  it  suffered  for  six  weeks  every  i747-6i. 

enormity  which  a  barbarian  army  can  inflict  upon  a  prostrate 

foe.    Meanwhile  the  Afghan  cavalry  were  scouring  the  country, 

slaying,  burning,  and  mutilating  in  the  meanest  hamlet  as  in 

the  greatest  town.     They  took  especial  delight  in  sacking  the 

holy  places  of  the   Hindus,   and  murdering  the  defenceless 

votaries  at  the  shrines. 

A  horde  of  25,000  Afghan  horsemen  swooped  down  upon  Misery 

the   sacred   city   of  Muttra   during   a   festival,    while   it   was  2f  ^'^^ 

,.,  ^  .,  .  .  .  Provinces, 

thronged  with  peaceful  Hmdu  pilgrmis  engaged  m  their  devo-  1747-61. 

tions.      '  They  burned  the  houses,'  says  the  Tyrolese  Jesuit 

Tieffenthaler,  who  was  in  India  at  that  time,  '  together  with 

their   inmates,   slaughtering  others  with   the   sword   and   the 

lance  ;  hauling  off  into  captivity  maidens  and  youths,  men  and 

women.      In  the  temples  they  slaughtered  cows,'  the  sacred 

animal  of  the  Hindus,  '  and  smeared  the  images  and  pavement 

with  the  blood.'     The  border-land  between  Afghanistan  and  Afghan 

India  lay  silent  and  waste  ;   indeed,  districts  far  within  the  ^  i^^'^'^''^''- 

frontier,  which  had  once  been  densely  inhabited,  and  which 

are  now  again  thickly  peopled,  were  swept  bare  of  inhabitants. 

Another  set  of  invaders  came  from  the  sea.     In  the  wars  invaders 

between  the  French  and  English  in  Southern  India,  the  last  f™'"  ^'^'^^ 

.       .  .  .      sea. 

vestiges  of  the  Delhi  authority  in  the  Madras  Presidency  dis- 
appeared (1748-61).     The  victory  of  Baxar,  gained  by  Major 
Munro  in  1764,  broke  the  Mughal  power  in  Northern  India, 
and  drove  the  Emperor  himself  to  seek  shelter  in  our  camj). 
Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa  were  handed  over  to  the  English 
by  an  imperial  grant  in  1765.     We  technically  obtained  these  Fall  of  the 
fertile  Provinces  as  the  nominee  of  the  Emperor;  but  the  third  '"^P^^^- 
battle  of  Pani'pat  had  four  years  previously  reduced  the  throne 
of  Delhi  to  a  shadow.     The  third  battle  of  Pani'pat  was  fought  Battle  of 
in  1 76 1,  between  the  Afghan  invader  Ahmad  Shah  and  the  ,75'^^^^' 
Maratha  powers,  on  the  memorable  plain  on  which  Babar  in 
1526,  and  Akbar  in  1556,  had  twice  won  the  sovereignty  of 
India. 

That  sovereignty  was  now,  after  little  more  than  two  centuries 
of  Mughal  rule,  lost  for  ever  by  their  degenerate  descendants. 
The  Afghans  defeated  the  Marathas  at  Panipat  in  1761 ;  and 
during  the  anarchy  which  followed,  the  British  patiently  built 
up  a  new  power  out  of  the  wreck  of  the  Mughal  Empire. 


3i6  THE  MUGHAL  EMPIRE,  1526-1761. 

Mughal  pensioners  and  imperial  puppets  reigned  still  at  Delhi 
over  a  numerous  seraglio  under  such  lofty  titles  as  Akbar  11.  or 
Alamgir  (Aurangzeb)  11.  But  their  power  was  confined  to  the 
palace,  while  !Marathas,  Sikhs,  and  Englishmen  struggled  for 
L^st  of  the  the  sovereignty  of  India.  The  last  nominal  Emperor  emerged 
iS6^^^*'  ^^^  ^  moment  as  a  rebel  during  the  Mutiny  of  1S57,  and  died 
a  State  prisoner  in  Rangoon  in  1S62, 


[  317] 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE    MARATHA    POWER  (1634    TO   1818    A.D.). 

The  British  won  India,  not  from  the  Mughals,  but  from  the  British 
Hindus.      Before   we   appeared   as   conquerors,    the    Mughal  ^"'''?;^^°"' 
Empire  had  broken  up.    Our  conclusive  wars  were  neither  with  the 
the  Delhi  King,  nor  with  his  revolted  governors,  but  with  the  ^lugj^a's 

°  .  ^,      ,,,  ^.  but  from 

•two  Hmdu  confederacies,  the  Marathas  and  the  Sikhs.     Our  the 
last  Maratha  war  dates  as  late  as  1818,  and  the  Sikh  Confedera-  Hindus, 
tion  was  not  finally  overcome  until  1849. 

About  the  year  1634,  a  Maratha  soldier  of  fortune,  Shahji  Rise  of  the 
Bhonsla   by   name,    began    to    play   a   conspicuous   part   in  '^l^''^'has. 
Southern  India. ^    He  fought  on  the  side  of  the  two  independent  ^^^^\ 
Muhammadan  States,  Ahmadnagar  and   Bijapur,  against  the  1634. 
Mughals ;  and  left  a  band  of  followers,  together  with  a  military 
fief,  to  his  son  Sivaji,  born  in  1627.-     Sivaji  formed  a  national  Siv.iji. 
party  out  of  the  Hindu  tribes  of  Southern  India,  as  opposed 
alike   to   the    imperial   armies    from    the   north,    and   to   the 
independent  Muhammadan  kingdoms  of  the  Deccan.     There 
were  thus,  from  1650  onwards,  three  powers  in  the  Deccan  : 

'■  The  original  authorities  for  the  Maratha  history  are — (i)  James  Grant 
Duffs  IlistoiyoftheMardlhas,  3  vols.  (Bombay  reprint,  1863)  ;  (2)  Edward 
Scott  Waring's  History  of  the  Marathas  (quarto,  1810)  ;  (3)  Major  WilHani 
Thome's  Mtinoir  of  the  War  in  India  conducted  by  General  Lord  Lake 
(quarto,  1818) ;  (4)  Sidney  J-  Owen's  Selections  from  the  Despatches  of  the 
Marquis  of  IVellesley  (1877)  ;  (5)  his  Selections  from  the  Indiait  Despatches 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  (1880);  and  (6)  Henry  T.  Prinsep's  Narrative 
of  Political  and  Military  Transactions  of  British  India  under  the  Marquis 
of  Hastings  (quarto,  1820).  The  very  brief  notice  of  the  Marathas  which 
the  scope  of  the  present  work  allows,  precludes  an  exhaustive  use  of  these 
storehouses.  But  it  should  be  mentioned  that  the  later  history  of  the 
Marathas  (since  1819)  has  yet  to  be  written.  The  leading  incidents  of  that 
history  are  described  in  separate  articles  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
To  save  space,  this  chapter  confines  itself,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  referring 
in  footnotes  to  those  articles.  Ample  materials  will  be  found  in  the 
Gazetteers  of  the  Bombay  Districts  and  Central  Provinces. 

-  Grant  Duffs  History  of  the  Marathas,  vol.  i.  p.  90  (ed.  1863). 


3i8  THE  MA  RATH  A  POWER,  1634-1 8  iS. 

Three  first,  the  ever-invading  troops  of  the  Delhi  Empire ;  second, 
parties  in  ^j^^  forces  of  the  two  remaining  independent  Muhammadan 
Deccan,  States  of  Southern  India,  namely,  Ahmadnagar  and  Bijapur ; 
1650.  third,  the  military  organization  of  the  local  Hindu  tribes,  which 

ultimately  grew  into  the  Maratha  confederacy. 
Strength  of      During  the  eighty  years'  war  of  Shah  Jahan  and  Aurangzeb, 
o^^h'rd'^"  with  a  view  to  the  conquest  of  Southern  India  (1627-1707), 
party.         the  third  or  Hindu  party  fought  from  time  to  time  on  either 
side,  and  obtained  a  constantly-increasing  importance.     The 
Mughal  armies  from  the  north,  and  the  independent  Muham- 
madan kingdoms  of  the    south,  gradually  exterminated    each 
other.     Being  foreigners,  they  had  to  recruit  their  exhausted 
forces  chiefly  from  outside.     The  Hindu  confederacy  drew  its 
inexhaustible    native    levies  from    the   wide    tract   known   as 
Maharashtra,  stretching   from  the  Berars  in  Central  India  to 
Courted  by  near  the  south  of  the  Bombay  Presidency.       The   Marathas 
the  other    ^^.gj.g  thej-gfore  courted  alike  by  the  Imperial  generals  and  by 
the   independent    Muhammadan    sovereigns  of    the    Deccan. 
"With  true  Hindu  statecraft,  their  leader,  Sivaji,  from  time  to 
time    aided    the   independent    jNIusalman    kingdoms   of    the 
Deccan  against  the  Mughal  avalanche  from  the  north.     Those 
kingdoms,  with  the  help  of  the  Marathas,  long  proved  a  match 
for  the  imperial  troops.     But  no  sooner  were  the  Delhi  armies 
driven    back,  than    the    Marathas   proceeded    to  despoil    the 
independent  Musalman  kingdoms.       On  the  other  hand,  the 
Delhi  generals,  when    allied  with  the    Marathas,  could   com- 
pletely overpower  the  independent  Muhammadan  States. 
Sivajf,  SiVAji  saw  the  strength  of  his  position,  and,  by  a   course 

d^'^d  i6s'''  °^  treachery,  assassination,  and   hard    fighting,  won   for   the 
Marathas  the  practical  supremacy  in  Southern  India. ^      As  a 
basis  for  his  operations,  he  perched  himself  safe  in  a  number 
His  hill      of  impregnable  hill  forts   in   the  Bombay  Presidency.      His 
forts.  troops    consisted   of    Hindu  spearmen,   mounted    on    hardy 

His  army  ponies.  They  were  the  peasant  proprietors  of  Southern  India, 
men°'^^'^'  ^"^^  could  be  dispersed  or  called  together  on  a  moment's 
notice,  at  the  proper  seasons  of  the  agricultural  year.  Sivaji 
had  therefore  the  command  of  an  unlimited  body  of  troops, 
without  the  expense  of  a  standing  army.  With  these  he 
swooped  down  upon  his  enemies,  exacted  tribute,  or  forced 
Hiitactics.  them  to  come  to  terms.  He  then  paid  off  his  soldiery  by  a 
part  of  the  plunder ;  and  while  they  returned  to  the  sowing  or 

'  The  career  of  Sivaji  is  traced  in  Grant  DufFs  History  of  the  Marathas, 
vol.  i.  pp.  90-220.  The  Bombay  reprint  of  Grant  Duff's  History,  in  three 
volumes,  1S63,  is  invariably  referred  to  in  this  chapter. 


SIVAJl  AND  SAMBHAJI.  319 

reaping  of  their  fields,  he  retreated  with  the  lion's  share  to  his 
hill  forts.  In  1659  he  lured  the  Bijapur  general  into  an  ambush, 
stabbed  him  at  a  friendly  conference,  and  exterminated  his 
army.  In  1662-64,  Sivaji  raided  as  far  as  the  extreme  north 
of  the  Bombay  Presidency,  and  sacked  the  Imperial  city  of 
Surat.  In  1664  he  assumed  the  title  of  king  (Raja),  with  the  Coins 
royal  prerogative  of  coining  money  in  his  own  name.^  money. 

The  year  1665    found  Sivaji   helping   the    Mughal   armies 
against   the   independent   Musalman   State    of    Bijapur.       In 
1666  he  was  induced  to  visit  Delhi.     Being  coldly  received  Visits 
by  the  Emperor  Aurangzeb,  and   placed   under   restraint,  he  ^^(X' 
escaped  to  the  south,  and  raised  the  standard  of  revolt.^      In 
1674,  Sivaji  enthroned  himself  with  great  pomp  at  Raigarh,  Enthrones 
weighing  himself  in  a  balance  against  gold,  and  distributing  1674''  ' 
the  precious  counterpoise  among  his  Brahmans.-^    After  sending 
forth  his  hosts  as  far  as  the  Karnatik  in  1676,  he  died  in  1680.  Died, 

The  Emperor  Aurangzeb  would  have  done  wisely  to  have  left  . 

.  .    Auiang- 

the  independent  Musalman  Kings  of  the  Deccan  alone,  until  zel^'s  mis- 
he  had  crushed  the  rising  Maratha  power.      Indeed,  a  great  '^^.ken 
statesman  would    have  buried    the    old    quarrel  between   the  168S-' 1*707. 
Muhammadans  of  the  north  and  south,  and  united  the  whole 
forces  of  Islam    against    the    Hindu  confederacy  which  was 
rapidly  organizing  itself  in  the  Deccan.     But  the  fixed  resolve 
of  Aurangzeb's  life  was  to  annex  to  Delhi  the   Muhammadan 
kingdoms  of  Southern  India.      By  the  time  he  had   carried 
out    this    scheme,  he    had  wasted    his    armies,  and   left   the 
Alughal  Empire  ready  to  break  into  pieces  at  the  first  touch 
of  the  Marathas. 

Sambhaji  succeeded  his  father,  Sivaji,  in  1680,  and  reigned  Sambhaji, 
till  1689.^     His  life  was  entirely  spent  in  wars  with  the  Portu-  16S0-89. 
guese  and  Mughals.     In  1689,  Aurangzeb  captured  him.     The 
Emperor  burnt  out  his  eyes  with  a  red-hot  iron,  cut  out  the 
tongue  which  had  blasphemed  the  Prophet,  and  struck  off  his 
head. 

His  son,  Sahu,  then  six  years  of  age,  was  also  captured  and  Sahu, 
kept  a  prisoner  till  the  death  of  Aurangzeb.      In   1707  he  was  '707- 
restored,  on  acknowledging  allegiance  to  Delhi.      But  his  long 
captivity  among  the  Mughals  left  him  only  half  a  ^Maratha.'^ 

^  Grant  Duff's  History  of  the  Marathas,  vol.  i.  p.  146. 

^  Idem,  vol.  i.  chap.  v.  adjinem,  ^  Llcni,  vol.  i.  pp.  191-193. 

^  For  the  career  of  Sambhaji,  see  Grant  Dufl"'s  History  of  the  Marathas, 
vol.  i.  pp.  220-261. 

*  The  career  of  Sahu  is  traced  in  Grant  Duff's  lUstory  of  the  Marathas, 
vol.  i.  pp.  297-306. 


320         THE  MARATHA  POWER,  1634-rSiS. 


Rise  of  the 
Peshwas. 


Satara  and 
Kolhapur ; 
the  last  of 
Sivaji's 
line. 


Progress 
of  the 
Peshwas, 
171S. 


Second 

Peshwa 

conquers 

the 

Deccan, 

1721-40. 


Thiid  ^ 

Peshwa, 

1740-61. 

Conquests 
in  the 
Deccan. 


Expe- 
ditions 
beyond  it  : 

To  Bengal, 
1742-51  ; 


He  wasted  his  life  in  his  seraglio,  and  resigned  the  rule  of  his 
territories  to  his  Brahman  minister  Balaji  Vishwanath,  with 
the  title  of  Peshwa.^  This  office  became  hereditary,  and  the 
power  of  the  Peshwa  superseded  that  of  the  Maratha  kings. 
The  family  of  Sivaji  only  retained  the  little  principalities  of 
Satara  and  Kolhapur.  Satara  lapsed,  for  want  of  a  direct  heir, 
to  the  British  in  1S48.  Kolhapur  has  survived  through  their 
clemency,  and  was  ruled,  under  their  control,  by  the  last 
adopted  representative  of  Sivaji's  line '^  until  1883.  On  his 
death,  in  December  18S3,  another  Maratha  youth  of  higii 
family  was  placed  by  the  British  Government,  in  virtue  of  the 
adoption  sanad,  on  the  State  cushion  of  Kolhapur. 

Meanwhile  the  Peshwas  were  building  up  at  Poona  the 
great  Maratha  confederacy.  In  17 18,  Balaji,  the  first  Peshwa, 
marched  an  army  to  Delhi  in  support  of  the  Sayyid  '  king- 
makers.'^ In  1720*  he  extorted  an  Imperial  grant  of  the 
chauth  or  '  one-fourth '  of  the  revenues  of  the  Deccan.  The 
Marathas  were  also  confirmed  in  the  sovereignty  of  the 
countries  round  Poona  and  Satara.  The  second  Peshwa, 
Baji  Rao  (1721-40),  converted  the  tribute  of  the  Deccan 
granted  to  his  father  into  a  practical  sovereignty.  In  fifteen 
years  he  wrested  the  Province  of  Malwa  from  the  Empire 
(1736),  together  with  the  country  on  the  north-west  of  the 
Vindhyas,  from  the  Narbada  to  the  Chambal.''  In  1739^  he 
captured  Bassein  from  the  Portuguese. 

The  thi'vd  Peshwa,  Balaji  Baji  Rao,  succeeded  in  1740,  and 
carried  the  Maratha  terror  into  the  heart  of  the  Mughal 
Empire.''  The  Deccan  became  merely  a  starting-point  for 
a  vast  series  of  their  expeditions  to  the  north  and  the  east. 
Within  the  Deccan  itself  he  augmented  his  sovereignty,  at  the 
expense  of  the  Nizam,  after  two  wars.  The  great  centres  of  the 
Maratha  power  were  now  fixed  at  Poona  in  Bombay  and  Nagpur 
in  the  Berars.  In  1741-42,  a  general  of  the  Berar  branch 
of  the  IMardthas  known  as  the  Bhonslas,  swept  down  upon 
Bengal ;  but,  after  ])lundering  to  the  suburbs  of  the  Muham- 
madan  capital  Murshidabad,  he  was  driven  back  through  Orissa 
by  the  Viceroy  Ali  Vardi  Khan.      The  '  Maratha  Ditch,'   or 

^  For  Balaji's  career,  see  Grant  Duff's  Hist,  of  the  Alardtlids,  vol.  i.  pp. 

307-339- 

'  See  articles  Kolhapur  and  Sataua,  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

^  Vide  ante,  p.  313. 

''  Grant  Duff's  History  of  the  Mardthds,  vol.  i.  pp.  324,  325. 

'■  Grant  Duff's  History  of  tlie  Alardlhds,  vol.  i.  pp.  393-395. 

**  For  Baji  Rao's  career,  see  op.  cit.  vol.  i.  pp.  344-410. 

''  His  career  is  sketched  in  op,  cit.  vol.  ii.  pp.  i  -115. 


FIVE  MARA  Til  A  BRANCHES.  321 

semicircular  moat  around  part  of  Calcutta,  records  to  this  day 
the  panic  which  then  spread  throughout  Bengal.      Next  year, 
1 743,  the  head  of  the  Berar  jMarathas,  Raghuji  Bhonsla,  himself 
invaded  Bengal  in  force.     From  this  date,  in  spite  of  quarrels 
between  the  Poona  and  Berar  IMarathas  over  the    spoil,  the 
fertile  Provinces  of  the  Lower  Ganges  became  a  plundering 
ground    of  the  Bhonslas.      In  1751  they  obtained  a  formal 
grant  from  the  Viceroy  All  Vardi  of  the  chmith  or  '  quarter- 
revenue  '   of   Bengal,  together   with    the    cession    of  Orissa. 
In  Northern  India,  the  Poona  Marathas  raided  as  far  as  the  To  tlie 
Punjab,  and  drew  down  upon  them  the  wrath  of  Ahmad  Shah,  ^!^  ' 
the  Afghan,  who  had  wrested  that  Province  from  Delhi.     At 
the  third  battle  of  Panipat,  the  Marathas  were  overthrown,  by  Pam'pat, 
the  combined  Muhammadan   forces   of  the   Afghans   and  ofJ76i- 
the  Provinces  still  nominally  remaining  to  the  Mughal  Empire 
(T761). 

The  fourth  Peshwa,  Madhu  Rao,  succeeded  to  the  Maratha  Fourth 
sovereignty  in  this  moment  of  ruin. ^  The  Hindu  confederacy  ^y^"^^^ 
seemed  doomed  to  destruction,  alike  by  internal  treachery  and 
by  the  superior  force  of  the  Afghan  arms.  As  early  as  1742, 
the  Poona  and  Berar  branches  had  taken  the  field  against  each 
other,  in  their  quarrels  over  the  plunder  of  Bengal.  Before 
1 761,  two  other  branches,  under  Holkar  and  Sindhia,  had  set 
up  for  themselves  in  the  old  Mughal  Province  of  Malwa.  and 
the  neighbouring  tracts,  now  divided  between  the  States  of 
Indore  and  Gwalior.  At  Panipat,  Holkar,  the  head  of  the 
Indore  branch,  deserted  the  Hindu  line  of  battle  when  he  saw 
the  tide  turn,  and  his  treachery  rendered  the  Maratha  rout 
complete.  The  fourth  Peshwa  was  little  more  than  the 
nominal  centre  of  the  five  great  Maratha  branches,  with  their  The  five 
respective  head-quarters  at  Poona,  the  seat  of  the  Peshwas ;  i^j-^nches. 
at  Nagpur,  the  capital  of  the  Bhonslas,  in  Berar ;  at  Gwalior, 
the  residence  of  Sindhia ;  at  Indore,  the  capital  of  Holkar ; 
and  at  Baroda,  the  seat  of  the  rising  power  of  the  Gaekwars. 
Madhu  Rao,  the  fourth  Peshwa,  just  managed  to  hold  his  own 
against  the  Muhammadan  princes  of  Haidarabad  and  Mysore, 
and   against  the  Bhonsla   branch  of  the  Marathas  in    Berar.  , 

His  younger   brother,  Narayan   Rao,  succeeded  him  as  fifth  Peshwa 
Peshwa  in  1772,  but  was  quickly  assassinated.^  1772- 

From    this  time  the    Peshwa's  power  at  Poona   begins  to  Decline 
recede,  as  that  of  his  nominal  masters,  the  lineal  descendants  °    ,     , 

'  reshwas, 

'  For  his  career,  see  Grant  Duff's  ///>/.  0/  the  Maidt/tds,  vol.  ii.  pp.  1772-1S1I 
115-172. 

"  Grant  Duff's  History  cf  the  Marathas,  vol.  ii.  pp.  174-178. 

X 


32  2  THE  MARATHA  POWER,  1 634-181 8. 

of  Sivaji,   had    faded  out  of  sight  at    Satara  and  Kolhapur. 

I'he  Peshwas  came  of  a   high    Brahman    lineage,  while   the 

actual  fighting  force  of  the  Marathas  consisted  of  low-caste 

Hindus.     It  thus  happened  that  each  Maratha   general  who 

rose    to  independent    territorial    sway,  was    inferior  in  caste, 

although  possessed  of  more  real  power  than  the  Peshwa,  the 

titular  head  of  the  confederacy.     Of  the  two  great  northern 

houses,  Holkar  was  descended  from  a  shepherd,^  and  Sindhia 

from  a  slipper-bearer.-     These  potentates  lay  quiet  for  a  time 

Trogress     after  their  crushing  disaster  at  Panipat.      But  within  ten  years 

of  the         Qf  |.}^^^|.   f^i-j^i    field,  they  had    finally  established    themselves 

Marathas.  throughout  Malwa,  and  invaded  the  Rajput,  Jat,  and  Rohilla 

Provinces,  from  the  Punjab  on  the  west  to  Oudh  on  the  east 

Sindhia      (1761-71).     In   1765,  the  titular  Emperor,  Shah    Alam,  had 

^"'^^  sunk  into  a  British  pensioner  after  his  defeat  at  Baxar.     In 

Jtlolkar,  ^  I         Tvr      /  1   '  TT    11  7 

1761-1S03.  1771    he    made    overtures    to    the    Marathas.       Holkar    and 
Sindhia  nominally  restored    him  to  his  throne  at    Delhi,  but 
held  him  a  virtual  prisoner  till  1803-04,  when  they  were  over- 
thrown by  our  second  Maratha  war. 
Tj,g  The  third  of  the  northern   Maratha   houses,    namely,   the 

Biionslas  Bhonslas  of  Berar  and  the  Central  Provinces,  occupied  them- 
"y^wS^-"  s^^v^s  ^^''th  raids  to  the  east.  Operating  from  their  basis  at 
Nagpur,^  they  had  extorted,  by  1751,  the  chaiith  or  'quarter- 
revenue  '  of  Bengal,  together  with  the  sovereignty  of  Orissa. 
The  accession  of  the  British  in  Bengal  (1756-65)  put  a  stop 
to  their  raids  in  that  Province.  In  1803,  a  division  of  our 
army  drove  them  out  of  Orissa.  In  181 7,  their  power  was 
finally  broken  by  our  last  Maratha  war.  Their  head-quarter 
territories,  now  forming  the  Central  Provinces,*  were  adniini- 
stered  under  the  guidance  of  British  Residents  from  181 7  to 
1853.  On  the  death  of  the  last  Raghuji  Bhonsla,  without 
issue,  in  1853,  Nagpur  lapsed  to  the  British. 
Tl-,g  The    fourth    of    the    northern    Maratha    houses,    namely, 

(idekwars  Baroda,-^  extended  its  power  throughout  Gujarat,  on  the  north- 
jaro  a.  ^ygg|-gj-j^  coast  of  Bombay,  and  the  adjacent  peninsula  of 
Kathiawar.  The  scattered  but  wealthy  dominions  known  as 
the  Territories  of  the  Gaekvvar  were  thus  formed.  Since 
our  last  Maratha  war,  in  18 17,  Baroda  has  been  rubd  by 
the    Gaekwar,   with    the    help  of   a    British    Resident   and  a 

^  See  article  Indore,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

*  See  article  Gwalior,   The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India, 
•*  See  article  Nagpur,   The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

*  See  article  CENTRAL  PROVINCES,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

*  See  article  Baroda,  I  he  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


THE  THREE  MARATHA    WARS.  323 

subsidiary  force.  In  1874,  the  reigning  Gaekwar,  having  r.aioda  in 
attempted  to  poison  the  Resident,  was  tried  by  a  High  Com-  ''^74- 
mission  consisting  of  three  European  and  three  native 
members,  found  guilty,  and  deposed.  But  the  British 
(Government  refrained  from  annexing  the  State,  and  raised  a 
descendant  of  the  founder  of  the  family  from  poverty  to  the 
State  cushion. 

While  these  four  northern  houses   of  the    Marathas  were 
])ursuing  their  separate  careers,  the  Peshwa's  power  was  being 
broken    to   pieces    by   family   intrigues.     The   sixth    Peshwa,  sixtli 
Madhu  Rao  Narayan,  was  born  after  his  father's  death,  and  I'eshwa, 
during  his  short  life  of  twenty-one  years  the  power  remained 
in  the  hands  of  his  minister,  Nana  Farnavis.     Raghubd,  the 
uncle  of  the  late  Peshwa,  disputed  the  birth  of  the  posthumous 
child,   and  claimed  for   himself  the  office  of  Peshwa.     The 
infant's  guardian,  Nana  Farnavis,  having  invoked  the  aid  of 
the  French,  the  British  sided  with  Raghuba.     These  alliances 
brought  on  the  first  Maratha  war  (1779-S1),  ending  with  the  f'f'st  Mar- 
treaty  of  Salbai   (1782).     That  treaty   ceded   the   islands  of  j'  g^gY' 
Salsette    and    Elephanta   with    two   others    to    the    British, 
secured    to    Raghuba    a   handsome   pension,  and   confirmed 
the  child -Peshwa  in  his    sovereignty.     The    latter,    however, 
only   reached    manhood   to    commit    suicide    at   the   age   of 
twenty-one. 

His  cousin,  Baji   Rao   11.,  succeeded  him  in   1795   as  the  Seventh 
seventh  and  last  Peshwa.     The  northern    Maratha  house  of?'   ,  '^^.'^ 

reshwa, 

Holkar  now  took  the  lead  among  the  Marathas,  and  forced  the  1795-1S18. 
Peshwa  into  the  arms  of  the  English,  By  the  treaty  of  Bassein 
in  1802,  the  Peshwa  agreed  to  receive  and  pay  for  a  British 
force  to  maintain  him  in  his  dominions.  The  northern 
Maratha  houses  combined  to  break  down  this  treaty.  The 
second  Maratha  war  followed  (1803-04).  General  Wellesley  Second 
crushed  the  forces  of  the  Sindhia  and  Nagpur  houses  on  the  '^^^'"^'"^ 

°^  war, 

great  fields  of  Assaye  and  Argaum  in  the  south,  while  Lord  1S03-04. 
I^ake  disposed  of  the  Maratha  armies  at  Laswari  and  Delhi  in 
the  north.     In  1804,  Holkar  was  completely  defeated  at  Dig. 
These   campaigns   led   to  large   cessions   of  territory  to  the 
British,  the  overthrow  of  the  French  influence  in  India,  and 
the   replacement   of   the   titular    Delhi    Emperor   under   the 
protection  of  the  English.     In   181 7-18,  the  Peshwa,  Holkar,  Last  Mar- 
and  the  Bhonsla  Marathas  at  Nagpur  took  up  arms,  each  on  ^I'^'^^^Y' 
his  own  account,   against  the  British,  and  were   defeated  in 
detail.      That   war   finally  broke   the   Maratha   power       'J'he 
Peshwa,  Baji  Rao,  surrendered  to  the  British,  and  his  territories 


324  THE  MARATHA  POWER,   1634-1S1S. 

were   annexed   to   our   Bombay    Presidency.^     The    Peshwa 

remained  a  British  pensioner  at  Bithur,  near  Cawnpore,  on  a 
End  of  the  magnificent  allowance,  till  his  death.  His  adopted  son  grew 
Peshwas,    ^p  jj^j^  ^j^g  infamous  Nana  Sahib  of  the  Mutiny  of  1857,  when 

the  last  relic   of  the   Peshwas  disajDpeared  from   the  eyes  of 

men. 

^  For  a  summary  of  the  events  of  this  last  ISIaratha  war,  vide  post,  pp. 
401,  402.     Also  Grant  Duff's  History  of  the  AlardtMs,  vol.  iii.  passim. 


I 


[  325  ] 


CHAPTER    XII  I. 


THE    INDIAN    VERNACULARS    AND   THEIR   LITERATURE. 

The    foregoing    chapters    have    summarized    the    successive  The  three 
settlements  of  Asiatic  peoples  in  India.     The  remainder  of  ^^^g^s  in 
this  volume  will  deal  with  altogether  different  aspects  of  Indian  history: 
history.     For  the  three  essential  stages  in  that  history  are —  (i) 
first,  the  long  struggle  for  India  by  the  races  of  Asia ;  second,  Struggle 
a  shorter  struggle  for  India  by  European  nations  ;  third,  the  ^y  t^g 
consolidation  of  India  under  British  rule.     From  the  great  Asiatic 
contest  of  five  thousand  years,  England  emerged  the  victor.  ^'^^^^ ' 
We  have  seen  how  the  tidal  waves  of  Asiatic  populations —  European 
pre-Aryan,  Aryan,  Scythic,  Afghan,  and  Mughal — swept  across  nations ; 
India  from  the  north.     The  next  chapter  (xiv.)  will  exhibit  the  (3). Con- 
briefer,  but  not  less  eventful,  efforts  of  the  European  maritime  q°  indi'a" 
powers  to  enter  India  from  the  sea.     The  conquest  of  India  under 

Brit 

rule 


by  the  British,  and  an  account  of  the   administration  which  ^"•^''^^ 
they  have  established  throughout  its  widely  separated  Provinces, 
will  conclude  this  volume. 

The  inroads  under  Alexander  the  Great  and  his  successors  Greek 
had  proved  momentary  episodes, — episodes,  moreover,  of  an  mioads 
Asiatic  rather  than  of  a   European  type.      The  Greek   and 
Grteco-Bactrian   hosts  entered   India  from   the   north;   they  Asiatic  in 
effected  no  settlements  beyond  the  frontier  Province ;  and  the  ^ype- 
permanent  element  in  their  forces  consisted  of  Asiatic  rather 
than  of  European  troops.     The  civilisation  and  organization  of 
India,  from  a  prehistoric  period  many  thousand  years  before 
Christ  down  to  the  15th  century  a.d.,  had  been  essentially  the 
work  of  Asiatic  races.     Since  the  end  of  that  century,  when  the 
Portuguese  landed  on  the  Malabar  coast,  the  course  of  Indian 
history  has  been  profoundly  influenced  by  European  nations. 

Before   entering  on  this  new  period,  therefore,  it  is  desir-  Asiatic 
able  to  obtain  a  clear   idea   of   India,   as    moulded    by   the  civilisation 
survival  of  the  fittest  among   the  Asiatic   peoples  who    had 
struggled  for  the  Indian  supremacy  during  so  many  thousand 
years.      The  social  constitution  of  the  Indian   races  on   the 


326  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

twofold  basis  of  religion  and  caste,  has  been  fully  explained. 

Their  later  political  organization  under  the  Afghans,  Mughals, 

and    Marathas,    has    been    more    briefly     summarized.       It 

As  found    remains,  however,  to  exhibit  the  geographical  distribution  of 

t7  '  ^^        the  Indian  races,  and  the  local  landmarks,  literatures,  and  lan- 

Powers.      guages,  which  the  Europeans  found  on  their  arrival  in  India. 

India  in  Before  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  Northern  India 

\ml\vt         ^^"^  partitioned  out  among  civilised  communities  in  which  the 
A.I).  Aryan  element  prevailed,   while  the  southern   peninsula  was 

covered  with  forests,  and  dotted  with  the  settlements  of  non- 
Aryan  peoples.  The  Northern  Aryans  had  a  highly  developed 
literary  language,  Sanskrit.  They  spoke  less  artificial  cognate 
dialects,  called  Prakrits,  which  (equally  with  the  Sanskrit) 
had  grown  out  of  the  primitive  Indo-Germanic  tongue.  The 
non-Aryans  of  Southern  India  at  that  period  knew  nothing 
of  the  philosophy  or  sciences  which  flourished  in  the  north. 
They  had  not  even  a  grammatical  settlement  of  the  principles 
of  their  own  language ;  and  they  used  vernaculars  so  uncouth 
as  to  earn  for  them,  from  the  civilised  Aryans,  the  name  of 
Mlechchhas,  meaning  the  people  of  imperfect  utterance  or 
broken  speech. ^ 
India  in  When  the   European   nations  arrived  in   India  during  the 

the  i6tli      jgj.|^  ^^^  ^   ^  centuries,  all  this  had  changed.     The  stately 

century  .  '  '  °         .  ^ 

A.i).  Sanskrit   of   the    Northern    Aryans    had    sunk    into   a    dead 

language,  still  used  as  a  literary  vehicle  by  the  learned,  but 
already  pressed  hard  by  a  popular  literature  in  the  speech 
of  the  people.  The  Prakrits,  or  ancient  -  spoken  dialects, 
had  given  place  to  the  modern  vernaculars  of  Northern 
India.  In  Southern  India  a  still  greater  change  had  taken 
place.  The  obscure  non-Aryan  races  had  there  developed 
a  political  organization  and  a  copious  literature,  written 
in  vernaculars  of  their  own, — vernaculars  which,  while  richly 
endowed  for  literary  uses,  remained  non-Aryan  in  all  essentials 
of  structure  and  type. 

The  Dra-  Leaving  aside,  for  the  moment,  the  changes  among  the 
Aryans  in  the  north,  let  us  briefly  examine  this  survival  of 
prehistoric  non-Aryan  life  in  the  southern  peninsula.  The 
non-Aryan  races  of  the  south  were  spoken  of  by  Sanskrit 
authors    under    the    general    name    of    Dravidas,    and    their 

'  For  the  ideas  connoted  by  this  word,  and  its  later  application  to  the 
Huns  and  Musalmans,  see  the  Honourable  K.  T.  Telang's  Essay  on  the 
Mudrdnikkasa,  pp.  4-7,  12,  etc.,  and  footnotes.     Bombay. 


vitlians 


THE  DRAVIDIAN  ROUTE.  327 

languages  under  the  vague  term  Paisdchi.  The  latter  term 
covered,  however,  a  wider  linguistic  area,  from  the  speech  of  the 
Bhotas  of  Tibet  to  that  of  the  Pandyas  or  Tamil-speaking 
tribes  of  Southern  India. 

Modern  philology,  rejecting  any  generic  term,  proves  that 
the  scattered  non-Aryan  languages  of  India  belong  to  separate 
stocks.  Some  of  the  isolated  tribes,  who  still  survive  in  their 
hill  and  forest  retreats  around  Bengal,  entered  from  the  north- 
east, and  brought  with  them  dialects  akin  to  the  Chinese.  The 
great  body  of  Uravidian  speech  in  the  south  seems,  however, 
to  have  had  its  origin,  equally  with  the  Aryan  languages,  to 
the  north-west  of  the  Himalayas.  It  would  appear  that  long  The 
before  the  Aryan  invasions,  a  people  speaking  a  verj'  primi-  Diavidian 
tive  Central  Asian  language,  had  entered  by  the  Sind  passes. 
These  were  the  Dravidas  or  Dravidians  of  later  times.  Other 
non- Aryan  races  from  the  north  pushed  them  onwards  to 
the  present  Dravidian  country  in  the  south  of  the  peninsula. 
But  the  Dravidians  had  left  more  than  one  colony  on  their 
line  of  march.  The  Brahui's  of  the  Sind  frontier,  the  Gonds 
and  Kus  of  the  Central  Provinces,  the  Uraons  of  Chutia 
Nagpur,  with  a  tribal  offshoot  in  the  Rajmahal  hills  overlooking 
the  Gangetic  valley,^  remain  to  this  day  as  landmarks  along 
the  Dravidian  route  through  India. 

The  Dravidian  language  contains  words  apparently  belonging  The 

to  a  phase  of  human  speech,  anterior  to  the  separation  of  the  P'"''^'*''''^''''^" 
,  .  ,  .  -,  .  .      languaj^e. 

Indo-Germanic  from' the  Scythian  stocks.'-    It  presents  affinities 

to  the  present  Ugrian  of  Siberia,  and  to  the  present  Finnish  of 

Northern  Europe;   while  its  analogies  to  the  ancient  Behistun 

tablets  of  Media  have  been  worked  out  by  the  great  Dravidian 

scholar   of  our   times. ^      Those  tablets   recorded   the  life   of 

Darius  Hystaspes  in  the  old  Persian,  together  with  a  rendering 

in  the  speech  of  the  Scythians  of  the  Medo-Persian  Empire. 

They  date  from   the   5th  century  B.C.,    and  they  indicate   a  its  place 

common    starting  -  place    of    the    Turanian    family    of    Ian- >"  philo- 

guages  whose  fragments  have  been  scattered  to  the  shores  of  °^^" 

1  Introduction  to  the  Malto  Language,  p.  iv.  (Agra,  1884),  by  the  Rev. 
Ernest  Droese  ;  to  whom  the  author  is  int'ebted  for  valuable  local  details 
which  he  hopes  to  incorporate  hereafter  in  a  larger  work. 

•  Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Dravidian  Languages,  by  Bishop 
Caldwell,  p.  46,  ed.  1875.  Unfortunately,  the  paging  of  that  edition 
repeats  itself,  running  as  far  as  p.  154  in  the  introduction,  and  commencing 
again  (in  a  slightly  different  type)  at  p.  I  of  the  Grammar  itself.  Except 
when  otherwise  mentioned,  the  pages  cited  in  this  book  refer  to  the  first 
or  introductory  series  of  Bishop  Caldwell's  numerals. 

^  Idem,  pp.  68-72,  and  106. 


328  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

the  Baltic,  the  Steppes  of  Northern  Siberia,  and  the  Malabar 
coast.  This  family  belongs  to  the  primaeval  agglutinative 
phase  of  human  speech,  as  opposed  to  the  inflectional  stage 
which  the  later  Aryan  migrations  into  India  represent.  The 
Dravidians  found  refuge,  after  their  long  wanderings,  in  the 
sea-girt  extremity  of  the  Indian  peninsula.  In  its  isolation  this 
Turanian  speech  has  there  preserved  its  primitive  type,  and 
forms  one  of  the  most  ancient  relics  of  the  prehistoric  world. 
The  yi^g  extrusion  of  the  Dravidians  from  Northern  India  had 

in  Sanskrit  t''^l<en  place  before  the  arrival  of  the  Aryan-speaking  races. 
literature.  The  Dravidians  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  later  non- 
Aryan  immigrants,  whom  the  Vedic  tribes  found  in  possession 
of  the  valleys  of  the  Indus  and  Ganges.  These  later  non- 
Aryans  were  in  their  turn  subjugated  or  pushed  out  by  the 
Aryan  newcomers ;  and  they  accordingly  appear  in  the  Vedic 
hymns  as  the  'enemies'  (Dasyus)  and  'serfs'  (Sudras)  of  the 
Indo-Aryan  settlers.  The  Dravidian  non-Aryans  of  the  south, 
on  the  other  hand,  appear  from  the  first  in  the  Sanskrit  as 
friendly  forest  folk,  the  monkey  armies  who  helped  the  Aryan 
hero  Rama  on  his  march  through  Southern  India  against  the 
demon  king  of  Ceylon. 

The  Tamil  language  still  preserves  evidence  of  a  Dravidian 

civilisation  before  the  southern  advance  of  the  Aryans  which 

the  Ramayana  represents.     'They  had  "kings,"'  writes  Bishop 

Pre-Aiyan  Caldwell,^  '  '^vho  dwelt  in  "  strong  houses,"  and  ruled  over  small 

dJnIsa-'"'  "districts  of  country."     They  had    "minstrels"   who  recited 

tion.  "  songs  "  at  "  festivals,"  and  they  seem  to  have  had  alphabetical 

"  characters  "  written  with  a  stylus  on  palmyra  leaves.    A  bundle 

of  those  leaves  was  called  a  "  book."     They  acknowledged  the 

existence  of  God,    whom  they  styled    K6    or   King.      They 

erected  to  his  honour  a  "temple,"  which  they  called  K6-il, 

God's  house.      Marriage   existed   among   them.     They  were 

acquainted  with  the  ordinary  metals,  with  the  exception  of  tin, 

lead,  and   zinc ;  with  all  the  planets  ordinarily  known  to  the 

ancients,  excepting  Mercury  and  Saturn.     They  had  numerals 

up  to  a  hundred,  some  of  them  up  to  a  thousand.     They  had 

"medicines;"  "hamlets"and  "towns,"but  no  cities;  "canoes," 

"boats"  and  even  "ships"  (small  decked  coasting  vessels). 

Dravidian       'They   were   well   versed    in  "agriculture,"   and  delighted 

^'^'*'  in  "war."     They  were  armed  with  "bows"  and  "arrows,"  with 

"spears"  and  "swords."     All  the  ordinary  or  necessary  arts  of 

life,  including  "  spinning,"  "  weaving,"  and  "  dyeing,"  existed 

^  Comparative  Graininar  of  the  Dravidian  Languages,  condensed  from 
pp.  117,  118. 


CIVILISERS  OF  DRAVIDIANS.  329 

among  them.  They  excelled  in  "pottery,"  as  their  places  ot 
sepulture  show.  They  were  ignorant,  not  only  of  every  branch 
of  "  philosophy,"  but  even  of  *'  grammar."  Their  undeveloped 
intellectual  condition  is  especially  apparent  in  words  relating 
to  the  operations  of  the  mind.  To  express  "the  will"  they 
would  have  been  obliged  to  describe  it  as  "that  which  in  the 
inner  part  says,  I  am  going  to  do  so  and  so."' 

While  the  Dravidians  appear  in  Sanskrit  literature  as  Legend  of 
friends  or  allies,  the  Aryans  were  not  their  conquerors,  -^a^^^)'^- 
but  their  '  instructors '  or  '  fathers.'  The  first  Brahman 
settlers  in  the  south  came  as  hermits  or  sages,  who 
diffused  around  them  a  halo  of  higher  civilisation.  The 
earliest  of  such  Brahman  colonies  among  the  Dravidians,  led 
by  the  holy  Agastya,  has  long  faded  into  the  realms  of 
mythology.  '  The  Vindhya  Mountains,'  it  is  said,  '  prostrated 
themselves  before  Agastya,'  still  fondly  remembered  as  the 
Tamir-muni,  pre-eminently  the  Sage  to  the  Tamil  race.  He 
introduced  philosophy  at  the  court  of  the  first  Pandyan  king, 
wrote  many  treatises  for  his  royal  disciple,  and  now  lives  for 
ever  in  the  heavens  as  Canopus,  the  brightest  star  in  the 
Southern  Indian  hemisphere.  He  is  worshipped  as  Agastes- 
wara,  the  Lord  Agastya,  near  Cape  Comorin.  But  the  orthodox 
still  believe  him  to  be  alive,  although  invisible  to  sinful 
mortals,  hidden  away  in  the  conical  mountain  called  Agastya's 
Hill,  from  which  the  sacred  river  of  Tinnevelli  springs. 

This  legend  serves  to  indicate  the  influence  of  Sanskrit  civilisa-  Brahm.inic 
tion  and  learning  among  the  Dravidian  race.     That  influence  ^^^  "j^"'^'^ 
was  essentially  a  friendly  one.     The   Brahraans  became  the  Dra- 
'  fathers '    of   the    less    advanced    race ;    and    although    they  ^'I'-l'^"^- 
classified  the  non-Aryan  multitude  as  Sudras,  yet  this  term 
did  not  connote  in  Southern  India  the  ideas  of  debasement 
and  servitude  which  it  affixed  to  the  non-Aryan  races  in  the 
north.      The  Buddhist   missionaries  were   probably   the   first 
Aryan  instructors   of  the   Dravidian   kings   and   peoples,   and 
their  labours  must  have  begun  before  the  commencement  of 
the  Christian  era. 

Bishop  Caldwell  takes  the  Aryan  emigration  under  Vijaya, 
from  Magadha  in  Bengal  to  Ceylon,  circa  B.C.  550,  as  the  start- 
ing-point of  Aryan  civilisation  in  Southern  India,     Dr.  Burnell,  Com- 

however,  believes  that  Aryan  civilisation  had  not  penetrated  mence- 

-1     1  J  c  17-        ■   •\      ment  of 

deeply  among  the  Dravidians  until  the  advent  01  Kumarila,  thai 

the  Brahman  reformer  from  Behar  in  the  8th  century  a.d.^  influence. 
'  Dr.  BurneU'i  article  in  the  Indian  Antiqttary  for  October  1872. 


330  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

Brahman  hermits  had  doubtless  taught  the  Dravidian  peoples, 

and  Brahman  sages  had  adorned  Dravidian  courts  long  before 

this  latter  date.     But  it  was  from  the  great  religious  revival 

of  the  8th  century,  that  the  continuous  and  widespread  influence 

of  Brahman  civilisation  in  Southern  India  took  its  rise. 

Dravidian       The   Brahman  apostles  of  the  Sivaite  and  Vishnuite  faith, 

speech        {rQm.    the    8th    to   the    12th    century   a.d.,^    composed   their 
acveloped         .    .  .  .       ^        ,    .         n,,        ■        ,,  ,  1       • 

religious   treatises    in    Sanskrit.     1  he    intellectual  awakening, 

produced  by  their  teaching,  also  gave  the  first  impulse  to  the 

use  of  the  vernacular  languages  of  India  for  literary  purposes. 

The  Dravidians   gratefully   acknowledge   that   they   owe   the 

settlement  of  the  grammatical  principles  of  their  speech  to 

Sanskrit  sages,  among  whom  the  legendary  Agastya  holds  the 

into  ver-     highest  rank.      But  the  development  of  that  speech   into  a 

nacular       vernacular  literature  was  chiefly  the  work  of  the  Dravidians 
literatures.  ,,,,_  ,  /-,-  ,,• 

themselves.  Indeed,  the  first  outburst  of  their  vernacular  lite- 
rature sprang  from  the  resistance  of  their  previous  Buddhistic 
faith  to  the  Brahmanical  relic^ious  revival. 


vidian 
dialects 


The  Dra-  Before  the  arrival  of  the  European  nations  in  the  i6th  and 
I  7th  centuries,  four  Dravidian  dialects  had  developed  literatures. 
The  Tamil,  the  Telugu,  tlie  Kanarese,  and  the  Malayalam 
are  now  literary  languages  of  established  reputation.  But 
space  compels  us  to  concentrate  our  attention  on  the  oldest 
and  most  influential  of  the  vernacular  literatures  of  Southern 
The  India, — the  Tamil.     This  language,   in    its   structure  and  its 

1  'T^il-  vocabulary,  forms  the  best  representative  of  cultivated  Dravidian 
speech.  It  has  not  feared  to  incorporate  such  philosophical,  re- 
ligious, and  abstract  terms  as  it  required  from  the  Sanskrit.  But 
its  borrowings  in  this  respect  are  the  mere  luxuries  or  delicacies 
of  the  language,  and  they  have  left  unaffected  its  robust 
native  fabric.  '  Tamil,'  writes  Bishop  Caldwell,  '  can  readily 
dispense  with  the  greater  part  or  the  whole  of  its  Sanskrit,  and 
by  dispensing  with  it,  rises  to  a  purer  and  more  refined  style.'  - 
He  maintains  that  the  Ten  Commandments  can  be  translated 
into  classical  Tamil  with  the  addition  of  a  single  Sanskrit  word. 
That  word  is  '  image.' 
First  culti-  According  to  native  tradition,  Tamil  was  first  cultivated 
vation  of  i^y  ji^g  gg^gg  Agastya.  Many  works,  besides  a  grammar  and 
treatises  on  philosophy  and  science,  are  ascribed  to  him. 
His  name  served  indeed  as  a  centre  around  which  Tamil 
compositions  of  widely  separated  periods,  including  some  of 
recent  date,  gather.  The  oldest  Tamil  grammar  now  extant, 
*  Vide  ante,  pp.  209  and  217.         -  Comparative  Graiiuiiar,  pp.  50,  5 1 . 


EARLIEST  TAMIL  POETS.  331 

the  Tol-Kappiyam,  is  assigned  to  one  of  his  disciples.     But 
the  rise  of  a  continuous  Tamil  literature  belongs  to  a  later 
period.     The  Sivaite  and  Vishnuite  revival  of  the  Brahman 
apostles  in  Southern    India,  from   the   8th  century  onwards, 
stirred    up  a   counter   movement   on  the   part  of  the   Jains.  J^'"  '^^''^}^ 
Before  that  period,  the  Buddhism  of  the  Dravidian  kingdoms  liierauuc. 
had  modelled  itself  on  the  Jain   type.     We  shall  see  hereafter 
that  early  Buddhism  in  Northern   India  adopted  the  Prakrit 
or  vernacular  speech  for  its  religious  treatises.     On  the  same 
analogy,  Buddhism   in  Southern  India,  as  the  religion  of  the 
people,  defended  itself  against  the  Erahmanical  revival  of  the 
8th  century  by  works  in   the  popular  dialects.     The  Dravidian 
Iluddhists  or  Jains  created  a  cycle  of  Tamil  literature,  anti- nth  lo  inh 
Brahmanical    in    tone,  stretching  from    the  9th  to  the    13th  century 

.  A.D. 

century. 

Its  first  great  composition,  the  Kural  of  Tiruvalluvar,  not  later  Its  great 
than  the  loth  century  a.d.,  is  said  to  have  been  the  work  of  ^^"^'^ 

■'  poet,  900 

a  poet  sprung  from  the  Pariah  or  lowest  caste.  It  enforces  the  a.d.  (?) 
old  Sankya  philosojjhy  in  1330  distichs  or  poetical  aphorisms, 
dealing  with  the  three  chief  desires  of  the  human  heart ; 
wealth,  pleasure,  and  virtue.  To  the  sister  of  its  author,  a 
Pariah  poetess,  are  ascribed  many  compositions  of  the  highest 
moral  excellence,  and  of  und\ing  popularity  in  Southern 
India.  The  Jain  period  of  Tamil  literature  includes  works 
on  ethics  and  language  ;  among  them  the  Divakaram,  literally 
the  '  Day-making  '  Dictionary.  The  period  culminated  in  the 
Chintamani,  a  romantic  epic  of  15,000  lines  by  an  unknown  The  Jain 
Jain  author.  Indeed,  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  several  of  the  '-'P'"-'- 
best  Indian  authors,  whether  Sanskrit  or  vernacular,  have  left 
no  indication  of  their  names.  As  it  was  the  chief  desire  of 
an  Indian  sage  to  merge  his  individual  existence  in  the  Uni- 
versal Existence ;  so  it  appears  to  have  been  the  wish  of  many 
Indian  men  of  letters  of  the  highest  type  to  lose  their  literary 
individuality  in  the  school  or  cycle  of  literature  to  which  they 
belonged. 

Contemporaneous  with  the  Jain  cycle  of  Tamil  literature,  The  Tamil 
the  great  adaptation  of  the  Ramayana  was  composed  by  ^^''i'"^- 
Kambar  for  the  Dravidian  races.  This  work  is  a  Tamil  para- 
phrase or  imitation,  rather  than  a  translation  of  the  ancient 
Sanskrit  epic.  A  stanza  prefixed  to  the  work  states  that  it 
was  finished  in  the  year  corresponding  to  886  a.d.  But  this 
stanza  may  itself  be  a  later  addition  ;  and  Bishop  Caldwell, 
after  a  careful  examination  of  the  whole  evidence,  places  the 
work  after  iioo. 


332  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

Tamil  Between  that  period  and  the  i6th  century,  two  encyclopaedic 

Sivaite       collections  of  Tamil  hymns  in  praise  of  Siva  were  gradually 

logics.        formed.       They  breathe  a    deeply   religious    spirit,    and   the 

earlier  collection  impost  1200  a.d.)  still  holds  its  place  in  the 

affections  of  the  Tamil-speaking  people.     The  later  collection 

was    the  work  of  a   Sivaite  devotee  and   his  disciples,   who 

devoted   themselves  to   uprooting  Jainism    {circ.    1500   a.d.). 

During  the  same  centuries,  the  Vishnuite  apostles  were  equally 

Tamil         prolific  in  Tamil  religious  song.    Their  Great  Book  of  the  Four 

h  'mn  "-''^    Thousand  Psalms  constitutes  a  huge  hymnology  dating  from 

logy.  the  1 2th  century  onwards.    After  a  period  of  literary  inactivity, 

the   Tamil  genius   again   blossomed   forth    in   the    i6th   and 

17th  centuries  with  a  poet-king  as  the  leader  of  the  literary 

revival. 

The  Sittar       In  the  17th  century  arose  an  anti-Brahmanical  Tamil  litera- 

lamil         tare  known  as  the  Sittar  school.     The  Sittars  or  sages  were  a 
poets.  .... 

Tamil  sect  who,  while  retaming  Siva  as  the  name  of  the  One 

God,    rejected   everything   in  Siva-worship  inconsistent   with 

Their  pure  pure  theism.     They  were  quietists  in  religion,  and  alchemists 

theism.       -j^  science.     They  professed  to  base  their  creed  upon  the  true 

original    teaching   of    the    Rishi's,    and    indeed    assumed    to 

themselves  the  names  of  these  ancient  inspired   teachers  of 

mankind.      They   thus   obtained   for   their   poems,    although 

written    in   a   modern    colloquial    style,    the    sanction    of    a 

venerable  antiquity.     Some  scholars  believe  that  they  detect 

Christian    influences    in   works   of  the    Sittar    school.      But 

it   must  be  remembered    that    the   doctrines    and   even    the 

phraseology  of  ancient  Indian  theism  and  of  Indian  Buddhism 

approach  closely  to   the  subsequent  teaching  and,   in   some 

instances,  to  the  very  language  of  Christ.^ 

'  The  following  specimens  of  the  Sittar  school  of  Tamil  poetry  are 
taken  from  Bishop  Caldwell's  Comparative  Grammar,  p.  148.  The  first 
is  a  version  of  a  poem  of  Siva-vakya,  given  by  Mr.  R.  C.  Caldwell,  the 
Bishop's  son,  in  the  Indian  Antiquary  for  1872.  He  unconsciously  ap- 
proximates the  verses  to  Christian  ideas,  for  example,  by  the  title,  '  The 
Shepherd  of  the  Worlds,'  which  Bishop  Caldwell  states  may  have  meant 
to  the  poet  only  '  King  of  the  Gods.' 

The  Shepherd  of  the  Worlds. 

How  many  various  flowers 

Did  I,  in  bygone  hours, 
Cull  for  the  gods,  and  in  their  honour  strew  ; 

In  vain  how  many  a  prayer 

I  breathed  into  tlie  air, 
And  made,  with  many  forms,  obeisance  due. 


MODERN  TAMIL    WRITERS.  333 

The   Tamil    writers    of  the    i8th   and    19th    centuries  are  :\r(Klem 
classified  as  modern.     The  honours  of  this  period  are  divided  Tamil 
between  a  pious  Sivaite  and  the  Italian  Jesuit,  Beschi.     This 
missionary  of  genius  and  learning  not  only  wrote  Tamil  prose  Beschi. 
of  the  highest  excellence,  but  he  composed  a  great  religious 
epic  in  classical  Tamil,  which  has  won  for  him  a  conspicuous 
rank  among  Dravidian    poets.       His   work,    the   Tembavani, 
gives  a  Tamil  adaptation  of  the  narrative  and  even  of  the 
geography  of  the  Bible,   suited  to  the   Hindu   taste   of  the 
1 8th  century. 

Since    the    introduction  of  printing,  the    Tamil   press  has  Recent 
been  prolific.     A  catalogue  of  Tamil  printed  books,  issued  in  ^'^''^''^"'^^• 
Madras  up  to  1865,  enumerated   1409  works.     In  the  single 
year    1882,  no  fewer   than    558  works  were    printed   in   the 
vernaculars  in  Madras,  the  great  proportion  of  them  being  in 
Tamil. 

While  the  non-Aryans  of  Southern  India  had  thus  evolved 

Beating  my  breast,  aloud 

How  oft  I  called  the  crowd 
To  drag  the  village  car  ;  how  oft  I  stray'd, 

In  manhood's  prime,  to  lave 

Sunwards  the  flowing  wave, 
And,  circling  Saiva  fanes,  my  homage  paid. 

But  they,  the  truly  wise, 

Who  know  and  realize 
Where  dwells  the  Shepherd  of  the  Worlds,  will  ne'er 

To  any  visible  shrine, 

As  if  it  were  divine. 
Deign  to  raise  hands  of  worship  or  of  prayer. 

The  Unity  of  God  and  of  Truth. 

God  is  one,  and  the  Veda  is  one  ; 

The  disinterested,  true  Guru  is  one,  and  his  initiatory  rite  one  ; 

When  this  is  obtained  his  heaven  is  one  ; 

There  is  but  one  birth  of  men  upon  the  earth, 

And  only  one  way  for  all  men  to  walk  in  : 

But  as  for  those  who  hold  four  Vedas  and  six  shastras, 

And  different  customs  for  different  people, 

And  believe  in  a  plurality  of  gods, 

Down  they  will  go  to  the  fire  of  hell  ! 

God  is  Love. 
The  ignorant  think  that  God  and  love  are  different. 
None  knows  that  God  and  love  are  the  same. 
Did  all  men  know  that  God  and  love  are  the  same, 
They  would  dwell  together  in  peace,  considering  love  as  God. 


334  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

Aryan        a   copious   literature   and   cultivated   spoken   dialects   out  of 

'^f"xr"'^?i?^   their  isolated  fragments  of  prehistoric  speech,  a  more  stately 

ern  India ;  linguistic  development   was    going    on    in    the   Aryan    north. 

Sanskrit.     The  achievements   of  Sanskrit   as   a   literary   vehicle  in    the 

various  departments  of  poetry,  philosophy,  and  science,  have 

been    described  in   chapter  iv.  at  such  length   as    the    scope 

of   this    work    permits.       But   Sanskrit    was    only    the    most 

famous  of  several  Aryan  dialects  in  the    north.     One  of  its 

eminent  modern    teachers    defines    it  as  '  that  dialect  which, 

regulated    and    established    by    the    labours    of    the    native 

grammarians,   has   led   for  the   last    2000  years    or   more  an 

artificial  life,  like  that  of  the  Latin  during  most  of  the  same 

period  in  Europe.'  ^     The  Aryan  vernaculars  of  modern  India 

are  the  descendants  not  of  Sanskrit,  but  of  the  spoken  languages 

Was  San-   of  the  Aryan  immigrants  into    the  north.     The  Brahmanical 

skntever    tj-jgory  is  that  these  ancient  spoken  dialects,  or  Prakrits,  were 

a  vernacu-  •'    .  '  '  ' 

lar?  corruptions  of  the   purer  Sanskrit.      European  philology  has 

disproved   this   view,   and   the   question    has   arisen   whether 

Sanskrit  was  ever  a  spoken  language  at  all. 

Dr.  John         This  question  has  a  deep  significance  in  the  history  of  the 
I?"'""^  .      Indian  vernaculars,  and  it  is  necessary  to  present,  with  the 

nmrmative  .  .  .  . 

answer.  Utmost  brevity,  the  views  of  the  leading  authorities  on  the 
subject.  Dr.  John  Muir,  that  dariim  et  venerabile  nomen  in 
Anglo-Indian  scholarship,  devotes  many  pages  to  '  reasons  for 
supposing  that  the  Sanskrit  was  originally  a  spoken  language.'- 
He  traces  the  Sanskrit  of  the  philoso])hical  period  to  the  earlier 
forms  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  and  concludes  '  that  the  old 
spoken  language  of  India  and  the  Sanskrit  of  the  Vedas  were 
at  one  time  identical.'-' 

J'rofessor         Professor  Benfey  gives  the  results  of  his  long  study  of  the  ques- 

15enfey's      jj^^j-^  j,^  even  greater  detail.     He  believes  that  Sanskrit-speakintr 
view  ■  .         .  . 

migrations  from   beyond  the   Himalayas  continued  to  follow 

one  another  into   India  down  to  perhaps  the  9th  century  b.c. 

affirma-       That  Sanskrit  became  the  prevailing  Indian  vernacular  dialect 

^'^'""  throughout  Hindustan,  and  as  far  as  the  southern  borders  of 

the  Maratha  country.     That  it  began   to  die  out  as  a  spoken 

language  from  the   9th  century  b.c,  and  had  become  extinct 

as  a  vernacular  in  the  6th  century  B.C. ;  its  place  being  taken 

by  derivative  dialects  or  Prakrits.     But  that  it  still  lingered  in 

the  schools  of  the  Brahmans ;  and  that,  about  the  3rd  century 

'  Professor  Whitney's  Sanskrit  Graviviar,  p.  ix.     Leipzig,  1S79. 
-  Muir's  Sanskrit  7'cxts,  vol.  ii.  pp.  144-160,  ed.  1874. 
^  JJcm,  p.  160,  and  Dr.  Muir's  long  footnote,  No.  181. 


SANSKRIT  AND  PKAKRITS.  335 

i:.c.,  it  was  brought  back  into  public  life  as  a  sacred  language 
with  a  view  to  refuting  the  Buddhistic  teachers  who  wrote  in 
the  vernacular  or  Prakrit  dialects.  Professor  Benfey  also 
holds  that  about  the  5th  century  a.d.  Sanskrit  had  diffused 
itself  over  the  whole  of  India  as  a  literary  language.  We 
know  that  a  subsequent  revival  of  Sanskrit  for  the  Puranic  or 
orthodox  treatises  of  the  Brahmans,  as  opposed  to  the  new 
doctrines  of  the  reformers  who  used  the  vernacular,  actually 
took  place  about  the  loth  century  a.d. 

Lassen  inclines  to  the  same  general  view.     He  thinks  that,  Lassen's 
in  the  time  of  Asoka,  the  main   body  of  Aryans  of  Northern  ^''^^^' 
India  spoke  local  dialects  ;  while  Sanskrit  still  remained  the 
speech  of  Brahmans,  and  of  dignitaries  of  State. 

Sanskrit  scholars  of  not  less  eminence  have  come  to  the  Sanskrit 

conclusion   that  Sanskrit  was  not  at  anv  time  a  vernacular  "^^'f  ^ 

1    ' 1  J     1  spoken 

tongue.     Professor  Weber  assigns  it  to  the  learned  alone.     He  language. 

■  thinks  that  the   Prakrits,   or  Aryan    vernaculars   of   Northern  Weber's 

India,    were   derived  directly    from   the  more   ancient  Vedic  ^■'^"'• 

dialects ;  while  Sanskrit  was  '  the  sum  of  the  Vedic  dialects 

constructed   by   the   labour    and   zeal   of  grammarians,    and 

polished  by  the  skill   of  learned    men.'      Professor  Aufrecht  Aufreclu's 

agrees    'in   believing  that  Sanskrit  proper   {i.e.  the  language  ^■^^^^'■ 

of   the    epic  poems,   the   law  books,   nay,  even  that  of   the 

Brahmanas)  was  never  actually  spoken,  except  in  schools  or  by 

the  learned.' 

The  question  has  been   finally  decided,   however,   not  by  Evidence 
Sanskrit  scholars  in  Europe,  but  by  students  of  the  modern  f'oi" 
Aryan  vernaculars  in  India.     During  the  past  fourteen  years,  a  Indian 
bright  light  has  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  language  and  speech, 
literature  of  ancient  India,  by  an  examination  of  the  actual 
speech  of  the  people  at  the  present  day. 

Two  learned  Indian  civilians,  Mr.  Salmon  Growse  and  Mr. 

John  Beanies,  led  the  way  from  not  always  concurrent  points 

of  view.     In   1872,  Mr.  Beanies'  Comparative  Grammar  0/  t he 

Moderji  Aryan  Languages  of  India  ^  opened  up  a  new  field  of 

human  knowledge,  and  began  to  effect  for  the  Aryan  dialects 

of  the  North,  what  Bisho])  Caldwell's  great  work  accomplished  The  new 

for  non-Aryan  speech  in  Southern  India.    Dr.  Ernest  Trumpp's  study  of 

.        ,  the  ver- 

Granuiiar  of  the  Sindhi  language  followed,  and  would  probably  nacular- 

have  modified  some  of  Mr,  Beames'  views.     Another  learned  1872-1865. 

German  ofiicer  of  the  Indian  Government,  Professor  Rudolf 

'  Three  volumes,  Triibner  ik  Co.     The  first  volume  was  published   in 
1872  ;  the  last  in  1879. 


336  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

Hoernle,  further  specialized  the  research  by  his  Comparative 
Grammar  of  the  Gaudia7i  languages  (1880),  with  particular 
reference  to  the  Hindi.  The  same  scholar  and  Mr.  George 
Grierson,  of  the  Civil  Service,  have,  during  the  present  year 
(1885),  jointly  brought  out  the  first  part  of  a  Comparaiive  Diction- 
ary of  the  Bihari  language,  which  will  enable  every  European 
inquirer  to  study  the  structure  and  framework  of  a  modern 
Aryan  vernacular  for  himself  These  and  other  cognate  works 
have  accumulated  a  mass  of  new  evidence,  which  settles  the 
relationship  of  the  present  Aryan  vernaculars  to  the  languages 
of  ancient  India. 
Results  They  prove  that  those  vernaculars  do  not  descend  directly 

disclosed     from  Sanskrit.   They  indicate  the  existence  of  an  Aryan  speech 

by  the  ver-  .  . 

naculars.     older  than  Sanskrit,  older,  perhaps,  than  the  Vedic  hymns  ; 

from  which  the  Sanskrit,  the  Prakrits  or  ancient  spoken  dialects 

of  India,   and   the  modern  vernaculars  were   alike   derived. 

Passing  beyond  the  Vedic  period,  they  show  that  ancient  Aryan 

speech  diverged  into  two  channels.  The  one  channel  poured  its 

stream  into  the  ocean  of  Sanskrit,  a  language  '  at  once  archaic 

Diver-        and  artificial,'  elaborated  by  the  Brahmanical  schools.^     The 

gence  of     other  channel  branched  out  into  the  Prakrits  or  ancient  spoken 

and  Pra-     vernaculars.      The  artificial  Sanskrit  {Sainskrita,  i.e.  the  per- 

l<rit.  fected   language)  attained   its   complete  development   in   the 

grammar  of  Panini  (circ.  350  B.c.).^   The  Prakrits  {i.e.  naturally 

evolved  dialects)  found  their  earliest  extant  exposition  in  the 

r.-inini  and  grammar  of  Vararuchi,  about  the  ist  century  b.c.^     But  the 

Varanichi.  ^ooo  algebraic  aphorisms  of  Panini  mark  the  climax  of  the 

labours   of  probably   a   long   antecedent   series    of    Sanskrit 

elaborators,  while  Vararuchi  stands  at  the  head  of  a  long  series 

of  subsequent  Prakrit  grammarians. 

The  The   spread   of  the  Aryans  from  Northern    India  is  best 

Prakrits      marked  by  the   southern   advance  of  their  languages.     The 

spread  ,  ^  ^  x^    .,     ■  i  ^  11 

south.  three  great  routes  of  Prakrit  speech  to  the  southward  were — 
down  the  Indus  valley  on  the  west ;  along  the  Ganges  valley 
to    the    east ;    and   through   certain    historical   passes   of  the 

^  Hcernle  and  Grierson's  Coiiipa7-ative  Dictionary  of  the  Bihari  Language, 
pp.  33  and  34.  Secretariat  Press,  Calcutta,  1885.  It  should  be  remem- 
bered that  Indian  grammarians,  when  speaking  of  the  Vedic  language 
technically,  do  not  call  it  Sanskrit,  but  Chhandas.  They  restrict  the 
technical  application  of  Sanskrit  to  the  scholastic  language  of  the  Brah- 
mans,  elaborated  on  the  lines  of  the  earlier  Vedic. 

^  Vide  attte,  pp.  100  et  se</. 

3  Hoernle's  Comparative  Grannnar  of  the  Caudian  Languages,  p.  xviii. 
et  se/j.,  ed.  1880. 


ROUl^ES  OF  PRAKRIT  SPEECH.  337 


Vindliyas  in  the  centre.     Between  500  r..c.  and  500  a. d.,  the  Their 

three  1 
of  march. 


western  or  Apabhramsa  dialects  of  Prakrit  had  spread  across  '    *^''' 


the  Indus  basin,   and  down  the  Bombay  coast.     During  the 

same   period   dialects   of    Eastern    or    Magadhi    Prakrit    had 

occupied  the  valleys  of  the  Jumna  and  the  Ganges.     Aryan 

tribes,  speaking  the  Mahardshtri  and  Sauraseni  Prakrits,  had 

poured  through  the  Vindhyan  passes,  one  of  their  great  lines 

of  march  being  that  followed  by  the   Jabalpur  Railway  at  the 

present  day.    The  Maharashtri  dialect  reached  as  far  south  as 

Goa  on  the  western  coast.      The  peninsula,  to  the  south  and 

east   of  the  Maharashtri  linguistic  frontier,  was   inhabited   by 

the  Dravidian  or  Paisachi-speaking  races. 

By  degrees  the   main    Prakrits,   or  spoken  Aryan   dialects,  Classifica- 

differentiated  themselves  into  local  vernaciilars,  each  occupying  ^'°"  °.' 

'  ;     .  Prakrits, 

a  more  contracted  area.     A  series  of  maps  has  been  compiled 

showing  the  stages  of  this  process  between  500  e.c.  and  1800 

.  A.D.i     Various  classifications  have  been   framed,  both  of  the 

modern  vernaculars  and  of  the  ancient  Prakrits.     Vararuchi,  Vara- 

the  earliest  Prakrit  grammarian  extant,  enumerates  four  classes  '^y'^,  '  "^  '^"' 
^  '  ^  classes. 

in  the  ist  century  B.C., — Maharashtri,  now  Marathi;-  Saura- 
seni, now  the  Braj  of  the  North-Western  Provinces  ;  Magadhi, 
now  Bihari ;  and  Paisachi,  loosely  applied  to  outlying  non- 
Aryan  dialects  from  Nepal  to  Cape  Comorin. 

Apart    from  the  last-named  Paisachi,   the   literary  Prakrits  The  two 

really  divide   themselves  between   two  great  linguistic   areas.  "^^''^  . 

.  Prakrits. 

Sauraseni,    with    the    so-called    Maharashtri,    occupied    the 

upper  part  of  the  North-Western  Provinces,   and    sent   forth 

offshoots  through  the   Vindhya  passes  as  far  south   as    Goa. 

Magadhi    spread    itself    across    the    middle    valley    of    the 

(ranges,    with    its    brightest   literary   centre   in   Behar.     These 

were  the  two  parents  of  the  most  highly  developed  of  the 

Aryan  vernaculars  of  modern   India.      The  Apabhramsa,   or 

'broken'  dialects  of  the  Indus  region,  may  for  the  moment 

be  left  out  of  sight. 

The   Prakrits,  or  spoken  Aryan  dialects  of  ancient  India,  Prakrits 

received  their  first  literary  impulse  from  Buddhism.     As  the  j'^\*^,'"f";!' 

Brahmans  elaborated  Sanskrit  into  the  written  vehicle  for  their  ist^^ 

^  Prefixed  to  Hcernle  and  Grierson's  Comparative  Dictionary  of  the 
Bihari  Language.  See  also  the  Language  Map  appended  to  Hoernle's 
Comparative  Grammar  o/t/ie  Gaudian  Languages. 

^  Mr.  Beames  thinks  that  there  is  as  much  of  the  Magadhi  and  Saura- 
seni type  in  the  modern  Marathi  as  there  is  of  the  Maharashtri  Prakrit, 
Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Modern  Aryan  Languages,  vol.  i.  p.  34,  ed, 
1872.  He  holds  that  Marathi  reproduces  the  name  rather  than  the  sub- 
stance of  Maharashtri. 

V 


338  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

orthodox  religion,  so  the  teachers  of  the  new  faith  appealed  to 
the  people  by  works  in  the  popular  tongues.     The  Buddhist 
for  their      missionaries   to    Ceylon,    circ.    307    B.C.,   carried   with   them 
scuptures ;  ^j^^   spoken    Prakrit   of  the  Gangetic  kingdom  of  Magadha. 
This  dialect  of  Northern    Indian    became    Pali,  literally  the 
series  or  catena  of  holy  scripture  in  Ceylon.    While  the  early 
Buddhists   thus   raised   the    Eastern   or    Magadhi    Prakrit  of 
and  hy  the  Behar  to  a  sacred  language,  the  Jains  made  use  of  the  Mahar- 
Jains.  ashtri   Prakrit   of  Western   India  for  their  religious   treatises. 

In  this  way,  the  two  most  characteristic  of  the  spoken  Aryan 
dialects  of  ancient  India  obtained  a  literary  fixity,  during  the 
centuries  shortly  before  and  after  the  commencement  of  our 
era. 
The  The  Prakrits  also  remained  the  speech  of  the  people,  and 

Prakrits  underwent  those  processes  of  development,  decay,  and  re- 
remained  generation  to  which  all  spoken  languages  are  subject.  On 
spoken       ^j^g  ^^^  hand,  therefore,  we  have  the  literary  Magadhi   and 

Inn '^11  ices 

"^  '  Maharashtri  Prakrits  of  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  the 
former  embalmed  in  the  Buddhist  scriptures  of  Ceylon,  the 
latter  in  the  Jain  sacred  books  of  AVestern  India.  On  the 
other  hand,  we  have  the  spoken  representatives  of  these  two 
ancient  Prakrits  in  the  modern  vernaculars  of  Behar  and  of 
the  Maratha  country.^ 

Evolution        The  evolution  of  the  modern  vernaculars  from  the  ancient 

oi  modern  pj-^|.^jt:s  is  involved  in  deep  obscurity.     The  curtain  falls  on 

lars  from    the  era  of  Prakrit  speech  within  a  few  hundred  years  after  the 

Prakrits.     |^j^(.j^  ^^  Christ,  and  does  not  again  draw  up  until  the    loth 

century.      When  it  rises,  Prakrit  dialects  have  receded  from 

the   stage,  and  their  place    has  been    taken   by  the   modern 

Obscure      vernaculars.     During  the  dark  interval,  linguistic  changes  had 

l?!f7i!''  taken  place  in  the  old  Prakrits  not  less  important  than  those 
400- 1 000  ' 

\.\).  which  transformed   Latin  into  Italian  and  Anglo-Saxon  into 

English.  Those  changes  are  now  being  elucidated  by  the 
series  of  comparative  grammars  and  dictionaries  mentioned 
on  pp.  335-36.  It  is  only  practicable  here  to  state  the  most 
important  of  the  results. 

The    old    Prakrits    were    synthetical    in    structure.      The 

1  This  statement  leaves  untouched  the  question  how  far  Marathi  is  the 
direct  representative  of  Maharashtri,  or  how  far  it  is  derived  from  the 
Sauraseni  Prakrit.  As  already  mentioned,  both  the  Sauraseni  and  Mahar- 
ashtri poured  tlirough  the  Vindhya  passes  into  South-Western  India,  and 
combined  to  form  the  second  of  the  two  main  Prakrits  referred  to  in 
the  classification  on  a  previous  page. 


PRAKRITS  AND   VERNACULARS.  339 

modern  Aryan  vernaculars  of  India  are  essentially  analytical.  The 

During  the   eight    centuries  while    the    curtain    hangs   down  pr^k^^";-^'^ 

before   the  stage,  the   synthetic    inflections    of   the    Prakrits 

had   worn   out.      The   terminals   of  their   nouns   and   verbs 

had   given   place    to    post-positions,    and    to    the    disjointed 

modern  particles  to  indicate  time,  place,  or  relation.      The 

function  performed  in  the  European  languages  by  prepositions 

for  the  nouns  are  discharged,  as  a  rule,  by  post-positions  in 

the  modern  Indian  vernaculars.   The  process  was  spontaneous,  become 

and  it  represents   the   natural   course  of  the   human   mind,  vernacu-^ 

'  The  flower  of  synthesis,'  to  use  the  words  at  once  eloquent  lars. 

and   accurate   of  Mr.    Beames,    '  budded   and   opened ;  and 

when  full-blown  began,   like  all  other  flowers,  to  fade.      Its 

petals,  that  is  its  inflections,  dropped  off  one  by  one ;  and  in 

due  course  the  fruit  of  analytical  structure  sprung  up  beneath 

it,  and  grew  and  ripened  in  its  stead.'  ^ 

As   regards   their   vocabularies,  the   Aryan   vernaculars   of  Three 

modern  India  are  made  up  of  three  elements.     One  class  of  ?  ^'"'^"^^ 

i  _       m  verna- 

their  words  is  named  Tatsama,  '  the  same  as  '  the  corresponding  culars  ; 
words  in  Sanskrit.    A  second  class  is  termed  Tadbhava,  '  similar  Sanskrit 
in  nature  or  origin  '  to  the  corresponding  words  in  Sanskrit. 

.  10  Prakrit 

The   third   class  is  called    Desaja,  or    '  country-born.'     This  tadbhavas. 
classification  is  an  ancient  one  of  the  Indian  grammarians,  and  Xon- 
it  is  so  far  artificial  that  it  refers  the  modern  vernaculars  to  Aryan 
Sanskrit  standards  ;  while  we  know  that  the  modern  vernaculars   ^^°'-^'^^- 
were  derived  not  from. the  Sanskrit,  but  from  the  Prakrits.     It 
suffices,  however,  for  practical  purposes. 

The  great  body  of  modern  Indian  speech  belongs  to  the  Their 
second  or  Tadbhava  class  of  words,  and  may  be  taken  loosely  \  '^^'^'^'^ 

'■'.•'   frame- 
to  represent  its  inheritance  from  the  old  spoken  dialects  or  work ; 

Prakrits.     But  the  vernaculars  have  enriched  themselves  for 

literary  purposes  by  many  terms  imported  directly  from  the 

Sanskrit ;  to  represent  religious,  philosophical,  or  abstract  ideas,  and  Sans- 

These  are  the  Tatsamas,  '  the  same  as  '  in  Sanskrit.     The  dif-  ^""^  ennch- 

ferent  vernaculars  borrow  such  '  identical '  words  from  Sanskrit 

in  widely  varying  proportions.     The  strongest  of  the  vernaculars, 

such  as  Hindi  and  Marathi,  trust  most  to  their  own  Tadbhava 

or  Prakrit  element;   while  the  more  artificial  of  them,  like 

the   Bengali  and  Uriya,  are  most  largely  indebted  to  direct 

importations  of  Sanskrit  words. 

The   third   element    in    modern  vernacular   speech    is    the 

Desaja,  or  'country-born.'     This  represents  the  non-Aryan  and 

^  Mr.  Beames'  Comparative  Grammar  of  the  JModcrn  Aryan  Languages 
of  India,  vol.  i.  p.  45  (ed.  1S72). 


340  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

Kon-  Other  words  not  derived  either  from  the  Sanskrit  or  the  Prakrits. 

Aryan        ^j-  Qj^g  iwnQ  it  was  supposed,  indeed,  that  the  modern  verna- 

the  ver-      culars  of  India  were  simply  made  up  of  the  Sanskrit  of  the 

naculars ;    Arj'an  settlers,  modified  by,  and  amalgamated  with,  the  speech 

of  the  ruder  non-Aryan  races  whom  they  subdued.     Modern 

philology  renders  this  theory  no  longer  tenable.     It  has  proved 

that  Sanskrit  played  a  comparatively  unimportant  function  in 

the  formation  of  those  vernaculars.     It  also  tends  to  show  that 

less  im-       the  non-Aryan  element  is  less  influential  than  was  supposed. 

portant       Both  in  structure  and  in  vocabulary  the  modern  vernaculars 

formerly     of  India  are  the  descendants  neither  of  the  written  Sanskrit, 

supposed,    nor  of  the  aboriginal  tongues,  but  of  the  Prakrits  or  spoken 

dialects  of  the  ancient  Aryans, 
rroportion      In  regard  to  grammatical   structure,    this   position  is  now 
of  non-       firmly  established.     But  the  proportion  of  aboriginal  or  non- 
words  ;       Aryan  words  in  the  modern  Indian  vernaculars  still  remains 
undetermined.     The  non-Aryan  scholars,  with  Brian  Hodgson 
and    Bishop    Caldwell    at  their   head,    assign    a  considerable 
influence  to  the  non-Aryan  element  in  the  modern  vernaculars.  "^ 
Dr.   Ernest  Trumpp  believes  that  nearly  three-fourths  of  the 
in  .Sindhi,  Sindhi  words  commencing  with  a  cerebral  are  taken  from  some 
non-Aryan  or  Scythic  language,  which  he  would  prefer  to  call 
Tatar.     He  thinks,  indeed,  that  there  is  very  strong  proof  to 
show  that  the  cerebral  letters  themselves  were  borrowed,  by 
the  Prakrits  and  modern  Indian  vernaculars,  from  some  idiom 
inGangetic  anterior  to  the  introduction  of  the  Aryan  languages  into  India, 
vernacu-      Bishop  Caldwell  states  that  the  non-Aryan  element,  even  in 
the   Northern   Indian  languages,  has  been  estimated  at  one- 
inMarathi.  tenth  of  the  whole,  and  in  the  Marathi  at  one-fifth. ^ 
The  real         Such  generalizations  are  not  accepted  by  the  most  eminent 
vnf°'^^'°"  students  of  the  Indo-Aryan  vernaculars.     Mr.  Beames  strongly 
unknown,    expresses  his  view  that  the  speech  of  the  conquering  Aryans 
completely  overmastered  that  of  the  aboriginal  tribes.     The 
early  grammarians   were  wont  to  regard  as  Desaja,  or  non- 
Aryan,  all  words  for  which  they  could  not  discover  a  Tatsama 

^  See  Mr.  Brian  Houghton  Hodgson's  Aborigines  of  India,  Calcutta, 
1849  ;  and  pp.  I-152  of  vol.  ii.  of  his  Miscellaneous  Essays  (Triibner, 
1880).  Also  the  Rev.  Dr.  Stevenson's  paper  in  the  yoitmal  of  the  Asiatic 
Society  of  Bombay. 

-  Bishop  Caldwell's  Comparative  Grammar  of  tlie  Diavidian  Languages, 
introd.  p.  57  (ed.  1875).  Lassen  held  that  the  aboriginal  tribes  not  only 
introduced  '  peculiar  varieties  into  the  Prakrit  dialects,'  but  also  'occa- 
sioned very  great  corruptions  of  sound  and  form  in  the  Indo-Aryan  lan- 
guages '  {Indische  Alterthumskunde,  ii.  1 149).  But  the  more  recent  inves- 
tigations of  Beames,  Hoernle,  and  Grierson  render  these  dicta  doubtful. 


THE  NON-AR  YAN  ELEMENT.  34 1 

or  Tadbhava  origin.  But  the  more  delicate  processes  of 
modern  philology  have  reduced  the  number  of  this  class,  and 
tend  still  further  to  diminish  it.  The  truth  is,  that  until  a 
complete  examination  is  made  with'  the  new  lights,  both  of 
the  vocabulary  and  of  the  structure  of  the  Indian  vernaculars, 
no  final  conclusion  can  be  arrived  at. 

Dr.  Hcernle  thus  sums  up  the  existing  knowledge  in  regard  Present 
to  the  group  of  Indian  vernaculars  on  which  he  is  the  highest  l^^'^Jlg*^" 
authority  :   '  That  there  are  non-Aryan  elements  in  the  Bihari,  question. 
I  have  no  doubt.     Considering  that  the   Aryans  immigrated 
into    India,    and   absorbed   large   masses   of  the   indigenous 
population  into  their  ranks,  it  would  be  a  wonder  if  no  portion 
of  the  aboriginal  languages  had  become  incorporated  into  the 
Aryan   speech.      But   what   the    several  constituents   of  that 
aboriginal  portion  are,  and  what  proportion  they  bear  to  the 
Aryan  element  in  the  vernacuhr  language,  it  is  impossible  at 
present  to  form  any  scientific  opinion.     And  what  is  more, — 
it  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  assumed  aboriginal  portion 
of  the  Aryan  speech  was  Uravidian,  or  some  other  language, 
such  as  Kolarian  or  Tibeto-Burman.'  ^ 

J  Letter  from  Dr.  Rudolf  Hcernle  to  the  author,  dated  28th  May  1885. 
Dr.  Hoernle  continues — '  Attempts  have  been  made  now  and  then  (d'.i,'-.  ni 
The  Indian  Antiqicary)  to  show  that  some  particular  selected  words  of  the 
North  Indian  languages  are  really  Dravidian.  But  these,  even  supposing 
they  had  been  successful,  would  not  enable  any  one  to  pronounce  an 
opinion  on  the  general  question  of  the  proportion  of  non-Aryan  words  in 
the  Gaudian  languages.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  some  of  these  attempts, 
notably  those  referring  to  the  genitive  and  dative  post-positions  {kd,  ke,  kt, 
etc.),  have  been  conspicuous  failures.  It  is  now,  I  think,  generally 
admitted  that  these  post-positions  are  thoroughly  Aryan.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  way  in  which  the  question  of  the  non-Aryan  element  in  the  vernaculars 
should  be  approached  has  been  hitherto  almost  entirely  misconceived.  A 
little  consideration  must  convince  any  one  that  whatever  aboriginal  ele- 
ments there  may  be  in  the  vernaculars,  they  must  have  been  incorporated 
into  them  before  the  present  vernacular  times,  that  is,  in  the  period  when 
Sanskrit  and  Prakrit  flourished.  The  question  therefore  properly  stands 
thus— What  are  the  aboriginal  elements  in  .Sanskrit  and  Prakrit  ?  The 
vernaculars  arose  from  Prakrit  (and  in  a  certain  sense  from  Sanskrit) 
according  to  certain  phonetic  laws  peculiar  to  the  Aryan  languages. 
Hence  it  is  next  to  useless  to  try  to  refer  Bihari  (or  any  Aryan)  verna- 
cular words  direct  to  the  Dravidian.  They  must  in  the  first  place  be 
referred  back  (by  the  well-known  Aryan  phonetic  laws)  to  their  earlier 
forms  in  Prakrit  and  Sanskrit.  Only  when  this  is  done,  the  question  can 
properly  be  asked  whether  they  are  Aryan  or  non-Aryan.  And  in  order  to 
decide  this  question,  it  will,  among  other  points,  have  to  be  considered 
whether  they  possess  correlates  in  the  other  Aryan  languages  [e.g.  of 
Europe).  But  there  is  every  probability  that  there  is  a  considerable 
number  of  words  in  Sanskrit  and  Prakrit  which  are  not  Aryan,  but  only 


342  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

Fourfold         At  present,  therefore,  we  cannot  advance  further  than  the 

compo-       ^Qjjj.  foiiowint:  conclusions  : — First,  that  in  erammatical  struc- 

sition  of  .    °  .  . 

the  verna-  ture   and   in   their   vocabularies,  the  modern  analytical   ver- 

culars :  naculars  of  India  represent  the  old  synthetic  Prakrits  ;  after  a 

(i)  Prakrit  process  of  development,  decay,  and  regeneration,  which  has 

element,  ^egi-,  going  on,  as  the  result  of  definite  linguistic  laws,  during 

(2)  Abori-  the   past    fifteen  hundred   years.      Second,   that  the  modern 

^,'"^  ,  vernaculars  contain  a  non-Arvan  element,  derived  from  the 
element.  .    .  .        -  ' 

so-called  aborigines  of  India  ;  but  that  this  element  has  very 
slightly  affected  their  grammatical  structure,  and  that  the 
proportion  which  it  holds  in  their  vocabularies  is  yet  undeter- 

(3)  Sans-  mined.  Third,  that  the  modern  vernaculars  have  enriched 
krit  bor-     themselves,  for  literary  and  philosophical  purposes,  by  direct 

(4)  Pe'rsian  3-nd  conscious  borrowings  from  the  Sanskrit.  Fourth,  that 
terms.         tiigy  have   also    imported   many   terms   connected   with   the 

administration,  the  land  revenue,  judicial  business,  and  official 
life,  from  the  Persian  court  language  of  the  Afghan  and 
Mughal  dynasties. 

The  seven  The  Aryan  vernaculars  of  modern  India  may  be  distributed 
Aryan  according  to  their  geographical  areas  into  seven  main  lan- 
culars.        guages. 

(1)  Sindhi.      Towards  the  north-western  frontier,  Sindhi    is    spoken    by 

the  descendants  of  the  shepherd  tribes  and  the  settlements 
who  were  left  behind  by  the  main  stream  of  the  prehistoric 
Aryan  immigrants.  The  Sindhi  language  abounds  in  words  of 
non-Aryan  origin ;  it  contains  very  few  Tatsamas,  i.e.  Sanskrit 
words  in  their  original  shape  ;  and  it  is  almost  destitute  of  an 

(2)  Pun-  original  literature.  The  Punjabi  language  is  spoken  in  the 
jabi.  valleys  of  the  Indus  and  its  tributaries.     Like  the  Sindhi,  it 

contains  few  Tatsamas,  i.e.  words  borrowed  directly  from  the 
Sanskrit. 

(3)  Guja-  Gujarathi  occupies  the  area  immediately  to  the  south  of 
rathi.  Punjabi ;  while  Hindi  is  conterminous  with  the  Punjabi  on 

(4)  Hmdi.  jj^g   ^■x?X.     These   two   languages   rank    next    to   Punjabi    in 

respect  to  the  paucity  of  words  borrowed  directly  from  the 
Sanskrit.     They  are  chiefly  composed  of  Tadbhava,  i.e.  words 

(5)  Mara-    representing   the  Prakrits   or   old  spoken   dialects.      Marathi 
is  spoken  in  the  Districts  to  the  south  and  east  of  the  Guja- 

Aryanized.  The  question,  however,  has  never  been  systematically  or 
satisfactorily  investigated.  Some  attempts  have  latterly  been  made  in  this 
direction  by  showing  that  not  a  few  Sanskrit  words  are,  in  reality,  Prakrit 
words  Sanskritized.  The  next  step  will  be  to  show  that  some  Prakrit 
words  are  non-Aryan  words  Prakritized  {i.e.  Aryanized).' 


thi, 


THE  MODERN  VERNACULARS.  343 

rathi  frontier;  Bengali  succeeds  to  Hindi  in  the  east  of  Bengal  (6)Bengali. 
and  the  Gangetic  delta  ;  while  Uriya  occupies  the  Mahanadi  (7)  Uriya. 
delta  and  the  coast  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal  from  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Hugh  to  the  northern  Districts  of  Madras.  These 
three  last-named  vernaculars,  Marathi,  Bengali,  and  Uriya,  are 
most  largely  indebted  to  modern  and  artificial  importations 
direct  from  the  Sanskrit. 

With  the  exception  of  Sindhf,  the  modern  vernaculars  of  yemacular 
India  have  each  a  literature  of  their  own.  Some  of  them,  I'terauue. 
indeed,  possess  a  very  rich  and  copious  literature.  This  subject 
still  awaits  careful  study.  The  lamented  Garcin  de  Tassy  has  Garcin  di; 
shown  how  interesting,  and  how  rich  in  results,  that  study  may  ^^^sy. 
be  rendered.  His  history  of  Hindi  literature,^  and  his  yearly 
review  of  works  published  in  the  Indian  vernaculars,  form  a 
unique  monument  to  the  memory  of  a  scholar  who  worked 
under  the  disadvantage  of  never  having  resided  in  India. 
But  the  unexhausted  literary  stores  of  the  Indian  vernaculars 
can  only  be  appreciated  by  personal  inquiry  among  the  natives 
themselves.  The  barest  summary  of  the  written  and  unwritten 
works  in  the  modern  Indian  vernaculars  is  altogether  beyond 
the  scope  of  the  present  work.  It  can  merely  indicate  the 
wealth  of  unprinted,  and  in  many  cases  unwritten,  works 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  arranged  in 
geographical  areas.  The  chapter  will  then  conclude  by 
selecting  for  description  a  few  authors  from  three  of  the  most 
advanced  of  the  vernaculars  —  namely  Hindi,  Marathi,  and 
Bengali.  It  will  not  touch  on  the  Persian  or  Musalmdn 
literature  of  the  Delhi  Empire. 

As  regards  the  isolated  vernacular  of  Orissa,   the  present  Vernacular 
writer  has  elsewhere  given  an  analytical  catalogue  of  107  Uriya  ^^■'■^•^^'-'^ 
authors,  with  a  brief  description   of  47   Uriya  manuscripts  of  in  Uriy.i ; 
undetermined   authorship.'-     Several  of  the  Uriya  poets  and 
theologians  were  prolific  authors,  and  have  left  behind  them 
a  number  of  distinct  compositions.     Thus,  Dina  Krishna  Das 
(circ.    1550    A.D.)    was   so   popular   a   writer   as   to   earn   for 
himself  the   title   of   'The   Son   of    God    Jagannath.'      His 
separate  works   number   fifteen,  and   embrace   a  wide  range 
of  subjects,  from   '  the  Waves  of  Sentiment,'  an  account  of 
the  youthful  sports  of  Krishna,  to  severe  medical  treatises. 
Another  Orissa  poet  of  the   16th  century  composed  23  works, 

'  Histoire  de  la  Littcratitrc  Hindoitic  ct  Hi)idotistanu\  par  M.  Garcin 
de  Tassy,  3  vols,  large  octavo,  2nd  ed.,  Paris,  1870-71. 
-  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  ii.  App.  i.\.  cd.  1872. 


344  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

on  religious  and  metaphysical  subjects,  such  as  'A  Walk  round 
the  Sacred  Enclosures  of  the  Puri  Temple,'  and  '  The  Sea  of 
the  Nectar  of  Faith.'  The  greatest  of  the  Uriya  poets,  Upen- 
dra  Bhanj,  a  Raja  of  Gumsar,  belongs  to  nearly  the  same 
period.  He  left  behind  him  42  collections  of  poems  and 
treatises,  some  of  them  of  great  length. 

Messrs.    Hoernle   and    Grierson    have   lately  exhibited   the 

local  literature  of  Behar,  and  its  sub-divisions,  with  admirable 

learning  and  distinctness. ^     It  must  suffice  here  to  refer  the 

in  Bih.iri.    Student  to  their  lists  of  works  in  Bihari  and  the  modern  dialects 

of  the  Gaudian  group. 

Rajputdna       ^\,^  jjea  of  the  wealth  of  poetry  current  in  Rajputana  may 

be   gathered  from  the  following   statement.     The  figures  are 

taken  from  a  manuscript  note  forwarded  to  the  author  by  the 

Rev.  John  Traill,  Presbyterian  missionary  at  Jaipur.     Besides 

the  ordinary  Hindi  works,  such  as  translations  from  the  Sanskrit, 

the  Rajputs  have  a  vast  store  of  religious  poetry  and  traditional 

song,  still  living  in  the  mouths  of  the  people.     The  works  of 

only  a  single  sect  can  be  specified  in  detail. 

Dadu.  Dadu,  a  religious  reformer,  born  at  Ahmadabad  in  1544, 

left  behind  him  a  Bani,  or  body  of  sacred  poetry,  extending 

to  twenty  thousand  lines.      His  life,  by  Jai  Gopal,  runs  to 

three  thousand  lines.     Fifty-two  disciples  spread  his  doctrine 

throughout    Rajputana   and   Ajmere,    each    of  them    leaving 

a   large  collection  of  religious  verse.     The  literary  fertility  of 

.Sacred        the   sect    may   be   inferred  from   the  works   of  nine   of  the 

jioetry  of  a  (^igcip]eg_      The  poems   and   hymnology  of  Gharib    Das   are 

single  sect.       .,  ,.  t---^^^  1 

said   to   amount   to    33,000    hnes ;   Jaisa   is    stated   to    have 

composed  124,000  lines;  Prayag  Das,  48,000  lines;  Rajab-ji, 

72,000  lines;    Bakhna-ji,    20,000  lines;    Baba  Banwari    Das, 

1 2,000  lines;  Shankar  Das,  4400  lines;  Siindar  Das,  120,000 

lines  ;  and  IVIadhu  Das,  68,000  lines. 

Dadu  These    figures  are  stated  on  the   authority  of   Mr.   Traill, 

hymno-       ^nd  they  are  subject  to  the  qualification   that   no  European 

"  "         scholar  has  yet  collected  the  writings  of  the  sect.     They  are 

given  as  reported  by  the   natives    among  whom   the  poems 

are  still  current.     It  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  little  has  yet 

been  done  to  edit  the  stores  of  vernacular  literature  in  the 

Feudatory  States  of  India.     A  noble  task  lies  before  the  more 

enlightened  of  the  native  princes  ;  and  in  this  task  they  would 

receive   the   willing    assistance    of  English    scholars   now   in 

India, 

1  Comparative  Dictionary  of  the  Bihari  Language,  pp.  38-42  (quarto  ; 
Calcutta,  1885). 


THE  MODERN  VERNACULARS.  345 

\  very  brief  notice  of  the  most  distinguished  authors  in  Selected 

vernacul 
authors. 


Hindi,  Marathi,  and  Bengah'  must  conclude  this  chapter.     For  '^'^''"^cuiar 


practical  purposes,  those  three  vernaculars  represent  the  highest 
modern  development  of  the  modern  Indian  mind.  This  is, 
of  course,  exclusive  of  the  Dravidian  literature  in  the  south  of 
India,  which  has  already  been  dealt  with  at  the  beginning  of 
the  chapter.  The  monastic  literature  of  Burma  is  almost 
entirely  a  reproduction  of  the  ancient  Buddhist  writings,  and 
does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  work. 

Hindi  ranks,  perhaps,  highest  among  the  Indian  vernaculars  Hindi 

in   strength   and  dignity.     At  the   head   of  Hindi  authors   is  ^"^^°''^  '• 

Chand  Bardai.     Chand  was  a  native  of  Lahore,  but  lived  at  Chand 

the  court  of  Prithwi  Raja,  the  last  Hindu  sovereign  of  Delhi,  B^''^^'' 

-"   '  1    ^2th  cen- 

at  the  close  of  the  twelfth  century.^     His  poems  are  a  col- tury  a. d. 

lection  of  ballads  in  which  he  recites,  in  his  old  age,  the  gallant 
deeds  of  the  royal  master  whom  he  had  served,  and  whose  sad 
fate  he  had  survived.  They  disclose  the  ancient  Prakrit  in 
the  very  act  of  passing  into  the  modern  vernacular.  In  gram- 
matical structure  they  still  retain  many  relics  of  the  synthetic  or 
inflectional  type ;  although  the  analytical  forms  of  the  modern 
vernaculars  are  beginning  to  crowd  out  these  remnants  of  the 
earlier  phase  of  the  Indian  speech.  Chand's  ballads  have 
l)een  printed,  but  they  also  survive  in  the  mouths  of  the  people. 
They  are  still  sung  by  wandering  bards  throughout  North- 
western India  and  Rajputana,  to  near  the  mouths  of  the 
Indus,  and  to  the  frontier  of  Baluchistan. 

The  vernacular  literatures  derived  their  chief  impulse,  how-  Later 

ever,  not  from  court  minstrelsy,  but  from  religious  movements.  Hindi 
^      ,  ,      -^     ,  .         .    ?,  ,  ,         authors. 

Each  new  sect  seems  to  have  been  irresistibly  prompted  to 

embody  its  doctrines  in  verse.     Kabir,  the  Indian  Luther  of  15th  cen- 

the  fifteenth  century,  may  be  said  to  have  created  the  sacred '^"'^ '^■^'' 

literature   of   Hindi."-^      His    Ramainis   and   Sabdas  form   an 

immense   body   of    religious   poetry   and   doctrine.      In    the 

following     century,     Siir     Das    of     Mathura,     Nabhaji     and  i6th  ccn- 

Keshava  Das  of  Bijapur,  wrote  respectively  the  Sursagar,  the  '■"'^' 

Bhaktamala,  and  the  Ramchandrika.     A  brief  notice  of  the 

Bhaktamala  has   already   been   given   at    page   208.      In   the  17th  ccn- 

seventeenth  century,  Bihari  Lai,  of  the  ancient  city  of  Amber  ^^"'y- 

near    Jaipur,    composed    his    famous    Satsai ;    and    Bundel- 

khand  produced  its  prince  of  poets,   Lai    Kavi,  the   author 

of  the  Chhatra  Prakas.     All  these  were   natives  of  western 

^  For  Prithwi  Raja,  vide  ante,  chap.  x.  p.  276. 

-  For  Kabir's  work  as  a  religious  reformer,  vide  ante,  pp.  20S,  21S. 


346  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

Hindustan,    except    Kabir,    who    belonged    to    the    Benares 

district. 
iSth  cen-        The   last   troubled   years  of   the    Mughal   dynasty  in   the 
^^^'  eighteenth  century  brought  about  a  silence  in  Hindi  literature. 

That  silence  was  effectually  broken  by  the  introduction  of  the 
19th  cen-  printing  press  in  the  nineteenth  century.  It  has  been  suc- 
'"''-^'-  ceeded  by  a  great  outburst  of  Hindi  activity  in  prose  and  verse. 

Every  decade  now  produces  hundreds  of  Hindi  publications, 

to  some  extent  reproductions  or  translations  of  ancient  authors, 

but  also  to  a  large  extent  original  work. 

Marathi  The   Marathas  are  scarcely  more  celebrated  as  a  military 

literature,    ^j^^^^  ^g  ^  literary  race.     Their  language  is  highly  developed, 
and  possesses  structural  complications  attractive  to  the  Indian 
Nam  student.      The  first   Marathi  poet   of  fame  was  Nam   Deva, 

Deva,  13th  ^i^Qut  ^Q  gf^(j  Qf  j-j^g  thirteenth  century.     Like  his  contem- 
century  -'  /        ,  / 

A.D.  porary,  Dnyanoba  the  author  of  the  celebrated  Dnyaneshwan, 

Dnyanoba,  he  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  spiritual  aspects  of  life. 

turvA^n'  -^^"^s^dj  almost  all  the  Marathi  writers  are  religious  poets. 
About  the  year  157 1,  Sridhar  compiled  his  huge  Marathi 
adaptation  or  paraphrase  of  the  Sanskrit  Puranas. 

Tukaram,        Marathi  poetry  reached  its  highest  flight  in  the  Abhangas 

t^^-A^u  °''  spi^i^^^l  poems  of  Tukaram  or  Tukoba  {circ.  1609). 
This  famous  ascetic  started  life  as  a  petty  shopkeeper ;  but 
failing  in  retail  trade,  he  devoted  himself  to  religion  and 
literature.  The  object  of  his  adoration  was  Vithoba,  a  corrup- 
tion of  Bishtu  or  Vishnu.  Tukaram  was  the  popular  poet  in 
Western  India  of  the  reformed  Vishnuite  faith  which  Chaitanyd 
had  taught  in  Bengal.  He  inveighed  with  peculiar  unction 
and  beauty  against  the  riches  of  the  world,  which  in  his  earlier 
years  he  had  himself  failed  to  secure. 

Mayi'ir  About  1720,  Mayiir  Pandit  or  Moropanth  poured  forth  his 

I'andit,       copious  song  in  strains  which   some   regard   as    even   more 

tury  A.D.     elevated  than  the  poems  of  Tukaram. 

Besides  its  accumulations  of  religious  verse,  Marathi  possesses 
a  prose  literature,  among  which  the  chief  compositions  are  the 
Bakhars  or  Annals  of  the  Kings.  It  is  also  rich  in  love  songs, 
and  farcical  poetry  of  a  broad  style  of  wit. 

Bengali  Bengali  is,  in  some  respects,  the  most  modern  of  the  Indian 

literature;  vernaculars.     As  a  spoken  language,  it  begins  on  the  north, 

where  Hindi  ends  on  the  south ;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  Gangetic 

valley  below  Behar.      From   Rajmahal  on  the  north   to  the 

Bay  of  Bengal,  and  from  Assam  on  the  east  to  Orissa  on  the 


SOME  MARATIII  POETS.  347 

west,  Bengali  forms  the  speech  of  about  50  millions  of  people  its  geu- 
in  the  valleys  and  deltas  of  the  Brahmaputra  and  the  Ganges,  fj-ga -"^'^ 
The  language  exhibits  clearly  marked  dialectical  modifications 
in  the  north,  the  east,  and  the  west,  of  this  great  area.     But 
for  literary  purposes,  Bengali  may  be  regarded  as  a  linguistic 
entity.      Indeed,  literary  Bengali  of  the  modern  type  is,  to 
some  extent,   an  artificial   creation.       Much    more   than   the  and 
Hindi,  it  has  enriched  itself  by  means  of  words  directly  im-  f^^f^"^!."^ 
ported  from   the  Sanskrit.     Such  words  not  only  supply  the 
philosophical,  religious,  and  abstract  terms  of  Bengali  litera- 
ture,  but  they  enter  largely  into  the  every-day  language  of 
the  people.     This  is  to  some  extent  due  to  the  circumstance 
that  the  Bengalis  have  very  rapidly  adopted  western   ideas. 
With  the  introduction  of  such  ideas  arose  the  necessity  for  new 
terms;  and  for  these  terms,  Bengali  writers  naturally  turned 
towards  the  Sanskrit. 

The  process  has  not  been  confined,  however,  to  philosophic  Sanskritiz- 
works.    Even  in  poetry,  the  best  Bengali  writers  of  the  present  "^S  ten- 
day  affect  a  more  classical  style  than  that  of  their  predecessors  Bengali, 
from  the  fourteenth  to  the  eighteenth  century.     In  17  lines 
of  Bengali  verse  taken  from  a  contemporary  periodical,  the 
Banga-darsha?ta,  there  are  only  six  or  seven  words  which  are 
not  Sanskrit  importations.     '  If  we  progress  in  this  direction  a 
century  longer,'  writes  a  native  author,  '  the  Bengali  language 
will   be  distinguishable  from  the   Sanskrit  only  by  the  case 
terminations  and  mood  and  tense  terminations.'  ^     The  frame- 
work of  the  colloquial  language  still  continues  to  be  derived 
from  the  Prakrit,  although  Sanskrit  terms  are  diffusing  them- 
selves  even    among   the   spoken   language   of   the   educated 
classes. 

Bengali  literature  commences  with  the  vernacular  poets  of  Three 
the  fourteenth  century.     During  its  first  two  hundred  years,  i^en^alV 
Bengali  song  was  devoted  to  the  praises  of  Krishna,  and  the  literature ; 
loves  of  the  young  god.     In  the  sixteenth  century  two  great  (i)  14th  u< 
revolutions,    religious    and    political,   took   place   in   Bengal.  \J^^  *^^'^' 
In    the    political    world,    the    independent    Afghan    dynasty 
of  Bengal  succumbed  to  the  advancing  Mughal  power;  and 

1  Tlie  Literattcre  of  Bengal,  by  Arcy  Dae,  p.  43,  Calcutta,  1877.  This 
interesting  volume  is  based  on  the  more  elaborate  Bengali  work  of  Pandit 
Ramgati  Nyaratna.  A  complete  treatment  of  the  subject  is  still  a  desider- 
atum, which  it  is  hoped  that  Bengali  research  will  before  long  supply. 
Mr.  Dae,  whose  volume  has  been  freely  used  in  the  following  pages,  woukl 
confer  a  benefit  both  on  his  countrymen  and  on  European  students  of  the 
Indian  vernacvdars,  by  undertaking  the  task. 


tury. 


34S  THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 

Bengal  was  finally  incorporated  as  a  Province  of  the  Delhi 
Empire. 

(2)  i6th  to      In    religion,    a    reformation    of    the    Sivaite    religion    was 
i8th  cen-    ^ffgcted    under    Brahman    impulses,    and     Krishna  -  worship 

receded  from  its  literary  pre-eminence.  During  the  next  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  Bengali  poetry  found  its  chief  theme  in 
the  praises  of  Kali  or  Chandi,  the  queen  of  Siva,  who  is  alike 
the  god  of  Destruction  and  of  Reproduction.     Early  in  the 

(3)  19th      nineteenth  century,  European  influences  began  to  impress  them- 
century.      selves   on    Bengali   thought.      Bengali    literature   accordingly 

entered  upon  a  third  period,  the  period  through  which  it  is 

still  passing,  and  which  corresponds  to  the  imported  Western 

civilisation  of  India  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

liidyapati        Putting  aside  Jayadeva  of  Birbhiim,  the  Sanskrit  singer   in 

\1^\  "'^'      "^^^  twelfth  century,  Bengali  poetry  commences  with  Bidyapati 

tury.  Thakur,  a  Brahman  of  Tirhiit.     Bidyapati  adorned  the  court 

of  King  Sivasinha  of  Tirhiit  in  the  fourteenth  century ;  and  a 

deed  of  gift,  still  existing,  proves  that  he  had  made  his  fame 

before  1400  a.d.     Although  popularly  claimed  as  the  Chaucer 

of  Bengal,  he  wrote  in  what  must  now  be  regarded  as  a  Bihari 

rather  than  a  Bengali  dialect ;  and  recited  in  learned  verse  the 

f:bandi       loves  of  Radha  and  Krishna.     About  the  same  period  Chandi 

Das,  15th   p)3^g^  ^  Birbhiim  Brahman,  took  up  the  sacred  strain  in  the 

Bengali  tongue.     Originally  a  devotee  of  the  goddess  Chandi, 

(lueen  of  Siva,  he  was  miraculously  converted  to  the  worship 

of  Krishna,  whose  praises  he  celebrated  in  a  less  learned,  but 

more  forcible  colloquial  style.     To  these  two  poets  and  their 

followers,  Krishna  was  a  lover  rather  than  a  deity ;  and  his 

mistress  Radha,  more  of  a   pastoral  beauty  than  a  goddess. 

But  their  poetry  constantly  realizes  that  beneath  the  human 

amours   of  the  divine  pair,  lies  a  deep  spiritual  significance. 

Verses  by   This  didactic  side  of  their  poetry  may  be  illustrated  by  three 

IJidyapati.  verses  of  Bidyapati  to   Krishna  under  his  title  of  Madhava, 

' 'J'he  Honeyed  One.' 

A  Hymn  to  Krishna. 

'  O  !  ^ladhava  !  our  final  stay, 

The  Saviour  of  the  world  Thou  art, 
In  mercy  look  upon  the  weak, 

To  Thee  I  turn  with  trustful  heart. 

Half  of  my  life  in  sleep  has  past ; 

In  illness — boyhood — years  have  gone, 
In  pleasure's  vortex  long  I  roamed, 

Alas  I  forgetting  Thee,  the  One. 


so  ATE  BENGALI  POETS.  349 

Unnumbered  beings  live  and  die, 

They  rise  from  Tliee  and  sinlc  in  Thee, 
(Thou  uncreate  and  without  end  !) 

Lil<e  ripples  melting  in  the  sea.' ' 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  great  religious  Religious 

reformer  Chaitanya  ^  gave  a  more  serious  turn  to  the  poetry  of  "^"^'=^; 

Bengal,     He  preached  the  worship  of  Vishnu,  and  the  doctrine  the  i6tli 

of  saving  faith  in  that  deity.     Krishna  was  the  pastoral  incar-  century. 

nation   of  the  god ;  but  the  Vishnuism  taught  by  Chaitanya  The 

spiritualized   the   human   element  in  the  amours  which    the  Y'sh/iuite 

,.  .  Revival, 

earlier  poets  had  somewhat  warmly  sung.     Chaitanya  declared 

the  spiritual  equality  of  mankind,  and  combated  the  cruel 
distinctions  of  caste.  His  doctrine  amounted  to  a  protest 
against  the  Hinduism  of  his  day,  although  it  has  been  skilfully 
incorporated  by  the  later  Hinduism  of  our  own.  The  oppo- 
sition, excited  by  Chaitanya's  Vishnuite  reformation,  took  the 
•form  of  a  revival  of  the  worship  of  Siva  and  his  queen. 

There  were  thus,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  two  great  religious  The 
movements  going  on  in  Bengal ;  the  one  in  favour  of  Vishnu,  j^'^^j'^'^i 
the  second  person  of  the  Hindu  triad ;  and  the  other  in  favour 
of  Siva,  the  third  person  of  that  trinity.     The  more  serious 
aspect  which  Chaitanya  gave  to  Vishnuism  did  not  lend  itself 
to  popular   song  so  easily  as  the  human  loves  of  Krishna, 
celebrated  by  the  earlier  Vishnuite  poets.     On  the  other  hand, 
the  counter  revival  of  Sivaism  accepted  as  its  objects  of  adora-  Bengah' 
tion,  some  form  or  other  of  the  Goddess  of  Destruction  and  ^'^'-'"'^ 

poetry. 

Reproduction  under  her  various  names  ^  of  Uma,  Parvati, 
Durga,  Kali,  or  Chandi.  These  names  suggested  alike  the 
terrors  and  the  mercies  of  the  Queen  of  Siva,  and  appealed  in 
a  special  manner  to  a  people  dwelling  amid  the  stupendous 
catastrophes  of  nature  in  a  deltaic  Province  like  Bengal. 

The  result  was  an  outburst  of  Bengali  song,  which  took  as  Kirtibas 
its  theme  the  praises    of  Chandi,  the  wife  of  Siva.     Kirtibas    ^  .  ' 

.    ,        .       .       .  .  century. 

Ojha,  a  Brahman  of  Nadiya  District  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
marks  the  transition  stage.     Kirtibas  drew  his  inspiration  from  The  transi- 
the  Sanskrit  epics,  and  his  great  work  is  the  Bengali  version  of  '^'^P"'-'- 
the  Rdmdyana.     His  translation  is  still  recited  by  Ghattaks  or 
bards  at  a  thousand  religious  and  festive  gatherings  every  year 
throughout  Bengal.     Its  modern  versions  have  received  much 

1  Slightly  altered  from  the  rendering  of  Mr.  Uae's  Literature  of  Bengal, 
p.  60  (Bose  &  Co.,  Calcutta,  1877). 

^  Vide  ante,  pp.  2 1 9-2 1. 

^  For  the  different  names  of  the  wife  of  .Siva,  and  the  aspects  of  the 
goddess  which  these  names  connote,  vide  ante,  pp.  211,  212. 


3SO  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

re-touching  from  later  poets  of  the   classical  or  Sanskritizing 
school;  but  an  old  copy  of  1693  proves  that  Kirtibas  wrote 
in  a  strong  colloquial  style,  with  a  ring  and  rhythm  of  peculiar 
His  Ben-    beauty.    The  Rdmdyana  recites  the  achievements  of  the  heroic 
•g?L\\  Rani-  incarnation  of  Vishnu,  and   Kirtibas   Ojha  may  therefore  be 
claimed  as  a  Vishnuite  poet.     But  in  reality  his  work  marks 
the  Sanskrit  revival  which  gave  the  impulse  to  the  Sivaite 
or  Chandi  poets  of  the  next  two  and  a  half  centuries. 
Sivaite  and      These  Sivaite  poets  kept  possession  of  Bengali  literature  during 
uoe^ts'^'i6th  ^^  ^5°  y^^^s  which  elapsed  before  the  commencement  of  the 
to  18th        third    or  present  period.       First   among  them  was  Makunda 
century.       R^ni  Chakravarti,  a  Brahman  of  Bardwan  District,  and  a  con- 
Makunda    temporary  of  Kirtibas  Ojha  in  the   i6th  century.       He  was 
Ram.  driven  from  his  home  by  the  oppressions  of  Muhammadan 

officers,  and  his  verses  give  a  lifelike  picture  of  the  Muham- 
madan land  settlement  of  Lower  Bengal.  All  classes,  he  says, 
were  crushed  with  an  equal  tyranny ;  fallow  lands  were  entered 
as  arable,  and  by  a  false  measurement,  three-fourths  of  a 
bighd  were  taxed  as  a  full  bighd.  In  the  collection  of  the 
revenue,  the  oppressions  were  not  less  than  in  the  assessment. 
The  treasury  officers  deducted  more  than  one  rupee  in  seven  for 
short  weight  and  exchange.  The  husbandmen  fled  from  their 
lands,  and  threw  their  cattle  and  goods  into  the  markets,  'so  that 
a  rupee  worth  of  things  sold  for  ten  annas.'  Makunda  Ram's 
family  shared  the  common  ruin ;  but  the  young  poet,  after  a 
wandering  life,  found  shelter  as  tutor  in  the  family  of  Ban- 
kura  Deb,  a  powerful  landholder  of  Birbhiim  and  Midnapur 
Districts.  He  was  honoured  with  the  title  of  Kabi  Kankan,  or 
the  Jewel  of  Bards,  and  wrote  two  great  poems  besides  minor 
songs. 
The  story        His  most  popular  work  is  the  story  of  Kalketu,  the  hunter. 

ofKalketu,  Kalketu,  a  son  of  Indra,  King  of  Heaven,  is  born  upon  earth 

l)y  Ma-  ... 

kunda         ^"^  ^  poor  hunter.     In  his  celestial  existence  he  had  a  devoted 

Ram.  \\\{q^  and  she,   too,   is  born  in  this  world,  and  becomes  his 

faithful  companion  throughout  their    allotted  earthly  career. 

Their  mortal  births  had  been  brought  about  by  the  goddess 

Chandi,  queen  of  Siva,  in  order  that  she  might  have  a  city 

founded  and  dedicated  to  herself.     The  poor  hunter  and  his 

wife,   FuUora,  after  years  of  hardship,  are  guided  to  a  buried 

treasure  by   their   kind   patroness,    Chandi.      With   this,    the 

hunter  builds  a  city,  and  dedicates  it  to  the  goddess.     But 

misled  by  a  wicked  adviser,  he  goes  to  war  with  the  King  of 

Kalinga  on  the  south,  is  defeated,  and  cast  into  prison.     In 

due  time  Chandi  rescues  her  foolish  but  faithful  servant.     At 


SOME  BENGALI  POETS.  351 

last  the  hunter  and  his  true  wife  die  and  ascend  to  heaven. 
He  lives  again  as  the  son  of  Indra,  while  Fullora  again  becomes 
his  celestial  spouse. 

The  other  poem  of  Makunda  Ram  narrates  the  adventures  The  Sn'- 
of  a  spice  merchant,  Dhanapati,  and  his  son,  Srimanta  Sada-  s^^jll^^r  of 
gar.     A  celestial  nymph,   Khullond,  is  sent  down  to  live  on  Makunda 
earth    as  penance  for   a  venial  offence.      She   grows  into  a  ^^^'"" 
beautiful  girl,  and  is  wedded  by  the  rich  merchant,  Dhanapati, 
who  has,  however,  already  a  first  wife.     Before  the  marriage 
can  be  consummated,  the  king  of  the  country  sends  off  the 
merchant  to  Eastern  Bengal  to  procure  a  golden  cage  for  a 
favourite    bird.       The   bride   is   left  with    his  elder  wife   in 
the    family    home    upon    the    banks    of   the   Adjai,   a    river 
which  separates    Birbhum    and    Bardwan    Districts   in  South- 
western Bengal,     h.  wicked  handmaid  excites  the  jealousy  of 
the   elder  wife,   and  the  girl-bride  is  condemned  to  menial 
.offices,  and  sent  forth  as  a  goat-herd  to  the  fields.     The  kind 
goddess  Chandi,  however,  converts  the  elder  lady  to  a  better 
frame  of  mind ;  the  girl-bride  is  received  back  ;  and  on  the 
return  of  her  husband  becomes  his  favourite  wife.      In  due 
time  she  bears  him  a  son,  Srimanta  Sadagar,  the  hero  of  the 
subsequent  story. 

The  king  next  sends  the  merchant  for  spices  to  Ceylon,  and  Voyage 
his  voyage  down  the  great  rivers  of  Bengal  and  across  the  sea  ^'^j^jl^^id 
is  vividly  described.     From  the  towns  mentioned  on  his  route,  Adi  Gaiis,ra 
it  appears  that  in  those  days  the  water-way  from  Bardwan  to  Ceylon, 
District  and  the  neighbouring  country,  to  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  tury. 
lay  by  the   Hiigli  as  far  down  as  Calcutta,  and  then  struck 
south-eastward  by  what    is   now  the   dead  river  of  the  Adi- 
Ganga.'^     The  poor  merchant  is  imprisoned  by  the  King  of 
Ceylon,   and  there  languishes  until  he  is  sought  out  by  his 
brave  son,  Srimanta  Sadagar,  from  whom  the  poem  takes  its 
name.     Srimanta  is  also  seized,  and  led  out  to  execution  by 
the  cruel  king.     But  the  kind  goddess  Chandi  delivers  both 
father  and  son,  and  the  beautiful  Khullona  receives  back  with 
joy  her  lost  treasures  from  the  sea. 

In  the  17th  century,  the  second  of  the  two  great  Sanskrit  Kasi  Ram 
epics,  the  Mahdbhdrata,  was  translated  by   Kasi  Ram   Das.  J^^^^;,'^^^^ 
This  poet  also  belonged  to  Bardwan  District.      His  version 
still    holds   its   place    in    the   affections   of   the    people,  and 
is  chanted  by  professional  bards  throughout  all  Bengal.     The  Bengali- 
more    tender  episodes  are  rendered  with  feeling  and  grace  ;  ana!^^" 

'  See  article  HCGLI  River  in  The  Imperial  Gazdteer  of  India. 


352  THE  INDIAN  VERNACULARS. 

but  the  fiery  quarrels  and  heroic  spirit  of  the  Sanskrit  original 
lose  much  in  the  Bengali  translation. 
Bengali  The  1 8th  century  produced  two  great   Bengali  poets.     In 

th'^^iSth  ^7 2°'  Ram  Prasad  Sen,  of  the  Vaidya  caste,  was  born  in 
century.  Nadiya  District.  Sent  at  an  early  age  as  clerk  to  a  Calcutta 
Ram  office,  he  scribbled  verses  when  he  should  have  been  casting 

Prasad        ^p  accounts,  and  was  reported  for  punishment  by  the  chief 
clerk.     The  head  of  the  business  read  the  rhymes,  dismissed 
the  poet,  but  assigned  to  him  a  pension  of  Rs.  30  a  month. 
With  this  he  retired  to  his  native  village,   and  wrote  poetry 
for  the  rest  of  his  life.     Ram   Prasad  was  a  devout  Tantrik 
or  worshipper  of   the  wife   of   Siva,  and  his    poems   consist 
chiefly  of  appeals  to  the  goddess  under  her  various  names  of 
Kali,  Sakti,   etc.     His  songs,   however,  are  more  often  com- 
plaints of  her  cruelty  than  thanksgivings  for  her  mercies.^ 
The  Court      The  little  Hindu  court  of  Nadiya  then  formed  the  centre  of 
iSth  cen-^'  ^^^^'^i^g  ^"^  literature  in  Bengal,  and  the  Raja  endowed  Ram 
tuiy.  Prasad  with  33  acres  of  rent-free  land.     The  grateful  poet  in 

return  dedicated  to  the  prince  his  Kahiraiijan,  or  version  of 
the  tale  of  Bidyd  Sundar.  The  fame  of  this  version  has, 
however,  been  eclipsed  by  the  rendering  of  the  same  story  by 
a  rival  poet  Bharat  Chandra.  Two  other  well-known  works,  the 
Kali  Kirtan  and  the  Krishna  Kirtan,  in  honour  respectivel}- 
of  Kali  and  Krishna,  with  many  minor  poems,  have  also  come 
down  from  the  pen  of  Ram  Prasad. 
Bhaiat  The  Other  great  Bengal  poet  of  the  i8th  century  was  Bharat 

Chandra  Chandra  Rai,  who  died  1760.  The  son  of  a  petty  Raja,  he 
was  driven  from  his  home  by  the  oppressions  of  the  Raja  of 
Bardwan,  and  after  many  adventures  and  imprisonment,  ob- 
tained the  protection  of  the  chief  native  officer  of  the  French 
Settlement  at  Chandarnagar.  The  generosity  of  the  Raja  of 
Nadiya^  afterwards  raised  him  to  comfort,  and  he  devoted 
his  life  to  three  principal  poems.  His  version  of  the  Bidyd 
Sundar  is  a  passionate  love  poem,  and  remains  the  accepted 
rendering  of  that  tale  to  the  present  day.  The  goddess 
Kali  interposes  at  the  end  to  save  the  life  of  the  frail  heroine. 
His  other  two  principal  poems,  the  Aniiadd  Mangal  and  the 
Mdusinha,  form  continuations  of  the  same  work  ;  and,  like  it, 
are  devoted  to  the  glorification  of  the  queen  of  Siva  under  her 
various  names. 

Witli  the  printing  press,  and  the  Anglo-Indian  School,  arose 

'  Yi:i&\  Literature  of  Bengal,  p.  147.     (Calcutta,  1877.) 
^  Mr.  Dae  says,  inadvertently,  the  Raja  of  Bardwan.  , 


RE  CENT  BENGAL  I  LITER  A  TURE.  353 

a  generation  of  Bengali's  whose  chief  ambition  is  to  live  by  the  Recent 
pen.     The  majority  find  their  career  in  official,  mercantile,  or  ^engah  ^ 
professional  employment.     But  a  large  residue  become  writers  19th  cen-'  ' 
of  books ;  and  Bengal  is  at  present  passing  through  a  grand  '^"f)'' 
literary  climacteric.     Nearly  1300  works  per  annum  are  pub- 
lished in  the  vernacular  languages  of  Lower  Bengal  alone. 
It   is   an    invidious  task  to  attempt  to  single  out  the   most 
distinguished  authors  of  our  own  day.     Amid  such  a  climax  of 
literary  activity,  much  inferior  work  is  produced.    But  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  in  poetry,  philosophy,  science,  the  novel 
and  the  drama,  Bengali  literature  has,  in  this  century,  produced 
masterpieces  without  rivals  in  its  previous  history.      In  two 
departments  it  has  struck  out  entirely  new  lines.      Bengali 
prose  practically  dates  from  Ram  Mohan  Rai  ;  and  Bengali 
journalism  is  essentially  the  creation  of  the  third  quarter  of  the 
present  century. ^ 

As  Bengali  poetry  owed  its  rise  in  the  14th  century,  and  its  Bengali 

fresh  impulse  in  the  i6th,  to  outbursts  of  religious  song;  so  Pi^o^e,  igm 

^  '  o  &  J         century. 

Bengali   prose   is   the   offspring   of   the    religious   movement 

headed  by  the  Raja  Ram  Mohan  Rai  in  the  19th.     This  great 

theistic  reformer  felt  that  his  doctrines  and  arguments  required 

a  more  serious  vehicle  than  verse.     When  he  died  in  1833,  he 

at  once  received  the  position  of  the  father  of  Bengali  prose, — 

a  position  which  he  still  enjoys  in  the  grateful  memories  of  his 

countrymen.'^      Of  scarcely  less  importance,  however,  in  the 

creation  of  a  good  prose  style,  were  two  rival  authors  born  in 

1820.     Akkhai  Kumar  Datta  enforced  the  theistic  doctrines 

of  the  Brahma  Samaj  with  indefatigable  ability  in  his  rehgious 

journal,  the  Tahi'abodhmi  Patrikd.      Reprints  of  his  articles 

still  rank  as   text-books  of  standard    Bengali   prose.      Iswar 

Chandra  Vidyasagar,  also  born   in   1820,  devoted  himself  to 

social   reform  upon    orthodox    Hindu   lines.      The   enforced 

celibacy  of  widows,  and  the  abuses  of  polygamy,  have  formed 

the  subject  of  his  life-long  attacks. 

An  older  worker,  Iswar  Chandra  Gupta,  born  1809,  took  the 

lead  in  the  modern  popular  poetry  of  Bengal.     His  fame  has 

^  From  no  list  of  19th  century  Bengali  authors  should  the  following 
names  be  omitted : — Ram  Mohan  Rai,  Akkhai  Kumar  Datta,  Iswar 
Chandra  Vidyasagar,  Iswar  Chandra  Gupta,  Wadhu  Sudan  Datta,  Hem 
Chandra  Banarji,  Bankim  Chandra  Chattarji,  Dino  Eandhu  Mitra,  and 
Nabin  Chandra  Sen. 

^  Raja  Ram  ]\Iohan  Rai  (Rammohun  Roy)  is  also  well  known  for  his 
English  works,  of  which  it  is  pleasant  to  record  that  a  collected  reprint  is 
now  appearing  under  the  editorship  of  ]:5abu  Gogendra  Chandra  Ghose, 
M.A.  (Calcutta,  1885). 

z 


;54 


THE  INDIAN  VERNACUIARS. 


Modern 
IJengali 
poets, 
19th  cen- 
tury. 


Madhu 
Sudan 
Datta, 
1828-1S75. 


The 

I'.cngali 

iJrama. 


been  eclipsed,  however,  by  Madhu  Sudan  Datta,  born  1828, 
who  now  ranks  higher  in  the  estimation  of  his  countrymen  than 
any  Bengah'  poet  of  this  or  any  previous  age.  Madhu  Sudan's 
epic,  the  Meghndd  Badh  Kdbya,  is  reckoned  by  Bengali  critics 
as  second  only  to  the  masterpieces  of  Valmiki,  Kalidasa, 
Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakspeare.  This  generous  appreciation 
is  characteristic  of  the  catholic  spirit  of  Hinduism.  For 
Madhu  Sudan  Datta  became  a  Christian,  lectured  as  pro- 
fessor in  a  Christian  college,  went  to  England,  and  returned  to 
Bengal  only  to  die,  after  a  too  brief  career,  in  1875.  His  epic 
relates  the  death  of  Meghnad  or  Indrajit,  greatest  of  the  sons 
of  Ravana,  and  takes  its  materials  from  the  well-known  episode 
in  the  Ramayaiia.  Among  Bengali  poets  still  living.  Hem 
Chandra  Banarji  occupies  perhaps  the  highest  place  of  honour. 
In  the  Bengali  drama,  Dina  Bandhu  Mitra,  born  1829,  died 
1873,  led  the  way.  His  first  and  greatest  work,  the  Nil 
Dai'pan  or  Mirror  of  Indigo,  startled  the  community  by  its 
picture  of  the  abuses  of  indigo  planting  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  It  was  translated  into  English  by  the  well-known 
missionary  and  philanthropist,  the  Rev.  James  Long ;  and 
formed  the  ground  of  an  action  for  libel,  ending  in  the  fine 
and  imprisonment  of  the  latter  gentleman.  In  prose  fiction, 
Bunkim  Chandra  Chattarji,  born  1838,  ranks  first.  The  Bengali 
novel  is  essentially  a  creation  of  the  last  half  century,  and  the 
Diirgesh  Naiidini  of  this  author  has  never  been  surpassed. 
But  many  new  novelists,  dramatists,  and  poets  are  now  estab- 
lishing their  reputation  in  Bengal ;  and  the  force  of  the  literary 
impulse  given  by  the  State  School  and  the  printing  press  seems 
still  unabated.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  so  little  of  that 
intellectual  activity  has  flowed  into  the  channels  of  biography 
and  critical  history. 


The  mean- 
ing of  this 
chapter. 


This  chapter  has  dealt  at  some  length  with  the  vernacular 
literature  of  India,  because  a  right  understanding  of  that  litera- 
ture is  necessary  for  the  comprehension  of  the  chapters  which 
follow.  It  concludes  the  part  of  the  present  book  which  treats 
of  the  struggle  for  India  by  the  Asiatic  races.  In  the  next 
chapter  the  European  nations  come  upon  the  scene.  How 
they  strove  among  themselves  for  the  mastery  will  be  briefly 
narrated.  The  conquest  of  India  by  any  one  of  them  formed 
a  problem  whose  magnitude  not  one  of  them  appreciated. 
The  Portuguese  spent  the  military  resources  of  their  country, 
and  the  religious  enthusiasm   of  their  Church,   in   the  vain 


RECENT  BENGALI  FICTION.  355 

attempt  to  establish  an  Indian  dominion  by  the  Inquisition  and  Assaults 
the  Sword.     This  chapter  has  shown   the   strength  and  the  indifrenous 
extent  of  the  indigenous  civilisation  which  they  thus  ignorantly  civilisation 
and  unsuccessfully  strove  to  overthrow.  °    "  '^" 

The  Indian  races  had  themselves  confronted  the  problems 
for  which  the  Portuguese  attempted  to  supply  solutions  from 
without.  One  religious  movement  after  another  had  swept 
across  India ;  one  philosophical  school  after  another  had  pre- 
sented its  explanation  of  human  existence  and  its  hypothesis 
of  a  future  life.  A  popular  literature  had  sprung  up  in  every 
Province.  The  Portuguese  attempt  to  uproot  these  native 
growths,  and  to  forcibly  plant  in  their  place  an  exotic  civilisa- 
tion and  an  exotic  creed,  was  foredoomed  to  failure.  From 
any  such  attempt  the  Dutch  and  the  French  wisely  abstained. 
One  secret  of  the  success  of  the  British  power  has  been  its  English 

non-interference  with   the  customs   and   the   religions  of  the  "^"""^fs''- 

°  ference. 

people. 


[  356  ] 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

EARLY  EUROPEAN  SETTLEMENTS  (1498  TO  iStH   CENTURY  A.D.). 

The  Portu-  The  Muhammadan  invaders  of  India  had  entered  from  the 

fndta  "'     north-west.     Her  Christian  conquerors  approached  by  sea  from 

Vasco  da    the  south.     From  the  time  of  Alexander  to  that  of  Vasco  da 

Cama,        Gama,  Europe  held  little  direct  intercourse  with  the  East.     An 

occasional  traveller  brought  back  stories  of  powerful  kingdoms 

,  and  of  untold  wealth ;  but  the  passage  by  sea  was  scarcely 

dreamed  of,  and  by  land,  wide  deserts  and  warlike  tribes  lay 

between.      Commerce,  indeed,  struggled  overland  and  via  the 

Red  Sea ;  being  carried  on  chiefly  by  the  Italian  cities  on  the 

Mediterranean,  which  traded  to  the  ports  of  the  Levant.^    But  to 

■    the  Europeans  of  the  15  th  century,  India  was  an  unknown  land, 

which  powerfully  attracted  the  imagination  of  spirits  stimulated 

^  The  following  is  a  list  of  the  most  noteworthy  early  travellers  to  the 
East,  from  the  9th  century  to  the  establishment  of  the  Portuguese  as  a 
conquering  power  in  India  in  the  i6th.  The  Arab  geographers  will 
be  found  in  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  first  volumes  of  the  Indian  Historians. 
The  standard  European  authority  is  The  Book  of  Scr  Marco  Polo  the 
Venetian,  edited  by  Colonel  Henry  Yule,  C.B.,  2  vols.,  second  edition, 
1875.  The  author's  best  thanks  are  due  to  Colonel  Yule  for  the  assistance 
he  has  kindly  afforded  both  here  and  in  those  articles  of  The  Imperial 
Gazetteer  of  India,  which  came  within  the  scope  of  Colonel  Yule's  re- 
searches. The  authorities  for  the  more  ancient  travellers  and  Indian 
geographers  are,  as  already  stated,  M'Crindle's  Megastkenes  and  Arrian, 
his  Ktesias,  and  his  Navigation  of  the  Erythrcean  Sea,  which  originally 
appeared  in  the  Indian  Antiquary,  and  were  republished  by  Messrs. 
Trijbner.  The  Commerce  and  Navigation  of  tiie  Ancients  in  the 
Indian  Ocean,  by  Dr.  William  Vincent,  Dean  of  Westminster  (2  vols, 
quarto,  1807),  may  still  be  perused  with  interest,  although  Dr.  Vincent's 
materials  have  been  supplemented  by  fuller  and  more  accurate  knowledge. 
883  A.D.  King  Alfred  sends  Sighehn  of  Sherburn  to  the  shrine  of  Saint 

Thomas  in  '  India.'     The  site  of  the  shrine  is  doubtful,  see  chap.  ix. 
851-916.   Sulaiman  and  Abu  Zaid,  whose  travels  furnished  the  Relations 

of  Reinaud.  1 

912-30.  The  geographer  Mas'udi. 
1159-73.  Rabbi  Benjamin  of  Tudela  ;  visited  Persian  Gulf,  reported  on 

India. 
1260-71.   The   brothers   Nicolo   and    Maffeo   Polo,    father   and    uncle   of 

Marco  Polo  ;  make  their  first  trading  venture  through  Central  Asia.        , 


FIRST  PORTUGUESE   VOYAGES.  357 

by  the  renaissance,  and  ardent  for  discovery.  The  materials 
for  this  period  have  been  collected  by  Sir  George  Birdwood 
in  his  admirable  official  Report  on  tlie  Old  Records  of  the  India 
Office  (1879),  to  which  the  following  paragraphs  are  largely 
indebted.  The  history  of  the  various  European  setdements 
will  be  found  in  greater  detail,  under  their  respective  articles, 
in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

In  1492,  Christopher  Columbus  sailed  westwards  under  the  Portuguese 
Spanish  flag  to  seek  India  beyond  the  Atlantic,  bearing  with  ^^y^^*-^- 
him  a  letter  to  the  great  Khan  of  Tartary.  He  found  America 
instead.  An  expedition  under  Vasco  da  Gama  started  from 
Lisbon  five  years  later,  in  the  opposite,  or  south-eastern,  direc- 
tion. It  doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  cast  anchor  off 
the  city  of  Calicut  on  the  20th  May  1498,  after  a  protracted 
voyage  of  nearly  eleven  months.  An  earlier  Portuguese 
emissary,  Covilham,  had  reached  Calicut  overland  about  1487. 

1271.  They  started  on  their  second  journey,  accompanied  by  Marco  Polo  ; 

and  about  1275,  arrived  at  the  Court  of  Kublai   Khan  in   Shangtu, 

whence  Marco  Polo  was  entrusted  with  several  missions  to  Cochin 

China,  Khanbulig  (Pekin),  and  the  Indian  Seas. 
1292.   Friar  John  of  Monte  Corvino,   afterwards   Archbishop  of  Pekin  ; 

spent  thirteen  months  in  India  on  his  way  to  China. 
1304-78.   Ibn    Batuta,   an   Arab   of  Tangiers ;    after  many   years   in   the 

East,  attached  himself  to  the  Court  of  Muhammad  TughLak  at  Delhi, 

1334-42,  whence  he  was  despatched  on  an  Enibassy  to  China. 
1316-30.   Odorico  di  Pordenone,   a  Minorite  friar  ;   travelled  in  the  East 

and  through  India  by-  way  of  Persia,    Bombay,   and  Surat  (where  he 

collected  the  bones  of  four  missionaries  martyred  in  1321),  to  Malabar, 

the  Coromandel  coast,  and  thence  to  China  and  Tibet. 
1328.  Friar  Jordanus  of  Severac,  Bishop  of  Quilon. 
1338-49.  John  de   Marignolli,  a  Franciscan  friar  ;   on  his   return  from  a 

mission  to  China,   visited  Quilon  in  1347,  and  made  a  pilgrimage  to 

the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  in  India  in  1349. 
1327-72.   Sir  John  Mandeville  ;  wrote  his  travels  in  India  (supposed  to  be 

the  first   printed   English    book,    London,    1499) ;    but   beyond   the 

Levant  his  travels  are  invented  or  borrowed. 
1419-40.   Nicolo  Conti,  a  noble  Venetian  ;  travelled  throughout  Southern 

India  and  along  the  Bombay  coast. 
1442-44.   Abd-ur-Razzak  ;   during  an  embassy  to  India,   visited  Calicut, 

Mangalore,  and  Vijayanagar,  where  he  was  entertained  in  state  by  the 

Hindu  sovereign  of  that  kingdom. 
1468-74.  Athanasius    Nikitin,    a    Russian ;    travelled    from    the    Volga, 

through  Central   Asia  and  Persia,   to  Gujarat,   Cambay,   and  Chaul, 

whence  he  proceeded  inland  to  Bidar  and  Golconda. 
1494-99.  Hieronimo  di  Santo  Stefano,   a  Genoese  ;   visited  the  port  of 

Malabar  and  the  Coromandel  coast  as  a  merchant  adventurer,  and 

after  proceeding  to  Ceylon  and  Pegu,  sailed  for  Cambay. 
1503-08.   Travels  of  Ludovico  di  Varthema.     In  the  Hakhiyt  Series. 


358        EARL  V  E  UR  OPEAN  SE  TTLEMENTS. 


State  of 
India  on 
arrival  of 
Portu- 
guese. 


Raja  of 
Calicut's 
letter, 
1498. 


From  the  first,  Da  Gama  encountered  hostility  from  the  Moors, 
or  rather  Arabs,  who  monopohzed  the  sea-borne  trade ;  but  he 
seems  to  have  found  favour  with  the  Zamorin  or  Hindu  Raja  of 
INIalabar.  An  Afghan  of  the  Lodi  dynasty  was  then  on  the 
throne  of  Delhi,  and  another  Afghan  king  was  ruling  over  Bengal. 
Ahmadabad  formed  the  seat  of  a  Muhammadan  dynasty  in 
Gujarat.  The  five  independent  Muhammadan  kingdoms  of 
Ahmednagar,  Bijapur,  Elichpur,  Golconda,  and  Bidar  had 
partitioned  out  the  Deccan.  But  the  Hindu  Raja  of  Vijayanagar 
still  ruled  as  paramount  in  the  south,  and  was  perhaps  the  most 
powerful  monarch  to  be  found  at  that  time  in  India,  not 
excepting  the  Lodi  dynasty  at  Delhi. 

After  staying  nearly  six  months  on  the  Malabar  coast,  Da 
Gama  returned  to  Europe,  bearing  with  him  the  following 
letter  from  the  Zamorin  to  the  King  of  Portugal : — '  Vasco  da 
Gama,  a  nobleman  of  your  household,  has  visited  my  kingdom 
and  has  given  me  great  pleasure.  In  my  kingdom  there  is 
abundance  of  cinnamon,  cloves,  ginger,  pepper,  and  precious 
stones.  What  I  seek  from  thy  country  is  gold,  silver,  coral, 
and  scarlet'  The  safe  arrival  of  Da  Gama  at  Lisbon  was  cele- 
brated with  national  rejoicings  as  enthusiastic  as  those  whicli 
had  greeted  the  return  of  Columbus.  If  the  West  Indies 
belonged  to  Spain  by  priority  of  discovery,  Portugal  might 
claim  the  East  Indies  by  the  same  right.  The  Portuguese 
mind  became  intoxicated  by  dreams  of  a  mighty  oriental  empire. 
The  early  Portuguese  navigators  were  not  traders  or  private 
adventurers,  but  admirals  with  a  royal  commission  to  conquer 
territory  and  to  promote  the  spread  of  Christianity.  A  second 
expedition,  consisting  of  thirteen  ships  and  twelve  hundred 
soldiers,  under  the  command  of  Cabral,  was  despatched  in 
1500.  'The  sum  of  his  instructions  was  to  begin  with  preach- 
ing, and  if  that  failed,  to  proceed  to  the  sharp  determination  of 
the  sword.'  On  his  outward  voyage,  Cabral  was  driven  by 
stress  of  weather  to  the  coast  of  Brazil.  Ultimately  he  reached 
Calicut,  and  established  factories  both  there  and  at  Cochin,  in 
spite  of  active  hostilities  from  the  natives. 
Portuguese  In  1502,  the  King  of  Portugal  obtained  from  Pope  Alex- 
supremacy  ander  vi.  a  bull  constituting  him  '  Lord  of  the  Navigation, 
Conquests,  and  Trade  of  Ethiopia,  Arabia,  Persia,  and  India.' 
In  that  year  Vasco  da  Gama  sailed  again  to  the  East,  with  a 
fieet  numbering  twenty  vessels.  He  formed  an  alliance  with 
the  Rajas  of  Cochin  and  Cananore  against  the  Zamorin  of 
Calicut,  and  bombarded  the  latter  in  his  palace.  In  1503,  the 
great  Alfonso  d'Albuquerque  sailed  to  the  East  in  command  of 


Portuguese 
expedi- 
tion, 1500. 


seas,  1500- 
1600. 


I 


ALBUQUERQUE   VICEROY.  359 

one  of  three  expeditions  from  Portugal.     In  1505,  a  large  fleet 

of  t\vent}'-t\vo  sail  and  fifteen  thousand  men  was  sent  under 

Francisco   de   Almeida,   the    first    Portuguese   Governor   and 

Viceroy  of  India. 

In   1509,  Albuquerque  succeeded  as  Governor,  and  widely  Albu- 

extended  the  area  of  Portuguese  influence.     Having  failed  in  ^"^"^T-Jf 

^   .  .  °    .  takes  Ooa, 

an  attack  upon  Calicut,  he  in   15 10   seized  Goa,  which  has  15 10. 

since  remained  the  capital  of  Portuguese  India.     Then,  sailing 

round  Ceylon,  he  captured  Malacca,  the  key  to  the  navigation 

of  the  Indian  archipelago,  and  opened  a  trade  with  Siam  and 

the  Spice  Islands.     Lastly,  he  sailed  back  westwards,  and  after 

penetrating  into  the  Persian  Gulf  and  the  Red  Sea,  returned 

to  Goa  only  to  die  in   15 15.     In   1524,  Vasco  da  Gama  came 

out  to  the  East  for  the  third  time,  and  he  too  died  at  Cochin, 

in    1527.     For   exactly  a  century,   from    1500    to    1600,   the 

Portuguese  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  Oriental  trade.^      '  From 

Japan  and  the  Spice  Islands  to  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Cape  of 

Good  Hope,  they  were  the  sole  masters  and  dispensers  of  the 

treasures  of  the  East ;  while  their  possessions  along  the  Atlantic 

coast  of  Africa  and  in  Brazil  completed  their  maritime  empire.'^ 

But   the    Portuguese    had    neither    the    political    strength  Cruelties 

nor  the   personal   character   necessary  to   maintain   such   an  °'  f'o'f"- 
.  .  .    ffuese  111 

Empire.      Their  national  temper  had  been  formed   in  their  India. 

contest  with  the  Moors  at  home.     They  were  not  traders,  but 

knights-errant  and  crusaders,  who  looked  on  every  pagan  as 

an  enemy  of  Portugal  and  of  Christ.     Only  those  who  have 

read  the  contemporary  narratives  of  their  conquests,  can  realize 

the  superstition  and  the  cruelty  with  which  their  history  in 

the  Indies  is  stained. 

Albuquerque  alone  endeavoured  to  conciliate  the  goodwill  Albn- 

of  the    natives,  and   to   live   in   friendship   with    the    Hindu  l^frque  s 

^  policy  of 

prmces,  who  were  naturally  better  pleased  to  have  the  Portu-  concilia- 
guese,  as  governed  by  him,   for  their  neighbours  and  allies,  ^^o"- 
than  the   Muhammadans  whom  he  had  expelled  or  subdued. 
The  justice  and  magnanimity   of  his   rule   did   as   much   to 
extend  and  confirm  the  power  of  the  Portuguese  in  the  East, 
as  his  courage  and  the  success  of  his  military  achievements. 

^  For  a  full  account  of  the  Portuguese  in  India,  and  the  curious  phases 
of  society  which  they  developed,  see  article  Goa,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer 
of  India.  Also  for  local  notices,  see  articles  Daman,  Diu,  Bassein, 
Calicut. 

*  This  and  the  following  paragraphs  are  condensed  from  Sir  George 
Birdwood's  official  Report  on  the  Miscellaneous  Old  Records  in  the  India 
OJicc,  dated  1st  November  187S  (folio,  1879). 


3  6o       EARL  Y  E  UR  OPE  AN  SE  TTLEMENTS. 

In  such  veneration  was  his  memory  held,  that  the  Hindus  of 
Goa,  and  even  the  Muhammadans,  were  wont  to  repair  to  his 
tomb,  and  there  utter  their  complaints,  as  if  in  the  presence  of 
his  shade,  and  call  upon  God  to  deliver  them  from  the  tyranny 
of  his  successors. 
Later  'The  cruelties  of  Soarez,   Sequeyra,   Menezes,   Da   Gama, 

iceio)b,  ^^^   succeeding   viceroys,  drove   the   natives   to  desperation, 
and  encouraged  the  princes  of  Western  India  in  1567  to  form 
a  league  against  the  Portuguese,  in  which  they  were  joined  by 
their  the  King  of  Achi'n.'    But  the  undisciplined  Indian  troops  were 

•■a^ery.  enable  to  stand  against  the  veteran  soldiers  of  Portugal;  200 
of  whom,  at  Malacca,  routed  15,000  natives  with  artillery. 
When,  in  r578,  Malacca  was  again  besieged  by  the  King  of 
Achin,  the  small  Portuguese  garrison  destroyed  10,000  of  his 
men,  and  all  his  cannon  and  junks.  Twice  again,  in  16 15 
and  for  the  last  time  in  1628,  Malacca  was  besieged,  and  on 
each  occasion  the  Achinese  were  repulsed  with  equal  bravery. 
But  the  increased  military  forces  sent  out  to  resist  these 
attacks  proved  an  insupportable  drain  on  the  revenues  and 
population  of  Portugal. 
Spanish  In   1580,   the   Portuguese  crown  was   united  with  that  of 

'AscT"'^^^'  Spain,  under  Philip  11.  This  proved  the  ruin  of  the  maritime 
and  commercial  supremacy  of  Portugal  in  the  East.  Tlie  in- 
terests of  Portugal  in  Asia  were  henceforth  subordinated  to  the 
European  interests  of  Spain.  In  1640,  Portugal  again  became 
a  separate  kingdom.  But  in  the  meanwhile  the  Dutch  and 
English  had  appeared  in  the  Eastern  Seas ;  and  before  their 
indomitable  competition,  the  Portguese  empire  of  the  Indies 
withered  away  as  rapidly  as  it  had  sprung  up.  The  period  of 
the  highest  development  of  Portuguese  commerce  was  probably 
from  1590  to  1 6 10  on  the  eve  of  the  subversion  of  their  com- 
mercial power  by  the  Dutch,  and  when  their  political  admini- 
stration in  India  was  at  its  lowest  depth  of  degradation.  At 
this  period  a  single  fleet  of  Portuguese  merchantmen  sailing 
from  Goa  to  Cambay  or  Surat  would  number  as  many  as  150 
or  250  carracks.  Now,  only  one  Portuguese  ship  sails  from 
Lisbon  to  Goa  in  the  year.^ 

The  Dutch  besieged  Goa  in  1603,  and  again  in  1639.    Both 

attacks  were  unsuccessful  on  land ;  but  the  Portuguese  were 

Downfall    gradually  driven  off  the  sea.    In  1683,  the  Marathas  plundered 

eue^rin      ^°  ^^^^  S^*-^^  °^  ^'°^'     ^^""^  further  history  of  the  Portuguese  in 

India,         India  is  a  miserable  chronicle  of  pride,  poverty,  and  sounding 

o      /oy-       1  Reproduced,  without  verification,  from  Sir  George  Birdwood's  Report, 

p.  70. 


DUTCH  INDIA  COMPANIES.  361 

titles.  The  native  princes  pressed  upon  them  from  the  land. 
On  the  sea  they  gave  way  to  more  vigorous  European  nations. 

The  only  remaining  Portuguese  possessions  in  India  are  Goa,  Portuguese 
Daman,  and  Diu,  all  on  the  west  coast,  with  a  total  area  of  2365  j^  iggi'"""* 
square  miles,  and  a  total  population  of  475,172  in  1881.^    The 
general  Census  of  1871  also  returned  426  Portuguese  in  British 
India,  not  including  those  of  mixed  descent.     About  30,000  of 
the  latter  are  found  in  Bombay  ('  Portuguese'  half-castes),  and 
20,000  in  Bengal,  chiefly  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Dacca  and 
Chittagong.    The  latter  are  known  as  Firinghis;  and,  excepting  Mixed  de- 
that  they  retain  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  and  European  sur-  scendant.s. 
names,  they  are  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  either  by  colour, 
language,  or  habits  of  life  from  the  natives  among  whom  they  live. 

The  Dutch  were  the  first  European  nation  who  broke  through  The  Dutcd 

the  Portuguese  monopoly.     During  the  i6th  century,  Bruges,  i"  Incl'^> 

1.  1,  -1,  1602-1824. 

Antwerp,  and  Amsterdam  became  successively  the  great  em- 
poriums whence  Indian  produce,  imported  by  the  Portuguese, 
was  distributed  to  Germany,  and  even  to  England.  At  first 
the  Dutch,  following  in  the  track  of  the  English,  attempted  to 
find  their  way  to  India  by  sailing  round  the  northern  coast  of 
Europe  and  Asia.  William  Barents  is  honourably  known  as 
the  leader  of  three  of  these  arctic  expeditions,  in  the  last  of 
which  he  perished. 

The  first  Dutchman    to  double   the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  Dutch 
was  Cornelius  Houtman,  who  reached  Sumatra  and  Bantam  ^^_^^^_ 
in  1596.       Forthwith   private  companies   for   trade  with   the  panics. 
East  were   formed    in  many  parts  of  the  United  Provinces ; 
but  in  1602  they  were  all  amalgamated  by  the  States-General 
into  'The  Dutch   East  India  Company.'     Within   fifty  years 
the    Dutch   had    established    factories    on    the   continent   of 

'  This  number,  475,172,  is  the  'actual '  population  of  all  the  Portuguese 
Settlements  in  India,  as  shown  in  the  General  Statement  No.  I  of  the 
Census  of  Portuguese  India,  taken  on  the  17th  February  1881.  The  same 
table  shows  the  'nominal'  population  at  481,467.  Both  these  returns 
differ  somewhat  from  the  totals  obtained  from  the  detailed  tables  showing 
the  males  and  females,  age,  and  civil  condition  of  the  people.  Thus,  the 
total  obtained  for  Goa  is  444,449  from  the  detailed  statements,  while  the 
General  Statement  No.  I  of  the  Portuguese  Settlements  shows  an  'actual' 
population  for  Goa  of  413,698  and  a  'nominal'  population  of  420,868. 
.Similar  differences  on  a  smaller  scale  may  be  detected  in  the  general  and 
detailed  statements  of  the  Settlement  of  Daman.  In  both  cases,  the 
separate  articles  in  TIu  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India  follow  the  detailed 
tables  of  male  and  female,  age,  and  civil  condition  ;  while  in  general 
statements  of  population  for  Portuguese  India,  the  general  totals  issued 
under  the  authority  of  the  Portuguese  Government  are  accepted. 


362        EARL  V  E  UROPEAN  SETTLEMENTS. 

India,  in  Ceylon,  in  Sumatra,  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  in  the 
Red  Sea,  besides  having  obtained  exclusive  possession  of  the 
Their         Moluccas.     In  161 9  they  laid  the  foundation  of  the  city  of 
I'e'io'^^^^'     Batavia  in  Java,  as  the  seat  of  the  supreme  government  of 
the  Dutch  possessions  in  the  East  Indies,  which  had  previously 
been  at  Amboyna.     At  about  the  same  time  the  Dutch  dis- 
covered the  coast  of  Australia ;  while  in  North  America  they 
founded  the  city  of  New  Amsterdam  or  Manhattan,  now  New 
York. 
Dutch  During  the  17th  century  the  Dutch  were  the  foremost  mari- 

i^n'eastern'  '"''^^'^  power  in  the  world.  Their  memorable  massacre  of  the 
seas,  1600-  English  at  Amboyna,  in  1623,  forced  the  British  Company  to 
1700.  retire  from  the  Eastern  Archipelago  to  the  continent  of  India, 

and  thus  led  to  the  foundation  of  our  Indian  Empire.  The 
long  naval  wars  and  bloody  battles  between  the  English  and 
the  Dutch  within  the  narrow  seas  were  not  terminated  until 
William  of  Orange  united  the  two  countries  in  1689.  In  the 
Eastern  Archipelago  the  Dutch  ruled  without  a  rival,  and  ex- 
pelled the  Portuguese  from  almost  all  their  territorial  possessions. 
Their  In  1635  ^^^Y  occupied  Formosa;  in  1640  they  took  Malacca, 

briUmnt  ^  blow  from  which  the  Portuguese  never  recovered  ;  in  1647 
1635-69.  they  were  trading  at  Sadras,  on  the  Palar  river;  in  1651  they 
founded  a  colony  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  as  a  half-way 
station  to  the  East ;  in  1652  they  built  their  first  Indian  factory 
at  PalakoUu,  on  the  Madras  coast ;  in  1658  they  captured 
Jaffnapatam,  the  last  stronghold  of  the  Portuguese  in  Ceylon. 
Between  166 1  and  1664  the  Dutch  wrested  from  thq  Portu- 
guese all  their  earlier  settlements  on  the  pepper-bearing  coast 
of  Malabar;  and  in  1669  they  expelled  the  Portuguese  from 
St.  Thome  and  Macassar. 
Their  The  fall  of  the   Dutch  colonial  empire  resulted   from  its 

^  T^r  1        short-sighted  commercial  policy.     It   was  deliberately  based 
policy.        upon  a  monopoly  of  the  trade  in  spices,  and  remained  from 
first  to  last  destitute  of  sound  economical  principles.     Like  the 
Phoenicians  of  old,  the   Dutch   stopped  short  of  no  acts  of 
cruelty  towards  their   rivals   in   commerce ;    but,    unlike    the 
Phoenicians,  they  failed  to  introduce  their  civilisation  among 
Stripped     the  natives  with  whom  they  came  in  contact.     The  knell  of 
of  their       Dutch  supremacy  was   sounded   by  Clive,  when  in   1759  he 
posses-        attacked  the  Dutch  at  Chinsurah  both  by  land  and  water,  and 
sions,  forced  them  to  an  ignominious   capitulation.     In   the   great 

I-  pi-(2,-ich  wars  from  1793  to  181 1,  England  wrested  from 
Holland  every  one  of  her  colonies ;  although  Java  was  restored 
in  1 816,  and  Sumatra  exchanged  for  Malacca  in  1824. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  EXPLORERS.  363 

At  present,  the  Dutch  flag  flies  nowhere  on  the  mainland  of  Dntcli 
India.  But  quaint  houses,  Dutch  tiles  and  carvings,  at  Chinsurah,  jnci*ia '" 
Negapatam,  Jaffnapatam,  and  at  i)etty  ports  on  the  Coromandel 
and  Malabar  coast,  with  the  formal  canals  in  some  of  these 
old  Settlements,  remind  the  traveller  of  scenes  in  the  Nether- 
lands. The  passage  between  Ceylon  and  the  mainland  still 
bears  the  name  of  the  Dutch  governor,  Palk.  In  the  Census 
of  1872,  only  70  Dutchmen  were  enumerated  throughout  all 
British  India,  and  79  in  iSSi.^ 

The  earliest  English  attempts  to  reach  India  were  made  by  FJaily 
the  North-west  passage.     In   1496,  Henry  vii.  granted  letters  ,j'j^^^ij''_ 
patent   to   John    Cabot   and    his   three   sons    (one   of  whom  tureis, 
was  the  famous  Sebastian)   to  fit  out  two  ships  for  the  ex-  '496- '59  • 
ploration  of  this  route.     They  failed,  but  discovered  the  island 
of  Newfoundland,    and   sailed   along    the   coast   of  America 
from   Labrador  to  Virginia.     In  1553,  the  ill-fated  Sir  Hugh  The 
Willoughby  attempted  to  force  a  passage  along  the  north  of  "^^^^'J^'^^^^^*^ 
Europe   and   Asia,   the   successful  accomplishment  of  which  i553-"i6i6. 
has   been   reserved   for  a  Swedish  savant   of  our   own    day. 
Sir  Hugh  perished  miserably ;  but  his  second  in  command. 
Chancellor,    reached    a    harbour    on    the    White    Sea,    now 
Archangel.     Thence  he  penetrated  by  land  to  the  court  of 
the  Grand  Duke  of  Moscow,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  '  the 
Russia  Company  for  carrying  on  the  overland  trade  between 
India,  Persia,  Bokhara,  and  Moscow.' 

Many  English  attempts  were  made  to  find  a  North-west  Later 
passage  to  the  East  Indies,  from  1576  to  1616.  They  have ''^  emp  s. 
left  on  our  modern  maps  the  imperishable  names  of  Frobisher, 
Davis,  Hudson,  and  Baftin.  Meanwhile,  in  1577,  Sir  Francis 
Drake  had  circumnavigated  the  globe,  and  on  his  way  home 
had  touched  at  Ternate,  one  of  the  Moluccas,  the  king  of 
which  island  agreed  to  supply  the  English  nation  with  all  the 
cloves  which  it  produced. 

The  first  modern  Englishman  known  to  have  visited  the  Stephens, 
Indian  Peninsula  was  Thomas  Stephens,  in  1579.     William  o^  J'i^J^^,,J;"j^-;^ 
Malmesbury  states,  indeed,  that  in  S83  Sighelmus  of  Sherborne,  indiai 
sent  by  King  Alfred  to  Rome  with  presents  to  the  Pope,  pro-  i579- 
ceeded  thence  to    '  India,'  to  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas,  and 
brought   back  jewels   and   spices.       But,   as  already  pointed 
out,  it   by  no  means  follows  that  the  'India'  of  William  of 

^  For  local  notices  of  the  Dutch  in  India,  see  articles  Sadras,  Pala- 
KOLLu,  Chinsurah,  Negapatam,  Palk's  Passage,  etc.,  in  their 
respective  vohunes  of  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


364        EARL  Y  E UROPEAN  SETTLEMENTS. 

Malmesbury  meant  the  Indian  peninsula.  Stephens  (1579) 
was  educated  at  New  College,  Oxford,  and  became  rector  of 
the  Jesuit  College  in  Salsette.  His  letters  to  his  father  are  said 
to  have  roused  great  enthusiasm  in  England  to  trade  directly 
with  India. 
Fitch,  In  1583,  three  English  merchants,  Ralph  Fitch,  James  New- 

r^ewberr)',  [^g^ry^  and  Leedes,  went  out  to  India  overland  as  mercantile 
1583.  '  adventurers.  The  jealous  Portuguese  threw  them  into  prison 
at  Ormuz,  and  again  at  Goa.  At  length  Newberry  settled 
down  as  a  shopkeeper  at  Goa ;  Leedes  entered  the  service 
of  the  Great  Mughal ;  and  Fitch,  after  a  lengthened  pere- 
grination in  Ceylon,  Bengal,  Pegu,  Siam,  Malacca,  and  other 
parts  of  the  East  Indies,  returned  to  England.^ 

The  defeat  of  the  'Invincible  Armada'  in  1588,  at  which 
time  the  crowns  of  Spain  and  Portugal  were  in  union,  gave  a 
fresh  stimulus  to  maritime  enterprise  in  England  ;  and  the 
successful  voyage  of  Cornelius  Houtman  in  1596  showed  the 
way  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  into  waters  hitherto 
monopolized  by  the  Portuguese. 
English  The  following  paragraph  on  the  early  history  of  the  English 

Com-  "  ^^  East  India  Companies  is  condensed,  with  little  change,  from 
panies.        Sir  George  Bird  wood's  official  report.^     In  1599,  the  Dutch, 
who  had  now  firmly  established  their  trade  in  the  East,  raised 
the  price  of  pepper  against  us  from  3s.  per  lb.  to  6s.  and  8s. 
The    merchants    of  London   held   a   meeting   on    the    22nd 
September  at  Founders'  Hall,  with   the   Lord  Mayor  in  the 
chair,  and  agreed  to  form  an  association  for  the  purposes  of 
trading  directly  with  India.     Queen    Elizabeth    also  sent  Sir 
John  Mildenhall  by  Constantinople  to  the  Great  Mughal  to 
apply  for  privileges  for  an  English  Company.     On  the  31st 
December   1600,'^  the   English  East  India  Company  was  in- 
First  corporated  by  royal  charter  under  the  title  of  '  The  Governor 
'^ist  L)^e-     ^"^  Company  of  Merchants  of  London   trading  to  the  East 
cember       Indies.'     The  original   Company  had  only  125  shareholders, 
and  a  capital  of  ;^7o,ooo,  which  was  raised  to  ;;^4oo,ooo  in 
16 1 2-13,  when  voyages  were   first  undertaken  on  the  joint- 
stock  account. 

Courten's  Association,  known  as  'The  Assada  Merchants,' 
from  a  factory  subsequently  founded  by  it  in  Madagascar,  was 

*  Condensed  from  Report  on  Old  Records  in  the  India  Office,  pp.  75-77- 
^  Condensed  from  Report  on  Old  Records  in  the  India  Office,  pp.  77  et  seq. 

*  Auber  gives  the  date  as  the  30th  December,  Analysis  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  East  India  Company,  by  Peter  Auber,  Assistant-Secretary  to  the 
Honourable  Court  of  Directors,  p.  ix.  (London,  1826). 


1600. 


FIRST  ENGLISH  VOYAGES.  365 

established  in  1635,  ^'■'•^j  after  a  period  of  internecine  rivalry,  Later 

was  united  with  the  London  Company  in  1650.     In  1654-55,  '^""V 

the  '  Company  of  Merchant  Adventurers '  obtained  a  charter  1635, 

from   Cromwell   to   trade    with    India,   but    united   with    the  1655, 

original  Company  two  years  later.     A  more  formidable  rival 

subsequently  appeared  in  the  English  Company,  or  '  General 

Society  trading  to  the  East    Indies,'  which  was  incorporated 

under  powerful  patronage  in  1698,  with  a  capital  of  2  millions  1698, 

sterling.     According  to   Evelyn,  in   his  Diary  for  March   5, 

1698,  'the  old  East  India  Company  lost  their  business  against 

the  new  Company  by  10  votes  in  Parliament;  so  many  of  their 

friends  being  absent,  going    to    see    a   tiger  baited  by  dogs.' 

However,  a  compromise  was  effected  through  the  arbitration 

of  Lord  Godolphin^  in   1708  ;  by  which  the  amalgamation  of  1708. 

the  '  London  '  and  the  '  English  '  Companies  was  finally  carried  Amalga- 

out   in   1709,  under   the   style  of  'The  United  Company  of  1,1^''^'"' 

'     ^  ^  ^       •'         Company, 

Merchants  of  England  tradmg  to  the  East   Indies.'     About  1709. 

the  same  time,  the  Company  advanced  loans  to  the  English 

Government  aggregating  _;,^3, 200,000  at  5  per  cent,  interest,  in 

return  for  the  exclusive  privilege  to  trade  to  all  places  between 

the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  the  Straits  of  Magellan. - 

The  early  voyages  of  the  Company  from  1600  to  161 2  are  English 
distinguished  as  the  '  separate  voyages,'  twelve  in  number.  Voyage'^, 
The  subscribers  individually  bore  the  expenses  of  each  voyage, 
and  reaped  the  whole  profits.  With  the  exception  of  the 
fourth,  all  these  separate  voyages  were  highly  prosperous,  the 
profits  hardly  ever  falling  below  100  per  cent.  Aftei  161 2, 
the  voyages  were  conducted  on  the  joint-stock,  account. 

The    English    were    promptly  opposed  by  the  Portuguese.  First 
But   James    Lancaster,    even    in    the   first   voyage   (160 1-2),  English 
established  commercial  relations  with  the  King  of  Achi'n  and  1601^06. 
at  Priaman  in  the   island  of  Sumatra;   as  well  as  with  the 
Malaccas,  and  at  Bantam  in  Java,  where  he  settled  a  '  House 
of  Trade'  in  1603.     In   1604  the  Company  undertook  their 
second   voyage,  commanded    by   Sir   Henry  Middleton,  who 
extended  their  trade  to  Banda  and  Amboyna.     The  success 
of  these  voyages  attracted  a  number  of  private  merchants  to 
the  business;  and  in   1606,  James  i.  granted  a  licence  to  Sir 
Edward  Michelborne  and  others  to  trade  '  to  Cathay,  China, 
Japan,  Corea,  and  Cambaya,'     But  Michelborne,  on  arriving 

'  Under  the  award  of  Lord  Godolphin,  by  the  Act  of  the  6th  of  Queen 
Anne,  in  1708,  cap.  17.     Auber's  Analysis,  p.  xi. 

-  Mill,  Hist.  Brit.  Ind.,  vol.  i.  p.  151  (ed.  1840).  Auber  gives  a  detailed 
statement  of  these  loans,  from  1708  to  1793  ;  Analysis,  p.  xi.  etc. 


366        EARLY  E UROEEAN  SETELEMENTS. 

in  the   East,  instead  of  exploring  new  sources  of  commerce 

like  the  East  India  Company,  followed  the  pernicious  example 

of  the  Portuguese,  and    plundered  the  native  traders  among 

the   islands   of    the    Indian    Archipelago.     He   in   this   way 

secured  a  considerable    booty,  but  brought  disgrace  on  the 

British  name,  and  seriously  hindered  the  Company's  business 

at  Bantam. 

\  oya^^'e^,         j,^    1608,    Captain    D.    IMiddleton,    in    command   of    the 
i6oS-ii.  '         ^  ' 

fifth  voyage,  was  prevented  by  the   Dutch   from    trading   at 

Banda,  but  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  cargo  at  Pulo  Way.     In 

this   )'ear   also.   Captain   Hawkins   proceeded  from  Surat,   as 

envoy  from  James   i.  and  the  East  India  Company,  to  the 

court  of  the  Great  Mughal.     He  was  graciously  received  by  the 

Emperor  (Jahangir),  and  remained  three  years  at  Agra.     In 

1609,  Captain  Sharpay  obtained  the  grant  of  free  trade  at  Aden, 

and  a  cargo  of  pepper  at  Priaman  in  Sumatra.     In  1609,  also, 

the  Company  constructed  the  dockyard  at  Deptford,  which  was 

the  beginning,  observes  Sir  William  Monson,  'of  the  increase 

of  great  ships  in  England.'     In  161 1,  Sir  Henry  Middleton, 

in    command    of  the    sixth    voyage,  arrived  before  Cambay. 

He  resolutely  fought  the  Portuguese,  who  tried  to  beat  him 

off,   and    obtained    important    concessions   from    the   Native 

Powers.      In    1610-11,   also.   Captain   Hippon,   commanding 

the  seventh  voyage,  established  agencies  at  Masulipatam,  and 

in    Siam,    at    Patania    or    Patany   on    the    Malay    Peninsula, 

and  at  Pettipollee.     We  obtained  leave  to  trade  at  Surat  in 

1 6 1 2 . 

Swally  In    1 615,   the   Company's    fleet,   under    Captain    Best,   was 

,g,Y  attacked   off  Swally,  the  port  of  Surat,  at  the  mouth  of  the 

river  Tapti,  by  an  overwhelming  force  of  Portuguese.^    But  the 

assailants  were  utterly  defeated  in  four  engagements,  to  the 

astonishment  of  the  natives,  who  had  hitherto  considered  them 

invincible.      The  first-fruit  of  this    decisive   victory   was   the 

pre-eminence  of  our  factory  at  Surat,  with  subordinate  agencies 

at  Gogra,  Ahmadabc4d,  and  Cambay.     Trade  was  also  opened 

with  the  Persian  Gulf.     In   16 14,  an  agency  was  established 

at    Ajmere    by    Mr.    Edwards    of    the   Surat   factory.      The 

chief  seat  of  the    Company's  government   in  Western  India 

remained  at  Surat  until  16S4-87,  when  it  was  transferred  to 

Bombay.- 

'  For  this  date  and  account  of  the  engagement,  see  Bombay  Gazetteer, 
Surat  and  Broach,  vol.  ii.  pp.  77,  78  (Bombay  Government  Press,  1877). 

■■^  Orders  issued,  1684  ;  transfer  commenced,  1686  ;  actually  carried  out, 
16S7.      Pomhay  Gazetteer,  vol.  ii.  p.  98. 


DUTCH  OF  PRESS  ENGLISH.  367 

In   1615,  Sir  Thomas  Roe  was    sent   by  James   i.  as   am- ^ir 

bassador  to  the  court  of  Tahdnrrir,  and  succeeded  in  placing  i      ,^^- 
-'  ^    '  _  1  to  Koe,  10 1 5. 

the  Company's  trade  in  the  Mughal  dominions  on  a  more 
favourable  footing.  In  161S,  the  English  established  a  factory 
at  Mocha ;  but  the  Dutch  compelled  them  to  resign  all  pre- 
tensions to  the  Spice  Islands.  In  that  year  also,  the  Company 
failed  in  its  attempt  to  open  a  trade  with  Dabhol,  Baticola,  and 
Calicut,  through  a  want  of  sincerity  on  the  part  of  the  Zamorin 
or  Calicut  Raja.  In  1619  we  were  permitted  to  establish  a 
factory  and  build  a  fort  at  Jask,  in  the  Persian  Gulf. 

In  1619,  the  'Treaty  of  Defence'  with  the  Dutch,  to  Treaty 
prevent  disputes  between  the  English  and  Dutch  companies,  ^"''' 
was  ratified.  When  it  was  proclaimed  in  the  East,  the  Dutch  i6ig.  ' 
and  English  fleets,  dressed  out  in  all  their  flags,  and  with 
yards  manned,  saluted  each  otlier.  But  the  treaty  ended  in 
the  smoke  of  that  stately  salutation,  and  the  perpetual  strife 
between  the  Dutch  and  English  Companies  went  on  as  bitterly 
as  ever.  Up  to  this  time,  the  English  Company  did  not 
possess  any  territory  in  sovereign  right  in  the  '  Indies,'  except- 
ing in  the  island  of  Eantore  or  Great  Banda.  The  island  was 
governed  by  a  commercial  agent  of  the  Company,  who  had 
under  him  thirty  Europeans  as  clerks  and  warehousemen. 
This  little  band,  with  two  hundred  and  fifty  armed  Malays, 
constituted  the  only  force  by  which  it  was  protected.  In  the 
islands  of  Banda  and  Pulo  Roon  and  Rosengyn,  the  English 
Company  had  factories,  at  each  of  which  were  ten  agents. 
At  Macassar  and  Achfn  they  possessed  agencies ;  the 
whole  being  subordinate  to  a  head  factory  at  Bantam  in 
Java. 

In  1620,  the  Dutch,  notwithstanding  the  Treatv  of  Defence,  English 
concluded  the  previous  year,  expelled  the  English  from  Pulo  i,,.  u^tch 
Roon  and  Lantore;  and  in  162 1  from  Bantam  in  Java.     The  1620. 
fugitive  factors  tried  to  establish  themselves,  first  at  Pulicat,  and 
afterwards  at  Masulipatam  on  the  Coromandel  coast,  but  were 
effectually  opposed  by  the  Dutch.     In  1620,  the  Portuguese 
also  attacked  the  English  fleet  under  Captain  Shillinge,  but 
were  defeated  with  great  loss.     From  this  time  the  estimation 
in  which  the  Portuguese  were  held  by  the  natives  declined, 
while  that  of  the  English  rose.     In    1620,  too,  the   Ertglish 
Company  established  agencies  at  Agra  and  Patna.     In  1622 
they  joined  with  the  Persians,  attacked  and  took  Ormuz  from 
the  Portuguese,  and  obtained  from  Shah  Abbas  a  grant  in  per- 
petuity of  the  customs  of  Gombroon.     This  was  the  first  time 
that  the  English  took  the  offensive   against  the  Portuguese. 


368       EARL  Y  E UROPEAN  SETTLEMENTS. 

Masuh-       In  the  same  year,  1622,  our  Company  succeeded  in  re-estab- 

tory  1622"  Wishing  their  factory  at  MasuUpatam. 

The  mas-        The  massacre  of  Amboyna,   which   made  so  deep  an  im- 

sacre  of  pression  on  the  EngHsh  mind,  marked  the  climax  of  the 
Amboyna,   t-^ii  ^  -^   ^  ,ri  ii- 

1623.  Dutch  hatred  to  us  m  the  eastern  seas.     After  long  and  bitter 

recriminations,  the  Dutch  seized  our  Captain  Towerson  at 
Amboyna,  with  9  Englishmen,  9  Japanese,  and  i  Portuguese 
sailor,  on  the  17th  February  1623.  They  tortured  the  prisoners 
at  their  trial,  and  found  them  guilty  of  a  conspiracy  to  surprise 
the  garrison.  The  victims  were  executed  in  the  heat  of  passion, 
and  their  torture  and  judicial  murder  led  to  an  outburst  of 
indignation  in  England.  Ultimately,  commissioners  were  ap- 
pointed to  adjust  the  claims  of  the  two  nations ;  and  the  Dutch 
had  to  pay  a  sum  of  ;^36i5  as  satisfaction  to  the  heirs  of 
those  who  had  suffered.  But  from  that  time  the  Dutch 
remained  masters  of  Lantore  and  the  neighbouring  islands. 
They  monopolized  the  whole  trade  of  the  Indian  Archipelago, 
until  the  great  naval  wars  w^hich  commenced  in  1793.  In 
English  1624,  the  English,  unable  to  oppose  the  Dutch,  withdrew  nearly 
driven  out  all  their  factories  from  the  Archipelago,  the  Malay  Peninsula, 
pefaco   '     Siam,  and  Java.     Some  of  the  factors  and  agents  retired  to 

1624.  the   island   of  Lagundy,    in   the   Strait  of  Sunda,    but   were 
forced  by  its  unhealthiness  to  abandon  it. 

Driven   out   of  the    Eastern   Archipelago    by   the    Dutch, 

and    thus    almost    cut    off   from    the    lucrative    spice    trade, 

English       the   English  betook  themselves  in  earnest  to  founding  settle- 

India  ^°      ments   on    the    Indian    seaboard.     In    1625-26,   the  English 

1625.  established  a  factory  at  Armagaon  on  the  Coromandel  coast. 
Their  subordinate  to  Masulipatam.^  But  in  1628,  Masulipatam 
^'"^'"^y  .  was,  in  consequence  of  the  oppressions  of  the  native  governors, 
i'625-53.'     ^°''  ^  ^^"^^  abandoned   in   favour  of  Armagaon,  which   now 

mounted  12  guns,  and  had  23  factors  and  agents.  In 
1629,  our  factory  at  Bantam  in  Java  was  re-established 
as  an  agency  subordinate  to  Surat ;  and  in  1630,  Armagaon, 
reinforced  by  20  soldiers,  was  also  placed  under  the  presidency 
of  Surat.  In  1632,  the  English  factory  was  re-established  at 
Masulipatam,  under  a  grant,  the  '  Golden  Firman,'  from  the 
Trade  to  King  of  Golconda.  In  1634,  hy  s.  fati/idji  dated  February  2, 
P.engal,  |.|^g  Company  obtained  from  the  Great  Mughal  liberty  to 
trade  in  Bengal.     But  their  ships  were  to  resort  only  to  Pippli 

'  These  brief  chronological  abstracts  follow,  with  a  few  omissions, 
additions  and  corrections  of  dates,  Sir  George  Birdwood's  official  Rcfoit 
on  the  Old  Records  in  the  India  Office  (folio),  p.  83.  For  notices  of  the 
Indian  towns  mentioned,  see  the  articles  in  The  I/npcrial  Gazetteer  0/  India. 


EyGLISH  FACTORIES,   1639-85.  369 

in  Orissa,  now  left  far  inland  by  the  sea.     The  Portuguese  were 
in  the  same  year  expelled  for  a  time  from  Bengal. 

In   1634-35,  the    English   factory  at   Bantam  in  Java  was  Bantam 
again    raised  to  an  indeixMident  presidency,  and  an  agency  f'''^^'" 
was  established  at   Tatta,  or  'Scmdy.'      In   1637,   Courten's  1635^ 
Association  (chartered  1635)  settled  agencies  at  (Toa,  Baticola, 
Karwar,  Achi'n,  and  Raja])ur.     Its  ships  had  the  year  before 
])lundered  some  native  vessels  at  Surat  and  Diu.     This  act 
disgraced    the   Company  with  the   ISIughal   authorities    (who 
';ould  not  comprehend  the  distinction  between  the  Company 
and  the  Association),  and  depressed  the  English  trade  with 
Surat,  while  that  of  the  Dutch  proportionately  increased. 

In  1638,  Armagaon  was  abandoned  as  unsuited  for  commerce  ;  Madras 
and  in  1639,  Fort  St.  George  or  Madraspatnam  (Chennapat- '^°""'''^'^'' 
nam)  ^  was  founded  by  Francis  Day,  and  the  factors  at  Armagaon 
were  removed  to  it.  It  was  made  subordinate  to  Bantam  in 
Java,  until  raised  in  1653  to  the  rank  of  a  Presidency.  In 
1640,  the  Company  established  an  agency  at  Bussorah,  and 
a  factory  at  Karwar.  Trade  having  much  extended,  the 
Company's  yard  at  Deptford  was  found  too  small  for  their 
ships,  and  they  purchased  some  copyhold  ground  at  Blackwall, 
which  at  that  time  was  a  waste  marsh,  without  an  inhabitant. 
Here  they  opened  another  dockyard,  in  which  was  built  the 
Royal  George,  of  1200  tons,  the  largest  ship  up  to  that  time 
constructed  in  England. 

Our  factory  at  Hugh'  in  Bengal  was  established  in  1640,  and  Hugh', 

at  Balasor  in  1642.     In  1645,  in  consequence  of  professional  '^^o- 

services  rendered  by   Mr.   (iabriel  Boughton,  surgeon  of  the 

Hopewell,  to   the   J^mperor  Shah   Jahan,  additional   privileges 

were  granted  to  the  Company  ;  and  in  1646,  the  Governor  pf 

Bengal,  who  had  also  been   medically  attended  by  Boughton, 

made  concessions  which  placed  the  factories  at  Balasor  and 

Hiigli   on   a   more  favourable    footing.      In    1647,  Courten's 

Association  established  its  colony  at  Assada,  in  Madagascar.  Mada- 

In  1652,  Cromwell  declared  war  against  the  Dutch  on  account  ^''^^car, 

.  ...  .  it)47- 

of  their  accumulated  injuries  against  the  English  Company. 

In    1653,  the    English    factory  at    Lucknow  was  withdrawn. 

No  record  has  been  found  of  its  establishment.     In  1658,  the 

Company  established  a  factory  at  Kasimbazar  (spelt  '  Castle 

Bazaar'  in    the  records),  and  the  English   establishments  in 

^  Bishop  Caldwell  derives  Madras  from  the  Telugn  viadunt,  the  sur- 
rounding wall  of  a  fort.  Its  native  name  is  obtained  from  Chennappa, 
the  father-in-law  of  the  Nayakkur  or  Chief  of  Chinglepat.  Co)iipaialive 
Grammar  of  (he  Dravidian  Languages,  p.  10  (ed.  1S75). 

2   A 


ceded 
1661. 


370       EARLY  EUR  OPE  AN  SE  TTLEMENTS. 

Bengal  were  made  subordinate  to  Fort  St.  George  or  Madras, 
instead  of  to  Bantam. 
Bomljny  In  166 1,  Bombay  was  ceded  to  the  British  crown  as  part  of 

the  dower  of  Catharine  of  Braganza,  but  was  not  dehvered  up 
until  1665.     King  Charles  11.  transferred  it  to  the  East  India 
Company,  for  an  annual  payment  of  ;^io,  in  1668.     The  seat 
of  the  Western  Presidency  was  removed  to  it  from  Surat  in 
Our  fac-      1684-87.     The  Company's  establishments  in  the  East  Indies 
168-^'         ^^^"^  consisted  in  1685  of  the  Presidency  of  Bantam  in  Java, 
Bantam,      with  its  dependencies  of  Jambi,  Macassar,  and  minor  agencies 
in  the  Indian  Archipelago ;  Fort  St.  George  and  its  dependent 
Madras.      factories  on  tlie  Coromandel  coast  and  Bengal ;    Surat,  with 
Bombay,     its  affiliated  dependency  of  Bombay  ;  and  factories  at  Broach, 
Ahmadabad,   and    other   places    in   Western    India;   also   at 
Persian       Gombroon  (Bandar  Abbas)  and  Bussorah  in  the  Persian  Gulf 
Gulf.  aii^j  Euphrates  valley.     In  1661,  the  factory  at  Biliapatam  was 

founded.  In  1663,  the  English  factories  established  at  Patna, 
Bengal.  Balasor,  and  Kasimbazar  were  ordered  to  be  discontinued,  and 
purchases  to  be  made  only  at  Hugh'.  In  1664,  Surat  was 
pillaged  by  the  Maratha  Sivaji,  but  Sir  George  Oxehden 
bravely  defended  the  English  factory  ;  and  the  Mughal  Em- 
peror, in  admiration  of  his  conduct,  granted  the  Company  an 
exemption  from  customs  for  one  year. 
]]engal  In    1681,    Bengal   was   separated    from    Madras,    and    Mr. 

separated  lodges  appointed  'agent  and  governor'  of  the  Company's 
Madras,  affairs  'in  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  and  of  the  factories  subordi- 
16S1.  wx\.Q.  to  it,  at  Kasimbazar,  Patna,  Balasor,  Maldah,  and  Dacca. 

A  corporal  of  approved  fidelity,  with  20  soldiers,  to  be  a  guard 
to  the  agent's  person  at  the  factory  of  Hiigli,  and  to  act 
against  interlopers.'  In  16S4,  Sir  John  Child  was  made 
'  Captain -General  and  Admiral  of  India;'  and  Sir  John 
Wyborne,  '  Vice-Admiral  and  Deputy  Governor  of  Bombay.' 
Bombay  a   In  1687,  the  seat  of  the  Presidency  was  finally  transferred  from 

Presi-         Surat  to  Bombay.     In  1686,  Kasimbazar,  in  common  with  the 

(lency,  .... 

1687.  Other  English  factories  m  Bengal,  had  been  condemned  to  con- 

fiscation by  the  Nawab  Shaista  Khan,  lite  Hiigli  factory  was 
much  oppressed,  and  the  Company's  business  throughout  India 
suffered  from  the  wars  of  the  Mughals  and  Marathas. 

'flovernor-      Sir  John  Child  was  appointed  'Governor-General,'^  with  full 

General,      power  in  India  to  make   war  or  peace ;  and  was  ordered  to 

^  Sir  George  Bird  wood's  Report  on  tlie  Old  Records  of  the  India  Office,  p. 
85,  quotes  this  title  from  the  Mss.  It  is  therefore,  nominally,  a  century 
older  than  is  usually  supposed  ;  but  Hastings  was  the  first  real  Governor- 
General,  1774. 


ENGLISH  AND  OTHER  COMPANIES.       371 

proceed  to  inspect  the  Company's  possessions  in  Madras  and 
Kensfal,  and  arrange  for  their  safety.  On  the  20th  of  Decern-  Calcutta 
ber  1686,  the  Company's  Agent  and  Council  were  forced  by  153*5^'' 
the  exactions  of  the  Muhammadan  Governor  to  quit  their 
factory  at  Hugh'.  They  retired  down  the  river  to  Sutanati 
(Calcutta).  Tegnapatam  (Fort  St.  David)  was  founded  in  this 
year  (1686),  and  definitively  established  in  1691-92. 

In  1 68 7-88,  the  Company's  servants,  broken  in  spirit  by  the  English 
oppressions  of  the  native  Viceroy,  determined  to  abandon  their  [^^^  J|^ 
factories  in  Bengal.    In  1688,  Captain  Heath  oi  \.h.e  Hesoliitmi,  Bengal, 
in  command  of  the  Company's  forces,  embarked  all  its  servants  ^"^7-^^- 
and  goods,  sailed  down  the  Hugh',  and  anchored  off  Balasor 
on  the  Orissa  coast.     They  were,  however,  soon  invited  to 
return  by  the   Emperor,  who  granted  them  the  site  of  the 
present  city  of  Calcutta  for  a  fortified  factory.     In   1689,  our 
factories   at  Vizagapatam  and   Masulipatam   on   the    Madras 
coast  were   seized   by   the    Muhammadans,  and   the   factors 
were  massacred. 

But  in  this  same  year,  the  Company  determined  to  consoli-  The  Com- 
date  their  position  in  India  on  the  basis  of  territorial  sovereignty,  barks ^on' 
to  enable  them  to  resist  the  oppression  of  the  ^Mughals  and  territorial 
Marathas.     With  that  view,  they  passed  the  resolution,  which  ^^o^' 
was  destined  to  turn  their  clerks  and  factors  throughout  India 
into  conquerors  and  proconsuls  :  'The  increase  of  our  revenue 
is  the  subject  of  our  care,  as  much  as  our  trade ;  'tis  that  must 
maintain  our  force  when  twenty  accidents  may  interrupt  our 
trade  ;  'tis  that  must  make  us  a  nation  in  India.    Without  that 
we  are   but   a   great  number  of  interlopers,   united   by  His 
Majesty's  royal  charter,  fit  only  to  trade  where  nobody  of  power 
thinks  it  their  interest  to  prevent  us.     And  upon  this  account 
it  is  that  the  wise  Dutch,  in  all  their  general  advices  that 
we  have  seen,  write  ten  paragraphs  concerning  their  govern- 
ment, their  civil  and  military  policy,  warfare,  and  the  increase 
of  their   revenue,  for   one   paragraph    they  write   concerning 
trade.'      The  subsequent  history  of  the  English  East  India 
Company  and  its  settlements  will  be  narrated  in   the  next 
chapter. 

The  Portuguese  at  no  time  attempted  to  found  a  Company,  Other 
but  kept  their  eastern  trade  as  a  royal  enterprise  and  monopoly,  j^^i^*" 
The  first  incorporated  Company  was  the  English,  established  Com- 
in  1600,  which  was  quickly  followed  by  the   Dutch  in  1602.  P^mes. 
The  Dutch  conquests,  however,  were  made  in  the  name  of  the  Dutch  ; 
State,  and  ranked  as  national  colonies,  not  as  semi-commercial 


French 


French 
posses- 


3  7  2        EARL  Y  E  UR  OPE  AN  SE  TTLEMEXTS. 

possessions.  Next  came  the  French,  whose  first  East  India 
Company  was  founded  in  1604;  the  second,  in  161 1;  the 
third,  in  1615  ;  the  fourth  (Richeheu's),  in  1642;  the  fifth 
(Colbert's),  in  1644.  The  sixth  was  formed  by  the  union  of 
the  French  East  and  West  India,  Senegal,  and  China  Com- 
panies under  the  name  of  '  The  Company  of  the  Indies,'  in 
1 7 19.  The  exclusive  privileges  of  this  Company  \vere,  by 
the  French  king's  decree,  suspended  in  1769;  and  the  Com- 
pany was  finally  abolished  by  the  National  Assembly  in  1796. 

Dupleix,  the  governor  of  the  French  factories  and  posses- 
sions on  the  Madras  coast,  first  conceived  the  idea  of  founding 
an  Indian  Empire  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Mughal  dynasty ;  and 
for  a  time  the  French  nation  successfully  contended  with  the 
English  for  the  supremacy  in  the  East.  The  French  settle- 
ments in  India  are  still  five  in  number,  with  an  area  of  203 
square  miles,  and  a  population  of  273,611  souls.  The  brilliant 
history  of  our  great  national  rivals  is  summarized  under  the 
article  French  Possessions  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India, 
vol.  iv.  (2nd  edition). 


Danish  ;  The  first  Danish  East  India  Company  was  formed  in  1 6 1 2,  and 
the  second  in  1670.  The  settlements  of  Tranquebar  and 
Serampur  were  both  founded  in  1616,  and  acquired  by  the 
English  by  purchase  from  Denmark  in  1845.  Other  Danish 
settlements  on  the  mainland  of  India  were  Porto  Novo  ;  with 
Eddova  and  Holcheri  on  the  Malabar  coast.     The  Company 

Scotch  ;  started  by  the  Scotch  in  1695  may  be  regarded  as  having 
been  still  -  born.      The    '  Royal    Company  of  the  Philippine 

Spanish;  Islands,'  incorporated  by  the  King  of  Spain  in  1733,  had  little 
to  do  with  India  proper. 


German,  Of  more   importance  was  '  The    Ostend   Company,'  incor- 

ComDanv  P^^^^^^d  t)y  the  Emperor  of  Austria  in  1722;^  its  factors  and 
agents  being  chiefly  persons  who  had  served  in  the  Dutch  and 
English  Companies.  This  enterprise  forms  the  subject  of 
Carlyle's  'Third  Shadow  Hunt'  of  the  Emperor  Karl  vi.- 
'  The  Kaiser's  Imperial  Ostend  East  India  Company,  which 
convulsed  the  diplomatic  mind  for  seven  years  to  come,  and 
Described  made  Europe  lurch  from  side  to  side  in  a  terrific  manner, 
byCarlyie.  pj-Qved  a  mere  paper  Company;  never  sent  ships,  only  pro- 
duced Diplomacies,  and  "  had  the  honour  to  be." '     Carlyle's 

'  The  deed  of  institution  is  dated  17th  December  1^22. 
-  History  of  Fricdrich   71.   of  Prussia,   called  Frederick  the  Great,   by 
Thomas  Carlyle,  vol.  i.  pp.  555-557  (3rd  ed.  1859). 


GERMAN  E.  I.   COMPANIES.  373 

]jicturesque  paragraphs  do  not  disclose  the  facts.  The  Ostcnd 
Company  formed  the  one  great  attempt  of  the  German  Empire, 
then  with  Austria  at  its  head,  to  secure  a  share  of  the  India 
trade.  It  not  only  sent  ships,  but  it  founded  two  settle- 
ments in  India  which  threatened  the  commerce  of  the  older 
European  Companies.     One  of  its  settlements  was  at  Coblom  Its  Indian 

or  Covelonii,  between   the   English  Madras    and    the  Dutch  ^eiile- 
^  '^  °  .    ments. 

Sadras,  on  the  south-eastern  coast.     The  other  was  at  Banki- 

])ur,    or    '  Banky-bazaar,'    on    the    Hiigli   River,   between   the 
English   Calcutta  and  the  Dutch  Chinsura.      Each  of    these 
German  settlements  was  regarded  with  hatred  by  the  English  Threaten- 
and  Dutch  ;  and  with  a  more  intense  fear  by  the  less  successful  ingattitude 
French,   whose   adjacent   settlements  at    Pondicherri  on  the  Ostend 
.Madras  coast,  and  at  Chandarnagar  on  the  Hiigli,  were  also  Company, 
threatened  by  the  Ostend  Company. 

So  far  from  the  German  association  being  'a  mere  paper 
Company '  never  sending  ships,  as  Carlyle  supposes,  its  forma- 
tion was  the  result  of  a  series  of  successful  experimental  voyages. 
In  17 1 7,  Prince  Eugene  ordered  two  vessels  to  sail  for  India, 
under  the  protection  of  his  own  passports.  The  profits  of  Its  experi- 
the  expedition  led  to  others   in    succeeding  years,  and  each  "''^"^^^ 

^  .  voyages, 

voyage  proved  so  fortunate,  that  the  Austrian  Emperor  found  1717-22. 

it   necessary  to  protect    and  consolidate  the  property  of  the 

adventurers  by  a  charter  in  1722.     This  deed  granted  to  the 

Ostend  Company  more  favourable  terms  than  any  of  the  other 

European  Companies   enjoyed.     Its  capital  was   one  million  Theirgreat 

sterling,  and  so  great  were   the  profits   during  its  first  years  ^"'^'^sss. 

that  its  shares  brought  in  15  per  cent.     The  French,  Dutch, 

and  English  Companies    loudly  complained  of  its   factories, 

built  at  their  very  doors,  both  on  the  Hiigli  River  and  on  the 

Madras  coast.     These  complaints  were  warmly  taken  up  by 

their  respective  Governments  in  Europe. 

For  the  object  which  the  Emperor  Karl  vi.  had    in   view  Political 

was  political  not  less  than   commercial.     Prince  Eugene  had  objects  of 

11  T     T       ^.  -11  T  ?  ,       Ostend 

urged  that  an   India   Company  might  be  made  to   form   the  Company. 

nucleus  of  a  German  fleet,  with  a  first-class  naval  station  at 
Ostend  on  the  North  Sea,  and  another  at  Fiume  or  Trieste  on 
the  Adriatic.  Such  a  fleet  would  complete  the  greatness  of 
Germany  by  sea  as  by  land ;  and  would  render  her  indepen- 
dent of  the  Maritime  Powers,  especially  of  England  and 
Holland.  The  Empire  would  at  length  put  its  ports  on  the 
Baltic  and  the  Adriatic  to  a  proper  use,  and  would  thence- 
forth exert  a  commanding  maritime  influence  in  Europe. 

The  existing  Maritime  Powers   objected  to   this  ;    and  the 


374       EARL  Y  E  U ROPE  AN  SETTLEMENTS. 

Ostend       Ostend     Company    became    the    shuttlecock    of    European 
Company   diplomacy  for  the  next  five  years.     The  Dutch  and  English 

oi)post,'ci 

by  the  felt  themselves  particularly  aggrieved.  They  pleaded  the 
IMaritime  treaties  of  Westphalia  and  Utrecht.  After  long  and  loud  alter- 
'  cations,  the  Emperor  sacrificed  the  Ostend  Company  in  1727 
to  gain  the  acceptance  of  a  project  nearer  his  heart — the  Prag- 
and  sacri-  matic  Sanction  for  the  devolution  of  his  Imperial  heritage, 
ticed  to  the  'p^  g^^,g  j^jg  i-,onour,  the  sacrifice  at  first  took  the  form  of  a 

1  ragmatic  . 

Sanction,    suspension  of  the   Company's  charter  for  seven  years.     But 
^727-  the   Company   was   doomed   by   the    Maritime  Powers.      Its 

shareholders  did  not,  however,  despair.     They  made  attempts 
to   transfer    their   European   centre    of    trade    to    Hamburg, 
Trieste,  Tuscany,  and  even  Sweden. 
Ostend  Meanwhile  the  other  European  Companies  in  Bengal  had 

menr         taken    the    law   into  their  own  hands.     They  stirred  up  the 
destroyed,  Muhammadan   Government    against   the     new-comers.      In 
^ThZ\         1733,  the  Muhammadan  military  governor  of  Hiigli  picked  a 
quarrel,   in   the  name  of  the   Delhi  Emperor,  with  the  little 
German  settlement  at   Bankipur,  which  lay  about  eight  miles 
below  Hugh'  town  on   the  opposite  side   of  the   river.     The 
Muhammadan  troops  besieged  Bankipur  ;    and  the  garrison, 
reduced    to    fourteen   persons,    after   a   despairing   resistance 
against  overwhelming  numbers,  abandoned  the  place,  and  set 
sail  for  Europe.     The  Ostend  agent  lost  his  right  arm  by  a 
cannon  ball  during  the  attack  ;  and  the  Ostend   Company, 
-  together  with   the  German  interests  which  it  represented,  be- 
came  thenceforward    merely  a  name   in  Bengal.       Its   chief 
and  disap-  settlement,  Bankipur  or  '  Banky-bazaar,'  has  long  disappeared 
peared        from  the  maps  ;  and  the  author  could  only  trace  its  existence 

irom   the  .  ^  r       y  ^  -iiii  ■>  r       ^ 

map.  from  a  chart  of  the  last  century,  aided  by  the  records  of  that 

period,  and  by  personal  inquiry  on  the  spot.^  The  Ostend  Com- 
Ostend  pany,  however,  still  prolonged  its  existence  in  Europe.  After 
,  °'?1'^'Y  a  miserable  struggle,  it  became  bankrupt  in  1784;  and  was 
1784;  finally  extinguished  by  the  arrangements  made  at  the  renewal 
and  extin-  of  the  English  East  India  Company's  charter  in  1793. 

i,'uished, 

1793- 

Prussian  What  the  Emperor  of  Austria  had  failed  to  effect,  Frederick 

Com-  the  Great,  King  of  Prussia,  resolved  to  accomplish.     Having 

panics.        gQj.  possession  of  East  Friesland  in  1744,  he  tried  to  convert 

^  There  is  an  interesting  series  of  Mss.  labelled  The  Ostenders  in  the 
India  Office.  See  also  the  Abbe  Raynal's  History  of  the  Settlements  and 
Trade  of  the  Europeans  in  the  East  and  West  Indies,  Book  v.  (pp. 
176-182,  vol.  ii.  of  the  1776  edition);  and  the  article  Bankipur  on  the 
Hugli  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


GERMAN  E.  I.  COMPANIES.  375 

its  capital,  Embdcn,  into  a  great  northern  port.     Among  other  Asiatic 
measures,  he  gave  his  royal  patronage  to  the  Asiatic  Trading  ^''^"'"^ 
Company,    started    ist    September    1750,    and    founded    the  pany  of 
Beiigalische  Handel sgesellschaft  on   tlie   24th    January    1753.^  Embdcn, 
The  first  of  these  Companies   had   a   capital  of  ;^i7o,625-       .' 
but  six  ships  sent  successively  to  China  only  defrayed  their  Bengal- 
own  expenses,  and  yielded  a  profit  of  10  per  cent,  in  seven  '^'^^, 
years.     The  Bengal  Company  of  Embden  proved  still  more  o-e'sell- 
unfortunate ;  its  existence  was  summed  up  in  two  expeditions  schaft, 
which  did  not  pay,  and  a  long  and  costly  lawsuit.-  '^^' 

The  failure  of  Frederick  the   Great's  efforts  to  secure  for  Their 
Prussia  a  share  in  the  India  trade,  resulted  to  some  extent  ^^  """' 
from  the  jealousy  of  the  rival  European  Companies  in  India. 
The  Dutch,  French,  and  English  pilots  refused  to  show  the  Dutch  and 
way  up  the  dangerous  Hiigli  river  to  the  Embden  ships,  '  or  Enghsh 

■'      '■  °  '^  .    "^    '      .     jealousy 

any   other   not   belonging   to  powers   already   established   in  of  the 

India. '^     It  is  due  to  the  European  Companies  to  state  that  in  Embden 
1  r     •  M  1  1  •  Com- 

■  thus  refusmg  pilots  to  the  new-comers,  they  were  carrymg  out  panics. 

the  orders  of  the  Native  Government  of  Bengal  to  which  they 

were  then  strictly  subject.     '  If  the  Germans  come  here,'  the  The 

Nawab  had  written  to  the  English  merchants  on  a  rumour  of  ^'^"'^'^"^ 

orders 

the  first  Embden  expedition  reaching  India,  '  it  will  be  very  against  tlic 

bad  for  all  the  Europeans,  but  for  you  worst  of  all,  and  you  Prussians. 

will  afterwards  repent  it ;  and  I  shall  be  obliged  to  stop  all 

your  trade  and  business.  .  .  .  Therefore  take  care  that  these 

German  ships  do  not  come.'  ^     '  God  forbid  that  they  should 

come,'  was  the  pious  response  of  the  President  of  the  English 

Council ;  '  but  should  this  be  the  case,  I  am  in  hopes  they 

will  be  either  sunk,  broke,  or  destroyed.' 

They  came  nevertheless,  and  some  years  later  the  English  English 

Court  of  Directors  complain  that  their  Bengal  servants  are  agents 

'  °  privately 

anxious  to  trade  privately  with  the  Embden  Company.     '  If  trade 

any  of  the  Prussian  ships,'  wrote  the  Court,  '  want  the  usual  ^'^^  . 

.  -  .  .  .  ,  Prussian 

assistance  of  water,  provisions,  or  real  necessaries,  they  are  to  Company, 
be  supplied  according  to  the  customs  of  nations  in  amity  one 
with  the  other.     But  you  are  on  no  pretence  whatsoever  to 

'  These  dates  are  taken  from  Carlyle's  Frederick  the  Great,  vol.  iv.  pp. 
367,  368  (ed.  1864).  Carlyle's  account  of  the  Embden  Companies  is  un- 
fortunately of  slight  historical  value. 

-  The  commercial  details  of  these  Companies  are  given  by  the  Abbe 
Raynal,  op.  cit.  ii.  pp.  201,  202. 

3  Despatch  from  the  Calcutta  Council  to  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated 
6th  September  1754,  para.  11. 

■•  Letter  from  the  Kawab  of  Murshidabad  :  Bengal  Consultations  of  19th 
August  1751. 


;  7  6        EARL  Y  EUR  OPE  AN  SE  TTLEMENTS. 


Frederick 
sacrifices 
the  Com- 
l)any. 


have  any  dealings  with  them,  or  give  the  least  assistance  in 
their  mercantile  affairs.'  ^  The  truth  is  that  the  German  Com- 
pany had  effected  an  entrance  into  Bengal,  and  found  the 
French,  English,  and  Dutch  merchants  quite  willing  to  trade 
with  it  on  their  private  account.  But  the  German  invest- 
ments were  made  without  experience,  and  the  Embden  Com- 
pany was  before  long  sacrificed  by  the  Prussian  king  to  the 
exigencies  of  his  European  diplomacy. 


Swedish  The  last  nation  of  Europe  to  engage  in  maritime  trade  with 

Company,  j,-^(ji^  ^^^g  Sweden.  AVhen  the  Ostend  Company  was  sus- 
pended,  a  number  of  its  servants  were  thrown  out  of  em- 
ployment. Mr.  Henry  Koning,  of  Stockholm,  took  advantage 
of  their  knowledge  of  the  F.ast,  and  obtained  a  charter  for 
the  'Swedish  Company,'  dated  13th  June  1731.  This  Com- 
pany was  reorganized  in  1S06,  but  did  little;  and  after  many 
troubles,  disappeared  from  India. 


Causes  of 
failure  : 

of  the 
Portu- 
tjuese  ; 


of  the 
Dutch  ; 


of  the 
French. 


Causes  of 
failure  of 
the  Ger- 
mans. 


Such  is  a  summary  of  the  efforts  by  European  nations  to 
obtain  a  share  in  the  India  trade.  The  Portuguese  failed, 
because  they  attempted  a  task  altogether  beyond  their  strength  ; 
the  conquest  and  the  conversion  of  India.  Their  memorials 
are  the  epic  of  the  Lusiad,  the  death-roll  of  the  Inquisition, 
an  indigent  half-caste  population,  and  three  decayed  patches 
of  territory  on  the  Bombay  coast.  The  Dutch  failed  on  the 
Indian  continent,  because  their  trade  was  based  on  a  monopoly 
which  it  was  impossible  to  maintain,  except  by  great  and 
costly  armaments.  Their  monopoly,  however,  still  flourishes 
in  their  isolated  island  dominion  of  Java.  The  French  failed, 
in  spite  of  the  brilliancy  of  their  arms  and  the  genius  of  their 
generals,  from  want  of  steady  support  at  home.  1  heir  ablest 
Indian  servants  fell  victims  to  a  corrupt  Court  and  a  careless 
people.  Their  surviving  settlements  disclose  that  talent  for 
careful  administration  which,  but  for  French  monarchs  and 
their  ministers  and  their  mistresses,  might  have  been  dis- 
played throughout  a  wide  Indian  Empire. 

The  German  Companies,  whether  Austrian  or  Prussian, 
were  sacrificed  to  the  diplomatic  necessities  of  their  royal 
patrons  in  Europe  ;  and  to  the  dependencs  of  the  German 
States  in  the  wars  of  the  last  century  upon  the  Maritime 
Powers.  But  the  German  people  has  never  abandoned  the 
struggle.     The  share  in  the  Indian  trade  which  Prussian  King 

1  Letter  from  the  Court  of  Directors  to  the  Calcutta  Council,  March  25, 
1756,  para.  71. 


EUROPEAN  TRADERS,   1S72-S1.  377 

and  Austrian  Kaiser  failed  to  grasp  in  the  iSth  century,  has 

been  gradually  accjuired  by  German  merchants  in  our  own  day. 

An  important  part  of  the  commerce  of  Calcutta  and  Bombay  Revival  of 

is  now  conducted  by  German  firms  :  German  mercantile  agents  <^erman 

.       .  ,        .  ...      trade  in 

are   to    be  found  in   the  rice  districts,  the  jute  districts,  the  jndia. 
cotton  districts ;  and  persons  of  German  nationality  have  rapidly 
increased  in  the  Indian  Census  returns. 

England  emerged  the  prize-winner  from  the  long  contest  of  Causes  of 
the  European  nations  for  India.     Her  success  was  partly  the  s^^cess  in 
good  gift  of  fortune,  but  chiefly  the  result  of  four  elements  in  India, 
the  national  character.    There  was — first,  a  marvellous  patience 
and  self-restraint  in  refusing  to  enter  on  territorial  conquests 
or  projects  of  Indian  aggrandizement,  until  she  had  gathered 
strength  enough  to  succeed.      Second,  an    indomitable  per- 
sistence in  those  projects  once  they  were  entered  on  ;  and  a 
total   incapacity,    on    the   part    of  her  servants  in    India,    of 
being  stopped   by  defeat.     Third,  an  admirable  mutual  con- 
fidence of  the  Company's  servants  in  each  other  in  times  of 
trouble.     Fourth,  and  chief  of  all,  the  resolute  support  of  the 
English  nation  at  home.      England  has  never  doubted  that 
she  must  retrieve,  at  whatever  strain  to  herself,  every  disaster 
which   may  befall   Englishmen  in  India  ;  and  she  has  never 
sacrificed  the  work  of  her  Indian  servants  to  the  exigencies  of 
her  diplomacy  in  Europe.     She  was  the  only  European  power  P'i.ved 
which   unconsciously   but    absolutely   carried    out   these  two  policy  of 

-'  -'  .  11-        England 

principles  of  policy.     The  result  of  that  policy,  pursued  durmg  i„  india. 
two  and  a  half  centuries,  is  the  British  India  of  to-day. 

The  extent  to  which  the  chitf  continental  nations  of  Europe  European 
now  resort  to  British  India,  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  ira'^lers  m 

iS72in(l 

figures.  These  figures  are  exclusive  of  Europeans  in  French  issi." 
and  Portuguese  territory,  and  in  the  Native  States.  Germans 
numbered  655  in  1872,  and  1170  in  1881;  French,  631  in 
1872,  and  1013  in  1881  ;  Portuguese,  426  in  1872,  and  147 
in  1881  ;  Italians,  282  in  1872,  and  788  in  1881  ;  Greeks, 
127  in  1872,  and  195  in  1881  ;  Swedes,  73  in  1872,  and  337 
in  1881  ;  Russians,  45  in  1872,  and  204  in  1881  ;  Dutch, 
70  in  1872,  and  79  in  1881  ;  Norwegians,  58  in  1872,  and 
35S  in  1881  ;  Danes,  45  in  1872,  and  126  in  1881  ;  Spaniards, 
32  in  1872,  and  87  in  1881  ;  Belgians,  20  in  1872,  and  180 
in  1881  ;  Swiss,  19  in  1872,  and  87  in  1881  ;  Turks,  iS  in 
1872,  and  355  in  1881 ;  Austrians,  53  in  1872,  and  296  in 
i83i. 


[37S] 


CHAPTER    XV. 

HISTORY    OF    BRITISH    RULE  (1757    TO    18S5  A.D.). 

Our  first     The  political  history  of  the  British  in  India  begins  in  the  iSth 
territorial    century  with  the  French  wars  in  the  Karnatik.    Fort  St.  George, 

UOSSGSSlOll  • 

Madras,   '  the  nucleus  of  Madras,  founded  by  Francis  Day  in  1639,  was 
1639.  our  earliest  possession.    The  French  settlement  of  Pondicherri, 

about  100  miles  lower  down  the  Coromandel  coast,  was  estab- 
lished in  1674;  and  for  many  years  the  English  and  French 
traded  side  by  side  without  rivalry  or  territorial  ambition.    The 
English  paid  a  rent  of  1200  pagodas  (;^5oo)  to  the  deputies 
of  the  Mughal  Empire  when  Aurangzeb  annexed  the  south,  and 
on  two  occasions  bought  off  a  besieging  army  by  a  heavy  bribe. 
Southern         After    the    death   of    Aurangzeb    in    1707,    the   whole   of 
India  after  Southern  India  became  practically  independent  of  Delhi.     In 
'    '  the  Deccan  Proper,  the  Nizam-ul-Mulk  founded  a  hereditary 

dynasty,  with  Haidarabad  for  its  capital,  which  exercised  a 
nominal  authority  over  the  entire  south.  The  Karnatik,  or  the 
lowland  tract  between  the  central  plateau  and  the  eastern  sea, 
was  ruled  by  a  deputy  of  the  Nizam,  known  as  the  Nawab 
Local  of  Arcot.  Farther  south,  Trichinopoli  was  the  capital  of  a 
rulers.  Hindu  Raja;  Tanj ore  formed  another  Hindu  kingdom  under 
a  degenerate  descendant  of  Sivaji.  Inland,  Mysore  was 
gradually  growing  into  a  third  Hindu  State  ;  while  everywhere 
local  chieftains,  called  pdlegdrs  or  7iaiks,  were  in  semi-inde- 
pendent possession  of  citadels  or  hill-forts.  These  represented 
the  fief-holders  of  the  ancient  Hindu  kingdom  of  Vijayanagar  ; 
and  many  of  them  had  maintained  a  practical  independence 
since  its  fall  in  1565. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Southern  India  when 

war  broke  out  between  the  English  and  the  French  in  Europe 

French       in  1744.     Dupleix  was  at  that  time  Governor  of  Pondicherri, 

.T.ncl  Eng-    ^^^  Clive  was  a  young  writer  at  Madras.     An  English  fleet 

lish  in  the  ^  o  o  ^ 

Karnatik.  first  appeared  on  the  Coromandel  coast,  but  Dupleix,  by  a 
judicious  present,  induced  the  Nawab  of  Arcot  to  interpose 
and  prevent  hostilities.     In  1746,  a  French  squadron  arrived, 


FRENCH  WARS  IN  KARXATIK.  379 

under  tlie  command  of  La  Bourdonnais.     Madras  surrendered  First 
almost  without  a  blow:   and  the  only  settlement  left  to  the  '''^^"•^" 

.  .  .    war, 

English  was  Fort  St.  David,  a  few  miles  south  of  Pondicherri,  i746-4i>. 
where  Clive  and  a  itw  other  fugitives  sought  shelter.     The  We  Icsc 
Nawab,  faithful  to  his  impartial  policy,  marched  with  10,000  Madras, 
men  to  drive  the  French  out  of  Madras,  but  w-as  defeated. 
In  1748,  an  English  fleet  arrived  under  Admiral  Boscawen, 
and  attempted  the  siege  of  Pondicherri,  while  a  land  force 
co-operated  under  Major  Lawrence,  whose  name  afterwards 
became  associated  with  that  of  Clive.     The  French  repulsed 
all  attacks;   but  the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  in    the   same 
year,  restored  Madras  to  the  English. ^ 

The  first  war  with  the  French  was  merely  ai:  incident  in  the  Second 
greater  contest  in  Europe.     The  second  war  had  its  oria;in  in  ^'^^"'^'' 

....  °  war, 

Indian  politics,  while    England  and    France  were   at   peace.  1750-61. 
The  easy  success  of  the   French  arms  had  inspired  Dupleix  l^nplei.x. 
with  the  ambition  of  founding  a   French    empire    in   India, 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Muhammadan  powers.     Disputed  suc- 
cessions at  Haidarabad  and  at  Arcot  supplied  his  opportunity. 
On  both  thrones  Dupleix  placed  his  nominees,  and  posed  as 
the  arbiter  of  the  entire  south.      The    English    of   Madras, 
under  the  instinct  of  self-preservation,  had  supported  another 
candidate  to  the  throne  of  Arcot,  in  opposition  to  the  nominee 
of    Dupleix.      Our    candidate    was    ]\Iuhammad    All,    after- 
wards known  in  history  as  Wala-jah.     The  war  which  ensued 
between  the  French  and  EngHsh  in  Southern  India  has  been 
exhaustively   described    by   Orme.      The    one    incident    that  Clive's 
stands    out    conspicuously    is    the    capture    and    subsequent  ^^^'^^^ "' 
defence  of  Arcot  by  Clive  in  1751.     This  heroic  feat,  even  1751.' 
more  than  the  battle  of  Plassey,  spread  the  fame  of  English 
valour  throughout  India.     Shortly  afterwards,  Clive  returned 
to   England  in  ill-health,  but  the  war  continued  fitfully  for 
many  years.     On  the  whole,  English  influence  predominated  in 
the  Karnatik  or  Madras  coast,  and  their  candidate,  Muhammad 
All,  maintained  his  position  at  Arcot.     But,  inland,  the  French 
were  supreme  in  the  Deccan,  and  they  were  able  to  seize  the 
maritime  tract  called  '  the  Northern  Circars.' 

The  final  struggle  did  not  take  place  until  1760.     In  that  ^Vande- 
year  Colonel  (afterwards  Sir  Eyre)   Coote  won   the  decisive  \^(^q' 

^  The  authorities  for  the  French  and  English  wars  in  Southern  India 
are — (i)  Orme's  Indostan,  2  vols.,  Madras  reprint,  l86l ;  (2)  Mill's 
History  of  British  India  (ed.  1840)  ;  and  (3)  for  the  French  views  of  those 
transactions.  Colonel  Malleson's  admirable  History  of  the  French  in  Iiidia 
(London,  1S6S),  and  Final  Stnt^i^lcs  of  the  French  in  India  (London,  iStS). 


3 So  HISTOR  Y  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

victory  of  A\'andev/ash  over  the   French   General,  Lally,  and 

proceeded    to    invest    Pondicherri,    which   was    starved    into 

(".ingisiu-  capitulation  in  January  1761.      A  few  months  later  the  hilt- 

'th'April    fortress  of  Ginjee   (Gingi)  also  surrendered.^      In  the  words 

1 761.  of  Orme  :  'That  day  terminated  the  long  hostilities  between 

the  two  rival  European  powers  in  Coromandel,  and  left  not  a 

single  ensign  of  the  French  nation  avowed  by  the  authority 

of  its  Government  in  any  part  of  India.'  - 

The  Meanwhile,   the  narrative  of  British   conquest   shifts  with 

hi^L^lish       ciive  to  Bensial.    The  first  English  settlement  near  the  Gangetic 

111  Bengal,  °.        ..  .        *  ,.,,  ^     ^.        ° 

1634-96.  estuary  was  Pippli  m  Orissa,  at  which  the  East  India  Com- 
pany was  permitted  to  trade  in  1634,  five  years  before  the 
foundation  of  Madras.  The  river  on  which  Pippli  stood  has 
since  silted  up,  and  the  very  site  of  the  English  settlement  is 
now  a  matter  of  conjecture.  In  1640.  a  factory  was  opened  at 
Hiigli;  in  1642,  at  Balasor ;  and  in  1681,  Bengal  was  erected 
into  a  separate  presidency,  though  still  subordinate  to  Madras. 
The  name  of  Calcutta  is  not  heard  of  in  the  Company's  records 
till  1686,  when  Job  Charnock,  the  Enghsh  chief,  was  forced  to 
quit  Hiigli  by  the  deputy  of  Aurangzeb,  and  settled  lower  down 
the  river  on  the  opposite  bank.  There  he  acquired  a  grant  of 
the  three  petty  villages  of  Sutanati,  Gobindpur,  and  Kali'ghat 
(Calcutta),  and  founded  the  original  Fort  William  in  1696. 
Native  At  the  time  of  Aurangzeb's  death,  in  1707,  the  Nawab  or 

B  n  al  Governor  of  Bengal  was  Murshid  Kuli  Khan,  known  also  in 
1707-56.  European  history  as  Jafar  Khan.  By  birth  a  Brahman,  and 
brought  up  as  a  slave  in  Persia,  he  united  the  administrative 
ability  of  a  Hindu  with  the  fanaticism  of  a  renegade.  Hitherto 
the  capital  of  Bengal  had  been  at  Dacca,  on  the  eastern 
frontier  of  the  empire,  whence  the  piratical  attacks  of  the 
Portuguese  and  of  the  Arakanese  or  Maghs  could  be  most 
easily  checked.  Murshid  Kuli  Khan  transferred  his  residence 
to  Murshidabad,  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  Kasim- 
bazar,  which  was  then  the  chief  emporium  of  the  Gangetic  trade. 
The  English,  the  French,  and  the  Dutch  had  each  factories  at 
Kasimbazar,  as  well  as  at  Dacca,  Patna,  and  Maldah.     But 

^  A  full  account  of  Gingi  is  given,  sicb  verba,  in  T/ie  Imperial  Gazetteer 
of  India.  In  like  manner,  the  local  history  of  each  Presidency,  Province, 
or  town  is  treated  in  the  separate  article  upon  it,  and  can  therefore  only  be 
very  briefly  summarized  here.  Thus,  with  regard  to  Calcutta,  the  reader 
is  referred  to  article  Calcutta  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

^  Orme's  History  of  Military  Transaetions  in  Indostan  (1803),  Madras 
reprint,  vol.  ii.  p.  733  (1S61). 


BLA CK  HOLE  OF  CALC UTTA.  3 8 r 

Calcutta  was  the  head-quarters  of  the  English,  Chandarnagar  European 
of  the  French,  and  Chinsurah  of  the  Dutch.   These  three  settle- 1^'-'^'^- 

•  •,  r      r  1  1  .quarters, 

ments  were  situated  not  far  from  one  another  upon  reaches  of  1740. 
the  Hugh',  where  the  river  was  navigable  for  sea-going  ships. 
Calcutta  is  about  80  miles  from  the  sea  ;  Chandarnagar,  24 
miles  by  river  above  Calcutta ;  and  Chinsurah,  2  miles  above 
Chandarnagar.  Hiigli  town,  to  which  reference  has  so  often 
been  made,  is  almost  conterminous  with  Chinsurah,  but  lies 
one  mile  above  it. 

jMurshid  Kuli   Khan  ruled   over   Bengal  prosperously   for 
twenty-one  years,  and  left  his  power  to  a  son-in-law  and  a  grand- 
son.   The  hereditary  succession  was  broken  in  1 740  by  Ali  ^'ardi  Alf  \'ardi 
Khan,  a  usurper,  but  the  last  of  the  great  Nawabs  of  Bengal,  j^-^o-'-e 
In    his    days    the    Maratha    horsemen    began   to   ravage   the 
country,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Calcutta  obtained  permission 
in   1742   to  erect  an  earthwork,  known   to   the  present  day 
as  the  Maratha  ditch.     Ali  Vardi  Khan  died  in  1756,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  grandson,  Siraj-ud-Daula  (Surajah  Dowlah),  S-raj-ud- 
a  youth  of  only  eighteen  years,  whose  ungovernable  temper  ^^^"''^' 
led  to  a  rupture  with  the   English  within  two  months  after 
his  accession. 

In  pursuit   of  one   of  his  own   family  who   had   escaped 
from  his  vengeance,  he  marched  upon  Calcutta  with  a  large 
army.     Many  of  the  English  fled  down  the  river  in  their  ships. 
The   remainder   surrendered    after    a    brave    resistance,    and 
were  thrust  for  the  night  into  the  '  Black  Hole '  or  military  jail  '  Black 
of  Fort  William,  a  room  about  iS  feet  square,  with  only  two  Calcutta 
small  windows  barred  with  iron.     It  was  our  ordinary  garrison  1756. 
prison  in  those  times  of  cruel  military  discipline.    But  although 
the  Nawab  does  not  seem  to  have  been  aware  of  the  conse- 
quences, it  meant  death  to  a  crowd  of  146  English  men  and 
women  in  the  stifling  heats  of  June.     When  the  door  of  the 
prison  was  opened  next  morning,  only  23  persons  out  of  146 
remained  alive. ^ 

The  news  of  this  disaster  fortunately  found  Clive  back  again  Clive  and 
at  Madras,  where  also  was  a  squadron  of  the  King's  ships 
under  Admiral  Watson.     Clive  and  Watson  promptly  sailed  to 

^  The  contemporary  record  of  that  terrible  night  is  Hohvell's  Narrative. 
The  original  materials  have  been  carefully  examined,  and  much  misre- 
presentation has  been  cleared  away  by  Dr.  H.  E.  Busteed,  in  the  Calcutta 
Englishman ,  several  dates,  iSSo.  The  site  of  the  '  Black  Hole  '  has  been 
lately  identified,  at  the  entrance  to  the  lane  behind  the  General  Post- 
Office ;  and  the  spot  has  been  paved  with  fine  stone  (1884). 


^82 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RUIE. 


Calcutta 

recovered, 

1757- 


]>attle  of 

I'lassey, 

1757- 


How  the 
victory 
was 
ijained. 


Its  small 
results  at 
lirst. 


the  mouth  of  the  Ganges  with  all  the  troops  they  could  get 
together.  Calcutta  was  recovered  with  little  fighting,  and  the 
Nawab  consented  to  a  peace  which  restored  to  the  Company 
all  their  privileges,  and  gave  them  ample  compensation  for 
their  losses.  It  is  possible  that  matters  might  have  ended 
thus,  if  a  fresh  cause  of  hostilities  had  not  suddenly  arisen. 
War  had  just  been  declared  between  the  English  and  French 
in  Europe;  and  Clive,  following  the  traditions  of  warfare  in 
the  Karnatik,  captured  the  French  settlement  of  Chandarnagar. 
The  Nawab  Siraj-ud-Daula,  enraged  by  this  breach  of  the  peace 
within  his  dominions,  took  the  side  of  the  French.  But  Clive, 
acting  upon  the  policy  which  he  had  learned  from  Dupleix,  pro- 
vided himself  with  a  rival  candidate  (Mir  Jafar)  to  the  throne. 
Undaunted,  he  marched  out  to  the  grove  of  Plassey,  about  70 
miles  north  of  Calcutta,  at  the  head  of  1000  Europeans  and 
2000  sepoys,  with  8  pieces  of  artillery.  The  Bengal  Viceroy's 
army  numbered  35,000  foot  and  15,000  horse,  with  50  cannon. 

Clive  is  said  to  have  fought  in  spite  of  his  Council  of 
War.  The  truth  is,  he  could  scarcely  avoid  a  battle.  The 
Nawab  attacked  with  his  whole  artillery,  at  6  a.m.;  but  Clive 
kept  his  men  well  under  shelter,  '  lodged  in  a  large  grove, 
surrounded  with  good  mud  banks.'  At  noon  the  enemy  drew 
off  into  their  entrenched  camp  for  dinner.  Clive  only  hoped 
to  make  a  *  successful  attack  at  night.'  Meanwhile,  the  enemy 
being  probably  undressed  over  their  cooking-pots,  he  sprang 
upon  one  of  their  advanced  posts,  which  had  given  him 
trouble,  and  stormed  '  an  angle  of  their  camp.'  Several  of  the 
Nawab's  chief  officers  fell.  The  Nawab  himself,  dismayed  by 
the  unexpected  confusion,  fled  on  a  camel ;  his  troops  dis- 
]iersed  in  a  panic,  and  Clive  found  he  had  won  a  great  victory. 
Mir  Jafar's  cavalry,  which  had  hovered  undecided  during  the 
battle,  and  had  been  repeatedly  fired  on  by  Clive,  '  to  make 
them  keep  their  distance,'  now  joined  our  camp ;  and  the  road 
to  Murshidabad  lay  open.^ 

The  battle  of  Plassey  was  fought  on  June  23,  1757,  an 
anniversary  afterwards  remembered  when  the  Mutiny  of  1857 
was  at  its  height.  History  has  agreed  to  adopt  this  date  as  the 
beginning  of  the  British  Empire  in  the  East.  But  the  imme- 
diate results  of  the  victory  were  comjoaratively  small,  and 
several  years  passed  in  hard  fighting  before  even  the  Bengalis 
would   admit  the   superiority  of  the  British  arms.     For  the 

^  These  numbers  and  the  account  of  the  battle  are  taken  by  the  author 
from  Clive's  MS.  Despatch  to  the  Secret  Committee,  dated  26th  July  1757. 
The  quotations  are  Clives  own  words. 


RESULTS  OF  PLASSEY,   i-jsi-  3S3 

moment,  however,  all  opposition  was  at  an  end.     Clive,  again 

following  in  the  steps  of  Dupleix,  placed  Mir  Jafar  upon  the  Mir  Jafar, 

Viceregal  throne  at  Murshidabad,  being  careful  to  obtain  a  ''5^' 

])atent  of  investiture  from  the  Mughal  court. 

F'.normous  sums  were  exacted  from  Mir  Jafar  as  the  price  of  Pecuniary 

his  elevation.    The  Company  claimed  10  million  rupees  as  com-  compensa- 
^       •'  .  '  .       tions  to  the 

])ensation  for  its  losses.    For  the  English,  native,  and  Armenian  English. 

inhabitants  of  Calcutta  were  demanded,  respectively,  5  million, 
2  million,  and  1  million  rupees  ;  for  the  naval  squadron  and  the 
army,  2|  million  rupees  apiece.  The  members  of  the  Council 
received  the  following  amounts  : — Mr.  Drake,  the  Governor, 
and  Colonel  Clive,  as  second  member  of  the  Select  Com- 
mittee, 280,000  rupees  each.  Colonel  Clive  also  received 
200,000  rupees  as  Commander-in-Chief,  and  1,600,000  rupees 
'  as  a  private  donation  ; '  Mr.  Becker,  Mr.  Watts,  and  Major 
Kilpatrick,  240,000  rupees  each,  besides  'private  donations,' 
amounting  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Watts  to  800,000  rupees.  The 
gratifications  of  a  personal  character,  including  the  donation 
to  the  troops  and  the  fleet,  aggregated  p{^i<238,575  ;  ^  while 
the  whole  claim  arnounted  to  ^2,697,750.  The  English  stil 
cherished  extravagant  ideas  of  Indian  wealth.  But  no  funds 
existed  to  satisfy  their  inordinate  demands,  and  they  had  to  be 
contented  with  one-half  the  stipulated  sums.  Even  of  this 
reduced  amount,  one-third  had  to  be  taken  in  jewels  and 
plate,  there  being  neither  coin  nor  bullion  left. 

At  the  same  time,  the  Nawab  made  a  grant  to  the  Com-  Grant  of 
]\iny  of  the  zam'inddri  or  landholder's  rights  over  an  extensive  Twenty- 
tract  of  country  round  Calcutta,  now  known  as  the  District  ganas,' 
of  the  Twenty-four  Parganas.     The  area  of  this  tract  was  882  i757- 
square   miles.       In    1757    the   Company   obtained    only   the 
zam'inddri    rights — i.e.,  the    rights   to  collect    the    cultivators' 
rents,  with  the  revenue  jurisdiction  over  them.     The  superior 
lordship,  or  right  to  receive  the  land-tax,  remained  with  the 
Nawab.      But  in  1759  this  also  was  granted  by  the   Delhi 
Emperor,  the  nominal  Suzerain  of  the  Nawab,  in  favour  of 
Clive,   who   thus  became  the   landlord  of  his   own    masters, 
the  Company.     Clive  was  enrolled  among  the  highest  nobility 
of  the  Mughal  Empire,  with  the  rank  of  commander  of  6000 
foot   and    5000   horse,   and   a  large  allotment  of  land    near 
Calcutta,  in  1759. 

This  military  fief,  or  Clive's  j'dgir,  as  it  was  called,  subse-  Cjive's 
quently  became  a  matter  of  inquiry  in  England.     Lord  Clive's  ^^'^'''q' 

'  For  a  full  statement  of  the  personal  donations,  see  Mill's  History  of 
British  India,  vol.  iii.  pp.  367,  36S  (Wilson's  ed.  1S40). 


584 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 


Clive,   fust 
Cxovernor 
of  Bengal, 
175^; 


claims  to  the  property  as  feudal  Suzerain  over  the  Company 
were  contested  in  1764.  On  the  23rd  June  1765,  when  he 
returned  to  Bengal,  a  new  deed  was  issued,  confirming  the 
unconditional /(7^/V  to  Lord  Clive  for  ten  years,  with  reversion 
afterwards  to  the  Company  in  perpetuity.  This  deed,  having 
received  the  Emperor's  sanction  on  the  12th  August  1765,  gave 
absolute  validity  to  the  original  jag'ir  grant  in  favour  of  Lord 
Clive.  It  transferred,  in  reversion,  to  the  Company  the 
Twenty-four  Parganas  as  a  perpetual  property  based  upon  ajcigir 
grant.  The  sum  of  Rs.  222,958,  the  amount  at  which  the  land 
was  assessed  when  first  made  over  to  the  Company  in  1757, 
was  paid  to  Lord  Clive  from  1765  until  his  death  in  1774, 
when  the  whole  proprietary  right  reverted  to  the  Company.^ 

In  1758,  Clive  was  appointed  by  the  Court  of  Directors  the 
first  Governor  of  all  the  Company's  settlements  in  Bengal. - 

'  For  a  fall  account  of  the  different  grants,  and  the  powers  granted  bj- 
them,  see  Hunter's  Statistical  Account  of  B.ngal,  vol.  i.  (TwENTY-FouR 
Parganas),  pp.  19,  20. 

-  Governors  and  Governors-General  of  Inpfa  under  the  East 
India  Company,   1758-1858. 


1758- 
1760. 
1760. 

1765- 
1767. 
1769. 
1772. 

17S5. 

17S5. 
1793- 

179S. 
179S. 

1S05. 


1858. 
1862. 
1863. 

1S63. 

1S64. 


lyord  Clive,  Governor.  1805. 

lslx.Z.Yio\\\&\\  {pro  tern.').  I    1807. 

Mr.  Vansittart.  '    1S13. 
Lord  Clive  (second  time). 

Harry  Verelst.  j    1823. 

John  Cartier.  1823. 

Warren  Hastings  (first  Cover-  182S. 

nor-General,  1774). 

Sir    John    Macpherson    {pro  1S2S. 

tern.  V 

Marquis  of  Cornwallis.  ;    1835. 
Sir  John  .Shore  (Lord  Telgn- 

mouth).  !    1836. 

Sir  Mured  Clarke  (/5r(7 /£-w.).  '    1842. 

Lord     Mornington    (Marquis  1844. 

Wellesley).  1848. 
Marquis  of  Cornwallis  (second 

time).  I    1S56. 


Sir  George  Barlow  {pro  tan.). 

Earl  of  M into. 

Earl   of  Moira,    Marquis   of 

Hastings. 
John  Adam  ( pro  tern. ). 
Lord  Amherst. 
Mr.  Butterworth  Bayley  {pro 

tern.). 
Lord      William      Cavendish 

Bentinck. 
Sir  Chas.  Metcalfe,afterwards 

Lord  Metcalfe  {pro  ton.). 
Earl  of  Auckland. 
Earl  of  Ellenborough. 
Viscount  Hardinge. 
Earl  (afterwards  Marquis)  of 

Dalhousie. 
Earl  Canning. 


Viceroys  of  Lndia  under  the  Crown,  1S58-S5. 

1869.  Earl  of  Mayo. 

1S72.  .Sir  John  Strachey  {protein.). 

1872.  Lord  Napier  of  Merchistoun 

{pro  tern.). 

1872.  Earl  of  Northbrook. 

1876.  Earl  of  Lytton. 

iSSo.  Marquis  of  Ripon. 

1884.  Lord  Dufferin. 


Earl  Canning. 

Earl  of  Elgin. 

Sir  R.  Napier,  afterwards  Lord 

Napier  of  Magdala  ( piv  tent.). 

Sir   William    Denison    {pro 

icm.). 
.Sir    John    Lawrence    (Lord 

Lawrence). 


ENGLISH  MISRULE  IN  BENGAL.  385 

Two  powers  threatened  hostilities.  On  the  west,  the  Shahzada 
or  Imperial  prince,  known  afterwards  as  the  Emperor  Shah 
Alam,  with  a  mixed  army  of  Afghans  and  Marathas,  and 
supported  by  the  Nawab  Wazir  of  Oudh,  was  advancing  his 
own  claims  to  the  Province  of  Bengal.  In  the  south,  the 
influence  of  the  French  under  Lally  and  Bussy  was  over- 
shadowing the  British  at  Madras. 

The  vigour  of  Clive  exercised  a  decisive  effect  in  both  direc- 
tions.   Mir  Jafar  was  anxious  to  buy  off  the  Shahzada,  who  had 
already  invested  Patna.     But  Clive  marched  in  person  to  the  scatters 
rescue,  with  an  army  of  only  450  Europeans  and  2500  sepoys,  ^""" 
and  the  Mughal  army  dispersed  without  striking  a  blow.     Clive 
also  despatched  a  force  southwards  from  Bengal  under  Colonel  overcomes 
Forde,  in  1759,  which  recaptured  Masulipatam  from  the  French,  F/^^?^'^,  "^ 
and  permanently  established  British  influence  throughout  the 
Northern  Circars,  and  at  the  court  of  Haidarabad.     He  next 
attacked   the    Dutch,   the   only  other  European   nation  who 
might  yet  prove  a  rival  to  the  English.     He  defeated  them  defeats 
both  by  land  and  water;  and  their  settlement  at  Chinsurah  ^"tch. 
existed  thenceforth  only  on  sufferance. 

Yxo\\\  1760  to   1765,  Clive  was  in  England.     He  had  left -^'i^'^'in- 
no  system  of  government  in  Bengal,  but  merely  the  tradition  1-60-64' 
that  unlimited  sums  of  money  might  be  extracted  from  the 
natives  by  the  terror  of  the  English  name.      In  1761,  it  was 
found  expedient  and  profitable  to  dethrone    Mi'r   Jafar,   the 
English   Nawdb  of  Murshidabad,  and  to  substitute  his  son- 
in-law,  Mi'r  Kasim,  in  his  place.     On  this  occasion,  besides  Mi""  Kasim 
private  donations,  the  English  received  a  grant  of  the  three  j^s"'' 
Districts  of  Bardwan,  Midnapur,  and  Chittagong,  estimated  to 
yield  a  net  revenue  of  half  a  million  sterling.     But  Mi'r  Kasim 
soon  began  to  show  a  will  of  his  own,  and  to  cherish  dreams 
of  independence.     He  retired  from  jMurshidabad  to  Monghyr 
a  strong  position  on  the  Ganges,  commanding  the  only  means 
of  communication  with  the  north-west.     There  he  proceeded 
to   organize  an  army,  drilled   and   equipped   after  European 
models,  and  to  carry  on  intrigues  with  the  Nawab  Wazir  of 
Oudh.     He  resolved  to  try  his  strength  with  the  English,  and 
found  a  good  pretext. 

The  Company's  servants  claimed  the  privilege  of  carrying 
on  their  private  trade  throughout  Bengal,  free  from  inland 
dues  and  all  imposts.      The  assertion  of  this  claim  caused  Mir  Kasim 
affrays  between  the  customs  officers  of  the  Nawab  and  the  "^^^^^ 

.  ^  with  the 

native  traders,  who,   whether  truly  or  not,   represented  that  English. 

2  B 


!86 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 


Patna 

Massacre, 

1763- 


First 
sepoy 
miUiiiy, 
1764. 

Battle  of 

Baxar, 

1764. 


they  were  acting  on  behalf  of  the  servants  of  the  Company. 
The  Nawab  alleged  that  his  civil  authority  was  everywhere  set 
at  nought.  The  majority  of  the  Council  at  Calcutta  would 
not  listen  to  his  complaints.  The  Governor,  Mr.  Vansittarr, 
and  Warren  Hastings,  then  a  junior  member  of  Council, 
attempted  to  effect  some  compromise.  But  the  controversy 
had  become  too  hot.  The  Nawab's  officers  fired  upon  an 
English  boat,  and  forthwith  all  Bengal  rose  in  arms.  Two 
thousand  of  our  sepoys  were  cut  to  pieces  at  Patna;  about  200 
Englishmen,  who  there  and  in  various  other  parts  of  the 
Province  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Muhammadans,  were 
massacred.^ 

But  as  soon  as  regular  warfare  commenced,  Mir  Kasim  met 
with  no  more  successes.  His  trained  regiments  were  defeated 
in  two  pitched  battles  by  Major  Adams,  at  Gheriah  and  at 
Udhanala  (OodeynuUah) ;  and  he  himself  took  refuge  with  the 
Nawab  Wazi'r  of  Oudh,  who  refused  to  deliver  him  up.  This 
led  to  a  prolongation  of  the  war.  Shah  x\lam,  who  had  suc- 
ceeded his  father  as  Delhi  Emperor,  and  Shuja-ud-Daula  the 
Nawab  Wazir  of  Oudh,  united  their  forces,  and  threatened 
Patna,  which  the  English  had  recovered.  A  more  formidable 
danger  appeared  in  the  English  camp,  in  the  form  of  the  first 
sepoy  mutiny.  This  was  quelled  by  Major  (afterwards  Sir 
Hector)  Munro,  who  ordered  24  of  the  ringleaders  to  be  blown 
from  guns — an  old  Mughal  punishment.  In  1764,  Major 
Munro  won  the  decisive  battle  of  Baxar,  which  laid  Oudh  at 
the  feet  of  the  conquerors,  and  brought  the  Mughal  Emperor 
a  suppliant  to  the  English  camp. 


Clive's 
second 
governor- 
ship, 
1765-67. 


Meanwhile,  the  Council  at  Calcutta  had  twice  found  the 
opportunity  they  loved  of  selling  the  government  of  Bengal 
to  a  new  Nawab.  But  in  1765,  Clive  (now  Baron  Clive  of 
Plassey  in  the  peerage  of  Ireland)  arrived  at  Calcutta,  as 
Governor  of  Bengal  for  the  second  time.  Two  landmarks 
stand  out  in  his  policy.  First,  he  sought  the  substance, 
although  not  the  name,  of  territorial  power,  under  the  fiction 
of  a  grant  from  the  Mughal  Emperor.  Second,  he  desired 
to  purify  the  Company's  service,  by  prohibiting  illicit  gains, 
and  by  guaranteeing  a  reasonable  pay  from  honest  sources. 
In  neither  respect  were  his  plans  carried  out  by  his  immediate 
successors.     But  the  beginning  of  our  Indian  rule  dates  from    | 

1  The  massacre  of  Patna  is  described  in  sufficient  detail  under  article 
Patna  District  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  and  in  Hunter's 
Statistical  Accotuit  of  Bengal,  vol.  xi.  pp.  7 1  et  seq. 


DIWAXI  GRANT  OF  BENGAL.  38 7 

this  second  governorship  of  Clive,  as  our  military  supremacy 
had  dated  from  his  victory  at  Plassey. 

Clive  landed,  advanced  rapidly  up  from  Calcutta  to  Allah-  Clive's 
abad,  and  there  settled  in  person  the  fate  of   nearly  half  of  q^^  '  g°"^''' 
India.     Oudh  was  given  back  to  the  Nawab  Wazir,  on  condi-  valley, 
tion  of  his  paying  half  a  million  sterling  towards  the  expenses  ^''^' 
of  the  war.     The  Provinces  of  Allahabad  and  Kora,^  forming 
the  greater  part  of  the  Doab,  were  handed  over  to  Shah  Alam, 
the  Delhi  Emperor,  who  in  his  turn  granted  to  the  Company 
the   dkihini   or   fiscal   administration   of  Bengal,  Behar,   and  Diwani 
Orissa,  with    the  jurisdiction   of   the    Northern    Circars.      A  Bengal 
j)uppet  Nawab  was  still  maintained  at  Murshidabad,  with  an  1765. 
annual  allowance  from  us  of  ^600,000.     Half  that  amount,  or 
about  ;^3oo,ooo,   we  paid  to  the  Emperor  as  tribute  from 
fjengal.^     Thus  was  constituted  the  dual  system  ot  Govern- 
ment, by  which  the  English  received  the  revenues  of  Bengal 
and  undertook  to  maintain  the  army ;  while  the  criminal  juris- 
diction,  or  nizdmat^  was  vested  in  the  Nawab.      In  Indian 
phraseology,  the  Company  was  dkadn,  and  the  Naw^b  was 
nizdm.     The  actual  collection  of  the  revenues  still  remained 
for  some  years  in  the  hands  of  native  officials. 

Clive's  other  great  task  was  the  reorganization  of  the  Com-  Clive's 
pany's  service.     All  the  officers,  civil  and  military  alike,  were  [^"t^ol^"* 
tainted  with  the  common  corruption.     Their  legal  salaries  were  of  the 
paltry  and  quite  insufficient  for  a  livelihood.     But  they  had  Company  s 

.  service, 

been  permitted  to  augment  them,  sometimes  a  hundred-fold,  1766. 
by  means  of  private  trade  and  gifts  from  the  native  powers. 
Despite  the  united  resistance  of  the  civil  servants,  and  an 
actual  mutiny  of  two  hundred  military  officers,  Clive  carried 
through  his  reforms.  Private  trade  and  the  receipt  of  presents 
were  prohibited  for  the  future,  while  a  substantial  increase  of 
pay  was  provided  out  of  the  monopoly  of  salt. 

Lord  Clive  quitted  India  for  the  third  and  last  time  in  1767.  Dual  sys- 
Between  that  date  and  the  governorship  of  Warren  Hastings  admini- 
in  1772,  little  of  importance  occurred  in  Bengal  beyond  the  stration. 
terrible  famine  of  1770,  which  is  officially  reported  to   have  ^^  ^~^-' 
swept  away  one-third  of  the  inhabitants.       The  dual  system 
of  government,  established  in  1765  by  Clive,  had  proved  a 

1  The  '  Corah  '  of  the  E.  I.  Company's  records  ;  the  capital  of  an  ancient 
Muhammadan  governorship,  now  a  decayed  town  in  Fatehpur  District. 
See  article  Kora  in  The  Imperial  Gazettcn-  of  India. 

'■'  The  exact  sums  were  Sikka  Rs.  5,386,131  to  the  Nawab,  and  Sikka 
Rs.  2,600,000  to  the  Emperor. 


388 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 


Dual 
system 
abolished, 
1772. 


Warren 

Hastinf;s, 
1772-85. 


His  admi- 
nistrative 
reforms. 


Hastings' 

policy 

with 

native 

i:)o\vers. 


Warren 

Hastings 

first 

Governor - 

General, 

1774. 


failtire.  Warren  Hastings,  a  tried  servant  of  the  Company, 
distinguished  alike  for  inteUigence,  for  probity,  and  for  know- 
ledge of  oriental  manners,  was  nominated  Governor  by  the 
Court  of  Directors,  with  express  instructions  to  carry  out  a 
predetermined  series  of  reforms.  In  their  own  words,  the 
Court  had  resolved  to  '  stand  forth  as  d'lwdn,  and  to  take  upon 
themselves,  by  the  agency  of  their  own  servants,  the  entire 
care  and  administration  of  the  revenues,'  In  the  execution 
of  this  plan,  Hastings  removed  the  exchequer  to  Calcutta  from 
INIurshidabad,  which  had  up  to  that  time  remained  the  revenue 
head-quarters  of  Bengal.  He  also  appointed  European  officers, 
under  the  now  familiar  title  of  Collectors,  to  superintend  the 
revenue  collections  and  preside  in  the  courts. 

Clive  had  laid  the  territorial  foundations  of  the  British 
Empire  in  Bengal.  Hastings  may  be  said  to  have  created  a 
British  administration  for  that  Empire.  The  wars  forced  on 
him  by  Native  Powers  in  India,  the  clamours  of  his  masters  in 
England  for  money,  and  the  virulence  of  Sir  Philip  Francis  with 
a  faction  of  his  colleagues  at  the  Council  table  in  Calcutta, 
retarded  the  completion  of  his  schemes.  But  the  manuscript 
records  disclose  the  patient  statesmanship  and  indomitable 
industry  which  he  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  From  1765  to 
1772,  Clive's  dual  system  of  government,  by  corrupt  native 
underlings  and  rapacious  English  chiefs,  prevailed.  Thirteen 
years  were  now  spent  by  W^arren  Hastings  in  experimental 
efforts  at  rural  administration  by  means  of  English  officials 
(1772-85).  The  completion  of  the  edifice  was  left  to  his  suc- 
cessor. But  Hastings  was  the  administrative  organizer,  as 
Clive  had  been  the  territorial  founder,  of  our  Indian  Empire. 

Hastings'  true  fame  as  an  Indian  ruler  rests  on  his  admini- 
strative work.  He  reorganized  the  Indian  service,  reformed 
every  branch  of  the  revenue  collections,  created  courts  of 
justice  and  some  semblance  of  a  police.  History  remembers 
his  name,  however,  not  for  his  idnprovements  in  the  internal 
administration,  but  for  his  bold  foreign  policy,  and  for  the 
crimes  into  which  it  led  him.  From  1772  to  1774,  he  was 
Governor  of  Bengal;  from  the  latter  date  to  1785,  he  was 
the  first  Governor  -  General,  presiding  over  a  Council  nomi- 
nated, like  himself,  under  a  statute  of  Parliament  known 
as  the  Regulating  Act  (1773),  In  his  domestic  policy  he 
was  greatly  hampered  by  the  opposition  of  his  colleague  in 
council.  Sir  Philip  Francis,  But  in  his  external  relations  with 
Oudh,  with  the  Marathas,  and  with  Haidar  Ali,  he  was 
generally  able  to  compel  assent  to  his  views. 


HASTINGS  BENGAL  TRANSACTIONS.      3S9 

His  relations  with  the  native  powers,  like  his  domestic  H's  two- 
policy,  formed  a  well-considered  scheme.  Hastings  had  to 
find  money  for  the  Court  of  Directors  in  England,  whose 
thirst  for  the  wealth  of  India  was  not  less  keen,  although  more 
decorous,  than  that  of  their  servants  in  Bengal.  He  had 
also  to  protect  the  Company's  territory  from  the  Native 
Powers,  which,  if  he  had  not  destroyed  them,  would  have 
annihilated  him.  An  honest  man  under  such  circumstances 
might  be  led  into  questionable  measures.  Hastings  in  his 
personal  dealings,  and  as  regards  his  personal  gains,  seems  to 
have  been  a  high-minded  English  gentleman.  But  as  an 
Anglo-Indian  statesman,  he  shared  the  laxity  which  he  saw 
jjractised  by  the  native  potentates  with  whom  he  had  to  deal. 
Parts  of  his  policy  were  vehemently  assailed  in  Parliament,  and 
cannot  be  upheld  by  right-thinking  men.  It  is  the  object  of  the 
present  summary  neither  to  attack  nor  to  defend  his  measures, 
but  to  give  a  short  account  of  them,  as  a  connected  whole. 

Warren  Hastings  had  in  the  first  place  to  make  Bengal  pay.  Hastings 
This  he  could  not  do  under  Clive's  dual,  system  of  administra-  3en<Tai 
tion.     When  he  abolished  that  double  system,  he  cut  down  pay. 
the    Nawab's    allowance    to    one-half,  and    so   saved    about 
;^ 1 60,000  a  year.     In  defence  of  this  act,  it  may  be  stated 
that  the  titular  Nawab,  being  then  a  minor,  had  ceased  to  render 
even  any  nominal  service  for  his  enormous  pension.     Clive  had 
himself  reduced  the  original  ;^6oo,ooo  to  ;^45o,ooo  on  the 
accession  of  a  new  Nawab  in   1766,  and  the  grant  was  again 
cut  down  to  ^350,000  on  a  fresh  succession  in  1769.^     The 
allowance  had  practically  been  of  a  fluctuating  and  personal 
character.-     Its  further  reduction  in  the  case  of  the  new  child- 
Nawab  had,  moreover,  been  expressly  ordered  by  the  Court 
of  Directors  six  months  before  Hastings  took  office. 

Hastings'  next  financial  stroke  was  the  sale  of  Allahabad  and  Sells 
Kora  Provinces  to  the  Wazir  of  Oudh.     These  Provinces  had  ^j^^f  j^J^^^' 
been  assigned  by  Clive,  in  his  partition  of  the  Gangetic  valley,  1773. 
to  the  Emperor  Shah  Alam,  together  with  a  tribute  of  about 
^300,000  (26    lakhs  of  rupees),  in   return  for  the   grant  of 
Bengal  to  the  Company.     But   the  Emperor   nad   now  been 

^  The  detailed  history  of  these  transactions,  and  a  sketch  of  each  of  the 
14  Nawabs  of  Ben£^al  from  1704  to  1S84,  will  be  found  under  District  Mur- 
shidabad,  vol.  ix.  pp.  172-195  of  Hunter's  Statistical  Accotint  of  Bengal. 

^  See  separate  agreements  with  the  successive  Nawabs  of  30th  September 
1765,  19th  May  1766,  and  21st  March  1770,  in  each  of  which  the  grant  is 
to  the  Nawab,  without  mention  of  heirs  or  successors. — Aitchison's  Treaties 
and  Enjagein.'iits,  vol.  i.  pp.  56-59  (ed.  1876). 


390  HISTOR  \ '  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

seized  by  the  jNLirathas.       Hastings   held  that   His    Majesty 

was  no  longer  independent,  and  that  it  would  be  a  fatal  policy 

for  the  British  to   pay  money  to  the  INIarathas  in    Northern 

India,  when  it  was  evident  that  they  would  soon  have  to  fight 

Withholds  them  in  the  south.     He  therefore  withheld  the  tribute  of  the 

Emperor's  -^3°°'°°°    irom.   the   puppet    Emperor,  or   rather    from   his 

tribute.        Maratha  custodians. 

Clive,  at  the  partition  of  the  Gangetic  valley  in  1 765,  assigned 

the  Provinces  of  Allahabad  and  Kora  to  the  Emperor.     The 

Emperor,  now  in  the  hands  of  the  IMarathas,  had  made  them 

over  to  his  new  masters.     Warren  Hastings  held  that  by  so 

doing  His  Majesty  had  forfeited  his  title  to  these  Provinces. 

Hastings  accordingly  resold  them  to  the  Wazir  of  Oudh.     By 

this  measure  he  freed  the  Company  from  a  military  charge  of 

nearly  half  a  million  sterling  (40  lakhs  of  rupees),  and  obtained 

a  price  of  over  half  a  million  (50  Idkhs)  for  the  Company. 

The  Ro-         The  sale  included  the  loan  of  the  British  troops  to  subdue 

lulb  \var,    j-]-,^  RohiUa  Afghans,  who  held  a  large  tract  in  those  Provinces 

ever  since  Ahmad  Shah's  desolating  invasion  in  1761.     The 

jRohillas  were  foreigners,  and  had  cruelly  lorded  it  over  the 

peasantry.  1     They  now  resisted  bravely,  and  were  crushed  with 

the  merciless  severity  of  Asiatic  warfare  by  the  Wazir  of  Oudh, 

aided  by  his  British  troops.     By  these  measures  Warren  Hastings 

bettered  the  finances  of  Bengal  to  the  extent  of  a  million 

sterling  a  year  on  both  sides  of  the  account ;  but  he  did  so  at 

the  cost  of  treaties  and  pensions  granted  by  his  predecessor 

Clive. 

riunder  He  further  improved  the  financial  position  of  the  Company 

ufchait      ijy  what   is  known  as  the  plunder  of  Chait  Singh  and  the 

Sincrh,  1  t-> 

ijSo^  Begam  of  Oudh.   Chait  Singh,  the  Raja  of  Benares,  had  grown 

rich  under  British  protection.  He  resisted  the  demand  of 
Warren  Hastings  to  subsidize  a  military  force,  and  an  alleged 
correspondence  with  the  enemies  of  the  British  Government  led 
to  his  arrest.  He  escaped,  headed  a  rebellion,  and  was  crushed. 
His  estates  were  forfeited,  but  transferred  to  his  nephew  sub- 
ject to  an  increased  tribute.- 
Hastings  The  Begam,  or  Queen-Mother,  of  Oudh  was  charged  with 
lines  the      abetting  the  Benares  Raja  in  his  rebellion.     A  heavy  fine  was 

( )uiih  .  -n  r 

Jiegani,       laid  upon  her,  which  she  resisted  to  the  utmost.     But  after 
17S2. 

1  For  the  history  of  the  Rohilla  Afghans,  on  whom  much  sentiment 
has  been  needlessly  lavished,  see  article  Bareil-ly  DISTRICT,  'I he Itnpirial 
Gazitleer  of  India,  and  other  Districts  of  Rohilkhand. 

-  See  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  articles  Benares  Disikict  and 
Benares  Estate. 


HASTINGS   WORK  IN  THE  SOUTH.         391 

cruel  pressure  on  herself  and  the  eunuchs  of  her  household, 
over  a  million  sterling  was  extorted  for  the  English  Company. 

On  his  return  to  England,  Warren  Hastings  was  impeached,  Cliar^'cs 
in  1786,  by  the  House  of  Commons  for  these  and  other  alleged  against 
acts  of  oppression.  He  was  solemnly  tried  by  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  the  proceedings  dragged  themselves  out  for  seven 
years  (1788-95).  They  form  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
State  trials  in  English  history,  and  ended  in  a  verdict  of  not 
guilty  on  all  the  charges.  Meanwhile,  the  cost  of  the  defence 
had  ruined  Warren  Hastings,  and  left  him  dependent  upon  the 
charity  of  the  Court  of  Directors — a  charity  which  never  failed. 

The  real  excuse,  such  as  it  is,  for  some  of  Hastings'  measures  Hastini,^s' 
is  that  he  had  to  struggle  for  his  very  existence  :  that  native  P"^""^ 

.  excuse 

perfidy  gave  him  his  opportunity  ;  and  that  he  used  his  oppor- 
tunity, on  the  whole,  less  mercilessly  than  a  native  Viceroy 
would  have  done.  It  is  a  poor  excuse  for  the  clearest  English 
head,  and  the  firmest  administrative  hand,  that  ever  ruled 
India.  In  his  dealings  with  Southern  India,  Warren  Hastings 
had  not  to  regard  solely  the  financial  results.  He  there  appears 
as  the  great  man  that  he  really  was ;  calm  in  council,  cautious 
of  enterprise,  but  swift  in  execution,  and  of  indomitable  courage 
in  all  that  he  undertook. 

The  Bombay  Govei'nment  was  naturally  emulous  to  follow 
the  example  of  Madras  and  Bengal,  and  to  establish  its  supre- 
macy at  the  Court  of  Poona  by  placing  its  own  nominee  upon 
the  throne.  This  ambition  found  its  scope  in  1775  by  the 
treaty  of  Surat,  by  which  Raghunath  Rao,  one  of  the  claimants 
to  the  throne  of  the  Peshwa,  agreed  to  cede  Salsette  and 
Bassein  to  the  English,  in  consideration  of  being  himself 
restored  to  Poona.  The  military  operations  that  followed  are  First  Mar- 
known  as  the  first  Maratha  war.     Warren  Hastings,  who  in  his  ^llo  V/' 

'-'  i77"~"'' 

capacity  of  Governor-General  claimed  some  degree  of  control 

over  the  decisions  of  the  Bombay  Government,  strongly  dis- 
approved of  the  treaty  of  Surat.  But  when  war  actually  broke 
out,  he  threw  the  whole  force  of  the  Bengal  army  into  the  scale. 
One  of  his  favourite  officers,  General  Goddard,  marched  across  Goddanl's 
the  peninsula  from  sea  to  sea,  and  conquered  the  rich  Province  ™JL'q^^' 
of  Gujarat  almost  without  a  blow.  Another,  Captain  Popham, 
snatched  by  storm  the  rock-fortress  of  Gwalior,  which  was 
regarded  as  the  key  of  Hindustan. 

These  brilliant  successes  of  the  Bengal  troops  atoned  for  the 
contemporaneous  disgrace  of  the  convention  of  Wargaum  in 
1779,  when  the  Marathas  overpowered  and  dictated  terms 
to  our  Bombay  force.     The  war  in  Bombay  lasted  till  1781. 


392 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE, 


Treaty  of 

Salhai, 

1782. 


War  with 

IMvsore, 

1780-S4. 


Death  of 
Haidar 
AH,  1782. 


It  was  closed  by  the  treaty  of  Salbai  (1782),  which  practically 
restored  the  stahis  quo.  Raghunath  R^o,  the  English  claimant 
to  the  Peshwaship,  was  set  aside  on  a  pension;  Gujarat 
was  restored  to  the  Marathas ;  and  only  Salsette,  with 
Elephanta  and  two  other  small  islands,  was  retained  by  the 
English. 

Meanwhile,  Warren  Hastings  had  to  deal  with  a  more  for- 
midable enemy  than  the  Maratha  confederacy.  The  reckless 
conduct  of  the  Madras  Government  had  roused  the  hostility 
both  of  Haidar  All  of  Mysore  and  of  the  Nizam  of  the  Deccan, 
the  two  strongest  Musalman  powers  in  India.  These  princes 
began  to  draw  the  Marathas  into  an  alliance  against  the  English. 
The  diplomacy  of  Hastings  won  back  the  Nizam  and  the 
Maratha  Raja  of  Nagpur;  but  the  army  of  Haidar  All  fell 
like  a  thunderbolt  upon  the  British  possessions  in  the  Karnatik. 
A  strong  detachment  under  Colonel  Baillie  was  cut  to  pieces 
at  Pollilore,  and  the  Mysore  cavalry  ravaged  the  country  up 
to  the  walls  of  Madras.  For  the  second  time  the  Bengal 
army,  stimulated  by  the  energy  of  Hastings,  saved  the  honour 
of  the  English  name.  He  despatched  Sir  Eyre  Coote,  the 
victor  of  Wandewash,  to  relieve  Madras  by  sea,  with  all  the 
men  and  money  available,  while  Colonel  Pearse  marched 
south  overland  to  overawe  the  Raja  of  Berar  and  the  Nizam. 
The  war  was  hotly  contested,  for  the  aged  Sir  Eyre  Coote  had 
lost  his  energy,  and  the  Mysore  army  was  not  only  well 
disciplined  and  equipped,  but  skilfully  handled  by  Haidar  and 
his  son  Tipii.  Haidar  died  in  1782;  and  peace  was  finally 
concluded  with  Tipii  in  1784,  on  the  basis  of  a  mutual 
restitution  of  all  conquests. 


Lord 
Corn- 

wallis, 
1786-93. 


Two  years  later,  Warren  Hastings  was  succeeded  by  Lord 
Cornwallis,  the  first  English  nobleman  of  rank  who  undertook 
the  office  of  Governor-General  of  India.  Between  these  two 
great  names  an  interval  of  twenty  months  took  place  under 
Sir  John  Macpherson,  a  civil  servant  of  the  Company  (Feb. 
1785  to  Sept.  1876).  Lord  Cornwallis  twice  held  the  high 
post  of  Governor-General.  His  first  rule  lasted  from  1786 
to  1793,  and  is  celebrated  for  two  events — the  introduction 
of  the  Permanent  Settlement  into  Bengal,  and  the  second 
Mysore  war.  If  the  foundations  of  the  system  of  civil  admini- 
stration were  laid  by  Hastings,  the  superstructure  was  raised 
by  Cornwallis.  It  was  he  who  first  entrusted  criminal  juris- 
diction to  Europeans,  and  established  the  Nizamat  Sadr 
Adalat,  or  Supreme  Court  of  Criminal  Judicature,  at  Calcutta. 


LORD  CORNIVALLIS'   WORK.  393 

It  was  he,  also,  who  separated  the  functions  of  the  District 
Collector  and  Judge. 

The  system  thus  organized  in   Bengal  was  afterwards  ex-  His 
tended  to  iNIadras  and  Bombay,  when  those  Presidencies  also  "^^y^""*^ 
acquired  territorial  sovereignty.      But  the  achievement  most 
familiarly  associated  with  the  name  of  Cornvvallis  is  the  Per- 
manent Settlement  of  the  land  revenue  of  Bengal.     During 
four  years,   1786-90,  he  laboured,  with  the  help  of  an    able 
Bengal  civilian,  John    Shore,  to   arrive   at   the   facts    of  the 
case.     Warren    Hastings  had   introduced,  unsuccessfully  and 
only  for  a  period,  a  five  years'  settlement  of  the  land  revenue. 
Lord  Cornwallis,  after  three  years  of  inquiry  and  of  provisional 
measures,  introduced  a  ten  years'  or  '  decennial '  settlement  The  De- 
(17S9-91).     Up  to  this  time,  the  revenue  had  been  collected  ^^""ig^. 
pretty   much    according   to  the   old    Mughal    system.      The  ment, 
zaminddrs,  or  Government  farmers,  whose  office  always  tended  '7^9-91- 
to  become  hereditary,  were    recognised    as  having  a  right  to 
collect    the   revenue   from    the   actual   cultivators.       But   no 
principle    of   assessment   existed,    and    the   amount   actually 
realized  varied  greatly  from  year  to  year.     Hastings  seems  to 
have  looked  to  experience,  as  acquired  from  a  succession  of 
quinquennial  settlements,  to  furnish  the  standard  rate  of  the 
future.       Francis,   on  the  other  hand,   Hastings'   great  rival, 
advocated  the  fixing  of  the  State  demand  in  perpetuity.     The 
same  view  recommended  itself  to  the  authorities   at  home,  Period  of 
partly  because  it  would  place  their  finances  on  a  more  stable  '-'■''P^"" 
basis,  partly  because  it  seemed  to  identify  the  zaviinddr  with 
the  landlord  of  the  English  system  of  property.     Accordingly, 
Cornwallis  took  out  with  him  in  1786  instructions  to  introduce 
a  Permanent  Settlement. 

The  process  of  assessment  began  in  1789,  and  terminated  in  The  Per- 
1791.     No  attempt  was  made  to  measure  the  fields  or  calculate  S^^.^f"'' 
the  out-turn,  as  had  been  done  by  Akbar,  and  as  is  now  done  of  Bengal, 
whenever  settlements  are  made  in  the  British  Provinces.     The  '793- 
amount  to  be  paid  in  the  future  was  fixed  by  reference  to  what 
had  been  paid  in  the  past.     At  first  the  settlement  was  called 
decennial,   but  in    1793  it  was  declared  permanent  for  ever. 
The  total  assessment  amounted  to  Sikka  Rs.  26,800,989,  or 
about  3  millions  sterling  for  Bengal.     Lord  Cornwallis  carried 
the  scheme  into  execution  ;  but  the  praise  or  blame,  so  far  as 
details  are  concerned,  belongs  to  Sir  John  Shore,  afterwards 
Lord  Teignmouth,   a  civil  servant,  whose  knowledge  of  the 
country  was  unsurpassed  in  his  time.     Shore  would  have  pro- 
ceeded more  cautiously  than  Cornwallis'  preconceived  English 


394  HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 

idea  of  a  proprietary  body,  and  the  Court  of  Directors'  haste 
after  fixity,  permitted.^ 
Second  The  second  Mysore  war  of  1790-92  is  noteworthy  on  two 

^^J^  accounts.      Lord   Cornwallis,   the  Governor-General,   led  the 

1790-92.  British  army  in  person,  with  a  pomp  and  a  magnificence 
of  supply  which  recalled  the  campaigns  of  Aurangzeb.  The 
two  ■  great  southern  powers,  the  Nizam  of  the  Deccan 
and  the  Maratha  confederacy,  co-operated  as  allies  of  the 
British.  In  the  end,  Tipii  Sultan  submitted  when  Lord 
Cornwallis  had  commenced  to  beleaguer  his  capital.  He 
agreed  to  yield  one-half  of  his  dominions  to  be  divided 
among  the  allies,  and  to  pay  3  millions  sterling  towards 
the  cost  of  the  war.  These  conditions  he  fulfilled,  but 
ever  afterwards  he  burned  to  be  revenged  upon  his  English 
conquerors. 


Siijolin         The  period  of  Sir  John  Shore's  rule  as  Governor-General, 
nq(-Q8      ^^°'^''  ^79^  ^°  179S)  ^vas  uneventful.     In  1798,  Lord  Morning- 
ton,  better  known   as    the    Marquis  of  Wellesley,  arrived  in 
India,    already   inspired   with   imperial    projects  which   were 
destined  to  change  the  map  of  the  country.     Mornington  was 
the  friend  and   favourite  of  Pitt,  from   whom   he  is  thought 
to    have    derived  his    far-reaching   political    vision,  and   his 
Maiqiiis  of  antipathy  to  the  French  name.     From  the  first  he  laid  down 
itqS-TsoV  ''^^  ^^^^  g^i'ding  principle,  that    the   English  must  be  the  one 
paramount  power  in  the  peninsula,  and   that  native  princes 
could  only  retain  the  insignia  of  sovereignty  by  surrendering 
their  political  independence.     The  history  of  India  since  his 
time  has  been  but   the  gradual    development  of  this  policy, 
which   received    its    finishing    touch    when    Queen   Victoria 
was   proclaimed    Empress    of  India  on    the  ist   of  January 
1877.2 
French  To  frustrate  the  possibility  of  a  French  invasion  of  India, 

influence     ]g^   ^^y   Napoleon    in    person,    was    the   governing    idea   of 

in  India,  ^  ^  ^  '  r>  o 

'  '      '  The  Permanent  Settlement  will  be  referred  to  in  greater  detail,  and 

its  practical  working  exhibited,  under  the  Administrative  chapter. 

^  An  admirable  account  of  Lord  Wellesley 's  policy  will  be  found  in  the 
Despatch  of  the  Governor-General  in  Council  to  the  Secret  Committee 
of  the  Court  of  Directors,  dated  Fort  William,  12th  April  1804.  This 
Despatch  extends  to  791  paragraphs,  and  covers  all  the  great  Indian  ques- 
tions of  that  eventful  period.  It  was  printed  by  John  Stockdale,  Picca- 
dilly, in  1805,  as  a  quarto  volume,  entitled,  History  of  all  t/ie  Events  and 
Transactions  wliich  have  taken  place  in  India,  etc.  It  will  continue  to 
firm  the  most  authentic  record  of  any  Governor-Generalship  of  India, 
until  the  seal  is  taken  off  Lord  Dalhousie's  long  closed  diaries. 


IVELLESLETS  WORK  IN  INDIA.  395 

Wellesley's  foreign  policy.  France  at  this  time,  and  for  many 
years  later,  filled  the  place  afterwards  occupied  by  Russia  in 
the  imagination  of  English  statesmen.  Nor  was  the  danger  so 
remote  as  might  now  be  thought.  French  regiments  guarded 
and  overawed  the  Nizam  of  Haidarabad.  The  soldiers  of 
Sindhia,  the  military  head  of  the  Maratha  confederacy,  were 
disciplined  and  led  by  French  adventurers.  Tipu  Sultan  of 
Mysore  carried  on  a  secret  correspondence  with  the  French 
Directorate,  allowed  a  tree  of  liberty  to  be  planted  in  his 
dominions,  and  enrolled  himself  in  a  republican  club  as 
'Citizen  Tipu.'  The  islands  of  Mauritius  and  Bourbon 
afforded  a  convenient  half-way  rendezvous  for  French  intrigue 
and  for  the  assembling  of  a  hostile  expedition.  Above  all, 
Napoleon  Buonaparte  was  then  in  Egypt,  dreaming  of  the 
conquests  of  Alexander  ;  and  no  man  knew  in  what  direction 
he  might  turn  his  hitherto  unconquered  legions. 

Wellesley  conceived  the   scheme  of  crushing  for  ever  the  India  be- 
French  hopes  in  Asia,  by  placing  himself  at  the  head  of  a  yy^,]  ^"^'^ 
great  Indian  confederacy.     In  Lower  Bengal,  the  conquests  1798  ; 
of  Clive  and  the  policy  of  Warren   Hastings  had  made  the 
English    paramount.      Before    Lord   Wellesley's    arrival,    our 
power  was  consolidated  from  the  seaboard  to  Benares,  high  ^  ^^^ 
up  the  Gangetic  valley.     Beyond  our  frontier  there,  the  Nawab  ' 

^Vazir  of  Oudh  had  agreed  to  pay  a  subsidy  for  the  aid  of 
British  troops.  This  sum  in  1797  amounted  to  _;^7 60,000  a 
year;  and  the  Nawab,  being  always  in  arrears,  entered  into 
negotiations  for  a  cession  of  territory  in  lieu  of  a  cash  pay- 
ment. In  1 80 1,  the  treaty  of  Lucknow  made  over  to  the  British 
the  dodb,  or  fertile  tract  between  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna, 
together  with  Rohilkhand.  In  Southern  India,  our  possessions  in  the 
were  chiefly  confined  in  1798,  before  Lord  Wellesley,  to  the  ^""^ 
coast  Districts  of  Madras  and  Bombay. 

Wellesley  resolved  to  make  the  British  supreme  as  far  as  Delhi  Lord  Wel- 

in  Northern  India,  and  to  compel  the  great  powers  of  the  south  l^sley's 
,        ,.  ,     .  ,      ^  ,  scheme. 

to  enter  mto  subordmate  relations  to  the  Company  s  government. 

The  intrigues  of  the  native  princes  gave  him  his  opportunity 

for  carrying  out  his  plan  without  breach  of  faith.     The  time 

had  arrived  when  the   English  must  either  become  supreme 

in  India,  or  be  driven  out  of  it.      The  Mughal  Empire  was 

completely  broken  up  ;   and  the  sway  had  to  pass  either  to 

the  local  Muhammadan  governors  of  that  Empire,  or  to  the 

Hindu  confederacy  represented  by  the   Marathas,  or  to  the 

British.     Lord  Wellesley  determined  that  it  should  pass  to  the 

British. 


396  HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 

Lord  Wei-      His   work   in    Northern   India  was  at   first  easy.     By  the 
lesieys       treaty  of  Lucknow  in  1801,  he  made  us  territorial  rulers  as  far 

work  ;  •'  ' 

as  the  heart  of  the   present   North-Western  Provinces,  and 
in  the        established  our  political  influence  in   Oudh.      Beyond  those 
north;        limits,    the    northern   branches   of   the    Marathas    practically 
held  sway,  with  the  puppet  Emperor  in  their  hands.     Lord 
Wellesley   left   them    untouched   for   a   few   years,    until   the 
second  Maratha  war  (1802-04)  gave  him  an  opportunity  for 
dealing  effectively  with  their  nation  as  a  whole, 
in  the  In    Southern    India,    Lord    Wellesley    quickly    perceived 

south.  ^^^  ^i^g  Muhammadan  Nizam  at  Haidarabad  stood  in 
need  of  his  protection,  and  he  converted  him  into  a  useful 
follower  throughout  the  succeeding  struggle.  The  other 
Muhammadan  power  of  the  south,  Tipti  Sultan  of  Mysore, 
could  not  be  so  easily  handled.  Lord  Wellesley  resolved  to 
crush  him,  and  had  ample  provocation  for  so  doing.  The  third 
power  of  Southern  India — namely,  the  Hindu  Maratha  con- 
federacy—  was  so  loosely  organized  that  Lord  Wellesley  seems 
at  first  to  have  hoped  to  live  on  terms  with  it.  When  several 
years  of  fitful  alliance  had  convinced  him  that  he  had  to 
choose  between  the  supremacy  of  the  Marathas  or  of  the 
British  in  Southern  India,  he  did  not  hesitate  in  his  decision. 
Treaty  Lord  Wellesley  first  addressed  himself  to  the  weakest  of 

with  the     j.|-|g  thi-ge  southern  powers,  the  Nizam  at  Haidarabad.     Here 

Nizani,  .  .  ^  1-1  ■  •      1  • 

1798.  he  won  a  diplomatic  success,  which  turned  a  possible  rival  into 

a  subservient  ally.  The  French  battalions  at  Haidarabad 
were  disbanded,  and  the  Nizam  bound  himself  by  treaty  ^  not 
to  take  any  European  into  his  service  without  the  consent  of 
the  English  Government, — a  clause  since  inserted  in  every 
leading  engagement  entered  into  with  Native  Powers. 

Wellesley  next  turned   the  whole  weight  of  his  resources 
against  Tipii,  whom  Cornwallis  had  defeated,  but  had  not  sub- 
dued.    Tipu's  intrigues  with  the  French  were  laid  bare,  and  he 
was  given  an  opportunity  of  adhering  to  the  new  subsidiary 
Third  system.    On  his  refusal,  war  was  declared,  and  Wellesley  came 

Mysore       down  in  viceregal  state  to  Madras  to  organize  the  expedition  in 
'  person,  and  to  watch  over  the  course  of  events.     One  English 

army  marched  into  Mysore  from  Madras,  accompanied  by  a 
contingent  from  the  Nizam.  Another  advanced  from  the 
western  coast.  Tipii,  after  a  feeble  resistance  in  the  field,  retired 
into  Seringapatam,  and,  when  his  capital  was  stormed,  died 
fighting  bravely  in  the  breach,  1799.     Since  the  battle  of  Plassey 

^  Dated   1st  September   1798. — Aitchison's   Treaties  and  Engagements, 
vol.  V.  pp.  173-176  (ed.  1876). 


IVELLESLEY'S  SOUTHERN  IVARS.  397 

no  event  had  so  greatly  impressed  the  native  imagination  as  Fall  of 
the  capture  of  Seringapatam,  which  won  for  General  Harris  a  tam'^f'-og' 
peerage,  and  for  Wellesley  an  Irish  Marquisate. 

In  dealing  with  the  territories  of  Tipii,  Wellesley  acted  with 
moderation.  The  central  portion,  forming  the  old  State  of 
Mysore,  was  restored  to  an  infant  representative  of  the  Hindu 
Rajas,  whom  Haidar  All  had  dethroned;  the  rest  of  Tipii's 
dominions  was  partitioned  between  the  Nizam,  the  Marathas, 
and  the  English.  At  about  the  same  time,  the  Karnatik,  or 
the  part  of  South-eastern  India  ruled  by  the  Nawab  of  Arcot, 
and  also  the  principality  of  Tanjore,  were  placed  under  direct 
British  administration,  thus  constituting  the  Madras  Presidency 
almost  as  it  has  existed  to  the  present  day.  The  sons  of  the 
slain  Tipu  were  treated  by  Lord  Wellesley  with  paternal  tender- 
ness. They  received  a  magnificent  allowance,  with  semi-royal 
establishment,  first  at  Vellore,  and  afterwards  in  Calcutta. 
The  last  of  them,  Prince  Ghulam  Muhammad,  was  long  well 
known  as  a  public-spirited  citizen  of  Calcutta,  and  an  active 
Justice  of  the  Peace.  He  died  only  a  few  years  ago  (about 
1877). 

The  Marathas  had  been  the  nominal  allies  of  the  English  The  Mar- 
in both  their  wars  with  Tipu.  But  they  had  not  rendered  '^V^'^  '" 
active  assistance,  nor  were  they  secured  to  the  English 
side  as  the  Nizam  now  was.  The  Maratha  powers  at  this 
time  were  five  in  number.  The  recognised  head  of  the  con- 
federacy was  the  Peshwa  of  Poona,  who  ruled  the  hill  country 
of  the  Western  Ghats,  the  cradle  of  the  Maratha  race.  The 
fertile  Province  of  Gujarat  was  annually  harried  by  the  horse- 
men of  the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda.  In  Central  India,  two  military 
leaders,  Sindhia  of  Gwalior  and  Holkar  of  Indore,  alternately 
held  the  pre-eminency.  Towards  the  east,  the  Bhonsla  Raja 
of  Nagpur  reigned  from  Berar  to  the  coast  of  Orissa. 

Wellesley  laboured  to  bring  these  several  Maratha  powers  Welles- 
within  the  net  of  his  subsidiary  system.    In  1802,  the  necessities  J^^  ^    . , ' 

•'     •'  '  .  ings  with 

of  the  Peshwa,  who  had  been  defeated  by  Holkar,  and  driven  the  Mar- 
as  a  fugitive  into  British  territory,  induced  him  to  sign  the  'ithas. 
treaty  of  Bassein.  By  this  he  pledged  himself  to  the  British 
to  hold  communications  with  no  Power,  European  or  Native, 
except  ourselves.  He  also  granted  to  us  Districts  for  the 
maintenance  of  a  subsidiary  force.  This  greatly  extended  the 
English  territorial  influence  in  the  Bombay  Presidency.  But 
it  led  to  the  second  Maratha  war,  as  neither  Sindhia  nor 
the  Raja  of  Nagpur  would  tolerate  the  Peshwa's  betrayal  of 
Maratha  independence. 


398 


lilSTOR  V  OF  BRITISH  RUIE. 


Second 

Maratha 

war, 

1 802-04. 


British 

victories, 

1S02-01. 


Additions 
to  British 
India, 
1803. 


Later  dis- 
asters, 
1804-05. 


India  after 
Lord 

Wellesley, 
1805; 

in  the 
north  ; 


in  tlie 
south. 


The  campaigns  which  followed  are  perhaps  the  most 
glorious  in  the  history  of  the  British  arms  in  India.  The 
general  plan,  and  the  adequate  provision  of  resources,  were  due 
to  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley,  as  also  the  indomitable  spirit 
which  refused  to  acknowledge  defeat.  The  armies  were  led 
by  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  (afterwards  Duke  of  Wellington),  and 
General  (afterwards  Lord)  Lake.  Wellesley  operated  in  the 
Deccan,  where,  in  a  few  short  months,  he  won  the  decisive 
victories  of  Assaye  and  Argaum,  and  captured  Ahmadnagar. 
Lake's  campaign  in  Hindustan  was  no  less  brilliant,  although 
it  has  received  less  notice  from  historians.  He  won  pitched 
battles  at  Aligarh  and  Laswari,  and  took  the  cities  of  Delhi 
and  Agra.  He  scattered  the  French  troops  of  Sindhia,  and  at 
the  same  time  stood  forward  as  the  champion  of  the  Mughal 
Emperor  in  his  hereditary  capital.  Before  the  end  of  1803, 
both  Sindhia  and  the  Bhonsla  Raja  of  Nagpur  sued  for  peace. 

Sindhia  ceded  all  claims  to  the  territory  north  of  the  Jumna, 
and  left  the  blind  old  Emperor  Shah  Alam  once  more  under 
British  protection.  The  Bhonsla  forfeited  Orissa  to  the 
English,  who  had  already  occupied  it  with  a  flying  column  in 
1803  ;  and  Berar  to  the  Nizam,  who  gained  a  fresh  addition 
by  every  act  of  complaisance  to  the  British  Government. 
The  freebooter  Jaswant  Rao  Holkar  alone  remained  in  the 
field,  supporting  his  troops  by  raids  through  Malwa  and 
Rajputana.  The  concluding  years  of  Wellesley's  rule  were 
occupied  with  a  series  of  operations  against  Holkar,  which 
brought  little  credit  on  the  British  name.  The  disastrous 
retreat  of  Colonel  Monson  through  Central  India  (1804) 
recalled  memories  of  the  convention  of  Wargaum,  and  of  the 
destruction  of  Colonel  Baillie's  force  by  Haidar  All.  The 
repulse  of  Lake  in  person  at  the  siege  of  Bhartpur  (Bhurt- 
pore)  is  memorable  as  an  instance  of  a  British  army  in  India 
having  to  turn  back  with  its  object  unaccomplished  (1805). 
Bhartpur  was  not  finally  taken  till  1827. 

Lord  Wellesley  during  his  six  years  of  office  carried  out 
almost  every  part  of  his  territorial  scheme.  In  Northern 
India,  Lord  Lake's  campaigns,  1803-05,  brought  the  North- 
western Provinces  (the  ancient  Madhya-desha)  under  British 
rule,  together  with  the  custody  of  the  puppet  Emperor.  The 
new  Districts  were  amalgamated  with  those  previously  acquired 
from  the  Nawab  Wazir  of  Oudh  into  the  '  Ceded  and  Con- 
quered Provinces.'  This  partition  of  Northern  India  remained 
till  the  Sikh  wars  of  1845  ^.nd  1848-49  gave  us  the  Punjab.  In 
South-eastern  India,  we  have  seen  that  Lord  Wellesley's  con- 


LORD  MIXTO—LORD  HASTIXGS.  399 

quests  constituted  the  Madras  Presidency  almost  as  it  exists 
_^at  this  date.  In  South-western  India,  the  Peshwa  was  reduced 
to  a  vassal  of  the  Company.  But  the  territories  now  under 
the  Governor  of  Bombay  were  not  finally  built  up  into  their 
present  form  until  the  last  Maratha  war  in  iSiS. 

The  financial   strain   caused   by  these  great  operations  of 
Lord  Wellesley  had  meanwhile  exhausted  the  patience  of  the 
Court  of  Directors  at  home.     In  1805,  Lord  Cornwallis  was  ^rarquis  of 
sent  out  as  Governor-General  a  second  time,  with  instructions  Cornwallis 
to  bring  about  peace  at  any  price,  while  Holkar  was  still  unsub-  iSo'"' 
dued,  and  with  Sindhia  threatening  a  fresh  war.    But  Cornwallis 
was  now  an  old  man,  and  broken  down  in  health.     Travelling 
up  to  the  north-west  during  the  rainy  season,  he  sank  and  died 
at  Ghazipur,  before  he  had  been  ten  weeks  in  the  country. 

His  immediate  successor  was  Sir  George  Barlow,  a  civil  Sir  George 
servant  of  the  Company,  who  as  a  locian  tenens  had  no  alter-  ^^'|^W' 
native  but  to  carry  out  the  commands  of  his  employers. 
Under  these  orders,  he  curtailed  the  area  of  British  territory, 
and,  in  violation  of  engagements,  abandoned  the  Rajput  chiefs 
to  the  cruel  mercies  of  Holkar  and  Sindhia.  During  his 
administration,  also,  occurred  the  mutiny  of  the  Madras 
sepoys  at  Vellore  (1806),  which,  although  promptly  suppressed, 
sent  a  shock  of  insecurity  throughout  the  Empire.  The  feebly 
economical  policy  of  this  interregnum  proved  a  most  disastrous 
one.     But,  fortunately,  the  rule  soon  passed  into  firmer  hands. 

Lord  INIinto,  Governor-General  from  1S07  to  1813,  con- Earl  of 
solidated  the  conquests  which  Wellesley  had  acquired.  His  ^^"7"', 
only  military  exploits  were  the  occupation  of  the  island  of  the 
Mauritius,  and  the  conquest  of  Java  by  an  expedition  which 
he  accompanied  in  person.  The  condition  of  Central  India 
continued  to  be  disturbed,  but  Lord  Minto  succeeded  in  pre- 
venting any  violent  outbreaks  without  himself  having  recourse 
to  the  sword.  The  Company  had  ordered  him  to  follow  a 
policy  of  non-intervention,  and  he  managed  to  obey  his  orders 
without  injuring  the  prestige  of  the  British  name.  Under  his 
ausjDices,  the  Indian  Government  opened  relations  with  a  new 
set  of  foreign  powers,  by  sending  embassies  to  the  Punjab,  to 
Afghanistan,  and  to  Persia.  The  ambassadors  had  been  trained 
in  the  school  of  Wellesley,  and  formed,  perhaps,  the  most 
illustrious  trio  of  '  politicals  '  whom  the  Indian  services  have 
produced.  Metcalfe  went  as  envoy  to  the  Sikh  Court  of 
Ranji't  Singh  at  Lahore ;  Elphinstone  met  the  Shah  of  Afghan- 


400  HISTOR  Y  OF  BRITISH  R ULE. 

istan  at  Peshawar ;  and  Malcolm  was  despatched  to  Persia. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  these  missions  were  fruitful  of  per- 
manent results ;  but  they  introduced  the  English  to  a  new 
set  of  diplomatic  relations,  and  widened  the  sphere  of  their 
influence. 

Lord  The  successor  of  Lord  Minto  was  the  Earl  of  Moira,  better 

( Marquis  of  ^'""^^^'^  by  his  later  title   as  the   Marquis  of  Hastings.     The 

Hastings),  Marquis  of  Hastings  completed  Lord   Wellesley's  conquests 

1814-23-     iji    Central  India,   and  left   the    Bombay   Presidency  almost 

as  it  stands  at  present.      His  long  rule  of  nine  years,  from 

1 814  to  1823,  was  marked  by  two  wars  of  the  first  magnitude — 

namely,  the  campaigns  against  the  Gurkhas  of  Nepal,  and  the 

last  Maratha  struggle. 

The  The  Gurkhas,  the  present  ruling  race  in  Nepal,  trace  their 

/y^  '^M     descent  from   Hindu  immigrants  and  claim  a  Rajput  origin. 

The   indigenous   inhabitants,    called    Newars,   belong   to   the 

Indo-Tibetan  stock,  and  profess  Buddhism.     The  sovereignty 

of    the    Gurkhas    dates    only    from    1767-68,    when    they 

overran  the  valley  of  Khatmandu,   and    gradually  extended 

their  power  over  the  hills  and  valleys  of  Nepal.     Organized 

upon  a  military  and  feudal  basis,  they  soon  became  a  terror 

to    their  neighbours,  marching   east   into   Sikkim,   west   into 

Kumaun,  and  south   into  the  Gangetic  plains.      In  the  last 

cjuarter  their  victims  were  British  subjects  (natives  of  Bengal), 

and  it  became  necessary  to  check  their  advance.     Sir  George 

Barlow   and    Lord    Minto    had    remonstrated    in    vain,    and 

nothing  was  left  to  Lord  Moira  but  to  take  up  arms. 

Nepal  war,      The  first  campaign  of  18 14  was  unsuccessful.      After  over- 

1014-15-     coming   the  natural   difficulties  of  a  malarious   climate  and 

precipitous  hills,  our  troops  were  on  several  occasions  fairly 

worsted  by  the  impetuous  bravery  of  the  little  Gurkhas,  whose 

heavy  knives  or  kukris  dealt  terrible  execution.    But  in  the  cold 

Second       weather  of  1814,  General  Ochterlony,  who  advanced  by  way 

campaign.  Qf  j-^g  Sutlej,  Stormed  one  by  one  the  hill  forts  which  still  stud 

the   Himalayan  States,  now  under  the   Punjab  Government, 

and  compelled  the  Nepal  darhdr  to   sue  for  peace.     In  the 

following   year,    1S15,   the    same   general   made   his   brilliant 

march  from  Patna  into  the  lofty  valley  of  Khatmandu,  and 

finally  dictated  the  terms  which  had  before  been  rejected. 

Treaty  of    ^^.j|.|^jjj  ^  fg^y  miles  of  the  capital.     By  the  treaty  of  Segauli, 

cedes    '     which  defines  the  English  relations  with  Nepal  to  the  present 

Himalayan  ^        ^|^g  Gurkhas  withdrew  on  the  south-east  from  Sikkim  ; 

tracts,  ■"  .  ,  -  ,     .         1  ,  .       , 

1815.  and  on  the  south-west,  from  then-  advanced  posts  m  the  outer 


MARQUIS  OF  HASTIXGS-   WORK. 


401 


ranges  of  the   Himalayas,   whicli    enabled  us  to   obtain    the 
health-giving  stations  of  Naini  'J  al,  Massuri,  and  Simla. 

Meanwhile,  the  condition  of  Central  India  was  every  year  The 
becoming  more  unsatisfactory.     The  great  Maratha  chiefs  had  I'indan's 
learned  to  live  as  princes  rather  than  as  predatory  leaders.  '^°4-i7- 
Kut  their  original  habits  of  lawlessness  were  being  followed  by 
a  new  set  of  freebooters,  known  as  the  Pindan's.    As  opposed  to 
the  Marathas,  who  were  at  least  a  Hindu  nationality  bound  by 
the  traditions  of  a  united  government,  the  Pindan's  were  merely 
plundering  bands,  closely  corresponding  to  the  free  companies 
of  mediceval  Europe.     Of  no  common  race,  and  of  no  common  Pinddri 
religion,  they  welcomed  to  their  ranks  the  outlaws  and  broken  ''''!"^''' 
men  of  all  India-Afghans,  Marathas,  or  Tats.     They  repre-  '^''" 
sented  the  debris  of  the  Mughal  Empire,  which  had  not  been 
mcorporated  by  any  of  the   local   Muhammadan    or   Hindu 
powers  that  sprang  up  out  of  its  ruins.     For  a  time,  indeed, 
It  seemed  as  if  the  inheritance  of  the  Mughal  might  pass  to 
these   armies   of  banditti.      In    Bengal,    similar   hordes   had 
formed  themselves  out  of  the  disbanded  Muhammadan  troops 
and  the   Hindu  predatory  castes.      But  they  had  been  dis- 
persed  under   the   vigorous    rule   of  Warren    Hastings.      In 
Central  India,  the  evil  lasted  longer,  attained  a  greater  scale, 
and  was  only  stamped  out  by  a  regular  war. 

The  Pindari  head-quarters  were  in  Malwa,  but  their  depre- 
dations were  not  confined  to  Central  India.     In  bands,  some- 
tunes  of  a  few  hundreds,  sometimes  of  many  thousands,  they 
rode  out  on  their  forays  as  far  as  the  opposite  coasts  of  Madras 
and  of  Bombay.     The  most  powerful  of  the  Pindari  captains,  Pindari 
Amir  Khan,  had  an  organized  army  of  many  regiments,  and  '^adeis. 
several  batteries  of  cannon.      Two  other  leaders,  known  as 
Chitu  and  Kan'm,  at  one  time  paid  a  ransom  to  Sindhia  of 
^100,000.     To  suppress  the  Pindari  hordes,  who  were  suj)- 
ported  by  the  sympathy,  more  or  less  open,  of  all  the  Maratha 
chiefs,  Lord   Hastings  {181 7)  collected  the  strongest  British 
army  which  had  yet  been  seen  in  India,  numbering  120,000 
men.      One -half  operated   from   the   north,    the   other   half 
from  the  south.     Sindhia  was  overawed,  and  remained  quiet. 
Amir    Khan    disbanded    his   army,    on   condition    of    beim^ 
guaranteed  the  possession  of  w^hat  is  now  the  principality  o^J' 
Tank.     The  remaining  bodies  of  Pindaris  were  attacked  in  I'inddrf 
their  homes,  surrounded,   and  cut  to  pieces.     Kan'm  threw  ''^'■'  »S'7- 
himself  upon  the  mercy  of  the  conquerors.      Chitu   fled  to 
the  jungles,  and  was  killed  by  a  tiger. 

In  the  same  year  (1817)  and  ^almost  in  the  same  month 


2  c 


4o: 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 


New 

Maratha 

treaty, 

1S17. 


The 

Maralha 

attack. 


Last  Mar- 
atha war, 
1S17-1S. 


Botnbay 
territories 
annexed, 
181S. 


Satara 


Rajputana, 


Map  of 
India, 
iSiS  4S. 


(Xovember)  as  that  in  which  the  Pindaris  were  crushed,  the 
three  great  Maratha  powers  at  Poona,  Nagpur,  and  Indore 
rose  separately  against  the  Enghsh.  The  Peshwa,  Baji  Rao, 
had  long  been  chafing  under  the  terms  imposed  by  the  treaty 
of  Bassein  (1802).  A  new  treaty  of  Poona,  in  June  181 7,  now 
freed  the  Gaekwar  from  his  control,  ceded  fiirther  districts 
to  the  British  for  the  pay  of  the  subsidiary  force,  and  sub- 
mitted all  future  disputes  to  the  decision  of  our  Government. 

Elphinstone,  then  our  Resident  at  his  Court,  foresaw  a 
storin,  and  withdrew  to  Ki'rki,  whither  he  had  ordered  up  a 
European  regiment.  The  next  day  the  Residency  was  burnt 
down,  and  Ki'rki  was  attacked  by  the  whole  army  of  the 
Peshwa.  The  attack  was  bravely  repulsed,  and  the  Peshwa 
immediately  fled  from  his  capital,  Poona.  Almost  the  same 
plot  was  enacted  at  Nagpur,  where  the  honour  of  the  British 
name  was  saved  by  the  sepoys,  who  defended  the  hill  of 
Sitabaldi  against  enormous  odds. 

It  had  now  become  necessary  to  crush  the  ^Marathas.  Their 
forces  under  Holkar  were  defeated  in  the  following  month 
at  the  pitched  battle  of  Mehidpur.  All  open  resistance  was  now 
at  an  end.  Nothing  remained  but  to  follow  up  the  fugitives,  and 
to  impose  conditions  for  a  general  pacification.  In  both  these 
duties  Sir  John  Malcolm  played  a  prominent  part.  The 
dominions  of  the  Peshwa  were  annexed  to  the  Bombay  Presi- 
dency, and  the  nucleus  of  the  present  Central  Provinces  was 
formed  out  of  the  territory  rescued  from  the  Pindaris.  The 
Peshwa  himself  surrendered,  and  was  permitted  to  reside  at 
Bithiir,  near  Cawnpur,  on  a  pension  of  ^80,000  a  year.  His 
adopted  son  was  the  infamous  Nana  Sahib  of  the  Mutiny  of 
1S57. 

To  fill  the  Peshwa's  place,  as  the  traditional  head  of  the 
]\Iaratha  confederacy,  the  lineal  descendant  of  Sivajf  was  brought 
forth  from  obscurity  and  placed  upon  the  throne  of  Satara.| 
An  infant  was  recognised  as  the  heir  of  Holkar,  and  a  second 
infant  was  proclaimed  Raja  of  Nagpur  under  British  guardian- 
ship. At  the  same  time,  the  States  of  Rajputana  accepted 
the  position  of  feudatories  to  the  paramount  British  power. 

The  map  of  India,  as  thus  drawn  by  Lord  Hastings,  remained 
substantially  unchanged  until  the  time  of  Lord  Dalhousie. 
But  the  proudest  boast  of  Lord  Hastings  and  Sir  John 
Malcolm  was,  not  that  they  had  advanced  the  poinoerium,  but  1 
that  they  had  conferred  the  blessings  of  peace  and  good  govern- 
ment upon  millions  who  had  groaned  under  the  extortions  of  j 
the  Mardthas  and  Pindaris. 


LORD  AMHERST'S  WORK.  403 

The  :\raniuis  of  Hastings  was  succeeded  by  Lord  Amherst,  Mr.  Adam 
after  the  interval  of  a  i^w  months,  during  which  Mr.  Adam,  '^23. 
a  civil  servant,   acted   as    Governor-General.      The    Maratha 
war  in  the   Peninsula  of  India  was  hardly  completed  when 
our  armies  had  to  face  new  enemies  beyond  the  sea.     Lord  Lord 
Amherst's  administration  lasted  for  five  years,  from  1823  to  ^,"1'^'^^-'. 
1S28.     It  is  known  in  history  by  two  prominent  events,  the       ^  '  ' 
first  Burmese  war  and  the  capture  of  Bhartpur. 

For  some  years  past,  our  north  -  eastern  frontier  had 
been  disturbed  by  Burmese  raids.  Burma,  or  the  country  Ancient 
which  fringes  the  western  shore  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  ^u^""^^- 
and  runs  up  the  valley  of  the  Irawadi,  has  a  people 
of  Tibeto- Chinese  origin,  and  a  history  of  its  own. 
Tradition  asserts  that  its  civilisation  was  introduced  from 
the  coast  of  Coromandel,  by  a  people  who  are  supposed 
to  preserve  a  trace  of  their  origin  in  their  name  of  Taking 
{cf.  Telingana).  However  this  may  be,  the  Buddhist 
religion,  professed  by  the  Burmese  at  the  present  day, 
certainly  came  from  India  at  a  very  early  date.  Waves 
of  invasion  from  Siani  on  the  south,  and  from  the  wild 
mountains  of  China  in  the  north,  have  passed  over  the  land. 
These  conquests  were  marked  by  the  wanton  and  wholesale 
barbarity  which  seems  to  characterize  the  Tibeto-Chinese  race  ; 
but  the  civilisation  of  Buddhism  survived  every  shock,  and 
flourished  around  the  ancient  pagodas.  European  travellers 
in  the  15th  century  visited  Pegu  and  Tenasserim,  which  they  Burma, 
describe  as  flourishing  seats  of  maritime  trade.  During  the  15th  cent. 
Portuguese  predominance  in  the  East,  Arakan  in  Northern  '^■°'  = 
Burma  became  an  asylum  for  desperate  European  adventurers. 
With  their  help,  the  Arakanese  conquered  Chittagong  on  the 
Bengal  seaboard,  and  (under  the  name  of  the  :\Iaghs)  became 
the  terror  of  the  Gangetic  delta.  About  1750,  a  new  Burmese 
dynasty  arose,  founded  by  Alaung-paya  or  Alompra,  with  its 
capital  at  Ava.  Alompra's  successors  ruled  Independent  Burma 
until  its  annexation  to  British  India  in  1886.^ 

The    dynasty    of   Alompra,    after    having    subjugated    all  Burmese 
Burma,  and  overrun  (1800)  Assam,  which  was  then  an  inde- ^"'^^o^ch- 
pendent  kingdom,  began  a  series  of  encroachments  upon  the  Lijia^.  °" 
British   Districts.      As    they  rejected    all   peaceful    proposals 
with  scorn,  Lord  Amherst  was  at  last  compelled  to  declare 
war  in  1824.     Little  military  glory  could  be  gained  by  beating  First  Err- 

the  Burmese,  who  were  formidable  chiefly  from  the  pestilential  '"'^^^  ^'^'"5 

r824. 
For   the   history  of  Burma,   see  the  articles   Burma,   British,  and 
Burma,  I.NUErENUENT,  in  The  Iiup:iial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


404 


BIS  TOR  y  OF  BRITISH  RUIE. 


Assam, 
etc.,  an- 
nexed, 
1826. 


J?hartpur 

taken, 

1S27. 


character  of  their  country.  One  expedition  with  gunboats 
proceeded  up  the  Brahmaputra  into  Assam.  Another  marched 
by  hind  through  Chittagong  into  Arakan,  as  the  Bengal 
sepoys  refused  to  go  by  sea.  A  third,  and  the  strongest,  sailed 
from  Madras  direct  to  the  mouth  of  the  Irawadi.  The  war 
was  protracted  over  two  years.  After  a  loss  to  us  of  about 
20,000  lives,  chiefly  from  disease,  and  an  expenditure  of 
;^i4, 000,000,  the  King  of  Ava  signed,  in  1826,  the  treaty  of 
Yandabu.  By  this  he  abandoned  all  claim  to  Assam,  and 
ceded  the  Provinces  of  Arakan  and  Tenasserim,  already  in  the 
military  occupation  of  the  British.  He  retained  the  whole 
valley  of  the  Irawadi,  down  to  the  sea  at  Rangoon. 

The  capture  of  Bhartpur  in  Central  India  by  Lord  Comber- 
mere,  in  January  1827,  wiped  out  the  repulse  which  Lake  had 
received  before  that  city  in  January  1805.  A  disputed  suc- 
cession led  to  the  British  intervention.  Artillery  could  make 
little  impression  upon  the  massive  walls  of  mud.  But  at  last 
a  breach  was  effected  by  mining,  and  the  city  was  taken  b\' 
storm,  thus  removing  the  popular  notion  throughout  India  that 
it  was  impregnable — a  notion  which  had  threatened  to  become 
a  political  danger. 


Lord 
William 
T'.entinck, 
182S-35. 


His 

financial 

reforms. 


The  next  Governor-General  was  Lord  William  Bentinck, 
who  had  been  Governor  of  Madras  twenty  years  earlier,  at  the 
time  of  the  mutiny  of  Vellore  (1806).  His  seven  years'  rule 
(from  1828  to  1835)  is  not  signalized  by  any  of  those  victories 
or  extensions  of  territorj'^  by  which  chroniclers  measure  the 
growth  of  an  Empire.  But  it  forms  an  epoch  in  administrative 
reform,  and  in  the  benign  process  by  which  a  subject  popula- 
tion is  won  over  to  venerate  as  well  as  to  dread  its  alien 
rulers.  The  modern  history  of  the  British  in  India,  as  bene- 
volent administrators,  ruling  the  country  with  an  eye  to 
the  good  of  the  natives,  may  be  said  to  begin  with  Lord 
William  Bentinck,  According  to  the  inscription  upon  his 
statue  at  Calcutta,  from  the  pen  of  Macaulay  :  '  He  abolished 
cruel  rites  ;  he  effaced  humiliating  distinctions  ;  he  gave  liberty 
to  the  expression  of  public  opinion ;  his  constant  study  was 
to  elevate  the  intellectual  and  moral  character  of  the  nations 
committed  to  his  charge.' 

Lord   William    Bentinck's    first  care    on    arrival   in    India 
was  to  restore  equilibrium  to  the  finances,  which  were  totter- 
ing under  the  burden  imposed  upon  them  by  the  Burmese 
war.     This  he  effected  by  three  series  of  measures — first,  by  | 
reductions  in  permanent  expenditure,  amounting  to  i^.  million 


LORD   ]]'.  BENTINCK'S  REFORMS.  405 

sterling  a  year  ;  second,  by  augmenting  the  revenue  from  lands 
which  had  surreptitiously  escaped  assessment ;  third,  by  duties 
on  the  opium  of  Mahva.  He  also  widened  the  gates  by  which 
educated  natives  could  enter  the  service  of  the  Company. 
Some  of  these  reforms  were  distasteful  to  the  covenanted 
service  and  to  the  officers  of  the  army.  But  Lord  William 
was  staunchly  supported  by  the  Court  of  Directors  and  by  the 
\\niig  Ministry  at  home. 

His  two  most  memorable  acts  are  the  abolition  of  sati,  or  Abolition 
widow-burning,  and  the  suppression  of  the  thags.  At  this  "^^'"''' 
distance  of  time  it  is  difficult  to  realize  the  degree  to  which 
these  two  barbarous  practices  had  corrupted  the  social  system 
of  the  Hindus.  European  research  has  clearly  proved  that 
the  text  in  the  Vedas  adduced  to  authorize  the  immolation 
of  widows,  was  a  wilful  mistranslation.^  But  the  practice  had 
been  enshrined  in  Hindu  opinion  by  the  authority  of  cen- 
turies, and  had  acquired  the  sanctity  of  a  religious  rite.  The 
Emperor  Akbar  prohibited  it,  but  failed  to  put  it  down.  The 
early  English  rulers  did  not  dare  to  violate  the  religious 
traditions  of  the  people.  In  the  year  181 7,  no  less  than  700 
widows  are  said  to  have  been  burned  alive  in  the  Bengal 
'Presidency  alone.  To  this  day,  the  holy  spots  of  Hindu 
pilgrimage  are  thickly  dotted  with  little  white  pillars,  each 
commemorating  a  sat'i.  In  spite  of  strenuous  opposition,  both 
from  Europeans  and  natives.  Lord  William  Bentinck  carried  a 
regulation  in  Council  on  the  4th  December  1829,  by  which 
all  who  abetted  sati  were  declared  guilty  of '  culpable  homicide.' 

The  honour  of  suppressing  thagi  must  be  shared  between  Suppres- 
Lord  William  Bentinck  and  Captain  Sleeman.  Thai's  were  ^'°"  ?' 
hereditary  assassins,  who  made  strangling  their  profession. 
They  travelled  in  bands,  disguised  as  merchants  or  pilgrims, 
and  were  sworn  together  by  an  oath  based  on  the  rites  of  the 
bloody  goddess  Kali.  Between  1826  and  1835,  as  many  as 
1562  thags  were  apprehended  in  different  parts  of  British  India ; 
and,  by  the  evidence  of  approvers,  these  abominable  brother- 
hoods were  gradually  stamped  out. 

Two  other  historical  events  are  connected  with  the  admini-  Kenewnl 
stration  of  Lord  William  Bentinck.     In  1833,  the  Charter  of  Jg^^l^^^"^^'' 
the  East  India  Company  was  renewed  for  twenty  years,  bu 
upon    the   condition    that   the   Company  should   abandon  its 
trade  and  permit  Europeans  to  settle  in  the  country.     At  the 
same  time,  a  fourth    or    '  Law-member '   was   added    to    the 
Governor-General's  Council,  who  might  not  be  a  servant  of  the 

1  Vide  anlc,  chap.  iv.  p.  78. 


4o6 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RUIE. 


Mysore 

])rotected, 

1S30. 

Coorg 

aniiixed, 

16J4. 


Lord 

Metcalfe, 
1S35-36. 


Company  ;  and  a  Commission  was  appointed  to  revise  and 
codify  the  law.  INIacaulay  was  the  first  Law-member  of 
Council,  and  the  first  President  of  the  Law  Commission. 

In  1830-31,  it  was  found  necessary  to  take  the  State  of 
Mysore  under  British  administration.  It  continued  so  up  to 
March  18S1,  when  it  was  restored  to  native  government.  In 
1834,  the  frantic  misrule  of  the  Raja  of  Coorg  brought  on  a 
sharp  and  short  war.  The  Raja  Lingaraj  was  permitted  to 
retire  to  Vellore,  then  to  Benares,  and  finally  to  England,  where 
he  died.  The  brave  and  proud  inhabitants  of  his  mountainous 
little  territory  decided  to  place  themselves  under  the  sway 
of  the  Company.  This  was  the  only  annexation  effected  by 
Lord  William  Bentinck,  and  it  was  done  '  in  consideration  of 
the  unanimous  wish  of  the  people.' 

Sir  Charles  (afterwards  Lord)  Metcalfe  succeeded  Lord 
William  as  senior  member  of  Council.  His  short  term  of 
otfice  is  memorable  for  the  measure  which  his  predecessor 
had  initiated,  but  which  he  carried  into  execution,  for  giving 
entire  liberty  to  the  press.  From  this  time  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment lost  the  power  of  deporting  journalists  who  made  them- 
selves formidable  by  their  ])ens.  Public  opinion  in  India,  as 
well  as  the  express  wish  of  the  Court  of  Directors  at  home, 
pointed  to  Metcalfe  as  the  fittest  person  to  carry  out  the 
policy  of  Bentinck,  not  provisionally,  but  as  Governor-General 
for  a  full  term. 


Lord  Party  exigencies,  however,  led  to  the  appointment  of  Lord 

Auckland,  Auckland.     From  this  date  commences  a  new  era  of  war  and 
1S36-42. 

conquest,    which    may   be    said    to    have    lasted   for   tAventy 

years.     All  looked   peaceful  until  Lord  Auckland,  prompted 

by  his  evil  genius,  attempted  by  force  to  place  Shah  Shuja 

upon  the  throne  of  Kabul  ;  an  attempt  conducted  with  gross 

mismanagement,  and  ending  in  the  annihilation  of  the  British 

garrison  placed  in  that  city. 

Afghan-  For  the  first  time  since  the  days  of  the  Sultans  of  Ghazni 

istan under  ^^(^  Ghor,  Afghanistan  had  obtained  a  national  king  in  1747 

Duram's      in   Ahmad    Shah    Durani.     This   resolute  soldier   found   his 

1 747-1826.  opportunity  in  the  confusion  which  followed  the  death  of  the 

Persian  conqueror,  Nadir  Shah.     Before  his  own  decease  in 

1773,  Ahmad  Shah  had  conquered  a  wide  empire,  from  Herat 

to  Peshawar,  and  from  Kashmir  to  Sind.     His  intervention  on 

the  field  of  Panfpat  (1761)  turned  back  the  tide  of  I\Laratha 

conquest,  and  replaced   a   Mughal  Emperor  on  the  throne  of 

Delhi.     But  Ahmad  Shah  never  cared  to  settle  down  in  India, 


LORD  AUCKLAND'S  DISASTERS.  407 

and  alternately  kept  state  at  his  two  Afghan  capitals  of  Kabul 
and  Kandahar.  The  Duranf  kings  were  prolific  in  children, 
who  fought  to  the  death  with  one  another  on  each  succession. 
At  last,  in  1826,  Dost  Muhammad,  head  of  the  powerful 
Barakzai  family,  succeeded  in  establishing  himself  as  ruler  of 
Kabul,  with  the  title  of  Amir,  while  two  fugitive  brothers  of 
the  Durani  line  were  living  under  British  protection  at  Ludhiana, 
on  the  Punjab  frontier. 

The  attention  of  the  English  Government  had  been  directed  Our  early 
to  Afghan  affairs  ever  since  the  time  of  Lord  Wellesley,  who  ^^.'j^'}^'"^^ 
feared  that  Zaman  Shah,  the  Afghan  Amir,  then  holding  his  court  Kdlml, 
at  Lahore  (tSoo),  might  follow  in  the  path  of  Ahmad  Shah,  1800-37. 
and  overrun  Hindustan.     The  growth  of  the  powerful  Sikh 
•kingdom  of   Ranji't  Singh   effectually  dispelled  these  alarms. 
Subsequently,  in  1S09,  while  a  French  invasion  of  India  was 
still  a  possibility  to  be  guarded  against,  Mountstuart  Elphinstone 
was  sent  by  Lord  Minto  on  a  mission  to  Shah  Shuja  to  form  a 
defensive  alliance.     Before  the  year  expired.  Shah  Shuja  had 
been  driven  into  exile,  and  a  third  brother,  Mahmud  Shah,  was 
on  the  throne.      In    1837,  when  the  curtain   rises  upon  the 
drama  of    English    interference   in   Afghanistan,   the   usurper 
Dost  Muhammad,  Barakzai,  was  firmly  established  at  Kabul.  Dost  Mu- 
His  great  ambition  was  to  recover  Peshawar  from  the  Sikhs.  ig'Jl"^^'^' 
When,    therefore,  Captain   Alexander    Burnes    arrived   on    a 
mission  from   Lord  Auckland,  with  the   ostensible  object  of 
opening  trade,  the  Dost  was  willing  to  promise  everything  if 
only  he  could  get  Peshawar. 

But  Lord  Auckland  had  another  and  more  important 
object  in  view.  At  this  time  the  Russians  were  advancing  Russian 
rapidly  in  Central  Asia,  and  a  Persian  army,  not  without  '"fli^ience, 
Russian  support,  was  besieging  Herat,  then  as  now  the 
bulwark  of  Afghanistan  on  the  west.  A  Russian  envoy 
was  at  Kabul  at  the  same  time  as  Burnes.  The  latter 
was  unable  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  Dost  Muhammad  in  the 
matter  of  Peshawar,  and  returned  to  India  unsuccessful.  Lord 
Auckland  forthwith  resolved  upon  the  hazardous  plan  of 
placing  a  more  subservient  ruler  upon  the  throne  of  Kabul. 

Shah  Shuja,  one  of  the  two  exiles  of  Ludhiana,  was  selected 
for  the  purpose.  At  this  time  both  the  Punjab  and  Sind 
were  independent  kingdoms.  Sind  was  the  less  powerful  of 
the  two,  and  accordingly  a  British  army  escorting  Shah  Shuja 
made  its  way  by  that  route  into  southern  Afghanistan  through 
the  Bolan  Pass.  Kandahar  surrendered  ;  (}hazni  was  taken  by 
storm.     Dost  Muhammad   fled  across  the   Hindu  Kush,  and 


1 839-41- 


winter 
retreat 


408  HISTOR  V  OF  BRITISH  R  UIE. 

Shah  Shah  Shuja  was  triumphantly  led  into  the  Bala  Hissar  at  Kabul 

Shuja         i,-,  August  18^0.     After  one  more  brave  struggle,  Dost  Muham- 

installetl,  ,*  /^,  ,  ^,  ^''' 

1839.  Iliad  surrendered,  and  was  sent  to  Calcutta  as  a  State  prisoner. 

But  although  we  could  enthrone  Shah  Shuja,  we  could  not 

win  for  him  the  hearts  of  the  Afghans.     To  that  nation  he 

seemed  a  degenerate  exile  thrust  back  upon  them  by  foreign 

arms.     During  two  years,  Afghanistan  remained  in  the  military 

Kabul         occupation   of    the    British.       The    catastrophe   occurred   in 

«?rl^?.' '    November   1841,   when    our    Political   Agent,  Sir   Alexander 

Burnes,  was  assassinated   in  the  city  of  Kabul.     The  troops 

in  the  cantonments  were  under   the    command   of   General 

Elphinstone  (not  to  be  confounded  with  the  able  civilian  and 

historian,  the  Hon.   Mountstuart  Elphinstone).     Sir  William 

iMacnaghten  was  the  political  officer.      Elphinstone,  an   old 

man,  proved  unequal  to  the  responsibilities  of  the  position. 

Macnaghten  was  treacherously  murdered  at  an  interview  with 

the  Afghan  chief  Akbar  Khan,  eldest  son  of  Dost  Muhammad. 

After    lingering    amid    disgraceful     dissensions    and    with 

lie  fatal    indecision    in  their   cantonments    for   two   months,  the 

British  army  set  off  in  the  depth  of  winter,  under  a  fallacious 

guarantee  from  the  Afghan  leaders,  to  find  its  way  back  to 

India  through  the  passes.     When  they  started,  they  numbered 

4000  fighting  men  with  12,000  camp  followers.     A  single  sur- 

Our  vivor,   Dr.    Brydon,  reached   the  friendly  walls  of  Jalalabad, 

^Mrnson      where  Sale  was  gallantly  holding  out.     The  rest  perished  in 

ate<l,  1S42.  t'^e  snowy  defiles   of  Khurd-Kabul  and   Jagdalak,  from  the 

knives  and  matchlocks  of  the  Afghans,  or  from  the  effects  of 

cold.     A  few  prisoners,  chiefly  wornen,  children,  and  officers, 

were  considerately  treated  by  the  orders  of  Akbar  Khan. 

The  first  Afghan  enterprise,  begun  in  a  spirit  of  aggression, 

and  conducted  amid  disagreements  and  mismanagement,  had 

The  shock  ended  in  the  disgrace  of  the  British  arms.    The  real  loss,  which 

in  Eng-      amounted  only  to  a  single  garrison,  and  cost  fewer  soldiers 

land.  .  SO' 

than  many  a  victory,   was  magnified  by   the  horrors   of   the 
winter  march,  and  by  the  completeness  of  the  annihilation. 

Earl  of  Within   a   month  after  the    news   reached    Calcutta,  Lord 

1^^"^"  Auckland  had  been  superseded  by  Lord  Ellenborough,  whose 

1842-44!     fi^'st  impulse  was  to  be  satisfied  with  drawing  off  in  safety  the 
garrisons  from  Kandahar  and  Jalalabad.     But  bolder  counsels 
The  army   were  forced  upon  him.     General  Pollock,  who  was  marching 
tion^^is'"-'  st'^^ig^t  through  the  Punjab  to  relieve  Sale,  was  allowed  to 
penetrate  to  Kabul.     General  Nott,  although  ordered  to  with- 
draw from  Afghanistan,  resolved  to  take  Kabul  on  the  way  ! 


LORD  ELLEXBOROUGIT.  409 

Lord  Ellenborough  gave  his  commands  in  well-chosen  words, 
which  would  leave  his  Generals  responsible  for  any  disaster.  ^ 
General  Nott  took  that  responsibility,  and  instead  of  retreating 
south-east  to  the  Indus,  boldly  marched  north  in  nearly  the 
opposite  direction  to  Kabul.  After  hard  fighting,  the  two  British 
forces,  under  Pollock  and  Nott,  met  at  their  common  destina- 
tion at  Kabul  City  in  September  1842.  The  great  bazar  at 
Kabul  was  blown  up  with  gunpowder,  to  fix  a  stigma  upon 
the  city ;  the  prisoners  were  recovered  ;  and  the  British  troops 
marched  back  to  India,  leaving  Dost  Muhammad  to  take 
undisputed  possession  of  his  throne. 

The  drama  closed  with  a  bombastic  proclamation  from  Lord  The 
Ellenborough,  who  had  caused  the  gates   from  the  tomb  of  '5-"^^^^  ?^ . 

^  °  .  Somnain, 

Mahmiid  of  Ghazni  to  be  carried  back  as  a  memorial  of  1S42. 
'  Somnath  revenged.'  Lord  Ellenborough,  in  his  craze  for 
historical  melodrama,  declared  these  doors  to  be  the  ones 
carried  away  from  the  spoliation  of  the  Somnath  temple 
by  Mahmud  of  Ghazni,  1024  a.d.''  The  gates  were  a  modern 
forgery  ;  and  their  theatrical  procession  through  the  Punjab 
formed  a  vainglorious  sequel  to  Lord  Ellenborough's  diffidence, 
while  the  fate  of  our  armies  hung  in  the  balance.  The  his- 
trionic travesty  which  closed  the  first  Kabul  war  was  scarcely 
less  distasteful  to  the  serious  English  mind  than  the  unrighteous 
interference  which  led  to  its  commencement,  or  the  follies  and 
feeble  division  of  counsels  which  produced  its  disasters. 

Lord  Ellenborough,  who  loved  military  pomp,  had  his  taste  Sind  war, 
gratified  by  two  more  wars.    In  1843,  the  Muhammadan  rulers  '^43- 
of  Sind,  known  as  the  Mirs  or  Amirs,  whose  chief  fault  was 
that    they   would    not    surrender   their    independence,    were 
crushed  by  Sir  Charles    Napier.      The  victory  of  Miani,  in 
which  3000  British  troops  defeated  20,000  Baluchis,  is  one  of 
the  brilliant  feats  of  arms  in  .\nglo-Indian  history.     But  valid 
reasons    can  scarcely   be    found    for  the   annexation    of    the 
country.     In  the  same  year,  a  disputed  succession  at  Gwalior,  Gwalior 
fomented  by  feminine  intrigue,  resulted  in  an  outbreak  of  the  ^g      '  ^' 
overgrown  army  which  the  Sindhia  family  kept  up.     Peace 
was  restored  by  the  battles  of  Maharajpur  and  Punniah,  at  the 
former  of  which  Lord  Ellenborough  was  present  in  person. 

In  1844,  Lord  Ellenborougli  was  recalled  by  the  Court  of 

^  The  Indian  Administration  of  Lord  Ellenborough,  being  his  Corre- 
spondence. Edited  by  Lord  Colchester,  1874.  See  Lord  Ellenborough's 
own  Letters,  pp.  29,  30,  39,  etc. 

^  Vide  ante,  chap.  x.  p.  274. 


4 1  o  HISTOR 1 '  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

Directors,  who  differed  from  him  on  points  of  administration, 
disliked  his  theatrical  display,  and  distrusted  his  erratic  genius. 
Lord  He  was  succeeded  by  Sir  Henry  {afterwards  Lord)  Hardinge, 

8  ^^^"^'^'  ^'^''^°  ^^"^^  served  through  the  Peninsular  war,  and  lost  a  hand 
at  Ligny.       It  was  felt  on  all  sides  that  a  trial  of  strength 
between  the  British  and  the  remaining  Hindu  power  in  India, 
the  great  Sikh  nation,  drew  near. 
The  Sikhs,      The  Sikhs  were  not  a  nationality  like  the  Marathas,  but  a 
1469.  religious  sect  bound  together  by  the  additional  tie  of  military 

discipline.     They  trace  their  origin  to  Nanak  Shah,  a  pious 
Hindu   reformer,    born    near    Lahore    in    1469,    before    the 
Nanak        ascendancy  of  either  Mughals  or  Portuguese  in  India.    Nanak, 
'  ^^^'         like  other  zealous  preachers  of  his  time,  preached  the  abolition 
of  caste,  the    unity    of  the    Godhead,  and  the  obligation  of 
leading  a  pure  life.^     From  Nanak,  ten  gurus  or  apostles  are 
traced  down  to  Govind  Singh  in  1708,  with  whom  the  suc- 
cession stopped.      Cruelly  persecuted  by  the  ruling  Muham- 
madans,  almost  exterminated  under  the  miserable  successors 
of  Aurangzeb,^  the  Sikh   martyrs   clung   to   their   faith   with 
unflinching  zeal.     At  last  the  downfall  of  the  Mughal  Empire 
transformed  the    Sikh    sect   into  a  territorial  power.     It  was 
the  only  political  organization  remaining  in  the  Punjab.     The 
Sikh  con-    Sikhs    in    the   north,    and   the    Marathas    in    Southern    and 
ledeiacies.  Central  India,  thus  became  the  two  great  Hindu  powers  who 
partitioned   the    Mughal    Empire.     Even   before   the   rise   of 
Ranjit  Singh,  offshoots  from  the  Sikh  viisls  or  confederacies, 
each   led   by   its   elected   sat-ddr,  had  carved  out  for  them- 
selves feudal   principalities   along   the   banks   of  the    Sutlej, 
some  of  which  endure  to  the  present  day. 
Ranjit  Ranjit  Singh,  the   'Lion   of  the    Punjab'  and  founder   of 

'"^'o"''",,      the    Sikh   kingdom,    was   born    in    1780.       In    his   twentieth 

I  "'80- 1 S  ''O  o  '  / 

■^  "  year  he  obtained  the  appointment  of  Governor  of  Lahore 
from  the  Afghan  Amir,  and  formed  the  project  of  erecting 
his  personal  rule  upon  the  fanaticism  of  his  Sikh  country- 
men. He  organized  their  church  militant,  or  '  the  liberated,' 
into  an  army  under  European  officers,  which  for  steadi- 
ness and  religious  fervour  has  had  no  parallel  since  the 
His  'Ironsides'   of  Cromwell.     From   Lahore,   as  his  capital,  he 

kingdom,    extended  his  conquests  south  to  Miiltan,  west  to  Peshawar, 

•  Vide  ante,  pp.  207-8.  The  life  of  Nanak  and  growth  of  his  sect  are 
summarized  in  articles  Amritsar  and  Punjab,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of 
India.  The  religious  aspects  of  the  Sikhs  are  fully  treated  in  Wilson's 
Religion  of  the  Hindus,  vol.  i.  pp.  267-275  (ed.  1S62). 

-  Vide  ante,  p.  314. 


THE  EARL  OF  DALHOUSIE.  411 

and  north  to  Kashmir.  On  the  east  side  alone  he  was 
liemmed  in  by  the  Sutlej,  up  to  which  river  the  authority  of  the 
British  Government  had  advanced  in  1S04.  Until  his  death, 
in  1839,  Ranjit  Singh  was  ever  loyal  to  the  engagements  which 
he  had  entered  into  with  Metcalfe  in  1809.  But  he  left  no 
son  capable  of  wielding  his  sceptre.  Lahore  was  torn  by 
dissensions  between  rival  generals,  ministers,  and  queens.  It>  flis- 
The  only  strong  power  was  the  army  of  the  Central  Com-  "^'" 
mittee  of  Generals  or  khalsd}  which,  since  our  disaster  in 
Afghanistan,  burned  to  measure  its  strength  with  the  British 
Sepoys.  The  French  or  European  Generals,  Avitabile  and 
Court,  were  foolishly  ousted  by  the  Sikh  commanders,  and  the 
supreme  military  command  was  vested  in  a  series  oi panchayats 
or  elective  committees  of  five. 

In  1845,  the  Sikh  army,  numbering  60,000  men  with   150  Fiist 
guns,  crossed  the  Sutlej   and  invaded  British  territory.     Sir^g'.'"^'" 
Hugh    Gough,    the    Commander-in-Chief,   together    with   the 
Governor-General,  hurried  up  to  the  frontier.     Within  three 
weeks,  four  pitched  batdes  were  fought,  at  Mudki,  Firozshahr, 
Aliwal,  and  Sobraon.     The  British  loss  on  each  occasion  was 
heavy  ;  but  by  the  last  victory,  the  Sikhs  were  fairly  driven 
back  into  the  Sutlej,  and  Lahore  surrendered  to  the  British. 
The  British,  however,  declined  to  annex  the   prostrate  pro- 
vince ;  but  appointed  a  Sikh  protectorate.     By  the  terms   of 
peace  which  we  then  dictated,  the  infant  son  of  Ranjit,  Dhulip  Dliuh'p 
Singh,  was  recognised  as  Raja ;  the  Jalandhar  Doab,  or  tract  ^'"^'''' 
between  the  Sutlej  and  the  Ravi,  was  annexed  to  British  terri- 
tory;  the   Sikh   army  was   limited   to    a    specified   number; 
Major  Henry  Lawrence  was  appointed  Resident,  to  assist  the 
Sikh  Council  of  Regency,  at  Lahore  ;  and  a  British  force  was 
sent  to  garrison  the  Punjab  on  behalf  of  the  child-Raja.     The 
Governor-General,  Sir  H.   Hardinge,  received  a  peerage,  and 
returned  to  England  in  184S. 

Lord  Dalhousie  succeeded.  The  eight  years'  rule  of  this  Earl  of 
greatest  of  Indian  proconsuls  (1848-56)  left  more  conspicuous  jj^^^^r'^'^' 
results  than  that  of  any  Governor-General  since  Clive.  A 
high-minded  statesman,  of  a  most  sensitive  conscience,  and 
earnestly  desiring  peace.  Lord  Dalhousie  found  himself  forced 
against  his  will  to  fight  two  wars,  and  to  embark  on  a  policy 
of  annexation.     His  campaigns  in  the  Punjab  and  in  Burma 

^  The  Persian  word  klidlisali,  literally  'pure'  or  'sincere,'  means  in 
Indian  official  language  the  royal  exchequer,  and  hence  more  loosely  the 
bureau  of  the  central  administration. 


412 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 


ii;.s 

admini- 
strative 
reforms. 


His 

Public 

Works. 


Second 
Sikh  war. 


Chilian- 
wala,  1845. 


ended  in  large  acquisitions  of  territory;  while  Nagpur,  Oudh, 
and  several  minor  States  also  came  under  British  rule.  But 
Dalhousie's  deepest  interest  lay  in  the  advancement  of  the 
moral  and  material  condition  of  the  country.  His  system  of 
administration  carried  out  in  the  conquered  Punjab,  by  the 
two  Lawrences  and  their  assistants,  is  probably  the  most  suc- 
cessful piece  of  difficult  work  ever  accomplished  by  English- 
men. British  Burma  has  prospered  under  our  rule  not  less 
than  the  Punjab.  In  both  cases,  Lord  Dalhousie  himself  laid 
the  foundations  of  our  administrative  success,  and  deserves  a 
large  share  of  the  credit. 

Xo  branch  of  the  administration  escaped  his  reforming  hand. 
He  founded  the  Public  Works  Department,  with  a  view  to 
creating  the  network  of  roads,  railways,  and  canals  which  now 
cover  India.  He  opened  the  Ganges  Canal,  still  the  largest 
work  of  the  kind  in  the  country;  and  he  turned  the  sod 
of  the  first  Indian  railway.  He  promoted  steam  communi- 
cation with  England  via  the  Red  Sea,  and  introduced 
cheap  postage  and  the  electric  telegraph.  It  is  Lord  Dal- 
housie's misfortune  that  these  benefits  are  too  often  for- 
gotten in  the  recollections  of  the  Mutiny,  which  followed 
his  policy  of  annexation,  after  the  firm  hand  which  had  re- 
modelled British  India  was  withdrawn.  But  history  is  com- 
pelled to  record  not  only  that  no  other  Governor-General  since 
the  time  of  Lord  Wellesley  had  ruled  India  with  such  splendid 
success  from  the  military  and  political  point  of  view,  but  also 
that  no  other  Governor-General  had  done  so  much  to  improve 
the  internal  administration  since  the  days  of  Warren  Hastings. 

Lord  Dalhousie  had  not  been  six  months  in  India  before 
the  second  Sikh  war  broke  out.  Tlie  attempt  to  govern  the 
Punjab  by  a  Sikh  protectorate  broke  down.  The  Council  of 
Regency  was  divided  against  itself,  corrupt  and  weak.  The 
Queen-Mother  had  chosen  her  paramour  as  prime  minister. 
In  1848,  the  storm  broke.  Two  British  officers  were 
treacherously  assassinated  at  Multan.  Unfortunately,  Henry 
Lawrence  was  at  home  on  sick  leave.  The  British  army  was 
not  ready  to  act  in  the  hot  weather ;  and,  despite  the  single- 
handed  exertions  of  Lieutenant  (afterwards  Sir  Herbert) 
Edwardes,  this  outbreak  of  fanaticism  led  to  a  general  rising 
of  the  Sikh  confederacies. 

The  khdlsa  army  again  came  together,  and  once  more  fought 
on  even  terms  with  the  British.  On  the  fatal  field  ofChilianwala,^ 
which  our  patriotism  prefers  to  call  a  drawn  battle,  the  British 

'  See  articlesCillLlAXWALAand  GfjRAT,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


DALHOUSIE'S  WARS.  413 

lost  2400  officers  and  men,  besides  four  guns  and  the  colours 
of  three  regiments  (13th  January  1849).  But  before  reinforce- 
ments could  come  out  from  England,  bringing  Sir  Charles 
Napier  as  Commander-in-Chief,  Lord  Gough  had  restored  his 
reputation  by  the  crowning  victory  of  Gujrat,  which  absolutely  Gujrat 
destroyed  the  Sikh  army.  Miiltan  had  previously  fallen ;  and^'"^"^"^' 
the  Afghan  horse  under  Dost  Muhammad,  who  had  forgotten 
their  hereditary  antipathy  to  the  Sikhs  in  their  greater  hatred 
of  the  British  name,  were  chased  back  with  ignominy  to  their 
native  hills.  The  Punjab,  annexed  by  proclamation  on  the 
29th  March  1849, ^  became  a  British  Province — a  virgin  field 
for  the  administrative  talents  of  Dalhousie  and  the  two 
Tawrences.  Maharaja  Dhuh'p  Singh  received  an  allowance 
.of  ^58,000  a  year,  on  which  he  now  lives  as  an  English 
country  gentleman  in  Norfolk. 

The  first  step  in  the  pacification  of  the  Punjab^  was  a  general  The 
disarmament,  which  resulted  in  the  delivery  of  no  fewer  than  annexed 
120,000  weapons  of  various  kinds.      Then  followed  a  settle- 1849. 
ment  of  the  land-tax,  village  by  village,  at  an  assessment  much  Its  pacifi- 
below  that  to  which  it  had  been  raised  by  Sikh  exactions ;  and  ^^"°"'. 
the   introduction   of  a  loose  but  equitable  code  of  civil  and 
criminal   procedure.     Roads   and   canals   were    laid    out    by 
Colonel  Robert  Napier  (afterwards  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala). 
The  security  of  British  peace,  and  the  personal  influence  of 
British  officers,  inaugurated  a  new  era  of  prosperity,  which  was 
felt  to  the  farthest  corners  of  the  Province.     It  thus  happened 
that,  when  the  Mutiny  broke  out  in  1857,  the  Punjab  remained 
not  only  quiet,  but  loyal. 

The    second    Burmese   war,  in    1852,  arose  out  of  the  ill-  Second 
treatment  of  some  European  merchants  at  Rangoon,  and  the  „!!["^f^% 
insults  offered  to  the  captain  of  a  British  frigate  who  had  been 
sent  to  remonstrate.^     The  lower  valley  of  the  Irawadi,  from 
Rangoon  to  Prome,  was  occupied  in  a  {<t\\  months;  and  as 
the  King  of  Ava  refused  to  treat,  it  was  annexed  by  proclaraa-  British 
tion  on  the  20th  December  181^2,  under  the  name  of  Pegu,   ^"""^ 

'^    '  .  .  _  °    '  annexed, 

to  the  Provinces  of  Arakan  and  Tenasserim  acquired  in  1826.    1852. 

Since  annexation,  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  of  Ran- 
goon have  multiplied  nearly  fifteen-fold.      The  trade  of  this 

^  In  terms  of  the  agreement  with  Maharaja  Dluilip  Singh,  of  same  date. 
— Aitchison's  Treaties  and  Engagements,  vol.  vi.  p.  47  (ed.  1876). 

-  For  the  annexation  and  administrative  history  of  the  Punjab,  see  article 
Punjab  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

^  For  further  details,  see  article  PL'RMA,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


4 1 4  HI  ST  OR  Y  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

port,  which  four  years  after  annexation  (185  7-5  8)  only  amounted 
to  ;^2,i3i,o55,  had  increased  to  ^8,192,025  in  1877-78,  and 
to  ;,{;i3,i74,o94  in  1883J 
Its  pros-         The  towns  and  rural  parts  have  alike  prospered.     Before  its 
niifler  our    'Annexation  in  1826,  Amherst  District  was  the  scene  of  perpetual 
rule.  warfare  between  the  Kings  of  Siam  and  Pegu,  and  was  stripped 

of  inhabitants.  In  February  1827,  a  Talaing  chief  with  10,000 
followers  settled  in  the  neighbourhood  of  INIaulmain ;  and 
after  a  few  years,  a  further  influx  of  20,000  immigrants  took 
place.  In  1855,  the  population  of  Amherst  District  amounted 
to  83,146  souls;  in  i860,  to  130,953;  in  1875,  to  275,432; 
and  in  1881,  to  301,086.  Or,  to  take  the  case  of  a  seaport, 
— in  1826,  when  we  occupied  that  part  of  the  Province,  Akyab 
was  a  poor  lishing  village.  By  1830,  it  had  developed  into  a 
little  town  with  a  trade  valued  at  ;^7ooo.  In  1879,  the  trade 
exceeded  2  millions  sterling;  so  that  the  trade  of  Akyab 
had  multiplied  itself  close  on  three  hundred-fold  in  fifty 
years. 

The  Lord  Dalhousie's  dealings  with  the  Feudatory  States  of  India 

■eudatoiy  j-gyga^igfj  thg  whole  nature  of  the  man.     That  rulers  only  exist 

States.  ,  _  ■' 

for  the  good  of  the  ruled,  was  his  supreme  axiom  of  govern- 
ment, of  which  he  gave  a  conspicuous  example  in  his  own 
daily  life.  That  British  administration  was  better  for  the 
people  than  native  rule,  followed  from  this  axiom.  He  was 
thus  led  to  regard  native  chiefs  from  somewhat  the  same  point 
of  view  as  the  Scotch  regarded  the  hereditary  jurisdictions  after 
1 745,  namely,  as  mischievous  anomalies,  to  be  abolished  by 
every  fair  means.  Good  faith  must  be  kept  with  rulers  on 
Dal-  the   throne,  and  with   their   legitimate   heirs.      But   no  false 

housie  s      sentiment  should  preserve  dynasties  which  had  forfeited  our 

doctrine  of  .  ^  .  •'  . 

'lapse.'       sympathies    by  generations   of    misrule,  nor    prolong     those 

that  had  no  natural  successor.     The  '  doctrine  of  lapse '  was 

the  practical  application  of  these  principles,  complicated    by 

the  Indian  practice  of  adoption. 

Hindu  According  to   Hindu  private  law,  an  adopted  son  entirely 

doctrme  of  f^|ig  j-jig  pi^ce  of  a  natural  son,  whether  to  perform  the  religious 

adoption.        ,  .  -    ,  .      .    ,  .    .       .     .  .  T  M 

obsequies  ot  his  father  or  to  inherit  his  property.  In  all 
respects  he  continues  the.  persona  of  the  deceased.  But  it  was 
argued  that,  both  as  a  matter  of  historical  fact  and  as  one  of 
political  expediency,  the  succession  to  a  throne  stood  upon  a 

^  See  article  Rangoon,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India.  For  growth  of 
trade  in  other  Burmese  ports,  see  also  article  Akyab,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer 
of  IndM. 


DA  LHO  USIE'S  ANNEX  A  TIONS.  4  r  5 

different  footing.  It  was  aflirraed,  not  always  witli  a  complete 
knowledge  of  the  facts,  that  the  Mughal  Emperors  had  asserted 
an  interest  in  successions  to  the  great  fiefs,  and  demanded 
heavy  payments  for  recognising  them.  It  was  therefore  mam- 
tained  that  the  paramount  power  could  not  acknowledge  without 
limitations  a  right  of  adoption,  which  might  be  used  as  a  fraud 
to  hand  over  the  happiness  of  millions  to  a  base-born  impostor. 
Here  came  in  Lord  Dalhousie's  maxim  of  '  the  good  of  the 
governed.'  In  his  mind,  benefits  to  be  conferred  through 
British  administration  weighed  heavier  than  a  superstitious  and 
often  fraudulent  fiction  of  inheritance. 

The  first  State   to  escheat  to    the   British    Government  in  Lapsed 
accordance  with  these  principles  was  Satara,  which  had  been  •"'^^te'^- 
.reconstituted  by  Lord  Hastings  on  the  downfall  of  the  Peshwa  ^^t-^''^' 
in  1 81 8.     The  Raja  of  Satara,  the  last  lineal  representative  of 
Sivaji,  died  without  a  male  heir  in  1848,  and  his  deathbed  adop- 
tion was  set  aside  (1849).    I"  ^^^  same  year,  the  independence 
of  the  Rajput  State  of  Karauli  was  saved   by  the  Court  of 
Directors,  who  drew  a  fine  distinction  between  a  dependent 
])rincipality  and  a  protected  ally.     In  1853,  Jhansi  suffered  the  Jhdnsi. 
same  fate  as  Satara. 

But  the  most  conspicuous  application  of  the  doctrine  of  lapse  Nagpur, 
was  the  case  of  Nagpur.     The  last  of  the  Maratha  Bhonslas,  '^53- 
a  dynasty  older  than  the  British  Government  itself,  died  with- 
out a  son,  natural  or  adopted,  in  1853.     His  territories  were 
annexed,  and  became  the  Central  Provinces.    That  year  also  saw 
British  administration  extended  to  the  Berars,  or  the  Assigned  Berai^ 
Districts,  which  the  Nizam  of  Haidarabad  was  induced  to  hand  "''*"'!'-''' 

.       .  .  over,  KS53. 

over  to  us,  as  a  territorial  guarantee  for  his  arrears  of  subsidy, 
and  for  the  pay  of  the  Haidarabad  contingent  which  he  per- 
petually kept  in  arrear.  The  relics  of  three  other  dynasties  also 
passed  away  in  1853,  although  without  any  attendant  accretion 
to  British  territory.  In  the  extreme  south,  the  titular  Nawab  of 
the  Karnatik  and  the  titular  Raja  of  Tanjore  both  died  with- 
out heirs.  Their  rank  and  their  pensions  died  with  them,  but 
compassionate  allowances  were  continued  to  their  families. 
In  the  north  of  India,  Baji  Rao,  the  ex-Peshwa  w^ho  had  been 
dethroned  in  1818,  lived  on  till  1853  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
annual  pension  of  ^80,000.  His  adopted  son,  Nana  Sahib, 
inherited  his  accumulated  savings,  but  could  obtain  no  further 
recognition. 

Lord  Dalhousie  annexed  the  Province  of  Oudh  on  different  Annexa- 
grounds.      Ever   since   the   Nawab   Wazi'r,  Shuja  -  ud  -  Dauld,  ^^'^^ 
received  back  his  forfeited  territories  from  the  hands  of  Lord  1856.' 


4  i  6  HI  ST  OR  \ '  OF  BRITISH  R  UL  E. 

Clive  in  1765,  the  existence  of  his  dynasty  had  depended 
on  the  protection  of  British  bayonets.^  Guarded  alike  from 
foreign  invasion  and  from  domestic  rebellion,  the  long  line 
of  Nawabs  had  sunk  into  private  debauchees  and  public 
oppressors.  Their  one  virtue  was  steady  loyalty  to  the  British 
Government.  The  fertile  districts  between  the  Ganges  and 
the  Gogra,  which  now  support  a  denser  population  than  any 
rural  area  of  the  same  size  on  the  globe,  had  been  groaning  for 
generations  under  an  anarchy  for  which  each  British  Governor- 
General  felt  himself  in  part  responsible,  ^^'arning  after  warning 
had  been  given  to  the  Nawabs  (who  had  assumed  the  title  of 
Shah  or  King  since  181 9)  that  they  must  put  their  house  in 
order. 

What  the  benevolent  Bentinck  and  the  soldierly  Hardinge 
had  only  threatened,  was  reserved  for  Lord  Dalhousie,  who 
united  honesty  of  purpose  with  stern  decision  of  character, 
to  perform.  He  laid  the  whole  case  before  the  Gourt  of 
Directors,  who,  after  long  and  jxainful  hesitation,  resolved  on 
Lord  Dal-  annexation.  Lord  Dalhousie,  then  on  the  eve  of  retiring,  felt 
housie  s      ^|-,j^j-  jj.  ^yould  be  unfair  to  leave  the  ijerilous  task  to  his  suc- 

view  of  the  .        ,        _  r  1  •  1  rr-i 

measure,  cessor  m  the  first  moments  of  his  rule.  The  tardy  decision 
of  the  Court  of  Directors  left  him,  however,  only  a  few  weeks 
to  carry  out  the  work.  But  he  solemnly  believed  that  work  to 
be  his  duty  to  the  people  of  Oudh.  '  With  this  feeling  on  my 
mind,'  he  wrote  in  his  private  diary,  'and  in  humble  reliance 
on  the  blessing  of  the  Almighty  (for  millions  of  His  creatures 
will  draw  freedom  and  happiness  from  the  change),  I  approach 
the  execution  of  this  duty,  gravely  and  not  without  solicitude, 
but  calmly  and  altogether  without  doubt.' 

At  the  commencement  of  1856,  the  last  year  of  his  rule,  he 
issued  orders  to  General  (afterwards  Sir  James)  Outram,  then 
Resident   at    the    Court  of  Lucknow,  to  assume   the   direct 

Grounds  of  administration  of  Oudh,  on   the   ground   that    'the    British 

.nmiexa-      c Government  would  be  guilty  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man  if 
tion.  .  ■  .   ■  .   .     ®,     . 

It  were  any  longer  to  aid  in  sustaining  by  its  countenance  an 

administration  fraught  with  suffering  to  millions.'  The  pro- 
clamation was  issued  on  the  13th  February  1856.  The  king, 
Wajid  All,  bowed  to  irresistible  force,  although  he  refused  to 
recognise  the  justice  of  his  deposition.  After  a  mission  to 
England,  consisting  of  his  mother,  brother,  and  son,  by  way  of 
protest  and  appeal,  he  settled  down  in  the  pleasant  suburb  of 
<iarden  Reach  near  Calcutta.  There  he  still  lives  (1885)  in 
•  For  the  history  of  Oudh  since  1765,  and  the  misrule  which  compelled 
its  annexation,  see  article  OUDU,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


DALHO  USIE'S  J  J  'ORK  IN  INDIA.  4 1 7 

'the  enjoyment  of  a  pension  of  ^120,000  a  year.  Oudh  was 
thus  annexed  without  a  blow.  But  this  measure,  on  which 
Lord  Dalhousie  looked  back  with  the  proudest  sense  of 
rectitude,  was  perhaps  the  one  act  of  his  rule  that  most 
alarmed  native  public  opinion. 

The  Marquis  of  Dalhousie  resigned  office  in  March  1856, 
being  then  only  forty-four  years  of  age  ;  but  he  carried  home 
with  him  the  seeds  of  a  lingering  illness,  which  resulted  in  his 
death  in  i860.    Excepting  Cornwallis,  he  was  the  first,  although  Lord  Dal- 
by  no  means  the  last,  of  English  statesmen  who  have  fallen  housie  s 

.     .  .  .  .  death 

victims  to  their  devotion  to  India's  needs.  i860.' 

Lord  Dalhousie  completed  the  fabric  of  British  rule  in  Lidia. 
The  Empire  as  mapped  out  by  Lord  Wellesley  and  Lord  His  work 
Hastings,  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  century,  had  received  '"  "  '^' 
the  addition  of  Sind  in  1843.  The  Marquis  of  Dalhousie 
finally  filled  in  the  wide  spaces  covered  by  Oudh,  by  the  Central 
Provinces,  and  by  smaller  States  within  India;  together  with  the 
great  outlying  territories  of  the  Punjab  on  the  North-Western 
Frontier,  and  the  richest  part  of  British  Burma  beyond  the  sea. 

The  great  Governor-General  was  succeeded   by  his  friend 
Lord  Canning,  who,  at  the  farewell  banquet  in  England  given  Earl 
to  him    by  the    Court  of  Directors,  uttered   these  prophetic  ^0"^!^^' 
words,  '  I  wish  for  a  peaceful  term  of  office.     But  I  cannot 
forget  that  in  the  sky  of  India,  serene  as  it  is,  a  small  cloud 
may  arise,  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand,  but  which,  growing 
larger  and  larger,  may  at  last  threaten  to  burst  and  overwhelm 
us  with  ruin.'     In  the  following  year,  the  Sepoys  of  the  Bengal  The  Sepoy 
army  mutinied,  and  all  the  valley  of  the  Ganges  from  Patna  to  i^''-^"^' 
Delhi  rose  in  rebellion. 

The  various  motives  assigned  for  the  Mutiny  appear  inade-  Causes 
quate  to  the  European  mind.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  ^j^jj^ 
native  opinion  throughout  India  was  in  a  ferment,  predisposing 
men  to  believe  the  wildest  stories,  and  to  rush  into  action 
in  a  paroxysm  of  terror.  Panic  acts  on  an  oriental  popula- 
tion like  drink  among  a  European  mob.  The  annexation 
policy  of  Lord  Dalhousie,  although  dictated  by  the  most 
enlightened  considerations,  was  distasteful  to  the  native  mind. 
The  spread  of  education,  the  appearance  of  the  steam-engine 
and  the  telegraph  wire,  seemed  simultaneous  disclosures  of  a 
deep  plan  to  substitute  an  English  for  an  Indian  civilisation. 

The  Bengal  Sepoys  thought  that  they  could  see  farther  than  Temper 

the  rest  of  their  countrymen.     Most  of  them  were  Hindus  of  g  '^"^^ 

2  D  epoyb. 


4 1 8  HIS  TOR  i '  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

high  caste  ;  many  of  thein  were  recruited  from  Oudh.  They 
regarded  our  reforms  on  Western  lines  as  attacks  on  their 
own  nationality,  and  they  knew  at  first  hand  what  annexation 
meant.  They  believed  it  was  by  their  prowess  that  the  Punjab 
had  been  conquered,  and  that  all  India  was  held.  The  numerous 
dethroned  princes,  or  their  heirs  and  widows,  were  the  first  to 
learn  and  to  take  advantage  of  this  spirit  of  disaffection  and 
panic.  They  had  heard  of  the  Crimean  war,  and  were  told 
that  Russia  was  the  perpetual  enemy  of  England.  Our  muni- 
ficent pensions  had  supplied  the  funds  with  which  they  could 
buy  the  aid  of  skilful  intriguers.  They  had  much  to  gain,  and 
little  to  lose,  by  a  revolution. 

In  this  critical  state  of  affairs,  of  which  the  Government  had 
scant  official  knowledge,  a  rumour  ran  through  the  cantonments 
The        ^    that  the  cartridges  of  the  Bengal  army  had  been  greased  with 
camldces    ^^  ^^^  *^^  COWS  and  pigs.     This  was  affirmed  to  be  part  of  a 
1857.  general  plot  by  the  British  Government  to  destroy  the  religion 

alike  of  the  Hindu  and  of  the  Muhammadan  Sepoy.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  cow's  tallow  had  been  culpably  and  ignorantly 
used.  Steps  were  taken  to  prevent  the  defiling  cartridges  from 
reaching  the  hands  and  mouths  of  the  native  army.  But  no 
assurances  could  quiet  the  minds  of  the  Sepoys.  Fires 
occurred  nightly  in  the  native  lines ;  officers  were  insulted  by 
their  men ;  confidence  was  gone,  and  scarcely  the  form  of  dis- 
cipline remained. 

The  events  which  followed  form  contemporary  annals.  Any 
narrative  of  them  beyond  the  barest  summary  would  involve 
the  criticism  of  measures  on  which  history  has  not  yet  pro- 
nounced her  calm  verdict,  and  would  lead  to  personal  praise 
or  blame  of  still  living  men.^  Each  episode  of  the  Mutiny  is 
treated  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  under  the  town 
or  District  where  it  occurred.  But  it  may  not  be  out  of 
place  to  mention  here,  that  the  outbreak  of  the  storm  found 
The  army  the  native  regiments  denuded  of  many  of  their  best  officers. 
The  administration  of  the  great  Empire,  to  which  Dalhousie 
put  the  corner-stone,  required  a  larger  staff  than  the  civil 
service  could  supply.  The  practice  of  selecting  the  ablest 
military  men  for  civil  posts,  which  had  long  existed,  received  a 
sudden  and  vast  development.  Oudh,  the  Punjab,  the  Central 
Provinces,  British  Burma,  were  administered  to  a  large  extent 

1  The  Mutiny  of  1S57  has  already  a  copious  literature.  Sir  John  Kaye's 
History  oj  the  Sepoy  War  (3  vols.),  with  its  able  and  eloquent  continuation 
by  Colonel  Malleson,  C.S. I.,  as  7 /le  Histojy  of  t/ie  Indian  Mutiny  {"^  vols.), 
forms  the  standard  work. 


drained  of 
its  talent. 


THE  SEPOY  MUTINY,  1857.  419 

by  picked  officers  from  the  Company's  regiments.  Some 
skilful  commanders  remained  ;  but  the  native  army  had  never- 
theless been  drained  of  many  of  its  brightest  intellects  and 
firmest  wills  at  the  very  crisis  of  its  fate. 

On  the  afternoon  of  Sunday,  loth  May  1857,  the  Sepoys  at  Outbreak 
jNIeerut  (Merath)  broke  into  open  mutiny.^     They  burst  into"^^'!'^ 
the  jail,  and  rushed  in  a  wild  torrent  through  the  cantonments.  May  1S57. 
cutting  down  a  few  Europeans  whom  they  met.     They  then 
streamed  off  to  the  neighbouring  city  of  Delhi,  to  stir  up  the 
native  garrison  and  the  criminal  population  of  that  great  city, 
and  to  place  themselves  under  the  authority  of  the  discrowned 
Mughal  Emperor.     Meerut  was  the  largest  military  station  in  AtMeemt. 
Northern  India,  with  a  strong  European  garrison  of  foot,  horse, 
and  guns,  sufficient  to  overwhelm  the  mutineers  before  ever 
they  reached   Delhi.      But  as  the  Sepoys  acted  in  irrational 
haste,  so  the  British  officers,  in  but  too  many  cases,  acted  wath 
ecjually  irrational  indecision.     The  news  of  the  outbreak  was 
telegraphed  to  Delhi,  and  nothing  more  was  done  that  night. 
At  the  moment  when  one  strong  will  might  have  saved  India, 
no  soldier  in  authority  at  Meerut  seemed  able  to  think  or  act. 
The  next  morning  the  jNIuhammadans  of  Delhi  rose,  and  all  that  At  Delhi. 
the  Europeans  there  could  do  was  to  blow  up  the  magazine. 

A  rallying  centre  and  a  traditional  name  were  thus  given 
to  the  revolt,  which  forthwith  spread  like  wild-fire  through  the 
North-Western  Provinces  and  Oudh  down  into  Lower  Bengal. 
The  same  narrative  must  suffice  for  all  the  outbreaks,  although 
each  episode  has  its  own  story  of  sadness  and  devotion.     The 
Sepoys  rose  on  their  officers,  usually  without  warning,  sometimes  Spread 
after  protestations  of  fidelity.     The  Europeans,  or  persons  of  ^j^*^  - 
Christian  faith,  were  frequently  massacred ;  occasionally,  also,  summer 
the  women  and  children.    The  jail  was  broken  open,  the  treasury  °^  ^^57- 
plundered,  and  the  mutineers  marched  ofi"  to  some  centre  of 
revolt,  to  join  in  what  had  now  become  a  national  war. 

In  the  Punjab  the  Sepoys  were  anticipated  by  measures  of 
repression  and  disarmament,  carried  out  by  Sir  John  Lawrence 
and  his  lieutenants,  among  whom  Edwardes  and  Nicholson 
stand  conspicuous.  The  Sikh  population  never  wavered.  Loyalty  of 
Crowds  of  willing  recruits  came  down  from  the  Afghan  hills.  '  i5i'^h»- 
And  thus  the  Punjab,  instead  of  being  itself  a  source  of 
danger,  was  able  to  furnish  a  portion  of  its  own  garrison  for 
the  siege  of  Delhi.  In  Lower  Bengal  many  of  the  Sepoys 
mutinied,  and  then  dispersed  in  difterent  directions.  The 
native  armies  of  Madras  and  Bombay  remained  true  to  their 
'  See  article  Meerut,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


420 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RUIE. 


Cawnpur, 


Nana 
Sahib. 


Our  ill- 
chosen 
position. 


Massacre 
of  Cawn- 
pur. 


Lucknow. 


Sir  Henr)' 
Lawrence, 


colours.  In  Central  India,  the  contingents  of  some  of  the 
great  chiefs  sooner  or  later  joined  the  rebels,  but  the  Muham- 
madan  State  of  Haidarabad  was  kept  loyal  by  the  authority  of 
its  able  minister,  the  late  Sir  Salar  Jang. 

The  main  interest  of  the  Sepoy  War  gathers  round  the  three 
cities  of  Cawnpur,  Lucknow,  and  Delhi.  Cawnpur  contained 
one  of  the  great  native  garrisons  of  India.  At  Bithiir,  not  far 
off,  was  the  palace  of  Dundhu  Panth,  the  heir  of  the  last 
Peshwa  {ante,  pp.  324,  402),  who  had  inherited  his  savings,  but 
had  failed  to  procure  a  continuance  of  his  pension  ;  and  whose 
more  familiar  name  of  Nana  Sahib  will  ever  be  handed  down 
to  infamy.  At  first  the  Nana  was  profuse  in  his  professions 
of  loyalty ;  but  when  the  Sepoys  at  Cawnpur  mutinied  on  the 
6th  June,  he  put  himself  at  their  head,  and  was  proclaimed 
Peshwa  of  the  Marathas. 

The  Europeans  at  Cawnpur,  numbering  more  women  and 
children  than  fighting  men,  shut  themselves  up  in  an  ill-chosen 
hasty  entrenchment,  where  they  heroically  bore  a  siege  for 
nineteen  days  under  the  sun  of  a  tropical  June.  Every  one 
had  courage  and  endurance  to  suffer  or  to  die  ;  but  the 
directing  mind  was  again  absent.  On  the  27th  June,  trusting 
to  a  safe-conduct  from  the  Nana  as  far  as  Allahabad,  they 
surrendered,  and,  to  the  number  of  450,  embarked  in  boats 
on  the  Ganges.  Forthwith  a  murderous  fire  was  opened 
upon  them  from  the  river  bank.  Only  a  single  boat  escaped, 
and  but  four  men,  who  swam  across  to  the  protection  of  a 
friendly  Raja,  ultimately  survived  to  tell  the  tale.  The  rest 
of  the  men  were  massacred  on  the  spot.  The  women  and 
children,  numbering  125,  were  reser\'ed  for  the  same  fate  on  the 
15th  July,  when  the  avenging  army  of  Havelock  was  at  hand.^ 
Sir  Henry  Lawrence,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Oudh,  had 
foreseen  the  storm.  He  fortified  and  provisioned  the  Residency 
at  Lucknow,  and  thither  he  retired  with  all  the  European 
inhabitants  and  a  weak  British  regiment  on  2nd  July.  Two 
days  later,  he  was  mortally  wounded  by  a  shell.  Whatever 
opinion  may  be  formed  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence's  capacity  as 
a  soldier  in  his  one  unfortunate  engagement,  he  clearly  per- 
ceived the  main  strategic  and  political  points  in  the  struggle. 
Lawrence  had  deliberately  chosen  his  position  ;  and  the  little 
garrison  held  out  under  unparalleled  hardships  and  against 
enormous  odds,  until  relieved  by  Havelock  and  Outram  on 
25th  September.  But  the  relieving  force  was  itself  invested 
by  fresh  swarms  of  rebels  ;  and  it  was  not  until  November  that 

'  See  article  Cawnpur,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  huUa. 


SUPPRESSION  OF  THE  MUTINY.  421 

Sir  Colin  Campbell  (afterwards  Lord  Clyde)  cut  his  way  into 

Lucknow,  and  effected  the  final  deliverance  of  the  garrison  ^ 

(i6th  November  1857).     Our  troops  then  withdrew  to  more 

urgent  work,  and  did  not  finally  re-occupy  Lucknow  till  March 

1S5S. 

The  siege  of  Delhi  began  on   8th  June,  one  month  after  sie^'e  ot 

the  original  outbreak  at  Meerut.     Siege  in  the  proper  sense  P^l^'' 

.  .  .  June  to 

of  the  word  it  was  not ;  for  the  British  army,  encamped  on  sept. 

the  historic  'ridge,'  at  no  time  exceeded  8000  men,  while  the  '^S?- 
rebels  within  the  walls  were  more  than  30,000  strong.  In  the 
middle  of  August,  Nicholson  arrived  with  a  reinforcement  from  Nicliolson. 
the  Punjab ;  but  his  own  inspiring  presence  was  even  more 
valuable  than  the  reinforcement  he  brought.  On  14th  Sep- 
tember the  assault  was  delivered,  and  after  six  days'  desperate 
fighting  in  the  streets,  Delhi  was  again  won.  Nicholson  fell  at 
the  head  of  the  storming  party.  Hodson,  the  intrepid  leader 
of  a  corps  of  irregular  horse,  hunted  down  next  day  the  old 
Mughal  Emperor,  Bahadur  Shah,  and  his  sons.  The  Emperor 
was  afterwards  sent  a  State  prisoner  to  Rangoon,  where  he 
lived  till  1862.  As  the  mob  pressed  in  on  the  guard  around 
the  Emperor's  sons,  near  Delhi,  Hodson  found  it  necessary  to 
shoot  down  the  princes  (who  had  been  captured  uncondition- 
ally) with  his  own  hand.- 

After  the  fall  of  Delhi  and  the  final  relief  of  Lucknow,  the  Oudh 
war  loses  its  dramatic  interest,  although  fighting  went  on  in  '^^""ced 
various  parts  of  the  country  for  eighteen  months  longer.     The 
population    of    Oudh    and    Rohilkhand,    stimulated    by   the 
presence  of  the  Begam  of  Oudh,  the  Nawab  of  Bareilly,  and 
Nana  Sahib  himself,  had  joined  the  mutinous  Sepoys  en  masse. 
In  this  quarter  of  India  alone,  it  was  the  revolt  of  a  people 
rather  than  the  mutiny  of  an  army  that  had  to  be  quelled. 
Sir  Colin  Campbell  (afterwards   Lord  Clyde)  conducted  the  by  Lord 
campaign  in  Oudh,  which  lasted  through  two  cold  seasons.'^  Clyde. 
Valuable  assistance  was  lent  by  Sir  Jang  Bahadur  of  Nepal, 
at  the  head  of  his  gallant  Gurkhas.      Town  after  town  was 
occupied,  fort  after  fort  was  stormed,  until  the  last  gun  had 
been  re-captured,  and  the  last  fugitive  had  been  chased  across 
the  frontier  by  January  1859. 

In  the  meanwhile.  Sir  Hugh  Rose  (afterwards  Lord  Strath-  sh-  Hugh 
nairn),  with  another  army  from  Bombay,  was  conducting  an  I:^ose  ni 
equally  brilliant  campaign  in  Central  India.     His  most  formid-  India. 

^  See  article  Lucknow,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
-  See  article  Delhi  City,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 
^  See  article  Bareilly,  TIic  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


42  2  HISTOR  Y  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

able  antagonists  were  the  disinherited  Rani  or  Princess  of 
Jhansi,  and  Tantia  Topi,  whose  military  talent  had  previously- 
inspired  Nana  Sahib  with  all  the  capacity  for  resistance  which 
he  ever  displayed.  The  Princess  died  fighting  bravely  at  the 
head  of  her  troops  in  June  1858.^  Tantia  Topi,  after  doubling 
backwards  and  forwards  through  Central  India,  was  at  last 
betrayed  and  run  down  in  April  1859. 

Renewals        The  Company's  charter  had  been  granted  from  time  to  time 

"^  ^"^^      ,   for  periods  of  twenty  years,  and  each  renewal  had  formed  an 
Company  s  '^  .  ■'    .  '  .  .  .  , 

Charter,      Opportunity  for  a  national  inquest  into  the  management  01 

1813-15.     India,      The   Parliamentary  Inquiry  of   1813   abolished   the 

Company's  monopoly  of  Indian  trade,  and  compelled  it  to 

direct  its  energies  in  India  to  the  good  government  of  the 

people.    The  Charter  Act  of  1833  did  away  with  its  remaining 

Chinese  trade,  and  opened  up  administrative  ofiEices  in  India 

to  the  natives,  irrespective  of  caste,  creed,  or  race.     The  Act 

Its  of  1853  abolished  the  patronage  by  which  the  Company  filled 

privileges         ^^  superior  or  covenanted  branch  of  its  civil  service.     It 
curtailed.        ^  ^  .    .  .  ^  ^     ,. 

laid  down  the  principle  that  the  administration  of  India  was 

too  national  a  concern  to  be  left  to  the  chances  of  benevolent 
nepotism  ;  and  that  England's  representatives  in  India  must  be 
chosen  openly,  and  without  favour,  from  the  youth  of  England. 
Downfall        The  Mutiny  sealed  the  fate  of  the  East  India  Company, 
of  the         ^ftgj.  a  life  of  more  than  two  and   a  half  centuries.      The 
is's's!^^"      original  Company  received  its  charter  of  incorporation  from 
Elizabeth  in  1600.     Its  political  powers,  and  the  constitution 
of  the  Indian  Government,  were  derived  from  the  Regulating 
Its  history  Act  of  1773,  passed  by  the  INIinistry  of  Lord  North.     By  that 
*^P.''°"         statute  the  Governor  of  Bengal  was  raised   to  the  rank  of 
1773-1858.  Governor-General;   and,  in  conjunction  with  his  Council  of 
four   other   members,    he   was    entrusted   with    the    duty   of 
superintending  and  controlling  the   Governments  of  Madras 
and  Bombay,  so  far  as  regarded  questions  of  peace  and  war : 
a  Supreme  Court  of  Judicature  was  appointed  at  Calcutta,  to 
which  the  judges  were  appointed  by  the  Crown  :  and  a  power 
of  making  rules,  ordinances,   and  regulations  was  conferred 
upon  the  Governor-General  and  his  Council.     Next  came  the 
Act  of         India  Bill  of  Pitt  (1784),  which  founded  the  Board  of  Control, 
J  7^4-  strengthened  the  supremacy  of  Bengal  over  the  other  Presi- 

dencies, and  first  authorized  the  historical  phrase,  '  Governor- 
General-in-Council.' 

The   new    Charter    Act   which    abolished    the    Company's 

'   See  article  Jhansi,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


END  OF  THE  E.  J.   COMPANY.  423 

Chinese  trade  in  1833,  introduced  successive  reforms  into  the 
constitution  of  the   Indian    Government.      It   added  to  the  Act  of 
Council  a  Law-member  who  need  not  be  chosen  from  among  '  •^■^^ 
the  Company's  servants,  and  was  entitled  to  be  present  only 
at  meetings  for  making  Laws  and  Regulations.      It  accorded 
the  authority  of  Acts  of  Parliament  to  the  Laws  and  Regula- 
tions so  made,  subject  to  the   disallowance  of  the  Court  of 
Directors.     It  appointed  a  Law  Commission ;  and  it  gave  the 
Governor-General-in-Council  a  control  over  the  other  Presi- 
dencies, in  all  points  relating  to  the  civil  or  military  admini- 
stration.    The  Charter  of  the  Company  was  renewed  for  the 
last  time  in  1853,  not  for  a  definite  period  of  years,  but  only  Act  of 
for  so  long  as  Parliament  should  see  fit.     On  this  occasion  '  ^^" 
the  number  of  Directors  was  reduced,  and,  as  above  stated, 
their  patronage  as  regards  appointments  to  the  covenanted 
civil  service  was  taken  away,  to  make  room  for  the  principle 
of  open  competition. 

The  Act  for  the  better  government  of  India  (1S58),  which  India 
finally  transferred  the  entire  administration  from  the  Company  |'''insferred 
to  the  Crown,  was  not  passed  without  an  eloquent  protest  from  Cmwn, 
the   Directors,   nor  without   acrimonious  party  discussion   in  1858. 
Parliament.     It  enacts  that  India  shall  be  governed  by,  and 
in  the  name  of,  the  Queen  of  England  through  one  of  her 
principal  Secretaries  of  State,  assisted  by  a  Council  of  fifteen 
members.     The  Governor -General  received  the  new  title  of '  The 
Viceroy.     The  European  troops  of  the  Company,  numbering  Viceroy. 
about   24,000  officers  and  men,  were  amalgamated  with  the 
royal  service,  and  the  Indian  navy  was  abolished.     By  the 
Indian  Councils  Act  (1861),  the  Governor-General's  Council, 
and   also  the  Councils   at   Madras  and    Bombay,  were  aug- 
mented by  the  addition  of  non-official  members,  either  natives 
or  Europeans,  for  legislative  purposes  only.     By  another  Act 
also  passed  in  1861,  High  Courts  of  Judicature  were  constituted 
out  of  the  old  Supreme  Courts  at  the  Presidency  towns. 

It  fell  to  the  lot  of  Lord  Canning  both  to  suppress  the  India 
Mutiny,  and  to  introduce  the  peaceful  revolution  which  followed,  p^q^^^^^ 
It  suffices  to  say  that  he  preserved  his  equanimity  unrufiied  in  1858-62. 
the  darkest  hours  of  peril,  and  that  the  strict  impartiality  of 
his  conduct  incurred  alternate  praise  and  blame  from  partisans 
of  both  sides.     The  epithet  then  scornfully  levelled  at  him  of 
'  Clemency '  Canning,  is  now  remembered  only  to  his  honour.  Queen's 
On  ist  November  i8';8,  at  a  grand  darbdr  held  at  Allahabad,  Proclama- 

-"    '  °  .  '  tion,  1st 

he  published  the  Royal  Proclamation,  which  announced  that  Nov.  1858. 


424  HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 

the   Queen  had   assumed   the   government   of  India.      This 
document,    which    is,   in   the   truest   and   noblest   sense,  the 
Magna  Charta  of  the  Indian  people,  proclaimed  in  eloquent 
words  a  policy  of  justice  and  religious  toleration ;  and  granted 
an  amnesty  to  all  except  those  who  had  directly  taken  part 
in   the   murder  of  British   subjects.     Peace  was   proclaimed 
throughout  India  on  the  8th  July  1859.     In  the  following  cold 
weather.  Lord  Canning  made  a  viceregal  progress  through  the 
northern  Provinces,  to  receive  the  homage  of  loyal  princes  and 
chiefs,  and  to  guarantee  to  them  the  right  of  adoption. 
Cost  of  the      The  suppression  of  the  Mutiny  increased  the  debt  of  India 
Mutiny.      i^y  about  40  millions  sterling,  and  the  military  changes  which 
ensued  augmented  the  annual  expenditure  by  about  10  millions. 
To  grapple  with  this  deficit,  a  distinguished  political  economist 
and  parliamentary  financier,  Mr.  James  Wilson,  was  sent  out 
Financial    from    England    as    financial    member  of   Council.      He    re- 
reforms,      organized  the  customs  system,  imposed  an  income-tax  and  a 
licence  duty,  and  created  a  State  paper  currency.     He  died  in 
the  midst  of  his  splendid  task ;  but  his  name  still  lives  as  that 
Legal         of  the  first  and  greatest  finance  minister  of  India.     The  Penal 
leforms.      Code,  originally  drawn  up  by  Macaulay  in  1837,  passed  into 
law  in  i860;  together  with  Codes  of  Civil  and  Criminal  Pro- 
cedure in  1861.^ 

Lord  Canning  left  India  in  March  1S62,  and  died  before 
Lord  he   had  been  a   month    in    England.      His   successor.    Lord 

^'s'"'  Elgin,  only  lived  till  November  1863.  He  expired  at  the 
Himalayan  station  of  Dharmsala,  and  there  he  lies  buried. 

Lord  He  was  succeeded  by  Sir  John  (afterwards  Lord)  Lawrence, 

JS-69^^'  *^^^  saviour  of  the  Punjab.  The  chief  incidents  of  Lord 
Lawrence's  rule  were  the  Bhutan  war,  followed  by  the  annexa- 
tion of  the  Bhutan  Dwars  in  1864,  and  the  terrible  Orissa 
famine  of  1866. 

In  a  later  famine  in  Bundelkhand  and  Upper  Hindustan  in 

1868-69,  Lord  Lawrence  laid  down  the  principle,  for  the  first 

time  in  Indian  history,  that  the  officers  of  the  Government 

would  be  held  personally  responsible  for  taking  every  possible 

Events  of   means  to  avert  death  by  starvation.    An  inquiry  was  conducted 

?•  it"?^"     '"'^^  ^^^^  status  of  the  peasantry  of  Oudh,  and  an  Act  was 

passed  with  a  view  to  securing  them  in  their  customary  rights. 

After   a  period  of  fratricidal  war  among   the  sons  of  Dost 

Muhammad,  the  Afghan  territories  were  concentrated  in  the 

^  On  the  subject  of  Anglo-Indian  Codification,   Vide  ante,  chap.  iv. 


LORD  MAY  as  REFORMS.  425 

hands  of  Sher  All,  and  the  latter  was  acknowledged  as  Amir 
by  Lord  Lawrence.  A  commercial  crisis  took  place  in  1866, 
which  seriously  threatened  the  young  tea  industry  in  Bengal, 
and  caused  widespread  ruin  in  Bombay.  Sir  John  Lawrence 
retired  in  January  1869,  after  having  passed  through  every 
grade  of  Indian  service,  from  an  assistant  magistracy  to  the 
viceroyalty.  On  his  return  to  England,  he  was  raised  to  the 
peerage.     He  died  in  1879,  and  lies  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

Lord  Mayo  succeeded  Lord  Lawrence  in   1869,  and  urged  Lord 
on   the   material   progress   of  India.      The   Ambala   dai-bdr,  jg^g"'-, 
at  which  Sher  All  was  recognised  as  Amir  of  Afghanistan,  Ambdld 
although  in  one  sense  the  completion  of  what  Lord  Lawrence  darMr, 
■  had  begun,  owed  its    success   to  Ix)rd  Mayo.     The  visit  of 
His  Royal  Highness    the    Duke  of  Edinburgh    in    1869-70 
gave  great  pleasure  to  the  natives  of  India,  and  introduced  a 
tone  of  personal  loyalty  into  our  relations  with  the  feudatory 
princes. 

Lord    Mayo   reformed    several   of    the   great    branches   of  Lord 
the  administration,  created  an  Agricultural  Department,  and  ^^p'*^  ^ 
introduced  the  system  of  Provincial  Finance.     The  impulse  to  p     ... 
local   self-government   given  by  the   last  measure   has  done  finance, 
much,  and  will  do  more,  to  develop  and  husband  the  revenues 
of  India ;  to  quicken  the  sense  of  responsibility  among  the 
English  administrators ;  and  to  awaken  political  life  among  the 
people.     Lord  Mayo  also  laid  the  foundation  for  the  reform 
of  the  Salt  Duties.     He  thus  enabled  his  successors  to  abolish  Customs- 
the  old   pernicious  customs-lines  which  walled  off  Province  ''"^f.  ,    , 
from  Province,  and  strangled  the  trade  between  British  India 
and    the    Feudatory    States.      He    developed    the    material 
resources  of  the  country  by  an  immense  extension  of  roads, 
railways,  and  canals,  thus  carrying  out  the  beneficent  system  of 
Public  Works  which  Lord  Dalhousie  had  inaugurated.     Lord 
Mayo's  splendid  vigour  defied  alike  the  climate  and  the  vast 
tasks  which  he  imposed  on  himself.     He  anxiously  and  labori- 
ously studied  with   his  own  eyes  the  wants  of  the  farthest 
Provinces  of  the  Empire.     But  his  life  of  noble  usefulness  was  Lord 
cut  short  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  in  the  convict  settlement  }^^'^'  ^ 

-'  .  '  death, 

of  the  Andaman  Islands,  in  1872.  1S72. 

His  successor  was  Lord   Northbrook,  whose  ability  found  Lord 
pre-eminent  scope  in  the  department  of  finance.^     During  his  brook' 

^  It  would  be  unsuitable  for  an  officer  of  the  Government  to  attempt      '      '   ■ 
anything  beyond  the  barest  summa:y  of  events  in  India  since  the  death  of 


426  HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 

viceroyalty,  a  famine  which  threatened  Lower  Bengal  in  1874 

was   successfully   obviated   by   a   vast   organization   of   State 

relief;   the    Mardtha  G^ekwar  of  Baroda  was  dethroned  in 

1875   for   misgovernment  and  disloyalty,   but   his  dominions 

were  continued  to  a  child  selected  from  the  family;  and  the 

Prince  of    Prince  of  Wales  made  a  tour  through  the  country  in  the  cold 

U)^'^^S7'  '^^'e^ther  of  1875-76.     The  presence  of  His  Royal  Highness 

1876.  evoked  a  passionate  burst  of  loyalty  never  before  known  in  the 

annals  of  British  India.    The  feudatory  chiefs  and  ruling  houses 

of  India  felt  for  the  first  time  that  they  were  incorporated  into 

the  Empire  of  an  ancient  and  a  splendid  dynasty. 

Lord  Lord  Lytton  followed  Lord  Northbrook  in  1876.    On  January 

■'"^ii^"'       ^j  1877,  Queen  Victoria  was  proclaimed  Empress  of  India  at  a 
r^J        '     darbdr  of  unparalleled  magnificence,  held  in  the  old  Delhi  can- 
'  Empress   tonment  behind  the  historic  '  ridge ' — the  '  ridge '  from  which  in 
of  India.'    J 3^^  ^YiQ  British  had  reconquered  the  revolted  Mughal  capital. 
But  w^hile  the  princes  and  high  officials  of  the  country  were  flock- 
ing to  this  gorgeous  scene,  the  shadow  of  famine  was  darkening 
over  Southern  India.     Both  the  monsoons  of  1876  had  failed  to 
bring  their  due  supply  of  rain,  and  the  season  of  1877  was  little 
Famine  of  better.    This  long-continued  drought  stretched  from  the  Deccan 
1S77-7S.     j-Q  Cape  Comorin,  and  subsequently  invaded  Northern  India, 
causing  a  famine  more  widespread  than  any  similar  calamity 
since  1770.     Despite  vast  importations  of  grain  by  sea  and 
rail,  despite  the  most  strenuous  exertions  of  the  Government, 
which   incurred   a  total  expenditure  on  this   account  of   11 
millions  sterling,  the  loss  of  life  from  actual  starvation  and  its 
attendant  train  of  diseases  was  lamentable.     The  deaths  from 
want  of  food,  and  from  the  diseases  incident  to  a  famine- 
stricken  population,  were  estimated  at  5  J  millions. 
Afghdn  In  the  autumn  of  1878,  the   affairs  of  Afghanistan  again 

"s^8^'s  forced  themselves  into  notice.  Sher  All,  the  Amir,  who  had 
been  hospitably  entertained  by  Lord  Mayo,  was  found  to  be 
favouring  Russian  intrigues.  A  British  embassy  was  refused 
admittance  to  the  country,  while  a  Russian  mission  was 
received  with  honour.  This  led  to  a  declaration  of  war. 
British  armies  advanced  by  three  routes  —  the  Khaibar 
(Khyber),  the  Kuram,  and  the  Bolan;  and  without  much 
opposition  occupied  the  inner  entrances  of  the  passes.     Sher 

Lord  IMayo  in  1S72.  The  four  Viceroys  who  have  ruled  during  the  past  four- 
teen years,  are,  happily,  still  living  ;  their  policy  forms  the  subject  of  keen 
contemporary  criticism  ;  and  the  administrators,  soldiers,  and  diplomatists 
who  gave  effect  to  that  policy  still  hold  possession  of  the  sctne. 


LORD  LYTTON:  LORD  RLFON.  427 

All  fled  to  Afghan  Turkistan,  and  there  died.  A  treaty  was 
entered  into  with  his  son,  Yakub  Khan,  at  Gandamak,  by 
which  the  British  frontier  was  advanced  to  the  crests  or 
farther  sides  of  the  passes,  and  a  British  officer  was  admitted 
to  reside  at  Kabul.  Within  a  few  months  the  British  Resident, 
Sir  Louis  Cavagnari,  was  treacherously  attacked  and  mas- 
sacred together  with  his  escort,  and  a  second  war  became 
necessary,  Yakub  Khan  abdicated,  and  was  deported  to 
India. 

At  this  crisis  of  affairs,  a  general  election  in  England  re- 
sulted in  a  defeat  of  the  Conservative  Ministry.  Lord  Lytton 
resigned  simultaneously  with  the  Home  Government,  and  the 
Marquis  of  Ripon  was  nominated  as  his  successor  in  April  Marquis  of 
1880.  In  that  year,  a  British  brigade  received  a  defeat  isso-Si. 
between  Kandahar  and  the  Helmand  river  from  the  Herat 
troops  of  Ayiib  Khan ;  a  defeat  promptly  and  completely 
retrieved  by  the  brilliant  march  of  General  Sir  Frederick 
Roberts  from  Kabul  to  Kandahar,  and  by  the  total  rout  of 
Ayiib  Khan's  army  on  ist  September  1880.  Abdurrahman 
Khan,  the  eldest  male  representative  of  the  stock  of  Dost 
Muhammad,  was  recognised  by  us  as  Amir.  The  British  forces  Afghan 
retired  from  Kabul,  leaving  him,  as  our  friend,  in  possession  jvjgo-^y. 
of  the  capital.  The  withdrawal  of  our  troops  from  Kandahar 
was  also  effected.  Soon  afterwards  Ayiib  Khan  advanced 
with  an  army  from  Herat,  defeated  the  Amir  Abdurrahman's 
troops,  and  captured  Kandahar.  His  success  was  short-lived. 
The  Amir  Abdurrahman  marched  south  with  his  forces  from 
Kabul,  completely  routed  Ayub  Khan,  re-occupied  Kandahar, 
and  still  reigns  as  undisputed  Amir  of  Afghanistan  (1886). 
In  1884,  a  Boundary  Commission  was  appointed  with  the 
consent  of  the  Amir  to  settle,  in  conjunction  with  Russian 
Commissioners,  the  north-western  frontier  of  Afghanistan. 

The  Native  State  of  Mysore,  which  had  been  administered  Mysore, 
by  the  British  on  behalf  of  the  Hindu  ruling  family  since  1S31, 
was  replaced  under  its  hereditary  dynasty  on  the  25th  March 
1881. 

During  the  remaining  years  of  Lord  Ripon's  administration  Lord 
(1881-84)  peace  was  maintained  in  India.     The  Viceroy  took  I'^'pon's 

J  r    1  ■    1    ,,  •       •  r  ■     internal 

advantage  of  this  lull  to  carry  out  certain  important  reforms  in  admims- 

the  internal  government  of  the  country.     The  years  1882-84  tration, 

will  be  memorable  for  these  great  measures.     By  the  repeal  of 

the  Vernacular  Press  Act,  he  set  free  the  native  journals  from 

the  last  restraints  on  the  free  discussion  of  pubHc  questions. 


428 


HISTORY  OF  BRITISH  RULE. 


Local 
Govern- 
ment Acts, 


Amend- 
ment of 
Criminal 
Procedure. 


Depart- 
ment of 
Agri- 
culture, 
i88i-«4. 


Kevenue 
reforms. 


His  scheme  of  local  self-government  developed  the  municipal 
institutions  which  had  been  growing  up  since  India  passed  to 
the  Crown.  By  a  series  of  enactments,  larger  powers  of  local 
self-government  were  given  to  rural  and  urban  boards,  and  the 
elective  principle  received  a  wider  application.  Where  rural 
boards  did  not  exist,  he  endeavoured  to  utilize  the  local  materials 
available  for  their  formation  ;  and  from  this  point  of  view  he 
may  be  said  to  have  extended  the  principle  of  local  self- 
government  from  the  towns  to  the  country.  Where  rural 
boards  already  existed  he  increased  their  powers ;  and  as  far 
as  possible  sought  to  give  them  a  representative  basis. 

An  attempt  to  extend  the  jurisdiction  of  the  rural  criminal 
courts  over  European  British  subjects,  independently  of  the 
race  or  nationality  of  the  presiding  judge,  excited  strong  public 
feeling,  and  ended  in  a  compromise.  The  principle  was  asserted 
in  regard  to  native  ofificers  belonging  to  the  Superior  Civil 
Service  who  had  attained  to  a  certain  standing,  namely  District 
Magistrates  and  Sessions  Judges.  At  the  same  time  the 
European  community  received  a  further  extension  of  trial 
by  jury,  which  enables  European  British  subjects  to  claim  a 
jury,  if  they  see  fit  to  do  so,  in  nearly  all  cases  before  the 
District  criminal  tribunals. 

One  of  the  earliest  acts  of  Lord  Ripon's  viceroyalty  was  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Department  of  Revenue  and  Agriculture 
in  accordance  with  the  recommendation  of  the  Famine  Com- 
mission. This  department  had  been  originally  instituted  by 
Lord  Mayo ;  but  some  years  after  his  death,  its  functions  had 
been  distributed  between  the  Finance  and  Home  Departments. 
It  was  now  reconstituted  substantially  on  its  former  basis,  as  a 
distinct  secretariat  of  the  Government  of  India.  It  at  once  took 
up  the  recommendations  of  the  Famine  Commission ;  both 
those  bearing  on  famine  relief,  and  those  dealing  with  organic 
reforms  in  the  administration  of  the  land  revenue.  Agri- 
cultural improvements,  exhibitions  of  Indian  produce,  whether 
in  India  or  in  Europe,  and  works  elucidating  the  raw  produce 
of  the  country,  received  its  special  attention.  Its  reforms  in 
the  administration  of  the  land  revenue  were  largely  directed  to 
prevent  re-settlements  in  temporarily  settled  districts  from 
bearing  too  heavily  on  the  cultivators.  Such  re-settlements 
are  in  future,  except  in  special  cases,  to  avoid  re-measurement 
and  vexatious  inquisitions,  and  are  to  leave  to  the  landlord  or 
husbandman  the  entire  profits  accruing  from  improvements 
carried  out  by  himself. 

Henceforth,  an  enhancement  of  the  land  revenue  is  to  be 


LORD  R I  PON'S  REFORMS.  429 

made  mainly  on  the  grounds  (i)  of  a  rise  in.  prices,  (2)  of  an 
increase  in  the  cultivated  area,  and  (3)  of  improvements  which 
have  been  made  at  the  expense  of  the  Government.  The 
Agricultural  Department  superintends  a  variety  of  important 
operations  bearing  on  the  development  of  the  country  and 
the  welfare  of  the  people  ;  including  surveys,  emigration,  the 
meteorological  bureau,  the  extension  of  veterinary  science,  and 
the  statistics  of  internal  trade. 

Lord  Ripon  also  appointed  an  Education  Commission  with  Education 
a  view  to  the  spread  of  popular  instruction  on  a  broader  basis.  Commis- 
This  Commission,  after  hearing  evidence  and  collecting  data  iss-. 
throughout  the  Presidencies  and  Provinces  of  India,  reported 
in  1883.     The  result  of  its  labours  was  a  Resolution  of  the 
Governor-General   in    Council,   which,  while   encouraging  all 
grades  of  education,   provided  specially  for   the   advance    of 
primary  instruction  at  a  more  equal  pace  with  higher  education. 
The  Recommendations  of  the  Commission,  and  the  Govern- 
ment Resolution  based  upon  them,  gave  encouragement  to  the 
indigenous  schools  which  in  some  Provinces  had  not  previously 
received  a  sufficient  recognition  from  the  State  Department  of 
Public  Instruction. 

The  Commission's  Recommendations  strongly  affirmed  the 
principle  of  self-help  in  the  extension  of  high  schools  and 
colleges,  and  laid  particular  stress  on  the  duty  of  assisting 
primary  education  from  Provincial  and  Municipal  funds.  They 
endeavoured  to  provide  for  certain  sections  of  the  people, 
particularly  the  Muhammadans,  who  for  various  causes  had 
found  themselves  unable  to  avail  themselves  fully  of  the  State 
system  of  public  instruction,  or  in  regard  to  whom  that 
system  had  proved  defective.  The  general  effect  of  the  Com- 
mission's labours,  and  of  the  Government  Resolution  based 
thereon,  is  to  give  a  more  liberal  recognition  to  private  effort 
of  every  kind,  and  to  schools  and  colleges  conducted  on  the 
system  of  grants-in-aid. 

In     1882,    Lord    Ripon's    Finance    Minister,  Sir    Evelyn  Aholiiion 
Baring,  took  off  the  import   duties    on    cotton    goods;    and  "^ c."*'°"^^ 
with   them,  almost   the  whole  import  customs,  saving  a  lew  jgs2. ' 
exceptions  such  as  those  on  arms,  liquors,  etc.,  were  abolished. 
In  1 884,  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  took  evidence 
on   railway  extension  in   India,   and  embodied  their  recom- 
mendations in  a  Parliamentary  Report.     The  condition  of  the 
agricultural  population  in  Bengal  occupied  the  close  attention 
of  Lord  Ripon  throughout  his  whole  viceroyalty.     After  keen  Bengal 
discussions,  prolonged  during  many  years,  he  left  a  Tenancy  ^ji"^"^^ 


43°  HISTOR  V  OF  BRITISH  R  ULE. 

Bill,  regulating  the  relations  of  landlord  and  tenant  in  Bengal, 
almost  ready  to  be  passed  by  his  successor. 

Earl  of  The  Marquis  of  Ripon  retired  from  the  viceroyalty  at  the 

iSs/""'  ^"^  °^  1S84,  and  was  succeeded  by  the  Earl  of  Dufferin.  In 
the  spring  of  1885,  Lord  Dufferin  passed  the  Bengal  Tenancy 
Bill  through  its  final  stage  in  the  Legislature ;  and  held  a 
Darbar  at  Rawal  Pi'ndi  for  the  reception  of  the  Amir  of  Afghan- 
istan. The  result  of  the  meeting  was  to  strengthen  the  British 
relations  with  that  ruler. 
Burmese  During  the  summer  of  the  same  3-ear,  1885,  the  hostile 
jg^'j5*'  attitude  of  the  king  of  Independent  Burma  forced  itself  upon 
the  attention  of  the  British  Government.  After  repeated  but 
fruitless  remonstrances,  a  British  expedition  was  despatched 
from  Bengal  and  Madras  to  Rangoon.  It  advanced  up  the 
Irawadi  valley  (November-December  1885),  and  occupied 
Mandalay,  the  capital  of  Independent  Burma.  King  Thebau, 
who  had  inaugurated  his  reign  by  a  family  massacre,  and  had 
steadily  refused  to  redress  the  wrongs  of  certain  British  sub- 
jects whom  he  had  injured,  remained  defiant.  He  vainly 
sought  aid  against  the  English  from  foreign  powers.  In  the 
end  he  surrendered,  almost  without  a  blow,  was  dethroned, 
and  deported  for  safe  custody  to  British  India.  The  authority 
of  the  Viceroy  of  India  was  substituted  for  that  of  King 
Thebau  throughout  Upper  Burma  by  Proclamation  on  the  ist 
January  1886.  In  February  1886,  Lord  Dufferin  proceeded 
in  person  to  Burma,  to  settle  the  administration  of  the  new 
British  Province.  As  all  pacific  proposals  were  rejected,  a 
military  force  under  General  Prendergast  moved  up  the  Irawadi 
in  a  flotilla  of  steamers.  The  opposition  encountered  was 
insignificant.  On  November  28  the  capital  of  Mandalay  was 
occupied  without  fighting ;  King  Thebau  surrendered,  and 
was  sent  as  a  prisoner  to  Rangoon. 


[431  ] 


CHAPTER    XVI. 


BRITISH    ADMINISTRATION    OF    INDIA. 


The  Act  of  1858,  which  transferred  India  from  the  Company  Control  of 

to  the  Crown,  also  laid  down  the  scheme  of  its  government.  I,"^'?  "\ 

^  J'.ngland. 

Under  the  Company,  the  Governor-General  was  an  autocrat,  ]_^-nder  the 

responsible   only   to   the   distant   Court   of  Directors.      The  Company. 

Court  of  Directors  had  been  answerable  to  the  shareholders, 

or  Court  of  I'roprietors,  on  the  one  hand ;  and,  through  the 

Board  of  Control,  to  the  Sovereign  and  to  Parliament  on  the 

other.     The  Act  of  1858  did  away  with   these  intermediary  Under  the 

bodies  between  the  Governor-General  and  the  British  Ministry.  Crown. 

For  the  Court  of  Directors,  the  Court  of  Proprietors,  and  the 

Board  of  Control,  it  substituted  a  Secretary  of  State,  aided  by 

a  Council  appointed  by  the  Crown. 

The  Secretary  of  State  for  India  is  a  Cabinet  Minister,  who  TheSecre- 

comes  into  and  sioes  out  of  office  with  the  other  members  of  ]^!\ 

...        btate. 
the  Ministry.     His  Council  was  originally  appointed  for  life.  His 

Its  members  are  now  appointed  for  ten  years  only  ;i  but  may  p""!'^'^'^ 

be  re-appointed  for  another  five  years  for  special  reasons.    The 

Secretary  of  State  rules  in  all  ordinary  matters   through  the 

majority  of  his  Council.     But    in  affairs  of  urgency,  and  in 

questions  which  belong  to  the  Secret  Department,  including 

political  correspondence,   he   is   not   required  to  consult    his 

Council.     The  Viceroy  or  Governor-General  is  appointed  by  office  of 

the    Crown,  and   resides   in    India.       His   ordinary   term    of^'^eroy. 

office  is  five  years. 

The  supreme  authority  in  India  is  vested  by  a  series  of  Acts  Admini- 

of  Parliament  ^  in  the  Viceroy  or  Governor-General-in-Council,  ^,','^jn^i"^ 

subject  to  the  control  of  the  Secretary  of  State  in  England. 

Every    executive    order    and    every    legislative    statute    runs  'Goveinor- 

in  the   name  of  the    'Governor-General-in-Council;''   but   in  <^^eneral-in- 

Council. 

^  Under  32  and  33  Vict.  c.  97. 

^  The  chief  of  these  Acts  are  13  Geo.  ill.  c.  63;  33  Geo.  iii.  c.  52: 
3  and  4  Will.  IV.  c.  85;  21  and  22  Vict.  c.  106;  and  24  and  25  \  ict. 
c  67. 

^  A  style  first  authorized  by  33  Geo.  iti.  c.  52,  sec.  39. 


432     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 

certain  cases,^  a  power  is  reserved  to  the  Viceroy  to  act 
independently.  The  Governor-General's  Council  is  of  a  two- 
fold character. 
Executive  First,  the  ordinary  or  Executive  Council,"  usually  composed 
of  about  six  official  members  besides  the  Viceroy,  which  may 
be  compared  with  the  cabinet  of  a  constitutional  country.  It 
meets  regularly  at  short  intervals,  usually  once  a  week, 
discusses  and  decides  upon  questions  of  foreign  policy  and 
domestic  administration,  and  prepares  measures  for  the  Legis- 
lative Council.  Its  members  divide  among  themselves  the 
chief  departments  of  State,  such  as  those  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
Finance,  War,  Public  Works,  etc.  The  Viceroy  combines  in 
his  own  person  the  duties  of  constitutional  Sovereign  with 
those  of  Prime  Minister  ;2  and  has  usually  charge  of  the 
Foreign  Department.  As  a  rule,  the  Viceroy  is  himself  the 
initiating  Member  of  Council  for  Foreign  and  Feudatory 
Affairs. 

Second,^  the  Legislative  Council,  which  is  made  up  of 
the  same  members  as  the  preceding,  with  the  addition  of 
the  Governor  of  the  Province  in  which  it  may  be  held ; 
certain  officials  selected  by  the  Governor-General  from  Bengal, 
JNIadras,  Bombay,  or  other  Provinces  ;  and  nominated  mem- 
bers, representative  of  the  non-official  Native  and  European 
communities.  The  official  additional  members  thus  appointed 
Legislative  to  the  Legislative  Council  must  not  exceed  in  number  the  non- 
Council.  officials,  and  the  total  of  the  additional  members  must  not 
exceed  twelve.  The  meetings  of  the  Legislative  Council  are 
held  when  and  as  required,  usually  once  a  week.  They  are 
open  to  the  public;  and  a  further  guarantee  for  publicity  is 
ensured  by  the  proviso  that  draft  Bills  must  be  published  a 

1  '  Cases  of  high  importance,  and  essentially  affecting  the  public  interest 
and  welfare'  (33  Geo.  III.  c.  52,  sec.  47) ;  '  when  any  measure  is  proposed 
whereby  the  safety,  tranquillity,  or  interests  of  the  British  possessions  in 
India  may,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Governor-General,  be  essentially  affected ' 
(3  and  4  Will.  iv.  c.  85,  sec.  49) ;  '  cases  of  emergency '  (24  and  25  Vict. 
c.  67,  sec.  23). 

-  This  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  original  Council  organized  under 
the  charters  of  the  Company,  first  constituted  by  I'arliamentary  sanction  in 
1773  (13  Geo.  III.  c.  63,  sec.  7). 

^  The  mechanism  and  working  of  the  Governor-General's  Council,  and  of 
the  Secretariats,  and  chief  Departments  of  the  Indian  Administration,  are 
described  in  Hunter's  Life  of  the  Earl  of  Mayo,  vol.  i.  pp.  189-202  (2nd  ed.) 

■*  Originally  identical  with  the  Executive  Council,  upon  which  legislative 
powers  were  conferred  by  13  Geo.  III.  c.  63,  sec.  36.  The  distinction 
between  the  two  Councils  was  first  recognised  in  the  appointment  of  '  the 
fourth  member '  (3  and  4  Will.  IV.  c.  85,  sec.  40). 


LEGISLATION  AXD  JUSTICE.  433 

certain  number  of  times  in  the  Gazette.  As  a  matter  of 
practice,  these  draft  Bills  have  usually  been  first  subjected  to 
the  criticism  of  the  several  Provincial  governments.  Provincial 
Legislative  Councils  have  also  been  appointed  for  the  Presi- 
dencies of  Madras  and  Bombay,  and  for  the  Lieutenant- 
Governorship  of  Bengal.  The  members  of  these  local  Legis- 
lative Councils  are  appointed,  in  the  case  of  Madras  and 
Bombay,  by  the  Governors  of  those  Provinces ;  and  in  Bengal, 
by  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the 
Governor-General.  The  Acts  of  these  Provincial  Legislative 
Councils,  which  can  deal  only  with  provincial  matters,  are 
subject  to  sanction  by  the  Governor-General. 

The  Presidencies  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  and  the  Lieutenant-  High 
Governorships  of  Bengal  and  of  the  North-Western  Provinces,  j^jstj^.^ 
have  each  a  High  Court,^  supreme  both  in  civil  and  criminal 
business,  but  with  an  ultimate  appeal  to  the  Judicial  Committee 
of  the  Privy  Council  in  England.  Of  the  minor  Provinces, 
the  Punjab  has  a  Chief  Court,  with  three  judges ;  the 
Central  Provinces  and  Oudh  have  each  a  Judicial  Com- 
missioner, who  sits  alone.  British  Burma  has  a  Judicial 
Commissioner  and  a  Recorder.  In  this  Province,  the  Judicial 
Commissioner  has  jurisdiction  over  the  territory  outside 
Rangoon  (save  that  in  cases  of  European  British  subjects  the 
Recorder  has  the  powers  of  a  High  Court).  The  Recorder 
has  jurisdiction  in  the  town  of  Rangoon,  and  in  all  criminal 
cases  in  any  part  of  Burma  where  the  accused  are  European 
British  subjects.  The  Judicial  Commissioner  and  the  Recorder 
of  Rangoon  sit  together  as  a  '  Special  Court '  for  certain  pur- 
poses. Appeals  from  the  Recorder  of  Rangoon  in  civil  suits 
where  the  subject-matter  ranges  from  Rs.  3000  to  Rs.  10,000, 
lie  to  the  High  Court  at  Calcutta.  The  latter  Court  also 
decides  references  from  the  '  Special  Court '  of  Rangoon  when 
the  members  are  equally  divided  in  opinion.  For  Assam,  the 
High  Court  at  Calcutta  is  the  highest  judicial  authority,  except 
in  the  three  Hill  Districts,  namely,  the  Garo  Hills,  the  Khasi 
and  Jaintia  Hills,  and  the  Naga  Hills.  In  these  Districts, 
the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Assam  is  judge  without  appeal 
in  civil  and  criminal  matters.  Special  rules  apply  to  the 
Dvvars  bordering  on  Bhutan. 

The  law  administered  in  the  Indian  Courts  consists  mainly  The  law 
of — (i)   the  enactments  of  the    Indian    Legislative   Councils  ^f  British 
(Imperial  and  Provincial),  as  above  described,  and  of  the  bodies 

^  Constituted  out  of  the  Supreme  Courts  andthe  Sudder  (Sadr)  Courts 
in  1861  (24  and  25  Vict.  c.  104). 

2  E 


Admini- 
stration. 


434     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  IXDIA. 

which  preceded  them;  (2)  statutes  of  the  British  Parliament 
which  apply  to  India ;  (3)  the  Hindu  and  Muhammadan  laws 
of  inheritance,  and  their  domestic  law,  in  causes  affecting 
Hindus  and  Muhammadans ;  (4)  the  Customary  Law  affecting 
l)articular  castes  and  races.  Much  has  been  done  towards 
consolidating  special  sections  of  the  Indian  law ;  ^  and  in 
the  Indian  Penal  Code,  together  with  the  Codes  of  Civil  and 
Criminal  Procedure,  we  have  memorable  examples  of  such 
efforts. 

But  although  the  Governor-General-in-Council  is  theoretically 
supreme  over  every  part  of  India  alike,-  his  actual  authority  is 
not  everywhere  exercised    in    the   same  direct  manner.     For 

Provincial  ordinary  purposes  of  administration,  British  India  is  partitioned 
into  Provinces,  each  with  a  government  of  its  own  ;  and  certain 
of  the  Native  States  are  attached  to  those  Provinces  with  which 
they  are  most  nearly  connected  geographically.  These  Pro- 
vinces, again,  enjoy  various  degrees  of  independence.    The  two 

:\la(lras.      Presidencies  of  Madras  and  Bombay,  including  Sind,  retain 

ISombay.  many  marks  of  their  original  equality  with  Bengal.  They  each 
have  an  army  and  a  civil  service  of  their  own.  They  are  each 
administered  by  a  Governor  appointed  direct  from  England, 
They  have  each  an  Executive  and  a  Legislative  Council,  whose 
functions  are  analogous  to  those  of  the  Councils  of  the  Governor- 
.  General,  although  subject  to  his  control.^  They  thus  possess 
a  domestic  legislature ;  and  in  administrative  matters,  also,  the 
interference  of  the  Governor-General-in-Council  is  sparingly 
exercised. 

Bengal,  Qf  j-]-,g  other  Provinces,  Bengal,  or  rather  Lower  Bengal, 

occupies  a  peculiar  position.  Like  the  North-Western  Pro- 
vinces and  the  Punjab,  it  is  administered  by  a  single  official 
with  the  style  of  Lieutenant-Governor,  who  is  controlled  by  no 
Executive  Council ;  but,  unlike  those  two  Provinces,  Bengal  has 
a  Legislative  Council,  so  far  preserving  a  sign  of  its  early  pre- 

Minor  eminence.  The  other  Northern  Provinces,  Assam,  Oudh,  and 
the  Central  Provinces,  whether  ruled  by  a  Lieutenant-Governor 
or  a  Chief  Commissioner,  may  be  regarded  from  a  historical 
point  of  view  as  fragments  of  the  original  Bengal  Presidency,* 
which,  as  thus  defined,  would  be  co-extensive  with  all  British 
India  not  included  under  Madras  or  Bombay,  Garrisons  on 
the  Madras  or  Bombay  establishment  may  be  posted  in  out- 

'  Ante,  chap.  iv.  p.  117. 

■■^  3  and  4  Will.  iv.  c.  85,  sees.  39  and  65. 

•"  24  and  25  Vict.  c.  67,  sec.  42. 

*  .See  article  Bengal  Presidency,  TIi-c  Im^alal  GaMtiCr  0I  India. 


Provinces. 


TERRITORIAL  DIVISIOXS.  435 

lying  tracts  of  the  old  Bengal  territories,  but  civil  officers  of  the 
Madras  and  Bombay  Services  are  excluded.  The  Lieutenant- 
Governors  and  most  of  the  Chief  Commissioners  are  chosen 
from  the  Covenanted  Civil  Service.  In  executive  matters  they 
are  the  practical  rulers,  but,  excepting  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Bengal,  they  have  no  legislative  authorit}'. 

To  complete  the  total  area  of  territory  under  British  admini-  Minor 

stration,  it  is  necessarv  to  mention,  besides  Bengal,  the  North-  ^^'"^"•" 

'  °    '  strations. 

Western  Provmces,  the    Punjab,    Oudh,  and  Assam,  certain 

<7«(m-Provinces,  under  the  immediate  control  of  the  Viceroy. 
These  are — British  Burma,  part  of  which  was  annexed  in 
1826  and  part  in  1S52;  the  Central  Provinces,  lapsed  in 
1853;  Assam,  annexed  in  1826;  Ajmere,  transferred  from 
Rajputana;  Berar,  or  the  Districts  assigned  by  the  Nizdm  of 
Haidarabad,  for  the  support  of  the  Haidarabad  Contingent ; 
and  the  little  territory  of  Coorg,  in  the  extreme  south. ^  The 
State  of  Mysore  was  under  British  administration  from  1831  to 
1 88 1,  when  it  was  restored  to  its  native  Raja,  on  his  attaining 
his  majority. 

Another  difference  of  administration,  although  now  of  less  '  The 
importance  than  in  former  times,  derives  its  name  from  the  I>egula- 
old  Regulations,  or  laws  and  judicial  rules  of  practice  which 
preceded  the  present  system  of  Acts  of  the  Legislature.     From 
these  Regulations  certain   tracts  of  country  have  been  from 
time  to  time  exempted — tracts  which,  owing  to  their  backward 
state  of  civilisation  or  other  causes,  seemed  to  require  excep- 
tional treatment.     In  non-Regulation  territory,  broadly  speak-  Non- 
ins-  a  larger  measure  of  discretion  is  allowed  to  the  officials,  ^"^egulai'.oa 

•        1  11        ■  r  1-1  1     •    •  •        territory. 

both  m  the  collection  of  revenue  and  m  the  administration 
of  civil  justice;  strict  rules  of  procedure  yield  to  the  local 
exigencies;  and  the  judicial  and  executive  departments  are  to 
a  great  extent  combined  in  the  same  hands. 

A  wider  field  is  also  permitted  for  the  selection  of  the 
administrative  body,  which  is  not  entirely  confined  to  the 
Covenanted  Civil  Service,  but  includes  military  officers  on  the 
staff  and  also  uncovenanted  civilians.  The  title  of  the  highest 
executive  official  in  a  District  of  a  Regulation  Province  is  that 
of  Collector-Magistrate.  In  a  non-Regulation  District,  the  'Depu'y 
corresponding  officer  is  styled  the  Deputy  Commissioner ;  and 
the  supreme  authority  in  a  non-Regulation  Province  (with  the 
exception  of  the  Punjab)  is  called,  not  a  Lieutenant-Governor, 
but  a  Chief  Commissioner.     The  Central  Provinces,  Assam, 

^  For  the  constitution  of  each  of  these  Provinces,  see  their  articles  in 
The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 


Commi> 
sioners. 


436     BRITISH  ADMIXISTRA  TIOX  OF  INDIA. 


The  'Dis- 
trict '  or 
territorial 
unit. 


The 
District 
Officer  or 
'Collector 
Magis- 
trate.' 


Duties 
of  the 
'Collector 
Magis- 
trate.' 


and  British  Burma  are  examples  of  non-Regulation  Provinces  ; 
but  non-Regulation  Districts  are  to  be  found  also  in  Bengal 
and  the  North-Western  Provinces,  Their  existence  is  always 
disclosed  by  the  term  '  Deputy  Commissioner '  as  the  tide  of 
the  chief  executive  officer  of  the  District. 

Alike  in  Regulation  and  in  non-Regulation  territory,  the  unit 
of  administration  is  the  District— a  word  of  very  definite 
meaning  in  official  phraseology.  The  District  officer,  whether 
known  as  Collector-Magistrate  or  as  Deputy  Commissioner, 
is  the  responsible  head  of  his  jurisdiction.  Upon  his  energy 
and  personal  character  depends  ultimately  the  efficiency  of 
our  Indian  Government.  His  own  special  duties  are  so 
numerous  and  so  various  as  to  bewilder  the  outsider;  and 
the  work  of  his  subordinates,  European  and  native,  largely 
depends  upon  the  stimulus  of  his  personal  example.  His 
position  has  been  compared  to  that  of  the  French  prcfei ; 
but  such  a  comparison  is  unjust  in  many  ways  to  the  Indian 
District  officer.  He  is  not  a  mere  subordinate  of  a  central 
bureau,  who  takes  his  colour  from  his  chief,  and  represents  the 
political  parties  or  the  permanent  officialism  of  the  capital. 
The  Indian  Collector  is  a  strongly  individualized  worker  in 
every  department  of  rural  well-being,  with  a  large  measure  of 
local  independence  and  of  individual  initiative. 

As  the  name  of  Collector- Magistrate  implies,  his  main 
functions  are  two-fold.  He  is  a  fiscal  officer,  charged  with  the 
collection  of  the  revenue  from  the  land  and  other  sources ;  he 
also  is  a  revenue  and  criminal  judge,  both  of  first  instance  and 
in  appeal.  But  his  title  by  no  means  exhausts  his  multifarious 
duties.  He  does  in  his  smaller  local  sphere  all  that  the  Home 
Secretary  superintends  in  England,  and  a  great  deal  more  ;  for 
he  is  the  representative  of  a  paternal  and  not  of  a  constitu- 
tional government.  Police,  jails,  education,  municipalities, 
roads,  sanitation,  dispensaries,  the  local  taxation,  and  the 
imperial  revenues  of  his  District,  are  to  him  matters  of  daily 
concern.  He  is  exi:»€cted  to  make  himself  acquainted  with 
every  phase  of  the  social  life  of  the  natives,  and  'with  each 
natural  aspect  of  the  country.  He  should  be  a  lawyer,  an 
accountant,  a  surveyor,  and  a  ready  writer  of  State  papers. 
He  ought  also  to  possess  no  mean  knowledge  of  agriculture, 
political  economy,  and  engineering. 


Number  of      The  total  number  of  Districts  in  British  India  is  about  235. 

Districts  in  'pj^g,,  y^j-y  greatly  in  size  and  number  of  inhabitants.     The 

British  /  y    D  .'  _ 

India.         average  area  is  3840  square  miles,  ranging  from  14,115  square 


THE  SECRETARIAT.  437 

miles  in  Sind  (Karachi),  12,045  square  miles  in  Bengal  (Lohar- 
daga),  and  11,885  square  miles  in  the  Central  Provinces 
(Raipur) ;  down  to  937  square  miles  in  the  North-Western 
Provinces  (Tarai),  957  square  miles  in  Madras  (Nilgiris),  and 
989  square  miles  in  Oudh  (Lucknow).  The  average  population 
is  800,723  souls,  similarly  ranging  from  3,051,916  in  Bengal 
(Maimansingh),  2,617,120  in  the  North-Western  Provinces  Their 
(Gorakhpur),  and  2,365,035  in  Madras  (Malabar) ;  down  to  ^'.^'y^j^ 
91,034  in  Madras  (Nilgiris),  144,070  in  the  North-Western 
Provinces  (Dehra),  and  to  231,341  in  the  Central  Provinces 
(Nimar).  Districts  from  their  extreme  smallness,  or  other 
circumstances  which  render  them  quite  exceptional, — such  as 
the  little  hill  District  of  Simla,  the  backward  and  only  partially 
inhabited  tract  of  Northern  Arakan,  the  Calcutta-Suburban  Dis- 
trict of  Howrah, — are  not  included  in  the  above.  The  Madras 
Districts  are,  on  an  average,  the  most  extensive  in  area,  and 
the  most  populous.  In  every  other  Province  but  Madras,  the 
J  )istricts  are  grouped  into  larger  areas,  known  as  Divisions, 
each  under  the  charge  of  a  Commissioner.  But  these  Divisions 
are  not  properly  units  of  administration,  as  the  Districts  are. 
They  are  aggregates  of  units,  formed  only  for  convenience  of 
supervision,  so  that  an  intermediate  authority  may  exercise  the 
imiversal  watchfulness  which  would  be  impossible  for  a  distant 
Lieutenant-Governor. 

The  Districts  are  again  partitioned  out  into  lesser  tracts,  Suh- 
called   Sub-divisions   in   Bengal,    taluks   in    Madras    and    in  ■L'''5'"^t'^- 
Bombay,  and  tahsils  in  Northern  India  generally.     These  Sub- 
Districts  are  the  primary  units  of  fiscal  administration.     The 
ihdnd,  or  police  circle,  is  the  unit  of  police  administration  over 
the  whole  of  British  India. 

The  preceding   sketch  of  Indian  administration  would   be  The  Seoe- 
incomplete  without  a  reference  to  the  Secretariat,  or  central  ^^'^'''^^  • 
bureau  of  each  Province,  which  controls  and  gives  unity  to 
the  whole.     From  the  Secretariat  are  issued  the  orders  that 
regulate  or    modify  the  details  of  administration  ;    into  the 
Secretariat  come  the  multifarious  reports  from  the  local  officers, 
to  be  there  digested  for  future  reference.     But  although  the 
Secretaries  may  enjoy  the  social  life  of  the  Presidency  capitals, 
with  higher  salaries   and  better  prospects  of  promotion,  the 
efficiency  of  our  rule  rests  ultimately  upon  the  shoulders  of 
the  District  officers,  who  bear  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  of  the 
with  fewer  opportunities  of  winning   fame  or  reward.       'J'he  ^'^^■^'^'■; 

^  .  ^  ^  ^  .  .  nient  nf 

Secretariat  of  the  Supreme  Government  of  India  consists  of  imlia  ; 


43S     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATIOX  OF  INDIA. 


of  the 
local 
govern- 
ment. 


seven  branches,  each  of  which  deals  with  a  special  department 
of  the  administration.  The  officers  who  preside  over  them 
are  named  respectively,  the  Foreign  Secretary,  the  Home 
Secretary,  the  Secretary  in  the  Department  of  Revenue  and 
Agriculture,  the  Financial  Secretary,  the  Military  Secretary, 
the  Public  Works  Secretary,  and  the  Secretary  in  the  Legis- 
lative Department.  In  the  Presidencies,  Lieutenant-Governor- 
ships, and  Chief-Commissionerships,  the  Provincial  Secretariat 
is  formed  on  the  same  model,  but  the  Secretaries  are  only 
from  one  to  three  or  four  in  number. 


Land-Tax 


Land 
Settle- 
ment. 


Ancient 
land 
system 
of  India. 


1'he  Land-Tax. — The  land  furnishes  the  chief  source  of 
Indian  revenue,  and  the  collection  of  the  land-tax  forms  the 
main  work  of  Indian  administration.  No  technical  term  is 
more  familiar  to  Anglo-Indians,  and  none  more  obscure  to  the 
English  public,  than  that  of  'land  settlement.'  Nor  has  any 
subject  given  rise  to  more  voluminous  controversy.  It  will 
here  suffice  to  explain  the  general  principles  upon  which  the 
system  is  based,  and  to  indicate  the  chief  differences  in  their 
application  to  the  several  Provinces.  That  the  State  should 
appropriate  to  itself  a  share  of  the  produce  of  the  soil,  is  a 
maxim  of  finance  which  has  been  recognised  throughout  the 
East  from  time  immemorial.  The  germs  of  rival  systems  in 
India  can  be  traced  in  the  survival  of  military  and  other 
service  tenures,  and  in  the  poll-tax  of  Assam  and  Burma. 

The  early  development  of  the  Indian  land  system  was  due 
to  two  conditions, — a  comparatively  high  state  of  agriculture, 
and  an  organized  plan  of  administration, — both  of  which  were 
supplied  by  the  primitive  Hindu  village  community.  During 
the  lapse  of  generations,  despite  domestic  anarchy  and  foreign 
conquest,  the  Hindu  village  preserved  its  customs,  written  on 
the  imperishable  tablets  of  tradition.  In  the  ancient  Hindu 
village  community,  the  land  was  held,  not  by  private  owners, 
but  by  occupiers  under  the  village  corporation  :  the  revenue 
was  due,  not  from  individuals,  but  from  the  village  commtmity 
represented  by  its  head-man.  The  harvest  of  the  hamlet  was 
dealt  with  as  a  common  fund ;  and  before  the  general  distri- 
bution, the  head-man  was  bound  to  set  aside  the  share  of  the 
king.  No  other  system  of  taxation  could  be  theoretically  more 
just,  or  in  practice  less  obnoxious,  to  a  primitive  people.  This 
ancient  land  system  may  still  be  found  in  parts  of  India,  both 
under  British  and  native  rule  ;  and  it  prevailed  almost  universally 
before  the  Muhammadan  conquest. 

The  Musalmans  brought  with  them  the  avarice  of  conquerors, 


THE  LAND-SYSTEM.  439 

and  a   stringent   system  of  revenue   collection.      Under   the  Musalman 
Mughal  Empire,  as  organized  by  Akbar  the  Great,  the  share  la>"l-'ax. 
of  the  State  was  fixed  at  one-third  of  the  gross  produce  of 
the  soil ;  and  an   army   of  tax-collectors  intervened  between 
the  cultivator  and  the  supreme  government.     The  vocabulary 
of  our   own    land    system    is    borrowed    from    the   Mughal 
administration.     The  zaminddr  himself  is  a  creation   of  the  The 
Muhammadans,  unknown  to  the  early  Hindu  system.      He  "aimudar. 
was   originally   a  mere   tax-collector,   or   farmer   of  the   land 
revenue,  who  agreed  to  pay  a  lump  sum  from  the  tract  of 
country  assigned  to  him.     But  the  Hindu  chief  or  local  mag-  His  two- 
nate  was  often  accepted  by  the   INIughals  as  the  zaminddr,  or  ^°'^  origm. 
revenue  contractor,  for  the  lands  under  his  control.     In  this 
.way,  the  Indian  zaminddrs  as  a  body  are  of  mixed  origin,  and 
represent  in  some  cases  not  merely  an  official  status,  but  heredi- 
tary rights.     If  the  Hindu  village  system  may  be  praised  for  its 
justice,  the  INIughal  farming  system  had  at  least  the  merit  of 
efficiency.     Shah  Jahan  and  Aurangzeb,  as  we  have  seen,^  ex- 
tracted a  larger  land  revenue  than  we  obtain  at  the  present  day. 

When  the  responsibility  of  governing  the  country  was  first  The  Com- 
undertaken  by  the  East  India  Companv,  an  attempt  was  made  pa'iy'^ 

,1  ■   ^  1-11  r  etfoiis. 

to  understand  the  social  system  upon  which  the  payment  ot 
land  revenue  was  based.     Elaborate  orders  were  issued  to  this 
end  in  1769  ;  but  the  Company's  servants  were  too  engrossed 
with  conquest,  with  the  '  annual  investment,'  and  with  their 
private  trade,  to  find  time  for  minute  inquiries  into  the  rights  of 
the  peasantry.     The  zaminddi-  was  conspicuous   and  useful ;  The^ 
the  village  community  and  the  cultivating  rdyat  did  not  force  ^'[^''/g 
tliemselves    into    notice.      The   zam'aiddr   seemed   a   solvent  landlord, 
person,  capable  of  keeping  a  contract ;  and  his  official  position 
as  tax-collector  was  confused  with  the  proprietary  rights  of  an 
English  landlord.     In  Bengal,  the  zaminddr,  under  the  Per- 
manent   Settlement   of   1793;   was    raised   to   the   status    of 
proprietor,  holding  at  a  quit-rent  payable  to  the  State,  fixed  in 
perpetuity.    In  Madras,  under  the  rdyatuidri  system  of  holding 
direct  from  the  State,  and  in  most  other  parts  of  India,  the 
actual  cultivator  has  been  raised  to  the  same  status,  subject  also 
to  a  quit-rent,  fixed  at  intervals  of  thirty  years.     The  aim  of  Growth  of 
the  British  authorities  has  everywhere  been  to  establish  private  j^j'^^fg'^ 
property  in  the  soil,  consistently  with  the  punctual  payment  ot 
the  revenue. 

The  annual  Government  demand,  like  the  succession  duty  in 

'  This  subject  has  been  fully  discussed  in  the  chapter  on  the  Mughal 
Eiv.pire.      ViJc  ante,  pp.  298,  299,  305,  31 1,  etc. 


44 o     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 

Landed       England,  is  the  first  liability  on  the  land.    When  that  is  satisfied, 

in  India,      ^^  registered  landholder  in   Bengal  has  powers  of  sale  or 

mortgage  scarcely  more  restricted  than  those  of  an   English 

tenant  in  fee-simple.     At  the  same  time,  the  possible  hardships, 

as  regards  the  cultivator,   of  this  absolute  right  of  property 

vested  in  the  owner  have  been  anticipated  by  the  recognition 

of  occupancy  rights  or  fixity  of  peasant-tenures,  under  carefully 

ascertained  conditions. 

Individual       Legal  titles  have  everywhere  taken  the  place  of  unwritten 

piopnetary  customs.    Land,  which  was  merely  a  source  of  livelihood  to  the 

rights.  .  '  •' 

cultivator  and  of  revenue  to  the  State,  has  become  a  valuable 
property  to  the  owner.  The  fixing  of  the  revenue  demand 
has  conferred  upon  the  landholder  a  credit  which  he  never 
before  possessed,  and  created  for  him  a  source  of  future  profit 
arising  out  of  the  unearned  increment.  This  credit  he  may 
use  improvidently;  and  he  sometimes  does  so  with  disastrous 
results.  But  none  the  less  has  the  land  system  of  India  been 
raised  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  stage  of  civilisation;  that  is  to 
say,  from  holdings  in  common  to  holdings  in  severalty,  and 
from  the  corporate  possession  of  the  village  community  to 
individual  proprietary  rights. 
Rates  of  With  regard  to  the  money  rates  of  the  assessment,  the 
land-tax.  p'amine  Commissioners  in  1880  reported  the  average  rate 
throughout  India  at  about  2s.  per  cultivated  acre,  ranging  from 
4d.  to  4s.  6d.,  according  to  the  quality  of  the  land.  In  the 
North  -  Western  Provinces  the  rates  of  assessment  average 
Rs.  I.  II.  4.  per  cultivated  acre.  In  the  Punjab,  with  the 
same  system  of  Land  Settlement,  but  with  an  inferior  soil,  they 
average  just  under  one  rupee.  These  latter  figures  are  taken 
from  the  Census  Report  of  188 1.  Taking  the  nominal  conver- 
sion of  the  rupee  at  2s.,  the  average  rate  in  the  North- Western 
Provinces  would  be  3s.  5d.,  and  in  the  Punjab  a  fraction  under 
2s.,  per  acre.  The  rupee,  howev^er,  is  now  (1885)  worth,  at  the 
current  rate  of  exchange,  only  is.  6d.,  and  not  2s.  The  actual 
sterling  land-tax  would  therefore  be  about  2s.  yd.  in  the  North- 
western Provinces,  and  is.  6d.  in  the  Punjab,  per  acre, 
(jovern-  The  actual  share  of  the  crop,  represented  by  these  rates,  is 

)nent  share  ^  ygj-y  difficult  problem.     The  Mughal  assessment  was  fixed 
crop.  at  one-third  of  the  produce.     Under  many  native  rulers,  this 

rate  was  increased  to  one-half,  and  under  some  to  three-fifths. 
For  example,  the  author  found  that  in  Parikud  the  Raja's 
officers  used  to  take  l^ths  of  the  crop  on  the  threshing-floor, 
leaving  only  two-fifths  to  the  cultivator.^ 

'  See  Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.   p.  34  (ed.  1872). 


THE  '  LAXD  SETTLE  ME  XT:  441 

The  English  revenue  officers  adhere  to  the  old  theory  of  ;i 
third  of  the  produce,  but  they  make  so  many  deductions  in 
favour  of  the  peasant,  as  to  reduce  the  Government  share  in 
practice  to  about  one-seventeenth.  This  question  will  be  dis- 
cussed in  some  detail  in  dealing  with  the  general  comparison 
of  English  and  Mughal  taxation.  It  must  here  suffice  to  say 
that  the  Famine  Commissioners,  the  only  body  who  have  had 
the  whole  evidence  before  them,  estimate  the  land-tax  through- 
out British  India  '  at  from  3  per  cent,  to  7  per  cent,  of  the  gross 
out-turn.'  The  old  native  basis  of  division,  although  retained 
in  name  in  some  Provinces,  has  disappeared  in  practice. 
Instead  of  the  ruling  power  taking  from  ^iZ  to  60  per  cent., 
the  average  land-tax  of  the  British  Government  throughout 
India  is,  according  to  the  Famine  Commissioners,  only  5^  per 
cent,  of  the  produce  of  the  fields. 

The  means  by  which  the  land  revenue  is  assessed  is  known  The  Land 

as  Settlement,  and  the  assessor  is  styled  a  Settlement  Officer,  •'^sttle- 

...  meiit. 

In    Lower    Bengal,    the    assessment    existmg    \\\    1793    was 

declared  to  be  fixed  in  perpetuity ;  but  throughout  the  greater 

part  of  India  the  process  is  ever  going  on.     The  details  vary 

in  the  different  Provinces  ;  but,  broadly  speaking,  a  Settlement 

may  be  described  as    the  ascertainment  of   the  agricultural 

capacity  of  the  land.     Prior  to  the  Settlement  is  the  work  of  Village 

Survey,   which    determines   the    area    of   every  village,   and,  ^"'"^^^y- 

as  a  rule,  of  every  field.     Then  comes  the  Settlement  Officer, 

whose  duty  it  is  to  estimate   the   character   of  the  soil,  the 

kind  of  crop,  the  opportunities  for  irrigation,  the  present  means 

of  communication,  their  probable  development,  and  all  other 

circumstances  which  tend  to  affect  the  value  of  the  land  and  its  Process 

])roduce.     With  these  facts  before  him,  he  proceeds  to  assess  °'  ^''ettle- 

.  .     ment. 

the  Government  demand  upon  the  land,  according  to  certain 

general  principles,  which  may  vary  in  the  several  Provinces. 

The  final  result  is  a  Settlement  Report,  which  records,  as  in 

a  Domesday  Book,  the  whole  agricultural  statistics  concerning 

the  District. 

Lower  Bengal,  and  a  few  adjoining  Districts  of  the  North-  The  Per- 

Western  Provinces  and  of  Madras,  enjoy  a  Permanent  Settle-  ^^^"f"''     , 

'•'•'_  _  oetilement 

.ment,  i.e.  the  land  revenue  has  been  fixed  in  perpetuity.    When  of  Bengal. 
the  Company  obtained  the  diwdni  or  financial  administration 
of  Bengal  in  1765,  the  theory  of  a  Settlement,  as  described 
above,  \vas  unknown.     The  existing  Muhammadan  system  was  Our  first 
adopted  in  its  entirety.    Engagements,  sometimes  yearly,  some-  "''^o^'o^^' 
times  for  a  term  of  years,  were  entered  into  with  the  zaminddrs 


442     BRITISH  ADMIXISTRATIOX  OF  INDIA. 

to  pay  a  lump  sum  for  the  area  over  which  they  exercised  con- 
trol. If  the  offer  of  the  zamiiiddr  was  not  deemed  satisfactory, 
another  contractor  was  substituted  in  his  place.  But  no  steps 
were  taken,  and  perhaps  no  steps  were  then  possible,  to 
ascertain  in  detail  the  amount  which  the  country  could  afford 
to  pay.  For  more  than  twenty  years  this  practice  of  temporary 
engagements  continued,  and  received  the  sanction  of  Warren 
Hastings,  the  first  Governor  -  General  of  India.  Hastings' 
great  rival,  Francis,  was  among  those  who  urged  the  superior 
Permanent  advantages   of  a   permanent   assessment.      At  last,  in  1789, 

^^"'^"        a   slightly  more  accurate   investigation  into   the   agricultural 
mcnt,  1793.  r  T,  ,  -1 

resources  of  Bengal  was  earned  out;  and  the  Settlement  based 

upon  the  imperfect  data  yielded  by  this  inquiry  was  declared 

perpetual  by  Lord  Cornwallis  in  1793.^ 
Propiie-  The  zain'mddrs  were  thus  raised  to  the  status  of  landlords, 

tors  created  ^yJth  rights  of  transfer  and  inheritance,  subject  only  to  the 

by  law.  .  .  -  ,  ^       ,    -     ,        .   , 

payment  in  perpetuity  of  a  rent-charge.  In  default  ot  due  pay- 
ment, their  lands  were  to  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  The 
Fixed  assessment  of  Lower  Bengal  was  fixed  at  sikkd  Rs.  26,800,989, 
r!f"l'ower  equivalent  to  Rs.  28,587,722,  then  about  equal  to  three 
Ikngal,  millions  sterling.  By  the  year  1871-72,  the  total  land-tax 
'793-  realized  from  the  same  area  had  increased  to  over  3!  millions 

sterling,  chiefly  owing  to  the  inclusion  of  estates  which  had 
escaped  the  original  assessment  on  various  pretexts.  In 
1883-84,  the  land  revenue  of  Bengal  was  returned  at  3^ 
millions  sterling,  apart  from  the  road  and  local  cesses  based 
on  the  land-tax.  If  these  are  added,  the  total  exceeds  4 
millions  sterling,  popularly  lumped  together  as  '  land  revenue.' 
While  the  claim  of  Government  against  the  zam'inddrs 
was  thus  fixed  for  ever,  the  law  intended  that  the  rights  of 
the  zaminddrs  over  their  own  tenants  should  equitably  be 
restricted.  But  no  detailed  record  of  tenant-right  was  inserted 
in  the  Settlement  papers;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  culti- 
Rights  of  vators  lost  rather  than  gained  in  security  of  tenure.  The  rights 
the  culti-  Qf  j.j-(g  landlord,  as  against  the  State,  were  defined  by  the 
Regulations  of  1793  ;  and  the  rights  of  the  tenants,  as  against 
the  landlord,  were  formerly  '  reserved '  by  those  Regulations, 
but  were  not  defined.  The  landlord  could  therefore  go  into 
Court  with  a  precise  legal  status ;  the  cultivator  could  only 
shelter  himself  under  vague  customary  rights.  As  the  pressure 
of  population  on  the  soil  increased,  and  land  in  Bengal  became 

^  The  personal  aspects  of  this  measure,  and  the  parts  played  by  the 
Court  of  Directors,  the  Governor-General  (Lord  Cornwallis),  and  his  chief 
Indian  adviser  (John  Shore),  are  briefly  narrated,  ante,  p.  393. 


LANDS  ]  ^STEM  IN  L  0  WER  BENGAL.       443 

a  subject  of  competition  among  the  cultivators,  the  tenant 
found  himself  unprovided  with  any  legal  provisions  to  enable 
him  to  resist  rack-rents.  He  could  only  plead  ancient  but 
undefined  custom :  the  landlord  could  urge  a  proprietary  right, 
based  on  express  sections  of  the  law.  The  result  was  a 
gradual  decadence  of  peasant-right  during  the  sixty-five  years 
following  the  Permanent  Settlement  of  1793. 

The  zamiuddr  was  the  revenue-paying  unit  recognised  by 
the  Permanent  Settlement.  But  in  a  large  number  of  cases 
the  zaminddr  has  in  effect  parted  with  all  his  interest  in  the 
land,  by  means  of  the  creation  of  perpetual  leases  or  patnis. 
These  leases  are  usually  granted  in  consideration  of  a  lump  Inter- 
sum  paid  down  and  an  annual  rent.     The  tatniddr  may  in  "^'^'^'^te 

'■  .  .  .  tenure- 

.  turn  create  an  indefinite  series  of  sub-tenures,  such  as  da?--  holders. 
patnis,  se-patnis,  etc.,  beneath  his  own  tenure;  and  between 
himself  and  the  actual  cultivator. 

It  has  been  mentioned  that  the  Permanent  Settlement  of  1793 
was  not  preceded  by  any  systematic  surv'ey.    But  in  the  course 
of  the  past  thirty  years,  Lower  Bengal  has  been  subjected  to 
a  professional  survey,  which  determined  the   boundaries  of  Imperfect 
e\'ery  village,  and  issued  maps  on  the  scale  of  four  inches  to  j"''^'^-' ^'^ 
the  mile.      This  survey,  however,  has   only  a  topographical 
value.     Few  statistical   inquiries  were  made,  and  no  record 
obtained  of  rights  in  the  soil.      Even  the  village  landmarks 
then  set  up  have  been  suffered  to  fall  into  decay.     It  was  not 
until  1869  that  a  Statistical  Survey  of  Bengal  was,  after  several  Statisticnl 
costly  failures  dating  as  far  back  as  1769  and  1807,  organized  Purvey, 
on  an  efficient  basis.     The  work  was  conducted  to  a  successful 
issue  during  the  ten  following  years  (1869  to  1879);  and  the 
results  of  the  survey  w'ere  published  in  twenty-two  volumes, 
containing  a  systematic  account  of  each  of  the  sixty  Districts 
of  Bengal  and  Assam,  with  their  74  millions  of  people. 

By  two  stringent  Regulations  in  1799  and  181 2,  the  tenant  Cultivators 
was  placed  at  the  mercy  of  a  rack-renting  landlord.      If  he  °}^^^^^^[ ' 
failed  to  pay  his  rent,  however  excessive,  his  property  was 
rendered  liable  to  distraint,  and  his  person  to  imprisonment. 
At  the  same  time,  the  operation  of  the  revenue  sale  law  had 
introduced  a  new  race  of  zaminddrs,  who  were  bound  to  their 
tenants  by  no   traditions  of  hereditary  sympathj-,  but  whose 
sole  object  was  to  make  a  profit  out  of  their  newly-purchased 
property.     The  rack-rented  peasantry  found  little  protection 
in  our  courts  until  1859,  when  an  Act  was  passed  which  con-  \mv\  Law 
siderably  restricted  the  landlord's  powers  of  enhancement  in  of  1S59. 
certain  specified  cases. 


444     BRITISH  ADMIXISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 

Land  The  Land   Law  of  1859  divided  the  cultivators  into  four 

181:9  classes  : — First,  those  who  had  held  their  holdings  at  the  same 

rates  since  1793.     It  ordained  that  the  rents  of  such  tenants 

should  not  be  raised  at  all.     Second,  those  who  had  held  their 

land  at  the  same  rent  for  twenty  years.     It  ordained  that  such 

tenants  should  be  presumed  by  law  to  have  held  since  1793, 

unless  the  contrary  was  proved.     Third,  those  who  had  held 

for  twelve  years.    To  such  tenants  it  gave  a  right  of  occupancy, 

under   which   their  rents   could    be   raised    only  for   certain 

specified  reasons  by  a  suit  at  law.      Fourth,  those  who  had 

held  for  less  than  twelve  years.     These  v.ere  left  by  Act.  x. 

of  1859  to  make  what  bargain  they  could  with  the  landlords. 

Subse-  Further  experience,  since  1859,  has  shown  that  even  these 

quent  Use   provisions  are  inadequate  to  avert  the  wholesale  enhancement 
in  rent.        '  .  ^ 

of    rents    m    Bengal,    and   especially   in    Behar.      In    1S79, 

Rent  Com-  the   Government  issued  a   Commission    to  inquire   into   the 

mission,      questions  involved.     The  Commissioners  of  1879  desired  to 
io/9«  .  . 

confirm  all  the  rights  given  to  the  peasant  by  the  Land  Code 

of  1859,  and  proposed  to  augment  them.  They  recommended 
that  the  first  class  of  cultivators,  who  have  held  their  land  at 
the  same  rates  since  1793,  should  never  have  their  rent  raised. 
Its  pro-  That  the  second  class,  or  those  who  have  thus  held  for  twenty 
1880.*'  years,  should  still  be  presumed  to  have  held  since  1793.  That 
the  third  class  of  cultivators,  who  have  held  for  twelve  years, 
should  have  their  privileges  increased.  The  occupancy  rights 
of  this  class  would,  by  the  recommendations  of  the  Com- 
mission, be  consolidated  into  a  valuable  peasant-tenure,  trans- 
ferable by  sale,  gift,  or  inheritance.  The  Commissioners  also 
proposed  that  any  increase  in  the  value  of  the  land  or  of  the 
crop,  not  arising  from  the  agency  of  either  the  landlord  or 
the  '  occupancy  tenant,'  shall  henceforth  be  divided  equally 
between  them.  This  provision  is  a  very  important  one  in  a 
country  like  Bengal,  where  new  railways,  new  roads,  and  the 
increase  of  the  people  and  of  trade  constantly  tend  to  raise  the 
price  of  the  agricultural  staples.  What  political  economists 
call  the  '  unearned  increment,'  would,  if  this  proposal  were 
adopted,  be  halved  between  the  proprietor  and  the  cultivator 
with  occupancy  rights. 

But  the  great  changes  proposed  by  the  Rent  Commissioners 

of  1879  referred  to  the  fourth  or  lowest  class  of  husbandmen, 

who  have  held  for  less  than  twelve  years,  and  whom  the  Land 

Three         Code  of  1859  admitted  to  no  rights  whatever.      The  Com- 

yeais'  missioners  proposed  to  accord  a  quasi-occupancy  right  to  all 

tenants    who    had   held    for    three    years.      If   the    landlord 


LAXD  SYSTEM  IX  OR/SSA:  ASSAM.        445 

demanded  an  increased  rent  from  such  tenant,  and  the  tenant 
preferred  to  leave  rather  than  submit  to  the  enhancement,  then 
the  landlord  would   have  to  pay  to  him — first,  a  substantial  Compensa- 
compensation  for  disturbance,  and  second,  a  substantial  com-  V.°,^  '.*,"^ 
pensation  for  improvements.  ance. 

The  proposals  of  the  Commissioners  were  partially,  but  only 
partially,  embodied  in  the  Bengal  Tenancy  Act  of  1885. 

Finally,  after  a  long  and  acrimonious  discussion,   a  Rent  Rent  Law 
Law  for  Bengal,  substantially  based  upon  the  Report  of  the  °^  '^^^' 
Commission  of  1879,  was  passed  in  the  present  year  (1885). 

The  Permanent  Settlement  was  confined  to  the  three  Pro- 
vinces of  Bengal,  Behar,  and  Orissa,  according  to  their  bound- 
aries at  that  time.     Orissa  proper,  which  was  conquered  from  Orissa 
the  Marathas  in  1803,  is  subject  to  a  temporary  Settlement,  of '''^"''^' 

■    ,  •   1       1  r     1  •  •,,  •  •    ments, 

which  the  current  term  01  thirty  years  will  not  expire  until  1803-38. 
1897.  The  assessment  is  identical  with  that  fixed  in  1838, 
which  was  based  upon  a  careful  field-measurement  and  upon 
an  investigation  into  the  rights  of  every  landholder  and  under- 
tenant. The  Settlement,  however,  was  made  with  the  land- 
holder, and  not  with  the  tenant ;  and  in  practice  the  rights 
of  the  cultivators  are  on  the  same  footing  as  in  Bengal. 

In  Assam   Proper,  or  the   Brahmaputra  valley,  the  settle-  Assam 
ment  is  simple  and  effective.     The  cultivated  area  is  artificially  me^t*"' 
divided  into  mauzds  or  blocks,  over  each  of  which  is  placed  yearly, 
a    native    official   or    tnaiizdddr.      Every   year    the    mauzdddr 
ascertains  the  area  actually  under  cultivation,  and  then  assesses 
the  fields,  according  to  their  character,  at  a  |)rescribed  rate. 

The  prevailing  system  throughout  the   Madras  Presidency 
is  the  rdvafzi'dri,  which  takes  the  cultivator  or  peasant  pro-  Rdyat-vdH 
prietor  as  its  rent-paying  unit,  as  the  Bengal  system  takes  the  i,f 'i\ia™,!|^^^ 
zaviinddr.     This  system  cannot  be  called  indigenous  to  the 
country,  any  more  than  the  zam'uiddri  is  to  Bengal.     When 
the   British   declared   themselves  heir  to  the  Nawab  of  the 
Karnatik  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  they  had  no 
adequate  experience  of  revenue  management.    The  authorities 
in  England  favoured  the  zaininddri  system  already  at  work 
in  Bengal, — a  system  which  appeared  best  calculated  to  secure 
punctual  payment.     The  Madras  Government  was  accordingly  Its  history, 
instructed  to  enter  into  permanent  engagements  with  zaminddrs; 
and  where  no  zaminddrs  could  be  found,  to  create  substitutes 
out  of  enterprising  contractors.     The  attempt  resulted  in  utter 
failure,  except  in  tracts  where  the  zaminddrs  happened  to  be  Zamindarl 
the  representatives  of  ancient  lines  or  powerful  chiefs.    Several  r^-^AT' 
such  chiefs  exist  in  the  extreme  south  and  in  the  north  of  the 


446     BRITISH  ADMIXISTRATJOX  OF  INDIA. 

Presidency.     Their  estates  have  been  guaranteed  to  them  on 

payment  of  a  peshkash  or  permanent  tribute,  and  are  saved  by 

the  custom  of  primogeniture  from  the  usual  fate  of  sub-division. 

^i'"  Throughout  the  rest  of  ^Madras,  the  influence  of  Sir  Thomas 

Mimro^      Munro  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  rdyatiudn  system,  which  will 

1820.  always  be  associated  with  his  name. 

Madras  According   to   this    system,    an    assessment   is   made    with 

method  of  ^^       cultivator    for    the  land    actually  taken   for    cultivation. 

asses-;-  .  •'    .        . 

ment :  Xeither  zaminddr  nor  village  community  mtervenes  between 
the  cultivator  and  the  State.  The  early  rdyatwdri  settlements 
in  Madras  were  based  upon  insufficient  experience.  They 
were  preceded  by  no  survey,  and  they  had  to  adopt  the  crude 
estimates  of  native  officials.  Since  1858,  a  department  of 
Revenue  Survey  has  been  organized,  and  the  assessment 
carried  out  de  novo. 

Nothing  can  be  more  complete  in  theory  than  a  Madras 

first,  rdyatwdri  settlement.     First,  the  area  of  the  entire  District, 

measure-     ^yhgthgr  cultivated  or  uncultivated,  and  of  each  field  within  the 
ment ;  •■       ™i  •  1      i 

second,       District,  is  accurately  measured.     The  next  step  is  to  calculate 

estimate  of  ^^^q  estimated  produce  of  each  field,  having  regard  to  every 

third"  ^'    kind    of  both    natural    and  artificial  advantage.     Lastly,   an 

fixing  the    ei]uitable  rate  is  fixed  upon  every  field.     The  elaborate  nature 

^^^^^'  of  these  inquiries  and  calculations  may  be  inferred  from  the 

fact  that  as  many  as  35  different  rates  are  sometimes  struck 

for  a  single  District,  ranging  from  as  low^  as  6d.  to  as  high  as 

Thirty        ^i,  4s.  per  acre.     The  rates  thus  ascertained  by  the  revenue 

smlem  nt   ^^'"^^7  ^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^  texTCx  of  thirty  years. 

But  during  that  period  the  aggregate  rent-roll  of  a  District 

is  liable  to  be  affected  by  several  considerations.     New  land 

may    be    taken    up    for   cultivation,    or   old    land    may   be 

abandoned ;    and   occasional   remissions    may   be    permitted 

under    no     fewer    than     eighteen    specified    heads.       Such 

Madras       matters    are    decided    by   the    Collector    at    the  jamdbandi, 

yearly         q^   inquest  held  every  year  for   ascertaining  the  amount  of 

revenue  to  be  paid  by  each  rdyat  for  the  current  season.     This 

annual   inquiry  has   sometimes  been   mistaken   for   a   yearly 

re-assessment  of  the  rdyafs  holding.     It  is  not,  however,  a 

change  in  the  rates  for  the  land  which  he  already  holds,  but 

an  inquiry  into  and  record  of  the  changes  in  his  holding,  or 

of  any  new  land  he  may  wish  to  take  up. 

Permanent      Certain  of  the  INIadras  Districts  on  the  seaboard  adjoining 

Settlement  gg^gal  were  granted  on  a  Permanent  Settlement  to  zaininddrs, 

ni  Madras.  »  °  .  .  rr.i         i       j 

liereditary    native    chiefs     or    revenue  -  farmers.      The    land 
thus    permanently   settled   forms    one-eighth   of   the   area   of 


THE  LAND- SYSTEM  IN  MADRAS.  447 

Madras.     Throughout  the  other  seven-eighths,  the  nnafu'dri 

settlement  has  raised  the  cultivator  into  a  peasant  proprietor. 

This  person  was  formerly  the  actual  tiller  of  the  soil.     But 

as  population  increased  under  British  rule,  the  value  of  the 

land   rose,   and   the   peasant   proprietor   has   in    many   cases 

been  able   to  sub-let  his  holding  to  poorer  cultivators,  and  The 

to   live,   in  whole   or  part,   off  the  rent.      The  Government  cultivator 

grows 
has  during  the  same  period  decreased  rather  than  increased  into  a 

its  average  land-tax  per  acre  throughout  the  Madras  Presi-  proprietor. 
dency.  For  as  the  people  multiplied,  they  were  forced  back 
upon  inferior  soils,  and  the  average  Government  demand  per 
acre  has  been  proportionately  diminished.  But  the  very 
same  process  of  falling  back  on  the  inferior  soils  has,  accord- 
ing to  economical  principles,  created  the  possibility  of  levying 
a  rent  from  the  superior  soils.  This  rent  is  enjoyed  by  the 
former  cultivators,  many  of  whom  are  thus  growing  into  petty 
landholders,  living  upon  the  rent  of  fields  which  their  fathers 
tilled  with  their  own  hands. 

An  idea  of  the  increase  of  population  in  Madras,  and  of  the  Extension 
extension  of  cultivation,  may  be  obtained  from  the  following  -^^  ;Madras 
figures:  —  la    1853,    the    general    population   was    estimated  1853-81. 
at  22  millions;  in  1878,  at  31I  millions,  showing  an  increase 
of  43  per  cent.,  or  nearly  one-half;   and  in  1881    (after  the 
great  famine  of  1876-78),  at  a  little  over  31  millions.     The 
cultivated  land,  held  by  husbandmen  direct  from  the  State, 
had,  between  1853  and  1878,  increased  from  12  to  20  millions 
of  acres,  or  66  per  cent.,  exactly  two-thirds.      The  area  of  Exceeds 
tillage  had,  therefore,  not  only  kept  pace  with  the  increase  1^^^^^^°^^ '  ^ 
of  population,  but  had  extended  at  a  ratio  of  50  per  cent,  population. 
more   rapidly.      This  resulted  partly  from   the  fact  that  the 
inferior   lands,  now  reclaimed,  could   not   support   so    large 
an  average  of  people  as  the  superior  lands,  which  were  already 
in   cultivation   at   the   commencement   of  the   period.      The 
Government  recognised  this,   and  has  accordingly  increased 
its  rental  only  from  3  millions  to  3i  millions  sterling ;  being 
only  26  per  cent.,  or  one-fourth,  while  the  area  of  cultivation 
has  increased  by  66  per  cent.     The  Government,  in  fact,  has 
reduced  its  average  rental  over  the  total  area  of  cultivation 
from  5s.  an  acre  in  1853  to  3s.  lod.  an  acre  in  1878,  or  over 
23   per   cent.,    say   one-fourth.      According   to   the   ordinary 
theory  of  rent,  rates   should  have  risen    enormously  during 
that   period ;   and  they  have  risen  enormously  wherever  the 
land  is  held  by  private  proprietors. 

As  regards  the  Madras  Presidency,  the  facts  may  be  recapitu- 


448     BRITISH  ADMIXISTRATIOX  OF  IXDIA. 

Reduction  lated  thus.  Durincf  the  2K  vears  ending  1878,  the  area  of 
land-tax?  cultivation  had  increased  by  66  per  cent.,  or  two-thirds  ;  the 
population  by  43  per  cent.,  or  nearly  one-half;  and  the 
Government  rental  by  only  26  per  cent.,  or  one-fourth;  while 
the  average  rates  of  land-tax  per  cultivated  acre  had  been 
actually  reduced  by  about  one-fourth,  from  5s.  an  acre  in  1853 
to  3s.  lod.  an  acre  in  1878,  and  to  3s.  8d.  an  acre  in  1883. 
Instead  of  taking  advantage  of  the  increase  of  population  to 
enhance  the  rental,  the  Madras  Government  has  realized  the 
fact  that  the  increase  in  numbers  means  a  harder  struggle  for 
life,  and  has  reduced  instead  of  enhancing,  according  to  the 
economic  laws  of  rent,  the  average  rates  throughout  its  domains. 
Land  Bombay  has  also  a  land  system  of  its  own,  which  requires 

Bombay  ^°  ^^  distinguished  from  the  rdyatu'dn  of  Madras,  although 
resembling  it  in  principle.  In  the  early  days  of  our 
rule,  no  regular  method  existed  throughout  the  Bombay 
Presidency ;  and  at  the  present  time  there  are  tracts  where 
something  of  the  old  confusion  survives.  The  modern 
The  'survey  tenure,'  as  it  is  called,  dates  from   1S3S,  when  it  was 

tenure^  of  ^^^^  introduced  into  one  of  the  taluks  of  Poona  District :   it 
Bombay,     has  since  been  gradually  extended  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
Presidency.     As  its  name  implies,  the  Settlement  is  preceded 
by  surve}'.     Each  field  is  measured,  and  an  assessment  placed 
upon  it  according  to  the  quality  of  the  soil   and  the  crop. 
This  assessment  holds  good  for  a  term  of  thirty  years.     The 
Its  rates,     ordinary  rates  vary  in  different  Districts  from  4s.  6d.  an  acre 
in  the  rich  black-soil  lands  of  Gujarat,  to  lod.  an  acre  in  the 
hills  of  the  Konkan. 
Its  sim-  The   primary  characteristic  of  the    Bombay  system    is  its 

plicity.  simplicity.  The  Government  fixes  a  minimum  area  as  the 
revenue  assessment  unit,  below  which  it  refuses  to  recognise 
sub-divisions.  This  minimum  area,  technically  called  a  '  field,' 
varies  from  20  acres  upwards,  in  different  Bombay  Districts. 
The  '  field '  is  therefore  the  unit,  and  its  actual  occupier  is 
the  only  person  recognised  by  the  revenue  law.  He  knows 
exactly  what  he  will  have  to  pay,  and  the  State  knows  what 
it  will  receive,  during  the  currency  of  the  term.  The  assess- 
ment is,  in  fact,  a  quit-rent  liable  to  be  modified  at  intervals 
of  thirty  years.  The  Bombay  system  is  also  characterized  by 
its  fairness  to  the  tenant.  He  possesses  'a  transferable  and 
heritable  property,  continuable  without  question  at  the  expira- 
tion of  a  settlement  lease,  on  his  consenting  to  the  revised 
rate.'  To  borrow  a  metaphor  from  English  law,  his  position 
has  been  raised  from  that  of  a  villein  to  that  of  a  copyholder. 


THE  LAND- SYSTEM  IN  BO  MB  A  Y.  449 

In  place  of  the  bare  permission  to  occupy  the  soil,  he  has  Its  advan- 
received  a  right  of  property  in  it.  the^pro*- 

Some  of  the    Bombay  peasants    have   proved    unequal   to  vident. 
the  responsibilities  of  property  which    they  had  not  won  by       f '^ 
their  own  exertions.       In   rich  districts,  the  men  who  were  to  the'im- 
recorded  as  the  actual  occupiers  are  able  to  let  their  land  provident, 
to  poorer  cultivators,  and  so  live  off  the  toil  of  others  upon 
fields  which  they  themselves  had  formerly  to  till.     But  these 
proprietary  rights  give  the  peasant  a  power  of  borrowing  which 
he  did  not   possess   before.       In  certain   parts,  especially  in 
the  dry  Districts  of  the  high-lying  Deccan,  the  husbandmen 
have  got  hopelessly  into  debt  to  the  village  bankers.     The 
peasant  was  often  improvident,  the  seasons  were  sometimes 
unfortunate,  the  money-lender  was  always  severe. 

Amid  the  tumults  of  native  rule,  the  usurers  lent  com-  Debts  of 
paratively  small  sums.  If  the  peasant  failed  to  pay,  they  pgasam^^" 
could  not  evict  him  or  sell  his  holding ;  because,  among  other 
reasons,  there  was  more  land  than  there  were  people  to  till  it. 
The  native  Government,  moreover,  could  not  afford  to  lose  a 
tenant.  Accordingly  the  bankrupt  peasant  went  on,  year  after 
year,  paying  as  much  interest  as  the  money-lender  could 
squeeze  out  of  him ;  until  the  next  Maratha  invasion  or 
Muhammadan  rebellion  swept  away  the  whole  generation  of 
usurers,  and  so  cleared  off  the  account.  Under  our  rule  there 
is  no  chance  of  such  relief  for  insolvent  debtors ;  and  our 
rigid  enforcement  of  contracts,  together  with  the  increase  of 
the  population,  has  armed  the  creditor  with  powers  formerly 
unknown.  For  the  peasant's  holding  under  the  British 
Government  has  become  a  valuable  property,  and  he  can  be 
readily  sold  out,  as  there  are  always  plenty  of  husbandmen 
anxious  to  buy  in.  The  result  is  two-fold.  In  the  first  place, 
the  village  banker  lends  larger  sums,  for  the  security  is  in- 
creased ;  and  in  the  second  place,  he  can  push  the  peasantry  to 
extremities  by  eviction,  a  legal  process  which  was  economically 
mpossible,  and  politically  impermissible,  under  native  rule. 

In  Bengal,  the  cry  of  the  peasant  is  for  protection  against  Bombay 
the   landlord.     In    South-western   India,  it   is   for  protection  ^^J^^^jg-g 
against  the  money-lender.    After  a  careful  inquiry,  the  Govern-  and  '1881. 
ment  determined  to  respond  to  that  cry.     It  has  practically 
said  to  the  village  bankers :   '  A  state  of  things  has  grown  up 
under  British  rule  which  enables  you  to  push  the  cultivators,  by 
means  of  our  Courts,  to  extremities  unknown  under  the  native 
dynasties,  and  repugnant  to  the  customs  of  India.     Hence- 
forth, in  considering  the  security  on  which  you  lend  money, 

2  F 


450     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATIOX  OF  INDIA. 

please  to  know  that  the  peasant  cannot  be  imprisoned  or  sold 

out  of  his  farm  to  satisfy  your  claims ;  and  we  shall  free  him 

from  the  lifelong  burden  of  those  claims  by  a  mild  bankruptcy 

law.'     Such  is  the  gist  of  the  Southern  India  Agriculturists' 

Relief  Acts  of  1879  and  1881. 

Its  pro-  This  Act  of  1879  provides,   in   the   first  place,   for   small 

visions  for        ^  debtors  of  £^  and  under.     If  the  Court  is  satisfied  that 
the  hus-  "^^  . 

bandman  ;  such  a  debtor  is  really  unable  to  pay  the  whole  sum,  it  may 

direct  the  payment  of  such  portion  as  it  considers  that  he  can 
pay,  and  grant  him  a  discharge  for  the  balance.  The  Act 
gives  powers  to  the  Court  to  go  behind  the  letter  of  the  bond, 
to  cut  down  interest,  and  to  fix  the  total  sum  which  may  seem 
to  the  judge  to  be  equitably  due. 
As  a  rural  To  debtors  for  amounts  exceeding  ;^5,  it  gives  the  full  pro- 
Insolvency  tection  of  an  Insolvency  Act.  No  agriculturist  shall  henceforth 
be  arrested  or  imprisoned  in  execution  of  a  decree  for  money. 
In  addition  to  the  old  provisions  against  the  sale  of  the  neces- 
sary implements  of  his  trade,  no  agriculturist's  immoveable 
property  shall  be  attached  or  sold  in  execution  of  any  decree, 
unless  it  has  been  specifically  mortgaged  for  the  debt  to 
which  such  decree  relates.  But  even  when  it  has  been 
specifically  mortgaged,  the  Court  may  order  the  debtor's 
holding  to  be  cultivated,  for  a  period  not  exceeding  seven 
years,  on  behalf  of  the  creditor,  after  allowing  a  sufficient 
portion  of  it  for  the  support  of  the  debtor  and  his  family. 
At  the  end  of  the  seven  years,  the  debtor  is  discharged. 
Rural  If  the  debtor  himself  applies  for  relief  under  the  Insolvency 

Insolvency  clauses,  the  procedure  is  as  follows  : — His  moveable  property, 
less  the  implements  of  his  trade,  are  liable  to  sale  for  his 
debts.  His  immoveable  property,  or  farm,  is  divided  into 
two  parts,  one  of  which  is  set  aside  as  'required  for  the 
support  of  the  insolvent  and  members  of  his  family  dependent 
on  him,'  while  the  remainder  is  to  be  managed  on  behalf  of 
his  creditors.  But  'nothing  in  this  section  shall  authorize  the 
Court  to  take  into  possession  any  houses  or  other  buildings 
belonging  to,  and  occupied  by,  an  agriculturist.'  Village 
'  Concilia-  arbitrators  or  '  conciliators '  are  appointed  by  the  same  Act,  and 
tors.'  every  creditor  must  first  try  to  settle  his  claims  before  them.     If 

the  effort  at  arbitration  fails,  the  'conciliator'  shall  give  the 
applicant  a  certificate  to  that  effect.  No  such  suit  shall  be 
entertained  by  any  Civil  Court,  unless  the  plaintiff  produces 
a  certificate  from  the  local  'conciliator'  that  arbitration  has 
been  attempted  and  failed.  The  Act  of  1879  has  been 
somewhat  modified  by  the  amending  Act  of  1881. 


LAND-SYSTEM:  N.-W.  P.:  PUNJAB:  OUDH.    451 

The  North-Western  Provinces  and  the  Punjab  have  practically  Land 
one  land  system.    In  those  parts  of  India,  the  village  community  j^'^^y^p'^o- 
has  preserved  its  integrity  more  completely  than  elsewhere,  vinces  and 
Government   therefore    recognises   the   village,    and    not   the  ^""J^L>. 
zain'mddr's  estate  or   the  rdyaVs  field,   as   the  unit   of  land 
administration.     The  village  community  takes  various  forms.  Corporate 
Sometimes  it  holds  all  the  village  lands  in  joint-ownership  ;  the    °    '"^^' 
share  of  each  co-owner  being  represented  by  a  fractional  part 
of  the  gross  rental.     Sometimes  part  of  the  lands  is  held  in 
common  and  part  in  severalty ;  while  sometimes  no  conmion 
lands  remain,  although  a  joint  responsibility  for  the  Govern- 
ment revenue  still  subsists. 

The  Settlement  in  the  North-Western   Provinces   and  the  Land 
Punjab  is  more  comprehensive  than  in  Madras  or  Bombay.     In  jn  North" 
addition  to  measurement  and  agricultural  appraisement,  it  in-  Western 
eludes  the  duty  of  drawing  up  an  exhaustive  record  of  all  rights  ^'Y^"^^'' 
and  sub-tenures  existing  in  every  village.     The  proprietors  are  Punjab. 
alone  responsible  for  the  revenue ;  but  while  the  State  limits 
its  claims  against  them,  it  defines  the  rights  of  all  other  parties 
interested  in  the  soil.     The  term  of  settlement  in  the  North- 
Western  Provinces  and  in  the  Punjab  is  thirty  years.      The 
principle  of  assessment  is  that  the  Government  revenue  shall 
be  equal  to  one-half  of  the  rent,  leaving  the  other  half  as  the 
share  of  the  landlord,  who  is  liable  for  due  payment,  and  has 
the  trouble  of  collecting  it  from  the  cultivators.     The  average 
rate  of  assessment  is  3s.  5d.  per  acre  in  the  North-Western 
Provinces,  and  2s.  in  the  Punjab.     This  is  at  the  nominal  con- 
version of  10  rupees  to  the  pound  sterling.      At   the  actual 
value  of  the  rupee  (1S85),  the  rates  would  be  2s.  yd.  in  the 
North-Western  Provinces,  and  is.  6d.  in  the  Punjab,  per  acre. 

Oudh,  the  Indian  Province  most  recently  acquired,  has  a  Land 
peculiar  land  system,  arising  out  of  its  local  history.      The  ^^'^T^ 
Oudh /i//c/('^tf/'.r  resemble  English  landlords  more  closely  even  rp,    t'i,h. 
than  do  the  zaminddrs  of  Bengal.     In  origin,  they  were  not  ddrs. 
revenue-farmers  but  territorial  magnates,  whose  influence  was 
derived  from  feudal  authority,  military  command,  or  hereditary 
sway.     Their  present  status  dates  from  the  pacification  after 
the  Mutiny  of  1857.     The  great  tdlukddrswtxo.  then  invited  to 
become  responsible  each  for  a  gross  sum  for  the  estates  which 
they  were  found  to  hold  prior  to  our  annexation  of  Oudh. 
The  exceptional  position  of  the  tdlukddrs  was  recognised  by 
conferring  upon  them,  not  only  the  privilege  of  succession  by 
primogeniture,  but  also  the  power  of  bequest  by  will — a  land- 
right  unknown  alike  to  Hindu  and  Muhammadan  law.     Land 


452     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 


Land 
system  of 
Central 
Provinces. 


Land 
revenue 
of  British 
India. 


not  comprised  in  tdlukddri  estates  was  settled  in  the  ordinary 
way  with  its  proprietors  or  zaminddrs  for  a  term  of  thirty 
years.  The  whole  of  Oudh  has  since  been  accuratel)- 
surveyed. 

The  Central  Provinces  contain  many  varieties  of  land 
tenure,  from  the  feudatory  chiefs,  who  pay  a  light  tribute,  to 
the  village  communities,  who  are  assessed  after  survey. 
Population  is  sparse  and  agriculture  backward,  so  that  the 
incidence  of  land  revenue  is  everywhere  low.  The  survey  was 
conducted  generally  on  the  Punjab  system,  adopting  the  '  estate  ' 
as  the  unit  of  assessment.  But  in  the  Central  Provinces  the 
British  Government  gave  proprietary  rights  to  the  former 
revenue-farmers,  or  fiscal  managers  of  villages,  under  native 
rule.  It  thus  created  a  body  of  landholders  between  itself  and 
the  cultivators.  Of  the  rental  paid  by  the  husbandmen,  the 
Government  ordinarily  takes  one-half  as  land-tax,  and  allows 
one-half  to  the  proprietary  body.  The  current  settlement,  for 
a  term  of  thirty  years,  will  expire  in  1897. 

The  gross  land  revenue  realized  from  territory  under  British 
administration  in  India,  amounted  to  ^^2 1,876,067  in  1882-83. 
During  the  ten  years  ending  1882-83,  it  averaged  ;^2i, 283, 764, 
which  is  raised  to  about  2  2|  millions  by  the  inclusion  of 
certain  local  rates  and  cesses  levied  on  land.  This  latter 
figure  shows  an  average  of  a  fraction  less  than  lod.  per  culti- 
vated acre.  The  average  annual  cost  of  collecting  the  land 
revenue  during  the  ten  years  ending  1882-83  was  ^2,945,151, 
or  close  on  three  millions  sterling.  The  highest  average  rate  of 
assessment  estimated  per  head,  is  in  Bombay,  namely,  5s.  lo^d. 
per  head  of  population  ;  the  lowest,  is,  2|d.  per  head,  in  Bengal 
and  Assam.  The  net  land  revenue  realized  from  British  India, 
deducting  charges  of  collection,  during  the  ten  years  ending 
March  1883,  averaged  i8i  millions  sterling.     In  1882-83,  the 


land  revenue  of  British  India  was 
millions  fiet.^ 


mWWons  gross,  and  i8| 


Salt 
admini- 
stration. 

Sources 
of  salt. 


The  Salt  Duty. — Salt  ranks  next  to  land  revenue  among 
the  items  of  actual  taxation  in  India ;  opium  being  excluded, 
as  paid  by  the  Chinese  consumer.  Broadly  speaking,  the  salt 
consumed  in  India  is  derived  from  four  sources — (i)  importa- 
tion by  sea,  chiefly  from  the  mines  of  Cheshire  ;  (2)  solar 
evaporation  in  shallow  tanks  along  the  seaboard  ;  (3)  gather- 
ings from  the  Salt  Lakes  in  Rajputana;  (4)  quarrying  in  the 
Salt  Hills  of  the  Northern  Punjab.      Until  recently,  the  tax 

^   Parliamentary  Return. 


THE  SAL  T  D  UTY.  453 

levied  upon  salt  varied  very  much  in  different  parts  of  the 
country ;  and  a  numerous  preventive  staff  was  stationed  along 
a  continuous  barrier  hedge,  which  almost  cut  the  peninsula 
into  two  fiscal  sections. 

The   reforms   of  Sir   J.  Strachey   in    1878,  by   which    the  p:qualiza- 
higher  rates  were  reduced  while  the  lower  rates  were  raised,  '"u^^^fy 
and   their   subsequent   equalization    over   the  whole  country, 
have  effectually  abolished  this  engine  of  oppression.     Com- 
munication is  now  free ;    and  it  has  been  found  that  prices 
are   lowered   by  thus   bringing   the   consumer  nearer  to  his 
market,  even  though  the  rate  of  taxation  be  increased.     In  the 
Punjab  and  Rajputana,  salt   administration   has   become,   as 
in  Lower  Bengal,  a  simple  matter  of  weighing  quantities  and 
levying  a  uniform  tax.     In  Bombay,  also,  the  manufacture  is  Systems 
now  conducted  with  a  minimum  of  expense  at  large  central  °  "''^"u- 
depots  in  Gujarat  (Guzerat),  under  a  thorough  system  of  excise 
supervision.     Along  the   eastern  coast,  however,  from  Orissa 
to   Cape   Comorin,  the   process   of  evaporating   sea-water   is 
carried  on  as  a  private  industry,  although  under  official  super- 
vision and  on  Government  account. 

The  process  of  manufacture  in  Madras  is  exceedingly  simple,  Process 
and  at  the  same  time  free  from  temptations  to  smuggling.  The  f^cuire"' 
season  lasts  from  about  January  to  July,  in  which  latter  month 
the  downpour  of  rain  usually  puts  a  stop  to  operations.  A 
site  is  selected  in  the  neighbourhood  of  one  of  the  back- 
waters or  inlets  which  abound  along  the  coast.  Before 
commencing,  the  proprietor  of  the  salt-pan  must  each  year 
obtain  the  consent  of  the  Collector  of  the  District,  and  must 
engage  to  supply  a  certain  quantity  of  salt.  The  first  step  is 
to  form  a  series  of  pans  or  reservoirs  of  varying  degrees  of 
shallowness  by  banking  up  the  earth,  with  interconnecting 
channels.  Into  the  outer  and  deepest  of  these  pans,  the  sea- 
water  is  baled  by  means  of  a  lever  and  bucket-lift,  and  there 
allowed  to  stand  for  some  days  until  it  has  by  evaporation 
acquired  the  consistency  of  brine.  The  brine  is  then  passed 
through  the  channels  into  the  remainder  of  the  series  of 
gradually  shallowing  pans.  At  last  it  becomes  crystallized 
salt,  and  is  scraped  off  for  conveyance  to  the  wholesale  depot. 
It  is  estimated  that,  in  a  favourable  season,  this  process  may  be 
repeated  de  novo  from  twelve  to  fifteen  times,  according  as  the 
weather  permits.  But  a  single  shower  of  rain  will  spoil  the 
whole  operation  at  any  stage. 

Like  the  poppy  cultivation  in  Bengal,  the  manufacture  of 
salt  in  Madras  is  a  monopoly,  which  can  be  defended  by  the 


454     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 


Working 
of  the 

monopoly 
iu  Madras. 


Cost  of 
salt  in 
Madras. 

Duty  cf 

salt. 

Equaliza- 
tion of 
duty. 


circumstances  of  the  case.  No  one  is  compelled  to  manufac- 
ture, and  rights  of  property  in  a  salt-pan  are  strictly  respected  ; 
while  the  State  endeavours,  by  means  of  a  careful  staff  of 
supervisors,  to  obtain  the  maximum  of  profit  with  a  minimum 
of  interference.  The  system  as  at  present  carried  on  has  been 
gradually  developed  from  the  experience  of  nearly  a  century. 
The  manufacturers  belong  to  the  same  class  as  the  ordinary 
cultivators  ;  and,  as  a  rule,  their  condition  is  somewhat  more 
prosperous,  for  they  possess  a  hereditary  privilege  carrying  with 
it  commercial  profits.  They  do  not  work  upon  a  system  of 
advances,  as  is  the  case  with  so  many  other  Indian  industries  ; 
but  they  are  paid  at  a  certain  rate  when  they  bring  their  salt  to 
the  Government  depot.  I'his  rate  of  payment,  known  as  kitdiva- 
ram^  is  at  present  fixed  at  an  average  of  i  d7ind  5  "8  pies  (or 
about  2|d.)  per  inaund  oi  82|-  lbs.;  the  other  expenses  of  the 
Salt  Department  for  supervision,  etc.,  raise  the  total  cost  to 
3  dnnds  5-6  pies  (or  about  5|d.)  per  inaund.  The  price 
charged  to  the  consumer  by  the  Madras  Government,  up  to 
March  1882,  was  Rs.  2.  8.  (or  about  5s.)  per  maundy  the 
balance  being  net  profit. 

The  equal  rate  of  salt  duty  which  now  prevails  throughout 
all  continental  India  is  Rs.  2  per  inaund,  or  5s.  5d.  a  cwt.  In 
British  Burma,  only  3  dnnds  per  inaund,  or  6d.  a  cwt.,  are 
charged  for  local  consumption,  and  a  transit  duty  of  i  per  cent. 
ad  valorem  for  salt  sent  across  the  frontier.  In  the  salt 
tracts  on  the  west  of  the  Indus,  excluding  the  Kalabagh 
mines,  a  special  rate  of  8  dnnds  per  local  inaund  oi  103  lbs.  is 
charged.  The  total  salt  revenue  of  British  India  in  1882-83 
was  returned  at  ^6,177,781,  the  average  for  ten  years  being 
;^6,627,i94. 


Excise 
admini- 
stration. 


Central 

distillery 

system. 


Excise  Duties  in  India  are  not  a  mere  tax  levied  through 
the  private  manufacturer  and  retailer,  but  (like  salt)  a  species 
of  Government  monopoly.  The  only  excisable  articles  are 
intoxicants  and  drugs ;  and  the  object  of  the  State  is  to  check 
consumption,  not  less  than  to  raise  revenue.  The  details  vary 
in  the  different  Provinces,  but  the  general  plan  of  administra- 
tion is  the  same.  The  right  to  manufacture,  and  the  right  to 
retail,  are  both  monopolies  of  Government,  let  out  to  private 
individuals  upon  strict  conditions.  Distillation  of  country  spirits 
is  permitted  under  two  systems — either  to  the  highest  bidder 
under  official  supervision  ;  or  only  upon  certain  spots  set  apart 
for  the  purpose.  The  latter  is  known  as  the  sadr  or  central 
distillery  system.     The  right  of  sale  is  also  farmed  out  to  the 


EXCISE  ON  LIQUORS  AND  DRUGS.        455 

highest  bidder,  subject  to  regulations  fixing  the  quantity  of  Rice-beer. 
Hcjuor  that  may  be  sold  at  one  time.  The  brewing  of  beer 
from  rice  and  other  grains,  a  process  universal  among  the  hill 
tribes  and  other  aboriginal  races,  is  practically  untaxed  and 
unrestrained.  The  numerous  European  breweries  at  the  hill 
stations  pay  a  tax  at  the  rate  of  6d.  a  gallon.  A  large  business 
in  brewing  is  now  done  at  Simla,  Marri  (Murree),  Kasauli, 
Massuri,  Nairn'  Tal,  Solan,  and  in  the  Nilgiris.  An  attempt 
is  being  made  to  establish  breweries  on  the  plains. 

Excise  duties  are  also  levied  upon  the  sale  of  a  number  of 
intoxicating  or  stimulant  drugs,  of  which  the  most  important 
are  opium  and  ganja  or  bhang.  Opium  is  issued  for  local  Oi)ium. 
consumption  in  India  from  the  Government  manufactories  at 
Patna  and  Benares,  and  sold  through  private  retailers  at  a 
iiionopoly  price.  This  drug  is  chiefly  consumed  in  Assam, 
Burma,  and  the  Punjab.  Gdiijd  is  an  intoxicating  preparation  Ganjd. 
made  from  the  flowers  and  leaves  of  Indian  hemp  {Caii7iabis 
sativa,  var.  mdica).  The  cultivation  of  hemp  for  this  purpose 
is  chiefly  confined  to  a  limited  area  in  Rajshahi  District, 
Bengal,  and  to  the  inner  valleys  of  the  Himalayas,  whence  the 
drug  is  imported  under  the  name  oi  charas.  Its  use  is  a  fre-  C/iaras. 
quent  cause,  not  only  of  crime,  but  also  of  insanity.  Govern- 
ment attempts  to  check  consumption — first,  by  fixing  the  retail 
duty  at  the  highest  rate  that  will  not  encourage  smugghng; 
and  second,  by  continually  raising  that  rate  as  experience 
allows.  Strictly  speaking,  gdnjd  consists  of  the  flowering 
and  fruiting  heads  of  the  female  plant ;  b/idfig  or  sidd/ii,  of  the 
dried  leaves  and  small  stalks,  with  a  few  fruits ;  while  charas 
is  the  resin  itself,  collected  in  various  ways  as  it  naturally 
exudes. 

No  duty  is  at  present  levied  upon  tobacco  in  any  part  Tubaceu. 
of  British  India.  The  plant  is  universally  grown  by  the 
cultivators  for  their  own  smoking,  and,  like  everything  else, 
was  subject  to  taxation  under  native  rule  ;  but  the  impossibility 
of  accurate  excise  supervision  has  caused  the  British  Govern- 
ment to  abandon  this  impost.  The  total  excise  revenue  of 
British  India  in  1882-83  was  returned  at  ^3,609,561,  the 
average  for  ten  years  being  ;^2,774,o73. 

The  IMunicipalities  at  present   existing   in   India   are   a  Municipal 
creation  of  the  Legislature ;   indeed,  a  recent  branch  of  our  'iflnum- 

°  ....  stration. 

system  of  admmistration.  Their  origm  is  to  be  traced,  not  to 
the  native  pa7ichdyat,  but  to  the  necessity  for  relieving  the 
District  officer  from  some  of  the  details  of  his  work.      The 


456     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATJON  OF  INDIA. 

The  old     panchdyat  or  elective  Council  of  Five  is  one  of  the  institutions 

'Council    most  deeply  rooted  in  the  Hindu   mind.     By   it   the  village 
of  r  ive  ;  .  .  .  . 

community  was  ruled,  the  head-man  being  only  its  executive 

official,  not  the  legislator  or  judge.  By  it  caste  disputes  were 
settled ;  by  it  traders  and  merchants  were  organized  into 
powerful  guilds,  to  the  rules  of  which  even  European  outsiders 
have  had  to  submit.  By  a  development  of  the  patichdyaf,  the 
Sikh  army  of  the  khdlsd  was  despotically  governed,  when  the 
centralized  system  of  Ranjit  Singh  fell  to  pieces  at  his  death. 
The  village  organization  was  impaired  or  broken  up  under 
Muni-  Mughal  rule.  Municipal  institutions  have  gradually  developed 
succeed^it.  ^^  place  of  the  old  Hindu  mechanism  of  rural  govern- 
ment, which  had  thus  worn  out  or  disappeared.  Police, 
roads,  and  sanitation  are  the  three  main  objects  for  which  a 
modern  Indian  municipality  is  constituted.  In  rural  tracts, 
these  departments  are  managed  (in  different  Provinces)  by 
the  Collector,  or  by  one  of  his  subordinate  staff,  or  by  a  Local 
Fund  Board.  Within  municipal  limits,  they  are  delegated  to  a 
Committee,  who,  until  lately,  derived  their  practical  authority 
from  the  Collector's  sanction,  implied  or  expressed.  Except 
in  the  larger  towns,  the  municipalities  can  scarcely  be  said 
as  yet  to  exhibit  the  attributes  of  popular  representation  or  of 
vigorous  corporate  life.  But  the  Local  Government  Acts, 
passed  during  Lord  Ripon's  Viceroyalty  {ante,  p.  428),  have 
given  a  new  impulse  to  the  rural  and  municipal  boards.  As 
education  advances,  they  will  doubtless  be  further  developed. 
Municipal  In  1876-77,  excluding  the  three  Presidency  capitals,  there 
1^877-8^'  ^^^^^  altogether  894  muncipalities  in  British  India,  with 
12,381,059  inhabitants,  or  just  7  per  cent,  of  the  total  popu- 
lation. Out  of  an  aggregate  number  of  7519  members  of 
municipal  committees,  concerning  whom  information  is  avail- 
able, 1794  were  Europeans  and  5725  natives;  1863  were  ex- 
officio,  if^\2  were  nominated  by  Government,  and  1144  elected, 
the  last  class  being  almost  confined  to  the  North-Western  and 
Central  Provinces.  The  financial  statistics  of  these  muni- 
cipalities are  given  in  a  later  section  of  this  chapter. 

In  1882-83,  ths  municipalities  in  British  India,  exclu- 
sive of  the  three  Presidency  cities,  numbered  783,  with 
12,923,494  inhabitants.  The  passing  of  the  Local  Self- 
Government  Acts  (1882-84)  has  extended  the  elective  principle, 
in  a  larger  or  smaller  measure,  all  over  India.  The  three 
great  municipalities  in  the  Presidency  towns  of  Calcutta, 
Madras,  and  Bombay  administered  a  population  in  1877  of  i^- 
million.     Their  governing  bodies  aggregated  176  members,  of 


INDIAN  FINANCE.  457 

whom  122  were  natives.  Eighty  of  the  members  were  elected 
liy  the  ratepayers.  In  1882-83,  the  municipalities  of  Calcutta, 
!i embay,  and  Madras  governed  a  population  of  i§  million; 
the  members  of  the  three  municipal  bodies  numbered  171,  of 
whom  93  were  elected.^ 

Finance.  —  It   is   difficult    to    present   a   view   of   Indian  Imperial 
finance,  which  shall  be  at  once  concise  and  intelligible.     The 
subject   is   full   of  controversies,   and   obscured   by  different 

'  Note  on  Indian  Statistics. 

It  may  here  be  convenient  to  explain  the  considerations  which  have 
led  to  the  selection  of  the  years  for  which  statistics  are  given  in  this  and 
the  following  chapters.  The  Indian  returns  are  rendered  with  great 
promptitude  by  the  Government  of  India,  in  India  itself.  But  these 
returns  deal  with  a  dozen  Provinces  and  Administrations,  covering  an  area 
equal  to  Europe  less  Russia.  A  considerable  interval  necessarily  elapses 
between  the  local  issue  of  the  returns  by  the  Indian  Government  and  their 
final  compilation  and  revision  for  Parliamentary  purposes.  During  this 
revision,  the  totals  are  frequently  altered  owing  to  inter-provincial  adjust- 
ments and  other  operations  of  account.  The  final  presentment  to 
Parliament  is,  however,  the  only  authoritative  English  source  of  Indian 
statistics.  It  has  therefore  been  adopted,  so  far  as  possible,  in  the  pre- 
sent work.  The  latest  return,  in  its  final  shape,  as  presented  to  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  by  command  of  Her  Majesty,  which  has  reached  the 
author  before  the  sheets  went  to  press  in  the  summer  of  1885,  is  the  Blue 
ISook  entitled  the  Statistical  Abstract  relating  to  British  India  front. 
1S73-74  to  1882-83.  This  admirable  compilation  of  Mr.  Charles  Prinsep, 
Statistical  Reporter  in  the  India  Office,  has  therefore  been  accepted  as 
fixing  the  period  to  which  information  should  be  brought  down  in  the 
present  work — namely,  the  31st  March  1883. 

But  the  present  author  has  also  been  guided  in  his  selection  of  dates  by 
other  considerations — (i)  The  only  two  Census  enumerations  of  the  Indian 
population  as  a  whole  were  taken  respectively  in  1872  and  in  1881. 
These  years  are,  therefore,  the  two  great  landmarks  in  Indian  statistics. 
(2)  The  first  edition  of  the  present  work  took  the  year  1877,  or  in  some 
cases  1878,  as  the  latest  period  for  which  the  final  presentment  of  Indian 
statistics  was  available  when  it  was  written.  The  author  has  felt  that  it 
may  be  convenient  to  enable  the  reader  to  compare  the  progress  during  the 
quinquennial  interval  U878  to  1883).  He  has  therefore,  in  most  cases, 
ijiven  the  two  sets  of  figures  for  1877-7S  and  1882-83.  (3)  In  some 
departments  it  has  been  found  practicable  to  bring  down  the  final  figures 
to  1884,  and  even  to  March  18S5.  This  has  only  been  done  when  it 
seemed  to  the  author  that  the  later  statistics  were  required  to  exhibit  really 
salient  facts.  In  conclusion,  the  author  begs  it  will  be  believed  that  in 
each  case  careful  consideration  has  been  devoted  to  the  selection  of  the 
years  for  which  the  statistics  are  given.  The  individual  considerations  in 
different  departments  are  too  numerous  to  specify.  It  should  always  be 
remembered  that  the  final  presentment  to  Parliament  of  Indian  statistics 
and  accounts,  available  to  the  author  when  the  sheets  went  to  the  press, 
refers  to  the  decade  ending  1882-83. 


458     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 

presentments  of  the  same  sets  of  accounts.     In  the  first  place, 
the  aggregate  revenue  and  expenditure  are  officially  returned 
according  to  a  system  which,  although  necessary  for  Indian 
purposes,  is  apt  to  mislead  the  English  critic.     The  Indian 
Government   is   not   a    mere    tax-collecting   agency,    charged 
with  the  single  duty  of  protecting  person  and  property.     Its 
Its  ob-        system  of  administration  is  based   upon   the  view  that    the 
British    power   is   a   paternal    despotism,    which    owns,   in   a 
certain  sense,  the  entire  soil  of  the  country,  and  whose  duty 
it  is  to  perform  the  various  functions  of  a  wealthy  and  an 
The 'busi-  enlightened  proprietor.     It  collects  its  own  rents.     It  provides, 
tlie^Inclian  ^'"'-  °^  ^^^  °^^'"  capital,  facilities  for  irrigation,  means  of  com- 
Govern-      munication,  public  buildings,  schools,  and  hospitals.     It  also 
ment.  takes  on   itself  the  businesses  of  a  railway  owner,  and  of  a 

manufacturer  on  a  grand  scale,  in  the  case  of  opium  and  salt. 
These   departments   swell    the   totals   on    both    sides   of  the 
balance-sheet  with  large  items,  neither  of  the  nature  of  taxation 
nor  of  administrative  expenditure. 
Changes  In  the  second  place,  the  methods  of  keeping  the   Indian 

of  account  P'^i'^'ic  accounts  have  been  subjected  to  frequent  changes  during 
recent  years,  to  such  an  extent  as  to  vitiate  all  comparative 
statements  for  long  periods  of  time.  The  commercial  tradi- 
tions, inherited  from  the  days  of  the  Company,  regulated  the 
Indian  accounts  until  about  the  year  i860.  From  that  date 
efforts  have  been  made  to  bring  the  methods  of  Indian  account- 
ing into  conformity  with  the  English  system  of  public  accounts. 
It  results  that  the  same  entries  represent  different  facts  at 
different  periods.  Thus,  under  the  Company,  the  items  usually 
represented  the  net  sums  ;  they  now  represent  the  gross  sums. 
At  one  period,  the  gross  receipts  are  shown,  with  a  per  contra 
for  the  charges  of  collection  or  for  refunds.  At  another  time, 
important  classes  of  charges  have  been  transferred  from  the 
Imperial  to  the  Provincial  Budgets,  to  be  brought  back  again 
after  an  interval  of  a  few  years  to  the  Imperial  Budget,  and  again 
transferred  to  Local  Finance.  Capital  expenditure  on  public 
works,  at  one  period  charged  to  current  revenue,  is  at  another 
period  excluded,  as  being  '  extraordinary '  or  '  reproductive.' 
The  result-  The  entire  net  income  of  the  railways,  whether  the  property  of 
scurili'es  ^^^  State  or  of  guaranteed  companies,  has  now  been  entered  as 
Imperial  revenue,  and  the  interest  to  shareholders  as  Imperial 
expenditure.  The  Indian  accounts  represent,  therefore,  not 
only  the  Indian  taxation  and  the  cost  of  administration.  They 
represent  the  trade  expenses  and  profits  of  the  Government  as 
a  great  railway  owner,  canal  maker,  opium  manufacturer,  salt 


ACTUAL  TAXATION  OF  INDIA.  459 

monopolist,  and  pioneer  of  new  industries.  They  also  rejire- 
sent  these  ])rofits  and  expenses  under  diverse  systems  of 
account  at  different  jDeriods. 

The  following  pages  will  first  endeavour  to  exhibit  the  actual 
taxation  of  British  India,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  Mughal 
Empire.  They  will  then  show  the  gross  revenue  and  expendi- 
ture of  British  India,  whether  of  the  nature  of  taxation  or 
otherwise,  and  analyze  its  principal  items. 

The  Actual  Taxation  paid  by  the  peo])le  of  British  India  Gross 
during  the   ten    years   ending   1879,    averaged    35 J  millions.  '^A^,''?"ij 
The   subjoined    tables    show    the   gross    items,    exclusive    of  India, 
the  opium  duty  which    is   paid    by    the    Chinese   consumer, 
tributes  from  foreign  or  feudatory  States,  forest  receipts,  and 
the   Mint.     The  actual  taxation   arranges  itself  under  seven 
branches,  as  given  in  Statement  I.  on  the  next  page,  from  1S69 
to  1879. 

This  table  was  compiled  from  a  special  Parliamentary 
Return,  and  shows  the  net  taxes,  after  deducting  drawbacks 
and  items  not  of  the  nature  of  actual  taxation.  Statement  II. 
shows  the  revenue  from  the  same  items  during  the  four  follow- 
ing years,  1880-83,  but  without  deductions  or  drawbacks.  The 
average  of  these  four  years  is  4o|  millions,  without  deductions 
or  drawbacks,  against  35 J  millions,  after  deductions  and 
drawbacks,  during  the  ten  years  ending  1879. 

The  net  taxation  of  British  India,  that  is  to  say,  the  sums  Net  and 
realized,   less  the  cost  of  collection,   averaged   32    millions  ^  S'oss 

,      .  .  \  c  ■         taxation 

durmg  the  ten  years  endmg  1879.     Returns  of  net  taxation,  of  i],-itish 
however,  depend  much  upon  the  method  on  which  they  are  India, 
prepared.     But  the  final  accounts  as  presented  to  Parliament 
enable  us  to  arrive  accurately  at  the  gross  taxation  paid  by  the 
Indian  people,  which,  as  above  shown,  was  35J  millions  during 
the  ten  years  ending  1879,  o^  ^  ''^te  of  3s.  8d.  per  head. 

This  rate  contrasts  alike  with  that  now  paid  by  the  taxpayer  English 
in  England,  and  with   that  formerly  paid   in   India  under  the  t'"^. 
Mughal  Empire.     The  34  millions  of  people  m  Great  Lritam  taxation, 
and  Ireland  pay  68   millions  of  Imperial   taxation,^  besides 
heavy  local  and  municipal  burdens.      The  revenues  of  the 

\^Sentence  continued  on  fage  462. 

^  Compiled  from  the  Parliamentary  Return,  8th  July  1880,  pp.  4,  5. 

^  Customs,  20  millions  ;  Inland  revenue,  48  millions  :  total  taxation,  68 
milHons.  The  gross  revenue  of  the  United  Kingdom  in  1880  was 
;^8i,265,055,  besides  ^^29,247,595  of  local  taxation  ;  total,  ;,^  110,512,650. 


46o      BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 


iz; 

H 

w 

05 

% 

w 

ux 

b 

H 

O 

<; 

o 

H 

H 

m 

<; 

X 

< 

r-i 

^^ 


00 


i5      ^ 


K      5 


"^ 


s 


vO     o    o 

LO 

HOG 

„ 

OJ 

CO        Tj-      M 

CO 

NO      N      "l- 

LO      CO      ON 

00 

lO     "      LO 

On 

s 

^ 

Oj     ^     g 

co" 

no"      m"      g" 

rC 

CO 

PI       -1-     w 

NO 

00 

CO    VO       C\ 

NO 

CO       CN       M 

CO 

" 

ci     N 

pi" 

pi"    no"      CO 

o" 

t-N       LO       0 

-^ 

NO      PI      CO 

t-^ 

CO 

t7 

VO          t~^       M 

0 

O    00     00 

\0       Q      M 

LO 

PI       0       tT 

PI 

ti 

"n? 

CTv     K.    vO" 

oo" 

pi"      o"      CO 

t<. 

t- 

VO      VO    00 

CO 

PI       NO         CN 

PI 

s 

CO       -^ 

PI 

NO_^    -r    ON 

t^ 

ON     N 

pi"   <o"    (N 

•f 

CO 

P)      uo     O 

LO    CO      00 

00 

t^ 

lO        1-        M 

-1-       LO       PI 

CO 

c- 

M        O        CO 

CO     NO       NO 

co 

^? 

!>.      CO 

CO    -^  co" 

t< 

lO      CI 

CO      G      CO 

o 

CO 

00       lO 

1-      CO    00 

o_ 

C?-      (N 

pi"  no"    pf 

CO 

0)      P)      o 

On     LO    CO 

NO 

-h       CO       M 

00          M        NO 

LO 

t«. 

t^       PI         LO 

CO     -^      CO 

NO_ 

1 

U7 

"-^ 

CO     CO 

m"        -f       LO 

oo" 

i~: 

0         ON 

PI      -t-     CO 

ON 

CO 

LO       -1- 

rv    PI    CO 

r^ 

"     P) 

pi"   no"    pi" 

LO 

P) 

CO 

CO      CO     Cn 

ON       M          Si 

LO 

U3 

On      rj-      -1- 

O 

r- 

t^       M          tv. 

-1-     CO     O 

LO 

^ 

'^ 

no"  vo"    pT 

co"    fC  co" 

6s 

ON    -r 

t^       PI         LO 

0 

CO 

P)        CO 

NO        PI         t^ 

CO 

'^ 

m"     pT 

Pf    no"      pi" 

LO 

p» 

N       tv    MD 

LO      PI       NO 

00 

!i     S?     "^ 

On    no       CO 

t^ 

ON    NO       " 

•*    NO       On 

Pv 

CO 

^? 

t<.    no"      o" 

co"      O"      On 

CO 

CO    CO      PI 

PI       LO      CN 

CI 

CO 

C       PI 

yD       M      NO 

CO_ 

w"      pf 
PI 

pf     no"      pf 

CO 

ON    OO       On 

O       0       PI 

CO 

CO 

NO      CO        CO 

ON       CO       M 

PI 

NO         t^       M 

CO      NO       LO 

NO 

1 

s? 

Co"      CO     o" 

CO    lo  oo" 

g" 

•^      N      CO 

LT,     NO         G 

CO 

CO 

CO      CO     LO 

NO_        M        NO 

NO 

m"     pT 
PI 

pi"    no      pi" 

in 

CO 

t^     On     w 

O       LO      CO 

LO 

cj 

CO    o     -*• 

On     On     CO 

o 

CO       M          PI 

On     LO      CO 

NO 

' 

^? 

o"    a.    LO 

LO    no"     NO 

CO 

PI       NO         CI 

t^    NO       t^ 

CO 

00 

LO      CO    CO 

LO     ON     rt- 

o 

o"    pT 
PI 

Pl"      lO     pi" 

CO 

CO     LO     i-o 

On     O     NO 

CO 

P<       NO          PI 

CO     CO      M 

On 

t« 

CO      -*•    o 

t^      PI       CO 

NO 

o 

^ 

pT    -t-    pi" 

O"    no"     G~ 

no" 

t= 

PI     c^    o 

NO       CO     0 

M          O         M 

ON 

00 

Vq         M         LO 

PI 

O     pi"    pT 

pi"  no     pi" 

no" 
CO 

ON      lO      ^ 

LO      t^     NO 

NO 

o 

M         lO       PI 

CO       0       M 

O 

t- 

0      NO         PI 

M     r^    CO 

<k 

^ 

co"      CO     o" 

c5n  co"    c?. 

On 

CO 

CO       >0     M 

PI     00      t^ 

-1- 

00 

0     ei     M 

Tl-    CO       CO 

"MM 

Pi"    LO    pi" 

lO 

PI 

CO 

•    ■    • 

S? 

•   •   • 

u 

OJ*       .      S 

3            y: 

rt 

c            rt 

CC 

^ 

V.         H 

0         1 

"3. 

stoms, 

t, 

nips, 

H 

0)        I/; 

c 
'> 

o 

•A      ■^.      :9, 

J  a  < 

U    C/2    72 

^ 


Oi    0- 


o    ^ 


"--? 


B  >H 


2    &■      H 


^ 


ACTUAL  TAX  ATI  OX,   1SS0-S3. 


461 


■^ 

CO 

00 

■n 

M 

00 

■? 

CO 

=^ 

<i 

c; 

H 

fc/. 

9  -- 
S    ^    h 


5 


z 

5 

0 

-5* 

H 

.-■0 

< 

X 

k) 

< 

<;j 

H 

•« 

►J 
< 

f- 

u 

•<; 

< 

•g. 

a>   . 

'T 

(N 

CO 

0 

N 

00 

^ 

A  M 

M 

0 

t^ 

CO 

C^ 

§ 

vo 

^  'n 

« 

00 

CO 

0 

C\ 

vO_ 

0 

ut 

00" 

XT'. 

LO 

0" 

t^ 

00" 

tc 

CO 

£^ 

On 

CO 

0 

r^ 

0 

CO 

vo 

t^ 

On 

CI 

5 

'^ 

CO 

Cl 

0 

-^'■a 

0" 

f^ 

CO 

"^ 

00" 

Cl" 

c 

CO 

00 

tM 

l-» 

w 

vo 

oi2 

^ 

"^ 

t>. 

M 

o\ 

HI 

VT) 

>o 

-1- 

00 

CO 

0 

»-l 

M 

0 

r^ 

vo 

LO 

00 

o_ 

0 

s 

0" 

tv. 

C7> 

?- 

vo" 

C^ 

CO 

0" 

t-> 

t^ 

t^ 

0 

Cv 

00 

rj- 

ro 

CO 

vq 

Cl_ 

LO 

vo 

10 

00 

00 

0 

CO 

CO 

cJ 

c> 

■-^ 

^ 

. 

0 

CI 

•*■ 

00 

CJv 

0 

10 

C) 

C) 

t^ 

r^ 

00 

Cl 

0 

Cv 

0 

VO 

CO 

Cl 

CO 

00 

t 

Cv 

04 
CO 

Co' 

\h 

i_r 

t< 

t^ 

vo" 

lO 

to 

rt- 

r^ 

00 

C) 

vo 

CO 

cv 

Cl 

00 

q\ 

CO 

CO 

'^ 

CO 

vo 

cc 

a. 

»_r 

IN 

CO 

CO 

cr 

Cl" 

^ 

^ 

10 

00 

0 

Cl 

0 

0 

M 

0 

CO 

00 

C4 

Cl 

t^ 

Cn 

o\ 

CT. 

LO 

Cl 

vo 

t^ 

CO 

■^ 

s 

(N 

\h 

0" 

u^ 

c?. 

00" 

vo" 

c?. 

M 

to 

CO 

CO 

10 

r^ 

00 

s 

M 

»-< 

CI 

w 

<o 

10 

t^ 

CO 
00 

M 

ti 

CO 

CO 

Cl" 

Cl" 

0" 

CI 

-1- 

0 

c^ 

On 

CO 

03 

LO 

Ov 

10 

CO 

Cl 

Cv 

Cl 

in 

' 

^ 

fN 

0 

t^ 

CO 

•-« 

in 

s 

M 

vo 

CO 

00" 

d 

10 

0" 

tA 

vO 

VO 

0 

CO 

00 

00 

CO 

0 

05 

tX) 

C) 

00 

Cl 

C^ 

00 

g 

v-T 

t< 

CO 

cT 

Cl" 

Cl" 

l-« 

0 

S3 

2 

0 

. 

r- 

* 

c 

c; 

cJ 

X 

c 

c 

c: 

Ci 

9 

H 

0 

(/" 

■g 

a: 

d. 

0 

0 

1 

'o 

c 

0 

> 

c 

■^ 

2 

0 

^ 

0 

" 

X 

7: 

w 

u 

< 

£ 

vc  :=  cfl 
t^  0.= 

vO  rj 


^ 


CTv 
00    o    - 


3    0 

n 

c 

vH    „ 

<U  ^ 

0 

0 

-C   ci 

0 

'^ 

c 

tjoaJ 

^ 

~ 

.M 

-^  '-^ 

c 



1- 

-^,  -/T  if  M  -a 


S  ci  £.5 

0 

-iSrt  5 

? 

rt      .„      C      X 

> 

<u 

^.2  5-= 

^  >  t;  "; 

c 

tn    '^'0  £ 

ij 

;s  j2  1)  0 

hr 

g.liX^ 

c 

!>    -'    *j    - 

^ 

for  r 
[ndia 
ade  a 
s  thai 

"p 

^=SJ 

* 

^  c-'S  £i 

^  0  -^^ 

■5  '^  •■£  ?f 

^  X  t/:  0 

S    r!    C  -^ 

1;  ■?:  o  — 


5^ 


3  "  §-:= 


<  S-rt-S 


452     BRITISH  A  DMIXISTRA  TION  OF  IXDIA. 


Indian 
taxation 
under  the 
Mughals, 


much 
heavier 
than  now. 


Mughal 
pull-tax. 


Summary, 


Taxation 
of  Japan. 


Sentence  contijiued  from  page  459.] 

Mughal  Empire,  derived  from  a  much  smaller  population 
than  that  of  British  India,  varied,  as  we  have  seen,^  from 
42  millions  fiet  under  Akbar  in  1593  to  80  millions  under 
Aurangzeb  in  1695.  The  trustworthiness  of  these  returns  has 
been  discussed  in  a  previous  chapter ;  and  they  must  be  taken 
subject  to  the  qualifications  therein  indicated. 

If  we  examine  the  items  in  the  Mughal  accounts,  we 
find  the  explanation  of  their  enormous  totals.  The  land-tax 
then,  as  now,  formed  about  one-half  of  the  whole  revenue. 
The  net  land  revenue  demand  of  the  Mughal  Empire  averaged 
25  millions  sterling  from  1593  to  1761 ;  or  32  millions  during 
the  last  century  of  that  Empire,  from  1655  to  1761.  The 
annual  net  land  revenue  raised  from  the  much  larger  area  of 
British  India,  during  the  ten  years  ending  1879,  has  been  18 
miUions  sterling  (gross,  21  millions).  But  besides  the  land 
revenue  there  were  under  our  predecessors  not  less  than  forty 
imposts  of  a  personal  character.  These  included  taxes  upon 
religious  assemblies,  upon  trees,  upon  marriage,  upon  the 
peasant's  hearth,  and  upon  his  cattle.  How  severe  some  of 
them  were,  may  be  judged  from  the  poll-tax.  For  the 
purposes  of  this  tax,  the  non-Muhammadan  population  was 
divided  into  three  classes,  paying  respectively  ^4,  ^2,  and 
^i  annually  to  the  Exchequer  for  each  adult  male.  The 
lowest  of  these  rates,  if  now  levied  from  each  non-Musalman 
male  adult,  would  alone  yield  an  amount  exceeding  our  whole 
actual  taxation.  Yet,  under  the  Mughals,  the  poll-tax  was 
only  one  of  forty  burdens. 

We  may  briefly  sum  up  the  results.  Under  the  Mughal 
Empire,  1593  to  1761,  the  existing  returns  of  the  Imperial 
demand  averaged  about  60  millions  sterling  a  year.  During 
the  ten  years  ending  1879,  the  Imperial  taxation  of  British 
India,  with  its  far  larger  population,  averaged  35  millions, 
and  for  the  four  years  ending  1882-83,  4°l  millions,  without 
allowing  for  refunds  and  drawbacks.  Under  the  Mughal 
Empire,  the  land-tax  between  1655  and  1761  averaged  32 
millions.  Under  the  British  Empire,  the  net  land-tax  has, 
during  the  ten  years  ending  1879,  averaged  18  millions,  and 
i8f  millions  during  the  four  years  ending  1882-S3. 

Not  only  is  the  taxation  of  British  India  much  less  than 

that    raised    by    the    Mughal    Emperors,    but    it    compares 

favourably  with  the  taxation  of  other  Asiatic  countries  in  our 

own  days.     The  only  other  Empire  in  Asia  which  pretends  to 

'  Ante,  chap.  xi.  p.  299,  etc.  ;  table  of  Mughal  Revenues  (1593  to  1761). 


ENGLISH  AND  MUGHAL  LAXD-TAX.       463 

a  civilised  government  is  Japan.  The  author  has  no  special 
acquaintance  with  the  Japanese  revenues ;  but  German  statists 
show  that  over  1 1  millions  sterling  are  there  raised  from  a 
population  of  34  million  people,  or  deducting  certain  items,  a 
taxation  of  about  6s.  a  head.  In  India,  where  we  try  to 
govern  on  a  higher  standard  of  efficiency,  the  rate  of  actual 
gross  taxation  averaged  3s.  8d.  a  head  for  the  ten  years  ending 
1S79,  and  4s.  id.  per  head  for  the  four  years  ending  18S2-S3. 

If,  instead  of  dealing  with  the  Imperial  revenues  as  a  whole.  Taxation 
we  concentrate  our  survey  on  any  one  Province,  we  find  these  °/  ^  . 

.  .  ^  riovince 

facts  brought  out  m  a  still  stronger  light.     To  take  a  smgle  under  the 
instance.     After  a  patient  scrutiny  of  the  records,  it  was  found  ^lughab, 
that,  allowing  for  the  change  in  the  value  of  money,  the  ancient 
revenue  of  Orissa  represented  eight  times  the  quantity  of  the 
staple  food  which  our  own  revenue  now  represents.^    The  native 
revenue  of  Orissa  supported  a  magnificent  court  with  a  crowded 
seraglio,  swarms  of  priests,  a  large  army,  and  a  costly  public 
worship.     Under  our  rule,  Orissa  does  little  more  than  defray  and  under 
the  local  cost  of  protecting  person  and  property,   and  of  its  ^"^.-.u 
irrigation  works.     In  Orissa,  the    Raja's  share   of  the   crops 
amounted,  with  dues,  to  60  per  cent.,  and  the  mildest  Native 
Governments  demanded  ;^;^  per  cent.     The  Famine  Commis- 
sioners estimate   the  land-tax  throughout   British  India-  '  at  The  I.md- 
from  3  per  cent,  to  7  per  cent,  of  the  gross  out-turn.'     Ample  '^'''' 
deductions  are  allowed  for  the  cost  of  cultivation,  the  risks  of 
the    season,    the    maintenance   of  the   husbandman   and    his 
family.     Of  the   balance,    (jovernment  nominally  takes   one- 
third  or  a  half ;  but  how  small  a  proportion  this  bears  to  the 
crop  may  be  seen  from  the  returns  collected  by  the  Famine 
Commissioners. 

Their  figures  deal  with  176  out  of  the  199  millions  of  Rates  per 
i  people  in  British  India.  These  176  millions  cultivate  188  ^^"'''■'* 
millions  of  acres,  grow  331  millions  sterling  worth  of 
produce,  and  now  pay  i8f  millions  of  land  revenue.  While, 
therefore,  they  raise  over  ^i,  15s.  worth  of  produce  per  acre, 
they  pay  to  Government  under  2s.  of  land-tax  per  acre. 
Instead  of  thus  paying  5A  per  cent,  as  they  do  now,  they  would 
under  the  Mughal  rule  have  been  called  upon  to  pay  from  2)Z 
to  50  per  cent,  of  the  crop.     The  two  systems,  indeed,  proceed 

^  The  evidence  on  which  these  stataments  are  based,  was  publislied  in 
Hunter's  Orissa,  vol.  i.  pp.  323-329  (Smith,  Elder,  &  Co.,  1872). 

^  Report  of  the  Indian  Famine  Commission^  part  ii.  p.  90,  as  presented 
to  Parliament,  18S0. 


464     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 


Increase  of 
popula- 
tion. 


Taxation 
in  Native 
States. 


ui)on  entirely  different  principles.  The  Native  Governments, 
write  the  Famine  Commissioners,  often  taxed  the  land  '  to  the 
extent  of  taking  from  the  occupier  the  whole  of  the'surplus  after 
defraying  the  expenses  of  cultivation.'  ^  The  British  Govern- 
ment objects  to  thus  '  sweeping  off  the  whole  margin  of  profit.' 
What  becomes  of  the  surplus  which  our  Government  declines 
to  take  ?  It  goes  to  feed  an  enormously  increased  population. 
The  tax-gatherer  now  leaves  so  large  a  margin  to  the  husband- 
man, that  the  Province  of  Bengal,  for  example,  feeds  three 
times  as  many  mouths  as  it  did  in  1780,  and  has  a  vast  surplus 
of  produce,  over  and  above  its  own  wants,  for  exportation. 
'  In  the  majority  of  Native  Governments,'  writes  the  highest 
living  authority  on  the  question,-  '  the  revenue  officer  takes 
all  he  can  get ;  and  would  take  treble  the  revenue  we  should 
assess,  if  he  were  strong  enough  to  exact  it.  In  ill-managed 
States,  the  cultivators  are  relentlessly  squeezed  :  the  differ- 
ence between  the  native  system  and  ours  being,  mainly,  that 
the  cultivator  in  a  Native  State  is  seldom  or  never  sold  up, 
and  that  he  is  usually  treated  much  as  a  good  bullock  is 
treated,  i.e.  he  is  left  with  enough  to  feed  and  clothe  him  and 
his  family,  so  that  they  may  continue  to  work.'  John  Stuart 
Mill  studied  the  condition  of  the  Indian  people  more  deeply 
than  any  other  political  economist,  and  he  took  an  indulgent 
view  of  native  institutions.  His  verdict  upon  the  Mughal 
Government  is  that,  '  except  during  the  occasional  accident  of 
a  humane  and  vigorous  local  administrator,  the  exactions  had 
no  practical  limit  but  the  inability  of  the  peasant  to  pay  more.' 


Incidence 
of  taxation 
in  British 
India. 


The  Famine  Commission,  after  careful  inquiries,  state  ^  that 
throughout  British  India  the  landed  classes  pay  revenue  at  the 
rate  of  5s.  6d.  per  head,  including  the  land-tax  for  their  farms, 
or  IS.  gd.  without  it.  The  trading  classes  pay  3s.  3d.  per  head  ; 
the  artisans,  2s. — equal  to  four  days'  wages  in  the  year  ;  and 
the  agricultural  labourers,  is.  8d.  The  whole  taxation,  includ- 
ing the  Government  rent  for  the  land,  averaged,  as  we  have 
seen,  3s.  8d.    per    head    during  the   ten  years  ending    1879. 

'  Report  of  the  Indian  Fa7ninc  Coniinission.,  part  ii.  p.  90,  as  presented 
to  Parliament,  1880. 

^  Report  by  Mr.  (now  Sir)  Alfred  Lyall,  C.B. ,  formerly  Governor- 
General's  Agent  in  Rajputana,  afterwards  Foreign  Secretary  to  the  Govern- 
ment of  India,  now  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  North-Western  Provinces 
and  Oudh  ;  quoted  in  the  Despatch  of  the  Governor-General  in  Council  to 
the  Secretary  of  State,  8th  June  1880.      'Condition  of  India,'  Blue  Book, 

PP-  36,  37- 

•''  Kepoi-t  of  the  Fa'iiine  Commission,  part  ii.  p.  93  (foHo,  iSSo). 


INCIDENCE  OF  TAXATION.  465 

But  the  Famine  Commissioners  declare  that  'any  native  of 
India  who  does  not  trade  or  own  land,  and  who  chooses  to 
drink  no  spirituous  liquor,  and  to  use  no  English  cloth  or  iron, 
need  pay  in  taxation  only  about  yd.  a  year  on  account  of  the 
salt  he  consumes.  On  a  family  of  three  persons,  the  charge 
amounts  to  is.  gd.,  or  about  four  days'  wages  of  a  labouring 
man  and  his  wife.'  ^ 


Gross  Revenues. — But  it  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  Gross 
that  the  actual  taxation  of  the  Indian  people  is  one  thing,  and  sheet"of" 
the  gross  revenues  of  India  are  another.     As  explained  in  a  British 
previous  paragraph  of  this  chapter,  the  revenues  include  many  ^'■'"'^• 
items  not  of  the  nature  of  taxation.     The  following  table,  com- 
piled from  the  Parliamentary  Abstract  for  1 88  2-83  (the  latest 
received  by  the  author  before  sending   these   sheets   to  the 
press),  exhibits  the  gross  imperial  revenue  and  expenditure  of 
India   for   that   year,   according   to    the   system   of  accounts 
adopted  at  the  time.     For  the   reasons  already  given,   it  is 
practically  impossible  to  analyse  these  gross  totals  in  such  a 
way  as  to  show  the  actual  amount  raised  by  taxation,  and  the 
actual  amount  returned  in  protection  to  person  and  propert)-. 
The  actual  taxation  has  therefore  been  dealt  with  in  the  two 
separate  statements  already  given.     It  is  equally  impossible  to 
compare  the  gross  totals  with  those  for  previous  years,  owing 
to  changes  that  have   been  made  from  time  to  time  in  the 
system  of  entering  the  accounts.     The  only  profitable  plan  is 
to  take  some  of  the  items,  and  explain  their  real  meaning. 


The  list  of  items  shows  how  large  a  portion  of  the  gross  Analysis 
revenue  is  not  of  the  nature  of  taxation  proper.     Public  works,  ^^" 

'       1        .  '  revenues 

including    railways    and    irrigation     and    navigation    canals,  in  18S3. 
alone  yielded  in    1882-83  upwards   of  12   millions  sterling, 
or  over  1 7  per  cent,  of  the  total.     Adding  the  items  of  post- 
ofifice  and  telegraphs,  which  also  represent  payment  for  work 
done  or  services  supplied,  the  proportion  would  rise  to  over 
19^  per  cent.     Then  the  sum  of  9^  millions  gross,  or  nearly 
']\  millions  net,  derived  from  opium,  being  an  additional  13^ 
per  cent,  of  the  gross  revenue,  is  not  a  charge  upon  the  native  Not  of  the 
taxpayer,  but  a  contribution  to  the  Indian  exchequer  by  the  "^l""^.^  °^ 
Chinese  consumer  of  the    drug.     Add  to  these   the  tributes 
from  Feudatory  States,  produce  of  the  forests,  etc.,  and  upwards 

\_Se?itence  continued  on  page  467. 
'   Report  of  the  laiiiinc  Commission,  part  ii.  p.  93  (folio,  1880). 

2  G 


466     BRITISH  ADMIXISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 


^ 

>? 

:> 

;g 

Ik 

s 

< 

>5i 

Q 

5? 
1— 1 

=Q 

M       &= 


S 


■2^ 


oO"OOOi-i-MOO'^'<-0    3-co 
-.    o    '^    t^coco    r^^O    r^r^r^c^-    Omd    0 
rr  u.-   0   r,    cj  oo   C  03    N   Ov  Tco    r^co    0   Ps  O 

VOOO    ONcO^'"-)-*-^  -^^    C^  -OD     D  CO    " 

■ri  „  _  vo        ui  -._  c   -"T  ~_  -,  .o  .n  ^  vno   N 

0    O         -J-o    -r-o    -    onCC  CO 
pT            -*  tC  rC  ^       J"  ro 

s 

U 

^- 

^ 

.1 

_3 

-5" 

'    ■    '    ■  5 

buperannuation  Allowances  and  Pension,  . 

Stationery  and  Printing 

Working  Expenses  and  Charges  against  Capi 

Reproductive  Public  WorUs,  . 
Non-productive  Public  Woiks.  . 

Military 

Interest,       ....... 

Refunds  and  Drawbacks,    .... 

Assignments  and  Coinpensai  ions. 

Exchange, 

Miscellaneous 

1 

H     .2< 

2-^ 

■2a 

Land  Revenue,    . 
Opium. 

Salt 

Stamps, 
Excise, 
Customs, 
Piovincial  Rales, 
.\ssessed  Taxes,  . 

I'oiest, 

Ki  gistration, 

I'ost-ollfice,  . 

Telegraph,   . 

Mint,   . 

Cencral  .\dministr.ition, 

Law  and  Justice, 

Police, 

Marine, 

Education, 

Ecclcxiastical,      . 

M.'dical,       . 

I'olitical. 

Scientific  and  Minor  Depa 
■'"amine  Relief  and  1  nsur.u 
'rcrritorial  and  Political  Pc 
Civil  Furlough  and  Absent 

OCCvD     -<     —    —     N     M     rrO"00    rv^TC^     lA-,  —  covCvO     rr  rc  CO  ^ 

"^O    lO-    030    NOO    Ot^  r^'OO    o-O    ^i/lOOCOvD    rr  tn  <^    WC 

"  OS  rC.  O  C-^d"  f*!  t^-jo"  IT)  O  r*  I'-  inso"  t^  cTdc  \c"  lo  (^  C>  ■^  cT  n*  i^ 

-      >.  r^   O    OCO    -     r^.CO  OO    l^  -^CO     -OfN     N    Ou-)t^O»N     CN"10^0 

-    rO\£)    (^l\OlOO^NOO^lO•-<^ONW•-^  \O0O    moO    m  fO 


.H    .2,^  =r 


3=    .=  • 


J.-  ■  5     C  ^  3 


2-? 

i  o 


<s^ 


^  9  ti^-« 


c  3: 


_    3    V   ti^- 

"-5"^  =  3~3=~ 

O    C   O        "^  --  —    - 

KHa, 


INDIAN  RE  J  ENUES  ANAL  1  ^ZED.  4 6  7 

Sentence  avitinued  from  page  465.] 

of  one-third  of  the  total  gross  revenue  is  accounted  for.     The  Revenue 

whole  revenue  of  British  India  of  the  nature  of  actual  taxation,  /°"V 

'  taxation. 

including  Land  Revenue,  Excise,  Assessed  Taxes,  Provincial 
Rates,  Customs,  Salt,  and  Stamps,  amounted  in  1878  to  34!  ' 
millions,  or  3s.  7fd.  per  head.  In  1882-83,  the  gross  actual 
taxation  of  British  India  was  upwards  of  395  millions,  or 
within  a  fraction  of  4s.  per  head,  the  average  for  the  four  years 
ending  1882-83  being  a  fraction  over  4s.  id,  per  head,  without 
allowing  for  deductions  or  drawbacks. 

The   land    revenue,    amounting   to   over    2 if    millions   in  Xature  of 
1S82-S3,  forms  by  far  the  largest  item.     Whether  it  should  be  '^^  '^"'^^ 
properly  regarded  as  a  tax,  or  only  as  rent,  is  a  problem  for 
political  economists  to  settle  ;  but  in  any  case,  it  is  paid  without 
question,  as  an  immemorial  right  of  the  State.     It  yielded  in 
18S2-83,  31  i^er  cent.,  or  nearly  one-third,  of  the  gross  revenue. 

Of  the  other  items  of  taxation,  excise  and  stamps  are 
practically  creations  of  British  rule.  The  excise  is  a  tax  upon  Excise, 
intoxicating  liquors  and  deleterious  drugs,  levied  both  on  the 
manufacture  and  on  the  sale,  according  to  different  systems  in 
different  Provinces.  Like  the  corresponding  duty  in  England, 
it  is  voluntarily  incurred,  and  presses  hardest  upon  the  lowest 
classes.  But  unlike  the  English  excise,  it  can  hardly  be  called 
an  elastic  source  of  revenue,  for  the  rate  is  intentionally  kept  so 
high  as  to  discourage  consumption.  Xo  duty  whatever  is  levied 
upon  tobacco.  Stamps,  as  in  England,  form  a  complex  Stamps, 
item.  The  greater  part  is  derived  from  fees  on  litigation,  and 
only  a  comparatively  trifling  amount  from  stamps  proper  on 
deeds  of  transfer,  etc. 

Customs  are  divided  into  import  and  export  duties,  both  Customs. 
of  which  have  been  so  greatly  lightened  in  recent  years, 
that  their  permanent  maintenance  may  be  considered  doubt- 
ful. Duties  on  exports  have  been  altogether  abolished, 
with  the  single  exception  of  that  on  rice,  which  brings 
in  from  ^2^500,000  to  over  ^Soo,ooo  per  annum.  The 
average  for  the  ten  years  ending  1S82-S3  was  _;^6i5j349, 
but  there  has  been  a  steady  increase  since  1878.  This  export 
duty  is  levied  at  the  rate  of  3  dnnds  a  maund,  or  about  6d.  per 
cwt.,  being  equivalent  to  an  ad  valorem  rate  of  about  10  per 
cent.  The  i^  million  sterling  received  from  customs  are 
practically  made  up  of  nearly  half  a  million  sterling  levied  on 
imported  liquors,  and  about  three-quarters  of  a  million  sterling 
levied  on  exported  rice.     The  receipts  from  all  other  import 


Duties. 


Tax 


468     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 

customs  in  1SS2-S3  were  under  ^13,000,  and  those  from  all 
other  exports  were  just  over  ;z{^3ooo  ;  total,  under  ;^  16,000, 
from  all  imports  and  exports,  excepting  imported  liquors  and 
exported  rice. 

Cotton  The    import    duty  on   cotton   goods  was    finally  abolished 

in  March  1882,  having  been  reduced  in  1878,  and  again  in 
1879.  Imported  cotton  manufactures  had  previously  formed 
the  most  important  item  of  the  customs  revenue.  From 
1874  to  1882  the  duty  on  cotton  goods  varied  from  nearly  a 
million  in  1878  to  over  half  a  million  in  18S1-82,  the  average 
being  about  three  -  quarters  of  a  million  sterling  during  the 
nine  years  preceding  the  total  abolition  of  the  duty. 

The  Salt  The  salt  tax,  which  yields  about  6i  millions  a  year,  is  a 
problem  of  greater  difficulty.  It  is  an  impost  upon  an  article  of 
prime  necessity,  and  it  falls  with  greatest  severity  upon  the 
lowest  classes.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  urged  that  it  is 
familiar  to  the  people,  is  levied  in  a  manner  which  arouses 
no  discontent ;  and  is  the  only  means  available  of  spreading 
taxation  proper  over  the  community.  The  reforms  of  1878 
and  1882,  referred  to  on  a  previous  page,  have  equalized  the 
incidence  of  the  salt  tax  over  the  entire  country,  with  the 
incidental  result  of  abolishing  arbitrar}-  and  vexatious  customs 
lines.  As  stated  on  a  previous  page,  the  rate  is  now  a  uniform 
one  of  Rs.  2  per  maund,  or  5s.  5d.  per  cwt,  throughout  British 
India,  except  in  Burma  where  the  rate  is  3  dmids  per  maurid, 
and  in  the  trans-Indus  tracts  of  the  Punjab,  where  a  special 
rate  is  levied  of  8  dnnds  per  local  viaund  of  103  lbs. 


Indian  Gross  EXPENDITURE. — Putting  aside  the  cost  of  collection 

Expcndi-     ry^^  ^^^.\\  admmistration,  which  explain  themselves,  the  most 

1882.  important  charges  are  the  Army,  Interest  on  Debt,  Famine 

Relief,  Loss  by  Exchange,  and  Public  Works,  to  which  may  be 

added  the  complex  item  of  Payments  in  England.     Military 

Army  ex-    expenditure  has   averaged  about   18  millions  during   the  ten 

penditure.    years  ending  1882-83,  and  in  1S82-83  was  17^  millions.     Of 

the  17^  millions,  about  13^  represent  payments  in  India,  and 

4  millions  payments  in  England.     In  1877-78,  the  total  of  the 

Tublic         Indian  Public  Debt  (exclusive  of  capital  invested  on  railways 

I^ebt.  and  other  productive  public  works)  was  returned  at  over  i34f 

millions  sterling,  being  just  13s.  6]d.  per  head  of  the  population. 

In  1882-83  it  was  returned  at  over  159^  millions,  or  i6s.  per 

head  of  the  population.       Part  of  this  was  of  the  nature  of 

obligations  or  deposits  not  bearing  interest.     The  charge  for 


INDIAN  EXPENDITURE  ANA  I YZED.       469 

interest  was  5  millions  in  1S77-7S;  and  4^  millions  sterling 
in  18S2-83.  This  low  charge  for  interest  is  due,  in  part,  to 
the  proportion  of  debt  which  does  not  bear  interest.  The 
above  'Public  Debt'  is  independent  of  126;^  miUions  sterling 
invested  in  railways  and  productive  works  in  1877-78:  which 
had  increased  to  over  134  millions  thus  invested  in  1882-83. 

In  1840,  the  public  debt  amounted  to  only  30  millions,  Itsgrowth. 
and  gradually  rose  to  52  millions  in  1857.  Then  came  the 
Mutiny,  which  added  upwards  of  40  millions  of  debt  in  four  years. 
The  rate  of  increase  was  again  gradual,  but  slow,  till  about 
1874,  when  famine  relief  conspired  with  public  works  to  cause 
a  rapid  augmentation,  which  has  continued  to  the  present  time. 
The  most  significant  feature  in  this  augmentation  is  the  large 
proportion  of  debt  contracted  in  England. 

No  charge  has  recently  pressed  harder  upon  the  Indian  ex-  Famine 
chequer  than  that  of  Famine  Relief.  Apart  from  loss  by  reduced  Relief, 
revenue,  the  two  famines  of  1874  and  1877-78  have  caused  a 
direct  expenditure  on  charitable  and  relief  works  amounting 
in  the  aggregate  to  just  over  14  millions.  From  1S78-79  to 
1882-83  the  expenditure  on  'Famine  Relief  is  returned  at  3^ 
millions  (of  which  the  greater  portion  was  expended  on  Public 
Works,  in  the  nature  of  insurance  against  famine,  and  not  on 
actual  relief) ;  making  a  total  of  nearly  17I  millions  during  the 
ten  years  1874  to  1883  inclusive.  This  amounts  to  an  annual 
charge  of  if  million  sterling  for  'Famine  Relief.' 

Loss  by  exchange  is  an  item  which  has  lately  figured  largely  Loss  by 
in  the  accounts,  and  is  due  to  the  circumstance  that  large  exchange, 
payments  in  gold  require  to  be  made  in  England  by  means  of 
the  depreciated  rupee.  In  1869-70,  the  loss  by  exchange  was 
more  than  balanced  by  an  entry  of  gain  by  exchange  on  the 
other  side  of  the  ledger.  In  1876-77,  the  loss  amounted  to  a 
little  over  two  millions,  and  in  1882-83  to  over  three  millions 
sterling. 

The  expenditure  on  Public  Works  is  provided  from  three  Public 
sources— (i)  the  capital  of  private  companies,  with  a  Govern- ^^'°^'>-^  ^^- 
ment  guarantee ;  (2)  loans  for  the  construction  of  railways  and 
canals ;  (3)  current  revenue  applied  towards  such  works  as  are 
not  directly  remunerative.     In  1877-78,  the  capital  raised  for 
guaranteed  railways  amounted  to   97^  millions  sterling,  and 
the  capital  invested  on  State  railways  and  other   productive 
public   works   to    29   millions    sterling:    total,   i26i  millions 
sterling  on  railways  and  productive  works.     In  1S82-83,  the 
capital  of  the  guaranteed  railways  was  reduced  to  69I  millions  Railways, 
sterling ;  the  capital  invested  on  State  railways  and  other  pro- 


4 7 o    BRITISH  ADMINISTRA  TION  OF  INDIA. 

ductive  public  works  amounted  to  (i\\  millions :  total  on 
railways  and  productive  public  works,  i34|-  millions  sterling  in 
1882-83.  During  the  interval,  35  millions  sterling  of  capital 
had  been  transferred  from  the  guaranteed  to  the  State  railway 
account,  owing  to  the  purchase  of  the  East  India  line  by  the 
Government. 
Local  Independent  of  imperial  finance,  and  likewise  independent 

finance.  Qf  certain  sums  annually  transferred  from  the  Imperial 
exchequer  to  be  expended  by  the  provincial  governments, 
there  is  another  Indian  budget  for  local  revenue  and  expendi- 
ture. This  consists  of  an  income  derived  mainly  from  cesses 
upon  land,  and  expended  to  a  great  extent  upon  minor  public 
works.  In  1877-78,  local  revenue  and  expenditure  were 
each  returned  at  about  3!-  millions,  and  in  1S82-83  at  about 
4  millions. 
Municij  r-1  Yet  a  third  budget  is  that  belonging  to  the  municipalities, 
nance.  r^j^^  three  Presidency  towns  of  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay 
had  in  1876-77  a  total  municipal  income  of  ^^668,400,  of 
which  ;^5 19,322  was  derived  from  taxation,  being  at  the  rate 
of  7s.  per  head  of  population.  In  addition,  there  were  894 
minor  municipalities,  with  a  total  population  of  12,381,059. 
Their  aggregate  income  was  ;^i,246,974,  of  which  ^^979, 088 
•was  derived  from  taxation,  being  at  the  rate  of  is.  7d.  per 
head.  In  18S2-S3,  the  total  municipal  revenue  of  the  three 
capital  towns  was  ;^i,o73,7i5,  and  of  the  783  minor  munici- 
palities, ;^r,623,522  ;  grand  total,  ^2,697,237.  It  should  be 
lemembered  that  these  figures  refer  to  the  period  before  the 
development  of  municipal  institutions  under  Lord  Ripon's  legis- 
lation bore  fruit.  In  the  Presidency  towns,  rates  upon  houses, 
etc.,  are  the  chief  source  of  income  ;  but  in  the  District  munici- 
palities, excepting  in  Bengal  and  IMadras,  octroi  duties  are 
more  relied  upon.  The  chief  items  of  municipal  expenditure  , 
are  conservancy,  roads,  and  police.  1 

Constiui-        The  Indian  Armv. — The  constitution  of  the  Indian  army 

tion  of  the  jg  based  upon  the  historical  division  of  British  India  into  the 
army.  ^. 

three  Presidencies  of  Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay.     There 

are  still  three  Indian  armies,  each  composed  of  both  European 
and  Native  troops,  and  each  with  its  own  Commander-in-Chief 
and  separate  staft",  although  the  Commander-in-Chief  in  Bengal 
exercises  supreme  authority  over  the  other  two.  There  may 
also  be  said  to  be  a  fourth  army,  the  Punjab  Frontier  Force, 
which,  until  1885,  was  under  the  orders  of  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  the  Province. 


THE  INDIAN  ARMY.  471 

The  Bengal  army  garrisons  Bengal  Proper  and  Assam,  the  The  three 

North-Western   Provinces  and    Oudh,    a   portion   of   Central  ^'''esidency 

.  .  armies. 

India  and  Rajputana,  and  the  Punjab.     In  1877-78  its  total 

strength  was  104,216  ofificers  and  men,  of  whom  63,933  were 

native   troops.       In    1882-83,    the    Bengal    army   numbered  Bengal. 

105,270    ofificers    and    men,    of    whom    66,081    were    native 

troojis.     In  the  Bengal  native  army,  the  distinguishing  feature 

is  the  presence  of  6  batteries  of  artillery,  and  an  exceptionally 

large  proportion  of  cavalry,  both  of  which  arms  are  massed 

in  the  Punjab. 

The    Madras    army   extends    beyond    the    limits    of    that  The 
Presidency  into  Mysore,  the  Nizam's  Dominions,  the  Central  Madras 
Provinces,     also    to     Burma    across    the     Bay     of    Bengal,  ' 
and    to   the    Andaman    convict    settlements.      In   1877-78, 
its    total    strength    was    47,026    officers    and   men,    of  whom 
34,293     were    native     troops.       In     1882-83,    the     Madras 
army    numbered    46,309    of    all    ranks,    of    whom    34,283 
were  natives.      In  the   Madras  native  army,  the  distinguish- 
ing features  are  the  large  proportion  of  sappers  and  miners, 
the  small  proportion  of  cavalry,   and  the  entire  absence  of 
artillery. 

The    Bombay   army   occupies    Bombay   Proper  and   Sind,  The 
the  Native  States  of  Central  India,  and  the  outlying  station  Bombay 
of  Aden  in  the  Red  Sea.     In  1877-78,  its  total  strength  was 
38,355  officers  and  men,  of  whom  26,645  were  native  troops. 
In  1882-83,  the  Bombay  army  numbered  38,897  officers  and 
men,  of  whom  27,041  were  natives. 

The  total  established  strength  of  the  European  and  Native  Total 
army  in  British  India  in  1877-78  (exclusive  of  native  artificers  strength  ; 
and  followers)  consisted  of  189,597  officers  and  men,  of 
whom  64,276  were  Europeans,  and  124,871  were  native 
troops.  The  four  chief  arms  of  the  service  were  thus  com- 
])osed:  —  (i)  Artillery,  12,239  European  and  901  native; 
(2)  cavalry,  4347  European  and  18,346  native;  (3)  engineers, 
357  European  (all  officers)  and  3239  native;  (4)  infantry, 
45,962  European  and  102,183  native.  In  1882-83,  the  1SS3. 
total  European  and  Native  army  in  British  India  consisted  of 
190,476  officers  and  men,  of  whom  63,071  were  Europeans, 
and  127,405  were  native  troops.  The  artillery  consisted 
of  11,329  Europeans  and  1861  natives;  the  cavalry  of 
4311  Europeans  and  18,375  natives,  besides  a  bodyguard 
of  202  troopers  ;  engineers,  284  Europeans  (all  officers)  and 
3251  natives;  and  infantry,  45,766  Europeans  and  103,716 
natives. 


4  7  2     BRITISH  ADMINISTRA  TION  OF  INDIA. 

Tolice.  Police. — Excluding  the  village  watch,  still  maintained  as  a 

subsidiary  police  in  many  parts  of  the  country,  the  regular 
police  of  all  kinds  in  British  India  in  1S82  consisted  of  a 
total  strength  of  145,421  officers  and  men,  being  an  average 
of  I  policeman  to  about  6  square  miles  of  area,  or  to  about 
1369  of  the  population.  The  total  cost  of  maintenance  was 
^^2.378, 143,  of  which  ;^2,2oi,437  was  payable  from  imperial 
or  provincial  revenues.  The  former  figure  gives  an  average 
cost  of  about  ;^2,  15s.  per  square  mile  of  area,  and  threepence 
per  head  of  population.  The  average  pay  of  each  constable 
was  Rs.  7  a  month,  or  ^8,  8s.  a  year. 

Jails.  In   1882-83,  the  total  number  of  places  of  confinement  in 

British  India,  including  central  and  District  jails  and  lock-ups, 
was  452;  the  total  number  of  prisoners  admitted  during  the 
year,  or  remaining  over  from  the  previous  year,  was  391,319; 
the  daily  average  was  97,218.  The  places  of  transportation  for 
all  British  India  are  the  Andaman  and  Nicobar  Islands,  where 
there  are  two  penal  establishments,  containing,  in  1882,  a  daily 
average  of  11,454  convicts. 


Educa- 
tion. 


Ill  ancient 
India. 


Village 
schools. 

Sanskrit 
toh. 


Public  Instruction  in  India  is  directly  organized  by  the 
State,  and  is  assisted  by  grants-in-aid,  under  careful  inspection. 
But  at  no  period  of  its  history  has  India  been  without  some 
system  of  popular  education,  independent  of  State  organization 
or  aid.  The  origin  of  the  Deva-Xagari  alphabet  is  lost  in 
antiquity,  though  it  is  generally  admitted  not  to  be  of  indigenous 
invention.  Inscriptions  on  stone  and  copper,  the  palm-leaf 
records  of  the  temples,  and  in  later  days  the  widespread 
manufacture  of  paper,  indicate  not  only  the  general  know- 
ledge, but  also  the  common  use,  of  the  art  of  writing. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  Brahman  caste  preserved,  first 
by  oral  tradition,  then  in  manuscript,  a  literature  unrivalled  in 
its  antiquity  and  for  the  intellectual  subtlety  of  its  contents. 
The  Muhammadan  invaders  introduced  the  profession  of  the 
historian,  and  attained  a  high  degree  of  historical  excellence, 
compared  with  European  writers  of  the  same  mediceval  period. 
Throughout  every  change  of  dynasty,  vernacular  instruction  has 
been  given,  at  least  to  the  children  of  respectable  classes,  in 
each  large  village.  On  the  one  hand,  the  tols  or  seminaries 
for  teaching  Sanskrit  philosophy  at  Benares  and  Nadiya  recall 
the  schools  of  Athens  and  Alexandria ;  on  the  other,  the 
importance  attached  to  instruction  in  accounts  reminds  one  of 
the  picture  which  Horace  has  left  of  a   Roman   education. 


MISSIO^'AJi  Y  AND  STA  TE  SCIIO  OLS.       473 

Even  at  the  present  day,  a  knowledge  of  reading  and  writing, 

taught  by  the  Buddhist  monks,  is  as  widely  diffused  throughout 

Burma  as  in  many  countries  of  Europe.     Our  own  efforts  to 

stimulate  education  have  been  most  successful,  when  based 

upon  the  existing  indigenous  institutions. 

During  the  early  days  of  the  East  India  Company's  rule,  the  Our  first 

promotion   of   education    was   not   recognised   as  a    duty   of  ^ ,  "^^^  .^*^^ 

.  ^    .  .      ■'  education. 

Government.     Even  m   England,  at  that  time,  education  was 

entirely  left  to  private,  and  mainly  to  clerical,  enterprise.     A 

State  system  of  instruction  for  the  whole  people  is  an  idea  of 

the  latter  half  of  the  present  century.     But  the  enlightened 

mind  of  Warren  Hastings  anticipated  this  idea  by  founding  the 

Calcutta  Madrasa  for  Muhammadan  teaching  (1781),  and  by  Calcutta 

extending  his  patronage  alike  to  ^mdn  pandits  and  European  and  other 

students.     Lord  Wellesley's  schemes  of  imperial  dominion  led  Colleges. 

to  the  establishment  of  the  college  of  Fort  William  for  English 

officials.     Of  the  Calcutta  seminaries,  the  Sanskrit  College  was 

founded  in  1824,  when  Lord  Amherst  was  Governor-General; 

the  Medical  College,  by  Lord  William  Bentinck  in  1835  ;  the 

Hiigli  Madrasa,  by  a  wealthy  native  gentleman  in  1836.     The 

Sanskrit  College  at  Benares  had  been  established  in  1791,  the 

Agra  College  in  1823. 

Meanwhile,  the  Christian  missionaries  made  the  fieM  of  Mission 
vernacular  education  their  own.  Discouraged  by  the  autho-  Schools, 
rities,  and  under  the  Company  liable  to  deportation,  they 
not  only  devoted  themselves  with  courage  to  their  special 
work  of  evangelization,  but  they  were  also  the  first  Europeans 
to  study  the  vernacular  dialects  spoken  by  the  people.  Nearly 
two  centuries  ago,  the  Jesuits  at  Madura,  in  the  extreme  south, 
had  so  mastered  Tamil  as  to  leave  works  in  that  language 
which  are  still  acknowledged  as  classical  by  native  authors. 
About  1 810,  the  Baptist  mission  at  Serampur,  above  Calcutta, 
raised  Bengali  to  the  rank  of  a  literary  prose  dialect.  The  interest 
of  the  missionaries  in  education,  which  has  never  ceased  to 
the  present  day,  although  now  comparatively  overshadowed  by 
Government  activity,  had  two  distinct  aspects.  They  studied 
the  vernacular,  in  order  to  preach  to  the  people,  and  to  translate 
the  Bible ;  they  also  taught  English,  as  the  channel  of  Western 
knowledge. 

After  long  and  acrimonious  controversy  between  the  advo-  State 
cates  of  English  and  of  vernacular  teaching,  the  present  system  ^j^^'^i° 
was  based,  in  1854,  upon  a  comprehensive  despatch  sent  out 
by  Sir  C.  Wood  (afterwards  Lord  Halifax).     In  the  midst  oflndianuni- 
the    tumult    of   the    Mutiny,    the    three    Indian    LTniversities  ^'^''^'^'cs. 


4  74     BRITISH  ADMINISTRA  TION  OF  INDIA. 


Education 
Commis- 
sion of 
1S82-8-V 


Educa- 
tional 
statistics, 
1878-83. 


were  founded  at  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay  in  1857.^ 
Schools  for  teaching  English  were  by  degrees  established  in 
every  District ;  grants-in-aid  were  extended  to  the  lower  ver- 
nacular institutions,  and  to  girls'  schools.  A  Department  of 
Public  Instruction  was  organized  in  every  Province,  under  a 
Director,  with  a  staff  of  Inspectors.  In  some  respects  this 
scheme  may  have  been  in  advance  of  the  time ;  but  it  supplied 
a  definite  outline,  which  has  gradually  been  filled  up.  A  net- 
work of  schools  was  extended  over  the  country,  graduated 
from  the  indigenous  village  institutions  up  to  the  highest 
colleges.  All  received  some  measure  of  pecuniary  support, 
granted  under  the  guarantee  of  regular  inspection ;  while 
a  series  of  scholarships  at  once  stimulated  efficiency,  and 
opened  a  path  to  the  university  for  the  children  of  the  poor. 

In  1882-83,  an  Education  Commission,  appointed  by  Lord 
Ripon's  Government,  endeavoured  to  complete  the  scheme 
inaugurated  in  1854  by  the  Despatch  of  Lord  Halifax.  It  care- 
fully examined  the  condition  of  education  in  each  Province,  indi- 
cated defects,  and  laid  down  principles  for  further  development. 
The  results  of  its  labours  have  been  to  place  public  instruction 
on  a  broader  and  more  popular  basis,  to  encourage  private 
enterprise  in  teaching,  to  give  a  more  adequate  recognition 
to  the  indigenous  schools,  and  to  provide  that  the  education 
of  the  people  shall  advance  at  a  more  equal  pace  along  with 
the  instruction  of  the  higher  classes.  Female  education  and 
the  instruction  of  certain  backward  classes  of  the  community, 
such  as  the  Muhammadans,  received  special  attention.  The 
general  effect  of  the  Commission's  recommendations  is  to 
develop  the  Department  of  Public  Instruction  into  a  system 
of  truly  national  education  for  India,  conducted  and  supervised 
in  an  increasing  degree  by  the  people  themselves. 

In  1 8  7  7-7  8,  the  total  number  of  educational  institutions  of  all 
sorts  in  British  India  was  66,202,  attended  by  an  aggregate  of 
1,877,942  pupils,  showing  an  average  of  one  school  to  every 
14  square  miles,  and  one  pupil  to  every  100  of  the  popula- 
tion. In  1882-83,  the  total  number  of  inspected  schools  of 
all  classes  in  British  India  had  risen  to  109,216,  with  an 
aggregate  of  2,790,773  scholars,  showing  an  average  of  one 
school  to  every  8  square  miles  of  area,  and  one  pupil  to  every 
71  of  the  population.  Male  pupils  numbered  2,628,402, 
showing  one  boy  at  school  to  every  38  of  the  male  population  ; 
and  female  pupils,  162,371,  or  one  girl  at  school  to  every  610 

'  By  Act  II.  of  1S57  for  Calcutta  ;  b)-  Act  xxii.  of  1S57  for  Bombay  ; 
and  by  Act  xxvn.  of  1 85 7  for  Madras. 


THE  INDIAN  UNIVERSITIES.  475 

females.  These  figures,  however,  only  include  State  inspected 
or  aided  schools  and  pupils.  The  Census  Report  of  1881 
returned  2,879,571  boys  and  155,268  girls  as  under  instruc- 
tion throughout  British  India,  besides  7,646,712  males  and 
277,207  females  able  to  read  and  write,  but  not  under  instruc- 
tion. The  figures  are  evidently  below  the  truth,  and  it  will  be 
remarked  that  the  Census  returns  the  total  number  of  girls 
attending  school  at  5000  less  than  those  returned  as  attending 
the  State-inspected  schools  alone. 

In  1877-78,  the  total  expenditure  upon  education  from  all  Educa- 
sources  was  ^^i, 612, 775,  of  which  ;^782,24o  Avas  contributed  fin-j^ce 
by  the  provincial  governments,  ^258,514  was  derived  from  1878-83. 
local  rates,  and  ^32,008  from  municipal  grants.  These  items 
may  be  said  to  represent  State  aid ;  while  endowments  yielded 
^37,218,  subscriptions  ^105,853,  and  fees  and  fines  ;^277,o39. 
'I'he  degree  in  which  education  has  been  popularized,  and  private 
effort  has  been  stimulated,  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that 
in  Bengal  the  voluntary  payments  now  greatly  exceed  the 
Cjovernment  grants.  In  1882-83,  the  total  educational  ex- 
j)enditure  throughout  British  India  amounted  to  ;^2, 105,653, 
of  which  ^578,629  was  contributed  by  the  provincial  govern- 
ments, ^347,376  was  derived  from  local  rates,  ;^63,832  from 
municipal  grants,  ;^93,924  from  subscriptions,  ;^49,695  from 
Native  States,  ;^58,675  from  endowments,  ;^5 16,925  from  fees 
and  fines,  and  the  remainder  from  other  sources. 

The  three  Universities  of  Calcutta,  Madras,  and  Bombay  Thelndian 
were  incorporated  in  1857,  on  the  model  of  the  University  of  V"'^'^''^'' 
London.     They  are  merely  examining  bodies,  with  the  privi- 
lege of  conferring  degrees    in    arts,  law,   medicine,  and  civil 
engineering.     Their  constitution  is  composed  of  a  Chancellor  Their  con- 
A'ice-Chancellor,  and  Senate.     The  governing  body,  or  Syndi-  stuuuon. 
cate,  consists  of  the  Vice-Chancellor  and  certain  members  of 
the  Senate.  A  fourth  University,  on  a  similar  plan,  but  including 
the  teaching  element,  and  following  more  oriental  lines,  has  been 
founded  at  Lahore  for  the  Punjab.    The  Universities  control  the 
whole  course  of  higher  education  in  India  by  means  of  their 
examinations.  The  en  trance  examination  for  matriculation  is  open 
to  all ;    but  when  that  is  passed,  candidates  for  higher  stages 
must  enrol  themselves  in  one  or  other  of  the  affiliated  colleges. 

In  the  ten  years  ending  1877-78,  9686  candidates  success-  University 
fully  passed  the  entrance  examination  at  Calcutta,  6381  at  ^If^o^'oo^ 
Madras,  and   2610  at  Bombay;  total,   18,610.     For  the  ten  "'' 

years  ending  1882-83,  o^^  of  23,226  candidates  at  Calcutta, 
10,200    successfully    passed    the    entrance   examination  \    at 


4/6     BRITISH  ADMINISTRATION  OF  INDIA. 

Madras,  out  of  28,575  candidates,  9715  passed;  and  at 
Bombay,  out  of  11,871  candidates,  3557  passed.  Total  passed 
entrance  examination  in  the  ten  years  ending  1882-83,  23,472. 
Many  fall  off  at  this  stage,  and  very  few  proceed  to  the  higher 
degrees.  During  the  same  ten  years  ending  1882-83,  i°36 
graduated  B.A.  and  only  281  M.A.  at  Calcutta;  896  B.A. 
and  22  M.A.  at  Madras;  456  B.A.  and  34  M.A.  at  Bombay  : 
total  of  B.A.'s  and  M.A.'s  in  the  ten  years,  2725.  Calcutta 
possesses  the  great  majority  of  graduates  in  law  and  medicine, 
while  Bombay  is  similarly  distinguished  in  engineering.  In 
1877-78,  the  total  expenditure  on  the  Universities  was 
^22,093;  and  in  1882-83,  ;^2i,79o. 
Colleges.  The  colleges  or  institutions  for  higher  instruction  may  be 
divided  into  two  classes, — those  which  teach  the  arts  course 
of  the  Universities,  and  those  devoted  to  special  branches  of 
knowledge.  According  to  another  principle,  they  are  classified 
into  those  entirely  supported  by  Government,  and  those  which 
only  receive  grants-in-aid.  The  latter  class  comprises  the 
missionary  colleges.  In  1877-78,  the  total  number  of  colleges, 
including  medical  and  engineering  colleges  and  Muhammadan 
jiiadrasas,  was  82,  attended  by  8894  students.  Of  these,  as 
many  as  35  colleges,  with  3848  students,  were  in  Lower  Bengal ; 
and  21  colleges,  with  1448  students,  in  Madras.  In  the  same 
year,  the  total  expenditure  on  the  colleges  was  ^186,162,  or 
at  the  rate  of  ;^2i  per  student.  In  1882-83,  the  total  number 
of  colleges,  including  medicine  and  engineering  colleges  and 
Muhammadan  i/iadrasas,  was  96,  attended  by  8707  students. 
Of  these,  34  colleges  with  3754  students  were  in  Bengal,  32 
colleges  with  2329  students  were  in  Madras,  and  9  colleges 
with  1203  students  were  in  Bombay.  In  the  same  year,  the 
total  expenditure  on  colleges  in  British  India  was  ;^i  7 3, 2 13, 
or  a  fraction  under  ^20  per  student. 
Boys'  The  boys'  schools  include  many  varieties,   which   may  be 

sc  00  s ;  sub-divided  either  according  to  the  character  of  the  instruc- 
tion given,  or  according  to  the  proportion  of  Government  aid 
upper  which  they  receive.  The  higher  schools  are  those  in  which 
schools ;  English  is  not  only  taught,  but  is  also  used  as  the  medium  of 
instruction.  They  educate  up  to  the  standard  of  the  entrance 
examination  at  the  Universities,  and  generally  train  those 
candidates  who  seek  employment  in  the  upper  grades  of 
Government  service.  One  of  these  schools,  known  as  the 
zild  or  District  school,  is  established  at  the  head-quarters 
station  of  every  District  ;  and  many  others  receive  grants-in- 
aid.     The  total  number  of  high  schools  in  1882-83  was  530, 


INCREASE  OF  PRIMARY  SCHOOLS.         477 

of  which  492  were  for  males  and  38  for  females,  the  attendance 
in  the  year  comprising  68,434  males  and  1165  females. 

The    middle   schools,    as    their    name    implies,    are   inter-  middle 
mediate  between  the  higher  and  the  primary  schools.     Gene-  " ' 

rally  speaking,  they  are  placed  in  the  smaller  towns  or  larger 
villages ;  and  they  provide  that  measure  of  instruction  which 
is  recognised  to  be  useful  by  the  middle  classes  themselves. 
Some  of  them  teach  English ;  others  only  the  vernacular. 
This  class  includes  the  /(r//j/// schools,  established  at  the  head- 
quarters of  every  tahs'il  or  Sub-division  in  the  North-Western 
Provinces.  In  1882-S3,  the  middle  schools  numbered  3796, 
with  an  attendance  of  170,642  pupils.  In  1877-78,  the  total 
expenditure  on  both  higher  and  middle  schools  was  ;2^478,2  5o, 
and  in  1882-83,  ;^49i,262. 

The  lower  or  primary  schools  complete  the  series.     They  are  primary 
dotted  over  the  whole  country,  and  teach  only  the  vernacular.  ^"^  °°  '"'■ 
Their  extension  is  the  best  test  of  the  success  of  our  educational 
system. 

No  uniformity  prevails  in  the  primary  school-system  through-  Increase  of 
out  the  several  Provinces.  In  Bengal,  up  to  the  last  fifteen  s^^i'iooi'Jin 
years,  primary  instruction  was  neglected  ;  but  since  the  reforms  Bengal ; 
inaugurated  by  Sir  G.  Campbell  in  1872,  by  which  the  benefit 
of  the  grant-in-aid  rules  was  extended  to  i\\Q  pdthsdlds  or  road- 
side schools,  this  reproach  has  been  removed.  In  1871-72, 
the  number  of  primary  schools  under  inspection  in  Lower 
Bengal  was  only  2451,  attended  by  64,779  pupils.  By  1877-78, 
the  number  of  schools  had  risen  to  16,042,  and  the  number 
of  pupils  to  360,322,  being  an  increase  of  about  six-fold  in  six 
years.  By  March  1883,  when  Sir  G.  Campbell's  reforms  had 
received  their  full  development:  the  primary  schools  in  Bengal 
had  increased  to  63,897,  and  the  pupils  to  1,118,623,  being 
an  increase  of  over  seventeen-fold  in  the  eleven  years  ending 
1882-83.  In  1877-78,  the  expenditure  on  primary  schools 
in  Bengal  from  all  sources  was  ^£^78,000;  towards  which 
Government  contributed  only  ;£2'j,ooo,  thus  showing  how 
State  aid  stimulates  private  outlay  in  primary  education.  The 
total  expenditure  in  1882-83  was  returned  at  ;j{j3i8,68o.  This 
increase,  however,  is  more  apparent  than  real,  and  results  from 
a  large  number  of  schools  previously  private  being  brought 
under  the  inspection  of  the  Education  Department,  and 
included  in  its  financial  statements. 

The  North- Western  Provinces  owe  their  system  of  primary  m  North- 
instruction  to  their  great  Lieutenant-Governor  IMr.  Thomason,  ^^  astern 

=  '  rrovmces ; 

whose  constructive  talent  can  be  traced  m  every  branch  of  the 


4  7  8     BRITISH  AD  MIX  IS  TRA  TION  OF  INDIA. 


Bombay  ; 
in  Burma 


administration.  In  addition  to  the  tahs'iU  or  middle  scliools 
already  referred  to,  a  scheme  was  drawn  up  for  establishing 
halkahandi  or  primary  schools  in  every  central  village  (whence 
their  name),  to  which  the  children  from  the  surrounding 
hamlets  might  resort.  The  system  in  the  North  -  Western 
Provinces  has  been  developed  by  means  of  the  educational 
cess  added  to  the  land  revenue.  Sir  William  Muir,  during  his 
long  service  in  the  North-Western  Provinces,  ending  in  the 
Lieutenant-Governorship,  did  much  for  both  the  primary  and 
the  higher  education  of  the  people. 

In  Bombay,  the  primary  schools  are  mainly  supported  out  of 
local  funds  raised  by  a  cess  added  to  the  land  revenue. 

In  British  Burma,  on  the  other  hand,  primary  education  is 
still  left  to  a  great  extent  in  the  hands  of  the  Buddhist  monks, 
who  receive  little  or  no  aid  from  Government.  These 
monastic  schools  are  only  open  to  boys ;  but  there  are  also 
lay  teachers  who  admit  girls  to  mixed  classes.  The  local 
administration  shows  a  wise  disposition  to  avail  itself  of  the 
indigenous  monastic  system.  Government  has  comparatively 
few  schools  of  its  own  in  Burma,  the  deficiency  being  supplied 
by  several  missionary  bodies,  who  obtain  State  aid. 
in  Madras.  In  some  localities  of  the  ^Madras  Presidency,  also,  the 
missionaries  possess  a  practical  monopoly  of  primary  education 
at  the  present  day. 

In  1S77-78,  the  amount  of  money  expended  upon  lower  and 
primary  schools  in  British  India  was  ^406,135,  or  just  one- 
fourth  of  the  total  educational  budget.  In  1882-83,  the  total 
expenditure  on  lower  and  primary  schools  throughout  British 
India  was  ^911,121,  or  a  little  less  than  one-half  (^2,105,653) 
of  the  total  educational  expenditure  of  the  year.  Under  the 
recommendations  of  the  Education  Commission  of  1882-83,  ^'"'6 
importance  assigned  to  primary  instruction,  and  the  proportion 
of  the  public  educational  funds  devoted  to  it,  will  constantly 
tend  to  increase. 

Of  late  years  something  has  been  done,  although  not  much, 
to  extend  the  advantages  of  education  to  girls.  In  this,  as  in 
other  educational  matters,  the  missionaries  have  been  the 
pioneers  of  progress.  In  a  {Q.\i  exceptional  places,  such  as 
Tinnevelli  in  Madras,  the  Khasi  Hills  of  Assam,  and  among 
the  Karen  tribes  of  Burma,  female  education  has  made  real 
progress ;  for  in  these  localities  the  missionaries  have  sufficient 
influence  to  overcome  the  prejudices  of  the  people.  But 
elsewhere,  even  in  the  large  towns  and  among  the  English- 
speaking  classes,  all  attempts  to  give  a  modern  education  to 


Primary 

education 

finance. 


Girls' 

schools. 


FEMALE  EDUCATION.  479 

women  are  regarckd  with  scarcely  disguised  aversion,  and  have 
obtained  but  slight  success.  Efforts  were  at  one  time  made  by 
the  Bengal  Government  to  utilize  the  female  members  of  the 
Vishnuite  sects  in  female  education,  but  without  permanent 
success.  Throughout  the  North  -  Western  Provinces  and 
( )udh,  with  their  numerous  and  wealthy  cities,  and  a  total 
female  population  of  over  21  millions,  only  8999  girls  attended 
school  in  1877-78,  and  9602  in  1S82-83,  In  Lower  Bengal, 
the  corresponding  number  was  less  than  12,000  in  1877-78, 
but  had  increased  to  57,361  in  1882-83.  Madras,  British 
Burma,  and  in  a  less  degree,  Bombay  and  the  Punjab,  are 
the  only  Provinces  that  contribute  to  the  following  statistics  in 
any  tolerable  proportion  : — Total  girls'  schools  throughout 
British  India  in  1877-78,  2002;  number  of  pupils,  66,615: 
mixed  schools  for  boys  and  girls,  2955;  pupils,  90,915  :  total 
amount  expended  on  girls'  schools,;^ 7 8, 7 2 9,  of  which  ^27,000 
was  devoted  to  the  12,000  girls  of  Bengal,  The  total  number 
of  girls'  schools  in  1882-83  '"^  British  India  was  3487,  at- 
tended by  162,317  pupils.  This  branch  of  instruction  will 
now,  it  is  hoped,  receive  a  further  development  from  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  Education  Commission, 

In  1877-78,  the  normal,  technical,  and  industrial  schools  Normal 
numbered  155,  with  a  total  of  6864  students;   the  total  ex- ^"  ^,5°  1  ^"^ 
penditure   was   ;^54,26o,   or   an   average   of  under  ;^8   per  schools, 
student.     In  1882-83,  the  number  of  these  special  institutions 
was   213,  attended  by  8078  students.     Total  expenditure  in 
1S82-83,   ^^98,571,   or  an  average  of  over  ;^i2    per  head. 
Schoolmistresses,  as  well  as  schoolmasters,  are  trained ;  and 
here  also  the  missionaries  have  shown  themselves  active  in 
anticipating  a  work  which  Government  subsequently  took  up. 

Of  schools  of  art,  the  oldest  is  that  founded  by  Dr.  Schools  of 
A.  Hunter  at  Madras  in  1850,  and  taken  in  charge  by  the  '■^''* 
Education  Department  in  1856.  This  institution,  and  the  Art 
Schools  at  Calcutta  and  Bombay,  founded  on  its  model,  have 
been  successful  in  develcjping  the  industrial  capacities  of  the 
students,  and  in  training  workmen  for  public  employment.  Their 
effect  on  native  art  is  more  doubtful,  and  in  some  cases  they 
have  tended  to  supersede  native  designs  by  hybrid  European 
patterns.  Museums  have  been  established  at  the  Provincial 
capitals  and  in  other  large  towns. 

Schools  for  Europeans  have  also  attracted  the  attention  of  Schools 
Government,    Foremost  among  special  schools  are  the  asylums  ^°''  Euro- 
in  the  hills  for  the  orphans  of  British  soldiers  {e.g.  Utakamand 
and  Sanawar),  founded  in  memory  of  Sir  Henry  Lawrence. 


48o     BRITISH  ADMINISTRA  TION  OF  INDIA. 

Vernacu-  Closely  connected  with  the  subject  of  education  is  the 
steady  growth  of  the  vernacular  press,  which  is  ever  active  in 
issuing  both  newspapers  and  books.  The  missionaries  were 
the  first   to   cast  type   in   the  vernacular  languages,  and   to 

First  news-  employ  native  compositors.     The  earliest  vernacular  newspaper 

paper.  ^^^  issued  in  Bengali  by  the  Baptist  Mission  at  Serampur,  in 
1818.  For  many  years  the  vernacular  press  preserved  the 
marks  of  its  origin,  being  limited  almost  exclusively  to  theo- 

The  theo-   logical  controversy.     The  missionaries  were  encountered  with 

logical        their  own  weapons  by  the  Theistic  sect  of  the  Brahma  Samai, 

period.  *  ■'  .  •" 

and  also  by  the  orthodox  Hindus.     So  late  as  1850,  most  of 

the  vernacular  newspapers  were  still  religious  or  sectarian 
The  politi-  rather  than  political.  But  during  the  last  twenty-five  years, 
cal  period.  ^^  vernacular  press  has  gradually  risen  into  a  powerful  engine 

of  political  discussion. 
Statistics  The  number  of  newspapers  published  in  the  several  ver- 
iViuma^lsni  "^culars  is  estimated  at  250  to  300,  and  their  aggregate  sale 
at  over  250,000  copies.^  But  the  circulation  proper,  that 
is,  the  actual  number  of  readers,  is  very  much  larger.  In 
Bengal,  the  vernacular  press  suffers  from  the  competition  of 
English  newspapers,  some  of  which  are  entirely  owned  and 
written  by  natives.  In  the  North-Western  Provinces  and  Punjab, 
from  Lucknow  to  Lahore,  about  100  newspapers  are  printed 
in  Hindustani  or  Urdu,  the  vernacular  of  the  Muhamraadans 
throughout  India.  Many  of  them  are  conducted  with  con- 
siderable ability  and  enterprise,  and  may  fairly  be  described 
as  representative  of  native  opinion  in  the  large  towns.  The 
Bombay  journals  are  about  equally  divided  between  Marathi 
and  Gujarati.  Those  in  the  Marathi  language  are  charac- 
terized by  the  traditional  independence  of  the  race  of  Sivaji ; 
the  Gujarati  newspapers  are  the  organs  of  the  Parsis,  and  of 
the  trading  community  generally.  The  vernacular  newspapers 
of  Madras,  printed  in  'I'amil  and  Telugu,  are  politically  unim- 
portant, being  still  for  the  most  part  devoted  to  religion. 

As  regards  books,  or  rather  registered  publications,  in  the 
vernacular  languages.  Lower  Bengal  takes  the  lead  ;  the  Punjab, 
Bombay,  the  North-Western  Provinces,  and  Madras  follow  in 
order.  In  a  previous  chapter,  the  exact  number  of  works 
published   in  the  native  languages   of  India   in  the  various 

1  The  above  estimate  must  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  intelHgent  inquiry, 
and  not  as  an  actual  enumeration.  Steps  are  now  (1SS5)  being  taken  to 
procure  accurate  returns  of  the  vernacular  press.  But  the  ephemeral 
existence  of  many  native  newspapers,  and  other  features  of  vernacular 
journalism,  render  the  undertaking  not  free  from  difficulty. 


Books. 


INDIAN  PUBLICATIONS,   1878-83.  481 

departments  of  literature,  has  been  stated.'^  The  following 
figures  refer  to  the  years  1878  and  1882-83,  and  comprise 
the  whole  registered  publications,  both  in  the  native  lan- 
guages and  in  English.  There  is  probably  a  considerable 
number  of  minor  works  which  escape  registration. 

Total  of  registered  publications  in  1878,  4913.  Of  these,  576  Book 
were  in  English  or  European  languages,  3148  in  vernacular  st^tjft'cs, 
dialects  of  India,  516  in  the  classical  languages  of  India,  and 
673  were  bi-lingual,  or  in  more  than  one  language.  No  fewer 
than  2495  of  them  were  original  works,  2078  were  rei)ublica- 
tions,  and  340  were  translations.  Religion  engrossed  1502  of 
the  total;  poetry  and  the  drama,  779;  fiction,  182;  natural 
science,  249  ;  besides  43  works  on  philosophy  or  moral 
science.  Language  or  grammar  was  the  subject  of  612  ;  and 
law  of  no  fewer  than  249  separate  works.  History  had  only 
96  books  devoted  to  it ;  biography,  22  ;  politics,  7  ;  and  travels 
or  voyages,  2.  These  latter  numbers,  contrasted  with  the 
1502  books  on  religion,  indicate  the  working  of  the  Indian 
mind. 

In  1882-83,  the  registered  publications  numbered  6198,  of  Book 
which  655  were  in  English  or  European  languages,  4208  in  jlfolf'''^^' 
vernacular  dialects  of  India,  626  in  the  classical  languages  of 
India,  and  709  bi-lingual  or  in  more  than  one  language.  Of 
the  total  number  of  published  works  in  1882-83,  1160  were 
returned  as  educational,  and  5038  as  non-educational  works. 
Original  works  numbered  3146;  re-publications,  2547;  and 
translations,  505.  Publications  relating  to  religion  numbered 
1641  ;  poetry  and  the  drama,  1089  ;  fiction,  238  ;  natural 
and  mathematical  science,  281  ;  philosophy  and  moral  science, 
160;  history,  143;  languages,  784;  law,  338;  and  medicine, 
235.  Politics  were  represented  in  18S2-83  by  only  1 1  publica- 
tions, travels  and  voyages  by  only  4,  while  works  classed  as 
miscellaneous  numbered  1231. 

^  Ante,  chap.  iv. 


2   H 


[4S2   ] 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

AGRICULTURE    AND    PRODUCTS. 

Agricul-      Xhe   cultivation    of   the    soil    forms   the    occupation    of   the 
turc*  .  .  .  . 

Indian   people   in    a   sense   which    it    is    difficult   to   realize 

in  England.  As  the  land-tax  forms  the  mainstay  of  the 
imperial  revenue,  so  the  rdjal  or  cultivator  constitutes  the 
unit  of  the  social  system.  The  village  community  contains 
many  members  besides  the  cultivator,  but  they  all  exist  for 
his  benefit,  and  all  are  maintained  from  the  produce  of  the 
village  fields.  Even  in  considerable  towns,  the  traders  and 
handicraftsmen  frequently  possess  plots  of  land  of  their  own, 
on  which  they  raise  sufficient  grain  to  supply  their  families 
The  work  with  food.  According  to  the  returns  of  the  general  Census  of 
the\vhole  ^^7-'  ^^^  adult  males  directly  engaged  in  agriculture  amount 
people.  to  nearly  35  milHons,  or  56'2  per  cent,  of  the  total.  To 
these  must  be  added  almost  all  the  day-labourers,  who 
number  7^  million  males,  or  12*3  per  cent.  ;  thus  raising 
the  total  of  persons  directly  supported  by  cultivation  to  68"5 
per  cent.  ;  being  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  whole  adult 
males.  The  Census  of  1881  returned  a  total  of  51,274,586 
males  as  engaged  in  agriculture  throughout  British  and  Feuda- 
tory India.  Adding  to  these  7^  million  of  adult  day-labourers, 
there  is  a  total  of  upwards  of  58|-  million  persons  directly 
supported  by  cultivation,  or  72  per  cent,  of  the  whole  male 
population  engaged  in  some  specified  occupation.^  The 
number  of  persons  indirectly  connected  with  agriculture  is 
also  very  great.  The  Famine  Commissioners  estimate  that 
90  per  cent,  of  the  rural  population  live  more  or  less  by  the 
tillage  of  the  soil.  India  is,  therefore,  almost  exclusively  a 
country  of  peasant  farmers. 

'  For  reasons  fully  explained  in  the  Note  on  Indian  Statistics  in  the 
last  chapter,  the  years  ordinarily  selected  for  population  statements  are  the 
Census  years  1872  and  1881  ;  and  for  other  details,  1877-78  and  1882-83. 
The  last  year  for  which  the  final  Parliamentary  presentment  of  Indian 
returns  had  been  received  by  the  author  when  these  sheets  went  to  press 
in  the  summer  of  1885,  ended  on  31st  March  1883. 


SYSTEMS  OF  INDIAN  TIILAGE.  4S3 

The  increase  in  the  population  has,  however,  developed  a  Landless 
large  landless  class.  The  cultivated  area  no  longer  suffices  to  class, 
allow  a  plot  of  land  for  each  peasant ;  and  multitudes  now 
find  themselves  ousted  from  the  soil.  They  earn  a  poor 
livelihood  as  day-labourers  ;  and  according  to  the  Census  of 
1881,  comprise  7,248,491,  or  one-eighth  of  the  entire  adult 
male  population.  There  is  still  enough  land  in  India  for  the 
whole  people,  but  the  Indian  peasant  clings  to  his  native 
District,  however  overcrowded.  Migration  or  emigration  has 
hitherto  worked  on  too  small  a  scale  to  afford  a  solution  of 
the  difficulty. 

Agriculture  is  carried  on  in  the  different  Provinces  with  an  Various 
infinite   variety   of  detail.     Everywhere   the    same   perpetual  systems 
assiduity  is  found,  but  the  inherited  experience  of  generations  culture, 
has  taught  the  cultivators  to  adapt  their  simple  methods  to 
differing  circumstances.     The  deltaic  swamps  of  Bengal  and 
Burma,  the  dry  uplands  of  the  Karnatik,  the  black-soil  plains 
of  the  Deccan,  the  strong  clays  of  the  Punjab,  the  desert  sand 
of  Sind  or  Rajputana,  require  their  separate  modes  of  cultiva- 
tion.    In  each   case  the    Indian  peasant    has    learned,    with- 
out scientific   instruction,  to  grow   the   crops    best   suited  to 
the  soil.     His  light  plough,  which  he  may  be  seen  carrying 
a-field  on  his  shoulders,  makes  but  superficial  scratches ;  but 
what  the  furrows  lack  in  depth,  they  gain  by  repetition,  and  in 
the  end  pulverize  every  particle  of  mould.     Where  irrigation  Irrigation. 
is  necessary,  native  ingenuity  has  devised  the  means  ;  although 
in  this  as  in  other  matters  connected  with  agriculture,  a  wide 
field  remains  for  further  development  and  improvement.     The 
inundation  channels  in  Sind,  the  wells  in  the  Punjab  and  the 
Deccan,  the  tanks  in  the  Karnatik,  the  terraces  cut  on  every 
hillside,  water  at  the  present  day  a  far  larger  area  than  is  com- 
manded by  Government  canals.     Manure  is  copiously  apphed  iManure. 
to  the  more  valuable  crops,  whenever  manure  is  available ;  its 
use   being  limited   only   by  poverty   and   not   by  ignorance. 
The  scientific   rotation   of  crops  is   not   adopted   as   a  prin-  Rotation 
ciple  of  cultivation.     But  in  practice  it  is  well  known  that  a      crop^. 
succession  of  exhausting  crops  cannot  be  taken  in  consecutive 
seasons  from  the  same  field,  and  the  advantage  of  fallows  is 
widely  recognised.     A  mutation  of  crops  takes  the  place  of 
their  rotation. 

The  petite  culture  of  Indian  husbandmen  is  in  many  respects 
well  adapted  to  the  soil,  the  climate,  and  the  social  conditions 
of  the  people.  The  periodicity  of  the  seasons  usually  allows 
of  two,  and  in  some  places  of  three,  harvests  in  the  year.     For 


484  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

inexhaustible  fertility,  and  for  retentiveness  of  moisture  in  a 
dry  season,  no  soil  in  the  world  can  surpass  the  regar  or  '  black 
cotton-soil '  of  the  Deccan.  In  the  broad  river  basins,  the 
floods  annually  deposit  a  fresh  top  -  dressing  of  silt,  thus 
superseding  the  necessity  of  manures.  The  burning  sun  and 
the  heavy  rains  of  the  tropics  combine,  as  in  a  natural  forcing- 
house,  to  extract  the  utmost  from  the  soil.  A  subsequent 
section  will  deal  with  possible  improvements  in  Indian  agricul- 
ture —  improvements  now  necessary  in  order  to  support  the 
increasing  population.  As  the  means  of  communication 
improve  and  blunt  the  edge  of  local  scarcity,  India  is  pro- 
bably destined  to  compete  with  America  as  the  granary  of 
Great  Britain. 
Rice.  The  name  of  rice  has  from  time  immemorial  been  closely 

associated  with  Indian  agriculture.  The  rice-eating  population 
is  estimated  at  67  millions,  or  over  one-third  of  the  whole. ^ 
If,  however,  we  except  the  deltas  of  the  great  rivers,  and  the 
long  strip  of  land  fringing  the  coast,  rice  may  be  called  a  rare 
crop  throughout  the  remainder  of  the  peninsula.  But  where 
rice  is  grown,  it  is  in  an  almost  exclusive  sense  the  staple 
crop. 
Statistics  ^^  British  Burma,  out  of  a  total  cultivated  area  of  2,833,520 
of  rice  acres,  in  1877-78,  as  many  as  2,554,853  acres,  or  90  per 
in  different  ^ent.,  were  under  rice.  In  1882-83,  the  cultivated  area  in 
Provinces.  British  Burma  had  risen  to  3,746,279  acres,  of  which  3,380,996 
acres,  or  90  per  cent.,  were  under  rice.  Independent  Burma, 
on  the  other  hand,  grows  no  rice,  but  imports  largely  from 
British  territory.  For  Bengal,  unfortunately,  no  general 
statistics  are  available.  But  taking  Rangpur  as  a  typical 
District,  it  was  there  found  that  \\  million  acres,  out  of  a 
classified  total  of  a  little  more  than  if  million  acres,  or  88 
per  cent.,  were  devoted  to  rice.  Similar  proportions  hold  good 
for  the  Province  of  Orissa,  the  deltas  of  the  Godavari,  Kistna, 
and  Kaveri  (Cauvery),  and  the  lowlands  of  Travancore, 
Malabar,  Kanara,  and  the  Konkan.  Throughout  the  interior 
of  the  country,  except  in  Assam,  which  is  agriculturally  a 
continuation  of  the  Bengal  delta,  the  cultivation  of  rice 
occupies  but  a  subordinate  place.  In  the  North  -  Western 
Provinces  and  Oudh,  rice  is  grown  in  damp  localities,  or  with 
the  help  of  irrigation,  and  forms  a  favourite  food  for  the  upper 
classes ;  but  the  local  supply  requires  to  be  supplemented  by 
importation  from  Bengal.  In  Madras  generally,  the  area  under 
rice  in  1883  amounted  to  about  43  per  cent,  of  the  whole  food- 

1  Kcporl  of  tli€  Iinlian  famine  Commission,  part  ii.  8 1  (l8So). 


THE   VARIOUS  RICE  CROPS.  485 

grain  area.  In  Bombay  proper,  the  corresponding  proportion 
is  only  14  per  cent,,  and  in  the  outlying  Province  of  Sind, 
17  per  cent.  In  the  Central  Provinces,  the  proportion 
rises  as  high  as  55  per  cent.,  but  in  the  Punjab  it  falls  to 
3  per  cent.  In  scarcely  any  of  the  Native  States,  which 
cover  the  centre  of  the  peninsula,  is  rice  grown  to  a  large 
extent. 

Rice  is  in  fact  a  local  crop,  which  can  only  be  cultivated  Methods  of 
profitably  under  exceptional  circumstances,  although  under  ^.^tion : 
those  circumstances  it  returns  a  larger  pecuniary  yield  than 
any  other  food-grain  in  India.  According  to  the  Madras  system  i"  Madras ; 
of  classification,  rice  is  a  '  wet  crop,'  i.e.  it  demands  steady 
irrigation.  In  a  few  favoured  tracts,  the  requisite  irrigation  is 
supphed  by  local  rainfall,  but  more  commonly  by  the  periodi- 
cal overflow  of  the  rivers,  either  directly  or  indirectly  through 
artificial  channels.  It  has  been  estimated  that  rice  requires 
36  to  40  inches  of  water  in  order  to  reach  its  full  develop- 
ment. But  more  important  than  the  total  amount  of  water,  is 
the  period  over  which  that  amount  is  distributed.  While  the 
seedlings  are  in  an  early  stage  of  growth,  2  inches  of  water 
are  ample  ;  but  when  the  stem  is  strong,  high  floods  are  almost 
unable  to  drown  it.  In  some  Districts  of  Bengal,  a  long- 
stemmed  variety  of  rice  is  grown,  which  will  keep  its  head 
above  1 2  feet  of  water. 

Throughout  Bengal,  there  are  two  main  harvests  of  rice  in  in  Bengal ; 
the  year — (i)  the  dus  or  early  crop,  sown  on  comparatively 
high  lands,  during  the  spring  showers,  and  reaped  between 
July  and  September;  (2)  the  dman  or  winter  crop,  sown  in 
low-lying  lands,  from  June  to  August,  usually  transplanted, 
and  reaped  from  November  to  January.  The  latter  crop  com- 
prises the  finer  varieties,  but  the  former  is  chiefly  retained  by 
the  cultivators  for  their  own  food  supply.  Besides  these  two 
great  rice  harvests  of  the  Bengal  year,  there  are  several 
intermediate  ones  in  difterent  localities.  The  returns  from 
Rangpur  District  specify  no  fewer  than  295  distinct  varieties 
of  rice.^  The  average  out-turn  per  acre  in  Bengal  has  been 
estimated  at  15  7/iainids,  or  1200  lbs.,  of  cleaned  rice.  In 
1877-78,  when  famine  was  raging  in  Southern  India,  the 
exports  of  rice  from  Calcutta  (much  of  it  to  Madras)  amounted 
to  nearly  17  million  cwts. 

In  British  Burma,   there   is   but    a  single   harvest   in   the  in  Lurma 
year,    corresponding   to   the   dman    of    Bengal.      The   grain 

*  See  Hunter's    Statistical  Account  of  Bengal,    vol.  vii.    pp.  234-2^7 
(1876). 


486  AGRICULTURE  AXD  PRODUCTS. 

is  reddish  in  colour,  and  of  a  coarse  quality;  but  the  average 
out-turn  is  much  higher  than  in  Bengal,  reaching  in  some 
places  an  average  of  2000  and  2500  lbs.  per  acre.  In  1877-78, 
the  Burmese  export  of  rice  exceeded  13  million  cwts. ;  and  in 
1882-83  it  exceeded  2\\  million  cwts.,  of  an  estimated  aggre- 
gate value  of  over  5^  millions  sterling. 

Besides  being  practically  the  sole  crop  grown  in  the  deltaic 

swamps,  rice  is  also  cultivated  on  all  the  hills  of  India,  from 

Hill  culti-   Coorg   to  the   Himalayas.     The  hill    tribes   practise   one    of 

two  methods  of  cultivation.     They  either  cut  the  mountain 

slopes  into   terraces,    to  which    sufficient   water   is  conveyed 

by    an    ingenious    system    of  petty  canals ;   or    they  trust    to 

the   abundant   rainfall,   and  scatter  their  seeds  on   clearings 

formed   by  burning   patches   of  the  jungle.     In  both   cases, 

rice   is  the    staple   crop,  wherever  the  moisture  permits.     It 

figures  largely  in  the  nomadic  system  of  hill  cultivation. 

Areaunder      The  tables  on  the  next  page  show  the  comparative  area  under 

nee.  j-j(.g  2^j^(^  j-|^g  l-^yQ  great  other  classes  of  food-grains  for  all  India. 

But  the  figures  must  be  taken  as  only  approximate  estimates. 
Wheat.  Recent  exports  of  wheat  to  Europe  have  drawn  attention 

to  the  important   place  which  this   crop  occupies  in  Indian 
agriculture.     It  is  grown  to  some  extent  in  almost  every  Dis- 
trict.    But,  broadly  speaking,  it  may  be  said  that  wheat  does 
not  thrive  where  rice   does  ;  nor,  indeed,  anywhere  south  of 
the  Deccan.     The  great  wheat-growing  tracts  of  India  are  in 
Statistics     the  north.     The  North-Western  Provinces  in  1883  had  97  per 
ciiltiva-       cent,  of  the  food-grain  area  under  wheat,  barley,  and  millets ; 
tion.  and  about  57   per  cent,  under  wheat  alone.     In  the  Punjab, 

the  proportion  of  wheat  and  barley  is  61  per  cent.  Wheat  is 
also  largely  grown  in  Behar,  and  to  a  less  extent  in  the  western 
Districts  of  Bengal.  In  the  Central  Provinces,  wheat  covers 
a  large  proportion  of  the  food-grain  area,  being  the  chief  cereal 
in  the  Districts  of  Hoshangabad,  Narsinghpur,  and  Sagar. 
In  Bombay,  the  corresponding  proportion  was  only  15  per 
cent.,  and  in  Sind,  12  per  cent.  The  wheat  returns  vary 
from  year  to  year,  but  disclose  a  tendency  upwards.  Their 
significance  may  be  learned  from  the  fact,  that  in  Great 
Britain  the  area  under  wheat  is  only  3  miUion  acres,  or  less 
than  one-half  the  amount  in  a  single  Indian  Province,  the 
Punjab.  It  has  been  estimated  that  the  total  area  under  wheat 
in  India  is  equal  to  the  total  area  under  the  same  crop  in  the 
United  States. 
Out-turn-  Nor  is  the  out-turn  contemptible,  averaging  about  13  bushels 
^'"  ''"^^^'-  \Setiteiice  continued  on  page  488. 


THE  INDIAN  FOOD  STAPLES. 


487 


Ratio  of  Area  under  the  three  Principal  Classes 
OF  Indian  Food-Grains. 


I. 

1878. 


Ratio  of  Are.T  under 

principal 

Food-Grains 

Total 
Population 

Popu- 
lation 

Province. 

(tiritish 

eating 

Wheat  or 
Barley. 

Millets. 

Rice. 

India). 

Rice. 

Percent.    Percent. 

Per  cent. 

Millions. 

Millions. 

Punjab, 

54               41 

5 

18J 

I 

North-Western  Provinces, 

57              34 

9 

44 

4 

Bengal  and  Assam,    . 

No  figures  available. 

74 

46 

Central  Provinces, 

27 

39 

34 

9% 

3 

Berar,         .... 

17 

82 

I 

2§ 

a 

Bombay,    .... 

7 

83 

10 

i6i 

2 

Madras,      .... 

a 

67 

33 

31 

10 

Mysore 

a        1       84 

It) 

4 

I 

II. 

iS8;. 


Ratio  of  Area  under  principal 

Food-Grains. 

Total 

Popu- 

Population 

lation 

Province. 

(British 

eating 

Wheat  or 
Barley. 

Millets.       Rice. 

India). 

Rice. 

Per  cent. 

Per  cent.    Per  cent. 

Millions. 

Millions 

Punjab,       .... 

61 

36               3 

i8| 

I 

North-Western  Prov 

nces. 

97 

a                 3 

44 

4 

Bengal, 

No  figures  available. 

694 

43 

Assam, 

a 

(/ 

50 

4S 

3 

Central  Provinces, 

45 

a 

55 

9l 

3 

Berar, 

97 

a 

3 

2f 

a 

Bombay,    . 

15 

71 

14 

16^ 

2 

Madras,      . 

a 

57 

43 

3^ 

10 

Mysore, 

4 

a               96 

4 

I 

a  Where  a  column  is  left  blank,  the  separate  figures  are  not  available.    ■ 

N.B.—li  will  be  observed  that  in  the  second  table,  where  separate  figures 
are  not  available,  the  ratio  is  that  which  one  principal  class  bears  to  the 
other,  and  not  to  the  total  food-grain  area  of  the  District.  The  figures  for 
the  second  table  are  derived  from  the  Local  Administration  Reports  for 
1S83-84,  except  in  the  case  of  Berar  and  Mysore,  for  which  the  figures  are 
for  1881-82  (Mysore)  and  1882-83  (Berar).  They  are  not,  in  all  cases, 
strictly  comparable  with  the  figures  in  the  first  table,  which  were  taken 
from  the  Famine  Commissioners'  Report. 


488 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Wheat 
cultiva- 
tion. 


Sentence  continued  from  page  486.] 

per  acre  in  the  Punjab,  as  compared  with  an  average  of  15^ 
bushels  for  the  whole  of  France.  The  quality,  also,  of  the 
grain  is  high  enough  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  English  millers. 
The  price  of  Indian  wheat  in  Mark  Lane  varies  considerably 
from  year  to  year ;  the  best  qualities  averaging  somewhat 
lower  than  Australian  or  Californian  produce.  The  abolition, 
in  1873,  of  the  old  Indian  export  duty  on  wheat,  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  Indo-European  wheat -trade,  which,  since 
this  wise  lueasure,  has  attained  to  large  dimensions.  The 
low  prices  of  wheat  in  England  in  1884  gave  a  check  to  the 
trade — a  check  which  is  believed  to  be  temporary. 

According  to  the  system  of  classification  in  Upper  India, 
wheat  ranks  as  a  rabi  crop,  being  reaped  at  the  close  of  the  cold 
weather  in  April  and  May.  Wherever  possible,  it  is  irrigated  ;. 
and  the  extension  of  canals  through  the  Doab  has  largely 
contributed  to  the  substitution  of  wheat  for  inferior  cereals. 


Millets. 


Chief 
varieties. 


Statistics 
of  millet 
cultiva- 
tion ; 

in  Madras 


Taking  India  as  a  whole,  it  may  be  broadly  affirmed  that 
the  staple  food -grain  is  neither  rice  nor  wheat,  but  millet. 
Excluding  special  rice  tracts,  varieties  of  millet  are  grown 
more  extensively  than  any  other  crop,  from  Madras  in  the 
south,  at  least  as  far  as  Rajputana  in  the  north.  The  two 
most  common  kinds  are  great  millet  (Sorghum  vulgare),  known 
as  jodr  or  jaicdri  in  the  languages  derived  from  the  Sanskrit, 
:i.sjonna  in  Telugu,  and  as  cJiolani  in  Tamil ;  and  spiked  millet 
(Pennisetum  typhoideum),  called  bdjra  in  the  north  and  kambii 
in  the  south.  In  Mysore  and  the  neighbouring  Districts,  ragi 
(Eleusine  corocana),  called  ndchani  in  Bombay,  takes  the  first 
place.  According  to  the  Madras  system  of  classification,  these 
millets  all  rank  as  '  dry  crops,'  being  watered  only  by  the  local 
rainfall,  and  sown  under  either  monsoon  ;  farther  north,  they 
are  classed  with  the  khar'if  ox  autumn  harvest,  as  opposed  to 
wheat. 

The  following  statistics  show  the  importance  of  millet  culti- 
vation throughout  Southern  and  Central  India.  In  Madras, 
in  \^']^—i6,  choiani  covered  4,610,000  acres;  ragi,  1,636,000 
acres ;  varagu  or  auricalu  (Paspalum  miliaceum),  1,054,000 
acres;  kambii,  2,909,000  acres;  samai  or  millet  proper  (Pani- 
cum  frumentaceum),  1,185,000, — making  a  total  of  11,384,000 
acres  under  'dry  crops,'  being  52  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated 
area.  The  proportion  was  67  per  cent,  of  the  food-grain  area 
in  1879.  I"  18S2-83,  the  area  under  millets  and  inferior 
cereal  crops  was  returned  at  10,942,384  acres.     In  the  upland 


MILLETS;  PULSES;  OIL-SEEDS.  489 

region  of  Mysore,   the  proportion  under  'dry  crops/  chiefly  in  Mysore; 

ragi,  rises  to  77   per  cent,   of  the  cultivated  area,  or  84  per 

cent,  of  the  food-grain  area.     The  total  under  all  millets,  Jodr, 

and  bdj'ra  in  Bombay  and  Sind  may  be  taken  at  about  83  per 

cent.  ;  in  the  Central  Provinces,  39  per  cent.  ;  in  the  Punjab, 

41  per  cent. ;  and  in  the  North- Western  Provinces,  34  per  cent,  and  other 

of  the  total  food-grain  area.     It  should  be  remembered  that  I'^ovmces. 

these  figures  vary  from  year  to  year. 

Indian  corn  is  cultivated  to  a  limited  extent  in  all  parts  of  Minor 

ccrccils. 
the  country ;  barley,  in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Ganges,  through- 
out the  Punjab,  and  in  the  Himalayan  valleys  ;  oats,  only  as 
an  experimental  crop  by  Europeans.    Jodr  and  ragi,  but  not 
bdjra,  are  valuable  as  fodder  for  cattle. 

.    Pulses  of  many  sorts  form  important  staples.     In   Madras,  Pulses ; 
the  area  under  pulses  in   1875  ^^'^^   2,057,000  acres,  or  9  per  'f  1^75; 
cent. ;    in    Bombay,    about   830,000   acres ;    in   the    Punjab, 
4,000,000  acres,  or   21   per  cent.     The  area  under  pulses  in 
1882-83  ^^'^s  returned  as  under: — In  Madras,  1,955,946  acres,  and  1883. 
or  8  percent,   of  the  cultivated  area;  in  Bombay,  1,776,773 
acres,  or  over  8  per  cent.  ;  in  the  Punjab,  3,664,952  acres,  or 
15!  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated  area.     The  principal  varieties 
of  pulses   grown,   with   many   native  names,    but   generically 
known  to  Europeans  as  gram  and  ddl,  are — Cicer  arietinum, 
Phaseolus    Mungo    and    P.    radiatus,    Dolichos    biflorus,    D. 
sinensis  and  D.  Lablab,  Cajanus  indicus,  Ervum  Lens,  Lathyrus 
sativus,  and  Pisum  sativum. 

Oil-seeds  also  form  an  important  crop  in  all  parts  of  the  Oil-seeds ; 
country ;  oil  being  universally  required,  according  to  native 
custom,  for  application  to  the  person,  for  food,  and  for  lamps. 
In  recent  years,  the  cultivation  of  oil-seeds  has  received  an 
extraordinary  stimulus  owing  to  their  demand  in  Europe,  espe- 
cially in  France.  But  as  they  can  be  grown  after  rice,  etc.  as 
a  second  crop,  this  increase  has  hardly  tended  to  diminish 
the  production  of  food-grains.  The  four  chief  varieties  grown 
are  mustard  or  rape-seed,  linseed,  //'/  or  gingelly  (Sesamum), 
and  castor-oil.  Bengal  and  the  North-Western  Provinces  are 
at  present  the  chief  sources  of  supply  for  the  foreign  demand, 
but  gingelly  is  largely  exported  from  Madras,  and,  to  a  less 
extent,  from  Burma.  Area  in  1875  under  oil-seeds  —  In  in  1875  ; 
Madras,  about  1,200,000  acres,  or  nearly  6  per  cent,  of  the 
cultivated  area;  in  Bombay,  628,000  acres;  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  1,358,571  acres,  or  nearly  9  per  cent.;  in  the 
Punjab,  780,000  acres,  or  4  per  cent.  Area  under  oil-seeds 
in   1882-83 — Iri   Madras,    1,063,988  acres,   or  47   per   cent,  and  1883. 


490  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

of  the  total  cultivation  ;  in  Bombay,  1,336,385  acres,  or 
6"i  per  cent;  in  the  Central  Provinces,  1,600,225  acres,  or 
ii'3  per  cent.;  and  in  the  Punjab,  1,039.633  acres,  or  4^4 
per  cent,  of  the  area  under  cultivation.  In  the  year  1877-78, 
the  total  export  of  oil-seeds  from  India  amounted  to  12,187,020 
cuts.,  valued  at  ^7,360,284;  in  1878-79,  to  7,211,790  cwts., 
valued  at  ;^4,682,5i2;  and  in  1882-S3,  ^o  13,147,982  cwts., 
valued  at  ^,£■7, 205,924. 

Vege-  Vegetables  are  everywhere  cultivated   in  garden   plots  for 

household  use,  and  also  on  a  larger  scale  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  great  towns.  Among  favourite  native  vegetables,  the  follow- 
ing may  be  mentioned  : — The  egg-plant,  called  brinjdl  or  baigaii 
(Solanum  melongena),  potatoes,  cabbages,  cauliflower,  radishes, 
onions,  garlic,  turnips,  yams,  and  a  great  variety  of  cucur- 
bitaceous  plants,  including  Cucumis  sativus,  Cucurbita  maxima, 
Lagenaria  vulgaris,  Trichosanthes  dioica,  and  Benicasa  cerifera. 
Of  these,  potatoes,  cabbages,  and  turnips  are  of  recent  intro- 
duction. Almost  all  English  vegetables  can  be  raised  by  a 
careful  gardener.  Potatoes  thrive  best  on  the  higher  elevations, 
such  as  the  Khasi  Hills,  the  Ni'lgiris,  the  Mysore  uplands,  and 
the  slopes  of  the  Himalayas  ;  but  they  are  also  grown  on  the 
plains  and  even  in  deltaic  Districts.  They  were  first  introduced 
into  the  Khasi  Hills  in  1830.  They  now  constitute  the  prin- 
cipal crop  in  these  and  other  highland  tracts.  The  annual 
export  from  the  Khasi  Hills  to  Bengal  and  the  Calcutta  market 
is  estimated  at  considerably  over  7000  tons,  valued  at  ^,^50,000. 

Fruits.  Among  the  cultivated  fruits  are  the  following :  —  Mango 

(Mangifera  indica),  plantain  (Musa  paradisiaca),  pine-apple 
(Ananassa  sativa),  pomegranate  (Punica  Granatum),  guava 
(Psydium  Guyava),  tamarind  (Tamarindus  indica),  jack 
(Artocarpus  integrifolia),  custard-apple  (Anona  squamosa), 
fapaui  (Carica  Papaya),  shaddock  (Citrus  decumana),  and 
several  varieties  of  fig,  melon,  orange,  lime,  and  citron. 
The  mangoes  of  Bombay,  of  JMiiltan,  and  of  Maldah  in 
Bengal,  and  the  oranges  of  the  Khasi  Hills  enjoy  a  high 
reputation  ;  while  the  guavas  of  Madras  and  other  Provinces 
make  an  excellent  preserve. 

Spices.  Among  spices,  for  the  preparation  of  curry  and  other  hot 

dishes,  turmeric  and  chillies  hold  the  first  place,  and  are 
very  widely  cultivated.  Next  in  importance  come  ginger, 
coriander,  aniseed,  black  cummin,  and  fenugreek.  The  pepper 
vine  is  confined  to  the  Malabar  coast,  from  Kanara  to  Travan- 
core.  Cardamoms  are  a  valuable  crop  in  the  same  locality, 
and  also  in  the  Nepalese  Himalayas.     The/(7//  creeper  (Piper 


SPJCES;  PALMS;  SUGAR.  491 

Betle),  which  furnishes  the  'betel-leaf,'  is  grown  by  a  special 
caste  in  most  parts  of  the  country.  Its  cultivation  requires 
constant  care,  but  is  highly  remunerative.  The  areca  palm, 
which  yields  the  '  betel-nut,'  is  chiefly  grown  in  certain  favoured 
localities,  such  as  the  deltaic  Districts  of  Bengal,  the  Konkan 
of  Bombay,  and  the  highlands  of  Southern  India. 

Besides  'betel -nut'  (Areca  Catechu),  the  palms  of  India  Palms, 
include  the  cocoa-nut  (Cocos  nucifera),  the  bastard  date 
(Phoenix  sylvestris),  the  palmyra  (Borassus  flabelHformis),  and 
the  true  date  (Phoenix  dactylifera).  The  cocoa-nut,  which 
loves  a  sandy  soil  and  a  moist  climate,  is  found  in  greatest 
perfection  along  the  strip  of  coast-line  which  fringes  the  south- 
west of  the  peninsula,  where  it  ranks  next  to  rice  as  the  staple 
product.  The  bastard  date,  grown  largely  in  the  country  round 
Calcutta,  and  in  the  north-east  of  the  Madras  Presidenc)^, 
supplies  both  the  jaggery  sugar  of  commerce,  and  intoxicating 
liquor  for  local  consumption.  Spirit  is  also  distilled  from  the 
palmyra  palm  in  many  Districts,  especially  in  the  Bombay 
Presidency  and  in  the  south  of  Madras.  The  true  date  is 
almost  confined  to  Sind. 

Sugar  is  manufactured  both  from  the  sugar-cane  and  from  Sugar, 
the  bastard  date-palm.  The  best  cane  is  grown  in  the  North- 
Western  Provinces,  on  irrigated  land.  It  is  an  expensive  crop, 
requiring  much  attention,  and  not  yielding  a  return  within  the 
year.  The  profits  are  proportionately  large.  In  Bengal,  the 
manufacture  from  the  cane  has  declined  during  the  present 
century;  but  in  Jessor  District,  the  making  of  date-sugar  is 
a  thriving  and  popular  industry.^  The  preparation  of  sugar  is 
almost  everywhere  in  the  hands  of  natives;  the  exceptions 
being  a  few  large  concerns,  such  as  the  Aska  factory  in  the 
Madras  District  of  Ganjam,  the  Cossipur  factory  in  the  suburbs 
of  Calcutta,  the  Rosa  factory  at  Shahjahanpur,  and  the  Ashta- 
gram  factory  in  Mysore.  These  factories  use  sugar-cane 
instead  of  the  date  juice,  and  have  received  honourable  notice 
at  exhibitions  in  Europe. 

Cotton  holds  a  most  important  place  among  Indian  agricul-  Cotton. 

tural   products.      From    the  earliest   times,   cotton   has  been 

grown  in  sufficient  quantities  to  meet  the  local  demand ;  and 

in  the  last  century  there  was  some  slight  export  from  the 

country,    which    was    carefully   fostered    by    the    East    India 

Company.      But   the   present   importance   of  the   crop   dates  The 

from  the  crisis  in  Lancashire  caused  by  the  American  War.  :^."^^""" 

\\  ai,  io02< 

1  A  full  account  of  the  manufacture  will  be  found  in  Hunter's  Statistical 

Accottut  of  Bengal,  vol.  ii.  pp.  280-29S. 


492  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

Prior  to  iS6o,  the  exports  of  raw  cotton  from  India  used  to 
average  less  than  3  millions  sterling  a  year ;  but  after  that  year 
they  rose  by  leaps,  until  in  1S66  they  reached  the  enormous 
total  of  37  millions.  Then  came  the  crash,  caused  by  the 
restoration  of  peace  in  the  United  Sates  ;  and  the  exports 
steadily  fell  to  just  under  8  millions  in  1879.  Since  then 
the  trade  has  recovered,  and  the  total  value  of  raw  cotton 
exports  in  1882-83  amounted  to  16  millions  sterling.  The 
fact  is  that  Indian  cotton  has  a  short  staple,  and  is  inferior  to 
American  cotton  for  spinning  the  finer  qualities  of  yarn.  But 
while  the  cotton  famine  was  at  its  height,  the  cultivators  were 
intelligent  enough  to  make  the  most  of  their  opportunity. 
The  area  under  cotton  increased  enormously,  and  the  growers 
managed  to  retain  in  their  own  hands  a  fair  share  of  the  profit. 

Cotton  I'he  principal  cotton-growing  tracts  are — the  plains  of  Gujarat 

and  Kathiawar,  whence  Indian  cotton  has  received  in  the 
Liverpool  market  the  historic  names  of  Siirat  and  Dholera  ; 
the  highlands  of  the  Deccan  ;  and  the  deep  valleys  of  the 
Central  Provinces  and  Berar.  The  best  native  varieties  are 
found  in  the  Central  Provinces  and  Berar,  passing  under  the 
trade  names  of  Hinganghat  and  Amraoti.  These  varieties 
have  been  successfully  introduced  into  the  Bombay  District  of 
Khandesh.  Experiments  with  seed  from  New  Orleans  have 
been  conducted  for  several  years  past  on  the  Government 
farms  in  many  parts  of  India.  But  it  cannot  be  said  that  they 
have  resulted  in  success  except  in  the  Bombay  District  of 
Dharwar,  where  exotic  cotton  has  now  generally  supplanted 
the  indigenous  staple. 

Cotton  In  1875-76,  the  area  under  cotton  in  the  Bombay  Presidency, 

Bombav  including  Sind  and  the  Native  States,  amounted  to  4,516,587 
acres,  with  a  yield  of  2,142,835  cwts.     Of  this  total,  583,854 

in  1876;  acres,  or  13  per  cent.,  were  sown  with  exotic  cotton,  including 
seed  procured  from  the  Central  Provinces  and  also  from  New 
Orleans,  with  a  yield  of  248,767  cwts.  The  average  yield 
was  about  53  lbs.  per  acre,  the  highest  being  in  Sind  and 
Gujarat  (Guzerat),  and  the  lowest  in  the  Southern  IMaratha 
country.  In  1875-76,  the  total  exports  were  3,887,808  cwts., 
from  the  Bombay  Presidency,  including  the  produce  of  the 
Central  Provinces  and  the  Berars,  valued  at  ;^io,673,76i. 
In  1882-83,  the  total  area  under  cotton  in  the  Bombay  Presi- 

and  1S83.  dency,  including  Sind  and  the  Native  States,  was  5,698,862 
acres,  yielding  3,141,421  cwts.  of  cleaned  cotton.  Of  this 
area  796,608  acres  were  sown  with  exotic  cotton,  yielding  an 
out-turn  of  420,494  cwts.     The   exports  of  raw  cotton  from 


INDIAN  COTTON  STATISTICS.  493 

Bombay  and  Sind  in  1882-S3,  including  the  produce  of  the 
Central  Provinces  and  Berar,  were  4,996,739  cwts.,  valued  at 
^13,134,693,  besides  cotton  twist  and  yarn  and  manufactured 
piece-goods  to  the  value  of  ;^2,i83,205. 

In  1877-78,  the  area  under  cotton  in  the  Central  Provinces  Cotton 
was  837,083   acres,  or  under  6   per  cent,  of  the  total  culti- 1^,!^  r^nlj.*^'" 
vated  area,  chiefly  in  the  Districts  of  Nagpur,  ^\'ardha,  and  Provinces ; 
Raipur.      The   average   yield    was   about    59    lbs.    per   acre.  '^^S- 
The  exports  from  the  Central  Provinces  to  Bombay,  including 
re-exports  from  Berar,  were  about   300,000  cwts..   valued  at 
^^672, 000.       In    1877-78,   the   area  under  cotton  in    Berar  In  Berar. 
was  2,078,273  acres,  or  2>2  per  cent,  of  the  total  cultivated 
area,  chiefly  in  the  two  Districts  of  Akola  and  Amraoti.     The 
average  yield  was  as  high  as   67  lbs.  of  cleaned  cotton  per 
acre.     The  total  export  was  valued  at  ^2,354,946,  almost 
entirely  railway-borne.     In  1882-83,  the  area  under  cotton  in  18S3. 
the  Central  Provinces   had    decreased  to   612,687   acres,   or 
4  per  cent,  of  the  then  cultivated  area.      In  the  same  year, 
the  area  under  cotton  in  Berar  was   2,139,188  acres,  or  32 
per  cent,  of  the  cultivated  area. 

In    Madras,    the    average    area    under    cotton    is    about  In  Madras; 
1,500,000   acres,    chiefly  in  the  upland  Districts  of  Belkiry 
and   Karniil,   and  the  low   plains  of  Kistna  and  Tinnevelli. 
The   total   exports   in    1876-77   were  460,000   cwts.,   valued 
at  about  i  million  sterling.     In  1882-83,  cotton  was  grown 
on  1,456,423  acres  in  Madras.      In  the  same  year,  the  total 
value  of  the  cotton  exports  from  Madras,  raw  and  manufac- 
tured, was  ^1,898,351.     In  Lower  Bengal  the  cultivation  of  in  Bengal ; 
cottonj  seems  on  the  decline.     The  local  demand  has  to  be  met 
by  imports  from  the  North-Western  Provinces  and  the  bordering 
hill  tracts,  where  a  short-stapled  variety  of  cotton  is  extensively 
cultivated.      The   total  area  under  cotton   in  Lower  Bengal 
is  estimated  at  only  162,000  acres,  yielding  138,000  cwts.  of 
cleaned  cotton.     Of  this,  31,000  acres  are  in  Saran,  28,000  in 
the  Chittagong  Hill  Tracts,  and  20,000  in  Cuttack.  Throughout  '^  \^  ^'m- 
the  North-Western  Provinces,  and  also  in  the  Punjab,  sufticient  vinces  and 
cotton  is  grown  to  meet  the  wants  of  the  village  weavers.  Punjal). 

The  total  export  of  raw  cotton  from  Indian  ports  in  1878-79  Total 
was   2,966,569   cwts.,   valued  at  ^7,914,091,  besides  cotton  cotton 
twist  and  yarn  to  the  value  of  ;^937,698,  and  cotton  manu-  ^^^^^^  " ' 
factures  valued  at  ^^i, 644,125.     By  1882-83  the  exports  of  1878  and 
raw  cotton  from  all  Indian  ports  had  increased  to  6,170,173  '^^3- 
cwts.,  valued  at  ^16,055,758  ;  besides  cotton  twist  and  yarn 
to  the  value  of  ^1,874,464,  and  cotton  manufactures  valued 


494 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Cotton- 
cleaning. 


1S77; 


and  iSS: 


Jute. 


The  jute 
area  of 
Bengal. 


The  jute 
plant. 


Prepara- 
tion of 
tibre. 


at  ;^2,o93,i46.     Total  value  of  cotton   exports   in  1882-83, 
raw  and  manufactured,  ;/^2o,o2 3,368. 

The  cotton-mills  of  Bom.bay  will  be  treated  of  in  the  next 
chapter  under  '  [Manufactures.'  But  apart  from  weaving  and 
spinning,  the  cotton  trade  has  given  birth  to  other  industries, 
for  cleaning  the  fibre  and  pressing  it  into  bales  for  carriage. 
In  1876-77,  there  were  altogether  2506  steam  gins  for 
cleaning  cotton  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  besides  22  in 
the  Native  States.  In  addition,  there  were  130  full-presses 
worked  by  steam  power,  and  183  half-presses  worked  by 
manual  labour.  In  1882-83,  t^iere  were  altogether  2787  steam 
gins  for  cleaning  cotton  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  96  steam 
cotton  presses,  and  141  cotton  presses  worked  by  manual  labour. 
The  total  amount  of  capital  invested  in  the  cotton  industry 
in  the  Bombay  Presidency  is  estimated  at  about  ;^9oo,ooo. 
Cotton  gins  and  presses  are  also  numerous  at  the  chief  marts 
in  the  North- Western  and  Central  Provinces,  and  Berar. 

Jute  ranks  next  to  cotton  as  a  fibre  crop.  The  extension 
of  its  cultivation  has  been  equally  rapid,  but  it  is  more  limited 
in  area,  being  practically  confined  to  Northern  and  Eastern 
Bengal.  In  this  tract,  which  extends  from  Purniah  to  Goal- 
para,  for  the  most  part  north  of  the  Ganges  and  along  both 
banks  of  the  Brahmaputra,  jute  is  grown  on  almost  every 
variety  of  soil.  The  chief  characteristic  of  the  cultivation  is 
that  it  remains  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  cultivator. 
Practically  a  peasant  proprietor,  he  increases  or  diminishes  his 
cultivation  according  to  the  state  of  the  market,  and  keeps 
the  profits  in  his  own  hands.  The  demand  for  jute  in  Europe 
has  contributed  more  than  any  administrative  measure  to  raise 
the  standard  of  comfort  throughout  Eastern  Bengal. 

The  plant  that  yields  the  jute  of  commerce  is  called  pat 
or  koshta  by  the  natives,  and  belongs  to  the  family  of  mallows 
(Corchorus  olitorius  and  C.  capsularis).  It  sometimes  attains 
a  height  of  12  feet.  The  seed  is  generally  sown  in  April, 
the  favourite  soil  being  chars,  or  alluvial  sandbanks  thrown 
up  by  the  great  rivers ;  and  the  plant  is  ready  for  cutting  in 
August.  When  it  first  rises  above  the  ground,  too  much  water 
will  drown  it  ;  but  at  a  later  stage,  it  survives  heavy  floods. 
After  being  cut,  the  stalks  are  tied  up  in  bundles,  and  thrown 
into  standing  water  to  steep.  When  rotted  to  such  a  degree 
that  the  outer  coat  peels  off  easily,  the  bundles  are  taken  out 
of  the  water,  and  the  fibre  is  extracted  and  carefully  washed. 
It  now  appears  as  a  long,  soft,  and  silky  thread ;  and  all  that 
remains  to  do  is  to  make  it  up  into  bales  for  export.     The 


JUTE  STATISTICS.  495 

final  process  of  pressing  is  performed  in  steam-presses  at  the  Mechan- 
central  river  marts,  principally  at  Howrah  or  in  the  outskirts  ism  of  jute 
of  Calcutta.  The  trade  is  to  a  great  extent  in  the  hands  of 
natives.  Bepdris  or  travelling  hucksters  go  round  in  boats  to 
all  the  little  river  marts,  to  which  the  jute  has  been  brought  by 
the  cultivators.  By  their  agency  the  produce  is  conveyed  to  a 
few  great  centres  of  trade,  such  as  Sirajganj  and  Ndrainganj, 
where  it  is  transferred  to  wholesale  merchants,  who  ship  it  to 
Calcutta  by  steamer  or  large  native  boats,  according  to  the 
urgency  of  demand. 

In  1872-73,  when  speculation  was  briskest,  it  is  estimated  Jute  out- 
that  about  i  million  acres  were  under  jute,  distributed  over  16   "p"  j"."*^ 
Districts,  which  had  a  total  cultivable  area  of  23  million  acres.  1873  ; 
The   total   export    from  Calcutta   in    that  year  was   about  7 
million  cwts.,  valued  at  ^4,142,548.     In   1878-79,  the  total  1878; 
export  of  raw  jute  from  India  was  6,021,382  cwts.,  valued  at 
^3,800,426,    besides    jute    manufactures    to    the    value    of 
;^i, 098,434.     In  1882-83,  the  total  exports  of  raw  jute  from  iggj, 
Indian  ports  amounted  to   10,348,909  cwts.,  of  the  value  of 
^^5,846, 9 2 6,    besides   jute    manufactures,   principally   in   the 
shape  of  gunny-bags,  of  the  aggregate  value  of  ;^  1,487,831. 
The  total  number  of  steam  jute  mills  in  Bengal,  either  private 
property  or  owned  by  joint-stock  companies,  in  1882-83  was  18, 
affording  employment  to  41,263  persons. 

Jute  is  an  exhausting  crop  to  soils  without  river-inundation.  Aspects  to 
This   fact    is   well  known  to    the    cultivators,   who  generally  ,  ^  ,  ^" 

'  °  ^  bandman. 

allow  jute-fields  to  lie  fallow  every  third  or  fourth  year.  A 
fear  has  sometimes  been  expressed  that  the  profits  derived  from 
jute  may  have  induced  the  peasantry  to  neglect  their  grain 
crops.  But  the  apprehension  seems  to  be  groundless.  For 
the  most  part,  jute  is  grown  on  flooded  lands  which  would 
otherwise  often  lie  untilled.  It  only  covers  a  very  small 
portion  of  the  total  area,  even  of  the  jute  Districts,  say  4  per 
cent. ;  and  the  fertility  of  the  rice-fields  of  Eastern  Bengal  is 
such  that  they  could  support  a  much  denser  population  than 
at  present.  Jute,  in  short,  is  not  a  rival  of  rice ;  but  a  sub- 
sidiary crop,  from  which  the  cultivator  makes  a  certain 
additional  income  in  hard  cash. 

Indigo  is  one  of  the  oldest,  and,  until  the  introduction  of  tea-  Indigo, 
planting,  ranked  as  the  most  important,  of  the  Indian  staples 
grown  by  European  capital.     In  Bengal  proper,  its  cultivation  its  decline 
has   greatly   declined    since    the    first   half  of   this    century.  '"  Lower 
English  indigo  planters  have  forsaken  the  Districts  of  Hiigli, 
the    Twenty  -  four  Parganas,  Dacca,   Faridpur,  Rangpur,  and 


496  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

Indigo.  Pabna,  now  dotted  with  the  sites  of  ruined  old  factories.  In 
Nadiya,  Jessor,  Murshidcibad,  and  Maldah,  the  industry  is 
still  carried  on ;  but  it  has  not  recovered  from  the  depression 
and  actual  damage  caused  by  the  indigo  riots  of  i860,  and 
the  emancipation  of  the  peasantry  by  the  Land  Act  of  1S59. 
Indigo  of  a  superior  quahty  is  manufactured  in  Alidnapur, 
along  the  frontier  of  the  hill  tracts. 
Its  culti-  The  cultivation  on  the  old  scale  still  flourishes  in  Behar, 

vatiou  in  {^■Qxn  which  is  derived  one-half  of  the  total  exports  from 
Calcutta.  Complete  statistics  of  area  are  not  available,  as 
there  are  many  small  indigo  concerns  throughout  the  country 
in  native  hands.  Some  years  ago,  it  was  estimated  that  in 
Tirhut  alone  there  were  56  principal  concerns,  with  70  out- 
works, producing  annually  about  20,000  maunds  of  dye ;  in 
Saran,  30  principal  concerns  and  25  outworks,  producing  about 
12,000  maunds;  in  Champaran,  7  large  concerns,  producing 
also  12,000  maidtds}  The  Behar  Indigo  Planters'  Associa- 
tion, the  responsible  mouthpiece  of  the  Behar  indigo  interest, 
has  at  present  (1885)  73  factories  belonging  to  the  Associa- 
tion in  the  Indigo  Districts  of  Behar.  Under  these  head 
factories  there  are  220  out-factories,  most  of  them  in  charge 
of  European  assistants.  The  area  under  indigo  cultivation  in 
the  above  concerns  is  approximately  250,000  acres,  giving 
employment  to  75,900  persons,  exclusive  of  a  large  staff 
(Native  and  European)  for  management  and  supervision.  The 
estimated  outlay,  at  the  rate  of  a  little  over  ^3  per  acre,  is 
about  ^^750,000  annually  spent  in  the  Districts.^  It  has  been 
estimated  that  the  total  amount  of  money  annually  distributed 
by  the  planters  of  Behar  cannot  be  less  than  i  million  sterling, 
in  N.-W.  Across  the  border  of  Bengal,  in  the  North-Western  Provinces, 
Provinces;  indigo  is  grown  and  manufactured  to  a  considerable  extent  by 
native  cultivators.  In  the  Punjab,  also,  indigo  is  an  important 
native  crop,  especially  in  the  Districts  of  JMiiltan,  Muzaffargarh, 
in  Madras,  and  Dera  Ghdzi  Khan.  In  Madras,  the  total  area  under 
indigo  is  about  300,000  acres,  grown  and  manufactured  entirely 
by  the  natives,  chiefly  in  the  north-east  of  the  Presidency, 
extending  along  the  coast  from  Kistna  to  South  Arcot,  and 
inland  to  Karniil  and  Cuddapah. 

^   The  factory  Diaiind  o{  indigo  weighs  74  lbs.  10  oz. 

'^  The  author  takes  this  opportunity  of  thanking  Mr.  E.  Macnaght^n, 
Officiating  Secretary  to  the  Behar  Indigo  Planters'  Association,  for  tiie  fore- 
going figures,  and  for  other  vakiable  materials,  referring  to  as  late  a  period 
a=;  June  1885.  They  have,  as  far  as  possible,  been  incorporated  in  passing 
these  pages  through  the  press. 


HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  INDIGO.  497 

In  1877-78,  the  total  export  of  indigo  from  all  India  was  Indigo 
120,605   cwts.,  valued  at  ^3>494,334;  in   1878-79,    105,051  ^"^1'°"'- 
cwts.,    valued   at  _;j^2,96o,463.       In   1882-83,   the   export   of 
indigo  was  141,041  cwts.,  of  the  value  of  ;!^3,9i2,997. 

In  Bengal,  indigo  is  usually  grown  on  low-lying  lands,  with  System  of 
sandy  soil,  and  liable  to  annual  inundation  ;  in  Behar,  on  pi^3^,^i,^,T 
comparatively  high  land.  A  common  practice  is  for  the 
planter  to  obtain  from  the  zam'indar  or  landlord  a  lease  of  the 
whole  village  area  for  a  term  of  years ;  and  then  to  require  the 
rayats  or  cultivators  to  grow  indigo  on  a  certain  portion  of 
their  farms  every  year,  under  a  system  of  advances.  The 
seed,  of  which  an  excellent  kind  comes  from  Cawnpur,  is 
generally  sown  about  March ;  and  the  crop  is  ready  for  gather- 
ing by  the  beginning  of  July.  A  second  crop  is  sometimes 
obtained  in  September.  When  cut,  the  leaves  are  taken  to  the 
factory,  to  be  steeped  in  large  vats  for  about  ten  hours  until 
the  process  of  fermentation  is  completed.  The  water  is  then 
run  off  into  a  second  vat,  and  subjected  to  a  brisk  beating, 
the  effect  of  which  is  to  separate  the  particles  of  dye  and  cause 
them  to  settle  at  the  bottom.  Finally,  the  sediment  is  boiled, 
strained,  and  made  up  into  cakes  for  the  Calcutta  market. 
In  recent  years,  steam  has  been  introduced  into  the  factories 
for  two  purposes  :  to  maintain  an  equable  temperature  in  the 
vats  while  the  preliminary  process  of  fermentation  is  going  on, 
and  to  supersede  by  machinery  the  manual  labour  of  beating. 

In  the  middle  of  the  present  century,  the  abuses  connected  Indigo- 
with  indigo-planting  became  a  serious  problem  for  the  Indian  P  '^u'''"5  1  • 
Legislature.  In  some  Districts,  particularly  in  Lower  Bengal, 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Calcutta,  indigo-planting  w^as  worked 
by  a  system  of  advances  to  the  cultivators  which  plunged  them 
into  a  state  of  hopeless  hereditary  indebtedness  to  the  planters. 
The  Land  Law  of  1859  (Act  x.),  by  defining  and  improving 
the  legal  status  of  the  cultivator  throughout  Bengal,  gave  a 
death-blow  to  this  system  in  Districts  in  which  it  had  been 
abused.  The  results  on  indigo-planting  in  several  Districts 
around  Calcutta  have  been  described  in  a  previous  paragraph. 

The  system  pursued  in  Behar  had,  from  an  early  period,  in  Behar. 
been  different.  Instead  of  compelling  the  cultivator  to  give 
up  his  best  lands  to  indigo  by  the  pressure  of  hereditary  in- 
debtedness, the  Behar  planters  to  a  large  extent  obtained  lands 
of  their  own  on  lease,  or  by  purchase,  and  cultivated  at  their 
own  risk,  or  by  hired  labour.  This  system  has,  however,  its  own 
complications,  and  for  a  time  gave  rise  to  strained  relations 
between  the  planters,  the  native  landholders,  and  the  tenants. 

2  I 


498 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Behar 
Indigo 
Planters' 
Associa- 
tion. 


In  1877,  the  Government  of  Bengal  expressed  dissatisfac- 
tion at  the  condition  of  the  Indigo  Districts  of  Behar,  and 
proposed  to  issue  a  Commission  of  Inquiry.  A  responsible 
Association  was,  however,  formed  by  the  planters  themselves, 
in  communication  with  the  Bengal  Government,  to  readjust, 
as  far  as  necessary,  the  relations  between  the  planters,  native 
landholders,  and  cultivators.  The  Association  thus  formed 
has  been  productive  of  much  good,  both  by  preventing  the 
occurrence  of  disputes,  and  by  arbitrating  between  the  parties 
when  disputes  arise.  In  i88r,  the  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
Bengal  publicly  thanked  the  Association  for  its  '  most  cordial 
and  loyal  co-operation  in  correcting  the  abuses  which  he  had 
occasion  to  mention  in  1877.'  The  Annual  Reports  from 
the  District  Officers  since  that  year  have  been  satisfactory. 
During  1884,  the  Secretary  to  the  Association  stated  that 
every  dispute  referred  to  the  Association  had  been  amicably 
adjusted.  The  relations  between  capital  and  labour  and  land 
in  overcrowded  tracts,  almost  entirely  dependent  on  the  local 
crops  raised,  are,  however,  always  apt  to  be  strained. 

The  opium  of  commerce  is  grown  and  manufactured  in  two 
special  tracts:  (i)  the  valley  of  the  Ganges  round  Patna  and 
Benares;  and  (2) a  fertile  table-land  in  Central  India,  correspond- 
ing to  the  old  kingdom  of  Malwa,  for  the  most  part  still  under 
the  rule  of  native  chiefs,  among  whom  Sindhia  and  Holkar  rank 
first.  In  Mdlwci,  the  cultivation  of  poppy  is  free,  and  the  duty 
is  levied  as  the  opium  passes  through  the  British  Presidency  of 
Bombay  ;  in  Bengal,  the  cultivation  is  a  Government  monopoly. 
Opium  is  also  grown  for  local  consumption  throughout  Raj- 
putana,  and  to  a  very  limited  extent  in  the  Punjab  and 
the  Central  Provinces.  Throughout  the  rest  of  India  it  is 
absolutely  prohibited.  In  the  Ganges  valley,  the  cultivation 
is  supervised  from  two  agencies,  with  their  head-quarters  at 
Patna  and  Ghazipur,  at  which  two  towns  alone  the  manufocture 
is  conducted. 

In  the  year  1S72,  the  Bengal  area  under  poppy  was 
560,000  acres ;  the  number  of  chests  of  opium  sold  was 
42,675;  the  sum  realized  was  /^6,o6j,'joi,  giving  a  net 
revenue  of  ;z^4,259,376.  The  whole  of  this  was  exported 
from  Calcutta  to  China  and  the  Straits  Settlements.  In 
and  1SS3.  1882-83,  the  number  of  chests  of  Bengal  opium  sold  was 
56,400,  the  sum  realized  was  ;^7, 103,925,  the  net  revenue 
being  ;^4,82i,7i2.  The  amount  of  opium  exported  from 
Bombay  raises  the  average  exports  of  opium  to  about  11  or  12 
millions  sterling,  of  which  about  7  or  8  millions  represents  net 
profit  to  Government.     In  1878-79,  91,200  chests  of  opium 


Opium, 


in  Bengal 

and 

Malwa. 

in  Raj- 
iiutana. 


Bengal 
out-turn  ; 

1872; 


OPIUM  MANUFACTURE.  499 

were  exported  from  India,  of  the  value  of  ;!^i  2,993,985,  of  Total 
which  ;,^7, 7 00,000  represented  the  net  profit  to  Government,  out-turn. 
In  1882-83,  91,798  chests  of  Bengal  and  Malwa  opium  were 
exported,  of  the  value  of  p^i  1,481,379,  of  which  ;^7, 216,778 
represented  the  net  profit  to  Government. 

Under  the  Bengal  system,  annual  engagements  are  entered  Bengal 
into  by  the  cultivators  to  sow  a  certain  quantity  of  land  with  g|g\^^J^, . 
poppy ;  and  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  that  they  may  engage 
or  refuse  to  engage,  as  they  please.    As  with  most  other  Indian 
industries,  a    pecuniary   advance   is   made   to   the   cultivator  advances, 
before    he  commences    operations,  to  be  deducted  when    he 
delivers  over  the  opium  at  the  subordinate  agencies.     He  is 
compelled  to  make  over  his  whole  produce,  being  paid  at  a  fixed 
rate,  according  to  quality.     The  best  soil  for  poppy  is  high  land 
which  can  be  easily  manured  and  irrigated.     The  cultivation 
requires  much  attention  throughout.     From  the  commencement  cultiva- 
of  the  rains  in  June  until  October,  the  ground  is  prepared  by        ' 
repeated  ploughing,  weeding,  and  manuring.    The  seed  is  sown 
in  the  first  fortnight  of  November,  and  several  waterings  are 
necessary  before  the  plant  reaches  maturity  in  February. 

After  the  plant  has  flowered,  the  first  process  is  to  remove  manuTac- 
the  petals,  which  are  preserved,  to  be  used  afterwards  as  ^^^^^' 
coverings  for  the  opium-cakes.  The  juice  is  then  collected 
during  the  month  of  March,  by  scarifying  the  capsules  in 
the  afternoon  with  an  iron  instrument,  and  scraping  off  the 
exudation  next  morning.  The  quality  of  the  drug  mainly 
depends  upon  the  skill  with  which  this  operation  is  performed. 
In  the  beginning  of  April,  the  cultivators  bring  in  their  opium 
to  the  subordinate  agencies,  where  it  is  examined  and  weighed, 
and  the  accounts  are  settled.  The  final  process  of  preparing 
the  drug  in  balls  for  the  Chinese  market  is  conducted  at  the 
two  central  agencies  at  Patna  and  Ghazipur.  This  generally 
lasts  until  the  end  of  July,  but  the  balls  are  not  dry  enough 
to  be  packed  in  chests  until  October. 

Tobacco  is  grown  in  every  District  of  India  for  local  con-  Tobacco 
sumption.    The  soil  and  climate  are  favourable  ;  but  the  quality 
of  native  cured  tobacco  is  so  inferior,  as  to  scarcely  find  a 
market  in  Europe.     The  principal  tobacco-growing  tracts  are  Chief 
.  Rangpur  and  Tirhut  in  Bengal,  Kaira  in  Bombay,  the  delta  of  tobacco 
the  Godavari,  and  Coimbatore  and  Madura  Districts  in  Madras. 
The  two  last-mentioned  Districts  supply  the  raw  material  for  the 
well-known  'Trichinopoli  cheroot,'  almost   the    only  form  of 
Indian  tobacco  that  finds  favour  with  Europeans  ;  the  produce 
of  the  Idnkds  or  alluvial  islands  in  the  Godavari  is  manufactured 
into  'Coconadas.'     The  tobacco  of  Northern  Bengal  is  largely 


Soo 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Tobacco 
trade ; 

1S77; 


and  iSS" 


Tohacco- 
curins:. 


Uncer- 
tainty of 
Indian 
crop 
statistics. 


exported  to  British  Burma ;  for  the  Burmese,  who  are  great 
smokers,  do  not  grow  sufficient  for  their  own  needs.  The 
manufacture  of  tobacco  in  Madras,  Burma,  and  Bengal,  is  now 
making  progress  under  European  supervision,  and  promises  to 
supply  an  important  new  staple  in  the  exports  of  India. 

In  1876-77,  the  total  registered  imports  of  tobacco  into  Cal- 
cutta from  the  inland  Districts  were  521,700  w<7//;/^5',  valued  at 
^^261, 000,  of  which  more  than  half  came  from  the  single  District 
of  Rangpur.  Tobacco  is  also  grown  for  export  in  the  Chitta- 
gong  Hill  Tracts.  The  tobacco  of  Tirhut  is  chiefly  exported 
towards  the  west.  The  total  area  under  tobacco  in  that  District 
is  estimated  at  40,000  acres,  the  best  quality  being  grown  in 
pargand  Saressa  of  the  Tdjpur  Sub-division.  In  1882-83,  the 
imports  of  tobacco  from  the  inland  Districts  into  Calcutta  were 
650,583  mauiids,  of  an  estimated  value  of  ^540,601. 

During  the  past  ten  years,  a  private  firm,  backed  by  Govern- 
ment support,  has  been  growing  tobacco  in  Northern  India, 
and  manufacturing  it  for  the  European  market.  The  scene  of 
its  operations  is  two  abandoned  stud-farms,  at  Ghazipur  in  the 
North-Western  Provinces,  and  at  Pusa  in  Tirhut  District, 
Bengal.  In  1878-79,  about  240  acres  were  cultivated  with 
tobacco,  the  total  crop  being  about  160,000  lbs.  Five  English 
or  American  curers  were  employed.  Some  of  the  produce  was 
exported  to  England  as  'cured  leaf;'  but  the  larger  part  was 
put  upon  the  Indian  market  in  the  form  of  'manufactured 
smoking  mixture.'  This  mixture  is  in  demand  at  regimental 
messes  and  canteens,  and  has  also  found  its  way  to  Australia. 
The  enterprise  may  now  be  said  to  have  passed  beyond  the 
stage  of  experiment.  An  essential  condition  of  success  is 
skilled  supervision  in  the  delicate  process  of  tobacco-curing. 
Tobacco  to  the  value  of  ;^i  28,330  was  exported  from  India 
in  1878-79,  and  to  the  value  of  p/^i  17,156  in  1882-83. 

Before  proceeding  to  crops  of  a  special  character,  such  as 
coffee,  tea,  and  cinchona,  it  may  be  well  to  give  a  general  view 
of  the  area  covered  by  the  staples  of  Indian  agriculture.  The 
table  on  the  opposite  page  must  be  taken  as  approximate  only. 
It  represents,  however,  the  best  information  available  (1882-83). 
Its  figures  show  various  changes  from  the  estimates  in  1875, 
incorporated  in  some  of  the  foregoing  paragraphs.  But  it  is 
necessary  to  warn  the  reader,  that  Indian  agricultural  returns 
do  not  always  stand  the  test  of  statistical  analysis.  In  most 
cases  the  local  returns  have  to  be  accepted  without  the  possi- 
bility of  verification  ;  alike  in  the  preceding  pages,  and  in  this 
tabular  statement.  Steps  are  now  being  taken  to  secure  a 
higher  degree  of  trustworthiness  in  such  returns. 


INDIAN  CROP  STATISTICS. 


501 


>■ 
o 

Ph 

S 


0 

« 

u 

hJ 

rr< 

<; 

00 

u. 

1 

00 
00 

p< 

'^ 

d- 

Q 

rr 

< 

< 

< 


t-.       r^       0\ 


co" 

^ 

„- 

i/i 

fn 

VO 

00 

-T 

•" 

0 

" 

*- 

- 

0 

0 

0 

0 

Q 

0 

0 

0 

0 

^ 

0 

0 

t^ 

v)^ 

" 

^ 

0 

g 

N 

"^ 

" 

^ 

«  ^ 


502 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Coffee 
area. 


Introduc- 
tion into 
India. 


Coffee.  The  cultivation    of  coffee   is   confined   to  Southern  India, 

although  attempts  have  been  made  to  introduce  the  plant 
both  into  British  Burma  and  into  the  Bengal  District  of 
Chittagong.  The  coffee  tract  may  be  described  as  a  section 
of  the  landward  slope  of  the  Western  Ghats,  extending  from 
Kanara  in  the  north  to  Travancore  in  the  extreme  south. 
This  tract  includes  almost  the  whole  of  Coorg,  the  Districts  of 
Kadur  and  Hassan  in  Mysore,  and  the  Ni'lgiri  Hills  enlarged 
by  the  recent  annexation  of  the  Wainad.  Within  the  last 
few  years,  the  cultivation  has  extended  to  the  Shevaroy  Hills  in 
Salem  District,  and  to  the  Palni  Hills  in  jSIadura. 

Unlike  tea,  coffee  was  not  introduced  into  India  by  European 
enterprise;  and  even  to  the  present  day  its  cultivation  is 
largely  conducted  by  natives.  The  Malabar  coast  has  always 
enjoyed  a  direct  commerce  with  Arabia,  and  yielded  many 
converts  to  Islam.  One  of  these  converts,  Baba  Budan,  is  said 
to  have  gone  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  and  to  have  brought 
back  with  him  the  coffee  berry,  which  he  planted  on  the  hill 
range  in  Mysore  still  called  after  his  name.  According  to  local 
tradition,  this  introduction  of  the  berry  happened  about  two 
centuries  ago.  The  shrubs  thus  sown  lived  on,  but  the  cultiva- 
tion did  not  spread  until  the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 
The  State  of  Mysore  and  the  Baba  Budan  range  also 
witnessed  the  first  opening  of  a  coffee-garden  by  an  English 
planter  about  forty-five  years  ago.  The  success  of  this 
experiment  led  to  the  extension  of  coffee  cultivation  into 
the  neighbouring  tract  of  Manjarabad,  also  in  Mysore,  and 
into  the  Wainad  Sub-division  of  the  Madras  District  of 
Malabar.  From  1840  to  1S60,  the  enterprise  made  slow 
progress ;  but  since  the  latter  date,  it  has  spread  with 
great  rapidity  along  the  whole  line  of  the  Western  Ghats, 
clearing  away  the  primeval  forest,  and  opening  a  new  era  of 
prosperity  to  the  labouring  classes. 

The  following  statistics  relate  to  the  years  1878  and 
1882.  In  1877-78,  there  were  under  coffee — in  Mysore, 
128,438  acres,  almost  confined  to  the  two  Districts  of  Hassan 
and  Kadur;  in  Madras,  58,988  acres,  chiefly  in  Malabar,  the 
Nilgiris,  and  Salem;  in  Coorg,  45,150  acres:  total,  232,576 
acres,  exclusive  of  Travancore.  In  1881-82,  the  latest  year 
for  which  statistics  are  available  for  Mysore,  the  total  area 
under  coffee  cultivation  in  that  State  was  159,165  acres;  in 
Madras  (in  1882-83),  61,481  acres;  andin  Coorg,  48,150  acres. 
The  average  out-turn  is  estimated  at  about  5  or  6  cwts.  per 

Exports,     acre  of  mature  plant.    The  total  Indian  exports  (from  Madras) 


Its  pro- 
gress, 
1840-60. 


Coffee 

statistics, 

1878-S2 


COFFEE  CULTIVATION.  503 

in  1877-78  were  33,399.352   lbs.,  valued  at  ^i, 355, 643.  of  Coffee 
which  about  one-half  was  consigned  to  the  United  Kingdom.  ^^^^  ^' 
In  1878-79,  the  exports  amounted  to  38,336,000  lbs.,  valued 
at    ;2^r,548,48i.      In     1882-83,    the    exports    amounted    to  to  1883. 
40,768,896    lbs.,    but    the   value   had   slightly   decreased    to 
;^i, 419,131.     The  decrease  in  value  was  mainly  due  to  a  fall 
in  prices  in  London,  owing  to  an  overstocked  market.     Nearly 
two-thirds  of  the  coffee  exports  in  1882-83  were  to  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  over  one-fourth  to  France. 

Considerable  judgment  is  required  to  select  a  suitable  site  Sites  for 
for  a  coffee-garden,  for  the  shrub  will  only  thrive  under  special  „j^j.jg,",g . 
circumstances,  which  it  is  not  very  easy  to  anticipate  before- 
hand.    It  is  essential  that  the  spot  should  be  sheltered  from 
.the  full  force  of  the  monsoon,  and  that  the  rainfall,  though 
ample,  should  not  be  excessive.     The  most  desirable  elevation  elevation 
is  between  2500  and  3500  feet  above  sea-level.     The  climate 
must  be  warm  and  damp,  conditions  which  are  not  conducive 
to  the  health  of  Europeans.     Almost  any  kind  of  forest  land 
will  do,   but  the  deeper   the    upper  stratum  of  decomposed 
vegetable  matter  the  better. 

The  site  chosen  for  a  garden  is  first  cleared  with  the  axe,  clearing ; 
of  jungle  and  undergrowth,  but  sufficient  tiiriber-trees  should 
be  left  to  furnish  shade.  In  the  month  of  December,  the 
berries  are  sown  in  a  nursery,  which  has  previously  been 
dug,  manured,  weeded,  and  watered  as  carefully  as  a  garden. 
Between  June  and  August,  the  seedlings  are  planted  out  in 
pits  dug  in  prepared  ground  at  regular  intervals ;  an  operation  cultiva- 
which  demands  the  utmost  carefulness  in  order  that  the  roots  "°" ' 
may  not  be  injured.  In  the  first  year,  weeding  only  is 
required ;  in  the  second  year,  the  shrubs  are  '  topped,'  to  keep 
them  at  an  average  height  of  about  three  feet ;  in  the  third 
year  they  commence  to  bear,  but  it  is  not  until  the  seventh 
or  eighth  year  that  the  planter  is  rewarded  by  a  full  crop. 
The  season  for  blossoming  is  March  and  April,  when  the 
entire  shrub  burgeons  in  a  snowy  expanse  of  flower,  with  a 
most  delicate  fragrance.  Gentle  showers  or  heavy  mists  at 
this  season  contribute  greatly  to  the  fecundity  of  the  blossoms. 

The  crop  ripens  in  October  and  November.  The  berries  picking ; 
are  picked  by  hand,  and  collected  in  baskets  to  be  '  pulped  '  on  pulping  ; 
the  spot.  This  operation  is  performed  by  means  of  a  revolving 
iron  cylinder,  fixed  against  a  breastwork  at  such  an  interval  that 
only  the  '  beans  '  proper  pass  through,  while  the  husks  are 
rejected.  The  beans  are  then  left  to  ferment  for  about  twenty- 
four   hours,   when   their   saccharine   covering   is  washed   off. 


504 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Coffee  ; 


peeling. 


Tea. 


Home  of 
the  tea- 
plant, 
Assam. 


niscovercd 
1826. 


State  ex- 
periments, 
1834-49. 


Private 
Com- 
panies, 
1839-51. 


After  drying  in  the  sun  for  six  or  eight  days,  they  are  ready  to 
be  put  in  bags  and  despatched  from  the  garden.  But  before 
being  shipped,  they  have  yet  to  be  prepared  for  the  home 
market.  This  is  done  at  large  coffee-works,  to  be  found  at  the 
western  ports  and  in  the  interior  of  Mysore.  The  berries  are 
here  '  peeled  '  in  an  iron  trough  by  broad  iron  wheels,  worked 
by  steam  power ;  and  afterwards  '  winnowed,'  graded,  and 
sorted  for  the  market. 

The  cultivation  of  tea  in  India  commenced  within  the 
memory  of  men  still  living,  and  the  industry  now  surpasses 
even  indigo  as  a  field  for  European  capital.  Unlike  coffee- 
planting,  the  enterprise  owes  its  origin  to  the  initiation  of 
Government,  and  it  was  slow  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
natives.  Early  travellers  reported  that  the  tea-plant  was  in- 
digenous to  the  southern  valleys  of  the  Himalayas  ;  but  they 
were  mistaken  in  the  identity  of  the  shrub,  which  was  the 
Osyris  nepalensis.  The  real  tea  (Thea  viridis),  a  plant  akin 
to  the  camellia,  grows  wild  in  Assam,  being  commonly  found 
throughout  the  hill  tracts  between  the  valleys  of  the  Brahma- 
putra and  the  Barak.  It  there  sometimes  attains  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  large  tree  ;  and  from  this,  as  well  as  from  other 
indications,  it  has  been  plausibly  inferred  that  Assam  is  the 
real  home  of  the  plant,  which  was  thence  introduced  at  a 
prehistoric  date  into  China. 

The  discovery  of  the  tea-plant  growing  wild  in  Assam  is 
generally  attributed  to  two  brothers  named  Bruce,  who  brought 
back  specimens  of  the  plant  and  the  seed,  after  the  conquest 
of  the  Province  from  the  Burmese  in  1826.  In  January  1834, 
under  the  Governor-Generalship  of  Lord  William  Bentinck,  a 
committee  was  appointed  '  for  the  purpose  of  submitting  a 
plan  for  the  introduction  of  tea-culture  into  India.'  In  the 
following  year,  plants  and  seed  were  brought  from  China,  and 
widely  distributed  throughout  the  country.  Government  itself 
undertook  the  formation  of  experimental  plantations  in  Upper 
Assam,  and  in  the  sub-Himalayan  Districts  of  Kumaun  and 
Garhwal  in  the  North-Western  Provinces.  A  party  of  skilled 
manufacturers  was  brought  from  China,  and  the  leaf  which  they 
prepared  was  favourably  reported  upon  in  the  London  market. 
Forthwith  private  speculation  took  up  the  enterprise. 

The  Assam  Tea  Company,  still  the  largest,  was  formed  in 
1839,  and  received  from  the  Government  an  extensive  grant 
of  land,  with  the  nurseries  which  had  been  already  laid  out.  In 
Kumaun,  retired  members  of  the  civil  and  military  services 
came  forward  with  equal  eagerness.     Many  fundamental  mis- 


HISTORY  OF  INDIAN  TEA-PIANTING.     505 

takes  as  to  site,  soil,  and  methods  of  manufacture  were  made 
in  those  early  days,  and  bitter  disappointment  was  the  chief 
result.  But  while  private  enterprises  languished,  Government 
steadily  persevered.  It  retained  a  portion  of  its  Assam 
gardens  in  its  own  hands  until  1849,  when  the  Assam  Com- 
pany began  to  emerge  from  their  difficulties.  Government 
also  carried  on  the  business  at  Kumaun,  under  the  able 
management  of  Dr.  Jameson,  as  late  as  1855. 

The    real    progress    of    tea-planting   on   a   great   scale   in  Rapid 
Assam  dates  from  about  185 1,  and  was  greatly  assisted  by  the  P™g^<^ss, 
l)romulgation  of  the  Waste-Land  Rules  of  1854.      By  1859 
there  were  already  51  gardens  in  existence,  owned  by  private 
individuals ;  and  the  enterprise  had  extended  from  its  original 
head-quarters  in  Lakhimpur  and  Sibsagar  as  far  down  the  Brah- 
maputra as  Kamriip.     In  1856  the  tea-plant  was  discovered 
wild  in  the  District  of  Cachar  in  the  Barak  valley,  and  Euro-  Cadiar. 
])ean  capital  was  at  once  directed  to  that  quarter.     At  about 
the  same  time,  tea-planting  was  introduced  into  the  neighbour- 
liood  of  the  Himalayan  sanitarium  of  Darji'ling,  among  the  Ddijiling. 
Sikkim  Himalayas. 

The    success    of    these    undertakings    engendered   a   wild 
spirit   of  speculation   in   tea   companies,  both  in  India  and 
at  home,  which  reached  its  climax  in    1865.     The  industry  Crisis  of 
recovered  but  slowly  from  the  effects  of  the  disastrous  crisis,  '^^5- 
and  did  not  again  reach  a  stable  position  until  1869.     Since 
that  date  it  has  rapidly  but  steadily  progressed,  and  has  been 
ever  opening  new  fields  of  enterprise.     At  the  head  of  the  Bay  Subse- 
of  Bengal  in  Chittagong  District,  side  by  side  with  coffee  on  ^^^^^y 
the  Nilgiri  Hills,  on  the  forest-clad  slopes  of  Chutia  Nagpur, 
amid  the  low-lying  jungle  of  the  Bhutan  Dwars,  and  even  in 
Arakan,  the  energetic  pioneers  of  tea-planting  have  established 
their  industry.    Different  degrees  of  success  may  have  rewarded 
them,  but   in   few  cases  have  they  abandoned   the   struggle. 
The  market  for  Indian  tea  is  practically  inexhaustible.     There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  all  the  suitable  localities  have 
yet  been  tried ;  and  we  may  look  forward  to  the  day  when 
India  will  not  only  rival,  but  supersede,  China  in  her  staple 
product. 

The  total  exports  of  tea  in  1877-78   from   British   Indian  Statistics 
ports  amounted  to  33J  million  lbs.,  valued  at  a  little  over  3  ^'Indian 
millions    sterling.     During  the    next   five   years   the   exports  1877-7S  lo 
had    risen   to    58^   million    lbs.    in    1882-83,   valued   at   3I  1882-83. 
millions  sterling.     The  detailed  figures  for  all  India,  including 
exports  across   the  frontier  by  land,  will  be  presently  given. 


5o6 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Provincial 
statistics 
of  tea, 
1878. 

Assam. 
Benrjal. 


N.-W. 

Provinces. 


Punjab. 


Madras. 


Provincial 
statistics 

(if  tea, 
18S2-81. 


Assam. 


The  progress  of  the  tea  industry  in  the  various  Provinces 
may  best  be  illustrated  by  a  review  of  the  statistics  of  the 
production  in  the  two  years  1877-78  and  1882-83. 

In  1S77-S8,  the  total  area  taken  up  for  tea  in  Assam, 
including  both  the  Brahmaputra  and  the  Barak  valleys,  was 
736,082  acres,  of  which  538,961  acres  were  fit  for  cultivation  ; 
the  total  number  of  separate  estates  was  1718  ;  the  total  out- 
turn was  23,352,298  lbs.,  at  the  average  rate  of  286  lbs.  per 
acre  under  mature  plant.  In  Bengal,  the  area  taken  up  was 
62,642  acres,  of  which  20,462  acres  were  under  mature  plant, 
including  18,120  acres  in  the  single  District  of  Darjiling; 
the  number  of  gardens  was  221;  the  out-turn  was  5,768,654 
lbs.,  at  the  rate  of  282  lbs.  per  acre  under  mature  plant. 
In  the  North -Western  Provinces  there  were,  in  1876,  25 
estates  in  the  Districts  of  Kumaun  and  Garhwal,  with  an 
out-turn  of  578,000  lbs.,  of  which  350,000  lbs.  were  sold  in 
India  to  Central  Asian  merchants;  and  in  1871,  19  estates  in 
Dehra  Diin,  with  2024  acres  under  tea,  and  an  out-turn  of 
297,828  lbs.  In  the  Punjab  there  were,  in  1878,  10,046 
acres  under  tea,  almost  entirely  confined  to  Kangra  District, 
with  an  out-turn  of  1,113,106  lbs.,  or  in  lbs.  per  acre.  In 
Madras,  the  area  under  tea  on  the  Nilgiris  was  3160  acres; 
the  exports  from  the  Presidency  were  183,178  lbs.,  valued  at 

In  1882-83,  the  area  actually  under  cultivation  in  Assam 
was  178,851  acres,  of  which  156,707  acres  were  under  mature, 
and  22,144  acres  under  immature  plant.  Besides  the  area 
already  occupied  with  tea,  some  600,000  acres  have  been 
taken  up  for  plantation  purposes,  and  immense  tracts  yet  un- 
touched are  still  available.  The  present  (1884)  depressed 
state  of  the  tea  market,  due,  it  is  said,  to  over-production  and 
attention  to  quantity  rather  than  to  quality,  has,  however, 
for  the  present  checked  the  further  appropriation  of  land  for 
tea.  The  total  out-turn  from  10 17  tea  estates  in  Assam  in 
1882-83  is  returned  at  45,472,941  lbs.,  of  which  28,089,805 
lbs.  were  manufactured  in  the  Brahmaputra  valley  or  Assam 
proper,  and  17,383,136  lbs.  in  the  Surma  valley  Districts  of 
Cachar  and  Sylhet.  Average  out-turn,  290  lbs.  per  acre  of 
mature  plant.  The  figures  given  above  for  1882-83  show  a 
larger  area  under  plant,  and  a  very  considerable  increase 
in  out-turn,  over  that  of  any  previous  year.  Approximate 
value  of  tea  exports  from  Assam  into  Bengal,  ;^2,232,524. 
In  Bengal  the  area  under  tea  cultivation  in  1882-83  was 
48,091  acres,  of  which  36,079  acres  were  under  mature,  and 


INDIAN  TEA  STATISTICS,  1878-83.  507 

12,012  acres  under  immature  plant.  There  were  also  46,093  Bengal. 
acres  taken  up  for  tea,  but  not  actually  under  plant.  The 
total  number  of  plantations  was  300,  with  an  out-turn  of 
11,170,564  lbs.,  being  at  the  rate  of  309  lbs.  per  acre  of 
mature  plant.  More  than  three-fourths  of  the  Bengal  tea 
come  from  Darjiling  and  Jalpaiguri  Districts,  on  the  lower 
slopes  or  submontane  tracts  of  the  Himalayas.  The  cultiva- 
tion, however,  is  rapidly  extending  in  other  localities,  as  in 
Chittagong,  on  the  east  coast  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  and  in  the 
elevated  plateau  of  Chutia  Nagpur.  In  the  Punjab,  out  of  Punjab. 
11,058  acres  under  tea  in  1882-83,  "o  fewer  than  10,075  acres 
were  in  Kangra  District.  The  total  out-turn  in  1882-83  is 
not  returned,  but  may  be  estimated  at  about  a  million  lbs. 
In  Madras,  5337  acres  were  under  tea  in  1882-83,  but  the  Madras. 
out-turn  is  not  stated,  although  the  exports  amounted  to 
309,548  lbs.,  valued  at  ^{^32,905. 

The  following  figures  exhibit  the  exports  of  tea  in  1878  and  Tea 
1883.     In  1877-78,  the  total  export  of  tea  by  sea  from  British  j'^yg'^j^^^'j 
India  amounted  to  33,656,715  lbs.,  valued  at  ;^3,o6i,867.     In  1883. 
1882-83  the  iimount  was  58,233,345  lbs.,  valued  at  ^3,738,842. 
With  the  exception  of  Madras,  which  exported  309,548  lbs.  of 
tea  in  1882,  valued  at  ;^32,9o5,  and  Chittagong,  at  which  an 
export   trade  in   tea   has   sprung   up,    the   whole   exports  of 
Indian  tea  are  shipped  from  Calcutta.     The  bulk  of  the  tea 
goes  to  the  United  Kingdom,  which  absorbed  53,415,603  lbs., 
valued  at  ;^3,389,4o6,  from  Bengal  in  1882-83.    The  Calcutta 
Tea    Syndicate,    established   a    few   years   ago   with   a   view 
to  opening  new  markets   for  Indian   tea,  has   succeeded  in 
establishing  a  firm,  and  it  is  hoped  an  increasing  trade  in  tea 
with  the  Australian  colonies  and  the  United  States.    Exports  to 
Australia,  which  in  1881-82  amounted  to  871,913  lbs.,  valued 
at  ;j^63,404,  were  forced  up  in    1882-83   to   2,713,268  lbs., 
valued  at  ;^i  7  7, 1 6 7.    Similarly,  the  exports  to  the  United  States 
increased  from  195,686  lbs.,  valued  at  ^^14,675  in   1881-82, 
to  671,264  lbs.,  valued  at  ^50,988  in  1882-83.     The  effect 
of  this  sudden  expansion  of  trade,  however,  was  to  temporarily 
overstock  the  market,  and  shipments  in  some  cases  resulted 
in  a  loss.     The  trans-frontier  export  from  the   Punjab  into 
Central  Asia  has   steadily  decreased  of  late   years  ;  and  in 
1882-83,  the  exports  of  Indian  tea  across  the  Punjab  frontier 
was   only   488,200   lbs.,  valued   at   ;^29,924,  as  against   an 
export  of  1,217,840  lbs.,  valued  at  ^181,634,  in  1877-78. 

Excluding  the  figures  given  for  Madras,  the  whole  of  the  Port  of 
Indian    tea    is    shipped    from    the    port    of    Calcutta,    and  shipment. 


5o8 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Tea  culti- 
vation. 


Varieties 
of  the  tea- 
plant. 


Seed. 


Sites  for 
tea- 
gardens. 


Soil. 


Work  of 
a  tea- 
garden  ; 


'flushes 


almost    the    whole  was,    till    recently,    sent    to    the    United 
Kingdom. 

The  processes  of  cultivation  and  manufacture  are  very  similar 
throughout  the  whole  of  India,  with  the  exception  that  in  Upper 
India  the  leaf  is  prepared  as  green  tea  for  the  markets  of 
Central  Asia.  Three  main  varieties  are  recognised — Assam, 
China,  and  hybrid.  The  first  is  the  indigenous  plant,  some- 
times attaining  the  dimensions  of  a  tree ;  yielding  a  strong 
and  high-priced  tea,  but  difficult  to  rear.  The  China  variety, 
originally  imported  from  that  country,  is  a  short  bushy  shrub, 
yielding  a  comparatively  weak  tea  and  a  small  out-turn  per 
acre.  The  third  variety  is  a  true  hybrid,  formed  by  crossing  the 
two  other  species.  It  combines  the  qualities  of  both  in  vary- 
ing proportions,  and  is  the  kind  most  sought  after  by  planters. 

In  all  cases,  the  plant  is  raised  from  seed,  which  in  size 
and  appearance  resembles  the  hazel-nut.  The  seeds  are  sown 
in  carefully  prepared  nurseries  in  December  and  January,  and 
at  first  require  to  be  kept  shaded.  About  April,  the  seedlings 
are  sufficiently  grown  to  be  transplanted,  an  operation  which 
continues  into  July. 

The  site  selected  for  a  tea-garden  should  be  well-drained 
and  comparatively  elevated  land ;  as  it  is  essential  that 
water  should  not  lodge  round  the  roots  of  the  plants.  In 
Assam,  which  may  be  taken  as  the  typical  tea  district,  the  most 
favourite  situation  is  the  slopes  of  low  hills,  that  everywhere 
rise  above  the  marshy  valleys.  On  the  summit  may  be  seen 
the  neat  bungalow  of  the  planter,  lower  down  the  coolie  lines, 
while  the  tea  bushes  are  studded  in  rows  with  mathematical 
precision  all  round  the  sides.  The  best  soil  is  virgin  forest 
land,  rich  in  the  decomposed  vegetable  matter  of  ages.  Great 
pains  are  expended  to  prevent  this  fertile  mould  from  being 
washed  away  by  the  violence  of  the  tropical  rains.  In  bringing 
new  land  into  condition,  the  jungle  should  be  cut  down  in 
December,  and  burned  on  the  spot  in  February.  The  ground 
is  then  cleaned  by  the  plough  or  the  hoe,  and  marked  out  for 
the  seedlings  by  means  of  stakes  planted  at  regular  intervals  of 
about  4  feet  from  each  other. 

For  the  first  two  years,  the  work  of  the  planter  is  to  keep 
the  young  shrubs  clear  of  weeds.  Afterwards,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  prune  the  luxuriance  of  the  bushes  in  the  cold  season 
every  year.  The  prunings  should  be  buried  round  the 
roots  of  the  plant  for  manure.  The  plants  begin  to  come  into 
bearing  in  the  third  year,  and  gradually  reach  their  maximum 
yield  in  their  tenth  year.     The  j^roduce  consist  of  the  '  flushes  ' 


THE  WORK  OF  A  TEA-GARDEA.  509 

or  successive  shoots  of  young  leaves  and  buds,  which  first 
appear  in  the  beginning  of  the  rainy  season.  There  are 
from  five  to  seven  full  flushes  in  the  season  from  March  to 
November.  The  bushes  are  picked  about  every  ten  days  by  picking ; 
women  and  children,  who  are  paid  by  weight  on  bringing  their 
baskets  to  the  factory,  when  the  operation  of  manufacture 
forthwith  begins. 

The  leaf   is  first  spread  out  lightly  on   trays   or  mats   in  'wither- 
order    that  it  may    'wither,'   i.e.    become   limp   and    flaccid.  """S J 
Under  favourable  conditions,  this  result  is  effected  in  a  single 
night;  but  sometimes  the  natural  process  has  to  be  accelerated 
by  exposure  to  the  sun  or  by  means  of  artificial  heat.     The 
next  operation  is  known  as  'rolling,'  performed  either  by  the  rolling; 
manual  labour  of  coolies  or  by  machinery.     The    object  of 
this  is  to  twist  and  compress  the  leaf  into  balls,  and  set  up 
fermentation.     The  final   stage  is  to  arrest  fermentation  by  dn-ing ; 
drying,  which  may  be  effected  in  many  ways,  usually  by  the 
help  of  machinery.     The  entire  process  of  manufacture  after 
'withering,' does  not  take  more  than  about  four  hours  and  a 
half.      All   that   now   remains   is   to  sort  the   tea   in  sieves,  sorting. 
according  to  size  and  quality,  thus  distinguishing  the  various 
grades  from  Flowery  Pekoe  to  Broken  Congou,  and  to  pack  it 
for  shipment  in  the  well-known  tea  chests. 

The   introduction   of  the   quinine  -  yielding   cinchona  into  Cinchona. 
India  is  a  remarkable  example  of  success  rewarding  the  in-  Clements 

AT     -1-V» 

defatigable  exertions  of  a  single  man.     When  VLx.  Clements  jgg' ^  ^'"' 

Markham  undertook  the  task  of  transporting  the  seedlings  from 

South  America  to  India  in  i860,  cinchona  had  never  before  been 

reared  artificially.     The  experiment  in   arboriculture  has  not 

only  been  successfully  conducted,  but  it  has  proved  remunerative 

from  a  pecuniary  point  of  view.     A  cheap  febrifuge  has  been 

provided  for  the  fever-stricken  population  of  the  Indian  plains, 

while  the  surplus  bark  sold  in  Europe  more  than  repays  interest 

upon  the  capital  expended.    These  results  have  been  produced 

from  an  expenditure  of  about  ;^ioo,ooo. 

The    head-quarters    of   cinchona    cultivation    in   Southern  Nilgiri 

India  are  on  the  Nilgiri  Hills,  where  Government  owns  four  PJ''^"^^" 
^  .  '  tions. 

plantations,  from  which  seeds  and  plants  are  annually 
distributed  to  the  public  in  large  quantities ;  and  there  are 
already  several  private  plantations,  rivalling  the  Government 
estates  in  area,  and  understood  to  be  very  valuable  pro- 
perties. The  varieties  of  cinchona  most  commonly  cultivated  Varieties. 
are  C.    officinalis   and    C.    succirubra;   but   experiments   are 


5IO  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

being  conducted  with  C.  calisaya,  C.  pubescens,  C.  lanceolata, 
and  C.  pitayensis.  Now  that  the  success  of  the  enterprise  is 
secure,  the  Madras  Government  is  curtailing  its  own  opera- 
tions. No  fresh  land  is  being  taken  up,  but  the  plantations  are 
kept  free  from  weeds.  The  quinologist's  department  has  been 
abolished,  and  the  bark  is  sold  in  its  raw  state. 

Spread  of  From  the  central  establishment  of  the  Government  on 
ona,  ^j^^  Ni'lgiris,  cinchona  has  been  introduced  into  the  Palni 
Hills  in  Madura  District,  into  the  Wainad,  and  into  the 
State  of  Tra van  core.  The  total  area  under  cinchona  in  Govern- 
ment and  private  plantations  in  1882-83  was  2607  acres. 
Plantations    have   also    been   opened    by   Government    near 

in  IMerkara  in  Coorg,  on  the  Baba  Budan  Hills  in  Mysore,  and 

hSia^™  in  Tsit-taung  (Sitang)  District  in  British  Burma.  Failure  has 
attended  the  experiments  made  at  Mahabaleshwar  in  the 
Bombay  Presidency,  and  at  Nongklao  in  the  Khasi  Hills, 
Assam. 

in  Bengal.  But  the  success  of  the  Government  plantation  at  Darji'ling, 
in  Northern  Bengal,  rivals  that  of  the  original  plantation  on 
the  Ni'lgiris.  The  area  has  been  gradually  extended,  and  the 
bark  is  manufactured  into  quinine  on  the  spot  by  a  Govern- 
ment quinologist.  The  species  mostly  grown  is  C.  succirubra, 
which  yields  a  red-coloured  bark,  rich  in  its  total  yield  of 
alkaloids,  but  comparatively  poor  in  quinine  proper.  Efforts 
are  being  made  to  increase  the  cultivation  of  C.  calisaya,  which 
yields  the  more  valuable  bark  ;  but  this  species  is  difficult  to 
propagate. 

The  febrifuge,  as  issued  by  the  Bengal  Government,  is  in  the 
form  of  a  white  powder,  containing  the  following  alkaloids  : — 

Cinchona.  Quinine,  cinchonidine,  cinchonine,  quinamine,  and  what  is 
•a  01  s.  j^j-jQ^yj-j  ^g  amorphous  alkaloid.  It  has  been  authoritatively 
described  as  '  a  perfectly  safe  and  efiicient  substitute  for 
quinine  in  all  cases  of  ordinary  intermittent  fever.'  It  has 
been  substituted  for  imported  quinine,  in  the  proportion  of 
three-fourths  to  one-fourth,  at  all  the  Government  dispensaries, 
by  which  measure  alone  an  economy  of  more  than  ^20,000 
a  year  has  been  achieved ;  and  it  is  now  eagerly  sought  after 
by  private  druggists  from  every  part  of  the  country. 

Cinchona        The  following  show  the  out-turn  and  financial  results  of  the  two 

statistics,  ]^rgg  Government  plantations  in  1877-78  and  in  1882-83  • — ^^ 
1877-78,  the  crop  on  the  Nilgiris  gave  138,808  lbs.  of  bark,  of 
which  132,951  lbs.  were  shipped  to  England,  and  the  rest 
supplied  to  the  Madras  and  Bombay  medical  departments. 
At  Darji'ling,  the  crop  in  1877-78  amounted  to  344,225  lbs. 


CINCHONA  STATISTICS,  1882-83.  511 

of  bark,  which  was  all  handed  over  to  the  quinologist,  and 
yielded  5162  lbs.  of  the  febrifuge. 

In  1882-83,  the  four  Government  plantations  on  the  Ni'Igiri  Cinchona 
Hills  comprised  a  total  area  of  847  acres,  with  765,763  full- ^gg'*^g^ 
grown  plants.     The  total  out-turn  of  bark  (exclusive  of  stocks 
in  hand)  was  129,713  lbs.     The  quantity  shipped  to  the  home 
market  was  62,518   lbs.,  realizing  ^9768,  while  69,327  lbs. 
were  sold  locally  by  public  auction,  realizing  ^^10,639,  o^  ^^ 
average  of  3s.    i^d.   per  lb.     The   total   proceeds   from    the 
Nilgiri  plantations  in  1882-83,  including  sale  of  seeds,  plants, 
etc.,  was  ;^2o,842  ;  expenditure,  ;^8335,  leaving  a  profit  of 
;^i 2,507.    In  the  Government  plantations  in  Darjiling  District, 
the  area  in  1882  was  2294  acres,  with   4,711,168  full-grown 
plants.    The  out-turn  of  the  year,  396,980  lbs.  of  dry  bark,  was 
the  heaviest  ever  yielded.     By  far  the  greater  proportion  was 
converted  locally  into  cinchona  febrifuge  by  the  Government 
quinologist,  while  about  42,000  lbs.  of  bark  were  forwarded  to 
London  at  the  request  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  to  be  there 
converted   into   various  forms  of  febrifuge,  and  returned  to 
India  for  trial  by  the   Medical   Department.      The  revenue  Frofits  of 
derived  from  the  Darjiling  sales  to  the  public,  to  the  medical  cinchona, 
and  other  departments,  and  from  sale  of  seeds,  plants,  etc.,  ^' 

amounted  to  ;/^i5,28o  in  1882-83,  ^he  operations  of  the  year 
resulting  in  a  direct  profit  of  ^^66 28,  equal  to  a  dividend  of 
6h  per  cent,  on  the  capital  outlay.  Total  profit  from  the 
Nilgiri  and  Darjiling  plantations  in  1882-83,  Po^Qj^SS- 

These  profits,  however,  do  not  represent  the  whole  of  the  Indirect 
gains.  In  Bengal  alone,  the  cost  of  an  equal  quantity  of  pi^ofits. 
quinine  would  have  amounted  to  ^40,132,  while  the  cost  of 
the  febrifuge  produced  was  only  ;^6S9S,  showing  a  saving  of 
^33,234.  The  total  saving  effected  since  the  opening  of  the 
factories  up  till  the  end  of  the  year  1882-83,  is  stated  to  be 
;!^235,ooo,  or  more  than  double  the  cost  of  the  plantations. 
Besides  the  Government  cinchona  estates,  a  number  of  private 
plantations  have  been  established,  covering  an  area  of  about 
2500  acres,  with  about  2'i  millions  of  full-grown  plants. 

Sericulture  in  India  is  a  stationary,  if  not  a  declining  industry.  511^. 
The    large   production  in    China,  Japan,    and    the    Mediter- 
ranean countries  controls  the  European  markets  ;  and  on  an 
average  of  years,  the  imports  of  raw  silk  into  India  exceed 
the  exports.     The  East  India  Company  from   the  first  took  The  Com- 
great   pains  to  foster   the    production   of  silk.     As  early    as  Pony's 
1767,  two  years  after  the  grant  of  the  financial  administration  factories.' 
of  Bengal  had  been  conferred  upon  the  Company,  we  find 


512 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Italian 
reelers, 
1769. 


Tipu's  ex- 
periments, 
1795- 


Bengal 
factories, 
1 799- 1 83  J 


Silk  area 
of  Benijal. 


the  Governor,  Mr.  Verelst,  personally  urging  the  zaminddrs, 
gathered  at  Murshidabad  for  the  ceremony  of  the  Pimyd,  '  to 
give  all  possible  encouragement  to  the  cultivation  of  mulberry.' 
In  1769,  a  colony  of  reelers  was  brought  from  Italy  to  teach 
the  system  followed  in  the  filatures  at  Novi.  The  first  silk 
prepared  after  the  Italian  method  reached  England  in  1772, 
and  Bengal  silk  soon  became  an  important  article  of  export. 
Similar  efforts  started  at  Madras  in  1793  were  abandoned 
after  a  trial  of  five  years.  The  silk-worm  is  said  to  have  been 
introduced  into  Mysore  by  Tipu  Sultan,  and  for  many  years 
continued  to  prosper.  But  recently  the  Mysore  worms  have 
been  afflicted  by  an  epidemic  ;  and  despite  the  enterprise 
of  an  Italian  gentleman,  who  imported  fresh  breeds  from 
Japan,  the  business  has  dwindled  to  insignificance. 

Bengal  has  always  been  the  chief  seat  of  mulberry  cultiva- 
tion. When  the  trading  operations  of  the  Company  ceased  in 
1833,  they  owned  11  head  factories  in  that  Province,  each 
supplied  by  numerous  filatures,  to  which  the  cultivators  brought 
in  their  cocoons.  The  annual  export  of  raw  silk  from  Calcutta 
was  then  about  i  million  lbs.  But  in  those  days  the  weaving 
of  silk  formed  a  large  portion  of  the  business  of  the  factories. 
In  1779,  Rennel  wrote  that  at  Kasimbazar  alone  about  400,000 
lbs.  weight  of  silk  was  consumed  in  the  local  European 
factories.  In  1802,  Lord  Valentia  describes  Jangipur  as  'the 
greatest  silk  station  of  the  Company,  with  600  furnaces,  and 
giving  employment  to  3000  persons.'  Under  the  new  Charter 
of  1833,  the  Company's  silk  trade  and  its  commerce  with  China 
were  to  cease.  But  it  could  not  suddenly  throw  out  of  employ- 
ment the  numbers  of  people  employed  upon  silk  production, 
and  its  factories  were  not  entirely  disposed  of  until  1837. 

When  the  Company  abandoned  the  trade  on  its  own 
account,  sericulture  was  taken  up  by  private  enterprise,  and 
still  clings  to  its  old  head-quarters.  At  the  present  time,  the 
cultivation  of  the  mulberry  is  mainly  confined  to  the  Rajshahi 
and  Bard  wan  Divisions  of  Lower  Bengal.  This  branch  of  agri- 
culture, together  with  the  rearing  of  the  silk-worms,  is  conducted 
by  the  peasantry  themselves,  who  are  free  to  follow  or  abandon 
the  business.  The  destination  of  the  cocoons  is  twofold. 
They  may  either  be  sent  to  small  native  filatures,  where  the 
silk  is  roughly  wound,  and  usually  consumed  in  the  hand-looms 
of  the  country  ;  or  they  may  be  brought  to  the  great  European 
factories,  which  generally  use  steam  machinery,  and  consign 
their  produce  direct  to  Europe. 

The  exports  vary  considerably  from   year  to   year,   being 


SILK  STATISTICS,  i^-]?>-^Z'  513 

determined  partly  by  the  local  yield,  and  still  more  by  the 
prices  ruling  in  Europe.  The  following  are  the  returns  for 
1877-78  and  1882-83.  In  1877-78,  about  i^-  million  lbs. 
of  silk  were  exported,  viz. : — Raw  silk,  658,000  lbs.  ;  chasan,  Silk 
or  the  outer  covering  of  the  cocoon,  823,000  lbs.  ;  the  aggre-  ^^jf'o^'co' 
gate  value  was  p{^ 7 50,439.  In  the  same  year,  the  imports  of 
raw  silk  (chiefly  received  at  Bombay  and  Rangoon)  were  a 
little  over  2  million  lbs.,  valued  at  ^678,069.  By  1882-83, 
the  imports  of  raw  and  manufactured  silk  had  considerably 
exceeded  the  exports  of  the  Indian  production.  In  that  year 
the  exports  of  raw  silk  amounted  to  only  665,838  lbs.,  valued 
at  ;!^596,836,  besides  silk  manufactures  valued  at  ;^3o6,928. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  imports  of  foreign  silk  into  British 
Indian  ports  in  the  same  year  amounted  to  2,386,150  lbs., 
valued  at  ;^i, 074,156,  besides  9,671,261  yards  of  manufactured 
silk,  and  2989  lbs.  of  silk  thread,  valued  at  ^977,768. 

The  cultivation  of  the  mulberry  is  chiefly  carried  on  in  the  Ben-  Mulberry 
gal  Districts  of  Rajshahi,Bogra,Maldah,Murshidabad,  Birbhum,  J^^Beng^^ 
Bardwan,  and  Midnapur.  No  comiplete  statistics  are  available, 
but  in  Rajshahi  alone  the  area  under  mulberry  is  estimated  at 
80,000  acres.  The  mulberry  grown  as  food  for  the  silk-worms 
is  not  the  fruit-tree  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  England, 
but  a  comparatively  small  shrub.  Any  fairly  good  land  that  does 
not  grow  rice  will  grow  mulberry.  But  the  shrubs  must  be  pre- 
served from  floods  ;  and  the  land  generally  requires  to  be  arti- 
ficially raised  in  square  plots,  with  broad  trenches  between,  like 
a  chess-board.  The  mulberry  differs  from  most  Indian  crops 
in  being  a  perennial,  Le.  it  will  yield  its  harvest  of  leaves  for 
several  years  in  succession,  provided  that  care  be  taken  to 
preserve  it.  It  is  planted  between  the  months  of  November 
and  January.  Three  growths  of  silk-worms  are  usually  obtained 
in  the  year — in  November,  March,  and  August. 

Besides  the  silk-worm  proper  (Bombyx  niori),  fed  upon  the  Jungle 
mulberry,  several  other  species  of  silk-yielding  worms  abound  ^^^'^'^ ' 
in  the  jungles  of  India,  and  are  utilized,  and  in  some  cases 
domesticated,  by  the  natives.     Throughout  Assam,  especially, 
an  inferior  silk  is  produced  in  this  way,  which  has  from  time 
immemorial    furnished    the    common    dress    of  the   people. 
These  'wild  silks'  are  known  to  commerce  under  the  generic 
name  of  tasar  or  tusser,  but  they  are  really  the  produce  of  {(asar). 
several  distinct  varieties  of  worm,  fed  on  many  different  trees. 
The  worm  that  yields  tasar  silk  in  Chutia  Nagpur  has  been  in  Bengal ; 
identified  as  the  caterpillar  of  Antheroea  paphia.     When  wild, 
it  feeds  indiscriminately  upon  the  sal  (Shorea  robusta),  the 

2  K 


514 


AGRICULTURE  AXD  PRODUCTS. 


in  Central 
Provinces 


haer  (Zizyphus  jujuba),  and  other  forest  trees;  but  in  a  state 
of  semi-domestication,  it  is  exclusively  reared  upon  the  dsan 
(Terminalia  tomentosa),  which  grows  conveniently  in  clumps. 
The  cocoons  are  sometimes  collected  in  the  jungle,  but  more 
frequently  bred  from  an  earlier  generation  of  jungle  cocoons. 
The  worms  require  constant  attention  while  feeding,  to  protect 
them  from  crows  and  other  birds.  They  give  three  crops  in 
the  year — in  August,  November,  and  May — of  which  the 
second  is  by  far  the  most  important. 

The  tasar  silk-worm  is  also  found  and  utilized  throughout 
the  Central  Provinces,  in  the  hills  of  the  Bombay  Presidency, 
and  along  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Himalayas.  During  the 
past  twenty  years,  repeated  attempts  have  been  made  to  raise 
this  industry  out  of  its  precarious  condition,  and  to  introduce 
tasar  silk  into  the  European  market.  That  the  raw  material 
abounds  is  certain  ;  but  the  great  difficulty  is  to  obtain  it  in  a 
state  which  will  be  acceptable  to  European  manufacturers. 
Native  spun  tasar  thread  is  only  fit  for  native  hand-looms.  In 
in  Assam.  Assam,  two  distinct  qualities  of  silk  are  made,  the  eria  and  viiigd. 
The  former  is  obtained  from  the  cocoons  of  Phalcena  cynthia  ; 
and  the  worm  is  fed,  as  the  native  name  implies,  upon  the 
leaves  of  the  castor-oil  plant  (Ricinus  communis).  This  variety 
may  be  said  to  be  entirely  domesticated,  being  reared  indoors. 
Mugd  silk  is  obtained  from  the  cocoons  of  Saturnia  assamungis. 
The  moth,  which  is  remarkable  for  its  size,  is  found  wild  in 
the  jungle  ;  but  the  breed  is  so  far  domesticated  that  cocoons 
are  brought  from  one  part  of  the  Province  to  another,  and  the 
siiin  tree  is  artificially  propagated  to  supply  the  worms  with  food. 
The  collection  of  lac  is  in  a  somewhat  similar  position  to 
that  of  tasar  silk.  The  lac  insect  abounds  on  certain  jungle 
trees  in  every  part  of  the  country  ;  and  from  time  immemorial 
it  has  been  collected  by  the  wild  tribes,  in  order  to  be  worked 
up  into  lacquered  ware.  But  European  enterprise  has  not  yet 
placed  the  industry  upon  a  stable  and  an  organized  basis. 
Although  lac  is  to  be  found  everywhere,  foreign  exporta- 
tion is  almost  entirely  confined  to  Calcutta,  which  draws  its 
supplies  from  the  hills  of  Chutia  Nagpur,  and  in  a  less  degree 
from  Assam  and  Mirzapur  in  the  North-Western  Provinces. 
Lac  is  known  to  commerce  both  as  a  gum  (shell-lac)  and  as  a 
dye.  In  1878,  the  total  exports  of  lac  of  all  kinds  were 
104,717  cwts.,  valued  at  ^362,244.  In  1879,  the  total  ex- 
ports were  91,985  cwts.,  valued  at  ;^3oo,o72.  In  1882-S3, 
the  exports  of  lac  of  all  kinds  was  138,844  cwts.,  of  the  value 
ofv{^699,ii3. 


Lac, 


Lac 

statistics, 
1878-1883 


LAC-DYE  AND  SHELL-LAC.  515 

Lac  (liik)  is  a  cellular,  resinous  incrustation  of  a  deep  orange  Descrip- 
colour,  secreted  by  an  insect  (Coccus  lacca)  round  the  branches  ^'°" 
of  various   trees,    chiefly  kusi'im    (Schleichera   trijuga),  palds 
(Butea  frondosa),  pipal  (Ficus  religiosa),  and  baer  (Zizyphus 
jujuba).     The  principal  component  is  resin,  forming  about  60 
or  70  per  cent.,  from  which  is  manufactured  the  shell-lac  of  Shell-lac. 
commerce.     Lac-dye  is  obtained  from  the  small  cells  of  the  Lac-dye. 
incrustration,  and  is  itself  a  portion  of  the  body  of  the  female 
insect.     The   entire  incrustation,  while   still  adhering  to  the 
twig,  is  called  stick-lac.     Li  order  to  obtain  the  largest  quantity  Stick-lac. 
of  dye,  the  stick-lac  should  be  gathered  before  the  young  come 
out,  which  happens  twice  in  the  year — in  January  and  July. 
The  dye  is  first  extracted  by  repeated  processes  of  washing 
and   straining,   while   the  shell-lac  is  worked    up  from  what 
remains  in  a  hot  and  semi-liquid  state. 

For  all  articles  in  which  a  fast  colour  is  not  required,  lac-dye  Uses  of 
can  never  compete  with  the  cheaper  and  less  permanent  ''^c-dye. 
aniline  dyes ;  while  for  more  lasting  colours,  cochineal  is 
preferred.  Lac-dye,  however,  is  said  to  be  superior  even  to 
cochineal  in  resisting  the  action  of  human  perspiration  ;  and 
it  is  probable  that  in  the  event  of  the  supply  of  cochineal 
falling  off,  lac-dye  might  be  used  in  its  stead  to  produce  the 
regimental  scarlet.  It  has  largely  replaced  cochineal  of  late 
years  in  dyeing  officers'  coats  ;  and  a  further  extension  of  its  use 
for  similar  purposes  seems  possible.  The  chief  establishment 
in  India  for  manufacturing  lac  was  for  long  near  Doranda, 
in  Lohardaga  District,  Chutia  Nagpur,  to  which  stick-lac  is 
brought  in  from  all  the  country  round  as  far  as  the  Central 
Provinces.  The  annual  out-turn  is  about  6000  cwts.  of  shell- 
lac,  made  from  double  that  quantity  of  raw  material.  In 
1877-78,  this  factory  had  for  a  time  to  cease  working,  owing 
to  the  depressed  state  of  the  market  in  Europe. 


The  efforts  of  Government  to  improve  the  native  methods  ^fodel 
of  agriculture,  by  the  establishment  of  model  farms  under  '^'^'"''' 
skilled  European  supervision,  have  not  been  generally  suc- 
cessful. In  too  many  cases,  the  skilled  agriculturists  from 
Europe  have  been  gardeners  rather  than  farmers.  In  other 
cases,  believing  only  in  their  own  maxims  of  high  cultivation 
-deep  ploughing,  subsoil  drainage,  manuring,  and  rotation 
of  crops  —  they  have  despised  the  ancient  rules  of  native 
experience,  and  have  not  adapted  their  Western  learning  to 
the  circumstances  of  a  tropical  country.     Nevertheless,  many 


5i6 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


The  small 

success 

attained. 


Saidapet 
Farm. 


valuable  experiments  have  been  made,  and  much  information, 
chiefly  of  a  negative  character,  has  been  gained. 

The  Government  model  farms  have  been  abandoned  in 
Bengal,  in  Assam,  and  in  the  Punjab.  In  the  North-Western 
Provinces,  the  propagation  of  flowers,  fruits,  vegetables,  and  trees 
is  still  prosecuted  (1885).  In  Bombay  there  are  (or  were  lately) 
three  model  farms ;  and  in  the  Central  Provinces  one,  on  which 
the  common  crops  of  the  country  are  raised  at  a  loss.  The 
Saidapet  (Sydapet)  farm,  near  the  city  of  Madras,  is  the  only 
establishment  at  which  experiments  have  been  conducted  on 
a  scale  and  with  a  perseverance  sufficient  to  yield  results  of 
value.  This  farm  was  started  by  a  former  Governor,  Sir 
William  Denison,  in  1865,  and  has  been  for  the  past  thirteen 
years  under  the  able  management  of  Mr.  Robertson,  Agricul- 
tural Reporter  to  the  Madras  Government.  It  covered  in 
1884  an  area  of  300  acres  in  a  ring  fence,  of  which  139 
acres  were  under  crop,  and  36  acres  under  timber,  chiefly 
casuarina.  Important  experiments  have  been  made,  of  which 
some  produced  encouraging  results,  indicating  the  general 
direction  in  which  improvements  may  be  effected  in  the  agri- 
cultural practice  of  the  Presidency.  It  has  been  proved  that 
many  of  the  common  '  dry  crops  '  can  be  profitably  cultivated 
for  fodder  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  Those  most  strongly 
recommended  are  yellow  cholam  (Sorghum  vulgare),  guinea 
grass  (Panicum  jumentosum),  and  horse-gram  (Dolichus 
biflorus).  Sugar-cane  and  rice  also  yield  excellent  fodder, 
when  cut  green.  Attention  has  been  given  to  subsoil  drainage, 
deep  ploughing,  the  fertilizing  powers  of  various  manures, 
and  the  proper  utilization  of  irrigation  water. 

It  is  right  to  mention,  however,  that  doubts  are  entertained 
as  to  whether  the  results  of  the  experiments  at  the  Madras 
Government  Farm  are  equal  to  the  outlay  upon  them.  [Since 
these  pages  went  to  press,  the  farming  operations  at  Saidapet 
have  been  given  up,  except  so  far  as  required  for  the  practical 
instruction  of  agricultural  pupils.]  A  School  of  Agriculture 
has  been  established  at  Saidapet,  in  connection  with  the 
model  farm,  with  subordinate  branches  in  the  Districts,  so  as 
to  diff"use  as  widely  as  possible  the  agricultural  lessons  that 
have  been  already  learned.  At  the  end  of  1882-83,  the  school 
was  attended  by  69  pupils.  In  1882-83,  the  expenditure 
on  the  farm  was  returned  at  ;^io83,  as  against  receipts 
amounting  to  ;^559.  The  expenditure  on  the  School  of 
Agriculture  in  the  same  year  was  ^2484,  against  receipts 
amounting  to  only  ^,zZi  8s. 


I 


PROBLEM  OF  IMPROVED  TILLAGE.       517 

To  many  it  seems  doubtful  whether  such  experiments  can  Is  success 

be  made  to  yield  profitable  results.     The  Hindu  Patriot  put  P°^^'   ^ 

the  case  in  very  pithy  words :    '  The  native  cultivators  have 

nothing    to    learn    so    far    as    non-scientific    agriculture    is 

concerned,  and  the  adoption  of  scientific  agriculture  is  wholly 

beyond  their  means.'     If  the  only  alternative  lay  between  a 

strictly  scientific  and  an  altogether  unscientific  husbandry,  a 

candid  observer  would  have  to  concur  in  the  Hindu  Patriofs 

conclusion.     But  the  choice  is  not  thus  limited.     In  England 

one  little  improvement  takes  place  in  one  district,  another 

small   change  for   the  better  in    another.      Strictly  scientific  The  pro- 

formins;  trebles  the  produce  ;  a  field  which  produces  7^0  lbs.  J'^""  °'^ , 

r,-,  ,  J  -Tj  ,Lu     improved 

of  wheat  without  manure  can  be  made  to  yield  2342  lbs.  by  husbandry. 

manure.     But  the  native  of  India  has  neither  the  capital  nor 

the  knowledge  required  to  attain  this  result.     If,  therefore,  the 

problem  before  him  was  to  increase  his  crops  threefold,  even 

his  best  wishers  might  despair  of  his  success.     But  the  task 

before  him  is  a  much  less  ambitious  one ;  namely,  to  gradually 

increase  by  perhaps    10  or   20  per  cent,   the  produce  of  his 

fields,  and  not  by  300  per  cent,  at  a  stroke. 

Wheat  land  in  the  North-Western  Provinces,  which  now  Out-turn 
gives  only  840  lbs.  an  acre,  yielded  1140  lbs.  in  the  time  of  °^<^™P^- 
Akbar,  and  would  be  made  to  produce  1800  lbs.  in  East 
Norfolk.  The  average  return  of  food-grains  in  India  shows 
about  700  lbs.  per  acre;  in  England,  wheat  averages  over 
1700  lbs.  Mr.  Hume,  the  late  Secretary  to  the  Government 
of  India  in  its  Department  of  Agriculture,  declares,  that 
'  with  proper  manuring  and  proper  tillage,  every  acre,  broadly 
speaking,  of  land  in  the  country  can  be  made  to  yield  30,  50, 
or  70  per  cent,  more  of  every  kind  of  crop  than  it  at  present 
produces ;  and  with  a  fully  corresponding  increase  in  the 
profits  of  cultivation.' 

The  first  impediment  to  better  husbandry  is  the  fewness  and  The  three 
weakness  of  the  cattle.     '  Over  a  great  portion  of  the  Empire,'  ||['^^fg'.' 
writes  the  late  Secretary  to  the  Agricultural  Department  in  (i)  Want 
India,  'the  mass  of  the  cattle  are  starved  for  six  weeks  every  of  cattle, 
year.     The  hot  winds  roar,  every  green  thing  has  disappeared, 
no  hot-weather  forage  is  grown ;   the  last  year's  fodder  has 
generally  been  consumed  in  keeping  the  well-bullocks  on  their 
legs  during  the  irrigation  of  the  spring  crops  ;  and  all  the 
husbandman  can  do  is  just  to  keep  his  poor  brutes  alive  on 
the  chopped  leaves  of  the  few  trees  and  shrubs  he  has  access 
to,  the  roots  of  grass  and  herbs  that  he  digs  out  of  the  edges 
of  fields,  and  the  like.     In  good  years,  he  just  succeeds ;  in 


5i8  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

bad  years,  the  weakly  ones  die  of  starvation.     But  then  come 
the  rains.     Within  the  week,  as  though  by  magic,  the  burning 
sands  are  carpeted  with  rank,  hiscious  herbage,  the  cattle  will 
eat  and  over-eat;  and  millions  die  of  one  form  or  other  of 
cattle   disease,  springing   out  of  this  starvation  followed  by 
sudden  repletion  with  rank,  juicy,   immature  herbage.'     INIr. 
Hume  estimates  'the  average  annual  loss  of  cattle   in  India 
by  preventable  disease'  at  lo  million  beasts,  worth  7 J  millions 
sterling.     He  complains  that,  up  to  the  time  when  he  wrote, 
no  real  attempt  had  been  made  to  bring  veterinary  knowledge 
within  reach  of  the  people,  or  to  organize  a  system  of  village 
plantations  which  would  feed  their  cattle  through  the  summer. 
The  Department  of  Agriculture,  as  re-established  under  Lord 
Ripon's    Government,    has    endeavoured    to    remedy    these 
omissions,  particularly  in  regard  to  the  diffusion  of  veterinary 
knowledge.    The  statistics  and  breeds  of  agricultural  stock  will 
be  given  on  a  subsequent  page. 
(2)  Want        The  second  impediment  to  improved  husbandry  is  the  want 
o  manuie.  ^^  manure.     If  there  were  more  stock,  there  would  be  more 
manure ;  and  the  absence  of  firewood  compels  the  people  to 
use  up  even  the  droppings  of  their  cattle  for  fuel.      Under 
such  circumstances,  agriculture  ceases  to  be  the  manufacture 
of  food,  and  becomes  a  mere  spoliation  of  the  soil.     Forage 
crops,  such  as  lucerne,  guinea-grass,  and  the  great  stemmed 
millets,  might  furnish  a  large  supply  of  cattle  food  per  acre. 
Government   is   considering  whether   their   cultivation  could 
not  be  promoted  by  reducing  the  irrigation  rates  on  green 
fodder  crops.     A  system  of  village  plantations  would  not  only 
supply  firewood,  but  would  yield  leaves  and  an  undergrowth 
of  fodder  sufficient  to  tide  the  cattle  over  their  six  weeks' 
struggle  for  life  each  summer.     In  some  Districts,  Govern- 
ment  has   land   of  its   own  which   it  could   thus  plant;    in 
others,  it  is  only  a  sleeping  partner  in  the  soil.     In  Switzer- 
land, the  occupiers  of  allmends,  or  communal  lands,  are,  at 
least  in  some  cantons,  compelled  by  law  to  keep  up  a  certain 
number  of  trees.     It  seems  a  fair  question  whether  plantations 
ought  not  in  many  parts  of  India  to  be  made  an  incident  of 
the  land  tenure.    They  would  go  far  to  solve  the  two  funda- 
mental difficulties  of  Indian  agriculture — the  loss  of  cattle,  and 
the  want  of  manure.     The  system  of  State  Forestry  at  present 
pursued  will  be  described  in  a  subsequent  section. 
Utiliza-  Meanwhile,  the  natives  set  an  increasing  value  on  manure, 

tion  of       The  great  cities  are  being  converted  from  centres  of  disease 
into  sources  of  food-supply.      For  a  time,   caste   prejudices 


manure. 


WANT  OF  MANURE  AND   WATER.         519 

stood  in  the  ^vay  of  utilizing  the  night-soil.  '  Five  years  ago,' 
writes  the  Secretary  to  the  Poona  Municipality,  'agriculturists 
would  not  touch  the  poudrette  when  prepared,  and  could  not 
be  induced  to  take  it  away  at  even  a  nominal  charge.  At 
present,  the  out-turn  of  manure  is  not  enough  to  keep  pace 
with  the  demand,  and  the  peasants  buy  it  up  from  four  to  six 
months  in  advance.'  At  Amritsar,  in  the  Punjab,  30,000 
donkey-loads  were  sold  in  one  year.  A  great  margin  still 
exists  for  economy,  both  in  the  towns  and  villages ;  but  the 
husbandman  is  becoming  more  alive  to  the  utilization  of  every 
source  of  manure,  and  his  prejudices  are  gradually  giving  way 
under  the  stern  pressure  of  facts. 

The  third  impediment  to  improved  agriculture  in  India  is  (3)  Want 
the  want  of  water.  Sir  J.  Caird  believes  that  if  only  one-third  °  ^'^'^''• 
of  the  cultivated  area  were  irrigated,  India  would  be  secure 
against  famine.  An  extension  of  irrigation  would  alone  suffice 
to  raise  the  food-supply  annually  by  more  than  \\  per  cent,  in 
most  years ;  and  thus  more  than  keep  pace  with  the  general 
increase  of  the  population.  Since  India  passed  to  the  Crown, 
great  progress  has  been  made  in  this  direction.  Money  has 
been  invested  by  millions  of  pounds  ;  200  millions  of  acres  are 
now  under  cultivation  ;  and  in  the  five  British  Provinces  which 
require  it  most,  28  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated  area,  or  say  one- 
third,  was  in  18S3  artificially  supplied  with  water.  Those 
Provinces  are  the  Punjab,  the  North-West,  Oudh,  Sind,  and 
Madras.  Looking  to  what  has  of  late  years  been  done,  and 
to  what  yet  remains  to  be  done  by  wells  and  petty  works  with 
the  aid  of  loans  from  the  State,  we  may  still  reckon  on  a  vast 
increase  of  food  from  irrigation.  The  pecuniary  and  statistical 
aspects  of  irrigation  will  be  dealt  with  hereafter. 

Having  thus  summarized  the  three  impediments  to  improved 
husbandry,  it  may  be  profitable  to  examine  in  detail  the  three 
subjects  immediately  connected  with  them,  namely,  the  Agri- 
cultural Stock  of  India,  Forests,  and  Irrigation. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  India,  excepting  in  Sind  and  the  Agricul- 
western  Districts  of  the  Punjab,  horned  cattle  are  the  only 
beasts  used  for  ploughing.  The  well-known  humped  breed 
of  cattle  predominates  everywhere,  being  divided  into  many 
varieties.  Owing  partly  to  unfavourable  conditions  of  climate 
and  soil,  partly  to  the  insufficiency  of  grazing  ground,  and 
partly  to  the  want  of  selection  in  breeding,  the  general  con- 
dition of  the  cattle  is  miserably  poor.     As  cultivation  advances, 


tural 
stock. 


520 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Want  of 
fodder. 


Famous 
breeds. 


Buffaloes. 


Camels, 


Horses. 


Govern- 
ment 
studs. 


the  area  of  waste  land  available  for  grazing  steadily  diminishes, 
and  the  prospects  of  the  poor  beasts  are  becoming  worse 
rather  than  better.  Their  only  hope  lies  in  the  introduction 
of  fodder  crops  as  a  regular  stage  in  the  agricultural  course. 

There  are,  however,  some  fine  breeds  which  are  carefully 
fostered.  In  Mysore,  the  amrit  7)iahdl,  a  breed  said  to 
have  been  formed  by  Haidar  All  for  military  purposes,  is 
kept  up  by  the  local  authorities.  In  the  Madras  Districts 
of  Nellore  and  Karniil,  the  indigenous  breed  has  been  greatly 
improved  under  the  stimulus  of  cattle  shows  and  prizes, 
founded  by  British  officials.  In  the  Central  Provinces  there 
is  a  high -class  breed  of  trotting  bullocks,  in  great  demand 
for  wheeled  carriages.  The  large  and  handsome  oxen  of 
Gujarat  (Guzerat)  in  Bombay,  and  of  Hariana  in  the  Punjab, 
are  excellently  adapted  for  drawing  heavy  loads  in  a  sandy 
soil.  The  statistics  of  live  stock  for  various  Provinces  of 
India  will  be  given  in  the  form  of  a  table  on  p.  523. 

The  worst  cattle  are  to  be  found  always  in  deltaic  tracts, 
but  here  their  place  is  to  a  large  extent  taken  by  buffaloes. 
These  last  are  more  hardy  than  ordinary  cattle,  their  character 
being  maintained  by  crossing  the  cows  with  wild  bulls,  and 
their  milk  yields  the  best  ghi,  or  clarified  butter.  In  British 
Burma,  the  returns  show  that  the  total  number  of  buffaloes 
is  nearly  equal  to  that  of  cows  and  bullocks.  Along  the 
valley  of  the  Indus,  and  in  the  sandy  desert  which  stretches 
into  Rajputana,  camels  supersede  cattle  for  all  agricultural 
operations.  In  the  Punjab,  the  total  number  of  camels  was 
125,584  in  1883. 

The  breed  of  horses  has  generally  deteriorated  since  the 
demand  for  the  native  strains,  for  military  purposes,  declined 
upon  the  establishment  of  British  supremacy.  In  Bengal 
proper,  and  in  Madras,  it  may  be  broadly  said  that  native 
breeds  do  not  exist.  The  chief  breeds  in  Bombay  are  those 
of  the  Deccan  and  of  Kathiawar,  in  both  of  which  Provinces 
Government  maintains  establishments  of  stallions.  The  Pun- 
jab, however,  is  the  chief  source  of  remounts  for  our  Native 
cavalry;  the  total  number  of  horses  in  that  Province  in  1883 
being  returned  at  76,238,  in  addition  to  33,773  ponies.  About 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  a  stud  department  was 
organized  by  Government  to  breed  horses  for  the  use  of  the 
Bengal  army.  This  system  was  abolished  as  extravagant  and 
inefficient  by  Lord  Mayo  in  187 1.  Remounts  are  now  obtained 
in  the  open  market ;  but  the  Government  still  maintains  a 
number  of  stallions,  including  horses  imported  from  England, 


LIVE-STOCK  STATISTICS.  52 r 

or  half  English  bred,  and  high-class  Arabs.     Excellent  horses 
are  bred  by  the  Baluchi  tribes  along  the  western  frontier. 

Horse  fairs  are  held  yearly  in  the  various  Provinces  of  Horse 
India.  The  principal  ones  in  the  Punjab,  the  part  of  India 
which  furnishes  the  main  supply  of  the  Native  cavalry  re- 
mounts, are  at  Rawalpindi,  Dera  Ghazi  Khan,  Jhang,  Dera 
Ismail  Khan,  and  Muzaffargarh.  The  number  of  horses 
exhibited  varies  greatly  from  year  to  year ;  but  about  5000 
may  be  expected  for  sale  at  these  five  fairs.  Prizes  to  the 
amount  of  about  ^^1500  are  awarded.  The  average  price  of 
remounts  for  the  Native  cavalry  has  risen  of  late  years  from 
;!^i7  to  about  ;^2  2.  Horse  shows  are  also  held  at  Shahpur, 
Gujrat,  Rohtak,  and  Jalalabad,  which  are  ordinarily  well 
attended  and  successful.  In  recent  years,  much  attention  has 
been  paid  in  the  Punjab  to  the  breeding  of  mules  for  military  Mules, 
purposes ;  and  the  value  of  these  animals  has  been  conspicu- 
ously proved  in  the  course  of  the  operations  in  Afghanistan. 
In  1882-83,  the  Government  maintained  152  donkey  stallions, 
of  which  34  were  imported  from  Europe,  74  from  Arabia,  and 
the  remainder  were  of  various  native  breeds.  Some  of  the 
mules  bred  reach  the  height  of  15  hands.  The  best  ponies  Ponies, 
come  from  Burma,  Manipur  (the  original  home  of  the  game  of 
polo),  and  Bhutan. 

The  catching  of  wild  elephants  is  now  either  a  Government  Elephants, 
monopoly,  or  is  conducted  under  strict  Government  supervision. 
The  chief  source  of  supply  is  the  north-east  frontier,  especi- 
ally the   range  of  hills   running  between    the  valleys  of  the 
Brahmaputra  and  the  Barak.     During  the  year  1877-78,  about  Numbers 
260  elephants  were  captured  in  the  Province  of  Assam,  yield-  j|"|'!|^j 
ing  ^3600  to  Government.     Of  these,  170  were  captured  by  18S3. 
lessees  of  the   privilege,  and    90  by   the  Government   khedd 
department.     In  1882-S3,  the  number  of  elephants  caught  was 
475,  yielding   a  Government   revenue  of  ;^8573.     Elephants 
are  also  captured  to  a  smaller  extent  in  the  mountains  border- 
ing Orissa ;  in  Mysore  and  Coorg,  among  the  Western  Ghats  ; 
and  in  Burma,  for  the  timber  trade.     They  are  used  by  Govern- 
ment for  transport,  and  are  eagerly  bought  up  by  native  chiefs 
and  landowners  as  objects  of  display.     The  wild  elephant  will 
be  treated  of  in  the  subsequent  chapter  on  Indian  zoology. 

Sheep  and  goats  are  commonly  reared  in  the  wilder  parts  Sheep  and 
of  the  country  for  the  sake  of  their  wool.     Both  their  weight  S"^^^- 
for   the    butcher   and    their   yield    of  wool   are    exceedingly 
low.      In    Mysore,  and   at  the  Saidapet  farm,  near   Madras, 
attempts  have  been  made  to  improve  the  breed  of  sheep  by 


I 


Pigs. 


Statistics 
of  Live 
Stock. 


522 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


crossing  with  merino  rams,  although  without  much  success, 
except  at  Saidapet.  Pigs  of  great  size  and  most  repulsive 
appearance  are  everywhere  reared,  but  are  eaten  only  by  the 
lowest  of  out-castes. 

The  table  on  the  opposite  page  summarizes  the  information 
collected  regarding  live  stock  in  those  parts  of  India  where 
the  statistics  can  be  obtained  with  some  approximation  to 
accuracy.  But  they  must  be  regarded  as  intelligent  estimates 
rather  than  as  verified  returns. 


Destruc- 
tion of 
jungle. 


Forests.  The  forests  of  India  are  beginning  to  receive  their  proper 

share  of  attention,  both  as  a  source  of  natural  wealth  and  as 
a  department  of  the  administration.  Up  to  about  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  the  destruction  of  forests  by  timber-cutters,  by 
charcoal-burners,  and  above  all,  by  nomadic  cultivation,  was 
allowed  to  go  on  everywhere  unchecked.  The  extension  of 
tillage  was  considered  as  the  chief  care  of  Government, 
and  no  regard  was  paid  to  the  improvident  waste  of  jungle 
on  all  sides.  But  as  the  pressure  of  population  on  the  soil 
became  more  dense,  and  the  construction  of  railways  increased 
the  demand  for  fuel,  the  question  of  forest  conservation  forced 
itself  into  notice.  It  was  recognised  that  the  inheritance  of 
future  generations  was  being  recklessly  sacrificed.  The  im- 
portance of  forests,  as  affecting  the  general  meteorology  of  a 
country,  was  also  being  taught  by  bitter  experience  in  Europe. 
On  many  grounds,  therefore,  it  became  necessary  to  preserve 
what  remained  of  the  forests  in  India,  and  to  repair  the 
mischief  of  previous  neglect,  even  at  considerable  expense. 
In  1844  and  1847,  the  subject  was  actively  taken  up  by  the 
Growth  of  Governments  of  Bombay  and  Madras.  In  1864,  Dr.  Brandis 
the  Forest  ^^.^g  appointed  Inspector-General  of  Forests  to  the  Government 
ment,  of  India ;  and  in  the  following  year  the  first  Forest  Act  passed 

1844-67.  the  Legislature  (No.  vii.  of  1865).  The  regular  training  of 
candidates  for  the  Forest  Department  in  the  schools  of  France 
and  Germany  dates  from  1867.  In  the  interval  which  has 
since  elapsed,  sound  principles  of  forest  administration  have 
been  laid  down  and  gradually  enforced.  Indiscriminate  timber- 
cutting  has  been  prohibited ;  the  burning  of  the  jungle  by  the 
hill  tribes  has  been  confined  within  bounds ;  large  areas  have 
been  surveyed  and  demarcated;  plantations  have  been  laid 
out ;  and  forest  conservation  has  become  a  reality  in  India. 
From  a  botanical  point  of  view,  the  forests  may  be  divided 

\Sentence  contimied  on  page  524. 


AGRICULTURAL  STOCK. 


5^3 


K 

1^ 

►J 

& 

U 

« 

• 

c 

< 

00 

1 

r> 

^ 

00 

oo 

•»; 

H 

•^ 

O 

tn 

b 

a 

O 

u 

/i; 

c 

S5 

< 

o 

i<i 

Ph 

( ; 

o 

<5 

H 

< 

C/2 

Q 

U 

Z 

> 

1— 1 

t— < 

X 

b 

C/3 

O 

w 

« 

Ui 

« 

2 

t> 

;z; 

H 

H 

<: 

>< 

o 

SA 

o 

o 

"^ 

N 

"5 

o 

rn 

-5  --^ 

o 

o 

o 

00 

C/j 

i/-l 

o 

00 

ro 

rO 

o 

r-» 

ro 

m 

w^ 

■z  B 

t^ 

r^ 

CO 

1-4 

U-) 

vC 

rj 

O 

^  3 

ta« 

zc 

C) 

ro 

kX 

u-1 

'-;q 

o 

O 

,. 

N 

fO 

r-» 

M- 

O     O 

i^ 

rl- 

o 

o 

"^ 

M 

r^ 

O 

o 

rf     ri 

o 

cr> 

o 

■- 

O 

CO 

c 

o 

o 

^     t 

i^ 

C\ 

o 

u-i 

ul 

VO 

^ 

o" 

o 

oo"     rC 

r^ 

'^ 

U-) 

C\ 

On 

_v 

rr 

o 

N 

N 

o 

^ 

O 

U~) 

n 

^1- 

r^ 

lo     'i- 

O 

o 

N 

<:^ 

r^ 

ON 

—   5 

r-» 

r^       - 

o 

u^ 

Cn 

CO 

ro 

o 

U2 

ri     in 

ro     d" 

od 

•■o 

0_ 

n" 

V/-1 

>.          CN 

N 

M 

N 

o\ 

(n 

00 

i-i 

CO 

00 

a. 

r>. 

CO       ro 

CO 

■* 

ro 

iv-i 

00 

^ 

ro     t-- 

o 

oc 

1— 

O 

u-i 

t^ 

^ 

N      t^ 

o_ 

u-1 

O 

«-i 

00 

N 

c 

\0      f^ 

W-) 

^ 

M 

ro 

3 

M 

r-~    f*^ 

"~. 

Ci 

o 

■* 

O 

O 

CL| 

vO 

N 

00 

00__ 

•a 

C/3     00 

ro 

n- 

o 

N 

I^ 

rt 

—        M 

vr^ 

t^ 

r^ 

c\ 

v/^ 

>-o 

>>-d 

u")    r^ 

q_ 

r^ 

IM 

o 

r^ 

ro 

l"'^ 

CO 

00 

o 

1^ 

M 

00 

oo 

fO     ro 

u-i 

•«r 

•^ 

o 

o 

to    ci 



ro 

N       CS 

00 

«     o 

O 

ro 

t^ 

CO 

• 

OO       M 

ro 

^    C/0 

•■o 

co 

u-> 

«-' 

u-l 

C4 

^ 

rt 

1-^      — 

O 

o     - 

t^ 

^ 

00 

VJ-I 

\J~i 

O 

-5 

r^     ro 

•^ 

t-^    6 

-* 

►1 

rl- 

m 

ro 

rs 

C/5       W-) 

C/D 

ro 

M 

•^ 

i/-> 

s 

'J; 

oo" 

W 

ro 

•        • 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

R 

o 

;3 

^ 

^_^ 

M 

•« 

x 

^ 

rn 

"s    5 

O 
1 

3 

►2    ^5 

o 

ST 

"3 
g 

U 

"So 

K    U 

fi 

S 

U 

72 

s 

■o 

r-  . 

524  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

Sentence  cotitinued  from  p.  522.] 

IndK-in        into  several  distinct  classes,  determined  by  varying  conditions 

trees.  ^^  ^'^^1  climate,  and  rainfall.     The  king  of  Indian  forest  trees 

is  the  teak  (Tectona  grandis),  which  rivals  the  British  oak  as 

Teak.  material  for  ship-building.  The  home  of  the  teak  is  in  the 
Bombay  Ghats,  Kanara,  Cochin,  Travancore,  and  the  Burmese 
peninsula,    where    it   flourishes   under   an    excessive   rainfall. 

Sal.  Second  to  teak  is  the  sal  (Shorea  robusta),  which  is  indigenous 

along  the  lower  slopes  of  the  Himalayas  from  the  Sutlej  basin 
east  to  Assam,  among  the  hills  of  Central  India,  and  in  the 
Eastern  Ghats  down  to  the  Godavari  river.  On  the  Hima- 
layas of  North-Western  India,  the  distinguishing  timber-tree  is 

D:oddra.  the  deoddra  (Cedrus  Deodara)  ;  while  on  the  North-Eastern 
Himalayan  frontier  its  place  is  occupied  by  Pinus  Kasya  and 
other  trees,  such  as  oak  and  chestnut,  of  a  temperate  zone. 

These  noble  trees  supply  the  most  valuable  timber,  and 
form  the  chief  care  of  the  Forest  Department.  But  they  are 
only   the   aristocracy   of   countless   species,    yielding   timber, 

Stmth         firewood,  and  other  products  of  value.     In  the  south  of  the 

Indian        peninsula,  the  mountain  range  of  the  Western  Ghats,  from 

forests.  ^  .         °  .  . 

Travancore  northwards  into   Kanara,  is  clothed  with  an  in- 
exhaustible wealth  of  still  virgin  forest.     Here  there  are  three 
The  three   separate  vegetations,     (i)  An  evergreen  belt  on  the  seaward 
Ijgjf^ "         face  of  the  mountains,  where  grow  the  stately//^;?  (Calophyllum 
inophyllum),  valuable  as  spars  for  ships,  the  anjalli  or  wild 
jack  (Artocarpus  hirsuta),  and  a  variety  of  ebony  (Diospyros 
Ebenum).     {2)  A  belt  of  mixed  forest,  varying  from  10  to  40 
miles    in   width,    which    yields    teak,    blackwood    (Dalbergia 
latifolia),  and  Lagerstroemia  microcarpa,  and  here  and  there 
continuous  avenues  of  lofty  bamboos.     (3)  A  dry  belt,  extend- 
•    ing  over  the  central  plateau,  in  which  the  vegetation  declines 
Sandal-      in  size  and  abundance.     The  precious  sandal-wood  (Santalum 
^'^^^'  album),  limited  almost  entirely  to  Mysore  and  Kanara,  thrives 

best  on  a  stony  soil,  with  a  light  rainfall.  In  the  Bombay 
Presidency,  the  chief  forest  areas,  excluding  Kanara,  are  to  be 
found  in  the  mountainous  extension  of  the  Western  Ghats, 
known  as  the  Sahyadri  range,  and  in  the  delta  of  the  Indus  in 
the  outlying  Province  of  Sind. 
Sind  The  Sind  river-valley  forests  present  many  peculiar  features. 

They  are  locally  reported  to  have  been  formed  as  game 
preserves  by  the  Mirs  or  Musalman  rulers,  and  are  divided 
into  convenient  blocks  or  belds,  fringing  the  entire  course  of 
the  Indus.  Being  absolute  State  property,  their  management 
is  embarrassed  by  no  difficulties,  excepting  those  caused  by 


INDIAN  FOREST  AREA S.  525 

the  uncontrollable  floods  of  the  river.     They  furnish  abundant 

firewood,  but  little  timber  of  value,  their  chief  produce  being 

babul  (Acacia  arabica),  bahdn  (Populus  euphratica),  and  tamarisk 

(Tamarix  dioica).      In  the  Punjab,   the  principal  forests  of  Punjal) 

deoddra  (Cedrus  Deodara)  lie  beyond  the  British  frontier,  in 

the  Himalayan  valleys  of  the  great  rivers ;  but  many  of  them 

have  been  leased  from  the  bordering  States,  in  order  to  secure 

a  supply  of  firewood  and  railway  sleepers.      On  the  Punjab 

plains,  the  only  woods  are  those  growing  on  the  rdklis  or 

upland   plateaux   which    rise    between    the   converging   river 

basins.     The  chief  trees  found  here  are  varieties  of  Prosopis, 

Capparis,  and  Salvadora ;  but  the  Forest  Department  is  now 

laying  out  more  valuable  plantations  of  ^/^■^^(Dalbergia  Sissoo), 

baer  (Zizyphus  jujuba),  and  kikar. 

The  North-Western  Provinces  present  the  Himalayan  type  Forests 

of  forest  in   Kumaun   and  Garhwal,  where  the  characteristic  p     •      . 

trees  are  the  chil  (Pinus  excelsa)  and  chir  (Pinus  longifolia), 

with  but  little  deoddra.     Farther  west  occurs  a  forest-belt  of 

ja7,  which  may  be  said    to  form   the   continuous   boundary 

between  Nepal  and  British  territory.     Owing  to  the  facility  of 

water  communication  and  the  neighbourhood  of  the  great  cities 

of  Hindustan,  these  sdl  forests  have  long  ago  been  stripped  of 

their  valuable  timber,  and  are  but  slowly  recovering  under  the 

care  of  the  Forest  Department.     Oudh  and  Northern  Bengal  of  Oudh 

continue  the  general  features  of  the  North-Western  Provinces  ;  ^"'^  ■^; 
°  .  '  Bengal. 

but  the  hill  station  of  Darjihng  is  surrounded  by  a  flora  of  the 
temperate  zone. 

Calcutta  has,  from  its  foundation,  drawn  its  supply  of  fire- 
wood  from   the   inexhaustible   jungles   of  the   Sundarbans,  Simdarban 
which  have   recently  been  placed  under  forest   conservancy  '°'^^^'^='- 
rules.      This  tract,   extending  over   5000  square  miles,   is  a 
dismal  swamp,  half  land,  half  sea  or  fresh  water,  overgrown 
by  an  almost  impenetrable  jungle  of  timber-trees  and  under- 
wood.     The   most   valued   wood   is   the   swiddri  (Heretiera 
littoralis),  which  is  said  to  give  its  name  to  the  tract.     Assam 
and  Chittagong,  like  the  Malabar  coast  and  British   Burma, 
still  possess  vast  areas  of  virgin  forest,  although  the  more 
accessible  tracts  have  been  ruthlessly  laid  waste.     Beside  sdl 
and  Pinus  Kasya,  the  timber-trees  of  Assam  include  tiahor  or  Assam 
ndgeswar  (Mesua  ferrea),  sum  ( Artocarpus  Chaplasha),  Viwdjdrul  'oresis. 
(Lagerstroemia   Flos-Regince).      Ficus   elastica,    yielding   the 
caoutchouc  of  commerce,  was  formerly  common,  but  now  the 
supply  is  chiefly  brought  from  beyond  the  frontier.     Planta- 
tions of  teak,  iitn  (Cedrela  Toona),  sissu,  and  Ficus  elastica  are 


526 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


PurmesE 
forests. 


Central 
India. 


Forest 
adminis- 
tration. 

'  Reserved' 
forests. 


'  Open  ' 
forests. 

'  Planta- 
tions.' 


Forest 

finance, 

1873-188J 


187: 


1S7S. 


16S3. 


now  being  formed  and  guarded  by  the  Forest  Department.  In 
Burma,  the  importance  of  teak  exceeds  that  of  all  the  other 
timber-trees  together.  Next  comes  iron-wood  (Xylia  dolabri- 
formis),  and  Acacia  Catechu,  which  yields  the  cutch  of  com- 
merce. Throughout  the  centre  of  the  peninsula,  forests  cover 
a  very  extensive  area ;  but  their  value  is  chiefly  local,  as  none 
of  the  rivers  are  navigable.  Towards  the  east,  sal  predomi- 
nates, and  in  the  west  there  is  some  teak ;  but  fine  timber 
of  either  species  is  comparatively  scarce.  Rajputana  has  a 
beautiful  tree  of  its  own,  the  Anogeissus  pendula,  with  small 
leaves  and  drooping  branches. 

From  the  administrative  point  of  view,  the  Indian  forests 
are  classified  as  '  reserved  '  or  as  '  open.'  The  reserved  forests 
are  those  under  the  immediate  control  of  officers  of  the  Forest 
Department.  They  are  managed  as  the  property  of  the  State, 
with  a  single  eye  to  their  conservancy  and  future  development 
as  a  source  of  national  wealth.  Their  limits  are  demarcated 
after  survey;  nomadic  cultivation  by  the  hill  trites  is  prohibited ; 
cattle  are  excluded  from  grazing ;  destructive  creepers  are  cut 
down  ;  and  the  hewing  of  timber,  if  permitted  at  all,  is  placed 
under  stringent  regulations.  The  open  forests  are  less  care- 
fully guarded  ;  but  in  them,  also,  certain  kinds  of  timber-trees 
are  preserved.  A  third  class  of  forest  lands  consists  of  planta- 
tions, on  which  large  sums  of  money  are  spent  annually,  with 
a  view  to  the  rearing  and  development  of  timber-trees. 

It  is  difficult  to  present,  in  a  summary  view,  the  entire 
financial  aspects  of  the  labours  of  the  Forest  Department. 
In  1872-73,  the  total  area  of  reserved  forests  in  India  was 
estimated  at  more  than  6,000,000  acres ;  and  the  area  has 
])robably  been  doubled  since  that  date.  In  the  same  year, 
the  total  forest  revenue  was  ;^47 7,000,  as  compared  with  an 
expenditure  of  ^^295,000,  thus  showing  a  surplus  of  ;^i 82,000. 

By  1877-78,  the  revenue  had  increased  to  ;^664,i02,  of 
which  ;!{^ 1 60,308  was  derived  from  British  Burma,  and 
;^i  26,163  from  Bombay.  The  forest  exports  in  that  year  in- 
cluded— teak,  valued  at  ^406,652 ;  lac  and  lac-dye,  ;^362,oo8 ; 
caoutchouc,  ^^89,381  ;  and  gums,  ;!{^i83,685. 

By  the  end  of  1882-83,  the  total  forest  revenue  had  further 
increased  to  ^^963, 85 9,  of  which  ^250,389  was  derived  from 
British  Burma,  ;^209,o35  from  Bombay,  ^101,340  from  the 
North-Western  Provinces  and  Oudh,  £()T.'](>S  from  the  Central 
Provinces,  ;^9o,644  from  Madras,  ;^76,67i  from  the  Punjab, 
^^69,396  from  Bengal,  ^^24,861  from  Assam,  ;j^28,704  from 
Berar,  and  ;,^i3,8o2  from  Coorg.     From  each  of  these  Pro- 


NOMADIC  CULTIVATION.  527 

vinces  a  surplus  profit  was  realized  over  working  expenses.  A 
small  forest  revenue  is  also  obtained  from  tracts  in  Ajmere 
and  in  Baluchistan,  but  not  sufficient,  up  to  1883,  to  cover 
the  expenses  of  the  Department.  Total  forest  expenditure  in 
1882-83,^577,726,  showing  a  surplus  of  ^^386,133.  Average 
forest  revenue  for  ten  years  ending  1882-83,  ^703,424  per 
annum ;  average  expenditure,  ^467,624 ;  average  surplus, 
_;^235,8oo.  But  the  above  figures  fail  to  exhibit  the  true 
working  of  the  Forest  Department,  which  is  gradually  winning 
back  for  India  the  fee-simple  of  her  forest  wealth,  when  it  was 
on  the  point  of  being  squandered  beyond  the  possibility  of 
redemption. 

The  practice  of  nomadic  cultivation  by  the  hill  tribes  may  Nomadic 
conveniently  be  described  in  connection  with  forest  conserva-  '^"'t'^^^'*^'"- 
tion,  of  which  it  is  the  most  formidable  enemy.     In  all  the 
great  virgin  forests  of  India,   in  Arakan,   on  the  north-east  Its  area, 
frontier  of  Assam   and   Chittagong,   throughout  the  Central 
Provinces,   and   along   the   line   of  the    Western    Ghats,   the 
aboriginal  tribes  raise  their  crops  of  rice,  cotton,  and  millets 
by  a  system  of  nomadic  tillage.     A  similar  method  has  been 
found  in  Madagascar ;  and,  indeed,  from  its  simplicity  and  its 
appropriateness,  it  may  fairly  be  regarded  the  most  primitive 
form  of  agriculture  foUoAved  by  the  human  race.     Known  as 
taungya  in   Burma,  ji'im  on   the  north-east  frontier,  dahya  in 
Central  India,  kilm  the  Himalayas,  and  kunidri  in  the  Western 
Ghats,  it  is  practised  without  material  differences  by  tribes  of 
the  most  diverse  origin. 

The  essential  features  of  such  husbandry  are  the  burning  Its  varie- 
down  of  a  patch  of  forest,  and  sowing  the  crop  with  little  or  no  '^^^" 
tillage  in  the  clearing  thus  formed.  The  tribes  of  the  Bombay 
coast  break  up  the  cleared  soil  with  a  sort  of  hoe-pick  and 
spade,  or  even  with  the  plough  ;  in  other  parts  of  India,  the 
soil  is  merely  scratched,  or  the  seed  scattered  on  the  surface 
without  any  cultivation.  In  some  cases,  a  crop  is  taken  off  the 
same  clearing  for  two  or  even  three  years  in  succession ;  but 
more  usually  the  tribe  moves  off  every  year  to  a  fresh  field  of 
operations.  Every  variety  of  implement  is  used,  from  the  bill- 
hook, used  alike  for  hewing  the  jungle  and  for  turning  up  the 
soil,  to  the  plough.  Every  degree  of  permanence  in  the  culti- 
vation may  be  observed,  from  a  one-year's  crop  to  the  stage  at 
which  an  aboriginal  tribe,  such  as  the  Kandhs,  visibly  passes 
from  nomadic  husbandry  to  regular  tillage. 

To   these   nomad   cultivators   the  words   rhetorically  used 
by  Tacitus  of  the  primitive  Germans  are  strictly  applicable 


528 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Forest- 
clearing 
by  fire : 


Restraints 
on  it. 


Merits  of 
nomadic 
tillage. 


Irrigation. 


— An^a  per  annos  mutant ;  et  superest  ager.  The  wanton 
destruction  wrought  by  them  in  the  forest  is  incalculable.  In 
addition  to  the  timber-trees  deliberately  burned  down  to  clear 
the  soil,  the  fire  thus  started  not  unfrequently  runs  wild 
through  the  forest,  and  devastates  many  square  miles. 
Wherever  timber  has  any  value  from  the  proximity  of  a 
market,  the  first  care  of  the  Forest  Department  is  to  prohibit 
these  fires,  and  to  assign  heavy  penalties  for  any  infringement 
of  its  rules.  The  success  of  a  year's  forest  operations  is  mainly 
estimated  by  the  degree  in  which  the  reserves  have  been  saved 
from  the  flames. 

But  vast  tracts  of  country  yet  remain  in  which  it  would  be 
equally  useless  and  impossible  to  place  restraints  upon  nomad 
cultivation.  The  system  yields  a  larger  return  for  the  same 
amount  of  labour  than  permanent  plough-husbandry.  A  virgin 
soil,  manured  many  inches  deep  with  ashes,  and  watered  by 
the  full  burst  of  a  tropical  rainfall,  returns  forty  and  fifty-fold 
of  rice,  which  is  the  staple  grain  thus  raised.  In  addition  to 
rice,  Indian  corn,  millet,  oil-seeds,  and  cotton,  are  sometimes 
grown  in  the  same  clearing,  the  seeds  being  all  thrown  into  the 
ground  together,  and  each  crop  ripening  in  succession  at  its 
own  season.  Except  to  the  eyes  of  a  forest  officer,  a  patch  of 
nomadic  tillage  is  a  very  picturesque  sight.  Men,  women,  and 
children  all  work  together  with  a  will,  for  the  trees  must  be 
felled  and  burned,  and  the  seed  sown,  before  the  monsoon 
breaks.  Save  on  the  western  coast  and  the  Ghats  (where  the 
])lough  is  occasionally  used),  the  implement  generally  employed 
for  all  purposes  is  the  ddo  or  hill-knife,  which  performs  the 
office  alike  of  axe,  hoe,  dibbler,  and  sickle. 


Its  function 
in  India, 


In  a  tropical  country,  where  the  rainfall  is  capricious  in  its 
incidence  and  variable  in  its  amount,  the  proper  control  of  the 
water-supply  becomes  one  of  the  first  cares  of  Government. 
Its  expenditure  on  irrigation  works  may  be  regarded  as  an 
investnient  of  the  landlord's  capital,  by  which  alone  the  estate 
can  be  rendered  profitable.  Without  artificial  irrigation, 
large  tracts  of  country  would  lie  permanently  waste,  while 
others  could  only  be  cultivated  in  exceptionally  favourable 
seasons.  Irrigation  is  to  the  Indian  peasant  what  high  cultiva- 
tion is  to  the  farmer  in  England.  It  augments  the  produce  of 
his  fields  in  a  proportion  far  larger  than  the  mere  interest  upon 
the  capital  expended.  It  may  also  be  regarded  as  an  insurance 
against  famine.  When  the  monsoon  fails  for  one  or  two 
seasons  in  succession,  the  cultivator  of  'dry  lands'  has  no 


4 


INDIAN  IRRIGA  TION  AREAS.  5  2  9 

hope ;  while  abundant  crops  are  raised  from  the  fortunate 
fields  commanded  by  irrigation  works.  This  contrast  was 
painfully  realized  in  Southern  India  during  the  terrible  years 
of  1S76  to  1878,  the  limit  between  famine  and  plenty  being 
marked  by  the  boundaries  of  the  irrigated  and  non-irrigated 
areas.  It  would,  however,  be  an  error  to  conclude  that  any  outlay 
will  absolutely  guarantee  the  vast  interior  of  the  peninsula  from 
famine.  Much,  indeed,  can  be  done,  and  much  is  being  done,  enuring 
year  by  year,  to  store  and  distribute  the  scanty  and  irregular  ^""'"'•'' 
water-supply  of  this  inland  plateau.  But  engineering  possibilities 
are  limited,  not  only  by  the  expense,  but  by  the  unalterable  laws 
of  nature.  A  table-land,  with  only  a  moderate  rainfall,  and 
watered  by  few  perennial  streams,  broken  by  many  hill  ranges, 
and  marked  out  into  no  natural  drainage  basins,  can  never 
be  completely  protected  from  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Indian 
seasons. 

Irrigation  is  everywhere  dependent  upon  the  two  supreme  Irrigation 
considerations   of  water-supply   and   land-level.      The   sandy  ^'■'^'^^■ 
desert,  which  extends  from  the  hills  of  Rajputana  to  the  basin 
of  the  Indus,  is  as  hopelessly  closed  to  irrigation,  from  its 
almost  entire  absence  of  rainfall,  as  is  the  confused  system  of 
hill  and  valley  in  Central  India,  with  its  unmanageable  levels. 
Farther  west,  in  the  Indus  valley,  irrigation  becomes  possible, 
and  in  no  part  of  India  has  it  been  conducted  with  greater 
perseverance  and  success.     The  entire  Province  of  Sind,  and  Sind. 
several  of  the  lower  Districts  of  the   Punjab,  are  absolutely 
dependent  upon  the  floods  of  the  Indus.     Sind  has  been  com- 
pared to  Egypt,  and  the  Indus  to  the  Nile ;  but  the  conditions 
of  the  Indian  Province  are  much  the  less  favourable  of  the 
two.     In  Sind,  the  average  rainfall  is  barely  10  inches  in  the 
year ;  the  soil  is  a  thirsty  sand  ;  worst  of  all,  the  river  does 
not  run  in  confined  banks,  but  wanders  at  its  will  over  a  wide 
valley.     The  rising  of  the  Nile  is  a  beneficent  phenomenon, 
which  can  be  depended  upon  with  tolerable  accuracy,  and 
which  the  industry  of  countless  generations  has  brought  under 
control  for  the  purposes  of  cultivation.     The  inundation  of  the  Theuncnn- 
Indus  is  an  uncontrollable  torrent,  which  sometimes  does  as  ^''•^''-'ible 
much  barm  as  good. 

Broadly  speaking,  no  crop  can  be  grown  in  Sind  except  under  Irrigation 
irrigation.     The  cultivated  area  of  over  two  million  acres  may  ^V'^'"^; 
be  regarded  as  entirely  dependent  upon  artificial  water-supply, 
although  not  entirely  on  State  irrigation  works.     The  water  is 
drawn  from  the  river  by  two  classes  of  canals — (i)  inundation 
channels,  which  only  fill   when  the  Indus  is  in  flood  ;  and 

2  L 


530  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

Irrigation  (2)  perennial  channels,  which  carry  off  water  by  means  of  dams 
in  Sind,  .^|-  ^^jj  seasons  of  the  year.  The  former  are  for  the  most  part 
the  work  of  ancient  rulers  of  the  country,  or  of  the  cultivators 
themselves  ;  the  latter  have  been  constructed  since  the  British 
conquest.  In  both  cases,  care  has  been  taken  to  utilize 
abandoned  beds  of  the  river.  Irrigation  in  Sind  is  treated 
as  an  integral  department  of  the  land  administration.  In 
in  1S77;  1876-77,  about  900,000  acres  were  returned  as  irrigated  from 
works  for  which  capital  and  revenue  accounts  are  kept.  The 
chief  of  these  are  the  Ghar,  Eastern  and  Western  Nara,  Sukkur 
(Sakhar),  Phuleli,  and  Pinyari  Canals ;  the  total  receipts  were 
about  ^,{^1 90,000,  almost  entirely  credited  under  the  head  of 
land  revenue.  In  the  same  year,  about  445,000  acres  were 
irrigated  from  works  for  which  revenue  accounts  only  are  kept, 
yielding  about  ;2^7 5,000  in  land  revenue.  The  total  area 
'usually  irrigated'  in  Sind  was  returned  in  1880  at  about 
1,800,000  acres,  out  of  a  cultivated  area  of  2,250,000  acres. 
1883.  The  actual  area  cultivated  by  means  of  canal  irrigation  in 

Sind  in  1882-83  was  1,673,293  acres,  includingyfl-^'/r  or  revenue- 
free  lands ;  the  area  assessed  for  Government  revenue  being 
1,508,292  acres.     The  gross  assessed  revenue  from  all  sources 
amounted   to  ^^ 294,898,    and    the   maintenance   charges   to 
^135,118,   leaving   a   net  revenue  of  ^159,780.      The  net 
actual  receipts  from  productive  irrigation  works  returned  4*25 
per  cent,  and  those  from  ordinary  irrigation  works,  12-95  per 
cent,  on  the  capital  outlay  incurred  up  to  the  end  of  the  year. 
Total  capital  outlay  up  to  the  end  of  1882-83,  ;^958,oi2, 
of  which  ^623,267  had  been  expended  on  productive  works, 
and  ;^334,745  on  ordinary  irrigation  works. 
Irrigation        In  the  Bombay  Presidency,  irrigation  is  conducted  on  a  com- 
in  Bombay,  paratively  small  scale,  and  mainly  by  private  enterprise.    Along 
the   coast   of  the  Konkan,  the  heavy  local  rainfall,  and  the 
annual  flooding  of  the  numerous  small  creeks,  permit  rice  to  be 
grown  without  artificial  aid.     In  Gujarat  (Guzerat)  the  supply 
is  drawn  from  wells,  and  in  the  Deccan  from  tanks ;  but  both 
of  these  are  liable  to  fail  in  years  of  deficient  rainfall.    Govern- 
ment has  now  undertaken  a  few  comprehensive  schemes  of 
irrigation  in  Bombay,  conforming  to  a  common  type.     The 
head  of  a  hill  valley  is  dammed  up,  so  as  to  form  an  immense 
reservoir,   and  the  water   is  then  conducted  over  the  fields 
by   channels,    in    some    cases    of    considerable    length.      In 
1877.  1876-77,  the  total  area  in  Bombay  (excluding  Sind)  irrigated 

from  Government  works  was  about  180,000  acres,  yielding  a 
revenue  of  about  ^42,000.     In  the  same  year,  the  expenditure 


IRRIGATION  IN  THE  PUNJAB.  531 

on  irrigation  (inclusive  of  Sind)  was  ;^65,ooo  under  the  head 
of  extraordinary,  and  ^170,000  under  the  head  of  ordinary; 
total,  ^235,000.  In  1882-83,  t^''s  area  irrigated  by  Govern- 18S3. 
ment  works  in  Gujarat  and  the  Deccan  amounted  to  28,735 
acres  from  productive  works,  and  138,468  acres  from  works 
not  classed  as  productive.  Total  Government  irrigation, 
167,203  acres;  yielding  a  revenue  of  ;^77,746,  against  an 
expenditure  of  ^37,171,  leaving  a  surplus  of  ;j^3o,575. 
Besides  these  Government  works,  irrigation  is  carried  on  to 
a  much  larger  extent  in  Bombay  by  private  individuals  from 
tanks,  ponds,  and  watercourses.  Ordinary  irrigated  area  in 
Bombay  (exclusive  of  Sind),  550,000  acres,  out  of  a  total 
cultivated  area  of  22 J  million  acres. 

In  some  parts  of  the  Punjab,  irrigation  is  only  one  degree  Irrigation 
less  necessary  than  in  Sind,  but  the  sources  of  supply  are  more  !"  '^'l^ 
numerous.     In  the  northern  tract,  under  the  Himalayas,  and  1879-84. 
in  the  upper  valleys  of  the  Five  Rivers,  water  can  be  obtained 
by  digging  wells  from  10  to  30  feet  below  the  surface.     In  the 
south,  towards  Sind,  '  inundation  channels '  are  usual.     The 
upland  tracts  which  rise  between  the  basins  of  the  main  rivers 
are  now  in  course  of  being  supplied  by  the  perennial  canals  of 
the  Government.     According  to  the  returns  for  1878-79,  out  1S79. 
of  a  grand  total  of  23,523,504  acres  under  cultivation,  5,340,724 
acres   were   irrigated   by   private   individuals,    and   1,808,005 
acres    by   public    '  channels ; '    total    area    under    irrigation, 
7,148,729  acres,  or  30  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated  area.     The 
three   principal   Government  works    in    the    Punjab   are   the 
Western  Jumna  Canal,  the  Bari  Doab  Canal,  and  the  Sirhind,  The  three 
the  main  branch  of  which,  and  some  of  its  distributaries,  were  §5'^^' , 
opened  m  JNovember  1882.    An  account  of  each  of  these  works  Canals, 
is  given  in  separate  articles  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India?- 

Up  to  the  close  of  1877-78,  the  capital  outlay  on  the  three 
great  Punjab  Canals  was  ;^3,645,i89;  the  total  income  in 
that  year  was  ;!^263,o53,  of  which  ^^i 7 1,504  was  classified  as 
direct,  and  ^91,549  as  indirect;  the  total  revenue  charges  on 
works  in  operation  were  ^224,316,  of  which  ;^i46,4i9  was 
for  maintenance,  and  ;^7 7,897  for  interest,  thus  showing  a 
surplus  of  ^38,737.  On  the  Western  Jumna  Canal,  taken 
singly,  the  net  profit  was  ;!^83,ii2  in  1877-78. 

By  the  end  of  1883-84,  the  gross  revenue  from  the  Barf  Irrigation 
Doab  and  Western  Jumna  Canal,  together  with  the  Indus  and  "^  ^^?^ 
Sutlej   Inundation  Canals,  amounted  to  ^428,416,  and  the  1883-84. 

^  See  articles  Jumna  Canal,  Eastern  and  Western,  Bari  Doab  Canal, 
Sirhind  Canal,  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  Imiia. 


532 


AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 


Punjab 
Canal 
finance, 
1884. 


Punjab 
Canal 

statistics, 
1884. 


Irriijation 
in  the 
N.-W. 
Provinces. 


Four  great 
canals  of 
the  Doabs, 
1878-S3. 

1878. 


working  expenses  to  ^197,032,  thus  yielding  a  net  revenue 
of  ^^231,384,  equal  to  a  return  of  nearly  5  per  cent,  on  the 
capital  of  the  canals  opened.  This  is  exclusive  of  the  Muzaffar- 
garh  Inundation  Canal,  which  has  no  capital  account,  but 
which  in  1882-83  yielded  a  return  of  ;!^22,o35,  against  working 
expenses  amounting  to  ;^i 5,365,  leaving  a  surplus  of  revenue 
over  expenditure  of  ;^667o.  Irrigation  from  the  Sirhind  Canal 
had  only  just  commenced,  but  the  revenue  will  increase  in  pro- 
jDortion  to  the  rate  of  progress  in  constructing  the  distributary 
channels.  This  work,  together  with  the  completion  of  branch- 
distributaries,  is  being  pushed  on  as  rapidly  as  possible. 

The  capital  outlay  on  the  three  great  Punjab  canals,  exclusive 
of  contributions  by  Native  States  towards  the  construction  of  the 
Sirhind  Canal,  amounted  at  the  close  of  1883-84  to  ^^5,033,284, 
the  capital  expended  during  the  latter  year  being  ;^282,524. 
Area  irrigated  from  Government  canals  in  1883-84  : — Western 
Jumna  Canal,  472,426  acres  ;  Bari  Doab  Canal,  390,860 acres  ; 
Sirhind  Canal,  5030  acres  ;  inundation  canals,  783,752  acres: 
total,  1,652,068  acres.  The  ordinary  irrigated  area  in  the 
Punjab,  from  Government  works  as  well  as  by  private  in- 
dividuals, may  now  be  taken  at  about  8  million  acres,  out  of  a 
total  cultivated  area  of  over  23  million  acres. 

The  North-Western  Provinces  present,  in  the  great  dodh,  or 
high  land  between  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna,  a  continuation 
of  the  physical  features  to  be  found  in  the  Punjab.  The 
local  rainfall,  indeed,  is  heavier,  but  before  the  days  of  arti- 
ficial irrigation  almost  every  drought  resulted  in  a  terrible 
famine.  It  is  in  this  tract  that  the  British  Government  has 
been  perhaps  most  successful  in  averting  such  calamities.  In 
Sind,  irrigation  is  an  absolute  necessity ;  in  Lower  Bengal,  it 
may  be  regarded  almost  as  a  luxury;  in  the  great  river 
basins  of  Upper  India,  it  serves  the  twofold  object  of  averting 
famines  caused  by  drought ;  of  introducing  more  valuable 
crops  and  higher  methods  of  agriculture. 

Concerning  private  irrigation  from  wells  in  the  North- 
Western  Provinces,  details  are  not  available.  The  great 
Government  works  are  the  Ganges  Canal,  the  Eastern  Jumna 
Canal,  the  Agra  Canals,  and  the  Lower  Ganges  Canal.^  Up  to 
the  close  of  1877-78,  the  total  outlay  had  been  ;!^5,673,4oi. 
The  gross  income  in  that  year  was  ;!^438,i36,  of  which 
;2^337,842  was  derived  from  water-rates,  and  ^^  100, 2 94  from 
enhanced  land  revenue  ;   the  working  expenses  amounted  to 

^  A  full  account  of  each  of  these  works  will  be  found  under  article 
Ganges  Canal,  The  Imfcrial  Gazetteer,  vol.  iii. 


IRRIGATION;  X.-W.  PROVINCES;  BENGAL     533 

;^i43,984,  leaving  ;^2 94, 1 52  for  surplus  profits,  or  677  perN.-W.P. 
cent,  on  the  total  capital  expended  on  works  in  operation.  Canals. 
Tlie  total  area  irrigated  in  the  North-Western  Provinces  was 
1,461,428  acres.    Of  this  total,  415,659  acres  were  under  wheat, 
and  139,375  under  sugar-cane. 

The  total  capital  outlay  on  the  four  main  canals  just  men-  The  four 
tioned  in  the  North-Western  Provinces  up  to  18S2-83,  was  ^^^^jg 
^6,499,741, of  which  ;/^i38,677  were  expended  during  1882-S3,  1S82-83. 

The  other  canals  in  the  N.-W.  Provinces,  not  classed  as  pro- 
ductive works,  included,  in  1882-83,  the  following — namely,  the  Minor 
Diin  Canal,  the  Rohilkhand  and  Bijnor  Canal,  the  Bundelkhand  ^"'^yp 
irrigation  works,  the  Cawnpur  branch  of  the  Lower  Ganges  Canal, 
and  the  Betwa  Canal,  constructed  as  a  famine  insurance  work. 
Total  capital  expended  on  all  Government  canals  in  the  North- 
Western  Provinces  up  to  the  end  of  1882-83,  ;^6, 890,769, 
of  which  ^{^232, 341  was  spent  during  the  latter  year.  These 
canals  may  all  be  considered  as  practically  complete,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Lower  Ganges  and  Agra  Canals,  in  which  some 
of  the  distributaries  are  as  yet  (1884)  unfinished  ;  and  the  Betwa 
Canal,  which  was  under  construction  at  the  end  of  1882-83. 

The  gross  revenue  of  the  canals  in  the  N.-W.  Provinces,  Total 
including  water-rates,  increased  land  revenue  due  to  the  canals,  ^^"''^ 

.  .  revenue  ni 

navigation  charges  in  1882-83,  ^^'^s  ;,^645,9i8;  the  charges  N.-W. P., 
against  revenue  amounted  to  ;^2i5,8i3,  thus  leaving  a  net  ^^^3- 
revenue  of  ^430,105,  or  over  6  per  cent,  on  the  total  capital 
outlay,  exclusive  of  the   Betwa  Canal.     Deducting  from  this 
the  interest  charges  for  the  year,  which  amounted  to  ^^  249, 601, 
there  remained  a  clear  profit  or  surplus  of;^i8o,504.     The 
total  area  irrigated  during  1882-83  was  1,974,175  acres,  of  which  Irrigated 
1,462,023  were  supplied  by  the   Ganges  and  Lower  Ganges  ^'^^^'  ^    ^" 
Canals,  or  their  branches.     Of  the  irrigated  area,  728,385  acres 
were  under  wheat;   662,693  acres  under  other  food  crops; 
316,145  acres  under  indigo;   198,322  acres  under  sugar-cane, 
and  52,493  acres  under  cotton.     Besides  the  canal  irrigation,  a 
vast  area  in  the  North-Western    Provinces  is  supplied  with 
water  from  wells,  tanks,  and  miscellaneous  works.    The  total 
area  ordinarily  irrigated  in  the  North-Western  Provinces  (exclud- 
ing Oudh)  may  be  estimated  at  7  to  8  million  acres. 

No  irrigation  works  have  yet  been  introduced  into  Oudh  by  Irrigation 
Government.      A  fair  local  rainfall,    the   annual    overflow  of '"    "    ' 
the  rivers,  and  an  abundance  of  low-lying  swamps,  combine 
to  furnish  a  water-supply  which  is  ample  in  all  ordinary  years. 
According  to  the  Settlement  returns,  out  of  a  total  cultivated 
area  of  8,276,174  acres,  2,957,377  acres,  or  36  percent.,  are 


in  Bengal 
rroper. 


534  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

irrigated   by   private   individuals.      But   this   figure   probably 
includes  low  lands  watered  by  natural  overflow. 
Irrigation        Throughout  the  greater  part  of  Bengal  Proper  there  is  scarcely 
any  demand  for  artificial  irrigation,  but  Government  has  under- 
taken to  construct  works  in  those  exceptional  tracts  where 
experience  has  shown  that  drought  or  famine  is  to  be  feared. 
In  the  broad  valleys  of  the  Ganges  and  the  Brahmaputra, 
and   along   the   deltaic   seaboard,   flood   is  a   more   frequent 
calamity  than  drought ;  and  embankments  here  take  the  place 
of  canals.     The  Public  Works  Department  in  Lower  Bengal 
Embank-    has  over  2000  miles  of  embankments  under  its  charge,  upon 
ments.        which  ^79,105  was   expended   in  1877-78,  either  as  direct 
outlay  or  in  advances  to  landowners.     The  wide  expanse  of 
Northern  Bengal  and  Behar,  stretching  from  the  Himalayas  to 
the  Ganges,  is  also  rarely  visited  by  drought ;  although,  when 
drought  does  come,  the  excessive   density  of  the  population 
brings  the  danger  of  famine  very  near.    In  Saran  District  it  has 
been  found  necessary  to  carry  out  a  scheme  for  utilizing  the 
discharge  of  the  river  Gandak. 
The  Orissa      The  great  irrigation  works   in  Lower  Bengal   are   two  in 
Canals.       number,  and  belong  to  two  different  types: — (i)  In  the  delta 
of  Orissa,  an  extensive  system  of  canals  has  been  constructed 
on  the  pattern  of  those   lower  down   the  Coromandel  coast. 
They  store  up  the  water  by  means  of  a  weir  or  anient  thrown 
across  the  Mahanadi  river.^     The  Orissa  works  are  intended 
to  avert  the  danger  of  both  drought  and  flood,  and  also  to  be 
useful  for  navigation.     In  average  seasons,  i.e.  in  five  years  out 
of  six,  the  local  rainfall  is  sufficient  for  the  rice  crop,  which  is 
here  the  sole  staple  of  cultivation  ;  and  therefore  it  is  not  to 
be  expected  that  these  canals  will  be  directly  or  largely  re- 
munerative.    But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  they  save  the  Province 
from  a  repetition  of  the  disastrous  year  1865-66,  the  money 
will   not  have  been  expended    in  vain.      A  canal,  originally 
designed   as    a   branch    of  the    Orissa   works,  runs    through 
]\Iidnapur  District  and  debouches  on  the  Hugli. 
The  Son         (2)  In  South  Behar,  the  flood  discharge  of  the  Son  has  been 
Canal.        intercepted,  after  the  system  of  engineering  followed  in  the 
North-West,  so  as  to  irrigate  the  thirsty  strip  of  land   along 
the   south    bank    of  the    Ganges,  where    distress   has    often 
been    severely    felt.-      In    this    case,    also,    the    expenditure 
must  be  regarded  rather  as  an  insurance  fund  against  famine 
than  as  reproductive  outlay.     The  works  are  not  yet  complete, 

'  See  article  Mahanadi,  The  Iinpcrial  Gazetteer. 
^  See  article  Son  Canals,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer, 


IRRIGATION;  BENGAI  AND  MADRAS.    535 

but  the  experience   already  gained   proves  that    irrigation  is 
wanted  even  in  ordinary  seasons. 

Up  to  the  close  of  the  year  1877-78,  the  capital  expendi-  Irrigation 
ture  on  all   the  State  irrigation  works  in  Lower    Bengal  was  ^\-,vj0^^ 
^^4,653,903  ;  the  gross  income  for  the  year  was_;^49,477  ;  the 
working  expenses  were  ;!^7o,286,and  the  estimated  interest  on  187S. 
capital,  at  4^^  per  cent,  amounted  to  ^^203, 971,  thus  showing  a 
deficit  of;2^2  24,78o.    The  area  irrigated  was  about  400,000  acres. 

By  the  end  of  1882-83,  the  total  direct  capital  outlay  Irrigation 
(excluding  interest)  on  State  navigation  and  irrigation  canals  '"  i^^"„^^ ' 
m  Bengal  was  ^.SiZZ^^l-^  j  the  gross  income  for  the  year  was 
;^207, 444  (including  the  Calcutta  Canals  and  Nadiya  river  works, 
for  which  capital  and  revenue  accounts  are  not  kept),  and  the 
working  expenses  ^514,898,  showing  a  deficit  of  ;!^307,454. 
Adding  to  this  the  amount  of  interest  on  capital,  which  in 
1882-83  amounted  to  ;^2 11,550,  calculated  at  4  per  cent.,  the 
total  net  deficit  for  the  year  amounted  to  ;/"5 19,004.  The  four 
chief  navigation  and  irrigation  canals,  however,  returned  a  surplus 
(excluding  interest)  of  ;^i5,527  of  revenue  over  working  ex- 
penses. The  great  deficit  of  current  expenditure  over  current 
revenue  occurred  in  the  Orissa  coast  canals,  embankments, 
drainage  works,  etc.  The  area  irrigated  from  Government 
canals  in  the  Lieutenant-Governorship  of  Bengal  is  about 
450,000  acres.  Including  private  works,  about  i  million  acres 
out  of  a  total  estimated  area  of  54^  million  acres  under  cultiva- 
tion, are  irrigated  in  Lower  Bengal. 

In  the  Madras  Presidency,  and  generally  throughout  Southern  Irrigation 
India,  facilities  for  irrigation  assume  a  decisive  importance  in  '"  ^^^^ras 
determining  the  character  of  agriculture.      Crops  dependent 
on  the  rainfall  are  distinguished  as  '  dry  crops,'  comprehending 
the  large  class  of  millets.       Rice   is   grown   on   'wet   land,' 
which   means    land  capable  of  being   irrigated.      Except  on 
the  Malabar  or  Avestern    coast,  the  local   rainfall  is  nowhere 
sufficiently  ample,  or  sufficiently  steady,  to  secure  an  adequate 
water-supply.     Everywhere  else,  water  has  to  be  brought  to  the 
fields  from  rivers,  from  tanks,  or  from  wells.      Of  the  total 
cultivated  area  of  Madras,  17  per  cent,  was  returned  by  the 
Famine  Commissioners  in  1878  as  assessed  as  'wet  land;'  or  'Drj^'anfl 
5  J  millions  of  acres  out  of  an  estimated  cultivated  area  of  32    ^^^'^     "  • 
millions.       But   the   aetual  irrigated   area   from   all   sources, 
including  tanks  and  wells,  was  returned  by  the  Famine  Com- 
missioners at  about  7  millions  of  acres. 

From  time  immemorial,  the  industrious  population  of  the  ^^^\y 

,  native 

]Madras  Districts   has  made  use  of  all  the  means  available  works. 


536  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

to  store  up  the  rainfall,  and  direct  the  river  floods  over 
their  fields.  The  upland  areas  are  studded  with  tanks,  which 
sometimes  cover  square  miles  of  ground ;  the  rivers  are 
crossed  by  innumerable  anicuts  or  dams,  by  which  the  floods 
are  diverted  into  long  aqueducts.  Most  of  these  works  are 
now  the  property  of  Government,  which  annually  expends 
large  sums  of  money  in  maintenance  and  repairs,  looking 
for  remuneration  only  to  the  augmented  land  revenue.  The 
average  rate  of  assessment  is  9s.  6d.  per  acre  on  irrigated  land, 
as  compared  with  only  2s.  3d.  per  acre  on  unirrigated  land. 
Works  in  It  is  therefore  not  only  the  duty,  but  the  manifest  advantage, 
deUas^  '^^^  °^  Government  to  extend  the  facilities  for  irrigation  in  Madras, 
1878-S3.  wherever  the  physical  aspect  of  the  country  will  permit.  The 
deltas  of  the  Godavari,  the  Kistna,  and  the  Kaveri  (Cauvery), 
have  within  recent  years  been  traversed  by  a  network  of  canals, 
and  thus  guaranteed  against  risk  of  famine. •'■  Smaller  works 
of  a  similar  nature  have  been  carried  out  in  other  places  ; 
while  a  private  company,  with  a  Government  guarantee,  has 
undertaken  the  more  difficult  task  of  utilizing  on  a  grand  scale 
the  waters  of  the  Tungabhadra  -  amid  the  hills  and  vales  of 
the  interior.  The  assessed  irrigated  area  in  the  Presidency,  of 
1S7S.  5^-  million  acres,  yielded  in  1878  a  land  revenue  of  2  millions 

sterling.  Of  this  total,  1,680,178  acres,  with  a  revenue  of 
^739,778,  were  irrigated  in  1878  by  eight  great  systems,  for 
which  revenue  and  capital  accounts  were  kept.  The  minor 
works  consisted  of  about  35,000  tanks  and  irrigation  canals, 
and  about  1140  anicuts  or  dams  across  streams.  The  whole 
area  under  irrigation  from  public  and  private  sources  in 
^Madras  was  in  1878,  as  already  stated,  about  7  million  acres, 
out  of  a  total  cultivated  area  of  32  million  acres. 
Madras  In  1882-83,  ^^e  Madras  irrigation  scheme  included  seven 

irrigation  .  ^  ,        ..     ,  ,        .  ...  ,  , 

works,  mam  systems,  classified  as  productive  public  works ;  namely, 
1882-83.  — the  Godavari  delta  system,  the  Kistna  delta  system,  the 
Penner  (Ponnaiyar)  anient  system,  the  Sangam  anient  pro- 
ject (under  construction),  the  Karmil  canal  (purchased  from 
the  Madras  Irrigation  Company  in  July  1882),  the  Kaveri 
delta  system,  and  Srivaikuntham  anicut  system.  An  account 
of  each  of  these  works  separately  will  be  found  in  The 
Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India.  Irrigation  and  navigation  works, 
not  classified  as  productive,  include  those  known  as  the 
Chedambaram  tank  system,  the  Palar  anicut  system,  the 
Pelandorai  anicut  system,  the  Madras  water-supply  and  irriga- 

1  See  article  G0DAV.A.KI  River,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer. 
-  See  article  Tu.ngabhadra,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer. 


IRRIGA  TION  IN  MINOR  PR  0  VINCES.       5  3  7 

tion  extension  project,  and  the  Buckingham  Canal.  There  are 
also  a  number  of  minor  irrigation  and  protective  works,  for 
which  neither  capital  nor  revenue  accounts  are  kept.  The  area 
irrigated  by  productive  public  works  in  Madras  in  1882-83  was 
1)757)579  acres;  and  that  by  all  other  Government  irrigation 
works,  2,615,590  acres;  making  a  total  of  4,373,169  acres. 

The  acquisition  of  the  Karnul  Canal  during  1882  materially  Madras 
raised   the  outlay  invested   in   productive   public  works,  and  |^|'.'"'g^tion 

•'  '  ^  '        .     rinancc, 

greatly  reduced  the  returns  yielded  in  former  years  by  this  1883. 
class  of  works  in  Madras.  The  total  capital  outlay,  direct 
and  indirect,  incurred  on  productive  public  works  up  to  the 
end  of  1882-83,  amounted  to  ;^3, 990,552.  The  gross 
revenue,  including  share  of  enhanced  land  revenue,  amounted 
to  ^^360,062  ;  the  maintenance  charges,  direct  and  indirect, 
was  ;^io7,i97,  leaving  a  net  revenue  ot  ;^252,865,  equal 
to  6  "34  per  cent,  on  the  total  capital  outlay  up  to  the  end 
of  the  year.  If,  however,  the  outlay  on  the  Sangam  anient 
works  (which  had  not  commenced  to  earn  revenue  in  1882-83), 
and  the  purchase  money  for  the  Karnul  canal,  be  excluded 
from  the  account,  the  net  returns  would  be  12  per  cent,  on 
the  capital  outlay,  against  13!  per  cent,  obtained  during  the 
previous  year.  With  regard  to  irrigation  and  navigation  canals 
not  classified  as  productive,  the  capital  outlay,  direct  and 
indirect,  incurred  up  to  the  end  of  1882-83,  amounted  to 
^988,907.  The  gross  revenue  during  1882-83,  including 
share  of  land  revenue  debitable  to  these  works,  was  ^'31,319  ; 
the  expenditure  was  ^21,^^20,  leaving  a  net  revenue  of  ^3799, 
equal  to  0*38  per  cent,  on  the  total  capital  outlay. 

In  Mysore,  tanks,  anicuts,  and  wells  dug  in  the  dry  beds  of  Irrigation 
rivers  afford  the  means  of  irrigation.  Since  the  late  disastrous  ^"  Mysore, 
famine  of  1876-78,  comprehensive  schemes  of  throwing 
embankments  across  river  valleys  have  been  undertaken  by 
Government.  The  whole  area  under  irrigation  from  public  and 
private  sources  in  Mysore  is  |  of  a  million  acres,  out  of  a  total 
cultivated  area  of  4  to  5  million  acres. 

In  the  Central  Provinces,  irrigation  still  remains  a  private  in  Central 
enterprise.  According  to  the  Settlement  returns,  out  of  a  total  Provinces, 
cultivated  area  of  13,610,503  acres,  804,378  acres,  or  6  per 
cent.,  are  irrigated  by  private  individuals.  The  only  Govern- 
ment work  is  a  tank  in  the  District  of  Nimar.  In  1882-83, 
the  area  irrigated  by  private  individuals  was  returned  at 
770,583  acres,  and  by  Government  works,  238  acres  from  the 
Nimar  tank,  out  of  a  total  of  14,165,212  acres  of  cultivated  area. 

In  British  Burma,  as  in  Lower  Bengal,  embankments  take  the  In  Burma. 


538 


AGRICULTURE  AXD  PROD U CIS. 


Statistics 
for  British 
India, 
iS68  to 
iSS:;. 


place  of  canals  ;  and  are  classed  as  '  irrigation  works '  in  the 
reports.  Within  the  last  few  years,  Government  has  spent 
;^3 18,000  in  Burma  under  this  heading,  to  save  the  low  rice- 
fields  along  the  Irawadi  from  destructive  inundation. 

The  foregoing  paragraphs  have  given  the  Provincial  statistics 
of  irrigation,  so  far  as  available.  The  differences  in  the  local 
systems,  and  the  variety  of  sources  from  which  the  outlay  on 
irrigation  works  is  derived,  render  a  single  generalized  state- 
ment for  all  India  misleading.  Apart  from  private  irrigation 
works,  and  certain  classes  of  Government  works,  the  capital 
expended  by  the  Government  on  irrigation  is  returned  at 
19  millions  sterling  during  the  sixteen  years  ending  18S2-83. 
Including  if  million  sterling  expended  on  the  Madras  Irrigation 
Company's  works  (taken  over  by  Government),  the  total  outlay 
would  amount  to  nearly  21  millions  sterling  during  the  same 
period.  This  statement,  although  it  altogether  fails  to  disclose 
the  whole  expenditure  on  Indian  irrigation,  suffices  to  show 
the  magnitude  of  the  operations  involved. 

The  following  table  shows  the  extent  of  cultivation  and  the 
average  area  irrigated  in  the  Provinces  for  which  the  facts 
can  be  obtained.  They  were  specially  collected  by  the  Indian 
Famine  Commission,  and  published  in  its  Report  of  1880. 
But  they  must  be  taken  as  only  approximate  estimates.  They 
differ  from  data  obtained  from  other  sources  ;  as  may  be  seen 
by  comparing  the  figures  in  the  table  with  the  later  ones  given 
in  the  foregoing  Provincial  paragraphs. 


Ordinary  Area  of  Cultivation  and  of  Irrigation  in  certain 
Provinces,  as  estimated  in  iSSo. 


Province. 

Area  ordinarily 
cultivated. 

Area  ordinarily 
irrigated. 

Percentage  of 
irrigation  to 
cultivation. 

Acres. 

Actes. 

Punjab,          .... 

21,000,000 

5,500,000 

26-2 

North- Western  Provinces  and 

Oudh 

36,000,000 

11,500,000 

320 

Bengal, 

54,500,000 

1,000,000 

rS 

Central  Provinces, 

15,500,000 

770,000 

5-0 

Berar,  . 

6,500,000 

100,000 

1-5 

Bombay, 

24,500,000 

450,000 

rS 

Sind,    . 

2,250,000 

1,800,000 

800 

iMadras, 

32,000,000 

7,300,000 

230 

Mysore, 

5,000,000 

Soo,ooo 

i6-o 

Total  for  the  Provinces  for 

which    the    facts   were 

1 

ascertained, 

197,250,000 

29,220,000 

14-8 

IRRIGATION:  FAMINES.  539 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  preceding  table  that  irrigation  is  most  Distribu- 
resorted  to  in  the  Provinces  with  the  scantiest  or  most  pre-  !'"P  "( 

.  .  irrigation 

carious  ramfall.     In  Snid,  tillage  depends  almost  entirely  on  an  over  India, 
artificial  water-supply  ;  and  four-fifths  of  the  cultivated  area  are  Sind. 
ascertained  to  be  irrigated.     In  Northern  India,  the  deficient  Northern 
rainfall  of  the  Punjab  and  the  high-lying  dodbs,  or  intermediate  I"^'^- 
river  plains  of  the  North- Western  Provinces,  also  demands  a 
large  measure  of  irrigation.     The  irrigated  area,  accordingly, 
amounts  to  from    over  one-fourth  to  one-third  of  the  whole 
cultivation.     In  Madras,  it  is  under  one-fourth  ;  in  Mysore,  it  is  Southern 
one-sixth ;  in  the  Central  Provinces,  it  is  one-twentieth.     But   " 
the  dry  uplands  of  Bombay,  the  Central  Provinces,  and  Berar,  Central 
where  the  proportion  of  irrigated  lands  sinks  to  about  one- 1"^*^!^* 
sixtieth,  undoubtedly  require   a    larger  artificial  water-supply 
than  they  possess  at  present.     The  black  soil  of  these  tracts, 
however,  is  very  retentive  of  moisture.     To  a  certain  extent  it 
stores  up  and  husbands  the  rainfall.     It  thus  lessens  the  neces- 
sity for  irrigation.     In  Bengal,  where  the  irrigated  area  is  only  Lower 
I  '8  per  cent,  of  the  cultivated  area,  the  abundant  rainfall  and  Bengal, 
the  inundations  of  the  Ganges,  the  Brahmaputra,  the  Maha- 
nadi,  and  of  the  river  systems  connected  with   these  main 
arteries,  take  the  place  of  canals  or  an  artificial  water-supply. 

Famines. — In  any  country  where   the  population  is  dense  Fammes. 
and  the  means  of  communication  backward,  the  failure  of  a 
harvest,  whether  produced  by  drought,  by  flood,  by  blight,  by  Natural 
locusts,  or  by  war,  causes    intense  distress.      Whether   such  calamities, 
distress  shall  develop  into  famine  is  merely  a  matter  of  degree, 
depending  upon  a  combination    of  circumstances — the  com- 
parative extent  of  the  failure,  the  density  of  the  population, 
the  practicability  of  imports,  the    facilities   for  transport,  the 
resources  of  private  trade,  and  the  energy  of  the  administration. 

Drought,   or  a  failure  of  the  regular  rainfall,  is  the  great  Causes  cf 
cause  of  famine.     No  individual  foresight,  no  compensating  scarcity ; 
influences,  can  prevent  those  recurring  periods  of  continuous 
drought   with    which    large    Provinces   of  India  are   afflicted. 
Even  an  average  rainfall  in  any  one  year,  if  irregularly  dis- 
tributed, or  at  the  wrong  seasons,  may  affect  the  harvest  to  a 
moderate  degree ;  so  also  may  flood  or  blight.      The  total 
failure  of  one  monsoon  may  result  in  a  general  scarcity.     But  and  of  real 
famine  proper,  or  widespread  starvation,  is  usually  caused  by  a  ^"^'"'^• 
succession  of  seasons  of  drought.     The  cultivators  of  India  are 
seldom  dependent  upon  a  single  harvest,  or  upon  the  crops  of  one 
year.     In  the  event  of  a  partial  failure,  they  can  draw  for  their 


540  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

food-supply  either  upon  their  own  grain  pits  or  upon  the  stores 
of  the  village  merchants.  The  first  sufferers,  and  those  who 
also  suffer  most  in  the  end,  are  the  class  who  live  by  daily 
wages.  But  small  is  the  number  that  can  hold  out,  either  in 
capital  or  credit,  against  a  second  year  of  insufficient  rainfall ; 
and  even  the  third  season  sometimes  proves  adverse.  The 
great  famines  in  India  have  been  caused  by  drought,  and 
usually  by  drought  continued  over  two  or  three  years. 
Water-  It  becomes  necessary  to  inquire  into  the  means  of  husband- 

supp>.  ing  the  water-supply.  That  supply  can  be  derived  only  from 
three  sources — (i)  Local  rainfall;  (2)  natural  inundation; 
and  (3)  artificial  irrigation  from  rivers,  canals,  tanks,  or  wells. 
Any  of  these  sources  may  exist  separately  or  together.  In 
only  a  few  parts  of  India  can  the  rainfall  be  entirely  trusted, 
as  both  sufficient  in  its  amount  and  regular  in  its  distribution. 
These  favoured  tracts  include  the  whole  strip  of  coast  beneath 
the  Western  Ghats,  from  Bombay  to  Cape  Comorin  ;  the  greater 
part  of  the  Provinces  of  Assam  and  Burma;  together  with  the 
Favoured  deltaic  districts  at  the  head  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  In  these 
Provinces.  Provinces  the  annual  rainfall  rarely,  if  ever,  falls  below  60  to 
100  inches;  artificial  irrigation  and  famine  are  there  alike 
unknown. 
Theirriga-  The  rest  of  the  Indian  peninsula  may  be  described  as 
oHndla^  liable,  more  or  less,  to  drought.  In  Orissa,  the  scene  of  the 
most  intense  famine  of  recent  times,  the  average  rainfall 
exceeds  60  inches  a  year ;  in  Sind,  which  has  been  excep- 
tionally free  from  famine  under  British  rule,  the  average  drops 
to  less  than  10  inches.  The  local  rainfall,  therefore,  is  not 
the  only  element  to  be  considered.  Broadly  speaking,  artificial 
irrigation  has  protected,  or  is  now  in  course  of  protecting, 
certain  fortunate  regions,  such  as  the  eastward  deltas  of  the 
Madras  rivers  and  the  upper  valley  of  the  Ganges.  The  rest, 
and  by  far  the  greater  portion,  of  the  country  is  still  exposed 
to  famine.  Meteorological  science  may  possibly  teach  us  to 
foresee  what  is  coming.^  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
administrative  efforts  can  do  more  than  alleviate  the  calamity 
when  once  famine  has  declared  itself  Lower  Bengal  and 
Oudh  are  watered  by  natural  inundation  as  much  as  by  the 
local  rainfall ;  Sind  derives  its  supplies  mainly  from  canals  filled 
by  the  floods  of  the  Indus  ;  the  Punjab  and  the  North- Western 
Provinces  are  dependent  largely  upon  wells ;  the  Deccan,  with 
the  entire  south,  is  the  land  of  tanks  and  reservoirs.  But  in  all 
these  Provinces,  when  the  rainfall  has  failed  over  a  series  of 
^  See  the  chapter  on  Indian  Meteorology  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 


INDIAN  FAMINES,  1770-1866.  541 

years,  the  canal  supply  must  likewise  fail  after  no  long  interval. 
Waterworks  on  a  scale  adequate  to  guarantee  the  whole  of 
India  from  drought  not  only  exceed  the  possibilities  of  finance ; 
they  are  also  beyond  the  reach  of  engineering  skill. 

The  first  great  famine  of  which  we  have  any  trustworthy  Summary 
record  is  that  which  devastated  the  lower  valley  of  the  Gansres  ^'"I"^"'''" 

■'  °       laniines, 

m  1769-70.  One-third  of  the  ])opulation  of  Bengal  is  credibly  1770-1878. 
reported  to  have  perished.  The  previous  season  had  been 
bad;  and,  as  not  uncommonly  happens,  the  break-up  of  the  1769-70. 
drought  was  accompanied  by  disastrous  floods.  Beyond  the 
importation  into  Calcutta  and  Murshidabad  of  a  few  thousand 
hundredweights  of  rice  from  the  Districts  of  Bakarganj  and 
Chittagong,  it  does  not  appear  that  any  public  measures  for 
relief  were  taken  or  proposed.^ 

The  next  great  famine  was  that  which  afflicted  the  Karnatik  Faminc^of 
from  1780  to  1783,  and  has  been  immortalized  by  the  genius  *7<5o-b3  ; 
of  Burke.     It  arose  primarily  from  the  ravages  of  Haidar  All's 
army.     A  public  subscription  was   organized  by  the  Madras 
Government,  from  which  sprang  the  '  Monegar  Choultry,'  a  per- 
manent Madras  institution  for  the  relief  of  the  native  poor.    In 
1783-84,  Hindustan  Proper  suffered  from  a  prolonged  drought, 
which  stopped  short  at  the  frontier  of  British  territory.    Warren 
Hastings,  then  Governor-General,  advocated  the  construction 
of  enormous  granaries,  to  be  opened  only  in  times  of  necessity. 
One  of  these  granaries  or  golds,  stands  to  the  present  day  in 
the  city  of  Patna,  but  it  was  never  used  until  the  scarcity  of 
1874.     In  1790-92,  Madras  was  again  the  scene  of  a  two- 1790-92  ; 
years'  famine,  which  is  memorable  as  being  the  first  occasion 
on  which  the  starving  people  were  employed  by  Government 
on  relief  works.     Famines  again  occurred  in  Southern  India 
in   1802-04,    1807,    1812,   1824,    1833,    1854,   and   1866.     A 
terrible  dearth  in   1838  caused  great  mortality  in  the  North-  183S. 
Western  Provinces. 

But  so  little  was  done  by  the  State  in  these  calamities,  that  Famines 
few  administrative  lessons  can  be  learned  from    them.      In  °^  '^^' 
1860-61,  however,  a  serious  attempt  was  made  to  alleviate  an 
exceptional  distress  in  the  North-Western  Provinces.     About 
half  a  million  persons  are  estimated  to  have  been  relieved,  at 
an   expenditure  by  Government  of  about  three-quarters  of  a 

'  A  full  account  of  tlie  famine  of  1769-70  is  given  in  Hunter's  Annals  of 
Kural  Bengal,  pp.  19-55  (St^h  ^'^■)-  The  official  record  of  this  and  the 
subsequent  famines  will  be  found  in  the  Report  of  the  Indian  Famine 
Commission,  presented  to  Parliament  1880,  part  i.  paras.  62-84. 


542  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS.  y, 

and  of        million  sterling.     Again,  in  1865-66,  which  will  ever  be  known    \ 
1S66.  as  the  year  of  the  Orissa  famine,  the  Government  attempted  to    ] 

organize  relief  works  and  to  distribute  charitable  funds.     But    \ 
on  neither  of  these  occasions  can  it  be  said  that  its  efforts 
were  successful.      In  Orissa,  especially,  the  admitted  loss  of 
one-fourth  of  the  population  proves  the  danger  to  which  an 
isolated  Province  is  exposed.      The   people   of  Orissa   died 
because  they  had  no  surplus  stocks  of  grain  of  their  own;  and 
because   importation,  on    an   adequate   scale,   was   physically 
impossible  by  sea  or  land. 
Famine  of       Passing  over   the   prolonged    drought   of   1868-70   in   the 
1^73-74-     North-Western  Provinces  and  Rajputana,  we  come  to  the  Behar 
scarcity  of  1873-74,  which  first  attracted  the  interest  of  Eng- 
land.    Warned  by  the  failure  of  the  rains,  and  watched  and 
stimulated  by  the  excited  sympathy  of  the  public  in  England, 
the  Government  carried  out  a  costly  but  comprehensive  scheme 
of  relief     By  the  expenditure  of  6|-  millions  sterling,  and  the 
importation  of  i  million  tons  of  rice,  all  loss  of  life  was  pre- 
vented.     The  comparatively  small  area  of  distress,  and  the 
facilities  of  communication  by  rail  and  river,  allowed  of  the 
accomplishment  of  this  feat,  which  remains  unparalleled  in 
the  annals  of  Indian  famine. 
Famine  of      The  famine  of  1876-78  is  the  widest  spread  and  the  most 
1876-78.     prolonged  that  India  has  experienced.      The   drought   com- 
menced in  Mysore  by  the  failure  of  the  monsoon  in  1875  ; 
and  the  fear  of  distress  in  the  North-Western  Provinces  did 
not  pass  away  until  1879.     But  it  will  be   known  in  history 
as   the   great   famine   of  Southern    India.      Over   the   entire 
Deccan,  from   Poona  to  Bangalore,  the  south-west  monsoon 
failed  to  bring  its  usual  rainfall  in  the  summer  of  1876.     In 
Failure  of  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  the  north-east  monsoon  proved 
rain,  1876.  (jgflcient  in  the  south-eastern  Districts  of  the  Madras  Presi- 
dency.    The  main  food  crop  perished  throughout  an  immense 
tract  of  country ;  and,  as  the  harvest  of  1875  had  also  been 
short,  prices  rapidly  rose  to  famine  rates.     In  November  1876, 
starvation   was   already   at   work,    and   Government   adopted 
measures   to   keep   the    people    alive.      The    next    eighteen 
months,  until  the  middle  of  1878,  were  devoted  to  one  long 
Failure  of   campaign    against    famine.     The   summer   monsoon  of  1877 
ram,  1877.  p^Qygf^  g,  failure ;  some  relief  was  brought  in  October  of  that 
year  by  the  autumn  monsoon ;  but  all  anxiety  was  not  removed 
until  the  arrival  of  a  normal  rainfall  in  June  1878. 

Meanwhile  the  drought  had  reached  Northern  India,  where 
it  found  the  stocks  of  grain  already  drained  to  meet  the  famine 


FAMINE  OF  i^-,6--j?>.  543 

in   tlie   south.     Bengal,   Assam,    and    Burma   were   the   only  Scarcity  in 
Provinces  which  escaned  in  that  disastrous  year.     The  North-  ^'o''}l''e'n 

•'  India, 

Western  Provinces,  the  Punjab,  Rajputana,  and  the  Central  1877-78. 
Provinces  suffered  from  drought  throughout  the   summer   of 
1S77,  and,  from  its  consequences,  far  into  the  following  year. 

When  once  famine  gets  ahead  of  relief  operations,  the  flood  Famine  in 
of  distress  bursts  its  embankments,  and  the  people  simply  ^^^ 
perish.  Starvation  and  the  long  attendant  train  of  famine- 
diseases  sweep  away  their  hundreds  of  thousands.  In  1 87 6-78, 
the  importation  of  grain  was  left  free,  and  within  twelve  months 
268,000  tons  were  brought  by  land,  and  166,000  tons  by  sea, 
into  the  distressed  Districts  of  Southern  India. 

The  total  expenditure  of  Government  upon  famine  relief  Famine 
in   1876-78    may   be   estimated   at   11   millions   sterling,   not  ^^P'^"^'* 
including  the  indirect  loss  of  revenue,  nor  the  amount  debited  1S76-78. 
against  the  State  of  Mysore.     For  this  large  sum  of  money 
there  is  but  little  to  show  in  the  shape  of  works  constructed. 
The  largest  number  of  persons  in  receipt  of  relief  at  one  time 
in  Madras  was  2,591,900  in  September  1877;  of  these  only 
634,581  were  nominally  employed  on  works,  while  the  rest 
were  gratuitously  fed.     From  cholera  alone,  the  deaths  were  cholera, 
returned   at    357,430   for   Madras,    58,648    for  Mysore,   and 
57,252    for    Bombay.      Dr.    Cornish,    the    Sanitary   Commis- 
sioner of  Madras,  well  illustrated  the  effects  of  the  famine 
by  the  returns  of  births  and   deaths  over  a  series  of  years. 
In    1876,    when   famine,    with    its    companion    cholera,    was 
already  beginning  to  be  felt,  the  births  registered  in  Madras 
numbered  632,113,  and  the  deaths   680,381,     In   1877,  the  Decrense 
year  of  famine,  the  births  fell  to  477,447,  while  the   deaths  o'''J"'tli- 
rose  to  1,556,312.     In  1878,  the  results  of  the  famine  showed  1877-78. 
themselves   by   a   still   further    reduction    of    the    births    to 
348,346,  and  by  the  still  high  number  of  810,921  deaths.     In 
1879  the  births  recovered  to  476,307,  still  below  the  average, 
and  the  deaths  diminished  to    548,158.     These   figures    are 
only  approximate,  but  they  serve  to  show  how  long  the  results 
of  famine  are  to  be  traced  in  the  vital  statistics  of  a  people. 

With  regard  to  the  deaths,  the  Famine  Commissioners  thus  Total 
report:  '  It  has  been  estimated,  and  in  our  opinion  on  sub- '^'^^^'^-^ 

,.,.,,.  from 

stantial  grounds,  that   the   mortality  which  occurred   in   the  famine  nf 
Provinces  under  British  administration  during  the  period  of  ^^76-78. 
famine  and  drought  extending  over  the  years  1877  and  1878 
amounted,  on  a  population  of  197  millions,  to  5^  millions  in 
excess  of  the  deaths  that  would  have  occurred  had  the  seasons 
been  ordinarily  healthy ;  and  the  statistical  returns  have  made 


544  AGRICULTURE  AND  PRODUCTS. 

certain  what  has  long  been  suspected,  that  starvation  and 
distress  greatly  check  the  fecundity  of  the  population.  It  is 
probable  that  from  this  cause  the  number  of  births  during  the 
same  period  has  been  lessened  by  2  millions ;  the  total 
reduction  of  the  population  would  thus  amount  to  about  7 
millions.  Assuming  the  ordinary  death-roll,  taken  at  the  rate 
of  35  per  thousand,  on  190  millions  of  people,  the  abnormal 
mortality  of  the  famine  period  may  be  regarded  as  having 
increased  the  total  death-rate  by  about  40  per  cent.' 
Famine  But  when  estimated  over  a  period  of  years,  the  effect  of 

a  weak  famine  as  a  check  upon  the  population  is  small.  The  Famine 
popula-  Commissioners  calculate  that,  taking  the  famines  of  the  past 
tion.  thirty  years,  as  to  which  alone  an  estimate  of  any  value  can  be 

made,  the  abnormal  deaths  caused  by  famine  and  its  diseases 
have  been  less  than  2  per  thousand  of  the  Indian  population  per 
annum.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  cultivation  quickly  extended  after 
the  famine  of  1S77-78,  and  there  were  in  Bombay  and  Madras 
120,000  more  acres  under  tillage  shortly  after  the  long  pro- 
tracted scarcity  than  before  it. 
Famine  of  The  famine  of  1876-78  affected,  directly,  a  population  of  58J 
1876-78  i^-jiiiiQn  persons,  and  an  area  of  257,300  square  miles.  The 
maiized.  average  number  daily  employed  by  the  State  on  relief  works 
was  877,024.  The  average  number  of  persons  daily  in  receipt 
of  gratuitous  State  relief  was  446,641,  besides  private  charities. 
Land  revenue  was  remitted  to  close  on  2  millions  sterling. 
The  famine  lasted  from  12  months  in  the  North- Western 
Provinces,  to  22  months  in  Madras.  Its  total  cost,  includ- 
ing both  outlay  and  loss  of  revenue,  is  officially  returned  at 
^11,194,320.^  A  Commission  was  appointed  to  inquire  into 
the  causes  of  famine  in  India,  and  the  means  of  averting  or 
alleviating  those  calamities.  Its  report,  presented  to  both 
Houses  of  Parliament  in  1880,  is  replete  with  carefully  collated 
facts  regarding  the  past,  and  with  wise  suggestions  for  the 
future. 

During  the  seven  years  which  have  elapsed  since  the  great 
calamity  of  1878,  up  to  the  time  when  these  pages  went  to 
the  press  (June  1885),  there  has  been  no  scarcity  in  India 
sufficiently  intense  or  widespread  to  deserve  the  name  of 
famine.  Almost  every  season  has  brought  a  partial  failure  of 
the  rains  in  one  Province  or  another.  But  improved  means  of 
communication,  and  prompt  measures  for  dealing  with  the 
distress,  have  prevented  local  scarcity  from  developing  in  any 
year  into  general  famine. 

^  Report  of  t lie  Indian  Faniine  Commission,  part  i.  p.  24  (iSSo). 


[  545  ] 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 


MEANS   OF   COMMUNICATION. 


The  means  of  communication  in  India  may  be  classified  Internal 
under  four  headings — (i)  railways,  (2)  roads,  (3)  rivers,  and  cation". 
(4)  canals. 

The   existing  system   of  railway  communication    in    India  Indian 
dates  from  the  administration  of  Lord  Dalhousie.     The  first  ^^^  ^^y^- 
Indian  line  of  rail  was  projected  in  1843  by  Sir  Macdonald  Their 
Stephenson,  who  was  afterwards  active  in  forming  the  East  iSa---?'!. 
Indian  Railway  Company.     But  this  scheme  was  blighted  by 
the  financial  panic  that  followed  soon  afterwards  in  England. 
Bombay,  the  city  which  has  most  benefited  by  railway  enter- 
prise, saw  the  first  sod  turned  in    1850,  and  the  first  line  of 
a  few  miles  opened  as  far  as  Thana  (Tanna)  in  1853.     The 
elaborate  minute,  drawn  up  by  Lord  Dalhousie  in  the  latter 
year,  substantially  represents  the  railway  map  of  India  at  the 
present  day,  although  filled  in  by  Lord  Mayo's  extensions  of 
1869  and  by  subsequent  lines. 

Lord  Dalhousie's   scheme   consisted   of  well-chosen   trunk  Lord  Dal- 
lines,   traversing   the   length   and   breadth  of  the  peninsula,  j  °mkHn 
and  connecting  all  the  great  cities  and  military  cantonments.  1853. 
These  trunk  lines  were  to  be  constructed  by  private  companies, 
to  whom  Government  should  guarantee  a  minimum  of  5  per 
cent,  interest  on  their  capital  expended,  and  from  whom  it 
should  demand  in  return  a  certain  measure  of  subordination. 
The   system   thus    sketched    out  was   promptly  carried   into 
execution,  and  by  187 1   Bombay  was  put  into  direct  railway 
communication  with  the  sister  Presidencies  of  Calcutta  and 
Madras.      The  task  remaining  for  Lord  Mayo  in  1870  was  the  Lord 
development  of  traflic  by  means  of  feeders,  which  should  tap  ^  ^^°vf 
the   districts   of  production,    and   thus   open   up   the   entire  lines,  1870. 
country.     This  task  he  initiated  by  the  construction  of  minor 
State  lines  on  a  narrower  gauge,  and  therefore  at  a  cheaper 
.rate,  than  the  existing  guaranteed  railways. 

2   M 


546 


MEANS  OF  COMMUNICATION. 


Four 
classes  of 
Indian 
lines. 

'  Guaran- 
teed '  rail- 
ways. 


The  railways  of  India  are  now  divided  into  four  classes. 
In  the  first  place,  there  are  the  railways  constructed  by 
guaranteed  companies,  for  the  most  part  between  1855  and 
1875.  These  guaranteed  railways,  as  a  rule,  follow  the  main 
lines  of  natural  communication,  and  satisfy  the  first  necessities 
of  national  life,  both  commercial  and  political.  In  the  second 
place,  there  is  a  system  of  branch  State  lines,  constructed  during 
the  last  fifteen  years,  and  some  of  them  destined  to  yield  fruit 
only  in  the  future.  The  third  class  comprises  railways  worked 
by  private  companies  under  a  system  of  Government  conces- 
sions.    The  fourth  class  are  railways  within  Native  States. 


The  four 
systems. 


(i)  Guar- 
anteed 
railways. 


(2)  State 
railways. 

(3)  'As- 
sisted.' 


(4)  Native 

State 

railways. 


Guaran- 
teed lines. 


Each  of  these  classes  of  railways  has  been  constructed  on  a 
different  system  in  regard  to  the  method  by  which  the  capital 
was  raised.  The  four  systems  may  be  briefly,  although  not 
accurately,  described  as  follows.  The  guaranteed  lines  were 
constructed  by  companies  formed  in  England,  who  raised  their 
capital  from  their  own  shareholders  under  a  guaranteed  interest 
of  5  per  cent,  from  the  Government  of  India.  Profits  in  excess 
of  5  per  cent,  were  to  be  shared  between  the  Government  and 
the  Company,  but  the  Government  reserved  the  right  of  buying 
up  the  lines  at  their  market  value  after  certain  terms  of  years. 
The  construction  of  guaranteed  railways  was  carried  out  by 
the  Company's  staff  under  the  supervision  of  Government. 

The  State  railways  were  constructed  from  capital  raised  by 
the  Government  direct ;  and  they  were  executed  by  engineers 
in  Government  employ.  The  '  assisted  '  railway  companies 
are  a  more  recent  development.  They  raise  their  capital  under 
a  guarantee  of  a  low  interest  from  Government,  with  free 
grants  of  land,  or  other  concessions.  The  guarantee  is  usually 
for  a  limited  period ;  but,  as  presently  explained,  different 
arrangements  are  made  in  each  case. 

The  Native  State  lines  are  constructed  from  capital  found 
by  the  individual  State.  The  execution  and  management  of 
these  lines  have,  as  a  rule,  been  conducted  by  a  staff  employed 
by  the  Government  of  India,  or  by  the  trunk  railway  companies 
to  which  they  serve  as  feeders. 

The  guaranteed  lines,  including  the  East  Indian,  which  was 
transferred  to  Government  on  ist  January  18S0,  the  Eastern 
Bengal  Railway  similarly  transferred  in  18S3,  and  the  Sind, 
Punjab,  and  Delhi  Railway  to  be  taken  over  by  Government  in 
January  1886,  comprise  the  following: — (i)  The  East  Indian, 
running  up  the  valley  of  the  Ganges  from  Calcutta  (Howrah) 
as  far  as  Delhi,  with  a  branch   to  Jabalpur.     (2)  Tlie  Eastern 


CLASSES  OF  INDIAN  RAIL  WAYS.  547 

Bengal  Railway,  traversing  the  richest  portion  of  the  Gangetic  The  eight 
valley,  and  connected  with  the  Northern  Bengal  State  Railway.  ^'"^^^^  ^'"^"' 

(3)  The  Great  Indian  Peninsula,  which  starts  from  Bombay,  teed, 
and  sends  one  arm  north-east  to  Jabalpur,  with  a  branch  to 
Nagpur,  and  another  south-east  to  the  frontier  of  Madras. 

(4)  The  Madras  line,  with  its  terminus  at  Madras  city,  and 
two  arms  running  respectively  to  the  Great  Indian  Peninsula 
junction  at  Raichur  and  to  Beypur  on  the  opposite  coast,  with 
branches  to  Bangalore  and  Bellary.  (5)  The  Oudh  and 
Rohilkhand,  with  its  numerous  branches,  connecting  Lucknow 
with  Cawnpur,  Benares,  Ah'garh,  Moradabad,  Bareli,  Saharan- 
pur,  and  Hardwar.  (6)  The  Bombay,  Baroda,  and  Central 
India,  which  runs  due  north  from  Bombay  through  the  fertile 
plain  of  Gujarat,  to  Ahmadabad,  where  it  joins  the  Rajputana- 
Mahva  State  Railway,  and  ultimately  connects  with  the  East 
India  and  Sind,  Punjab,  and  Delhi  systems  at  Delhi  and  at 
Agra.  (7)  The  Sind,  Punjab,  and  Delhi,  consisting  of  three 
sections,  one  in  Lower  Sind,  another  from  Delhi  to  Lahore, 
and  the  third  from  Lahore  to  Miiltan.  (8)  The  South  Indian 
(the  only  guaranteed  line  on  the  narrow  gauge),  in  the  extreme 
south,  from  Tinnevelli  to  Madras  city,  with  branches  to 
Arconum,  Erode,  Negapatam,  Tuticorin,  and  Pondicherri. 

The  State  lines  are  too  numerous  to  be  individually  described.  The  State 
They  include  the  extension  from  Lahore  to  Peshawar  on  the  "^^'bvays. 
north-west  frontier  ;  the  '  missing  link,'  from  Miiltan  to  Plaidar- 
abad,  thus  bringing  the  Punjab  into  direct  connection  with  its 
natural  seaport  at  Karachi  (opened  throughout  in  1878); 
the  Rajputana-Mahva  State  Railway  connecting  Ahmadabad 
with  Delhi,  Agra,  and  Khandwa ;  and  the  Northern  Bengal 
State  Railway.  The  last-named  line  starts  from  Sara-ghat 
opposite  the  Damukdiha  station  of  the  Eastern  Bengal  Rail- 
way, whence  it  runs  northwards  to  the  foot  of  the  Hima- 
layas. A  small  2  feet  gauge  railway  is  thence  carried  up 
to  the  sanitarium  of  Darjiling,  now  within  twenty-four  hours' 
journey  of  Calcutta.  Among  other  State  lines,  the  following 
may  be  specified.  The  Tirhiit  State  Railway  with  its  various 
branches  intersects  Northern  Behar,  and  is  intended  to 
extend  to  the  Nepal  frontier  on  one  side,  and  to  Assam  on  the 
other.  The  Dacca  and  Maimansingh  Railway  will  open  out 
Eastern  Bengal ;  the  Nagpur  -  Chhatisgarh  Railway  taps  the 
great  wheat-growing  Districts  of  the  Central  Provinces.  Shorter 
State  lines  or  branches  from  the  trunk  railways  are  numerous. 
In  British  Burma,  a  State  line  runs  up  the  Irawadi  valley  from 
Rangoon  to  Prome,  with  an  extension  to  the  frontier  station  of 


54S 


MEAXS  OF  COMMUNICATION. 


Assisted 
railways. 


The 

'  assisted ' 
system. 


Native 
railways. 


Allan-myo.  A  second  line  up  the  Sittaung  valley  to  Taung- 
ngu,  is  open  for  more  than  half  its  length,  and  the  remainder  is 
expected  to  be  opened  in  1886. 

Of  the  assisted  railway  companies,  the  principal  are  the 
Bengal  and  North-Western,  running  from  the  Sonpur  station  of 
the  East  Indian  Railway  to  Bahraich  in  Oudh ;  the  Bengal 
Central  line  from  Calcutta  to  Khtilna  bordering  on  the  Sun- 
darbans  ;  the  various  branches  of  the  Southern  Maratha  Railway 
in  the  Deccan,  of  which  214  miles  out  of  a  sanctioned  length 
of  718^  miles  were  open  in  March  1885  ;  the  Rohilkhand  and 
Kumaun  line ;  the  Assam  line  to  the  recently-opened  coal 
measures  in  Lakhimpur  District ;  the  little  2  feet  gauge 
Darjiling-Himalayan  Railway  (above  mentioned) ;  two  short 
lines  from  the  East  Indian  Railway  to  the  shrine  of  Tarakes- 
war  in  Htigli  District,  and  to  Deogarh  in  the  Santal  Pargana's, 
which  are  annually  resorted  to  by  large  numbers  of  pilgrims 
from  all  parts  of  India.  Other  lines  belonging  to  the  assisted 
class  are  projected  or  have  commenced  construction.  It  is 
proposed  to  make  on  this  system  the  Nagpur-Bengal  line, 
which  will  connect  the  Chhatisgarh  wheat  plateau  with 
the  Hiigli  river,  and  thus  complete  an  almost  straight  line  of 
communication  between  Calcutta  and  Bombay.  The  Bhopal- 
Gwalior  line  will  also  be  made  on  the  assisted  system  ;  together 
with  other  lines  belonging  to  the  inner  circle  of  communication 
in  the  interior  of  India. 

The  principle  adopted  in  the  assisted  system  is  for 
Government  to  guarantee  a  low  rate  of  interest,  or  to  give  a 
guarantee  for  a  limited  period.  The  Company  has  therefore 
the  keenest  inducement  to  make  the  railway  pay,  as  its  profits, 
above  the  low  guaranteed  rate,  depend  on  its  own  exertions, 
and  on  the  economical  working  of  the  line.  The  Govern- 
ment recoups  itself  for  the  money  advanced  under  the  low 
guarantee  before  the  line  has  begun  to  pay,  by  taking  a  share 
of  the  profits  of  the  line  when  they  exceed  the  guaranteed 
interest.  This  is  the  general  principle  of  the  assisted  railways 
in  India.  But  it  is  worked  out  differently  in  the  case  of 
almost  every  separate  line ;  especially  as  regards  the  rate  of 
interest  guaranteed,  and  the  duration  or  limits  of  the 
guarantee. 

Besides  these  there  are  663^  miles  of  railway  now  (1885) 
opened  in  Native  States,  which  have  been  constructed  at  the 
expense  of  the  chiefs.  The  principal  of  these  are  the  Baroda 
Railway,  and  the  Bhaunagar-Gondal  Railway  in  Western  India, 
the  Bhopal-Itarsi  line  in  Central  India,  the  Jodhpur  line  in 


RAILWAY  STATISTICS,  187S-S5.  549 

Rajputana,  the  Nizam's  Railway  in  Haidarabdd,  the  Mysore 
Raihvay  in  Southern  India,  and  the  Rajpura-Patiala  Hne  in  the 
Punjab.  The  raihvays  passing  through  the  States  of  Gwahor 
and  Holkar  are  not  included  in  this  list,  as  they  were  con- 
structed, not  at  the  cost  of  the  chiefs  themselves,  but  out  of 
the  proceeds  of  a  loan  made  to  the  Government  by  the  Maha- 
rajas Sindhia  and  Holkar,  and  are  worked  entirely  by  Govern- 
ment in  connection  with  the  Rajputana-Malwa  Railway. 

The  two  following  paragraphs  exhibit  the  railway  statistics  Railway 
of  India  for  the  years   1878  and   1885.      They  indicate   the  f|^^^''^^'j 
progress  which  has  been  made  during  the  seven  years,  since  1885  ; 
the  materials  for  the  first  edition  of  this  book  were  compiled. 

In  1878,  the  total  mileage  open  for  traffic  was  8215  miles,  of  187S ; 
which  6044  miles  belonged  to  guaranteed  railways,  and  2 1 7 1 
miles  to  State  railways;  total  capital  expended,  ;^ii5,o59,434j 
being  ^{^95, 430,863  on  the  former,  and  ^19,628,591  on  the 
latter  class;  number  of  passengers  conveyed,  38,519,792; 
number  of  tons  of  goods  and  minerals,  8,171,617  ;  number 
of  hve  stock,  594,249;  gross  receipts,  ^10,404,753;  gross 
expenses,  ;!^5, 206,938  ;  net  earnings,  ;^5, 197,815,  of  which 
only  ^i95>787  is  credited  to  the  State  railways;  per- 
centage of  gross  expenses  to  gross  receipts,  50*04,  varying 
from  34'97  in  the  case  of  the  East  Indian  main  line  to  an 
average  of  78*27  for  all  the  State  lines.  These  figures  showed 
I  mile  of  railway  to  every  109  square  miles  of  area  in  1878, 
as  compared  with  the  area  of  British  India,  or  to  180  square 
miles,  as  compared  with  the  area  of  the  entire  peninsula. 
The  average  cost  of  construction  per  mile  was  almost  exactly 
;!^ 1 4, 000.  The  guaranteed  railways,  embracing  the  great 
trunk  lines  throughout  India,  are  on  the  'broad  gauge 'of  5 
feet  6  inches ;  the  State  lines  follow,  as  a  rule,  the  narrow  or 
metre  gauge  of  3"28i  feet.  On  31st  March  1879,  the  total  1879. 
length  opened  was  8545  miles;  and  the  capital  invested,  120 
millions  sterling. 

The  total  extent  of  railways  open  for  traffic  in  India  on  Railway 
the  31st  March  1885  was  12,004  miles,  of  which  6906  ^'(f^'/''"' 
miles  were  in  the  hands  of  companies,  either  guaranteed 
or  assisted  ;  4434  miles  were  State  lines,  either  Imperial  or 
Provincial ;  and  664  miles  belonged  to  Native  States.  On 
the  same  date,  the  extent  of  railway  line  under  construction 
■^^'^s  3555  miles,  of  which  963  miles  were  in  the  hands  of 
companies,  2125  miles  were  under  construction  by  the  State, 
and  467  miles  by  Native  States. 

The  capital  outlay  on  railways  and  connected  steamer  services  Railway 

capital. 


550  MEANS  OF  COMMUNICATION. 

Railway  (exclusive  of  the  Rohilkhand-Kumaun  and  Bareilly  -  Pilibhit 
1884^^'  lines),  amounted  on  31st  December  1884  to  ^^155, 450,366. 
Of  this  sum,  _;^  105,3 19, 144  ^^^'^  expended  by  guaranteed 
companies  (inclusive  of  the  cost  of  the  East  Indian 
Railway,  which  stands  at  ^35,065,667);  7^42,924,898  on 
State  railways  (Imperial  and  Provincial);  ;;^35423,259  on 
assisted  companies'  lines  ;  and  ;^3, 783,065  on  Native  State 
lines.  The  gross  receipts  during  the  calendar  year  1884 
amounted  to  ^16,066,225,  and  the  working  expenses  to 
_;^8, 156,157.  The  net  revenue  amounted  to  ^7,910,068,  or 
5*09  per  cent,  on  the  total  capital  expended  up  to  the  31st 
December  1884.  Of  the  net  revenue,  the  East  Indian  Railway, 
including  the  State  branches  worked  by  the  Company,  con- 
tributed ;^2, 796,414  ;  the  guaranteed  lines,  ;^3,397,i83  ;  State 
lines,  Imperial  and  Provincial,  ;^i,6o9,i56  ;  and  lines  in 
Native  States,  ;,{^ii4,8i2.  The  total  number  of  passengers 
carried  was  73,815,119,  the  receipts  amounting  to ;^5, 070,754. 
The  aggregate  tonnage  of  goods  and  merchandise  carried 
was  16,663,007  tons,  the  receipts  from  goods  trafific,  etc., 
amounting  to  ^10,565,941. 

Roads.  As  the  railway  system  of  India  aipproaches  its  completion, 

the   relative   importance   of  the   roads    naturally  diminishes. 
From  a  military  point  of  view,  rapid  communication   by  rail 
Old  mill-    has  now  superseded  the  old  marching  routes  as  completely  as  in 
taryrouits.  ^^ly  European  country.    Like  Portsmouth  in  England,  Bombay 
in  India  has  become  the  national  harbour  for  the  embarkation 
and  disembarkation  of  troops.     On  landing  at  Bombay,  regi- 
ments proceed,  after  a  rest,  to  the  healthy  station  of  Deolali 
on  the  pkateau  of  the   Deccan,  whence  they  can  reach  their 
ultimate  destinations,  however  remote,  by  easy  railway  stages. 
The  The  Grand  Trunk   Road,  running  up  the  entire  valley  of 

'P"^^"^^      the    Ganges    from    Calcutta   to  the   north-west   frontier,   first 
Road.'        planned  as  a  highway  of  armies  in  the  i6th  century  by  the 
Afghan  Emperor  Sher  Shah,  and  brought  to  completion  under 
the  administration  of  Lord  William  Bentinck,  is  now  for  the 
most   part   untrodden   by  troops.      The   monument,  erected 
to  commemorate  the  opening  of  the  military  road  up  the  Bhor 
Ghat  to  wheeled  trafific  from  Bombay,  remains  unvisited  by 
all   but  the  most  curious  travellers.     Railways  have  bridged 
Bombay     the  widest  rivers  and  the   most  formidable   swamps.     They 
inland        \\2m^  scaled,  with  their  aerial  zigzags,  the  barrier  range  of  the 

route.  ^,    ,  ,     ,         ,  ,  .     ,  .  ,       , 

Ghats ;  and  they  have  been  earned  on  massive  embankments 
over  the  shifting  soil  of  the  Gan2;etic  delta. 


ROADS  AND  RIVERS.  551 

But  although  the  railway  system  now  occupies  the  first  place, 
both  for  military  and  commercial  purposes,  the  actual  import- 
ance of  roads  has  increased  rather  than  diminished.  They  Extension 
do  not  figure  in  the  imperial  balance-sheet,  nor  do  they  strike  °  ^^^'^ "' 
the  popular  imagination  ;  but  their  construction  and  repair 
constitute  one  of  the  most  important  duties  of  the  District 
official.  They  promote  that  regularity  of  local  communication 
upon  which  the  progress  of  civilisation  so  largely  depends. 
The  substitution  of  the  post-cart  for  the  naked  runner,  and 
of  wheeled  traffic  for  the  pack-bullock,  is  one  of  the  silent 
revolutions  effected  by  British  rule. 

The  more  important  roads  are  all  carefully   metalled,  the  Road 
material   almost  everywhere   employed   being  kankar  or  cal-  "''^"^^'• 
careous  limestone.     In  Lower  Bengal  and  other  deltaic  tracts, 
where  no  kind  of  stone  exists,  bricks  are  roughly  burnt,  and 
then  broken  up  to  supply  metal  for  the  roads.     The  minor 
streams  are  crossed  by  permanent  bridges,  with  foundations  of 
stone,  and  not  unfrequently  iron  girders.     The  larger  rivers  Bridges  of 
have  temporary  bridges  of  boats  thrown  across  them  during  boats, 
the  dry  season,  which  give  place  to  ferries  in  time  of  flood. 
Avenues  of  trees  along  the  roads  afford  shade,  and  material  for 
timber.     The  main  lines  are  under  the  charge  of  the  Pubhc 
Works   Department.      The  maintenance  of  the  minor  roads 
has,    by  a  recent  administrative   reform,   been   thrown   upon 
the  shoulders  of  the  local  authorities,  who  depend  for  their 
pecuniary  resources  upon  District  committees,  and  are  often 
compelled  to  act  as  their  own  engineers.     Complete  statistics 
are  not  available  to  show  the  total  mileage  of  roads  in  British 
India,  or  the  total  sum  expended  on  their  maintenance. 

Inland  navigation  is  almost  confined  to  the  four  great  rivers,  Rivers, 
the  Ganges,  the  Brahmaputra,  the  Indus,  and  the  Irawadi. 
These  flow  through  broad  valleys,  and  from  time  immemorial 
have  been  the  chief  means  of  conveying  the  produce  of 
the  interior  to  the  sea.  South  of  the  Gangetic  basin,  there  is 
not  a  single  Indian  river  which  can  be  called  navigable.  Most 
of  the  South  Indian  streams,  although  mighty  torrents  in  the 
rainy  season,  dwindle  away  to  mere  threads  of  water  and  stag- 
nant pools  during  the  rest  of  the  year.  The  Godavari  and  the  The  Godd- 
Narbada,  whose  volume  of  water  is  ample,  are  both  obstructed 
by  rocky  rapids,  which  engineering  skill  has  hitherto  been 
unable  to  overcome.  A  total  sum  of  i|  million  sterling  has 
been  almost  in  vain  expended  upon  the  former  river,  with 
a  view  to  improving  it  as  a  navigable  highway.     It  is  doubtful 


Gaiiizes. 


Brahma 
putra, 


552  MEANS  OF  COMMUNICATION. 

whether  water  carriage  is  able  to  compete,  as  regards  the  more 
valuable  staples,  with  communication  by  rail.     But  for  cheap 
and  bulky  staples,  or  for  slow  subsidiary  traffic,  it  is  difficult  to 
overrate  the  economic  importance  of  the  Indian  rivers. 
The  After  the  East  Indian  Railway  was  fairly  opened,  through 

steamers   ceased  to   ply   upon    the  Ganges ;   and  the   steam 
flotilla  on  the  Indus  shrank   to  insignificance  when  through 
communication  by  rail  became  possible  between  Miiltan  and 
The  Karachi,     On  the   Brahmaputra  and  its  tributary  the  Barak, 

and  on  the  Irawadi,  steamers   still  run  secure  from  railway 
competition.     But  it  is  in  the  Gangetic  delta  that  river  navi- 
gation attains  its  highest  development.     There  the  population 
may  be  regarded  as  half  amphibious.     Every  village  can  be 
reached  by  water  in  the  rainy  season,  and  every  family  keeps 
its   boat.     The    main  channels  of  the    Ganges  and  Brahma- 
putra, and   their  larger  tributaries,   are  navigable  throughout 
the  year.     During  the  rainy  months,  road  carriage  is  altogether 
Minor         superseded.     All  the  minor  streams  are  sw'ollen  by  the  rainfall 
streams       qj^  ^^  \v^%  and  the  local  downpour  ;  while  fleets  of  boats  sail 
down  with  the  produce  that  has  accumulated  in  warehouses 
on  the  river  banks. 
River  The  Statistics  of  this  subject  belong  rather  to  the  department 

^'^'^^'  of  internal  trade, ^  but  it  may  be  mentioned  here  that  the 
number  of  laden  boats  registered  in  Bengal  in  the  year 
1877-78  was  401,729.  These  formed  but  a  fraction  of  the 
real  total.  Boat-racing  forms  a  favourite  native  sport  in  the 
deltaic  and  eastern  Districts.  It  is  conducted  with  great 
spirit  and  rivalry  by  the  villagers.  In  some  places,  the  day 
concludes  with  an  illuminated  boat  procession  by  torchlight. 
The    ^  The  great  majority  of  the  Bengal  rivers  require  no  attention 

rivers'^  from  Government,  but  the  network  known  as  the  three  Nadiya 
rivers  is  kept  open  for  traffic  only  by  close  supervision. 
These  three  rivers,  the  Bhagirathi,  Jalangi,  and  Matabhdnga, 
are  all  offshoots  of  the  Ganges,  which  unite  to  make  up  the  head- 
waters of  the  Hiigli.^  In  former  times,  the  main  volume  of 
the  Ganges  was  carried  to  the  sea  by  one  or  other  of  these 
channels.  But  they  now  receive  so  little  water  as  to  be  navi- 
gable only  in  the  rainy  season,  and  then  with  difficulty.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  Government  has  under- 
taken the  task  of   preventing  these  Hugh'  head-waters  from 

1  Dealt  with  in  next  chapter. 

^  See  article  Hugli  River,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer,  for  an  account  of 
the  engineering  histoiy  of  these  rivers.  It  is  also  given  in  greater  detail  in 
WwniQx's  Statistical  Account  of  Bengal,  vol.  ii.  pp.  19-32. 


NAVIGABLE  CANALS.  553 

further  deterioration.  A  staff  of  engineers  is  constantly  em- 
I)loyed  to  watch  the  shifting  bed,  to  assist  the  scouring  action 
of  the  current,  and  to  advertise  the  trading  community  of  the 
depth  of  water  from  time  to  time.  In  the  year  1882-83,  a  total 
sum  of  ^i  1,667  was  expended  on  this  account,  while  an  income 
of  ;^i8,296  was  derived  from  tolls. 

The  artificial  water  channels  of  India  may  be  divided  into  Navigable 
two   classes,     (i)  Those   confined   to   navigation  ;   (2)  those  canals. 
constructed   primarily  for    purposes   of    irrigation.      Of    the 
former  class,  the  most  important  examples  are  to  be  found  in 
the  south  of  the  peninsula.     On  both  the  Malabar  and  the 
Coromandel  coasts,  the  strip  of  low  land  lying  between  the 
mountains  and  the  sea  affords  natural  facilities  for  the  con- 
struction   of  an   inland   canal  running  parallel  to  the  shore. 
In   Malabar,  the  salt-water  lagoons   or  lakes,  which  form  so  Malabar 
prominent  a  feature  in  the  local  geography,  merely  required  to  ^^^k- 
be  supplemented  by  a  few  cuttings  to  supply  continuous  water 
communication  from  the  port  of  Calicut  to  Cape  Comorin. 
On  the  east  coast,  the  Buckingham  Canal,  running  north  from  Bucking- 
Madras  city  as  far  as  the  delta  of  the  Kistna,  has  recently  hamCanal. 
been  completed  without  any  great  engineering  difficulties.     In 
Bengal  there  are  a  few  artificial  canals,  of  old  date,  but  of  no 
great   magnitude,    in   the   neighbourhood   of  Calcutta.     The 
principal  of  these  form  the  system  known  as  the  Calcutta  and  Calcutta 
Eastern  Canals,  which   consist  for  the  most  part  of  natural  canals, 
channels  artificially  deepened,  in  order  to  afford  a  safe  boat 
route  through  the  Sundarbans.     Up  to  the  close  of  the  year 
1877-78,    a   capital    of  ;^36o,332    had    been   expended   by 
Government   on  the  Calcutta  Canals;   the   gross  income   in 
1877-78  was  p^44,i2o;  after  deducting  cost  of  repairs,  etc., 
charged  to  revenue  account,  and  interest  at  the  rate  of  4J  per 
cent.,  a  net  profit  was  left  amounting  to  ^8748.     In  1882-83, 
the   tolls  on    the  Calcutta   Canals   realized  ;^53,372.      The 
Hijili  Tidal  Canal   in   Midnapur   District,   which  cuts  off  a 
difficult  corner  of  the  Hiigli  river,  yielded  a  net  revenue  of 
;^3i7i  in  the  same  year.     In  1882-83,  this  canal  only  yielded  iiijiii 
a  net  profit  of  ^446,  owing  to  the  cost  of  dredging  operations,  Canal. 
and  the  consequent  closing  of  the  canal  for  a  portion  of  the 
year. 

Most  of  the  great  irrigation  works,  both  in  Northern  and 
Southern  India,  have  been  so  constructed  as  to  be  available  Naviga- 
also  for  navigation.     The  general  features  of  these  works  have  l!""  °7 

°  °  Bengal 

been  already  described.     So  far  as  regards  Bengal,  navigation  canals ; 


554  MEANS  GF  COMMUNICATION. 

on  the  Orissa  Canals  in  187 7-7 S  yielded  ^^3384,  and  in 
1S82-83,  ^10,847;  on  the  ^lidnapur  Canal,  ;^io,692  in 
1877-78,  and  _;^io,642  in  1882-83  ;  and  on  the  Son  Canals, 
;/^5965  in  1877-78,  and  £,Z^o(>  in  1882-83;  the  aggregate 
being  considerably  larger  than  was  derived  from  irrigation.  In 
on  :Madras  Madras,  boat  tolls  in  the  Godavari  delta  brought  in  ^4496  in 
canals.  1877-78,  and_^6295  in  1882-83.  In  the  Kistna  delta,  tolls 
realized  ;^i7i8  in  1877-78,  and  ^3956  in  1882-83.  The 
works  of  the  Madras  Irrigation  Company  on  the  Tungabhadra 
were  not  made  available  for  navigation  until  1879,  and  they 
were  taken  over  by  Government  in  1882.  Their  navigation 
receipts  in  that  year  amounted  to  ^io6S. 


[  555  ] 


CHAPTER    XIX. 


COMMERCE   AND   TRADE. 


From  the  earliest  days,  India   has  been  a  trading   country.  Trade  of 
The  industrial  genius  of  her  inhabitants,  even  more  than  her  India. 
natural  wealth  and  her  extensive  seaboard,  distinguished  her 
from   other   Asiatic   lands.      In    contrast   with    the   Arabian 
peninsula    on    the    west,    with    the    Malayan    peninsula    on  Ancient. 
the  east,  or  with  the  equally  fertile  empire  of  China,   India 
has   always   maintained  an   active    intercourse   with    Europe. 
Philology   proves    that    the   precious    cargoes    of    Solomon's 
merchant   ships    came   from    the   ancient    coast  of   Malabar. 
The  brilliant  mediaeval  republics  of  Italy  drew  no  small  share 
of  their  wealth  from  their  Indian  trade.     It  was  the  hope  of 
participating  in  this  trade   that  stimulated   Columbus  to  the 
discovery  of  America,  and  Da  Gama  to  the  circumnavigation 
of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.      Spices,  drugs,  dyes,  and  rare  Medieval, 
woods  ;  fabrics  of  silk  and  cotton  ;  jewels,  and  gold  and  silver, 
— these  were  the  temptations  which  allured  the  first  adventurers 
from  Europe. 

The  East  and  the  West  were  then  separated  by  a  twelve- 
month's voyage,  full  of  hardships  and  perils.  A  successful 
venture  made  the  fortune  of  all  concerned,  but  trade  was  a 
lottery,  and  not  far  removed  from  piracy.  Gradually,  as  the 
native  kingdoms  fell,  and  the  proud  cities  of  mediceval  India 
sank  into  ruin,  the  legendary  wealth  of  India  was  found  to 
rest  upon  an  unstable  basis.  It  has  been  reserved  for  our 
own  day  to  discover,  by  the  touchstone  of  open  trade,  the  real  Modem, 
source  of  her  natural  riches,  and  to  substitute  bales  of  raw 
produce  for  boxes  of  curiosities.  The  cotton,  grain,  oil-seeds, 
and  jute  of  India  now  support  a  large  population  in  England. 

Before  entering  on  the  statistics  of  Indian  trade,  it  is  well  to  The 
apprehend  the  function  which  commerce  has  now  to  perform  function  of 
ill  India.     The  people  have  in  some  Provinces  outgrown  the  trade  in 
food-producing  powers  of  the  soil ;  in  many  others,  they  are  ^""'^• 
pressing  heavily  upon  these  powers.     Agriculture,  almost  their 
sole    industry,    no    longer    suffices   for   their   support.     New 


556  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

New    _       industries    have   become   a   necessity   for    their   well  -  being. 

necessaiT  Commerce  and  manufactures  have  therefore  obtained  an 
economical  importance  which  they  never  had  before  in  India  ; 
for  they  represent  the  means  of  finding  employment  and  food 
for  the  rapidly  increasing  population.  A  popular  sketch  of 
the  social  aspects  of  Indian  trade  will  therefore  be  first  given, 
before  arranging  in  more  logical  sequence  the  facts  and  figures 
connected  with  its  recent  history  and  development. 

Large  A  large  external  trade  was  an  impossibility  under  the  Mughal 

t^rTde^*^"^    Emperors.    Their  capitals  of  Northern  India,  Agra  and  Delhi, 

impossible  lay  more  than  a  thousand  miles  from  the  river's  mouth.     But 

under  the    even  the  capitals  of  the  seaboard  Provinces  were  chosen  for 
Mughals.         .,.  ,       •  ,  ,,  .,  , 

military  purposes,  and  with   small  regard  to  the  commercial 

capabilities  of  their  situation.     Thus,  in   Lower  Bengal,  the 

Muhammadans  under  different  dynasties  fixed  in  succession 

Their         on  six  towns  as  their  capital.    Each  of  these  successive  capitals 

capitals,      ^^.j^g   Qj^   ^  j.-ygj.  ]^^.^  .  ]j^j(.  j^Qj.  Qj^g  Qf  them  possessed  any 

foreign  trade,  nor  indeed  could  have  been  approached  by  an 

merely        old  East  Indiaman.     They  were  simply  the  court  and  camp 

canfjs         °^  ^^^  ^^"§  '^^  ^^^  viceroy  for  the   time   being.     Colonies  of 

skilful  artisans  settled  round  the  palaces  of  the  nobles  to  supply 

the  luxurious  fabrics  of  oriental  life.      After  the  prince  and 

court  had  in  some  new  caprice  abandoned  the  city,  the  artisans 

remained,  and  a  little  settlement  of  weavers  was  often  the  sole 

surviving  proof  that  the  decaying  town  had  once  been  a  capital 

city.     The  exquisite  muslins  of  Dacca  and  the  soft  silks  of 

Murshidabad  still  bear  witness  to  the  days  when  these  two 

places  were  successively  the  capital  of  Bengal.     The  artisans 

worked  in  their  own  houses.     The  manufactures  of  India  were 

essentially  domestic  industries,   conducted  by  special  castes, 

each  member  of  which  wove  at  his  own  hereditary  loom,  and 

in  his  own  village  or  homestead. 

Growth  of       One  of  the  earliest  results  of  British  rule  in  India  was  the 

cities"^       growth  of  great  mercantile  towns.     Our  rule  derived  its  origin 

under         from  our  commerce ;  and  from  the  first,  the  East  India  Com- 

British        pany's  efforts  were  directed  to  creating  centres  for  maritime 

trade.     Other  European  nations,  the  Portuguese,  the  Dutch, 

the  Danes,  and  the  French,  competed  with  us  as  merchants  and 

conquerors  in  India,  and  each  of  them  in  turn  attempted  to 

found  great  seaports.     The  long  Indian  coast,  both  on  the 

east  and  the  west,  is  dotted  with  decaying  villages  which  were 

once  the  busy  scenes  of  those  nations'  early  European  trade. 

Of  all  their  famous  capitals   in   India,  not  one   has  now  the 


THE  NEW  ERA  OF  INDIAN  TRADE.       557 

commercial  importance  of  Cardiff  or  Greenock,  and  not  one 
of  them  has  a  harbour  which  would  admit  at  a  low  tide  a  ship 
drawing  20  feet. 

The  truth  is,  that  it  is  far  easier  to  pitch  a  camp  and  erect 
a  palace,  which,  under  the  native  dynasties,  was  synonymous 
with  founding  a  capital,  than  it  is  to  create  a  centre  of 
trade.  Emporia  of  commerce  must  grow  of  themselves,  and 
cannot  be  called  suddenly  into  existence  by  the  fiat  of  the 
wisest  autocrat.  It  is  in  this  difficult  enterprise,  in  which  the 
Portuguese,  the  Dutch,  the  Danes,  and  the  French  had 
successively  failed,  that  the  British  in  India  have  succeeded. 
We  make  our  appearance  in  the  long  list  of  races  who  have  The 
ruled  that  splendid  empire,  not  as  temple-builders  like  the  E"g/ish 
Hindus,  nor  as  palace  and  tomb  builders  like  the  Musalmans,  builders, 
nor  as  fort-builders  like  the  Marathas,  nor  as  church-builders 
like  the  Portuguese ;  but  in  the  more  commonplace  capacity 
of  town-builders,  as  a  nation  that  had  the  talent  for  selecting 
sites  on  which  great  commercial  cities  would  grow  up,  and 
who  have  in  this  way  created  a  new  industrial  life  for  the 
Indian  people. 

Calcutta   and    Bombay,    the    two    commercial    capitals    of 

India,  are  the  slow  products  of  British  rule.     Formerly,  the 

industries  of  India  were    essentially  domestic  manufactures, 

each  man  working  at  his  hereditary  occupation,  at  his  own 

loom  or  at  his  own  forge.     Under  British  rule,  a  new  era  of  A  new  era 

production  has  arisen  in  India — an  era  of  production  on  a   .  P'^°'^"'^' 

.  .  uon, 

great  scale,  based  upon  the  co-operation  of  capital  and  labour, 

in  place  of  the  small  household  manufactures  of  ancient  times,  based  on 

To  Englishmen,  who  have  from  our  youth  "rown  up  in  the  f.°"0P^'^" 

.  ....  .      .  ''O"  and 

midst  of  a  keen  commercial   civilisation,   it   is   not   easy  to  capital, 

realize  the  change  thus  implied. 

The   great  industrial  cities  of  British  India  are  the  type  Growth  of 

of    this    change.       Under    native    rule,     the    country    had  i'}dustrial 

°  .  .  .  cities. 

reached  what  political  economists  of  Mill's  school  called 
'  the  stationary  stage  '  of  civilisation.  The  husbandmen  simply 
raised  the  food  -  grains  necessary  to  feed  them  from  one 
harvest  to  another.  If  the  food  crops  failed  in  any  district, 
the  local  population  had  no  capital  and  no  other  crops  where- 
with to  buy  food  from  other  districts;  so,  in  the  natural  and 
inevitable  course  of  things,  they  perished.  Now,  the  peasants 
of  India  supplement  their  food-supply  with  more  profitable 
crops  than  the  mere  foodstuffs  on  which  they  live.  They 
also  raise  an  annual  surplus  of  grain  for  exportation,  which  is 
available  for  India's  own  wants  in  time  of  need.     Accordingly, 


558  COMMERCE  AND.  TRADE. 

there  is  a  much  larger  aggregate  of  capital  in  the  country ; 
that  is  to  say,  a  much  greater  national  reserve  or  staying  power. 
The  so-called  '  stationary  stage '  in  India  has  disappeared,  and 
the  Indian  peasant  is  keenly  alive  to  each  new  demand  which 
the  market  of  the  world  may  make  upon  the  industrial  capa- 
bilities of  his  country ;  as  the  history  of  his  trade  in  cotton, 
jute,  wheat,  and  oil-seeds  proves. 
Summary  At  the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  before  the  English 
o  n  lan  ]jg(,^j-j-,g  ^^  ruling  power  in  India,  the  country  did  not  pro- 
1700-1SS5.  duce  ;^i, 000,000  a  year  of  staples  for  exportation.  During 
the  first  three-quarters  of  a  century  of  our  rule,  the  exports 
slowly  rose  to  about  ^10,000,000  in  1834.  During  the  half 
century  since  that  date,  the  old  inland  duties  and  other 
remaining  restrictions  on  Indian  trade  have  been  abolished. 
Exports  have  multiplied  by  eight-fold.  In  18S0,  India  sold  to 
foreign  nations  ;^66, 000,000  worth,  and  in  18S4-85,  upwards 
of  _;^8o,ooo,ooo  worth  of  strictly  Indian  produce,  which  the 
Indian  husbandman  had  raised,  and  for  which  he  was  paid. 
In  1880,  the  total  foreign  trade  of  India,  including  both  exports 
and  imports,  exceeded  ^^i 22,000,000.  In  1884-85,  the  total 
foreign  import  and  export  trade  of  India,  excluding  treasure 
and  Government  stores,  was  over  ;^i 36,000,000,  or  including 
treasure  and  Government  stores,  nearly  ^155,000,000. 
India's  India  has  more  to   sell  to  the  world  than  she  requires  to 

irad  '^^  *^  buy  from  it.  During  the  five  years  ending  1879,  the  staples 
which  she  exported  exceeded  by  an  annual  average  of  over 
;j{^24, 000,000  the  merchandise  which  she  imported.^  During 
the  next  five  years  ending  31st  March  1884,  the  gross  surplus 
of  exports  of  merchandise  over  imports  rose  to  30  miUions 
sterling  per  annum. ^ 

About  one-third  of  this  favourable  balance  of  trade  India 
receives  in  hard  cash.     During  the  five  years  ending  1879,  she 
accumulated  silver  and  gold,  exclusive   of  re-exports,  at  the 
What         rate  of  ;;^7,ooo,ooo   per  annum,   and    during   the    next    five 
with  Uic     yc^^s   ending  March    1884  at  the  rate  of  ;^i  1,000,000   ])er 
balance,      annum.     With  another  third  she  pays  interest  at  low  rates  for 
the  capital  with  which  she  has  constructed  the  material  frame- 
work of  her  industrial  life,  —  her  railways,  irrigation  works, 

•  This  calculation  deals  with  the  gross  surplus  of  exports  over  imports, 
without  going  into  the  question  of  re-exports  of  foreign  goods.  The  total 
'merchandise'  exported,  during  the  five  years  ending  1879,  averaged 
^^63, 000,000  ;  the  total  'merchandise'  imported  averaged  ;{|'38, 000, 000. 
Vide  post,  Table  at  p.  562,  entitled  Foreign  Trade  of  India. 

"  This  also  is  the  gross  surplus,  N\itbout  deductions  fur  re-exports. 


SEA-BORNE  TRADE  OF  INDIA.  559 

cotton  mills,  coal  mines,  indigo  factories,  tea-gardens,  docks, 
steam-navigation  lines,  and  debt.  For  that  capital  she  goes 
into  the  cheapest  market  in  the  world,  London ;  and  she 
remits  the  interest,  not  in  cash,  but  in  her  own  staples,  which 
the  borrowed  capital  has  enabled  her  to  bring  cheaply  to  the 
seaboard.  With  the  remaining  third  of  her  surplus  exports,  she 
l)ays  the  home  charges  of  the  (Government  to  which  she  owes 
the  peace  and  security  that  alone  have  rendered  possible  her 
industrial  development. 

The  Home  Charges  include  not  only  the  salaries  of  the  The 
supervising  staff  in  England,  and  the  pensions  of  the  military  !-,  "\^  . 
and  civil  services,  who  have  given  their  life's  work  to  India, 
but  the  munitions  of  war,  a  section  of  the  army,  including 
the  cost  of  its  recruitment  and  transport,  stores  for  public 
works,  and  the  materiel  for  constructing  and  working  the 
railways.  That  materiel  can  be  bought  more  cheaply  in 
England  than  in  India;  and  India's  expenditure  on  good 
government  is  as  essential  an  item  for  her  industrial  develop- 
ment, and  repays  her  as  high  a  profit,  as  the  interest  which  she 
pays  in  England  for  the  capital  with  which  she  has  constructed 
her  dockyards  and  railways.  But  after  paying  for  all  the 
Home  Charges  for  the  interest  of  capital  raised  in  England  for 
Indian  railways,  and  other  reproductive  works,  and  for  the 
materiel  required  for  their  construction  and  maintenance, 
India  has  still  a  surplus  of  ;^i  1,000,000  from  her  export  trade  India's 
for  which  she  receives  payment  in  silver  and  gold.  srvTuos 

The  trade  of  India  may  be  considered  under  four  heads —  Divisions 
(i)  sea-borne  trade  with  foreign  countries  ;  (2)  coasting  trade  ;  ""^  I"cliaa 

^    '  °  1  ■  /    \  trade. 

(3)  frontier  trade,  chiefly  across  the  northern  mountains;  (4) 
internal  traffic  within  the  limits  of  the  Empire. 

The  sea-borne  trade  most  powerfully  attracts  the  imagina-  Sea-borne 
tion,  and  we  have  the  most  trustworthy  statistics  regarding  it.  '■'■^^^'■■• 
With  an  extensive  seaboard,  India  has  comparatively  few  ports. 
Calcutta    monopolizes    the    commerce,   not    only   of    Lower 
Bengal,  but  of  the  entire  river-systems  of  the  Ganges  and  the 
Brahmaputra.     Bombay  is  the  sole  outlet  for  the  products  of 
Western  India,  Gujarat  (Guzerc4t),  the  Deccan,  and  the  Central 
Provinces ;  Karachi  (Kurrachee)  performs  a  similar  office  for 
the  valley  of  the  Indus ;  and  Rangoon  for  that  of  the  Irawadi. 
These  four  ports  have  been  chosen  as  the  termini  where  the  The  four 
main  lines  of  railway  debouch  on  the  sea.     In  the  south  ofS|^^^^^ 
India  alone  is  the  sea-borne  trade  distributed  along  the  coast. 


56o 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


Minor 
ports. 

The  two 
centres. 


The  south-western  side  has  a  line  of  fair-weather  ports,  from 
Goa  to  Cochin.  On  the  south-east  there  is  not  a  safe  harbour, 
nor  a  navigable  river-mouth ;  although  ships  anchor  off  the 
shore  at  Madras,  and  in  several  other  roadsteads,  generally 
rear  the  mouths  of  the  rivers.  A  Madras  harbour  has,  how- 
ever, been  under  construction  during  several  years  ;  and,  in 
spite  of  destructive  cyclones  and  storm-waves,  the  work  is  now 
well  advanced.  Since  these  sheets  went  to  press,  a  project  has 
been  put  forward  for  constructing  docks  at  Madras,  to  cover 
25  acres,  protected  by  groins  thrown  out  at  right  angles  from 
the  beach,  and  by  a  breakwater  (1885). 

Of  the  total  foreign  trade  of  India,  Calcutta  and  Bombay 
till  recently  controlled  about  40  per  cent.  each.  Madras 
had  6  per  cent.,  Rangoon  4  per  cent.,  and  Karachi  2  per  cent., 
leaving  a  balance  of  only  8  per  cent,  for  all  the  remaining  ports 
of  the  country.  In  1884-85,  Bombay  had  43*51  per  cent,  of 
the  foreign  trade  ;  Calcutta,  36*97  per  cent.;  Madras,  5*43  per 
cent.;  Rangoon,  4*67  percent;  and  Karachi,  379  percent., 
leaving  only  5 A  per  cent,  for  the  minor  ports,  of  which  the 
principal  are — Chittagong,  Maulmain,  Akyab,  Tuticorin,  and 
Coconada.  Calcutta  and  Bombay  form  the  two  central 
depots  for  collection  and  distribution,  to  a  degree  without  a 
parallel  in  other  countries.  The  grovvth  of  their  prosperity  is 
an  index  of  the  development  of  Indian  commerce. 


Early 
Portu- 
guese 
trade, 
1 500- 1 600. 


Dutch 

monopoly, 

1630. 

English 

factories, 

1625. 


When  the  Portuguese,  the  pioneers  of  Eastern  adventure, 
discovered  the  over-sea  route  to  India,  they  were  attracted 
to  the  Malabar  coast,  where  they  found  wealthy  cities  already 
engaged  in  active  commerce  with  Persia,  Arabia,  and  the 
opposite  shore  of  Africa.  From  Malabar  they  brought  back 
pepper  and  other  spices,  and  the  cotton  calicoes  which  took 
their  name  from  Calicut.  Fixing  their  head-quarters  at  Goa, 
they  advanced  northwards  to  Surat,  the  ancient  port  not  only 
for  Gujarat  but  for  all  Western  Upper  India.  But  with  the 
Portuguese,  the  trading  instinct  was  subordinate  to  the  spirit  of 
proselytism  and  to  the  ambition  of  territorial  aggrandizement. 

The  Dutch  superseded  them  as  traders,  and  organized 
a  colonial  system  upon  the  basis  of  monopoly  and  forced 
labour,  which  survives  in  Java  to  this  day.  Last  of  all 
came  the  English,  planting  factories  at  various  points  along 
the  Indian  coast-line,  and  content  to  live  under  the  shadow 
of  the  native  powers.  Wars  with  the  Portuguese,  with  the 
Dutch,  and  with  the  French,  first  taught  the  English  their 
own  strength ;   and   as   the    Mughal   Empire   fell   to   pieces, 


EARL  Y  ANGLO-INDIAN  TRADE.  5 6  r 

they  were  compelled  to  become   rulers   in    order   to  protect 

their  commercial  settlements.     Our  Indian  Empire  has  grown 

out   of  trade ;  but,  meanwhile,  our  Indian  trade  has  grown 

even  faster  than  our  empire.^ 

'The   Governor   and   Company   of  Merchants  of  London  Enijlish 

trading   to   the    East    Indies '    was   incorporated    by   Royal  '''^'^le, 
^i  T^  ,  ^        T      •       r  T       ,        ,,    ,  1600-1700 

Charter  on  31st  December  1600,  havmg  been  directly  called 

into  existence  by  the  grievance  of  monopoly  prices  imposed 

upon  pepper  by  the  Dutch.     Its  first  voyage  was  undertaken 

in  1601  by  five  ships,  whose  cargoes  consisted  of  ^^28,742  in 

bullion  and  ^^6860  in  goods ;  the  latter  being  chiefly  cloth, 

lead,  tin,  cutlery,  glass,  quicksilver,  and  Muscovy  hides.    Their 

destination  was  '  Atcheen  in  the  Far  East '  (Sumatra).     The 

first  English  factory  was  established  at  Bantam  in  Java,  in 

1603.    The  return  cargoes,  partly  captured  from  the  Portuguese, 

comprised  raw  silk,  fine  calicoes,   indigo,   cloves,   and  mace. 

The  earliest  English  factories  on  the  mainland  of  India  were 

founded  at  Masulipatam  in  1610,  and  Surat  in  161 2-15.     In 

16 19,  ten  ships  were  despatched  to  the  East  by  the  Company, 

with  ^62,490  in  precious  metals  and  ^28,508  in  goods;  the 

proceeds,  brought  back  in  a  single  ship,  were  sold  for  ^108,887. 

The  English  made  no  great  advance  in  trade  during  the  17th 

century.      By  the   massacre   of  Amboyna   (1623)  the   Dutch 

drove  the  English  Company  out  of  the  Spice   Islands,  and  the 

period  of  its  great  establishments  (auratigs)  for  weaving  had 

not  yet  commenced  in  India. 

Early  in  the  i8th  century,  our  affairs  improved.  During  the  Our  trade 
twenty  years  ending  17 28,  the  average  annual  exports  from  ^'^^"^"^'^=^' 
England  of  the  East  India  Company  were  ^442,350  of  bullion 
and  ^92,288  of  goods.  The  average  imports  were  valued  at 
_;^758,o42,  chiefly  consisting  of  calicoes  and  other  woven  goods, 
raw  silk,  diamonds,  tea,  porcelain,  pepper,  drugs,  and  salt- 
petre. In  1772,  the  sales  at  the  India  House  reached  the 
total  value  of  3  millions  sterling ;  the  shipping  owned  by  the 
Company  was  61,860  tons.  From  1760  onwards,  the  Custom 
House  returns  of  trade  with  the  East  Indies  are  given  in 
Macpherson's  History  of  Commerce.  But  they  are  deceptive 
for  comparative  purposes,  as  they  include  the  trade  with  China 
as  well  as  with  India. 

In  1834,  when  the  Company's  monopoly  of  trade  with  China  Statistics 
as  well  as  with  India  ceased,  the  exports  from  India  were  valued  f^'^'  '^34- 
at  ^^9,674,000,  and  the  imports  at  ^2,576,000.     Shortly  after 

^  The  history  of  the  early  European  settlements  in  India  has  been  already 
dealt  with  in  chapter  xiv.  pp.  356-377. 

2  N 


562 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


Inland 
duties 
abolished, 
1836-4S. 


that  date,  trade  was  freed  from  many  vexatious  restrictions. 
Inland  duties  were  mostly  abolished  in  Bengal  in  1836,  in 
Bombay  in  1838,  and  in  Madras  in  1844;  the  inland  sugar 
duties  in  1836  and  the  inland  cotton  duties  in  1847.  The 
navigation  laws  were  repealed  in  1848.  The  effect  of  these 
reforms,  and  the  general  progress  of  Indian  commerce,  may 
be  seen  in  the  table  below.  It  exhibits  the  foreign  trade  of 
the  country,  in  millions  sterling,  for  each  of  the  nine  quin- 
quennial periods  between  1840  and  1884. 

Before,  however,  entering  on  the  items  of  Indian  trade,  the 
method  which  has  been  adopted  in  dealing  with  them  ought  to 
be  explained.  INIany  of  those  items  may  be  regarded  as  agri- 
cultural productions,  and  as  manufactures  or  native  industries, 
as  well  as  articles  of  export  or  internal  trade.  In  such  cases 
it  has  been  deemed  best  to  deal  with  them  in  each  of  these 
aspects,  even  at  the  cost  of  repetition.  Thus  cotton  is  treated 
of  alike  in  the  chapter  on  agriculture,  and  in  those  on  trade 
and  on  manufactures.  This  plan  will  be  most  convenient  to 
those  who  wish  to  consult  the  individual  chapters,  without  the 
necessity  of  reading  the  whole  volume. 


Foreign  Trade  of  India  for  Forty-five  Years,  classified 
according  to  quinquennial  periods,  in  millions 
Sterling. 


Periods. 

Imports. 

Exports.                     j 

Cotton 
Manufactures. 

Total 
Merchandise. 

Treasure. 

Raw 

Cotton. 

Total 
Merchandise. 

Treasure. 

1840-44, 

3*19 

7-69 

2-74 

2-34 

14-62 

0-48 

1845-49, 

375 

9-14 

3-07 

1-68 

17-00 

1-32 

1850-54, 

5-15 

11-06 

4-79 

3-14 

20-I0 

I -00 

1855-59. 

6-94 

15-58 

11-27 

3-11 

25-85 

0-92 

1860-64, 

10 '92 

23 '97 

17-07 

15-56 

43-17 

1-02 

1865-69, 

1574 

31-70 

17-62 

25-93 

57-66 

1-80 

1870-74, 

17-56 

33 '04 

8-56 

17-41 

57-84 

1-59 

1875-79, 

19-29 

38-36 

9-81 

11-52 

63-13 

2-8l 

1880-84, 

22-48 

47-95 

I2-6l 

14-29 

79-97 

1-26 

Average 

) 

in  millions 

\  ii-e? 

24-27 

9-72 

10-55 

42-15 

1-36 

sterling, 

i 

Steadiness       The   preceding   table  shows  a   rapid    and    steady   growth, 
°       ,         which  only  finds  its  parallel  in  the  United   Kingdom.     The 

growth.  -'  ^     .  ° 

exceptional  imports  of  silver  from  1855  ^'^  1859  were  required 
to  pay  for  the  Mutiny;  those  from  1859  to  1864  represent  the 


/.VZ>ZiiV  77?^Z>^,   iSjS;  1SS3.  563 

price  of  the  cotton  sent  to  Manchester  during  the  American 
war. 

Before  examining  in  detail  the  history  of  some  of  the  chief 
staples  of  trade,  it  may  be  convenient  to  give  in  this  place,  as 
an  illustration  of  the  steady  growth  of  Indian  foreign  trade,  the  Indian 
statistics  of  three  years,  1877-7S,  which  was  a  year  of  inflation  ^^^  ^  ^" 
despite  the  incidence  of  famine  in  Southern  India  ;  of  1882-83  > 
and  of  1884-85.  In  1877-78,  the  total  foreign  sea-borne 
trade  exceeded  126  millions  sterling  in  value.  The  transactions 
on  behalf  of  Government,  such  as  stores,  equipments,  and 
munitions  of  war,  show  an  import  of  ;^2,i38,i82,  and  an 
export  of  ^36,615.  The  imports  of  merchandise  were 
£39,326,003,  and  of  treasure  ^t7,355>46o;  total  imports, 
^^56,681, 463.  The  exports  of  merchandise  were  ^65, 185,713, 
and  of  treasure  ^^2,155,136;  total  exports,  ;^67, 340,849. 

These  figures  exhibit   an   excess  of  exports  over  imports  Excess  of 
amounting  to  ;^io,659,386  ;    and  an  excess  of  treasure  im- ^'""^^^  ^' 
ported  to  the  amount  of  ;^i 5, 200,324.      By  far  the  larger 
share  of  the  trade  of  1878,  amounting  to  61  per  cent.,  was  con- 
ducted with  the  United  Kingdom  :  next  came  China,  with  1 3  India's 

h'    f 

per  cent. :  and  then  the  following  countries  in  order : — France,      f 

^        .  '  °  '  customers. 

Straits  Settlements,  Ceylon,  Italy,  United  States,  Mauritius, 
Austria,  Persia,  Arabia,  Turkey,  Egypt,  Australia,  Aden,  East 
Coast  of  Africa.  The  total  number  of  vessels  that  entered  and 
cleared  in  1877-78  was  12,537,  with  an  aggregate  of  5,754,379  Indian 
tons,  or  an  average  of  459  tons  each.  Of  the  total  tonnage,  76  shipping. 
per  cent,  was  British,  7  per  cent.  British  Indian,  and  15  per  cent, 
foreign ;  American,  Italian,  and  French  being  best  represented 
in  the  latter  class. 

The  total  value  of  the  Indian  foreign  seaboard  trade  in  Indian 
1882-83,  including  merchandise,  treasure.  Government  stores,  '/sg^^c" 
etc.,  exceeded  150  millions  sterling,  or  24  millions  in  excess 
of  the  total  value  of  the  trade  in  1877-78.  The  imports  of 
private  merchandise  amounted  to  ;^5o,oo3,o4i,  and  of 
treasure  to  ^i3>453)i57  ;  total  private  imports,  ^63,456,198, 
or  ;;/^6,774,735  above  the  imports  of  1877-78.  The  exports 
of  merchandise  amounted  to  ;^83,4oo,865,  and  of  treasure  to 
;^98o,859;  total  exports,  ^^84,381, 724,  or  ^17,040,875  above 
the  exports  of  1877-78.  Excess  of  exports  over  imports  in 
1882-83  (exclusive  of  Government  transactions),  ^20,925,526. 
The  Government  transactions,  such  as  stores,  equipments, 
munitions  of  war,  railway  plant,  etc.,  show  an  import  of 
;^2,o92,67o,  and  an  export  of  ;^i45, 458,  including  ;^6i, 200 
of  Government  treasure. 


564  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

SuezCanal  Of  the  private  imports,  ^^47, 172,542,  or  74-3  per  cent.,  came 
1882-83.  in  1S82  via  the  Suez  Canal,  and  ;^i6,283,656,  or  257  per 
cent.,  by  other  routes.  Of  the  exports,  ^44,438,288,  or  527 
per  cent.,  went  via  the  Canal,  and  ;^39, 943,436,  or  47*3  per 
cent.,  by  other  routes.  Of  the  total  import  and  export  private 
trade,  aggregating  ^147,837,922,  ^91,610,830,  or  61  "9  per 
cent,  passed  through  the  Suez  Canal,  and  ;^56,227,o92,  or 
38-1  per  cent.,  by  other  routes.  The  total  number  of  sailing 
and  steam  vessels  that  entered  and  cleared  British  Indian 
ports  from  foreign  countries  in  1882-83,  '^^'^s  11,715  with  an 
aggregate  burthen  of  7,071,884  tons,  or  an  average  of  513  tons 
each.  Of  the  total  shipping,  4257  vessels  with  a  total  of 
5,366,770  tons  were  returned  as  British,  2525  with  361,189 
tons  as  British  Indian,  1834  with  1,168,293  tons  as  foreign, 
and  3099  with  175,632  tons  as  native  craft,  in  1882-83. 
Indian  The  figures  for  1884-85  show  a  steadily  increasing  trade. 

I'sSd-S-      ■'•^  ^'^'''•^  y^'^''  ^^^  ^'^^'^  value  of  the  private  sea-borne  foreign 
export  and  import  trade  was  returned  at  over  152  millions, 
or   26   millions  over   the   total    sea-borne  trade  in    1877-78, 
and  of  2  millions  over  that  of   1882-83.      The  imports  of 
private  merchandise  in   1884-85  amounted  to  ;!^53, 147,9191 
and    of    treasure    to    ;^i 3,878,841  ;    total    private    imports, 
;^67,o26,76o,  or  ^^10,345, 297   in  excess  of  the  imports  of 
1877-78,  and  ^^3,570.562   in  excess  of  those  for   1882-83. 
The  exports  of  merchandise  amounted  to  ^{^83, 115,443,  and 
of  treasure  to  ;^i,885,679  ;  total  private  exports,  ^85,001,122, 
or    ;^i 7,660,273    over    the    exports    of    1877-78,    and    of 
;^6i9,398    over    those    for    1882-83.       Excess    of    exports 
over  imports  in   1884-85,  ^17,974,362.      The  Government 
imports  in  the  shape  of  stores,  materials  of  war,  railway  plant, 
treasure,  etc.,  amounted  to  ^^2,563,1 11,  and  the  exports  to 
^138,007. 
SuezCanal      Of  the   private   trade,  merchandise    and   treasure   to    the 
trade,         value  of  ^51,605,827,  or  76*99  per  cent,  of  the  imports,  w-ere, 
■*"  ■''     in  1884,  imported  via  the  Suez  Canal,  while  ;^47, 530, 200,  or 
5  5 '9   V^'^   cent,    of  the   total    exports,  were  exported  by  the 
same  route.     Of  the  total  import  and  export  private  trade  in 
1S84-85,  ^99,136,025,  or  65-2  per  cent.,  passed  through  the 
Suez  Canal,  and  ;^52,89i,855,  or  34-8  per  cent,  proceeded  by 
other  routes.     The  total  number  of  sailing  and  steam  vessels 
that  entered  and  cleared   British   Indian  ports  with  cargoes 
from  and  to  foreign  countries  in  1884-85,  was  8222,  with  an 
aggregate  burthen  of  5,814,904  tons,  or  an  average  of  707  tons 
each. 


FROGJiESS  OF  COFFON  FRADE.  565 

Statistics   are  not  yet  (July   1S85)   available  to   exhibit  in  DistrH  u- 
detail  the  total  value  and  distribution  of  the  foreign  trade  of  j',""}^,^ 
India  in  1S84-85.    The  figures  in  the  following  paragraphs  and  trade; 
tables  refer  to  1882-83,  the  latest  year  for  which  the  final 
returns,  as   printed  by  command   of   Parliament,   have  been 
received. 

Of  the  entire  trade  in  1882-83,  ^{^81,770,117,  or  5 5 '31  per  1111882-83. 
cent.,  was  conducted  with  the  United  Kingdom;  ;^i  7,684,973, 
or  11-96  per  cent.,  with  China;  ^7,757,818,  or  5-25  per  cent., 
with  France;  ^5,409,804,  or  3*66  per  cent,  with  Italy;  and 
7^5,330,471,  or  3'44  per  cent.,  with  the  Straits  Settlements; 
and  then  the  following  countries  in  order  : — the  United  States 
of  America,  2 '89  per  cent. ;  Austria,  2  "17  per  cent. ;  Australia, 
.  2'02  per  cent. ;  Ceylon,  i'85  per  cent. ;  Egypt,  i'69  per  cent. ; 
Belgium,  i'5i  per  cent.;  Persia,  i'39  percent;  Cape  and 
East  Coast  of  Africa,  1T9  per  cent.;  Arabia,  i"o5  per  cent; 
^Mauritius,  i"oo  per  cent.  ;  Turkey,  073  per  cent. ;  and  Aden, 
0^48  per  cent 

As  regards  imports  into  India,  the  first  thing  to  notice  is  Analysis 
the  enormous  predominance  of  two  items — cotton  goods  and  pf  I'ifl'aii 

.  imports. 

treasure.  During  the  forty-five  years  ending  1883-84,  cotton 
goods  formed  33  per  cent.,  or  exactly  one-third  of  the  total, 
and  treasure  an  additional  30  per  cent.  Next  in  order  come 
metals  (copper,  which  is  largely  used  by  native  smiths,  slightly 
exceeding  iron)  ;  Government  stores,  including  munitions  of 
war,  boots,  liquor,  and  clothing  for  soldiers,  and  railway  plant; 
liquors,  entirely  for  European  consumption ;  coal,  for  the  use 
of  the  railways  and  mills ;  railway  plant  for  the  guaranteed  and 
assisted  companies  ;  salt,  provisions,  machinery  and  mill-work, 
and  manufactured  silk.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that,  with  the 
exception  of  Manchester  goods,  no  articles  of  European  manu- 
facture are  in  large  demand  for  native  consumption,  but  only 
for  the  needs  of  our  English  administration  ;  and  few  raw 
materials,  except  coal,  copper,  iron,  mineral  oil,  and  salt 

England's  export  trade  to  India  thus  mainly  depends  upon  History  of 
piece-goods.      In   the   beginning   of    the    17th   century,    the '^°''°"" 
industry  had  not  been  introduced  into  England.     The  small  Oracle : 
British    demand    for    cotton  -  goods     or    calicoes    was    met 
by  circuitous   importations    from   India   itself,  where   cotton- 
weaving  is  an  immemorial   industry.     In   1641,  '  Manchester  Man- 
cottons,'  in  imitation  of  Indian  calicoes  and  chintzes,  were  still  Chester, 

1O41. 
made  of  wool.     Cotton  is  said  to  have  been  first  manufactured 

\_Se?i fence  contimied  on  page  568. 


566 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


Foreign  Sea-borne  Trade  of  British  India  for  1882-83. 


Imports. 

Articles.                                             Quantities. 

Value. 

Apparel 

1 
;^769.752 

Arms,  Ammunition,  etc., 

79.577 

Books,  Paper,  and  Stationery, 

625,431 

Coal,  Coke,  etc.,   .         .           tons  ,             ...                ( 

328,824 

1,019,883 

Cotton  Twist  and  Yarn,         .     lbs.               ...            49, 

392,375 

^3,378,190 

Cotton  Piece-Goods  and   )     ,.^,.h=                         ^/;,„ 
Manufactures,                  )'    ^""'^^               -       ^■^^^' 

798,990 

21,431,872 

Total  Cotton  Goods, 
'Drugs  and  Medicines,    .         . 

24,810,062 
391.673 

Dyes 

206,640 

Fruits  and  Vegetables,  . 

211,435 

Glass,  and  Manufactures  of,  .     ■ 

483.743 

Gums  and  Resins,           .         .           \ 

117,921 

Hardware,  Cutlery,  and  Plate, 

791,791 

Horses,          .... 

186,815  j 

Ivory,    ..... 

212,107 

Jewellery  and  Precious  Stones, 

307,189 

g  j  Ale,  Beer,  and  Porter,       gals.        1,170,554 

g.<.  Spirits ,,               949,169 

■-■.  1  Wines  and  Liqueurs,      .     ,,    !          418,169 

;C272,323 

674,969 

387,322 

,-p      .      1    -r    • 

537,892 

1. 334.614 

1  otai  i-/icjuors,     .         .     ,, 2, 

/Machinery  ar.d  Mill  Work, 

1.342.398 

Iron,        .         .         .           tons 

157.597 

/l, 870,494 

Steel, 

10,645 

163,415 

^  !  Brass,      .         .         .           cwts. 

11,962 

64,688 

5  ,  Copper,   ...              ,,     ' 

450,098 

1.938.376 

^  1  Spelter,   .         .         .               ,,     i 

127,383 

125,669 

1 

'^     Tin,         ... 

42,718 

277,306 

Lead,      ... 

73.583 

101,104 

\  Quicksilver,     .         .              lbs.' 

354,689 

37,100 

\Unenumerated,        .         . 

37.834 

Total  Metals,       .         . 

4,615.986 

Oils 

1,050,897 

Paints  and  Colours,       .         . 

234.450 

Perfumery 

63.336 

Porcelain  and  Earthenware,  . 

170,002 

Provisions 

1,087,186 

Railway  Plant  and  Rolling  Stock, 1 

i,it6,434 

Salt, tons 

338.065 

515.184  , 

Silk  (raw)  and  Thread,           .     lbs.              ...             2, 

386,150 

/"1, 074, 156 

Silk  Manufactures,        .          yards              ...             9, 

671,261 

977,768 

Total  Silk,       ... 

2,051,924 

Spices, lbs. 

510,854 

Sugar,    ....           cwts.! 

672,672 

1,086,961 

Tea lbs.              ...              2, 

751.085 

193,052 

Tobacco,        .... 

83,608 

Umbrellas,     .... 

232,829 

Wood,  and  Manufactures  of, 

99,384 

Wool  (raw),  ....     lbs.              ...              2, 

781,257 

/68,93i 

Wool,  Manufactures  of,          yards              ...             6, 

932,779 

984,873 

Total  Wool  &  Woollen  Goods, 



1,053,804 

AU  Other  Articles, 

2,946,119 

Total  Merchandise, 

^50,003,041 

Treasure,         ... 

Total  Merchandise  and) 
Treasure,          .         j 

13.453.157 

/•63,456,i98 

Government  Imports, 

2,092,670 

Grand  Total  of) 
Imports,    .        ) 

;^65,548,868 

1  Exclusive  of  material  for  East  Indian  and  other  State  railwavs. 


INDIAN  TRADE,   1882-8- 


567 


Foreign  Sea-borne  Trade  of  British  India  for  1882-83. 


Exports. 

Articles. 

Quantity. 

Value. 

Coffee,          ....  cvvts. 

364,008 

;Ci'4i9.i3i 

Coir,  and  Manufactures  of  (_ 
(excluding  Cordage),      j         " 

173.209 

152,129 

Cotton  (raw), 

6, 170, 173 

;^i6,o55,758 

Cotton  Twist  and  Yarn, 

1,874,4^.4 

Cotton  Manufactures,  . 

2,093, 146 

Total  Cotton  &  Cotton  Goods, 

20,023,368 

Drugs  and  Medicines, 

154.463 

Indigo,         ....  cwts. 

141. 041 

^3,912,997 

Other  Dyes  (except  Lac),     . 

258,436 

Total  Dyes  (except  Lac), 



4.171.433 

Rice  (including  Paddy),       .  cwts. 

31,258,288 

^8,476,327 

Wheat 

14,193,763 

6,088,814 

Other  Grains,       .         .         .       ,, 

1,165,826 

319.571 

Total  Grain,  .         .         .       ,, 

46,617,877 

14,884,712 

Gums  and  Resins,        .         .      ,, 

282,416 

356,931 

Hemp,  and  Manufactures  of, 

44,236 

Hides  and  Skins,           .         .    No. 

26,539,988 

4.444,946 

Horns,          .... 

181,785 

Ivory,  and  Manufactures  of, 

112,469 

Jewellery  and  Precious  Stones, 

65.177 

Jute  (raw) cvvts. 

10,348,909 

^5,846,926 

Jute,  Manufactures  of,        |  ,^^|^ 

66,737,651) 
4,601,247) 

1,487,831 

Total  Jute  and  Jute  Goods, 

7.334.757 

Lac  (dye,  shell,  etc.),  .         .  cwts. 

138,844 

699,113 

Oils,     .         .         .         .         . 

443.764 

Opium chests 

91,798 

11,481,379 

Saltpetre cvvts. 

399.565 

388,766 

Seeds, , 

13,147,082 

7,205,924 

Silk  (raw),     ....     lbs. 

665,488 

;^596,838 

Silk,  Manufactures  of, 

306,928 

Total  Silk  and  Silk  Goods, 
Spices.          ....     lbs. 

903,766 
417.:  91 

20,947.105 

Sugar,           ....  cwts. 

1,428,360 

989,009 

Tea, lbs. 

58,233.345 

3,738,842 

Tobacco,      .... 

117,156 

Wood,  and  Manufactures  of, 

56.370 

Wool  (raw),           .         .         .     lbs. 

26,380,327 

^1,002,833 

W^ool,  Manufactures  of, 

183,348 

Total  Wool  &  Woollen  Goods, 

1,186,181 

All  Other  Articles, 

Total  Merchandise,! 

...      £ 

2,427,607 

83  ,400,865 

Treasure, 

Total  Merchandise  and\ 
Treasure,         .         .  J 

-       ^ 

980,859 

^84,38 1, 724 

Government  Exports, 

145. 45S 

Grand  Total  of  > 
Exports,         .   j 

i:84,527,i82 

J  ,T.      (Indian  Pr 
^  '^-  tForeign  A 

oduce  or  Manufacture,  [fi 

0,598.155 

lerchandise, 

2,802,710 

-£! 

3,400,865 

568  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE, 

Sentence  contimied  from  page  565.] 
Cotton       in  England  in  1676.     To  foster  the  nascent  industry,  a  succes- 
1676  ^^       ^^^'^  °^  statutes  were  passed  prohibiting  the  wear  of  imported 
cottons  ;  nor  was  it  until  after  the   inventions  of  Arkwright 
and  others,  and  the  application  of  steam  as  a  motive  power, 
had  secured  to  Manchester  the  advantage  of  cheap  production, 
that  these  protective  measures  were  entirely  removed.     In  the 
present  century,  Lancashire  rapidly  improved  on  her  instructors. 
Cotton-       During  the  five  years   1840-45,  the  annual  import  of  cotton 
m°norts       manufactures  into  India   averaged   a  little  over   ^3,000,000 
1840-83.     sterling.     In  each  subsequent  quinquennial  period,  there  has 
been  a  steady  increase,  until  in  1877-78  the  import  reached 
the   total   of  ^20,000,000   sterling,  and   in   1882-83    nearly 
^21,500,000,  or  an  increase  of  more  than  seven-fold  in  forty- 
four  years. 
Imports  of      The   importation  of  treasure  is   perhaps  still   more   extra- 
tieasure.     ordinary,  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  not  consumed  in  the 
using,  but  remains  permanently  in  the  country.     During  the 
same  period  of  forty-four  years,  the  net  import  of  treasure, 
deducting  export,  has  reached  the  enormous  aggregate  of  358! 
millions  sterling,  or  a  fraction  under  ^i,  8s.  per  head  of  the 
256  million  inhabitants  of  British  and  Feudatory  India.    By  far 
the  larger  portion  of  this  was  silver  ;  but  the  figures  for  gold,  so 
far  as  they  can  be  ascertained,  are  by  no  means  inconsiderable. 
Proportion      During  the  ten  years  ending  1875,  when  the  normal  value  of 
silver.         silver  as  expressed  in  gold  was  but  little  disturbed,  the  total  net 
imports  of  treasure  into  India  amounted  to  just  99  millions. 
Of  this  total,  ()2\  millions  were  in  silver,  and  36^  millions  in 
gold,  the  latter   metal   forming   more   than   one-third  of  the 
whole.     On    separating  the  re-exports  from   the  imports,  the 
attraction  of  gold  to  India  appears  yet  more  marked.     Of  the 
total  imports  of  gold,  only  7  per  cent,  was  re-exported,  while 
for  silver  the  corresponding  portion  was  19  per  cent.     Roughly 
speaking,  it   may   be    concluded    that    India    then   absorbed 
annually   about    5  millions  of  silver,  and   3   millions  sterling 
of  gold  ;  say  a  total  hoard  of  7  to  8  millions  sterling  of  the 
precious  metals  each  year  during  the  decade  ending  1875. 
Gold  and        Thg  depreciation  of  silver  which  has  since  taken  place  has 

Silver  cir- 

culation.  caused  an  increase  in  the  import  of  silver,  and  a  corre- 
sponding decrease  in  the  exjDort  of  gold.  The  figures  since 
1876  do  not  show  the  normal  state  of  things.  But  even  in 
1877-78,  when  the  value  of  silver  in  terms  of  gold  touched  a 
low  point,  although  India  drew  upon  its  hoards  of  gold  for 
export  to  the  amount  of  more  than  i  million  sterling,  she  at  the 


ACCUMULATION  OF  TREASURE.  569 

same  time  imported  i^  million,  showing  a  net  import  of  half  a 
million  of  gold.  It  has  been  estimated  that  the  gold  circula- 
tion of  India  amounts  to  1,620,000  of  gold  viohais  (Rs.  16  to 
Rs.  20  each),  worth  about  three  millions  sterling ;  as  compared 
with  ;^T 58,000,000  of  silver  and  ^2,960,000  of  copper.  In 
addition,  10  million  sovereigns  are  said  to  be  hoarded  in  India, 
mainly  in  the  Bombay  Presidency,  where  the  stamp  of  St. 
George  and  the  Dragon  is  valued  as  a  religious  symbol.  As 
already  stated,  the  net  accumulation  of  silver  and  gold  in 
India,  after  allowing  for  re-exports,  averaged  7  millions 
sterling  during  the  five  years  ending  1879  ;  and  rose  to  an 
average  of  1 1  millions  sterling  during  the  next  quinquennial 
period  ending  31st  March  1884. 

Turning  to  the  exports,  the  changes  in  relative  magnitude  Analysis 

demand  detailed  notice.     In  1877-78,  raw  cotton  for  the  first  of  In^jian 

'  '     '    '  .  exports, 

time  for  many  years  fell  into  the  second  place,  bemg  sur- 
passed by  the  aggregate  total  of  food-grains.  In  1882-83,  raw 
cotton  had  again  advanced  into  the  first  place  among  the 
exports,  exceeding  the  value  of  food-grains  by  upwards  of  a 
million  sterling.  Oil-seeds  show  as  a  formidable  competitor  to 
cotton,  jute  nearly  doubles  indigo,  hides  and  tea  come  close 
behind  ;  while  exports  of  cotton  manufactures  exceed  coftee  in 
value  by  upwards  of  half  a  million.  The  imports  of  sugar,  in 
value  although  not  in  quantity,  exceed  the  exports ;  the  trade 
in  raw  silk  is  about  equally  balanced  ;  while  spices,  once  the 
glory  of  Eastern  trade,  were  exported  in  1877-78,  to  the  value 
of  only  ;2^2  26,5 1 5,  as  compared  with  imports  of  spices  of  twice 
that  value  (^488,884).  In  1882-83,  spices  were  exported 
to  nearly  the  same  value  as  the  imports,  namely,  exports 
^4i7>39i>  and  imports  ;^5io,854. 

The  export   of  raw   cotton   has   been  subject  to  excessive  Export  of 
variations.     At  the  close  of  the  last  century,  cotton  was  sent  to  ''^^'^ '^"^^on- 
England  in  small  quantities,  chiefly  the  produce  of  the  Central 
Provinces,  collected  at  Mirzapur  and  shipped  at  Calcutta ;  or 
the  produce  of  Gujarat  (Guzerat)  despatched  from  Surat.     In  its  history 
1805,  the  cotton  from  Surat  was  valued  at  _;j^i 08,000.     In  the  1S05-34. 
same  year,  only  2000  bales  of  East  Indian  cotton  were  im- 
ported into  Great  Britain.     But  this  figure  fails  to  show  the 
average  ;  for  by  1810,  the  corresponding  number  of  bales  had 
risen  to  79,000,  to  sink  again  to  2000  in   181 3,  and  to  rise  to 
248,000  in  1818.     Bombay  did  not  begin   to   participate  in 
this  trade   until   1825,   but    has   now   acquired  the  practical 
monopoly,  since  the  railway  diverted  to  the  west  the  produce  of 


570  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

the.  Central  Provinces.     In  1834,  when  the  commerce  of  India 
was  thrown  open,  33,000,000  lbs.  of  cotton  were  exported. 
Export  of       Analysing  the  exports  of  cotton  during  the  forty-five  years 

raw  cotton        •  „  r       ■>        ^       ,      ■  ^  r-  ■  -1  -11 

since  1840-  Since  1840,  we  rind  that  in  the  first  qumquennial  period  they 
averaged  2.}  millions  sterling  in  value,  and  did  not  rise  per- 
ceptibly until  1858,  when  they  first  touched  4  millions.  From 
that  date  increase  was  steady,  even  before  the  American  exports 
were  cut  off  by  the  war  in  1861.  During  the  American  war, 
India  made  the  most  of  her  opportunity,  although  quality  did 
not  keep  pace  with  the  enhanced  price.  The  export  of  raw 
cotton  reached  its  highest  value  at  2)l\  millions  sterling  in 
1865,  and  its  highest  quantity  at  803,000,000  lbs.  in  1866. 
and  since  Thenceforth  the  decline  has  been  constant,  although 
1865.  somewhat  irregular,  the  lowest  figures  both  of  quantity  and 

value  being  those  of  1878-79,  when  the  exports  amounted 
to  2,966,569  cwts.,  valued  at  ^7,914,091.  The  principal 
feature  of  the  trade  in  1877-78  was  the  comparatively  small 
amount  shipped  to  the  United  Kingdom,  and  the  even  distri- 
bution of  the  rest  among  continental  ports.  Indian  cotton 
has  a  short  staple,  which  is  ill-suited  for  the  finer  counts  of 
yarn  spun  in  the  Lancashire  mills.  In  1877-78,  out  of 
a  total  of  nearly  ■^\  million  cwts.,  less  than  \\  million  cwts. 
was  consigned  to  England ;  of  the  remainder,  France  took 
611,000  cwts.;  Italy,  434,000;  Austria,  407,000;  China, 
209,000;  and  Germany,  109,000.  The  export  of  raw  cotton 
in  1878-79  amounted  in  value  to  ;^7, 914,091,  and  of  twist 
and  cotton  goods,  to  ;^2,58i,823.  In  1882-83,  o^^  ^^  ^  toXsX 
export  of  over  6  million  cwts.  of  raw  cotton,  2,865,065  cwts. 
were  shipped  to  the  United  Kingdom,  937,934  cwts.  to  Italy, 
764,550  cwts.  to  Austria,  585,766  cwts.  to  France,  333,708 
cwts.  to  Belgium,  114,412  cwts.  to  Germany,  and  364,519  cwts. 
to  Hong-Kong.  In  1882-83,  raw  cotton  was  exported  to  the 
value  of  ^16,055,758;  cotton  twist  and  yarn,  ;^i, 874,464  ; 
and  cotton  manufactures,  ;^2,o93,i46.  Total  cotton  exports, 
;^2o,o23,368. 
Export  of  Second  in  importance  to  cotton  as  a  raw  material  for  British 
juie  ;  manufacture  comes  jute.    At  the  time  of  the  London  Exhibition 

of  185 1,  jute  fibre  was  almost  unknown,  while  attention  was 
even  then  actively  drawn  to  rhea  or  China  grass,  which 
remains  to  the  present  day  unmanageable  by  any  cheap  process. 
From  time  immemorial,  jute  has  been  grown  in  the  swamps  of 
Eastern  Bengal,  and  has  been  woven  into  coarse  fabrics  for 
bags  and  even  clothing.  As  early  as  1795,  Dr.  Roxburgh 
called  attention  to  tjie  commercial  value  of  the  plant,  which  he 


HISTORY  OF  JUTE  EXPORTS.  571 

grew  in  the  Botanical  Gardens  of  Calcutta,  and  named  'jute,' 
after  the  language  of  his  Orissa  gardeners ;  the  Bengali  word 
being  pat  or  koshta.  In  1828-29,  the  total  exports  of  jute  in  1S2S  ; 
were  only  364cwts.,  valued  at;,^62.  From  that  date  the  trade 
steadily  grew,  until  in  the  quinquennial  period  ending  1847-48  in  1S4S. 
the  exports  averaged  234,055  cwts.  The  Crimean  war,  which 
cut  off  the  supplies  of  Russian  flax  and  hemp  from  the  Forfar- 
shire weavers,  made  the  reputation  of  jute.  Dundee  forthwith 
adopted  the  new  fibre  as  her  speciality,  and  the  Bengal  culti- 
vators as  readily  set  themselves  to  meet  the  demand. 

Taking  quinquennial  periods,  the  export  of  raw  jute  rose  Later 
from  an  average  of  969,724  cwts.  in  1858-63  to  2,628,100  cwts.  jg^S'^tl; . 
in  1863-68,  and  4,858,162  cwts.  in  1868-73.  The  highest 
figures  reached  prior  to  1882  were  in  the  year  1872-73,  with 
7,080,912  cwts.,  valued  at  ;^4,33o,759.  A  falling  off  sub- 
sequently took  place,  partly  owing  to  the  competition  of  the 
weaving-mills  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Calcutta ;  but  the  trade 
continued  on  a  permanent  basis.  By  far  the  greater  bulk  of 
the  exports  is  consigned  to  the  United  Kingdom,  and  a  large 
proportion  direct  to  Dundee.  In  1877-78,  out  of  a  total  of 
5,450,276  cwts.,  4,493,483  cwts.  were  sent  to  the  United 
Kingdom,  845,810  cwts.  to  the  United  States,  110,983  cwts.  to 
'  other  countries,'  chiefly  France,  which  has  prosperous  weaving- 
mills  at  Dunquerque. 

In  1882-83,  the  exports  of  raw  jute  had  increased  to  and 
10,348,909  cwts.  valued  at  ;^5, 846,926,  being  considerably  1S82  S3, 
higher  both  in  quantity  and  value  than  the  figures  for  any 
previous  year.  Of  this  quantity  7,834,136  cwts.  valued  at 
^4,709,299  were  exported  to  the  United  Kingdom,  2,002,731 
cwts.  valued  at  £^?>\a„Za,i  to  the  United  States,  184,508  cwts. 
valued  at  ^116,042  to  Germany,  147,644  cwts.  valued  at 
;^89,454  to  Austria.  Jute  manufactures  to  the  number  of 
60,737,654  gunny-bags,  valued  at  ;!^i,43i,58i,  were  exported 
in  1882-83,  Australia  taking  nearly  one-third  of  the  total 
number  of  bags,  and  upwards  of  one-half  of  the  total  value. 
Including  4,601,247  yards  of  gunny  cloth,  and  1346  cwts.  of 
rope  and  twine,  the  total  export  trade  of  raw  and  manufactured 
jute  amounted  in  1882-83  to  ;^7,334>757  i"  value. 

The  export  of  raw  jute  is  almost  monopolized  by  Calcutta, 
although  Chittagong,  which  is  nearer  the  producing  Districts,  is 
beginning  to  take  a  share  in  the  business. 

The  export  of  grain,  as  already  noticed,  reached  in  1878  a  Export 

hic;her  total  than  that  of  cotton,  although  cotton  again  has  °'^^P'^''' 

°  ,  1  1  grains, 

taken  the  first  place  in  exports.     The  two  staple  cereals  are 


572 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


Burmese 
rice. 


Rice.  rice  and  wheat.     Rice  is  exported  from  British  Burma,  from 

Bengal,  and  from  Madras.  The  latter  Presidency  usually 
despatches  about  2\  million  cwts.  a  year,  chiefly  to  its  own 
emigrant  coolies  in  Ceylon;  but  in  1877-78,  this  trade  was 
almost  entirely  checked  by  the  famine.  In  that  year,  besides 
supplying  the  necessities  of  Madras,  Bengal  was  able  to  send 
nearly  6  million  cwts.  to  foreign  ports.  The  Burmese  rice  is 
chiefly  exported  for  distillation  or  starch  ;  the  Bengal  exports 
are  chiefly  intended  for  food,  whether  in  Ceylon,  the  Mauritius, 
the  Straits  Settlements,  the  West  Indies,  or  Europe. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  English  market,  rice  means 
almost  entirely  Burmese  rice,  which  is  annually  exported  to 
the  amount  of  about  20  million  cwts.,  valued  at  over  5 
millions  sterling.  In  the  Indian  tables,  this  is  all  entered  as 
consigned  to  the  United  Kingdom ;  although,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  rice  fleets  from  Burma  only  call  for  orders  at 
Falmouth,  and  are  there  diverted  to  various  continental  ports. 
Burmese  rice  is  known  in  the  trade  as  '  five  parts  cargo  rice,' 
being  but  imperfectly  husked  before  shipment,  so  that  it  con- 
tains about  one  part  in  five  of  paddy  or  unhusked  rice.  It  has 
a  thick,  coarse  grain,  and  is  principally  utilized  for  distillation 
or  for  conversion  into  starch. 

In  1877-78,  the  exports  of  rice  to  the  United  Kingdom 
amounted  to  10,488,198  cwts.,  being  slightly  less  than  the 
average, — but  about  half  of  this  total  is  known  to  be  re- 
exported to  foreign  countries ;  the  direct  exports  to  the 
Continent  were  only  68,839  cwts.  to  Germany,  and  20,117  to 
France.  Siam  and  Cochin  China  supply  the  wants  of  China, 
but  India  has  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  European  market. 
In  1878-79,  after  India  had  begun  to  recover  from  the  famine, 
although  prices  continued  to  rule  high,  the  total  export  of  rice 
was  21^  million  tons,  valued  at  9  millions  sterling  (^8,978,951). 
The  total  foreign  exports  of  rice  and  paddy  from  British 

in  1S82-83.  India  in  1882-83  amounted  to  31,258,288  cwts.,  valued  at 
^8,476,327.  Of  the  total  quantity,  12,381,486  cwts.,  valued 
at  ;^3, 2 11,398,  went  to  the  United  Kingdom,  although,  as 
explained  above,  a  large  proportion  is  re-exported  to  other 
European  countries.  The  other  countries  largely  consuming 
Indian  rice  were — the  Straits  Settlements,  4,092,521  cwts.; 
Egypt,  2,973,703  cwts.;  Ceylon,  2,883,534  cwts.;  Malta, 
2,732,442  cwts.;  Mauritius,  1,227,671  cwts.;  Arabia,  832,574 
cwts.;  South  America,  786,557  cwts.;  France,  605,735  cwts,; 
Italy,  165,662  cwts.;  Germany,  124,447  cwts.,  etc.  Of  the 
total  exports  of  31,258,288  cwts.,  21,330,587  cwts.,  or  68'2  per 


Rice  trade 
in  1878; 


EXPORTS  OF  RICE  AND   WHEAT.  573 

cent.,  were  exported  from  British  Burma;  7,855,151  cwts.,  or 
25*1  per  cent.,  from  Bengal;  1,448,540  cwts.  from  Madras; 
552,537  cwts.  from  Bombay  ;  and  71,473  cwts.  from  Sind. 

An  export  duty  is  levied  on  rice  in  India  at  the  rate  of  Export 
3  dtmds  per  7/iau7id,  or  about   6d.   per  cwt.     A  similar  duty   .^^'^  "" 
on   wheat  was    repealed  in    1873,  and  that   trade  has  since 
conspicuously  advanced. 

In  1874-75,  the  export  of  wheat  was  about  i  million  cwts.  Export  of 
Forthwith  it  increased  year  by  year,  until  in  1877-78  it  ex-  '^^'^i'^^'- 
ceeded  6^  million  cwts.,  valued  at  nearly  3  millions  sterling. 
In  1878-79,  the  quantity  fell  to  i  million  cwts.,  valued  at 
_p^52o,i38,  owing  to  the  general  failure  of  the  harvest  in  the 
producing  Districts.  But  as  railways  open  up  the  country, 
and  the  cultivators  find  a  steady  market  in  England,  India 
may,  as  already  mentioned,  some  day  become  a  rival  to 
America  and  Russia  in  the  wheat  trade  of  the  world.  The 
Punjab  is  a  great  and  rapidly  developing  wheat-growing  tract 
in  India ;  but  up  till  recently  the  supplies  have  chiefly  come 
from  the  North-Western  Provinces  and  Oudh,  being  collected 
at  Cawnpur,  and  thence  despatched  by  rail  to  Calcutta.  As 
indicated  below,  Bombay  has  now  taken  the  place  of  Calcutta 
in  the  exportation  of  wheat,  the  opening  of  the  Rajputana- 
Malwa  Railway  having  put  Bombay  in  direct  communication 
with  the  Punjab  wheat  tract.  In  1877-78,  out  of  the  Wheat 
total  of  6,340,150  cwts.,  Bengal  exported  4,546,062  cwts.,  ^j^fg^."^ 
Bombay  1,159,443,  and  Sind  607,470.  The  chief  countries 
of  destination  were — the  United  Kingdom,  5,731,349  cwts.; 
the  Mauritius,  154,888;  and  France,  116,674. 

Since  1877-78,  the  wheat  export  trade  has  rapidly  extended, 
and  in  the  year  1882-83  it  stood  at  14,193,763  cwts.,  valued  iniSSs-Sj. 
at  ;^6,o88,934.  Nearly  one-half  of  the  total  exports,  or 
6,575,160  cwts.,  went  to  the  United  Kingdom,  3,567,712  cwts. 
to  France,  1,458,898  cwts.  to  Belgium,  799,550  cwts.  to  Egypt, 
578,246  cwts.  to  Holland,  176,063  cwts.  to  Italy,  494,098 
cwts.  to  Gibraltar,  and  163,358  cwts.  to  Malta,  Of  the  total 
wheat,  Bombay  exported  6,957,752  cwts.,  or  49^2  per  cent.; 
Calcutta,  4,439,405  cwts.,  or  31 -4  per  cent.;  and  Karachi, 
2,732,275  cwts.,  or  19-3  per  cent.,  the  small  balance  being  sent 
from  INIadras  and  Rangoon. 

It  is  said  that  Italy  is  beginning  to  utilize  the  hard,  white 
Indian  wheat  for  the  manufacture  of  macaroni. 

Oil-seeds  were  freed  in  1875  from  their  former  export  duty  Exports  of 
of  3  per  cent,  ad  valorem.  During  the  ten  previous  years,  the  ?gltf^f|  ^" 
average  annual  export  was  only  about  4  million  cwts. ;  but 


574 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


Oil-seeds 
in  1877-78. 


in  1S82-S" 


Exports  of 
indigo  in 
1877-78; 


1SS2-83; 


its 

destina- 
tion, 
1882-8-,. 


Safflower. 


Myro- 
balams. 


the  fiscal  change,  coinciding  with  an  augmented  demand  in 
Europe,  has  since  trebled  the  Indian  export.  In  1877-78,  the 
export  of  oil-seeds  amounted  to  12,187,020  cvvts.,  valued  at 
7^  millions  sterling.  Of  this,  Bengal  contributed  7,799,220 
cwts.,  and  Bombay  3,179,475  cwts.  Linseed  and  rape  are 
consigned  mainly  to  the  United  Kingdom,  while  France  takes 
almost  the  entire  quantity  of  til  or  gingelly.  In  1879,  the 
export  of  oil-seeds  fell  to  i\  million  cwts.,  valued  at 
^^4,682,512.  In  1882-83,  exports  of  oil-seeds  had  again 
increased  to  13,147,982  cwts.,  valued  at  ^7,205,924,  of  which 
5,898,383  cwts.,  valued  at  ;;^3, 397, 840,  went  from  Bombay,  and 
5,592,896  cwts.,  valued  at  _;^2,8i7,i4o,  from  Bengal.  The 
principal  countries  of  destination  were — the  United  Kingdom, 
6,409,134  cwts. ;  France,  3,923,964  cwts. ;  Belgium,  1,001,164 
cwts,;  Egypt,  631,388  cwts.;  Italy,  445,773  cwts.;  United 
States,  321,688  cwts.;  and  Holland,  254,014.  Besides  oil- 
seeds, British  India  exported  in  1882-83,  3)644,632  gallons  of 
expressed  oil,  and  201,116  cwts.  of  oil-cake,  of  the  total  value 

of  ^445)529- 

In  actual  amount,  although  not  in  relative  importance, 
indigo  holds  its  own,  notwithstanding  the  competition  of  aniline 
dyes.  The  export  of  1877-78  amounted  to  120,605  cwts., 
valued  at  ;^3, 494,334.  Of  this  total,  Bengal  sent  99,402 
cwts.,  and  Madras  16,899  cwts.  In  1878-79,  the  export  of 
indigo  amounted  to  105,051  cwts.,  valued  at  ^2,960,463.  In 
1882-83,  the  exports  of  indigo  amounted  to  141,041  cwts.,  of 
the  value  of  ;i^3,9i2,997,  of  which  99,715  cwts.,  valued  at 
^^3,023,540,  were  sent  from  Bengal ;  and  33,474  cwts., valued  at 
;^763,o96,  from  Madras.  The  most  noticeable  feature  in  this 
trade  is  the  diminishing  proportion  sent  direct  to  England, 
and  the  wide  distribution  of  the  remainder.  In  1882-83,  only 
60,645  cwts.  were  consigned  direct  to  the  United  Kingdom  ; 
27,285  cwts.,  or  about  one-fifth,  to  the  United  States;  16,076 
cwts.  to  Egypt,  thence  probably  re-shipped  to  Europe ; 
15,513  cwts.  to  France;  8394  cwts.  to  Austria;  6077  cwts.  to 
Persia;  4033  cwts.  to  Turkey;  and  1607  cvvts.  to  Italy. 

Of  other  dyes,  the  export  of  safilower  has  fallen  off, 
being  only  in  demand  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  as  a 
rouge  in  China  and  Japan;  the  export  in  1877-78  was  3698 
cwts.,  valued  at  ;^i4,88i.  In  1882-83,  the  exports  of  safflower 
amounted  to  3008  cwts.,  value  ;^92  03.  The  export  of  m3'ro- 
balams,  on  the  other  hand,  was  greatly  stimulated  by  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War,  which  interrupted  the  supply  of  valonica  and 
galls  from  Asia  Minor.     The  quantity  rose  from  286,350  cwts. 


EXPORTS:  LAC:  TEA:  COEEEE.  575 

in  1875-76  to  537,055  cwts.  in  1877-78,  valued  in  the  latter 
year  at  ^£22,0,^26.  In  1882-83,  the  exports  of  myrobalaras 
were  471,167  cwts.,  value  ;^i84,697.  Practically  the  whole 
is  sent  to  the  United  Kingdom.  Turmeric  exports  amounted  Turmeric, 
to  146,865  cwts.  in  1877-78,  valued  at  ;;^i23,766,  of  which  the 
United  Kingdom  took  about  one-half.  In  1882-83,  the  exports 
of  turmeric  had  dropped  to  63,570  cwts.,  valued  at  ;2^37,207, 
Lac-dye,  like  other  kinds  of  lac,  shows  a  depressed  trade,  the  Lac 
exports  in  1S77-78  having  been  9570  cwts.,  valued  at  ;2^29,oo9. 
In  1882-83,  the  exports  of  lac-dye  had  fallen  to  3927  cwts., 
valued  at  ^4610,  the  whole  of  which  was  sent  to  the  United 
Kingdom  and  the  United  States. 

No  Indian  export  has  made  such  steady  progress  as  tea.  Exports  of 
which  has  multiplied  more  than  seven-fold  in  the  space  of'*^^" 
fifteen  years.  In  1867-68,  the  amount  was  only  7,811,429 
lbs. ;  by  1872-73,  it  had  reached  17,920,439  lbs.;  in  1878-79, 
without  a  single  step  of  retrogression,  it  had  further  risen  to 
34,800,027  lbs.,  valued  at  ;^3, 170,118;  and  in  1882-83,  to 
a  total  of  58,233,345  lbs.,  of  the  value  of  ^3,738,842. 
Until  recently,  Indian  tea  was  practically  confined  to  the 
United  Kingdom,  but  markets  have  recently  been  opened  out 
in  Australia  and  the  United  States.  The  exports  to  the 
United  Kingdom  in  1882-83  amounted  to  54,108,114  lbs.,  to 
Australia  2,772,461  lbs.,  and  to  the  United  States  676,507  lbs. 

Indian  tea  has  now  a  recognised  position  in  the  London  Indian  and 
market,  generally  averaging  about  4d.  per  lb.  higher  in  China  tea. 
value  than  Chinese  tea;  but  it  has  failed  to  win  acceptance 
in  most  other  countries,  excepting  Australia.  Its  growing 
importance  as  compared  with  Chinese  tea  appears  from 
the  following  figures.  In  1872,  the  imports  of  Indian  tea 
into  England  were  to  those  of  Chinese  tea  as  i  to  97;  in 
1874,  as  I  to  7 '5  ;  in  1876,  as  i  to  5'6  ;  and  in  1878,  as  i  to  47. 

The  exports  of  coffee  from  India  are  stationary,  if  not  Coffee, 
declining.  The  highest  amount  during  the  past  fifteen  years  was 
507,296  cwts.  in  1871-72,  the  lowest  amount  298,587  cwts.  in 
1877-78,  valued  at  ;!^i, 338,499.  In  1878-79,  the  export  of 
coffee  was  342,268  cwts.,  valued  at  ^^i, 548,481.  The  export 
of  coffee  had  slightly  increased  by  18S2-83  to  364,008  cwts., 
but  showed  a  decrease  in  value  to  ^1,419,131. 

Among  manufactured  goods,  cotton  and  jute  deserve  notice.  Export  of 
although  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  produce  of  the  Indian  '^^^o'l 
mills  is  consumed  locally.    The  value  of  Indian  cotton-manufac-  tures, 
tured  goods  exported  in  1877-78  was  ;2£'i, 142,732  ;  in  1879-80, 101877-78; 
;^i, 644,125;  and  in  1882-83,  ;^2,o93,i46.     The  exports  of 


576  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

Export  of  twist  and  yarn,  spun  in  the  Bombay  mills,  increased  from 
manufac-  3  iTiiHion  lbs.  in  1874-75  to  15^^  million  lbs.  in  1877-78, 
tures,  valued    at    ^682,058.       The    chief    places    of    destination 

were  —  China,  13,762,133  lbs.;  Aden,  1,181,120  lbs.; 
and  Arabia,  393,371  lbs.  The  export  of  twist  and  yarn  in 
in  1SS2-S3.  1878-79  was  valued  at  ;;^937,698.  By  1882-83,  the  exports 
of  twist  and  yarn,  nearly  all  from  Bombay,  had  increased 
to  44,859,175  lbs.,  value  ;!^i, 874,464,  chiefly  to  China,  Japan, 
Java,  and  Aden.  Indian-made  piece-goods  belong  to  two 
classes.  Coloured  goods,  woven  in  hand-looms,  are  annually 
exported  from  Madras  to  Ceylon  and  the  Straits,  to  the  value 
of  about  ;^23o,ooo,  the  quantity  being  about  8  million  yards ; 
while  in  1877-78,  grey  goods  from  the  Bombay  mills  were 
sent  to  Aden,  Arabia,  Zanzibar,  and  the  Mekran  coast, 
amounting  to  over  10  million  yards,  and  valued  at  jQ,\\\,^o(^. 
By  1882-83,  t^6  export  of  grey  goods  from  Bombay  had 
increased  to  41,799,370  yards;  value  ;^466,26o. 
Exports  of  Jute  manufactures  consist  of  gunny-bags,  gunny  cloth,  and 
jute  nianu-  ^q^^  ^^d  twine,  almost  entirely  the  produce  of  the  Calcutta 
mills.  In  these,  the  value  of  the  exports  tends  to  increase 
faster  than  the  quantity,  having  multiplied  nearly  four-fold  in 
the  five  years  ending  1882-83.  In  1877-78,  the  total  export  of 
jute  manufactures  was  valued  at  ^^771, 127,  and  in  1879-80  at 
Gunny-  ^^i, 098, 434.  Gunny-bags,  for  the  packing  of  wheat,  rice,  and 
iri'is'-?  7S-  ^^'O*^^'  were  exported  in  that  year  to  the  number  of  more  than 
26^  millions,  valued  at  ^729,669.  Of  this  total,  ;^298,ooo 
(including  by  far  the  most  valuable  bags)  was  sent  to  Australia, 
;^i 62,000  to  the  Straits,  ;;/^8o,ooo  to  the  United  States, 
^77,000  to  Egypt,  ;^32,ooo  to  China,  and  ;^8i,ooo  to  other 
countries,  which  comprises  a  considerable  quantity  destined 
for  England.  In  1878-79,  the  export  of  gunny-bags  had 
increased  to  45J  millions.  Of  gunny  cloth  in  pieces,  nearly 
3  million  yards  were  exported,  alniost  entirely  to  the  United 
States;  in  1878-79,  these  exports  had  increased  to  upwards  of 
4I  million  yards.  Of  rope  and  twine,  4428  cwts.  were  exported 
in  1877-78,  valued  at  ^5443- 
Gunny-  By    1882-83,    the    number    of   gunny-bags    exported    had 

i'nBs2-S\  increased  to  66,737,654,  of  a  value  of  ^1,431,584,  the  prin- 
cipal countries  to  which  they  were  sent  being  Australia, 
China,  the  Straits  Settlements,  and  the  United  States.  Gunny 
cloth  to  the  extent  of  4,601,247  yards  was  also  exported 
in  the  same  year  to  the  value  of  ;^55,8o2  ;  as  were  also  rope 
and  twine,  1346  cwts.,  valued  at  ;;^i872.  The  total  export  of 
Indian  jute  manufactures  in  1882-83  was  valued  at  ;^i,487,83i, 
or  double  the  figure  (^771,127)  for  1877-78. 


with  wliccli  % 


EX  FOR  TS :  JUTE  MANUFA  CTUR  ES.         5  7  7 

The  following  statistics,  being  taken  from  Indian  returns,  do  Countries 
not  in  all  cases  show  the  real  origin  of  the  imports  or  the  j^d 
ultimate  destination  of  the  exports,  but  primarily  the  countries  trades, 
with  which  India  has  direct  dealings.  London  still  retains  its 
pre-eminence  as  the  first  Oriental  mart  in  the  world,  whither 
buyers  come  from  the  other  countries  of  Europe  to  satisfy  their 
wants.  To  London  Germans  come  for  wool,  Frenchmen 
for  jute,  and  all  nations  for  rare  dyes,  spices,  and  drugs. 

The  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal  restored  to  the  maritime 
cities  of  the  Mediterranean  a  share  of  the  Eastern  business 
which  they  once  monopolized.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
advantage  of  prior  possession,  the  growing  use  of  steamers,  and 
the  certainty  of  being  able  to  obtain  a  return  freight,  all  tend  to 
favour  trade  with  England,  carried  in  English  bottoms.  As  the 
result  of  these  conflicting  influences,  the  trade  of  India  with  the 
United  Kingdom,  while  in  actual  amount  it  remains  pretty  con- 
stant, shows  a  relative  decrease  as  compared  with  the  total  trade. 

Taking  merchandise  only,  the  average  value  of  English 
exports  and  imports  during  the  two  years  1867-69  amounted 
to  slightly  more  than  58  millions  sterling,  out  of  a  total 
of  nearly  86  millions,  being  66  per  cent.  Ten  years  later,  the  India's 
average  value  of  English  trade  for  1877-79  was  still  58  En^^J^j^^'^ 
millions,  but  the  total  value  had  risen  to  100  millions,  and  the 
proportion  had  therefore  fallen  to  56!  per  cent.  In  1882-83, 
the  total  value  of  the  English  private  imports  and  exports  of 
merchandise  had  risen  to  75!  millions  ;  but  the  proportion  to 
the  total  trade  of  a  little  less  than  133^  millions  (excluding 
Government  stores  and  private  and  Government  treasure)  had 
fallen  to  567  per  cent.  Next  to  the  United  Kingdom  comes 
China,  with  an  Indian  trade  of  about  15  J  millions  (imports  and 
exports),  or  1 1|-  per  cent.  Of  this,  nearly  i  ij  millions  represent 
opium,  the  only  other  articles  which  China  takes  from  India  with 
being  raw  cotton,  cotton  twist,  and  gunny-bags.  In  return, 
China  sends  silver,  copper,  raw  silk  and  silk  goods,  sugar  and 
tea,  the  balance  of  trade  being  adjusted  through  England.  It 
is  said  that  Chinese  tea  is  now  only  consumed  in  India  by 
natives,  or  sent  across  the  frontier  into  Central  Asia.  The 
annual  quantity  imported  into  India  is  about  2^  million  lbs., 
and  the  price  is  extremely  low. 

The  trade  with  the  Straits  may  be  regarded  as  a  branch  India's 
of  the  Chinese  trade.      The  exports  are  valued   at   over  3^  ^^j^tif  t],e 
millions  sterling,  of  which  more  than  a  half  consists  of  opium.  Straits ; 
the  rest  being  principally  made  up  by  rice  and  gunny-bags. 
The    imports    are    tin,    areca-nuts,    pepper,    and    raw    silk, 

2  o 


578 


COMMERCE  AyD  TRADE. 


with 
Ceylon  ; 


with 
Mauritius. 

India's 
trade  with 
France ; 


with  Italy. 


India's 
trade 
Mith  the 
United 
States  ; 


with 
Australia. 


valued  altogether  at  less  than  one-half  of  the  exports.  The 
trade  with  Ceylon  is  merely  a  form  of  coasting  trade,  large 
quantities  of  rice  being  shipped  in  native  craft  along  the  Madras 
coast  to  feed  the  Tamil  coolies  in  that  island.  The  imports 
are  hardly  a  sixth  of  the  exports  in  value.  With  Mauritius, 
rice  is  exchanged  for  sugar  to  a  large  amount. 

Of  European  countries,  France  and  Italy  alone  deserve 
notice  beside  England.  In  1877-78,  the  Indian  exports  to 
France  reached  the  large  total  of  nearly  6  millions  sterling, 
consisting  chiefly  of  oil-seeds  (rape  and  gingelly),  indigo,  cotton, 
silk,  and  coffee.  The  direct  imports  in  the  same  year  were 
valued  at  only  ^^451, 000,  principally  apparel  and  millinery, 
brandy  and  wines,  and  silk  goods ;  but  the  same  articles  are 
also  sent  in  considerable,  although  unascertained,  quantities 
via  England.  In  1882-83,  the  exports  to  France  amounted 
to  ;!^7, 207,962,  and  the  direct  imports  to  ^484,367.  The 
trade  with  Italy  shows  a  steady  increase  ;  the  Indian  exports  to 
Italy  having  risen  from  ;^  1,1 00,000  in  1877-7810^3,383,507 
in  iS82-83,and  the  return  imports  from ;^25o, 000  to  ^444,433. 
The  exports  are  cotton,  silk,  oil-seeds  (sesamum),  and  hides  ; 
the  imports — corals,  glass  beads  and  false  pearls,  spirits  and 
wines,  and  silk  goods. 

The  trade  with  the  United  States  comes  next  to  that  with 
Italy,  aggregating  a  total  for  exports  and  imports  of  ;!£"4,2  77,560. 
The  exports  are  indigo,  hides,  raw  jute  and  gunny-bags,  lac, 
saltpetre,  and  linseed ;  the  imports  are  almost  confined  to 
mineral  oils.  In  1878-79,  the  import  of  ice  (formerly  an  im- 
portant item  in  the  trade  with  the  United  States)  fell  off  greatly, 
under  competition  from  local  manufacture  at  Calcutta  and 
Bombay,  and  it  has  now  entirely  ceased ;  while  the  imports 
to  India  of  American  kerosene  oil  rose  to  3  million  gallons  in 
1878-79,  and  to  the  enormous  quantity  of  20  million  gallons 
in  1S82-83. 

The  trade  of  India  with  Australia  was  formerly  limited  to  the 
export  of  rice,  gunny-bags,  and  castor-oil,  and  the  import  of 
copper  and  horses.  A  little  coal  is  sent  from  Australia,  and  a 
little  coffee  from  India.  Hitherto  Australia  has  preferred  to  drink 
Chinese  tea;  but  a  considerable  development  of  trade  in  this  and 
other  Indian  products  has  taken  place  since  the  Melbourne  and 
other  Colonial  Exhibitions.  The  total  exports  to  Australia  in 
18S2-83  aggregated  ;j{^i, 088,918  ;  return  imports,  ;!^476,59i. 


The  following  tables  summarize  the  private  foreign  trade  of 
India  in  1S77-78  and  1882-83  • — 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  INDIAN  TRADE.        579 


to 


'S  c 

MS 

OJ 

fl 

0 

t^CO  ^Os  w  CO    c% 

N 

VO    •-  _t^  ro 

t^ 

Ci     fj 

»n 

^  On  m  C^r^i    tn  p 

-1- 

Ci 

p 

73 

C 

Od  *in"<N   «  M  V- 

- 

h.      M 

^- 

f-, 

■"■ 

M     "   "     "                        " 

c 

" 

5 

1 

C^  0 

So 

00   On  0    M    ^  vo 

►-    ir^  -    w 

CO 

0  00 

00 

f  NO   -00   w   0   r^ 

~ 

On 

~ 

0 

ir,  t^  N    !^ 

t^ 

NO  ^0 

^ 

0 

r>»  m  o^  0  -  'O 

^ 

n 

6 

tC  u=,oo    0" 

0 

t^  (N 

0 

w   inNO    c^oo    m  0 

NO 

I 

t^ 

1/1  r^  0    - 

1^   (^ 

m  mNO   ON  in  1  00 

NC 

0 

CT- 

-_  -^  0\  -Jl- 

qJ 

W     Tf 

N  N  q;  t-.  o_NO  N 

■«• 

■^ 

"^ 

Ni 

O^ 

i 

" 

« 

^ 

w   e4   r^\o   r^  \ri 

O^ 

r»  0,  0    m 

ON 

CO  00 

NO 

in  Tj-NC  cc  0  N  00 

C 

VO  ^0    0    - 

M- 

00 

0   m  --    t^NC    t^NO 

" 

00  c^  i^  lo  t^  a\ 

IQ 

-  -0    1^00 

m 

W  CO 

p-^   t^NO  CO    CJ  N£;  NO 

c 

O^ 

CO 

^  c^  000  0  ;^  ^ 

ro  N    «    d 

ON 

00 

o" 

-    O-cxj    0 

NC 

NO    m  0  N    r^  t^  0 

•^ 

00 

0 

X 

■^ 

M3 

r^  "^ 

t^ 

*"  ^.  '^  ^  ^  "^  ^ 

^ 

0^ 

ki* 

in  cC  ro  cT  w"  « 

s 

" 

r^ 

(^ 

M 

s 

00 

\0   tN.  ro  in  "(i-  - 

NO 

^VTN    -  00 

0 

«   0 

N 

l^  N   in  0    N  OO   C> 

m 

W  VO    '*^  On  fOOO 

en 

00    0    N    - 

■a-  0 

a> 

ON  m  ^  m  ■^vD 

0    t^  ■*  f*^ 

qNq_  t^-o  ■*  -n  q 

0 

0 

»s3  m  Tj-  Tj-  0   •    m 

^  \C  OC     Tf   i-.  t^  M 

c> 

■«■  N  in  OS 

-9-  * 

cNi  NO   m  fn  c   On  c> 

t^ 

no' 

a 

c^ 

NC 

p-  y  i^  t^x  NC   i^ 

t^ 

0 

ro  Tj-  ^  M         M 

r^ 

00  m 

c^ 

On 

0_  in  m  m  CI        r<-. 

li-j 

G 

'"' 

0" 

t 

*" 

CN      - 

in 

o" 

OJ 

"~" 

^5 

"rt 

IJ 

0 

W       M       'M       m    N       0 

•- 

'p  r-  y ." 

f> 

-     r^. 

_^ 

NO   in  0  .^  o>  ^m  _•-< 

0 

IN. 

p 

_. 

0\>0    "w    'r--    '       *!-" 

b 

»-. 

N 

« 

V) 

Vn  en  Vn  M        *     *h 

r^ 

"0 

cj'rt 

i>- 

0 

>-•  > 

&i  0 

W3 

ON  t>.  ■*  0.  in  0 

^ 

moo  ■*  ■* 

ON 

■Nj-  in 

c^ 

N  OD    •-    0  NO    ONNO 

^ 

NO 

0     0     mVO     (N  00 

N  m  t^  0  N  00   * 

; 

0  —    C)     OnOO    0 

"-> 

«  S  o"  0 

0\ 

ft-co 

ro 

CO      V    0     t^NO   NO      - 

"V 

00 

1^ 

•! 

■^00"  a^oo  oS  '& 

■^ 

6  d  o>  m" 

0" 

ci   c> 

C^ 

NO    -    in  cv"  no"  -■  no" 

0 

rn 

^r 

0 

S?  cs   -   ^   t--  -NO 

M  c\  t>>o 

NO  NO     t^   "*-   0     ONO 

q 

M  NO  0  m  q  -9-  - 

t^ 

H 

«  0     N    w 

M 

■^  rnm  «  «       hT 

•V- 

06 

0 

c^ 

0 

00 

NO     «   NO      ►-   VO      -^ 

■»r 

N     t^  0    0> 

CO 

r^  t^ 

■^ 

o-'O  NO   m  •«•  m  m 

-rr 

^ 

^ 

0    0    0    On  0    - 

lO  -  00  0 

On 

r^  r^.  *.  0  m  ^  -1- 

NO    0    0  CO    r^  ■* 

t^  cN  q  io 

c^  - 

C 

t^ 

0 

t  ,  rn  tC  0   inco   »n 

d 

r^co    "    cC 

'-n 

a 

1^    ^00     U-) 

NO 

r^ 

■*oo  -v  r^oo  moo 

•y. 

0 

t^  tn  m<X)  NO  fn  ^ 

^ 

ti 

6    uS    «     M 

0' 

" 

" 

N    «    N 

0' 

NO 

f*^  moo  00  o\  r^ 

0 

-<   w   •*  in 

"~7 

1^00 

m  N  m  i^  NNo  m 

00 

00 

N 

0   0    <N    t^  -  ^ 

0 

\0    I^sC     0 

0 

►.    0 

t-»  0  mo  On  5"  0 

h> 

C 

0 

ro  —    «    0    M  NO 

^     V    ON    TJ- 

l^  t^ 

NO    r^  m  inNO   O   en 

0 

•■^f;^*!?   % 

eg"  N  t^  rn 

no' 

s 

6 

r?.  6;  0"  On  rn  ■-.'   di 

r-. 

a 

rv. 

^  M-  " 

0 

t^ 

On 

£ 

w^  '■r  m  M 

•C     N 

On 

« 

a 

■«;  0_  m  -D-  en  «  NO 

^ 

« 

^2 

^ 

r^ 

" 

•a 

~7' 

ct 

a 

N 

^ 

^ 

^ 

^ 

^ 

rt 

a 

d 

CJ 

0 

0 

0 

0 

Z 

0 

H 

H 

H 

•a 
c 
n 

H     • 

_£ 

-3     ! 

^ 

.2 

(5 

s 

■      '      '_B 

ci 

E 

%4 
0 

■£ 

.   .   .-0 
c 

''u 

•£ 

ri 

e 
.    .    .    .  c 

a 

C 
.  0 

'u 

0 

0  2 

1      '   i 

■  E   ■   •   .    •  0 

-3 

•3      .     .           .0) 

•       .    w     C 

(fi  tj 

*.2 

IIROPE — 

United  King 
France, 
Italy,     . 
Austria, 
Belgium, 
Other  Europ 

rt  rt 

S                  a 

FRICA— 

Egypt,  . 
Mauritius 
Eastern  C( 
Other  Afr 

Has 
I'll 

SIA — 
China,    . 
Straits  Se 
Ceylon, 
Persia,  . 
Arabia, 
Aden,     . 
Other  Asi 

<.2" 

W 

"^i 

< 

-t; 

< 

i 
1 

58o 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


C3 

G 
O 
Pi 

< 


H 

O 

cu 

W 

iJ 
<; 

5 

z 

5 

Ah 


3     tx 

O 

-t- 

„ 

^ 

<n 

N 

m 

CO 

"1    "1 

CO 

CO 

°1 

t 

00 

1 

1- 

1- 

CO 

VO 

"1 

oo 

CO 

'O 
CO 

-t- 

-1- 

CO 

:   :   00    : 
en 

c 

N 

■-       ^       F       ■^ 


iJ       O.     ~ 


c;      D      W 


SUEZ  CANAL  TRADE.  581 

The  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal  in  1869,  while  it  has  stimu-  Tmde  viA 
lated  every  department  of  trade  into  greater  activity,  has  not  Canal"*^^ 
materially  changed  its  character.  The  use  of  the  Canal  implies 
steam  power.  In  1871-72,  the  first  year  for  which  statistics  are 
available,  the  total  number  of  steamers  trading  with  India  which 
passed  through  the  Canal  was  422,  with  a  tonnage  of  464, 198. 
Every  subsequent  year  shows  an  increase  until  the  great  fall 
in  trade  in  1878-79.  In  1877-78,  the  number  of  steamers 
passing  through  the  Canal  was  1137,  with  a  burthen  of 
1,617,839  tons,  or  64  per  cent,  of  the  total  steam  tonnage. 
Although  there  was  a  considerable  falling  off  in  the  two  follow- 
ing years,  the  Canal  trade  speedily  recovered  itself;  and  in 
1880-81,  1459  steamers  of  2,133,872  tons  passed  the  Canal. 
The  highest  figures  hitherto  reached  were  in  1881-82,  when 
1989  steamers  of  2,887,988  tons  passed  the  Canal.  In  the 
following  year,  1882-83,  the  number  of  Canal  steamers  was 
1645  of  2,585,920  tons. 

As  might  be  anticipated,  the  imports  to  India,  being  for 
the  most  part  of  small  bulk  and  high  value,  first  felt  the 
advantages  of  this  route.  In  1875-76,  85  per  cent,  of  the  Growth  <>f 
imports  from  Europe  and  Egypt  (excluding  treasure)  passed  ^^^e  Canal 
through  the  Canal,  but  only  29  per  cent,  of  the  exports. 
The  export  trade,  however,  has  rapidly  increased,  showing 
that  such  bulky  commodities  as  cotton,  grain,  oil-seeds,  and 
jute  now  largely  participate  in  the  advantages  of  rapid  transport 
afforded  by  the  Canal.  In  1877-78,  the  import  trade  via  the 
Canal  amounted  to  74  per  cent,  of  the  total  imports  into 
British  India,  and  the  Canal  exports  to  36  per  cent,  of  the  total 
exports.  In  1882-83,  while  the  import  trade  via  the  Canal 
remained  stationary  at  74  per  cent.,  the  proportion  of  Canal 
exports  had  increased  to  52  per  cent.  The  proportion  of  both 
import  and  export  trade  passing  through  the  Suez  Canal  has 
increased  from  45  per  cent,  in  1877-78  to  61  per  cent,  in 
1882-83.  The  Canal  has  reduced  the  length  of  the  voyage 
from  London  to  Calcutta  by  about  thirty-six  days.  The  route 
round  the  Cape  was  more  than  11,000  miles,  and  occupied 
nearly  three  months ;  that  through  the  Canal  is  less  than  8000 
miles,  and  takes  from  30  to  45  days. 

Sir  R.  Temple,  when  Finance  Minister  in  1872,  drew  up  a  sir  R. 
valuable  State  Paper,  in  which  he  i)laced  in  a  clear  light  the  Temple  on 

.  the  balance 

various  means  by  w^hich  the  apparent  excess  of  exports  over  of  Indian 
imports  is  liquidated.     His  conclusions  were  based  on  special  trade, 
materials  reaching  from    1835  to   1871.     They  are  therefore 


582  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

summarized  here  without  attempting  to  extend  them  to  the 

period  which  has  since  elapsed.     The  balance  of  trade  during 

recent  years  has  already  been  dealt  with  at  pp.  558-9. 

Indian  During  the   thirty-six  years   between  1835    and    1871,  the 

foTthinv^   value    of  merchandise    exported    from    India   amounted    to 

six  years.    ;^i, 012,000,000,    Say    One    thousand    millions    sterling;    the 

value    of   merchandise    imported    into    India   amounted     to 

^^583,000,000,  showing  an   excess  of  _;^429,ooo,ooo  in  the 

exports.     The  value  of  treasure  imported  in  the  same  period 

was  ;^3 1 2,000,000,  against  ;,{^3 7,000,000  exported,  being  a  net 

import  of  ;^2  7 5,000,000.     Deducting  this  from  the  excess  of 

merchandise  exports,   a  balance  of  ;^i  5^:1,000,000  has  to  be 

accounted  for  otherwise  than  in    the  ordinary  operations    of 

The  trade.     The   first   item   to   be   considered   is   freight.      Next 

balance ;     come  all  payments  made  in  England,  whether  by  the  Indian 

accounted  Government  or  by  private  persons  resident  in  India.     During 

'^o''-  the  thirty-six  years  taken,  the  aggregate  amount  of  payments 

in  England  on  Government  account  (now  represented  by  the 

Secretary  of  State's  bills)  amounted  to  ;^i  13,000,000,     These 

Govern-      \y\}^%  are  drawn  to  meet  charges  due  in  England  under  such 

ment  re-       ,         ,  ..,,.,.  .  .  ,    ,  , 

mittances.  heads  as  civil  and  military  pensions,  interest  on  debt  and  on 
railway  capital,  military  stores,  etc. ;  and  they  are  bought  by 
bankers  or  merchants,  who  require  to  meet  their  own  pay- 
ments in  India.  They  operate,  financially,  as  if  treasure  had 
been  sent  to  India,  and  thus  reduce  the  apparent  balance  of 
trade  at  one  stroke  from  ;^  154,000,000  to  ^^41, 000,000. 
Private  re-  The  remaining  item  to  be  considered  is  the  remittances  to 
England  on  private  account,  which  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain 
with  any  pretension  to  accurac}'.  In  1872,  this  item  was 
estimated  at  ;,^3, 500,000  a  year;  but  in  former  years  it  had 
been  much  less,  and  it  is  now  probably  much  more.  It 
includes  such  divers  matters  as  the  savings  of  officials,  profits 
of  trade  and  planting,  interest  on  capital  invested,  etc.  Together 
with  freightage,  it  would  make  up  the  balance  of  ;^4 1,000, 000 
yet  unaccounted  for,  and  thus  finally  equalize  and  account  for 
the  balance  of  India's  foreign  trade. 
Balance  The  phenomena  of  the  trade  between  India  and  China  are 

^?"^_  to  be  explained  on  the  same  principles.  In  1S72-73,  the  total 
trade.  exports  from  India  to  China  were  valued  at  ;,^i  2,074,347,  to 
which  opium  alone  contributed  ;^io,5 29,673.  The  total 
imports  from  China  were  valued  at  only  ;2^i,355,i7i,  showing 
an  excess  of  ;^io,7i9,i76  in  exports,  for  which  India  receives 
no  direct  return  from  China.  In  this  case,  China  pays  her 
debt  to  India  by  the  excess  of  her  exports  to  England,  which 


INDIAN  COASTING  TRADE.  583 

are  there  placed  to  the  credit  of  India.  During  the  twenty 
years  between  1852  and  187 1,  the  aggregate  balance  of  trade 
in  favour  of  China  in  her  dealings  with  England  amounted  to 
;^i  1 2,000,000.  This  amount  was  available  to  settle  China's 
equally  unfavourable  balance  with  India,  and  was  in  fact  paid 
by  China  for  Indian  opium,  as  certainly  as  if  the  opium  had 
been  sent  to  China  via  England.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that 
if  the  Chinese  were  to  greatly  increase  their  imports  of  English 
goods,  the  exchanges  of  India  might  be  seriously  affected. 

The  foreign  trade  of  India  is  practically  monopolized  by  Coasting 
five  ports,  namely,  Calcutta,  Bombay,  Madras,  Rangoon,  and  '^'^'^^^• 
Karachi ;  but  the  entire  seaboard  along  both  sides  of  the  pen- 
insula is  thronged  by  native  craft,  which  do  a  large  coasting 
business.     In  the  Gulfs  of  Kachchh  (Cutch)  and  Cambay,  on 
the  Malabar  coast,  and  in  the  southern  Districts  facing  Ceylon, 
a  large  portion  of  the  inhabitants  are  born  sailors,  conspicuous 
alike  for  their  daring  and  for  their  skill  in  navigation.     In 
1873-74,  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  normal  year,  the  total 
number  of  vessels  engaged  in  the  coasting  trade  which  cleared 
and  entered  was   294,374,  with  an  aggregate  of  10,379,862 
tons ;  the  total  value  of  both  coasting  exports  and  imports  was 
^34,890,445.     Of  the  total  number  of  vessels,  280,913,  with  Statistics 
4,843,668  tons,  were  native  craft.    Bombay  and  Madras  divided  ^^^^^  3^,^ 
between  them  nearly  all  the  native  craft ;  while  in  Bengal  and  shipping, 
Burma,  a  large  and  increasing  proportion  of  the  coasting  traffic     "^^  ' 
is  carried  in  British  steamers. 

In  1877-78,  the  year  of  famine,  the  number  of  ships  in- in  1S78. 
creased  to   319,624;    the  tonnage  to   15,732,246  tons;    and 
the  value  to  _;^67,8i4,446.     By  far  the  largest  item  was  grain, 
of  which  a  total  of    1,137,690  tons,    valued   at    13    millions 
sterling,  was  thrown  into  the  famine-stricken  Districts  from  the 
seaboard.     Next  in  importance  came  raw  cotton  and  cotton  Staples  of 
goods.     The   trade  in  raw  cotton  in    1877-78  amounted  to  ||.^^^^°^*'^ 
387,438  cwts.,  valued  at  ^^95 7,900,  much  of  which  was  merely  1878. 
transhipped  from  one    port   to   another   within   the   Bombay 
Presidency.    Cotton  twist  and  yarn  in  the  same  year  amounted 
to  17,425,993  lbs.,  valued  at  ;^965,o38,  of  which  the  greater 
part  was  sent  from  Bombay  to  Bengal  and  Madras.     The  total 
value    of   the    exports  coastwise   of  cotton  piece-goods  was 
^^620,866,  including  about  24  million  yards  of  grey  goods  sent 
from  Bombay  to  Bengal  and  to  Sind  in  nearly  equal  propor- 
tions, and  about  2  million  yards  of  coloured  goods  from  Madras. 
Stimulated  by  the  activity  of  the  grain  trade  caused  by  the 


S84  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

Indian        famine,  the  exports  of  gunny-bags  from  Calcutta  coastwise  rose 

trade  to  a  total  value  of  nearly   ^^960,000.     The  trade  in  areca- 

1877-78.     nuts  in  1877-78  amounted  to  nearly  44  million  lbs.,  valued  at 

over  ;j^5oo,ooo.     Burma  consumes  most  of  these,  obtaining 

its   supplies   from   Bengal ;   while  Bombay  gets  considerable 

quantities  from  Madras,  from  the  Konkan  and  Goa,  and  from 

Bengal.     Sugar  (refined  and  unrefined)  figures  to  the  large 

amount  of  ^900,000  in  1877-78,  of  which  the  greater  part 

came  from   Bengal.      The  movements  of  treasure   coastwise 

showed  a  total  of  just  5  millions  sterling,  being  exceptionally 

augmented  by  the  conveyance  of  silver  to  Burma  in  payment 

for  rice  supplied  to  Madras. 

Coasting         'piig  j/rowth  and  increasing  importance  of  the  coasting  trade 

trade  in  .  .  ° 

1878-79,     of  India  may  be  illustrated  by  a  comparison  of  the  statistics 
and  in         for  1878-79,  the  year  after  the  famine,  when  trade   may  be 
^'     said  to  have  returned  to  its  normal  condition ;   with   those 
for    1882-83,    the    latest    year    for    which    full    details    are 
available. 
In  1878-         In  1878-79,  a  total  of  4080  steamers,  of  3,614,349  tons, 
'^'  entered  the  coast  ports   with   cargoes,  while    97,767    sailing 

vessels,  of  2,151,673  tons,  also  entered  with  cargoes.  Total 
number  of  vessels  with  cargoes  entered,  101,847,  of  5,766,022 
tons.  The  number  of  vessels  which  cleared  with  cargoes  in 
the  same  year,  was  3981  steamers,  of  3,412,546  tons,  and 
84,597  sailing  vessels,  of  1,940,196  tons.  Total  number  of 
vessels  cleared  with  cargoes,  88,578,  of  5,352,742  tons.  Grand 
total  of  vessels  entered  and  cleared,  190,425,  of  11,118,764 
tons.  The  steam  coasting  trade  is  almost  entirely  monopolized 
by  British  or  British  Indian  vessels.  Of  the  8061  steamers  which 
entered  or  cleared  Indian  ports  coastwise  in  1878-79,  only  46 
were  foreign,  while  not  a  single  one  was  native ;  average 
tonnage  of  each  steamer,  871  tons.  Of  the  182,364  sailing 
vessels,  177,567  were  small  native  craft,  of  an  average  of  only 
a  little  over  18  tons  each;  2792  were  foreign  vessels,  of  an 
average  burthen  of  62  tons  ;  while  2005  were  British  or  British 
Indian  sailing  ships,  of  an  average  of  342  tons.  The  total 
value  of  the  private  coasting  trade  in  1878-79  was — Imports, 
merchandise,  ;^2i, 978,011,  and  treasure,  ;^3,777,852  ;  total, 
^^25,755,863.  Exports,  merchandise,  ^23,172,328,  and 
treasure,  ^2,442,657  ;  total,  ^25,614,985.  Total  of  private 
imports  and  exports,  merchandise,  ;£^45, 150,339,  and  treasure, 
^6,220,509;  grand  total,  ;^5i, 370,848.  Government  im- 
ports in  1878-79  comprised^ — stores,  ^^436,407,  and  treasure, 
;^2, 644,480  ;   total,  ^3,080,887.     The  exports  comprised — 


INDIAN  COASTING  TRADE.  585 

stores,  p^3 1 6, 206,  and  treasure,;^!, 891,763;  total,  ^£"2, 207, 969.  Coasting 
Grand  total  Government  imports  and  exports,  ;^5, 288,556. 

The  figures  of  the  coasting  trade  for  18S2-83  show  that  Tn  1882- 
4780  steamers  with  cargoes,  of  5,040,898  tons,  and  J- 
103,203  sailing  vessels,  of  2,070,626  tons,  entered  Indian 
coast  ports  ;  while  4735  steamers,  of  4,925,967  tons, 
and  93,383  sailing  vessels,  of  1,931,639  tons,  cleared  during 
the  year.  Total  vessels  entered  and  cleared  with  cargoes, 
9515  steamers,  of  9,966,865  tons;  196,587  sailing  vessels, 
of  4,002,265  tons;  total  vessels  of  all  classes,  entered 
and  cleared,  206,101;  tonnage,  13,969,130.  Of  the  9515 
coasting  steamers  which  entered  or  cleared  Indian  ports  in 
1882-83,  9439  ^^'ere  British  or  British  Indian,  and  76  foreign, 
.with  a  total  of  9,966,865  tons,  or  an  average  of  1047 
tons  each.  Sailing  vessels  included — 265  British,  with  an 
average  of  692  tons;  British  Indian,  3060,  average  ii8'6 
tons;  foreign,  2990,  average  41 '4  tons;  and  native  craft, 
190,271,  average  17-5  tons.  The  total  value  of  the  private 
coasting  trade  in  18S2-83  was  —  Imports,  merchandise, 
^25,419,831,  and  treasure,  ^^4,066,557  ;  total,  ^29,486,388. 
Exports,  merchandise,  ;^24,524,24i,  and  treasure,  ;!{^3,3i6,i25  ; 
total,  ;^2  7,840, 366.  Total  value  of  private  imports  and  exports, 
merchandise,  ^49,944,072,  and  treasure,  ;^7,382,682  ;  grand 
total,  ^57,326,754.  This  total,  however,  includes  ;^5,2i7,328 
of  re-imports,  and  ;^6,o35,678  of  re-exports;  grand  total, 
;,£"ii,253,oo6  representing  re-exports  and  re-imports  of  the 
foreign  trade  given  in  the  previous  section  of  this  chapter. 
The  Government  imports  in  1882-83  comprised  —  stores, 
^459,985,  and  treasure,  ^1,882,411  ;  total,  ^2,342,396. 
The  exports  comprised  —  stores,  ;^358,o26,  and  treasure, 
^2,497,265  ;  total,  ^2,855,291.  Grand  total  of  Government 
imports  and  exports,  by  coasting  vessels,  ;^5, 197)687. 

Comparing  the  figures  for  the  two  years,  it  will  be  seen  that  Com- 
the  number  of  vessels  engaged  in  carrying  cargoes  coastwise  '^r",^"" 
increased  by  15,676,  and  the  tonnage  by  2,850,366  tons,  between  years. 
1878-79  and  1882-83.     The  increase  was  principally  in  the 
steam  traffic.     Of  the  private  trade,  imports  of  merchandise  in 
the  same  period  increased  by  ;^3,44i,82o,  and  of  treasure  by 
^288,705;    total,   ^3,730,525.        Exports    of    merchandise 
increased  by  ;!^i,35i,9i3i  -ind  of  treasure  by  ;,^873,468;  total, 
;;^2,225,38i.     Including  both  imports  and  exports,  the  value 
of  the  merchandise  carried  coastwise  showed  an  increase  of 
;^^4,793.733»   ^nd   of  treasure   by  ^1,162,173;    grand   total 
increase   of  private  merchandise    and   treasure,  j^5,95S,9o6. 


586  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

Adding  the  value  of  Government  imports  and  exports,  the 
total  coast-borne  trade  of  India  increased  from  ;^56,659,404 
in  1878-79  to  ;^{;62,5 24,441  in  1882-S3,  or  by  ^5>865,o37. 

Frontier  FRONTIER  Trade. — Attempts  have  been  made  to  register  the 

trade  which  crosses  the  long  land  frontier  of  India  on  the  north, 
stretching  from  Baluchistan  to  Independent  Burma.  The  re- 
turns obtained  for  a  period  of  five  years  ending  1882-83 
show  an  annual  trans-frontier  landward  trade  averaging  about 
9 J  millions  sterling ;  the  yearly  imports  averaging  about  5 
millions,  and  the  exports  about  4^  millions  sterling.  Of  this, 
nearly  one-half,  or  44  per  cent.,  belongs  to  Burma,  and  between 
one-fourth  and  one-third,  or  upwards  of  28  per  cent.,  to  the 
Punjab  and  Sind.  Details  of  this  import  and  export  trans- 
frontier trade  for  each  of  the  five  years  will  be  found  in  the 
tables  on  subsequent  pages.  The  figures,  although  perhaps  not 
absolutely  accurate,  may  be  accepted  as  substantially  correct. 
Three  Three  main  trade  routes  pierce  the  SuMiman  Mountains, 

main  trade  ^^^oss   the  western  frontier  of  the  Punjab  and  Sind.     These 

routes  to  .  ■' 

Afghan-      ^re — (i)  the  Bolan  Pass,  which  collects  the  trade  both  of  Kan- 

i.stan,  dahar  and  Khelat,  and  debouches  upon  Sind  at  the  important 

mart  of  Shikarpur,  whose  merchants  have  direct  dealings  with 
the  remote  cites  of  Central  Asia  ;  (2)  the  Gonial  Pass,  leading 
from  Ghazni  to  Uera  Ismail  Khan,  which  is  followed  by  the 
half-military,  half-trading  clan  of  Povindahs,  who  bring  their 
own  caravans  of  camels  into  the  heart  of  India  ;  (3)  the 
Khaibar  Pass,  from  Kabul  to  Peshawar. 

Vahie  of  The  as;a;re2;ate  value  of  the  annual  trade  with  Afarhanistan, 
^  ^"  previous  to  the  late  war,  was  estimated  at  i  million  sterling 
each  way,  or  a  total  of  2  millions ;  but  it  has  since  decreased. 
The  figures  for  1875-76,  which,  however,  are  stated  to  be 
incomplete;  give  the  value  of  the  imports  from  Afghanistan 
at  ;^9 14,000,  consisting  chiefly  of  raw  silk,  dried  fruits  and 
nuts,  iiianjlt  or  madder  and  other  dyes,  charas  (an  intoxi- 
cating preparation  of  hemp)  and  other  drugs,  wood,  and 
furs;  the  total  exports  in  1875-76  were  valued  at  p/^816,000, 
chiefly  cotton  goods  both  of  native  and  European  manu- 
facture, Indian  tea,  indigo,  and  salt.  In  1882-83,  the  total 
imports  from  Afghanistan  and  the  neighbouring  hill  tribes  into 
Sind  and  the  Punjab  amounted  to  ^^526, 560,  and  the  exports 
to  ^863,445  ;  total,  ^1,390,005. 

Trade  with      The  Punjab  also  conducts  a  considerable  business  ?'/(?  Kash- 

Central       j-,-,j'^  \\\\h.  Ladakh,  Yarkand,  and  Kash<,Mr,  estimated  at  about  i 
Asia.  .  ° 

million  sterlmg  altogether.     The  chief  marts  on  the  side  of 


TRANS-HIMALA  YAN  TRADE.  587 

India  are  Amritsar  and  Jalandhar,  from  which  latter  place  the 
route  runs  northwards  past  Kangra  and  Palampur  to  Leh, 
where  a  British  otlficial  has  been  stationed  since  1867,  in  which 
year  also  a  fair  was  established  at  Palampur  to  attract  the  ' 
Yarkandi  merchants.  Merchandise  is  usually  conveyed  across  Himalayan 
the  Himalayan  passes  on  the  backs  of  sheep  and  yaks;  but^''^"^'^' 
British  enterprise  has  successfully  taken  mules  as  far  as  Leh. 
In  1875-76,  the  total  imports  from  Kashmir  were  valued  at 
^^484, 000,  chiefly  pashmina  or  shawl-wool,  charas,  raw  silk, 
gold-dust  and  silver  ingots,  and  borax  ;  the  exports  were  valued 
at  ;^342,ooo,  chiefly  cotton  goods,  food-grains,  metals,  salt, 
tea,  and  indigo.  In  1882-83,  the  imports  from  Kashmir  into 
the  Punjab  amounted  to  >{^505,335,  and  the  exports  to 
^349,477;  total,  ^854,812.  The  whole  trans-frontier  land- 
ward trade  of  the  Punjab  in  1882-83  was — imports,  ^^981, 167, 
and  exports,  ^^1,083,920  ;  grand  total,  ^^2, 065,087. 

Farther  east,  the  Independent  State  of  Nepal  cuts  off  direct  with 
intercourse  with  Tibet  for  a  total  length  of  nearly  700  miles,  ^^P'^^- 
bordering  the  North-Western   Provinces,  Oudh,   and   Behar. 
Little' trade  is  allowed  to  filter  through   Nepal,   to  and  from 
Tibet  (amounting  in  value  in   1882-83  to  ^82,519  for  both 
imports  and  exports) ;  yet  a  very  large  traffic  is  everywhere 
carried  on  along  the  frontier  between  the  Nepalis  and  British 
subjects.     The    Nepal   Government   levies   transit  duties  im- 
partially  on   all   commodities ;   but   it  is   asserted   that  their 
fiscal  tariff  is  not  intended  to  be  protective,  and  does  not  in 
fact  operate  as  such.     Markets  are  held  at  countless  villages  Frontier 
along  the  boundary,  for  the   exchange  of  rural  produce  and  "i^^ts. 
articles  of  daily  consumption  ;  and  many  cart  tracks  cross  the 
line  from  our  side,  to  lose  themselves  in  the  Nepal  tardi.     The 
principal  trade  route  is  that  which  starts  from  Patna,  and  pro- 
ceeds nearly  due  north  through   Champaran   District  to  the 
capital  of  Khatmandu  ;  but  even  this  is  not  passable  through- 
out for  wheeled  traffic.     From  Khatmandu,  two  routes  branch  Nepal 
off  over   the   central   range  of  the    Himalayas,  which    both  '^''^^''^ 

1  •  1  1  -1  11  •    1       r,.  routes. 

ultmiately  come  down  mto  ihe  valley  ot  the  Isanpu,  or  great 
river  of  Tibet. 

In     1877-78,    the    registered    trade    with    Nepal    (which  Nepal 
is    doubtless    below    the    truth)    amounted    to    a    total    of  ^''^/''^ 

.  VtllUfS. 

^^1,687,000,  of  which  more  than  two-thirds  was  conducted  by 
Bengal.  The  imports  from  Nepcil  were  valued  at  ;^i,o54,ooo, 
the  principal  items  being  food-grains  and  oil-seeds,  cattle, 
timber,  and  horns.  Other  articles  of  import  which  do  not  figure 
prominently  in  the  returns  are  musk,  borax,  ckireta,  madder, 


Bhutan. 


588  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

Trade  with  cardamoms,  chatiris  or  yak-tails,  ginger,  balchar  ox  scented 
^^^  '       grass,  furs,  and    hawks.     The   Indian   exports   to    Nepal    in 

1^77  1877-78  were  valued  at  ;!^633,ooo,  chiefly  European  and  native 

piece-goods  {of  cotton,  wool,  and  silk),  salt,  metals,  raw  cotton, 
sugar,  and  spices.  To  these  may  be  added  the  miscellaneous 
articles  which  may  be  usually  found  in  a  pedlar's  pack.     In 

and  1SS2.  1S82-83,  the  total  imports  from  Nepal  into  the  Xorth-Western 
Provinces,  Oudh,  and  Bengal  amounted  to  ;^i,378,i75,  and 
the  exports  from  British  India  to  ^855,346;  grand  total, 
;^2,233,52i.  The  trade  with  Sikkim  and  Bhutan  is  at 
present  too  insignificant  to  require  notice,  although  it  is 
possible  that  our  future  entry  into  Tibet  may  lie  through 
these  States. 

North-east      A  certain  amount  of  traffic  is  conducted  with  the  hill  tribes 

fiontier       ^^  ^^  north-east  frontier,  who  almost  surround  the  Province 

trade ;  '  _  _ 

of  Assam  from  Bhutan  to  Manipur.     According  to  the  returns 

1877  for  1S77-78,  the  total  frontier  trade  of  Assain  amounts  to 

and  1882.    about  ;^ 1 00,000  a  year.     In  1882-83  it  amounted  to  ;^i  15,206, 

^,^83, 318   being   iniports,  and  _;^3i,888    exports.     It  consists 

chiefly  of  the  bartering  of  rice,  cotton  cloth,  salt,  and  metals, 

for  the   raw    cotton   grown  by   the    hill   tribes,    and  for   the 

caoutchouc,   lac,   beeswax,  and  other  jungle   produce  which 

they  collect. 

Trade  with      The  trade  with  Independent  Burma  has  a  special  character, 

Indepen-     ^si^  it  has  for  some  years  past  been  subject  to  a  fairly  accurate 
dent  -        .  .    ■'       _,^  .  \    .       .      ^     ^     ..    . 

Burma  •      system  of  registration.     1  he  main  route  is  by  the  Irawadi  river, 

which  is  navigable  by  large  steamers.    The  trade  on  the  Sittang 
(Tsit-taung)  is  chiefly  confined  to  the  import  of  timber.     Regis- 
tration is  also  attempted  at  six  land  stations.     The  total  trade 
1877-78.     in  1877-78  was  valued  at  ^3,426,000,  almost  equally  divided 
Imports,      between  exports  and  imports.     The  principal  imports  from 
Independent     Burma     into     British     Burma     were     timber 
(;^2i3,ooo),  raw  cotton  (^^163, 000),  sesamum  oil  (;^i30,ooo), 
manufactured  silk  (^^107, 000),  jaggery  sugar  (^98,000),  cattle 
(^88,000)     and    ponies    (^{^20,000),    cotton    goods    woven 
from    European    yarn   (;^46,ooo),    earth-oil    (;^65,ooo),    and 
cutch    (^41,000).       Many   of    these    articles    are    liable   to 
be   declared    royal    monopolies    (although   these   monopolies 
were    abolished    in     1882),    and    consequently    the    figures 
fluctuate   greatly  year  by  year.      Other   imports    of  interest, 
though  of  smaller  value,  are  pickled  tea  (^^19,000)  and  jade 
(^18,000). 
Exports ;         fhe  exports  from  British  to  Independent  Burma  in  1877,  were 
1877-78.     i-jce  (^435,000),  cotton  piece-goods  (;^207,ooc)  and  cotton 


TRANS-FRONTIER  TRADE. 


589 


twist  and   yarn    (^iS8,ooo),  manufactured  silk   (^173,000),  Trade  with 
ngd-pi  ox  salted  fish  (_^i 59,000),  raw  silk  (^84,000),  woollen  \\^^^l^ 
goods  (;^43,ooo),  salt  (^33,000),  etc.     Many  of  these  goods  1877-78. 
were  formerly  the  subjects  of  royal  monopoly,  or  they  com- 
peted with  the  products  of  manufactories  started  by  the  king 
at  Mandalay.     Salt   is  exempted  from  the   ordinary  customs 
duties  at  Rangoon,  and  pays  only  a  transit  duty  of  i  per  cent, 
if  declared  for  Independent  Burma.^ 

Full  details  of  the  import  and  export  trade  between  British  Burmese 

trade, 

Burma   and    Independent    Burma   and   the   Shan   States   for  1*^82-83. 

18S2-83    are   not   available.     As   regards  totals,  the  imports 

amounted    to    ;^2,504,i35    in    value,    and    the    exports    to 

;^i»752,299;  total,  ;,^4,256,434. 

.    The  trade  between  British  Burma  and  Siam  was  estimated  ^'^"^ 

in  1877-78  at  the  total  value  of  ^^^i 26,000,  being  ;^69,ooo 

for  imports  from  Siam,  and  ;^57,ooo  for  exports.     In  1882-83, 

the  trade  between    British  Burma  and  Siam  amounted  to — 

imports  from  Siam,  ^40,349,  and  exports,  ^^141, 958;  total, 

;^i82,307. 

The  following  tables  exhibit  the  total  trans-frontier  land  trade 
of  India  (i)  with  the  different  border  countries  and  tribes,  and 
(2)  the  extent  to  which  it  is  participated  in  by  the  neighbouring 
British  Provinces  : — 


trade. 


Trans-Frontier  Landward  Trade  of  India  with  External 
States  for  the  Five  Years  1878-79  to  1882-83. 


Fkom 


Afghanistan  and  neighbour- 
ing tracts  and  hill  tribes,  . 

Kashmir, 

Ladakh 

Tibet 

Nepal, 

Sikkim  and  Bhutan,    .     . 

N.E.  States  beyond  the  Ben- 
gal and  Assam  Frontier,    . 

Independent  Burma  and 
Shan  States, 

Siam 


Landward  Imports  into  India. 


1878-79.  1879-80, 


L 

765,849 

558.537 
17.104 

153.969 

1.235.238 

24.738 

36,402 

2,072,441 
35.717 


611,418 

409,744 

17,013 

71.349 

1.397.487 

61,103 

47.312 

2,222,165 
80,047 


Total  Imports,    .     .     4.899,995     4,917,638     5,103,580    4,725,403     5,178,637 


L 

441.536 

709,272 

17,846 

63.393 
1,606,929 

43.395 
53.027 

2,126,857 
41.325 


L 

487,852 

495.949 

37,248 

64,206 

1.389.548 

35.339 

64,949 

2,110,346 
39,966 


1882-83. 


526,560 

505.335 

51,284 

58,322 

1. 378.175 

33.399 


2.504.13s 
40.349 


1  JSf.B. — Since  these  pages  went  to  the  press.  Independent  Burma  has 
been  incorporated  into  the  British  Empire.  The  above  figures  will 
therefore  soon  lose  their  value. 


590  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

Trans-Frontier  Landw.ard  Trade  of  India — {coiitimted). 


Ixro 


Afghanistan  and  neighbour- 
ing tracts  and  hill  tribes,  . 

Kashmir 

Ladakh,    

Tibet 

Nepal 

'Sikkim  and  Bhutan,    .     .     . 

N.E.  States  beyond  the  Ben- 
gal and  Assam  Frontier,  . 

Independent  Burma  and 
Shan  tribes, 

Siam 


Total  Exports,    .     . 

Grand     Total    Imports 
A.Nu  Exports,    .... 


Landward  Exports  from  India. 


iS;S-79.    1879-80.    i88o-8i.    1881-82.    1882-83 


£ 

897. 


14 
805 

17 
17 


715 
545 
817 
861 
361 
166 


1,868,092 
86,067 


3.971.559 


8.871.554 


£ 
1,184,695 
282,426 

15.729 

20, 139 

859.358 

34.576 


£ 
1,312,677 

384.934 
31.177 
18,214 

923,724 
28,513 


15.657 1   27,676 

1,813,666  1,848,819 
66,386 '  109,730 


£ 
1,239,725 

359.193 
35,860 

21,973 

869,720 

21,508 

21,990 

1,613,981 
150,415 


4,292,632  4,685,464 '  4,334,365 


9,210,270  9,789,044  I  9,059,768 


£ 

863,445 

349.477 
32,228 
24,197 

855.346 
24.973 

27,213 

1,752,299 
141,958 


4,071,136 


9.249.773 


Trans-Frontier    Landward   Trade  of   India   for   the 
Border  Provinces  for  the  Five  Years  1878-79  to  iJ 


British 
82-8-,. 


Into 

Landward  Imports  into  India. 

1878-79. 

1879-80. 

1 880-8 1. 

i88t-82. 

1882-83. 

Sind 

Punjab 

N.W.  Provinces  and  Oudli, 

Bengal 

Assam 

British  Burma 

Total  Imports,     . 

£ 

249,842 

1,218,269 

439.154 

844,006 

40,566 

2, 108, 158 

4,899.995 

£ 

251.558 
820,591 

531.595 

961,140 

50.542 

2,302,212 

£ 
117.47s 
1,071,329 

615.507 

1,075.853 

55.234 

2,223,977 

£ 
130,248 
912,813 
633,664 
827,376 
70,990 
2,150,312 

£ 
119,722 
981,167 
617,222 
832,724 
83,318 
2,544,484 

4,917,638 

5.159.375 

4,725,403 

5.178.637 

Fkom 

Landwanl  Exports  from  India. 

T878-79. 

1879-80. 

if8o-8i. 

1881-82. 

1882-83. 

^  £r~ 

162,759 

1,083,920 

279.349 

618,963 

31,888 

1.894,257 

Sind 

Punjab, 

N.W.  Provinces  and  Oudh, 

Bengal 

Assam 

British  Burma 

Ibtal  Exports,     .     . 

Grand     Total     Imports 
AND  Exports 

L 
215.235 
949.963 
203.343 
628,587 
20,272 
1. 954.159 

£ 

403,212 

1,080,940 

296,767 

614,146 

17.515 
1,880,052 

4,292,632 

£ 

326,670 

1,403,449 

339. 146 

629,246 

28,404 

1.958.549 

£ 
236,910 

1.398,995 
280,526 
629,224 

24.314 
1,764,396 

3.971.559 

4,685,464 

4.334.365 

4,071,136 

8,871,554 

9,210,270 

9.844,839 

9.159.768 

9.249.773 

INTERNAL  TRADE  OF  INDIA.  591 

The  internal  trade  of  India  greatly  exceeds  her  foreign  internal 
commerce  ;  but  it  is  imijossible  to  estimate  its  amount.  On  V^^'.^  ^'^ 
the  one  hand,  tnere  is  the  wholesale  busmess,  connected  with 
the  foreign  commerce,  in  all  its  stages — the  collection  of 
agricultural  produce  from  a  hundred  thousand  villages,  its 
accumulation  at  a  few  great  central  marts,  and  its  despatch  to 
the  seaboard.  The  sea-imports  and  manufactured  articles  are 
distributed  by  the  same  channels,  but  in  the  reverse  direction. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  interchange  of  commodities 
of  native  growth  and  manufacture,  sometimes  between  neigh- 
bouring Districts,  but  also  between  distant  Provinces.  With 
unimportant  exceptions,  free  trade  is  the  rule  throughout  the 
vast  peninsula  of  India,  by  land  as  well  as  by  sea.  The 
Hindus  possess  a  natural  genius  for  commerce,  as  is  shown 
by  the  daring  with  which  they  have  penetrated  into  the  heart 
of  Central  Asia,  and  to  the  east  coast  of  Africa.  Among  the 
benefits  which  British  rule  has  conferred  upon  them,  is  the 
removal  of  the  internal  duties  and  other  restraints  which 
native  despotism  had  imposed  upon  trading  energies. 

Broadly   speaking,    the  greater  part  of  the    internal   trade  Internal 
remains  in  the  hands  of  the  natives.     Europeans  control  the  '^^/.    ^'^ 

'  .  native 

shipping  business,  and  have  a  share  in  the  collection  of  some  hands, 
of  the  more  valuable  staples  of  export,  such  as  cotton,  jute, 
oil-seeds,  and  wheat.  But  the  work  of  distribution,  ana  the 
adaptation  of  the  supply  to  the  demand  of  the  consumer, 
naturally  fall  to  those  who  are  best  acquainted  with  native 
wants.  Even  in  the  Presidency  towns,  most  of  the  retail  shops 
are  owned  by  natives. 

The  Vaisya,  or   trading  caste  of  Manu,  has   now  scarcely  Tradin.cj 
a  separate  existence  ;    but  its  place  is  occupied  by  offshoots  '^''^^^^^  • 
and    well  -  marked     classes.        On     the    western    coast    the 
Parsis,  by  the  boldness  and  extent  of  their  operations,  tread 
close    upon    the    heels   of  the   great    English    houses.       In 
the   interior  of  the   Bombay   Presidency,   business  is  mainly 
divided  between  two  classes,  the  Baniyas  of  Gujarat  and  the 
Marwan's  from  Rajputana.     Each  of  these  profess  a  peculiar 
form  of  religion,  the  former  being  Vishnuites  of  the  Vallabha- 
charya  sect,  the  latter  Jains.     In  the  Deccan,  their  place  is  in 
taken  by  Lingayats  from  the  south,   who  again  follow   their  j""-^^^'" 
own  form  of  Hinduism,  which   is  a  species  of  Siva-worship. 
Throughout  Mysore,  and  in  the  north  of  Madras,  Lingayats 
are  also  found,  but  along  the  eastern  seaboard  the  predominating 
classes  of  traders  are  the  castes  named  Chetties  and  Komatis. 
Many  of  these  trading  castes  still  claim  Vaisya  descent. 


592 


COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 


Northern 
India. 


In  Bengal,  however,  many  of  the  upper  classes  of  Sudras 
have  devoted  themselves  to  wholesale  trade ;  although  here 
also  the  Jain  Marwari's  from  Rajputana  and  the  North-West 
occupy  the  front  rank.  Their  head-quarters  are  in  Murshidabad 
District,  and  Jain  Marwaris  are  found  throughout  the  valley  of 
the  Brahmaputra,  as  far  up  as  the  unexplored  frontier  of  China. 
They  penetrate  everywhere  among  the  wild  tribes  ;  and  it  is 
said  that  the  natives  of  the  Khasi  Hills  are  the  only  hillmen 
who  do  their  own  business  of  buying  and  seUing.  In  the 
North- Western  Provinces  and  Oudh,  the  traders  are  generically 
called  Baniyas  ;  and  in  the  Punjab  are  found  the  Khatris 
(Kshattriyas),  who  have  perhaps  the  best  title  of  any  to  regard 
themselves  as  descendants  of  the  original  Vaisyas. 


Trade  According  to  the  general  Census  of  1872,  the  total  number 

1872  '  of  persons  throughout  British  India  connected  with  commerce 
and  trade  was  3,224,000,  or  5*2  per  cent,  of  the  total 
and  1881.  adult  males.  In  1881,  throughout  British  and  Feudatory 
India,  3,232,120  adult  males  were  returned  as  engaged  in 
commerce  and  trade,  or  3*87  per  cent,  of  the  total  male  popu- 
lation engaged  in  some  specific  occupation. 


Local 
trade  of 
India. 


Thevillage 
money- 
lender. 


The  local  trade  of  India  is  conducted  in  the  permanent 
bazars  of  the  great  towns,  at  weekly  markets  in  the  rural 
villages,  at  annual  gatherings  held  for  religious  purposes,  or  by 
means  of  travelling  brokers  and  agents.  The  cultivator  him- 
self, who  is  the  chief  producer  and  also  the  chief  customer, 
knows  little  of  large  cities,  and  expects  the  dealer  to  come 
to  his  own  door.  Each  village  has  at  least  one  resident  trader, 
who  usually  combines  in  his  own  person  the  functions  of 
money-lender,  grain  merchant,  and  cloth-seller.  The  simple 
system  of  rural  economy  is  entirely  based  upon  the  dealings 
of  this  man,  whom  it  is  sometimes  the  fashion  to  decry  as  a 
usurer,  but  who  is  often  the  one  thrifty  person  among  an 
improvident  population.  If  his  rate  of  interest  is  high,  it  is 
only  proportionate  to  the  risks  of  his  business.  If  he  some- 
times makes  a  merciless  use  of  his  legal  position,  the  fault 
rests  rather  with  the  inflexible  rules  of  our  courts,  which  enable 
him  to  push  the  cultivators  to  extremes  not  allowed  under 
native  rule.  Abolish  the  money-lender,  and  the  general  body 
of  cultivators  would  have  nothing  to  depend  upon  but  the 
harvest  of  the  single  year.  The  money-lender  deals  chiefly  in 
grain  and  in  specie. 

In  those  Districts  where  the  staples  of  export  are  largely 


internal 
trade. 


TRADE   VERSUS  FAMINE.  593 

grown,  the  cultivators  commonly  sell  their  crops  to  travelling  Travelling 
brokers,  who  re-sell  to  larger  dealers,  and  so  on  until  the 
commodities  reach  the  hands  of  the  agents  of  the  great  ship- 
ping houses.  The  -wholesale  trade  thus  rests  ultimately  with  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  persons,  who  have  agencies,  or 
rather  corresponding  firms,  at  the  central  marts. 

Buying  and  selling,  in  their  aspects  most  characteristic  of  Reli.i^ious 
India,  are  to  be  seen  not  in  the  large  cities,  nor  even  at  the  ^"^^' 
weekly  markets,  but  at  the  fairs  which  are  held  periodically  at 
certain  spots  in  most  Districts.  Religion  is  always  the  original 
cause  of  these  gatherings  or  melds,  at  some  of  which  nothing 
is  done  beyond  bathing  in  the  river,  or  performing  pious 
ceremonies.  But  in  the  majority  of  cases,  religion  merely 
supplies  the  opportunity  for  secular  business.  Crowds  of 
petty  traders  attend,  bringing  the  medley  of  articles  which  can 
be  packed  into  a  pedlar's  wallet ;  and  the  neighbouring  villagers 
look  forward  to  the  occasion,  to  satisfy  alike  their  curiosity 
and  their  household  wants. 

The  improvement  in  means  of  communication,  by  the  con-  Increase  of 
struction  of  railways  and  metalled  roads,  has  directly  developed 
internal  no  less  than  foreign  trade.  Facilities  for  rapid 
carriage  tend  to  equalize  prices  not  only  over  large  areas  of 
countr)',  but  also  over  long  periods  of  time.  As  wheeled  carts 
supersede  pack-bullocks,  and  as  railroads  supersede  carts,  the 
whole  of  India  will  gradually  become  one  country  for  the 
purposes  of  food  supply.  It  is  by  this  means  alone  that  a 
guarantee  can  be  provided  against  the  ravages  of  famine. 
The  vicissitudes  of  a  tropical  climate  will  always  cause  local  The  chief 
failures  of  the  harvest,  whether  by  drought  or  by  flood,  which  ^^'^.S"^'''^^ 

'  y  o  y  >  against 

science  indeed  may  learn  to  foresee,  but  w^hich  no  practicable  famine, 
schemes   of  irrigation   or  embankment  can  altogether  avert. 
But  India,  as  a  whole,  has  never  yet  been  unable  in  any  single 
year   to  yield  sufficient  food  for  her   population.     The   real 
problem  of  famine  is  a  problem  of  distribution. 

In  former  times,  the  inhabitants  of  one  District  might  be  How  trade 
perishing  of  starvation,  while  plenty  reigned  in  a  District  j^'^^^'" 
but  100  miles  distant.  In  1866,  the  people  of  Orissa  were 
decimated,  not  so  much  by  drought  or  by  inundation,  as  by  the 
impossibility  of  transport.  In  1877,  the  distress  in  Madras 
was  alleviated  by  the  importation  of  nearly  one  million  tons 
of  grain,  all  of  which  was  carried  inland  by  two  lines  of  rail 
in  twelve  months.  Supplies  were  drawn,  not  only  from  the 
seaboard  of  Bengal  and  Burma,  but   from  the  most  remote 

2  p 


594  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

Provinces.      In    the   year     1877-78,    the    Central    Provinces 

exported  grain  to  the   amount  of  more  than  300,000  tons, 

and  the  Punjab  to  the  amount  of  400,000  tons,  all  of  which 

were  conveyed  south  by  rail.      Trade  has  never  known  such  a 

stimulus  as  was  afforded  on  this  occasion,  when  the  carrying 

power  proved  barely  equal  to  the  strain.     If  the  famine  had 

happened  before  the  opening  of  the  railway,   it  would  have 

resulted  in  a  loss  of  life  without  parallel  even  in  the  annals  of 

India. 

Normal  But  the  Utility  of  local  trade  is  not  to  be  judged  of  only  at 

internal      such  a  crisis.     In  normal  seasons,  it  tends  alike  to  regulate 

trade  prices  and  to  promote  a  higher  standard  of  comfort.     Within 

the  last  twenty-five  years,  the  cultivators  have  learnt  for  the 

first  time  the  real  value  of  their  produce.     In  the  old  days, 

little  was  grown  beyond  grain  crops  for  the  year's  food.     The 

slightest  failure  meant  local  distress  ;  while  a  bumper  harvest 

equalizes     so  depreciated  the  value  of  grain,  that  part  of  the  crops  was 

puces;        often  left  unreaped  to  rot  in  the  fields.     In  1780  and  1781,  a 

suspension  of  revenue  had  to  be  granted  to  the  District  of 

Sylhet,  because  the  harvest  was  so  bountiful  that  it  would  not 

pay   the  cost  of  carriage   to   market,    and  consequently   the 

farmers  had  no  means  of  obtaining  money.     Even  so  late  as 

1873,  the  Collector  of  Rangpur  reported  that  '  the  yield  of  rice 

was  considered  too  good  by  the  rdyats,  as  prices  were  thereby      j 

introduces  kept  down.'     The  extended  cultivation  of  staples  for  export,       ; 

more  valii-  ^^^j^  ^^  cotton,  jute,  and  oil-seeds,  together  with  the  substitu-      ,j 
able  crops.  >  j        '  >       o  ^         ^  _         _  'i 

tion  of  more  valuable  crops  for  the  inferior  grains,  is  now 
modifying  the  entire  system  of  Indian  agriculture.  Land  is  not 
being  withdrawn  from  food  crops  to  any  appreciable  extent, 
but  the  rdyat  is  everywhere  learning  to  cultivate  high-priced 
subsidiary  crops  which  will  help  to  pay  his  rent. 

Statistics         It  is  impossible  to  express  in  figures  the  precise  extent  of  || 
trade^™'^    the  internal  trade  of  India.     But  the  following  statistics  will 
serve  in  some  measure  to  show  both  its  recent  development 
and  its  actual  amount.     They  are  based  upon  the  registration    JJ 
returns  which  were  collected  in  certain  Provinces.      Owing  to    " 
changes  in  the  system  of  registration,  it  is  not  safe  to  institute 
general  comparison  between  different  years.      Inter-provincial 
trade  statistics  are  now  chiefly  confined  to  railway  returns  and 
the  traffic  passing  through  certain  registration  centres. 
Central  In  1863-64,  the  external  trade  of  the  Central  Provinces, 

rovmces.  \^q^  export  and  import,  was  estimated  to  amount  to  102,000 
tons,  valued  at  ^3,909,000.     By  1868-69,  '^^^'^^  ^^''^  opening 


INTERNAL  TRADE  STATISTICS.  595 

of  the  Jabalpur  Railway,  it  had  increased  to  209,000  tons, 
valued  at  ;!^6, 795,000.  In  1877-78,  the  year  of  the  famine  in 
Southern  India,  the  corresponding  figures  were  635,000  tons, 
and  ;^9, 3  73,000,  showing  an  increase  in  14  years  of  more 
than  six-fold  in  quantity,  and  considerably  more  than  two-fold 
in  value.  The  comparatively  small  increase  in  value  is  partly 
to  be  attributed  to  the  exclusion  of  opium,  which  merely  passes 
through  in  transit  from  Malwa.  In  1882-83,  the  total 
external  trade  of  the  Central  Provinces,  imports  and  exports, 
as  represented  by  the  railway-borne  traffic  to  stations  outside 
the  Chief-Commissionership,  and  the  registered  trade  with 
adjoining  Native  States,  was  returned  at  over  650,000  tons, 
valued  at  ^8,451,047. 

In  1874-75,  the  total  external  trade  of  the  Punjab  amounted  Punjab, 
to  about  600,000  tons,  valued  (but  probably  overvalued)  at 
about  _;^i 6,000,000.  By  1877-78  it  had  increased  to  nearly 
900,000  tons,  valued  at  ^17,500,000.  In  1882-83,  the  ex- 
ternal trade  of  the  Punjab  trans-frontier,  railway  borne,  and 
boat  traffic,  was  returned  at  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  million 
tons,  of  the  value  of  13!  millions.  These  figures  show  a 
decrease  in  18S2-83,  as  compared  with  1877-78,  of  more  than 
one-sixth  both  in  weight  and  value.  The  high  figures  of 
1877-78  are,  however,  accounted  for  by  the  famines  in  Kash- 
mir and  South  India,  in  consequence  of  which  there  were 
abnormally  large  exports  of  wheat  and  other  grains  from  the 
Punjab  in  both  directions. 

The  total  trade  of  Behar  in  1877-78  was  valued  at  Behar. 
;^i 6,000,000.  In  1882-83,  the  registered  figures  show  that 
the  East  Indian  Railway  carried  a  total  merchandise  valued 
at  over  _;^  19,000,000,  to  and  from  the  'Behar  block.'  But 
perhaps  the  significance  of  such  enormous  totals  will  become 
plainer  if  we  take  the  case  of  a  single  mart,  Patna,  which  may 
claim  to  be  considered  one  of  the  most  important  centres  of 
inland  traffic  in  the  world.  Favourably  situated  on  the  Ganges, 
near  the  confluence  of  the  Son  (Soane)  and  the  Gogra,  where 
the  principal  trade  route  branches  off  to  Nepal,  it  has  become 
a  great  changing  station  for  the  transfer  of  goods  from  river  to 
rail. 

In    1876-77,  the   imports   and  exports  of  Patna  city  (ex- Trade  of 
eluding  the  Government  monopoly  of  opium,  and  probably  ^|^"^' 
omitting  a  good  deal  besides)  were  officially  registered  to  a 
value  of  7^  millions   sterling.       Many  articles  are   included 
twice  over  as  exported  and  imported,  but  the  imports  alone 
amounted  to   more  than  4  millions.      Among  the   principal 


596  COMMERCE  AND  TRADE. 

items    on    one    side    or    the    other    may    be    mentioned — 
European  piece-goods,   p/!|'i,2 17,000  ;  indigo,  ;;/^789,ooo ;  oil- 
seeds,  ^557,000;  salt,   ^389,000;   sugar,  ^274,000;  food 
grains,    ^258,000;   hides,  ;^i85,ooo ;    saltpetre,    ;^i56,ooo. 
In  1882-83,   the  East  Indian  Railway  returns  alone  show  a 
total  import  and  export  trade  for  Patna  (excluding  opium) 
amounting   to  over  5}  millions  sterling,   nearly   2\   millions 
being  imports  and  over  2f  millions  exports.     As  regards  the 
river  and  road  trade  of  Patna   city,  no  recent  statistics  are 
available,  as  registration  has  there  been  abandoned  for  some 
years  past. 
Growth  of      Another  example  of  the  growth  of  local  trade  is  exhibited 
Don^ar-      ^^  Dongargaon,  as  described  in  the  Rep07-t  ofi  the  Trade  aiid 
gaon.  Resources  of  the  Central  Provinces^ — a  model  of  what  such  a 

report  should  be.  Dongargaon  now  forms  the  principal 
market  for  grain  on  the  fertile  plateau  of  Chhatisgarh, 
which  is  perhaps  destined  to  become  a  regular  source  of 
wheat  supply  to  England.  Thirty  years  ago,  it  was  a  petty 
hamlet  of  about  20  houses,  buried  in  wild  jungle,  and  only 
distinguished  from  the  neighbouring  villages  by  a  weekly 
bazar  held  on  Sunday.  In  1862,  the  enterprising  agent  of 
a  Nagpur  firm  of  native  merchants  settled  here,  and  began 
to  make  purchases  of  grain.  The  number  of  houses  has  now 
risen  to  about  2000,  of  which  the  majority  are  tiled.  Dongar- 
gaon had  a  resident  population  in  1881  of  5543.  In  the  busy 
season,  the  concourse  daily  present  in  the  bazar  is  estimated 
at  100,000,  with  13,000  carts  and  40,000  bullocks  and 
buffaloes.  Buyers  come  from  as  far  west  as  Bombay,  while 
the  grain  of  all  the  adjoining  Districts  is  brought  here  for 
sale. 
A  yearly  A  third  example  of  the  varying  methods  of  Indian  trade 
1^^"^''  ,-  may  be  found  in  the  annual  fair  held  at  Karagola  in  Purniah. 
This  fair  dates  from  the  beginning  of  the  present  century, 
although  its  site  has  changed  from  time  to  time.  It  lasts  for 
about  ten  days  in  the  month  of  February.  During  that  season 
a  little  town  of  shops,  constructed  of  bamboos  and  matting, 
rises  on  the  sandy  plain  that  stretches  between  the  village  and 
the  bank  of  the  Ganges.  The  business  is  entirely  of  a  retail 
character,  the  local  staples  of  grain,  jute,  and  tobacco  being 
conspicuously  absent.  But  every  article  of  necessity  or  luxury 
for  a  native  household  is  to  be  bought.  Cloth  of  all  kinds, 
from  thick  English  woollens  to  fine  Dacca  muslins  ;  iron- 
mongery and  furniture  from  Monghyr  ;  boots,  shawls,  silks, 
and  brocades  from  the  cities  of  the  North-West ;  hand-mills, 


i 


A  RURAL  FAIR. 


597 


curry-stones,  and  lac  ornaments  from  the  hills  of  Chutia 
Nagpur ;  knives,  yaks'  tails,  ponies,  musk,  and  other  drugs, 
brought  down  by  the  Nepalis ;  miscellaneous  ware  from 
England,  such  as  umbrellas,  matches,  soap,  paper,  candles, 
buttons,  etc., — all  find  a  ready  sale.  In  1876,  the  attend- 
ance was  estimated  at  40,000,  and  in  1881  at  30,000  persons  ; 
and  the  fees  upon  shops  levied  by  the  landowner  realized 
^150.  Such  fairs  are  always  protected  by  a  special  body  of 
police,  and  the  European  official  in  charge  of  the  District  or 
Sub-division  is  usually  present. 


[598  ] 


CHAPTER   XX. 


ARTS    AND    MANUFACTURES. 


Manu- 
iactuies 
of  India. 


Art  work. 


English 
competi- 
tion. 


The  tide 

now 

turned. 


India  may  be  truly  described  as  an  agricultural  rather  than 
a  manufacturing  country,  yet  it  must  not  be  inferred  that 
she  is  destitute  of  the  arts  of  civilised  life.  She  has  no 
swarming  hives  of  industry  to  compare  with  the  factory 
centres  of  Lancashire ;  nor  any  large  mining  population. 
But  in  all  manufactures  requiring  manual  dexterity  and 
artistic  taste,  India  may  challenge  comparison  with  Europe 
in  the  last  century ;  in  many  of  them,  with  England  at  the 
present  day.  The  rival  kingdoms  into  which  the  country 
was  formerly  divided,  gave  birth  to  numerous  arts  of  luxury. 
When  the  first  European  traders  reached  the  coast  of  India 
in  the  i6th  century,  they  found  a  civilisation  both  among 
'Moors'  and  'Gentoos'  at  least  as  highly  advanced  as  their 
own.  In  architecture,  in  fabrics  of  cotton  and  silk,  in  gold- 
smith's work  and  jewellery,  the  people  of  India  were  then 
unsurpassed. 

But  while  the  East  has  stood  still,  as  regards  manufac- 
tures on  a  great  scale,  the  West  has  advanced  by  gigantic 
strides  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  human  progress. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  downfall  of  the  native  courts  deprived 
the  skilled  workman  of  his  chief  market ;  while  on  the 
other,  the  English  capitalist  has  enlisted  in  his  service  forces 
of  nature  against  which  the  village  artisans  in  vain  try 
to  compete.  The  tide  of  circumstance  has  compelled  the 
Indian  weaver  to  exchange  his  loom  for  the  plough,  and  has 
crushed  many  of  the  minor  handicrafts. 

Some  consolation  can  be  found  in  the  establishment,  within 
the  past  few  years,  of  mills  fitted  out  by  English  capital  with 
English  machinery.  A  living  portion  of  our  own  industrial 
activity  has  been  transplanted  to  Indian  soiL  Manchester  is 
growing  up  in  miniature  at  Bombay,  and  Dundee  at  Calcutta. 
The  time  may  yet  come  when  India  shall  again  clothe  her 
people  with  her  own  cotton  ;  she  already  supplies  sacks  from 
her  jute  for  tlie  commerce  of  the  world. 


VILLAGE  INDUSTRIES.  599 

Historically  the  most   interesting,  and  still  the   most   im-  Native 
portant   in   the   aggregate,   of  all   Indian   industries  are   the  '" 
simple  crafts  in  every  rural  hamlet.     The  weaver,  the  potter,  The' 
the  blacksmith,  the  brazier,  the  oil-presser,  are  members  of  a  village 
community,  as  well  as  inheritors  of  a  family  occupation.     On 
the  one  hand,  they  have  a  secure  market  for  their  wares  ;  and 
on  the  other,  their  employers  have  a  guarantee  that  their  trades 
shall  be  well  learned.     The  stage  of  civilisation  below  these 
village  industries  is  represented  by  the  hill  tribes,  where  the 
weaving  of  clothes  is  done  by  the  women  of  the  family.     An 
advanced  stage  may  be  found  in  those  villages  or  towns  which 
possess  a  little  colony  of  weavers  or  braziers  noted  for  some 
speciality.     Yet  one  degree  higher  is  the  case  of  local  arts 
of  luxury,  such  as  ivory-carving  or  the  making  of  gold  lace. 

Another  form  of  native  industry  owes  its  origin  to  European 
interference.    Many  a  village  in  Bengal  and  on  the  Coromandel  Fortified 
coast  still  shows  traces  of  the  time  when  the  East  Indian  Com-  ^^^jg'"^ 
pany  and    its  European  rivals  gathered   large  settlements  ofments. 
weavers  round  their  little  forts,   and   thus   formed  the  only 
industrial  towns  that  ever  existed  in  India.     But  when  the 
Company   gave    up    its    private    trade    in    1813    and    1834, 
such    centres   of  industry   rapidly   declined ;    and   the   once 
celebrated   muslins   of.  India   have  been  driven    out    of  the 
market  by  Manchester  goods. 

Cotton-weaving  is  a  very  ancient  industry  of  India.      In  Cotton- 
England  it  dates  back  only  a  couple  of  centuries.     Wool  and  [^^  i^-^(^^ 
linen  were  England's  historical  staples ;  but  in  India  cotton- 
weaving  was  practised  before  the  time  of  the  Mahabharata. 
The  Greek  name  for  cotton  fabrics,  sindon,  is  etymologically 
the  same  as  that  of  India,  or  Sind  ;  while  in  later  days,  Calicut 
on  the  Malabar  coast  has  given  us  'calico.'     Cotton  cloth  has 
always  been   the  single  material  of  Indian  clothing  for  both 
men  and  women,  except  in  Assam  and  Burma,  where  silk  is 
preferred,  perhaps  as  a  survival  of  an  extinct  trade  with  China. 
The  author  of  the  Periplus,  our  earliest  authority  on  the  trade  ^"  '"^'" 
of  India,  enumerates  a  great  variety  of  cotton  fabrics  among  ^^uistry. 
her  exports.     Marco  Polo,  the  first  Christian  traveller,  dilates 
on  the  '  cotton  and  buckram '  of  Cambay.     When  European 
adventurers  found  out  the  way  to  India,  cotton  and  silk  always 
formed  part  of  the  rich  cargoes  they  brought  home. 

The  English  appear  to  have  been  specially  careful  to  fix 
their  earliest  settlements  amid  weaving  populations — at  Surat, 
at  Calicut,  at  Masulipatam,  at  Hiigli.  In  delicacy  of  texture, 
in  purity  and  fastness  of  colour,  in  grace  of  design,  Indian 


6oo  ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 

Causes  of  cottons  may  still  hold  their  own  against  the  world.  But  in 
its  decline,  the  matter  of  cheapness,  they  have  been  unable  to  face  the 
competition  of  Manchester.  !Many  circumstances  conspired 
to  injure  the  Indian  industry.  In  the  last  century,  England 
excluded  Indian  cotton  fabrics,  not  by  fiscal  duties,  but  by 
absolute  prohibition.  A  change  of  fashion  in  the  West 
Indies,  on  the  abolition  of  slavery,  took  away  the  best 
customer  left  to  India.  Then  came  cheapness  of  production 
in  Lancashire,  due  to  improvements  in  machinery.  Lastly, 
the  high  price  of  raw  cotton  during  the  American  War,  how- 
ever beneficial  to  the  cultivators,  fairly  broke  down  the  local 
weaving  trade  in  the  cotton-growing  tracts.  Above  all,  the 
necessity  under  which  England  lies  to  export  something  to 
India  to  pay  for  her  multifarious  imports,  has  permanently  given 
an  artificial  character  of  inflation  to  this  branch  of  business. 
Still  a  Despite  all  these  considerations,  hand  -  loom  weaving  still 

industry,  holds  its  own  with  varying  success  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  Regarded  as  a  trade,  it  has  become  unremunerative. 
Little  is  made  for  export,  and  the  finer  fabrics  generally  are  dying 
out.  The  far-famed  muslins  of  Dacca  and  of  Ami  are  now  well- 
nigh  lost  specialities.  But  as  a  village  industry,  weaving  is  still 
carried  on  everywhere,  though  it  cannot  be  said  to  flourish. 
If  Manchester  piece-goods  are  cheaper,  native  piece-goods  are 
Supplies  universally  recognised  as  more  durable.  Comparative  statistics 
f'^T^j         'ire   not   available:    but    it    may  be    roughly   estimated   that 

of  Indian  '  ^  °        . 

consumpt.   about    three-fifths  of  the  cotton  cloth  used  is  woven  in  the 

country  from  native  thread  or  from  imported  twist. 
Cotton-  In  1870,  the  Madras  Board  of  Revenue  published  a  valu- 

■^^^m'cI^  able  report  on  hand-loom  weaving,  from  which  the  following 
1870;  figures  are  taken.  The  total  number  of  looms  at  work  in 
that  Presidency,  with  its  then  population  of  3 1  millions,  was 
returned  at  279,220,  of  which  220,015  were  in  villages  and 
59,205  in  towns,  showing  a  considerable  increase  upon  the 
corresponding  number  in  1861,  when  the  moharfarfa,  or 
assessed  tax  upon  looms,  was  abolished.  The  total  estimated 
consumption  of  twist  in  1S70  was  31,422,712  lbs.,  being  at  the 
rate  of  112  lbs.  per  loom.  Of  this  amount,  about  one-third 
was  imported  twist,  and  the  remainder  country-made.  The 
total  value  of  the  cotton  goods  woven  was  returned  in  1870 
at  2)2  niillions  sterling,  or  ;^i2,  los.  per  loom;  but  this  was 
believed  to  be  much  under  the  truth. 

The  export  of  country-made  cotton  cloth  from  Madras  in  the 
same  year,  1870,  was  about  ;^2 20,000.  By  1882-83,  the  export 
of  country-made  cloth  from  Madras  had  dwindled  to  ;^45,i96. 


HA  Xn- LOO  MS  I'EIiSUS  STEAM-MILLS.      60 1 

111  the  Central  Provinces,  wliere  hand-loom  weaving  still  in  Central 
flourishes,  and  where  the  statistics  are  more  trustworthy  than  j^y^"."'^^^' 
in  some  other  i)arts  of  India,  the  number  of  looms  in  1877-78 
was  returned  at  87,588,  employing  145,896  weavers,  with  an 
annual  out-turn  valued  at  ^828,000.  In  1882-83,  there  were 
in  the  Central  Provinces  three  large  cotton  mills  at  work,  besides 
143,801  looms,  giving  employment  to  164,273  workmen,  with 
an  out-turn  valued  at;^858,2i9.  In  1878-79,  the  export  of 
Indian  piece-goods  from  the  Central  Provinces  was  valued  at 
;^i62,642.     In  18S2-83,  it  was  valued  at  ;^i47,773- 

As  regards  Bengal,  hand-loom  weaving  is  generally  on  the  in  Bengal ; 
decline.  The  average  consumption  of  piece-goods  throughout 
the  Province  is  estimated  at  about  5s.  per  head,  and  the 
returns  of  registered  trade  show  that  European  piece-goods  are 
distributed  from  Calcutta  at  the  rate  of  about  2s.  5d.  per  head. 
In  Midnapur,  Nadiya,  and  Bardwan,  the  native  weavers  still 
hold  their  own,  as  appears  from  the  large  imports  of  European 
twist ;  but  in  the  eastern  Districts,  which  have  to  balance 
their  large  exports  of  jute,  rice,  and  oil-seeds,  the  imports  of 
European  cloth  rise  to  2s.  7d.  per  head. 

No  part  of  India  has  more  cruelly  felt  the  English  com-  in  Bom- 
petition  than  Bombay.  But  in  Bombay,  the  introduction  of  W- 
steam  machinery  is  already  beginning  to  restore  the  work  to 
native  hands.  Twist  from  the  Bombay  mills  is  now  generally 
used  by  the  hand-loom  weavers  of  the  Presidency,  and  is 
largely  exported  to  China.  But  it  is  in  the  finer  fabrics 
produced  for  export  that  the  Bombay  Districts  have  suffered 
most.  Taking  Surat  alone,  the  export  by  sea  of  piece-goods 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century  was  valued  at  j[^-^(io,ooo  a 
year.  By  1845,  the  value  had  dropped  to  ^^67,000,  rising 
again  tO;^i34,ooo  in  1859  ;  but  in  1874,  it  was  only  ;^6332. 

It  is  impossible  to  enumerate  the  many  special  fabrics  which  Special 
are   still   produced   in  various   parts  of  the   country.       First  I"'^i=i" 
among  these  are  the  far-famed  muslins  of  Dacca,  which  can  ^ 
still  be  obtained  to  order,  although  the  quality  is  far  inferior  muslins, 
to  what  it  was  when    Dacca  was  the  capital  of  a  luxurious 
Muhammadan  court.     Most  of  the  weavers  are  Hindus,  and 
the  high  development  which  their  industry  has  reached  may 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that  they  employ  no  fewer  than   126 
distinct  implements.     The  finest  muslins  are  woven  plain,  but 
patterns  of  coloured  silk  are  afterwards  embroidered  on  them 
by  a  separate  class  of  workmen.     (For  the  decay  of  the  Dacca 
manufactures,  and  the  transfer  of  the  weaving  communities  to 
agricultural  employments,  see  article  Dacca  in  The  ImJ^erial 


602 


ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 


Madras 
muslins. 


Bangalore 
cloths. 


Bombay 
fabrics. 


Indian 

silk- 

weavinc 


in  Burma 
and 
Assam  ; 

in  Bengal. 


Classes 
of  silk 
fabrics. 


Gazetteer  of  India})  Fine  muslin  is  woven  in  small  quantities 
at  Sarail  in  the  adjoining  District  of  Tipperah ;  and  Santipur, 
in  Nadiya,  still  retains  its  reputation  for  delicate  fabrics.  But 
with  these  exceptions,  cotton-weaving  in  Bengal  produces  only 
coarse  articles  for  common  use. 

In  Madras,  the  fine  fabrics  maintain  their  ground  better, 
although  the  trade  is  nowhere  flourishing.  Among  those 
deserving  mention  are  the  muslins  of  Arni,  the  cloth  woven  by 
the  Nairs  on  the  Malabar  coast,  the  chintzes  of  Masulipatam, 
\\-\Q.  panjam  or  '120-thread'  cloth  of  Vizagapatam,  and  the  blue 
salampurs  of  Nellore.  At  Bangalore,  the  descendants  of  the 
old  court  weavers  still  manufacture  a  peculiar  kind  of  cloth, 
printed  in  red  and  black  with  mythological  designs.  In  the 
Bombay  Presidency,  Ahmadabad,  Surat,  and  Broach  are  the 
chief  centres  of  the  manufacture  of  printed  saris,  for  which 
Gujarat  is  celebrated  ;  while  Poona,  Yeola,  Nasik,  and  Dharvvar 
produce  the  fabrics  dyed  in  the  thread,  which  are  much  worn 
by  the  Maratha  races.  Silk  is  often  combined  with  cotton  on 
the  looms,  and  the  more  expensive  articles  are  finished  off  with 
a  border  of  silk  or  gold  lace.  Chanda  and  Hoshangabad  are 
the  largest  weaving  towns  in  the  Central  Provinces. 

Silk  -  weaving  is  also  a  common  industry  everywhere,  silk 
fabrics,  or  at  least  an  admixture  of  silk  with  cotton,  being 
universally  affected  as  a  mark  of  wealth.  Throughout  British 
Burma,  and  also  in  Assam,  silk  is  the  common  material  of 
clothing  ;  usually  woven  by  the  women  of  the  household.  In 
Burma,  the  bulk  of  the  silk  is  imported  from  China,  generally 
in  a  raw  state;  but  in  Assam  it  is  obtained  from  two  or  three 
varieties  of  worms,  which  are  generally  fed  on  jungle  trees,  and 
may  be  regarded  as  semi-domesticated.  Bengal  is  the  only 
part  of  India  where  sericulture,  or  the  rearing  of  the  silkworm 
proper  on  mulberry,  can  be  said  to  flourish.  The  greater  part 
of  the  silk  is  wound  in  European  filatures,  and  exported  in  the 
raw  state  to  Europe.  The  native  supply  is  either  locally  con- 
sumed, or  sent  up  the  Ganges  to  the  great  cities  of  the  North- 
West.  A  considerable  quantity  of  raw  silk,  especially  for 
Bombay  consumption,  is  imported  from  China.  Tasar  silk, 
from  the  cocoons  of  semi-domesticated  worms,  does  not  con- 
tribute much  to  the  supply.     {^Vide  ante,  pp.  51 1-5 14.) 

As  compared  with  cotton-weaving,  the  silk  fabrics  form  a 
town  rather  than  a  village  industry.  Silk  fabrics  are  of  two 
kinds — (i)  those  composed  of  pure  silk,  and  (2)  those  with  a 
cotton  warp  crossed  by  a  woof  of  silk.  Both  kinds  are  often 
embroidered  with  cold  and    silver.       The    mixed  fabrics  are 


SILKS :  EMBROIDER  Y :  LEA THER-  WORK.     603 

known  as  viashni  or  siifi,  the  latter  word  meaning  'permitted,' 
because  the  strict  ceremonial  law  will  not  allow  Muhammadans 
to  wear  clothing  of  pure  silk.  They  are  extensively  woven  in 
the  Punjab  and  Sind,  at  Agra,  at  Haidarabad  in  the  Deccan, 
and  at  Tanjore  and  Trichinopoli  in  Madras.  Pure  silk  fabrics 
are  either  of  simple  texture,  or  highly  ornamented  in  the  form 
of  kinkhahs  or  brocades.  The  latter  are  a  speciality  of  Benares,  Brocades. 
Murshidabad,  Ahmadabad,  and  Trichinopoli.  Their  gorgeous 
hues  and  texture  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  names  : — 
Shikargalt,  'hunting-ground;'  chand-tara,  'moon  and  stars;' 
jnazchar,  '  ripples  of  silver ; '  murgala,  '  peacock's  neck.' 
Printed  silks  are  woven  at  Surat  for  the  wear  of  Parsi  and 
Gujarathi  women. 

■  Quite  recently,  mills  with  steam  machinery  have  been  estab-  Steam  silk 
lished  at  Bombay,  which  weave  silk  fabrics  for  the  Burmese  ^"^^o"^^- 
market,  chiefly  Ii'/ngyis,  tamains,  and  patsoes.  The  silk  manu- 
factures exported  from  India  consist  almost  entirely  of  the 
handkerchiefs  known  as  bandannas  and  corahs,  with  a  small 
proportion  of  tasar  fabrics.  The  trade,  after  a  temporary 
period  of  depression,  appears  now  to  be  increasing.  In 
1875-76,  silk  manufactures  to  the  extent  of  2,468,052  yards, 
valued  at  ;^23 8,000,  were  exported  from  India.  In  1877-78, 
the  export  of  manufactured  silk  had  decreased  to  1,481,256 
yards,  valued  at  ^^147, 000.  By  1878-79,  the  value  of  the 
trade  had  risen  to  ;;^i95,897  ;  by  1880-81,  to  ^250,256  ;  and 
by  1882-83,  to  ^306,928. 

Embroidery  has  already  been  referred  to  in  the  two  pre-  Embroi- 
ceding   paragraphs.      The   groundwork   may  be    either   silk,  ^^^^' 
cotton,  wool,  or  leather.     The  ornament  is  woven  in  the  loom, 
or  sewn  on  afterwards  with  the  needle.    The  well-known  choga, 
which    has    recently  come    into  popular  use  in  England    for 
dressing-gowns,  is  made  of  patu  or  camel's  hair,  embroidered  Camel's 
in  Kashmir,  the  Punjab,  and  Sind.     The  still  better  known  ^''^"■• 
and  more  valuable  Kashmir  shawl,  made  either  in  Kashmir  Kashmir 
itself  or  at  Ludhiana,  and  a  few  other  towns  of  the  Punjab,  is  ^"^^''^• 
composed  oi pashmina,  or  the  soft  wool  of  the  so-called  shawl- 
goat,  which  is  a  native  of  the  Himalayan  plateaux.  .   Muslin 
is  embroidered  with  silk  and  gold  thread  at  Dacca,  Patna,  and 
Delhi.    Sind  and  Cutch  (Kachchh)  have  special  embroideries  of 
coloured  silk  and  gold.    Leather- work  is  embroidered  in  Gujarat  Leather- 
(Guzerat).    In  some  of  the  historical  capitals  of  the  Deccan,  such  ^^°'^''^- 
as  Gulbargah  and  Aurangabad,  velvet  {makhmal)  is  gorgeously  Velvet, 
embroidered    with  gold,    to  make   canopies,    umbrellas,    and 
housings  for  elephants  and  horses,  for  use  on  State  occasions. 


6o4 


ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 


A  jewelled 
shawl. 


Carpets 
and  rugs, 

of  cotton 


of  wool. 


Process  of 
manu- 
facture. 


Seats  of 

carpet- 

weavinsf. 


Warangal 
rugs. 


Not  only  the  goldsmith,  but  also  the  jeweller  lends  his  aid 
to  Indian  embroidery.  A  chadar,  or  shawl  made  by  order  of  a 
late  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  is  thus  described  by  Sir  G.  Birdwood  : 
'  It  was  composed  entirely  of  inwrought  pearls  and  precious 
stones,  disposed  in  an  arabesque  fashion,  and  is  said  to  have 
cost  a  kror  of  rupees  (say  i  million  sterling).  Although  the 
richest  stones  were  worked  in  it,  the  effect  was  most  har- 
monious. When  spread  out  in  the  sun,  it  seemed  suffused 
with  an  iridescent  bloom,  as  grateful  to  the  eye  as  were  the 
exquisite  forms  of  its  arabesques.' 

Carpets  and  rugs  may  be  classified  into  those  made  of 
cotton  and  those  made  of  wool.  The  former,  called  satraiij'is 
and  daris,  are  made  chiefly  in  Bengal  and  Northern  India, 
and  appear  to  be  an  indigenous  industry.  They  are  usually 
white,  striped  with  blue,  red,  or  chocolate,  and  sometimes 
ornamented  with  squares  and  diamonds.  The  woollen  or 
pile  carpets,  known  as  kalin  and  kalicha,  are  those  which 
have  recently  attained  so  much  popularity  in  England,  by 
reason  of  the  low  price  at  which  the  out-turn  of  the  jail 
manufactories  can  be  placed  on  the  market. 

The  pile  carpet  is  indigenous  to  Persia  and  Tiirkistan, 
where  the  best  are  still  made.  The  art  came  into  India  with 
the  Muhammadans.  '  The  foundation  for  the  carpet  is  a 
warp  of  strong  cotton  or  hempen  threads  ;  and  the  peculiarity 
of  the  process  consists  in  dexterously  twisting  short  lengths 
of  coloured  wool  into  each  of  the  threads  of  the  warp,  so 
that  the  two  ends  of  the  twist  of  wool  stick  out  in  front. 
The  projecting  ends  are  then  clipped  to  a  uniform  level, 
and  the  lines  of  work  are  compacted  together  by  striking 
them  with  a  blunt  instrument '  (Birdwood).  The  historical 
Indian  seats  of  the  industry  are  Kashmir,  the  Punjab,  and 
Sind ;  Agra,  Mi'rzapur,  Jabalpur,  Warangal  in  the  Deccan, 
Malabar  and  Masulipatam.  Velvet  carpets  are  also  made  at 
Benares  and  Murshidabad,  and  silk  pile  carpets  at  Tanjore 
and  Salem. 

At  the  London  Exhibition  of  185 1,  the  finest  Indian  rugs 
came  from  "Warangal,  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Andhra  dynasty, 
about  80  miles  east  of  Haidarabad.  Their  characteristic 
feature  was  the  exceedingly  numerous  count  of  the  stitches, 
about  12,000  to  the  square  foot.  'They  were  also  perfectly 
harmonious  in  colour,  and  the  only  examples  in  which  silk  was 
used  with  an  entirely  satisfactory  effect '  (Birdwood).  The 
price  was  not  less  than  ;^io  per  square  yard.  The  common 
rugs,  produced  in  enormous  quantities  from  the  jails  at  Lahore, 


GOLD  AND  SILVER   WORK.  605 

Jabalpur,  Mirzapur,   Benares,  and  Bangalore,  sell  in  England 
at  7s.  6d.  each. 

Gold  and  silver,  and  jewels,  both  from  their  colour  and  their  Gold- 
intrinsic  value,  have   always  been   the  favourite  material  of^'"^,  ^    , 
■'  .  work  and. 

Oriental  ornament.     Even  the  hill  tribes  of  Central  India  and  jewellery. 

the   Himalayas  show  skill  in  hammering  silver  into  brooches, 
armlets,  and   necklets.       Imitation  of  knotted   grass  and  of  Hill-work, 
leaves   seems    to   be   the   origin   of    the   simplest   and   most 
common  form  of  gold  ornament,  the  early  specimens  consist- 
ing of  thick  gold  wire  twisted  into  bracelets,  etc.     A  second 
archaic  type  of  decoration  is  to  be  found  in  the  chopped  gold 
jewellery  of  Gujarat  (Guzerat).     This  is  made  of  gold  lumps, 
either  solid  or  hollow,  in  the  form  of  cubes  and  octahedrons.  Cube 
strung  together  on  red  silk.     Of  artistic  jeweller's  work,  the  -"^^^  ^^^' 
best  known  examples  are  those  from  Trichinopoli,  Cuttack, 
and  Kashmir. 

Throughout   Southern    India,  the  favourite  design  is  that 
known  as  swdmi,  in  which  the  ornamentation  consists  of  figures 
of  Hindu  gods  in  high  relief,  either  beaten  out  from  the  sur- 
face or  fixed  on  to  it  by  solder  or  screws.     The  Trichinopoli  Trichino- 
work  proper,  which  has  been  to  some  extent  corrupted  to  suit  P    • 
English  taste,  includes  also  chains  of  rose  gold,  and  bracelets 
of  the   flexible  serpent  pattern.      The  silver  filigree  work  of 
Cuttack,  identical  in  character  with  that  of  ancient  Greece  Cuttack. 
and  of  Malta  at  the  present  day,  is  generally  done  by  boys, 
whose  sensitive  fingers  and  keen  sight  enable  them  to  put  the 
fine  silver  threads  together  with  the  necessary  rapidity  and 
accuracy.     The  goldsmith's  work  of  Kashmir  is  of  the  kind  Kashmir, 
known   as   '  parcel-gilt,'  and   is  further   distinguished   by  the 
ruddy  colour  of  the  gold  used.     '  Its  airy  shapes  and  exquisite 
tracery,  graven  through  the  gilding  to  the  dead  white  silver 
below,  softening  the  lustre  of  the  gold  to  a  pearly  radiance, 
give  a  most  charming  effect  to  this  refined  and  graceful  work ' 
(Birdwood).      The  hammered  repousse  silver  work  of  Cutch  Cutch. 
(Kachchh),  although  now  entirely  naturalized,  is  said  to  be  of 
Dutch  origin.     Similar  work  is  done  at  Lucknow  and  Dacca. 

The  goldsmith's  art  contributes  largely  to  embroidery,  as  has 
already  been  mentioned.  Gold  and  silver  thread  is  made  by 
being  drawn  out  under  the  application  of  heat.  The  operation 
is  performed  with  such  nicety,  that  i  rupee's  worth  of  silver 
will  make  a  thread  nearly  800  yards  long.  Before  being  used 
in  the  loom,  this  metallic  thread  is  generally  twisted  with  silk. 
For  the  manufacture  of  cloth  of  gold  {sondri)  or  cloth  of  silver 
{riipiri),  the  wire  is  beaten  flat,  so  as  to  form  the  warp  to  a 


6o6  ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 

woof  of  thin  silk  or  cotton.  A  third  kind  of  metallic  orna- 
mentation is  practised  at  Jaipur  in  Rajputdna  and  Haidarabad 
in  the  Deccan,  by  printing  muslins  with  patterns  of  gold  and 
silver  leaf. 
Precious  Precious  stones  are  lavishly  used  by  Indian  jewellers,  who 
stones.  ^g^j-g  jggg  £-Qj.  their  purity  and  commercial  value  than  for  the 
general  effect  produced  by  a  blaze  of  splendour.  '  But 
nothing  can  exceed  the  skill,  artistic  feeling,  and  effectiveness 
with  which  gems  are  used  in  India  both  in  jewellery  proper 
and  in  the  jewelled  decoration  of  arms  and  jade'  (Birdwood). 
The  general  character  may  be  learned  from  the  following  descrip- 
tion of  a  hair-comb  in  the  Prince  of  Wales'  collection,  made  at 
Jaipur  :  'The  setting  is  of  emerald  and  ruby  Jaipur  enamel  on 
gold,  surmounted  by  a  curved  row  of  large  pearls,  all  on  a 
level,  each  tipped  with  a  green  glass  bead.  Below  is  a  row  of 
small  brilliants,  set  among  the  elegantly  designed  green  and 
red  enamelled  gold  leaves  which  support  the  pearls.  Then  a 
row  of  small  pearls,  with  an  enamelled  scroll-work  set  with 
brilliants  between  it  and  a  third  row  of  pearls ;  below  which 
comes  a  continuous  row  of  minute  brilliants  forming  the  lower 
edge  of  the  comb,  just  above  the  gold  prongs.' 
Indian  The  chief  duty  of  the  village  smith  is,  of  course,  to  make 

iron-worK.  ^^  agricultural  implements  for  his  fellow-villagers.  But  in 
many  towns  in  India,  chiefly  the  sites  of  former  capitals,  iron- 
work still  attains  a  high  degree  of  artistic  excellence.  The 
manufacture  of  arms,  whether  for  offence  or  defence,  must 
always  be  an  honourable  industry ;  and  in  India  it  attained  a 
high  pitch  of  excellence,  which  is  not  yet  forgotten.  The 
magnetic  iron-ore,  found  commonly  in  the  form  of  sand, 
yields  a  charcoal  steel  which  is  not  surpassed  by  any  in  the 
Cutlery,  world.  The  blade  of  the  Indian  takvdrox  sword  is  sometimes 
marvellously  watered,  and  engraved  with  date  and  name  ; 
sometimes  sculptured  in  half-relief  with  hunting  scenes  ;  some- 
times shaped  along  the  edge  with  teeth  or  notches  like  a  saw. 
Matchlocks  and  other  fire-arms  are  made  at  several  towns  in 
the  Punjab  and  Sind,  at  ]\Ionghyr  in  Bengal,  and  at  Viziana- 
garam  in  Madras. 
Chain  Chain  armour,  fine  as  lacework,  and  said  to  be  of  Persian 

armour.  derivation,  is  still  manufactured  in  Kashmir,  Rajputana,  and 
Cutch  (Kachchh).  Ahmadnagar  in  Bombay  is  famous  for  its 
spear-heads.  Both  fire-arms  and  swords  are  often  damascened 
in  gold,  and  covered  with  precious  stones.  In  fact,  the  charac- 
teristic of  Indian  arms,  as  opposed  to  those  of  other  Oriental 
countries,  is  the  elaborate  goldwork  hammered  or  cut  upon 


BR  ASS- WORK:  BELLS:  DAMASCENES.      607 

them,  and  the  unsparing  use  of  gems.  Damascening  on  iron  Dama- 
and  steel,  known  as  ki/ft,  is  chiefly  practised  in  Kashmir,  and  g^^"]^ 
at  Gujrat  and  Sialkot  in  the  Punjab.  The  process  consists 
of  encrusting  gold  upon  the  surface  of  the  harder  metal. 
Damascening  in  silver,  which  is  chiefly  done  upon  bronze,  is 
known  as  bidari  work,  from  the  ruined  capital  of  Bidar  in  the 
Nizam's  Dominions,  where  it  is  still  chiefly  carried  on. 

The  village  brazier,  like  the  village  smith,  manufactures  the  Brass  and 
necessary  vessels  for  domestic  use.    Chief  among  these  vessels  '^°PP^^- 
is  the  lota,  or  globular  bowl,  universally  used  in  ceremonial 
ablutions.     The  form  of  the  loid,  and  even  the  style  of  orna-  The  lotd. 
mentation,  has  been  handed  down  unaltered  from  the  earliest 
times.    A  lotd  now  in  the  India  Museum,  which  was  disinterred 
from  a  Buddhist  cell  in  Kiilu,  and  must  be  at  least  fifteen 
centuries  old,  represents  Prince  Siddhartha  going  on  a  high 
procession.      Benares  enjoys  the  first  reputation  in  northern  Benares 
India   for   w^ork   in   brass   and   copper,  producing   not   only  ^^'^^^• 
vessels  for  domestic  and  ceremonial  use,  but  also  images  and 
religious  emblems.     In  the  south,  Madura  and  Tanjore  have  a 
similar  fame ;  and  in  the  west,  Ahmadabad,  Poona,  and  Nasik. 
At   Bombay  itself,    large   quantities  of  imported  copper   are 
wrought  up  by  native  braziers. 

The  temple  bells  of  India  are  well  known  for  the  depth  and 
purity  of  their  note.  In  many  localities  the  braziers  have  a 
speciality,  either  for  a  peculiar  alloy  or  for  a  particular  process 
of  ornamentation.  Silver  is  sometimes  mixed  with  the  brass, 
and  in  rarer  cases  gold.  Bidari  work,  or  the  damascening  of  Bidari 
silver  upon  bronze,  has  already  been  alluded  to.  In  this  case,  ^^'^''^* 
the  metal  ground  is  said  to  be  an  amalgam  of  copper,  lead, 
and  tin,  made  black  by  dipping  in  a  solution  of  sal-ammoniac, 
saltpetre,  salt,  and  blue  vitriol.  At  Moradabad,  in  the  North- 
western Provinces,  and  at  Bhilwara  in  Udaipur  State,  Raj- 
putana,  tin  is  soldered  upon  the  brass,  and  incised  through  in 
floriated  patterns,  which  are  marked  by  filling  in  the  ground 
with  a  black  composition  of  lac.  At  Purniah  in  Bengal,  a 
variety  of  bidari  ware  is  made  of  zinc  and  copper,  damascened 
with  silver,  the  processes  of  which  are  described  at  length  in 
Hunter's  Statistical  Accoimt  of  Bengal}  The  brass  or  rather 
bell-metal  ware  of  Murshidabad,  known  as  khdgrai,  has  more 
than  a  local  reputation,  owing  to  the  large  admixture  of  silver. 

The  demand  for  enormous  quantities  of  brass-work  at  the  Deteriora- 
lowest  price  for  the  London  market,  is  rapidly  deteriorating  !■""  °^ 
both  the  designs  and  the  workmanship  of  the  Benares  articles,  work. 
1  Vol.  XV.  pp.  355-357. 


6o8 


ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 


Indian 
pottery. 


Its  imper- 
fections. 


Sind 
pottery. 


Tiles. 


Punjab 
and 

Bombay 
pottery. 


Sculpture. 


The  native  braziers  are  almost  compelled  to  degrade  their  in- 
dustry, when  they  find  that  the  most  vulgar  patterns,  deeply 
but  hastily  carved,  command  a  ready  sale ;  while  their  old 
faithful  work  can  scarcely  find  an  English  customer,  at  the 
price  necessary  for  production. 

Next  to  the  loom  of  the  weaver,  the  potter's  wheel  is  the 
characteristic  emblem  of  an  ancient  civilisation.  From  time 
immemorial,  the  potter  has  formed  an  essential  member  of 
the  Hindu  village  community.  Pottery  is  made  in  alm.ost 
every  village,  from  the  small  vessels  required  in  cooking  to 
the  large  jars  for  storing  grain,  and  the  earthenware  floats  used 
to  ferry  persons  across  a  swollen  stream.  But  although  the 
industry  is  universal,  it  has  in  few  Provinces  risen  to  the 
dignity  of  a  fine  art.  Perfection  has  been  reached  neither 
in  the  substance,  as  in  the  porcelain  of  China,  nor  in  the 
ornamentation,  as  in  ancient  Greece.  The  clay  in  many 
places  works  up  well,  but  the  product  remains  mere  earthen- 
ware, and  rarely  receives  a  high  finish. 

In  Sind  and  the  Southern  Punjab  the  potter's  craft  has 
risen  to  a  high  art ;  and  here  the  industry  is  said  to  have 
been  introduced  by  the  Muhammadans.  Sind  pottery  is  of 
two  kinds,  encaustic  tiles  and  vessels  for  domestic  use.  In 
both  classes  the  colours  are  the  same — turquoise  blue,  copper 
green,  dark  purple  or  golden  brown,  under  an  exquisitely 
transparent  glaze.  The  usual  ornament  is  a  conventional 
flower  pattern,  sometimes  pricked  in  from  paper,  but  often 
painted  with  much  freedom  and  grace.  The  tiles,  evidently 
of  the  same  origin  as  those  of  Persia  and  Turkey,  are  chiefly 
found  in  the  ruined  mosques  and  tombs  of  the  old  Musalman 
dynasties ;  but  the  Sind  industry  still  survives  at  the  little 
towns  of  Saidpur  and  Bubri ;  and  at  Haidarabad,  Karachi, 
Tatta,  and  Hala. 

Glazed  tiles  and  pottery  are  also  manufactured  at  Lahore 
and  jMiiltan  in  the  Punjab.  Efforts  have  been  made  by  the 
Bombay  School  of  Art  to  foster  this  indigenous  industry ; 
but,  as  in  other  cases  of  European  patronage,  the  Indian 
artisan  loses  his  originality  when  set  to  copying  alien  models. 
Something,  however,  has  been  done  in  the  right  direction  by 
reproducing  the  old  designs  from  the  cave  temples  of  Ajanta 
and  Karli,  in  the  pottery  made  at  the  Bombay  School  of  Art. 
The  Madura  pottery  also  deserves  mention,  from  the  elegance 
of  its  form  and  the  richness  of  its  colour. 

The  earliest  Indian  sculptures  are  found  in  the  monasteries, 
topcs^  and  '  rails '  of  ancient  Buddhism.     The  best  specimens 


WOOD-CARVING:  INLAYING:  IVORY.       609 

disclose  the  still  fresh  impulse  derived  from  Greek  or  Roman 
artists — that  impulse  which  has  been  historically  treated  in 
previous  chapters,  pp.  112  and  170-172.  With  the  revival  of 
Brahmanism,  Indian  sculpture  degenerated.  Modern  Hindu 
statuary  possesses  a  religious  rather  than  an  aesthetic  interest.^ 
But  exquisite  flat-carving,  and  perforated  arabesque  windows 
or  screens  in  hard  sandstone  and  marble,  are  still  produced  at 
Agra  and  Jaijiur. 

In  the  cities  of  Gujarat  (Guzerat),  and  in  other  parts  of  Wood- 
India  where  the  houses  are  built  of  wood,  their  fronts  are  ^^''^'"a- 
ornamented  with  elaborate  carving.  The  favourite  materials 
are  black-wood  (Dalbergia  latifolia),  sandal-wood,  and  jack- 
wood.  The  supply  of  sandal-wood  comes  from  the  forests  of 
the  Western  Ghats  in  Kanara  and  Mysore,  but  some  of  the 
finest  carving  in  it  is  done  at  Surat  and  Ahmadabad.  Examples 
of  17th  century  Indian  carving  indicate  that  the  art  received 
a  powerful  impulse  from  the  Dutch  along  the  Bombay  coast. 
But  Indian  wood-carving  is  an  art  of  very  great  antiquity. 
The  early  stone  architecture  of  the  Buddhists  is  evidently 
based,  both  in  regard  to  structure  and  ornaments,  on  pre- 
existing wooden  forms.  Some  of  the  patterns  of  modern 
Indian  wood-carving  are  preserved  from  that  earlier  period  in 
exquisite  open  carving  in  marble,  or  open  lattice-work  windows 
in  hard  stone.  The  more  durable  material  has  survived,  and 
now  tells  its  tale.  The  Burmese  are  also  celebrated  for  their 
luxuriant  wood-carving. 

Akin  to  wood-carving,  is  the  inlaying  of  the  articles  known  Inlaying. 
as  '  Bombay  boxes.'     This  art  is  known  to  be  of  modern  date, 
having  been  introduced  from  Shiraz  in  Persia  towards  the  close 
of  the  last  century.     It  consists  of  binding  together  in  geo- 
metrical patterns,  strips  of  tin-wire,  sandal- wood,  ebony,  ivory,  ivorj'- 
and  stag's  horn.     At  Vizagapatam  in  Madras,  similar  articles  carving, 
are  made  of  ivory  and  stag's  horn,  with  scroll-work  edged  in 
to  suit  European  taste.     At  Mainpuri,  in  the  North-Western 
Provinces,    wooden  boxes  are   inlaid   with  brass  wire.     The 
chief  seats  of  ivory-carving  are  Amritsar,  Benares,   Murshid- 
abad,   and   Travancore,    where  any  article   can    be   obtained 
to   order    in    ivory,   from   a   full-sized   palanquin   to  a  lady's 
comb.      Human  figures  in  clay,  dressed  to  the  life,  are  prin-  Clay 
cipally  made  at   Krishnagar  in   Bengal,  at  Lucknow,  and  at  "Sures. 
Poona. 

^  For  Indian  architecture,  painting,  and  musical  instruments,  see  ante, 
chap.  iv. 

2  Q 


6io  ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 

European  The  preparation  of  tea,  coffee,  and  indigo  have  been  already 
inms  nes.  (jgscribed  in  connection  with  agriculture.  It  remains  to  give 
some  account  of  those  manufactures  proper,  conducted  by 
steam  machinery,  and  under  European  supervision,  which 
have  rapidly  sprung  up  in  certain  parts  of  India  during  the 
past  few  years.  These  comprise  cotton,  jute,  silk,  and  wool, 
and  beer,  paper,  leather,  etc. 

Cotton  The  first  mill  for  the  manufacture  of  cotton  yarn  and  cloth 

i8i;!i-7Q     ^y  machinery  worked  by  steam,  was  opened  at  Bombay  in 
1854.     The  enterprise  has  since  expanded  to  vast  dimensions. 
In  1879,  the  total  number  of  mills  throughout  India  was  58, 
with  about  a  million  and  a  half  spindles,  and  twelve  thou- 
sand looms,  giving  employment  to  upwards  of  40,000  persons 
Their  dis-  — men,   women,    and  children.     Of  this   total,    30  mills,  or 
tribution     more  than  half,  were  in  the  island   of  Bombay,  which  now 
Indiaf        possesses   a  busy   manufacturing   quarter  with   tall   chimney- 
stalks,  recalling  the  aspect  of  a  Lancashire  town;  14  were  in 
the  cotton-growing  Districts  of  Gujarat  (Guzerat),  also  in  the 
Bombay  Presidency  ;  6  were  in  Calcutta  and  its  neighbour- 
hood ;    3    at    Madras ;    2    at  Cawnpur  in    the  North-Western 
Provinces  ;  i  at  Nagpur  in  the  Central  Provinces  ;  i  at  Indore, 
the  capital  of  Holkar's  Dominions ;  and  i   at  Haidarabad,  the 
residence  of  the  Nizam. 
Cotton  By  1884,  the  number  of  steam  cotton  mills  for  which  returns 

mills,  1S84:  1^^^^  been  received  bv  Government  had  increased  to  74,  with 
ment  1,895,284  spmdles,  and  16,251  looms,  givmg  employment  to  a 

returns.       j-q^^j  Qf  61,836  men,  women,  and  children.     Of  these,  35  were 
in  the  town  and  island  of  Bombay;  21  were  in  other  Districts 
of  the  Bombay  Presidency,  chiefly  Gujarat ;  6  in  Bengal,  in 
the  suburbs  or  vicinity  of  Calcutta ;  5  in  Madras,  namely,  4  in 
Madras  town,  and  i  in  Bellary  District ;  3  at  Cawnpur  in  the   ,. 
North-Western  Provinces  ;  2  in  the  Central  Provinces,  namely,  W 
at  Nagpur  and  at  Hinghanghat ;  and  i  each  at  Indore  and 
Haidarabad  in  the  Deccan. 
Cotton  Private  returns  of  the  cotton  industry  show  a  somewhat 

mills,  1884:  (different  result  to  that  quoted  above.      A  carefully-compiled 

private 

returns.      Statement   gives   the   figures   up   to   the   30th  June  1884  as 

follows : — On  that  date  there  were,  in  the  town  and  island  of 

Bombay  itself,  43   cotton  mills,  namely,  38   in  work,  and   5 

in   course    of  construction,   with   a   total    paid-up   capital   of 

_;^4.58o,430 ;  the  number  of  spindles  was   1,251,726,  and  of 

looms  (in  22  mills),   11,985;  giving  employment  to  a  daily 

average  of  36,071    men,   women,   and  children;   quantity  of 


COTTON  MILLS.  6 1 1 

cotton  consumed  (in  36  mills)  in  twelve  months,  1,218,490 
cwts.  Elsewhere  in  the  Bombay  Presidency  there  were  18 
mills,  with  a  total  paid-up  capital  for  17  mills  of  ;^943,7o6. 
The  number  of  spindles  was  289,153,  and  of  looms,  in  the 
only  12  mills  which  had  them,  2314.  Number  of  hands 
employed,  9293  ;  quantity  of  cotton  consumed,  235,935  cwts. 
There  were  thus,  in  June  1884,  in  the  Bombay  Presi- 
dency, 61  mills,  either  in  active  operation  or  in  course 
of  construction,  with  a  total  paid-up  capital  of  ;^5,452,i36, 
employing  45,364  hands,  and  consuming  1,454,475  cwts. 
of  cotton.  In  the  other  Provinces  of  India  there  were 
20  mills,  namely,  6  in  Bengal,  3  in  the  North -Western 
Provinces,  i  in  the  Central  Provinces,  i  at  Haidarabad, 
and  9  in  Madras,  of  which  4  were  under  construction 
in  June  1884.  The  total  paid-up  capital  of  these  mills 
outside  the  Bombay  Presidency  was  ;!^i,4i4,95o ;  number 
of  spindles,  79,176,  and  of  looms,  1426;  number  of  hands 
employed  daily,  17,472;  quantity  of  cotton  consumed  during 
the  year,  371,591  cwts.  Throughout  India  there  were  thus  81 
mills  in  June  1884,  constructed  at  a  cost  of  ;^6,867,o86;  with 
1,520,055  spindles,  and  15,725  looms,  consuming  1,826,016 
cwts.  of  cotton  during  the  previous  twelve  months,  and 
affording  employment  to  a  daily  average  of  62,836  men, 
women,  and  children. 

The  general  character  of  the  cotton  industry  and  its  progress  Nagpiir 
may  be  inferred  from  the  following  returns  supplied  by  the  Mm^^i'sSa 
Empress  Spinning  and  Weaving  Mills  Company  at  Nagpur, 
which  in  1882  had  30,000  spindles  and  450  looms  at  work, 
and  employed  a  daily  average  of  3137  hands.  Their  con- 
sumption of  raw  cotton  up  to  1880  averaged  1,707,000  lbs. 
a  year  ;  their  out-turn  has  averaged  1,040,000  lbs.  of  yarn 
valued  at  ;^45,358,  and  627,700  lbs.  of  cloth  valued  at 
^30,661.  In  1882,  the  consumption  of  raw  cotton  at  these 
mills  was  3,796,240  lbs.,  with  an  out-turn  of  1,804,530  lbs.  of 
twist,  and  1,494,945  lbs.  of  manufactured  cloth,  of  a  total 
value  of  ;^i 59,386. 

This  rapid  and  widespread  development  sufficiently  proves  Sound 
that  the  new  industry,  though   still  in   its  infancy,  is  being  |f  ^'^  ° 
carried   on   under  wholesome   conditions,    and   meets  a  real  facture. 
demand.     Checks  have  from  time  to  time  occurred  at  Bombay, 
caused  partly  by  competition  with  European  goods  recklessly 
thrown  upon  the  market  regardless  of  profit,  and  partly  by 
that  mismanagement  to  which  joint-stock  enterprise  is  peculiarly 
exposed.      But   with   the   revival   of  general   commerce,  the 


6l2 


ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 


Cheap 
material. 


Cheap 
labour. 

No  adul- 
teration. 


The  draw 
liacks. 

Cost  of 
erection. 


High 
interest. 


Short 
staple. 


Only 

coarse 

qualities 

made. 


Bombay  mills   have   always  again  started    upon  a  career   of 
renewed  activity. 

Their  advantages  over  the  English  manufacturer  are  manifest. 
The  crop  of  raw  material  and  the  market  for  the  manufactured 
article  are  both  at  their  very  doors,  thus  saving  a  double  freight. 
Labour  is  cheap,  abundant,  docile,  and  not  liable  to  strike.  A 
certain  amount  of  prejudice  exists  in  favour  of  their  products, 
partly  because  of  their  freedom  from  adulteration,  and  partly 
from  the  patriotic  pride  naturally  felt  for  a  native  industry. 
Lastly,  up  to  March  1882,  they  had  the  slight  protection  of  a 
moderate  customs  duty  of  5  per  cent,  ad  valorem  (imposed 
for  fiscal  purposes  solely)  upon  imported  goods.  The  cotton 
import  duties  were  finally  abolished,  together  with  the  general 
import  duties  upon  all  but  a  few  excepted  articles  of  mer- 
chandise, such  as  arms  and  ammunition,  liquors,  etc.,  by  the 
Indian  Tariff  Act,  xi.  of  1882. 

On  the  other  hand,  they  labour  under  not  a  few  countervailing 
disadvantages.  The  cost  of  erection,  including  spindles  and 
fitting  up,  was  said  (1877)  to  be  about  three  times  as  much  in 
India  as  in  England.  Thus  a  mill  containing  50,000  spindles, 
which  in  Lancashire  might  be  set  up  for  about  ;Q\  per  spindle, 
or  a  total  of  ;^5o,ooo,  would  cost  at  Bombay  about  ^150,000. 
On  this  capital  the  initial  charge  for  interest  would  be  only 
;;^25oo  a  year  in  England,  calculated  at  5  per  cent.,  as  com- 
pared with  ;^i3,5oo  in  India,  at  the  rate  of  9  per  cent.  Again, 
the  cost  of  fuel,  and  all  stores  which  require  to  be  imported 
from  England,  tells  greatly  against  the  Bombay  mills.  Another 
important  consideration  which  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  in  all 
its  bearings,  is  the  quality  of  Indian  cotton,  known  as  '  short 
stapled,'  which  does  not  admit  of  being  spun  into  the  finer 
kinds  of  yarn.  Consequently  the  Indian  mills  can  only  turn 
out  the  lower  '  counts '  of  yarn,  and  the  coarser  fabrics  of 
piece-goods,  leaving  English  imports  of  the  higher  classes 
without  competition. 

Adopting  the  technical  language  of  the  trade,  the  great 
bulk  of  the  yarn  spun  in  Indian  mills  consists  of  numbers 
6,  10,  and  20  mule  twist.  Water  twist  is  spun  in  smaller 
quantities,  generally  of  number  16.  The  maximum  of  either 
kind  is  number  30.  The  mills  are  capable  of  spinning  up  to 
40  ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  never  attempt  this  nuinber, 
owing  partly  to  the  inferior  quality  of  the  cotton,  and  partly 
to  the  carelessness  of  the  work-people.  As  regards  piece- 
goods,  the  kinds  principally  woven  in  the  mills  are  those 
known   as  T  cloths,  domestics,   sheetings,  drills,    and   jeans, 


STATISTICS  OF  COTTON  MANUFACTURE.  613 

made  entirely  from  the  yarn  spun  in  the  same  mills.  Long- 
cloths,  chadars  and  d/iutis,  are  also  manufactured  ;  and  recently 
attempts  have  been  made  to  turn  out  drawers,  stockings,  night- 
caps, and  towelling.  But  Manchester  still  possesses  a  practical 
monopoly  both  of  the  higher  '  counts '  of  yarn  which  are 
used  by  the  hand-loom  weavers,  and  of  the  superior  qualities 
of  cloth. 

The  Indian  mills  are  almost  without  exception  the  property  Joint-stock 
of  joint-stock  companies,  the  shares  in  which  are  largely  taken  ^°j^j'j°'^ 
up  by  natives.     The  overlookers  are  skilled  artisans  brought 
from  England,  but   natives    are    beginning    to    qualify  them- 
selves for  the  post.     The  operatives  are  all  paid  by  the  piece  ; 
and,  as  compared  with  other  Indian  industries,  the  rates  of 
■wages  are  high.     In  1S77,  at  Bombay,  boys  earned  from  14s.  Bombay 
to  ;^i  a  month  ;  women,  from  i6s.  to  ^i  ;  and  jobbers,  from  ^''^S^s. 
£:Z  to  jQ(),  I  OS.     Several  members  of  one  family  often  work 
together,  earning  between  them  as  much   as  ^10  a  month. 
The  hours  of  work  are  from  six  in  the  morning  to  six  at  night, 
with  an  hour  allowed  in  the  middle  of  the  day  for  meals  and 
smoking.     The  Indian  Factories  Act,  xi.  of  1881,  regulates  the 
hours  of  work  for  children  and  young  persons,  and  enforces 
the  fencing  of  dangerous  machinery,  etc. 

Besides  supplying  the  local  demand,  these  mills  are  gradually  Statistics 

beginning  to  find  a  market  in  foreign  countries,  especially  for  °^  Bombay 

^.  .'='  '^  ,1      cotton 

their  twist  and    yarn.     Between    1872-73  and  18S2-83,  the  manu- 

export  of  twist  from  Bombay  increased  from  1,802,863  lbs.  factures. 

valued  at  ^97,162  in  1872-73,  to  21,271,059  lbs.  valued  at 

;^883,665    in    187S-79,    and    to   42,598,400   lbs.    valued   at 

p{^i, 705,978  in  1882-83,  or  ^^  increase  of  twenty-four-fold  in 

quantity   and  nearly  eighteen-fold  in  value  in  eleven  years. 

Within  the  same  period,  the  export  of  grey  piece-goods  from 

Bombay  increased  from  4,780,834  yards  valued  at  ^^75,495  in 

1872-73,  to  14,993,336  yards  valued  at  ;^i98,38o  in  1878-79, 

and  to  30,730,396  yards  valued  at  ^{^357, 320  in  1882-83.    The 

total  foreign  exports  of  Indian  twist  and  yarn,  and  of  Indian 

manufactured  grey,  white,  and  coloured  piece-goods  from  all 

Indian  ports  amounted  to  ;!^2,578,382  in  value  in  18S2-83. 

The  above  figures  refer  to  Indian  produce  and  manufactures 
only;  and  are  exclusive  of  i^  million  sterling  of  re-exported 
British  cotton  manufactures.  Including  these  re-exports,  the 
total  exports  of  cotton  twist,  yarn,  and  manufactures  amounted 
to  just  under  4  millions  in  1882-83  fi'on^  ^^^  Indian  ports. 

The  twist  and  yarn  is  mostly  sent  to  China  and  Japan,  the  China  and 
piece-goods  to  the  coast  of  Arabia  and  Africa.  Africa. 


6 14  ARTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 

The  figures  for  the  coasting  trade  show  a  slo\ver  growth, 
the  total  value  of  twist  carried  from  port  to  port  in  1878-79 
having  been  ^^804, 996,  and  of  piece-goods  (including  hand- 
loom  goods),  ^^654,553.  In  1882-83,  cotton  twist  and  yarn 
to  the  value  of  ;^896,369,  and  piece-goods  to  the  value  of 
;^633,3i6,  were  exported  in  the  coasting  trade,  apart  from 
exports  to  foreign  countries. 

Future  of        ]y/[j._    O'Conor,    who   has   devoted    much    attention    to   the 
the  trade.  ,  ...  .    .  , .  ,        ^ 

matter,    thus    summarizes    his    opinion    regarding   the   future 

of  the  Indian  cotton  mills  in  his  Revieiv  of  Indian  Trade  for 
1877-78: — '  Whether  we  can  hope  to  secure  an  export  trade 
or  not,  it  is  certain  that  there  is  a  sufficient  outlet  in  India 
itself  for  the  manufactures  of  twice  fifty  mills ;  and  if  the 
industry  is  only  judiciously  managed,  the  manufactures  of 
our  mills  must  inevitably,  in  course  of  time,  supersede  Man- 
chester goods  of  the  coarser  kinds  in  the  Indian  market.'  The 
correctness  of  this  opinion  is  further  shown  by  Mr.  O'Conor's 
Review  of  Indian  Trade  for  1884-85,  in  which  he  states — 'The 
importation  of  the  coarser  kinds  of  twist  has  long  been  unim- 
portant, the  yarn  of  the  Indian  mills  having  driven  it  out  of  the 
market.  Even  the  medium  kinds  are  now  diminishing,  an  indi- 
cation that  the  Indian  mills  are  beginning  to  make  them  too.' 
Wool  Besides  cotton  mills,  wool-weaving  by  steam  machinery  has 

mills.  recently  been  established  in  India,  the  principal  mills  being 

the    Egerton   Mills  in   Gurddspur  District,   Punjab,   and   the 
Cawnpur  woollen  mills  in  the  North- Western  Provinces. 

Jute  mills.  The  jute  mills  of  Bengal  have  sprung  up  in  rivalry  to 
Dundee,  as  Bombay  competes  with  Manchester  ;  but  in  Bengal 
the  capital  for  jute-manufacturing  is  almost  entirely  supplied 
by  Europeans.  The  jute-mills  cluster  round  Calcutta,  and  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  river  in  Howrah  District.  The  industry 
has  also  taken  root  at  Sirajganj,  far  away  up  the  Brahmaputra, 
in  the  middle  of  the  jute-producing  country. 
Number  I"    1882-83,  the  total  number  of  jute  mills  in  India  was 

1111882-83.  21,  of  which  19  were  in  Bengal,  i  at  Kolaba  on  Bombay 
island,  and  i  at  Chittivalasa  in  Vizagapatam  District,  Madras. 
The  weaving  of  jute  into  gunny  cloth  is  an  indigenous  hand- 
loom  industry  in  Northern  Bengal,  chiefly  in  the  Districts  of 
Purniah  and  Dinajpur.  The  gunny  is  made  by  the  semi- 
aboriginal  tribe  of  Koch,  Rajbansi  or  Pali,  both  for  clothing 
and  for  bags ;  and,  as  with  other  industries  practised  by  non- 
Hindu  races,  the  weavers  are  the  women  of  the  family, 
und    not    a    distinct    caste.     The    mills  turn   out   bags,  and 


JUTE  MILL  STATISTICS.  615 

also  cloth  in  pieces  to  a  limited  extent.     The  bags  vary  in  Jute, 
size,  according  to  the  markets  for  which  they  are  intended,  varieties 
The   largest   are   the   twilled  wool   packs   sent   to  Australia,  of  gunny- 
which    measure    56    inches    by    26^,   and  weigh   about    \o\  ^^Z^- 
lbs.   each.      The   smallest  are   the   Hessian   wheat  bags   for 
California,    measuring   36    inches   by  22,  and  weighing   only 
1 2  ounces.     The  average  weight  may  be  taken  to  be  from 
2  to  2\  lbs. 

The  mills  in  Calcutta  and  its  neighbourhood  were  estimated  Out-turn  of 
in  1878  to  keep  about  4000  looms  at  work ;  the  total  amount  of  •  ^^  ^^\<. 
raw  jute  worked  up  annually  was  about  \\  million  cwts.,  which  1878; 
yielded  about  90  million  bags.      The  21  steam  jute  mills  in 
India  in   1883  worked  6139  looms  and  112,650  spindles,  the  and  1883. 
total  quantity  of  raw  jute  worked  up  in  the  year 'being  returned 
at  2,831,778   cwts.     These   figures   are   below  the  mark,  as 
certain  companies  and  private  individuals  have   not  supplied 
full  information.     The  jute   manufacturing  industry  afforded 
employment  to  47,868  men,  women,  and  children  in  1882-83. 

The  activity  of  the  jute  trade,  and  the  general  direction  of  Indian  and 
the  exports,  will  be  seen  by  comparing  the  figures  for  1S77-78  consumij- 
and  1882-83  ii"^  the  two  following  paragraphs.  tion. 

In  1877-78,  3  million  bags  were  brought  into  Calcutta  from  1S78, 
Pabna  District,  being  the  product  of  the  Sirajganj  mills.  The 
total  exports  from  Calcutta  by  sea  and  land  of  both  power-loom 
and  hand-made  bags  numbered  80  millions  in  1877-78,  of  which 
not  more  than  6  millions  were  hand-made.  The  East  Indian 
Railway  took  20  millions  for  the  grain  marts  of  Behar  and 
the  North-Western  Provinces  (chiefly  Patna  and  Cawnpur); 
and  I  million  went  as  far  as  Ludhiana  in  the  Punjab.  The 
total  exports  by  sea  in  1877-78  exceeded  57  millions,  of 
which  32  millions  represent  interportal,  and  25  millions  foreign 
trade.  Bombay  took  as  many  as  16  millions,  and  British 
Burma  12  millions.  In  fact,  Calcutta  supplies  bagging  for  the 
whole  of  India. 

In  1882-83,  besides  the  local  manufactures  in  Calcutta,  and  1SS3. 
28,972,920  bags  were  imported  into  that  city  from  the  interior 
Districts,  of  which  12,494,243  were  power-loom  and  16,478,677 
hand-made.  The  total  exports  from  Calcutta  of  power-loom 
and  hand-made  bags  numbered  123,219,477  bags.  Of  the 
internal  trade,  the  E^ast  Indian  Railway  carried  16,808,855 
bags  for  the  following  marts  and  Districts  : — Patna  (3,189,970), 
Cawnpur  (2,583,210),  Faizabad  (959r455)>  Delhi  (676,375), 
Santal  Parganas  (623,945),  Monghyr  (609,875),  Birbhiim 
(558,915),     and    Bardwan    (544,355).      The    total    internal 


6i6 


AJiTS  AND  MANUFACTURES. 


Sea-borne 
exports  of 
jute. 


exports  by  rail,  boat,  and  road  amounted  to  18,877,715  bags 
The  exports  by  sea  numbered  104,341,762  bags,  of  which 
45,018,189  represented  coasting,  and  59,323,573  foreign 
exports. 

The  foreign  jute  trade  may  be  given  in  greater  detail,  for 
gunny-weaving  is  perhaps  the  single  Indian  manufacture  that 
has  secured  a  great  foreign  market.  The  sea-borne  export 
of  jute  manufactures  (bags  and  cloth)  in  1872-73  was 
valued  at  ^188,859.  By  1878-79,  the  value  had  risen  to 
Growth  of  ^1,098,434,  and  by  1882-83  to  ;^i, 487,831,  or  an  increase 
the  trade,  of  ;^389,397  in  four  years.  These  figures  seem  to  justify 
Mr.  O'Conor's  statement  in  his  Review  of  Indian  Trade  for 
1878-79,  that  'there  is  little  room  to  doubt  that  in  course  of 
time  India  will  be  able,  not  only  to  supplant  the  manufactures 
of  Dundee  in  the  American  and  other  foreign  m.arkets,  but 
to  supply  England  herself  with  bags  more  cheaply  than  they 
can  be  made  in  Dundee.'  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be 
recollected  that  large  figures,  and  even  growing  figures,  do  not 
necessarily  show  that  a  business  is  remunerative.  Calcutta, 
like  Bombay,  sometimes  suffers  from  the  mismanagement  inci- 
dental to  joint-stock  enterprises.  The  principal  countries 
which  take  Indian  gunny-bags  are: — Australia,  ^^7 14, 747  in 
1882-83;  Straits  Settlements,  ^,^1 89,869 ;  United  States 
(California),  ^164,405  ;  China,  ;^i73>295- 


Brewing. 


Statistics 
of  Indian 
brewing, 
1877-83. 


Brewing  has  been  established  on  a  large  scale  at  the  hill 
stations  for  several  years.  There  were  in  1882-S3,  22  breweries 
in  India ;  1 2  in  the  Punjab  and  the  North-Western  Provinces, 
at  Mari  (Murree),  Simla,  Solon,  Kasauli,  Dalhousie,  Masuri 
(Mussoorie),  Naini  Tal,  Chakrata,  and  Ranikhet ;  2  in 
Bombay,  at  ISIoody  Bay  and  at  Bandora  ;  3  in  Madras,  at 
Utakamand  and  Coonoor  ;  4  at  Bangalore  in  Mysore ;  and  1  at 
Rangoon.  The  total  quantity  of  beer  brewed  was  returned  at 
2,162,888  gallons  in  1877,  and  2,597,298  gallons  in  1882-83. 
The  quantity  imported  into  India  in  1878-79  was  2  million 
gallons  by  Government,  and  i  million  gallons  on  private 
account.  In  1882-83,  the  Government  imports  were  just 
under  \\  million  gallons,  and  the  private  imports  a  little  over 
I  million  gallons,  total  2,656,788  gallons;  so  that  the  Indian 
breweries  now  satisfy  one-half  of  the  entire  demand.  Indian 
brewed  beer  is  rising  in  public  favour,  and  is  rapidly  super- 
seding imported  beer  for  commissariat  purposes.  In  1875, 
349,095  gallons  of  Indian  beer  were  purchased  by  the 
Bengal  Commissariat  Department;  in  18S3,  the  quantity  thus 


PAPER-MAKING :  LEATHER  FACTORIES.     617 

purchased  was  1,936,221  gallons,  as  against  1,486,234  gallons 
imported  by  Government, 

At  Simla,  imported  beer  sells  at  over  18s.  per  dozen  quarts,  Beer 
while  that  from  the  local  breweries  can  be  obtained  for  los.  per  P"ces. 
dozen.     The   hops   are  entirely  imported.     An  experimental 
hop  plantation  of  100  acres  established  by  the  Maharaja  of 
Kashmir  has  not  yet  proved  a  practical  success  ;  but  efforts 
are  still  being  made,  both  in  Kashmir  and  in  India,  to  success- 
fully introduce  the  hop  plant  into  the  country.     The  imports 
of  hops  show  an   increase  from   1529  cwts.  in  1S75-76,  to  Hop 
1807    cwts.    in   1876-77,    and    2135    cwts.    in   1877-78.      in '™P"'^f^- 
1882-83,  however,  the  import  of  hops  had  fallen  to  1940  cwts. 
valued  at  ;^42,983. 

The  steam  paper  mills  established  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Paper- 
Calcutta  and  at  Bombay  have  almost  entirely  destroyed  the  ™^  '"^' 
local  manufactures  of  paper  which  once  existed  in  many  parts 
of  the  country.     The  hand-made  article,   which  was  strong 
though  coarse,  and  formed  a  Muhammadan  speciality,  is  now 
no  longer  used  for  official  purposes. 

The  Government  possesses  a  large  leather  factory  at  Cawn-  Leather, 
pur,  which  turns  out  accoutrements,  saddlery,  etc.,  of  excellent 
quality.  Two  large  European  firms  have  also  established 
leather  factories  at  Cawnpur.  Indeed,  leather  hand-manufac- 
tures have  long  been  an  important  local  industry  in  Oudh  and 
the  North-Western  Provinces.  They  are  worked  so  cheaply 
as  to  discourage  importation  from  England,  except  in  the  case 
of  articles  de  luxe,  and  saddlery  or  harness  for  the  richest 
classes. 

Rice-husking  by  steam  machinery  is  largely  carried  on  at  the  Rice- 
ports  of  British  Burma.  hulking. 


[6i8  ] 


CHAPTER      XXI. 


MINES   AND    MINERALS. 


Mines  and  The   Indian   peninsula,    with   its   wide   area   and   diversified 

mnierals.     features,  supplies  a  great  store  of  mineral  wealth.     In  utilizing 

this  wealth,   English  enterprise  has  met   with  many   rebuffs. 

Capital  has   been  expended  in  many   cases   with   no   result 

except   disappointment.     But   the    experience   has   not   been 

thrown   away ;    and   mining   industry,   now  established  on  a 

sure  basis,  is  gradually  rising  into  an  important  position. 

Indian  In   purity   of  ore,    and   in  antiquity  of  working,  the  iron 

''^°""  deposits  of  India  rank  among  the  first  in  the  world.     They  are 

to  be  found  in  every  part  of  the  country,  from  the  northern 

mountains  of  Assam  and  Kumaun  to  the  extreme  south  of 

Madras.      Wherever  there  are  hills,  iron  is  found  and  worked 

Indigenous  to   a  greater  or   less   extent.      The   indigenous   methods   of 

methods,     smelting  the  ore,  handed  down  unchanged  through  countless 

generations,  yield  a  metal  of  the  finest  quality  in  a  form  well 

suited  to  native  wants.     But  they  require  an  extravagant  supply 

of  charcoal ;    and   notwithstanding   the   cheapness   of  native 

labour,   the  product  cannot  compete  in  price  with  imported 

iron   from    England.     European   enterprise,  attracted  by  the 

richness  of  the  ore  and  the  low  rate  of  wages,  has  repeatedly 

tried   to  establish  ironworks  on  a  large  scale.     But  hitherto 

each  of  these  attempts  has  ended  in  failure. 

I'ailure  of       The   most   promising  early  efforts  were   those  undertaken 

fftofts'^       in  Madras  by  Mr.  Heath  of  the  Civil  Service,  the  anticipator 

o      '        of  the  Bessemer  process.     In    1825,  he  founded  a  company 

which  opened  works  at  Porto  Novo  on  the  Coromandel  coast, 

in    the  hills   of  Salem   District,   and  at  Beypur  in   Malabar. 

The  iron  and   steel  produced  were  of  first-rate  quality ;  and 

all   went   well   so  long  as  an   unlimited  supply   of  charcoal 

could  be  obtained  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  furnaces.     But 

when  this  essential  condition  of  cheap  production  gradually 

ceased,  the  enterprise  became  unremunerative,  and  had  to  be 

1880.  abandoned.     Within  the  last  few  years,  an  attempt  has  been 

made  to  smelt  ore  by  means  of  coal,   according  to  English 


IROiV-U'OIiKS:  COAL-MINING.  619 

methods,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Raniganj  and  in  Birbhiini 
and  Manbhiim.  Coal  abounds,  and  also  limestone  as  a  flux ; 
but  in  this  case,  again,  the  company  made  no  profit,  and  has 
been  compelled  to  wind  up.  Similar  experiments  in  the  Central 
Provinces  and  in  Kumaun  have  met  with  similar  results. 

In  1882-83,  the  Bengal  Government  took  over  the  works  Efforts  l.y 
of  the  suspended  Barakhar  Iron  Company  at  Khendua  in  j^^gnt*^" 
Manbhiim  District,  and  cast  and  pig  iron  is  now  manufactured 
on  the  spot.  The  iron-works  are  doing  a  considerable  amount 
of  good,  as  not  only  do  they  encourage  the  private  coal  com- 
panies in  the  neighbourhood,  but  they  also  give  employment  to 
a  large  number  of  skilled  workmen.  They  also  promise  to  be 
remunerative  ;  and  the  question  of  the  expansion  of  the  works  is 
(1884)  under  the  consideration  of  Government.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  these  works,  iron  in  India  is  manufactured  only  by 
peasant  families  of  smelters,  each  working  on  a  very  small  scale. 

The  initial  difficulty  in  India  is  to  find  the  three  elements  Difficulties 
of  iron-working,  namely,  the  ore,  the  flux,  and  the  fuel,  sufii-  ?^  I"dian 
ciently  near  to  each  other.    The  second  difficulty  is  the  choking  works. 
of  the  furnaces  from  the  excessive  quantity  of  ash  in  the  coal. 

Coal  has  been  known  to  exist  in  India  since  1774,  and  is  Indian 
said  to  have  been  worked  as  far  back  as  1775.      The  first '^°^'' 
English  coal-mine  was  opened  at  Raniganj  in  1820.     There  are 
now  (1885)  65  working  collieries  in  the  country,  with  an  annual 
out-turn  of  about  i  million  tons.     In  India,  as  elsewhere,  coal 
and  railway  extension  have  gone  hand  in  hand.     Coal  is  com- 
paratively worthless  unless  it  can  be  brought  to  market  by 
rail;  and  the  price  of  coal  is  the  chief  element  in  determining 
the  expenses  of  railway  working.     The  history  of  coal  in  India  History  of 
is,  on  the  whole,  a  record  of  continual  progress.     The  first  ^^"S^^ 
mine,  as  already  mentioned,  dates  from  1820  ;  and  it  has  been  mining, 
worked  regularly  up  to  the  present  time.     In  1878,  its  out-  1820; 
put  was  50,000  tons.     Until  about  1840  no  other  mine  was 
opened;  but  the  commencement  of  the  East  Indian  Railway 
in  1854  gave  a  fresh  impetus  to  the  industry,  and  since  that  1854; 
date  collieries  have  been  set  on  foot  at  the  rate  of  two  or  three 
every  year.    The  largest  number  of  additions  was  seven  in  1874. 
From  these  are  supplied  not  only  the  railway  itself,  but  also 
the  jute  mills  of  Calcutta,  and  the  river  steamers  of  Lower 
Bengal. 

In  1883,  there  were  in  all  62  working  collieries  in  Bengal,  1SS3. 
besides  15  others,  principally  in  the  Santal  Parganas,  which 
were  either  closed,  or  were  not  working  during  the  year.     The 


620 


MINES  AND  MINERALS. 


Imported 
coal. 


Coal- 
mining in 
Central 
Provinces 


( I )  Warora 
colliery  ; 


(2)  Moh- 

pani 

colliery. 


Rani'ganj  Sub-division,  with  its  50  working  collieries,  had  an 
output  of  603,591  tons  in  1883,  as  compared  with  an  average 
output  of  547,930  tons  in  the  previous  three  years.  Four  new 
mines  were  opened  during  the  year.  Hazaribagh  and  Man- 
bhiim  Districts  contain  6  collieries,  which  yielded  an  out-turn 
of  559,849  tons  in  1883,  against  an  annual  average  for  the  three 
previous  years  of  502,860  tons.  The  East  Indian  Railway  Com- 
pany's valuable  mines  at  Karharbari  and  Srirampur  are  situated 
within  Hazaribagh  District.  In  1883,  these  two  mines  yielded 
a  total  output  of  308,000  tons,  against  an  average  of  274,087 
in  the  three  previous  years.  The  total  out-turn  from  all  the 
working  mines  in  Bengal  in  1883  was  1,200,957  tons,  against 
an  average  of  1,058,084  tons  for  the  three  previous  years.  In 
1882-83,  the  imports  of  coal  into  Calcutta  by  sea  were  only 
74,610  tons,  so  that  Bengal  now  uses  locally  about  94  per 
cent,  of  Indian  to  about  6  per  cent,  of  foreign  coal.  Bombay 
and  Madras  are  entirely  supplied  with  coal  from  England. 

The  collieries  in  the  Central  Provinces,  the  only  other 
Indian  ones  worked  on  a  large  scale,  are  limited  to  the  supply 
of  the  Great  Indian  Peninsula  Railway.  They  consist  of — 
(i)  the  Warora  colliery  in  Chanda  District,  under  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Public  Works  Department ;  and  (2)  the  Mohpani 
colliery,  which  has  been  leased  to  the  Narbada  Coal  Company, 
In  1878-79,  the  Warora  colliery  put  out  43,000  tons,  of 
which  11,000  tons  consisted  of  slack.  The  gross  receipts 
were  ^18,686,  and  the  net  receipts  ^5873,  being  about  8*3 
per  cent,  on  the  estimated  capital  expenditure  of  ;^7o,ooo. 
In  1883,  the  Government  mine  at  Warora  yielded  an 
out-turn  of  95,738  tons,  and  averaged  51,376  tons  in  the 
previous  three  years.  The  profits  are  estimated  at  4  to  6 
per  cent.  But  it  is  difficult  to  fix  the  sum,  as  the  accounts 
are  mixed  up  with  those  of  the  Wardha  State  Railway,  a 
branch  from  the  Nagpur  line  of  the  Great  Indian  Peninsula 
Railway.  Cost  of  raising  coal  in  the  Central  Provinces, 
Rs.  2.  10.  (5s.  3d.)  per  ton;  price  paid  by  the  Railway  Com- 
pany for  large  coal,  Rs.  5  (los.)  per  ton.  In  1877-78,  the 
cotton  mills  at  Nagpur  took  4872  tons. 

The  Mohpani  colliery  had  an  output  in  1878-79  of 
8900  tons,  valued  at  ;,^8ooo.  In  1883,  the  total  output  from 
Mohpani  mine  was  19,281  tons,  as  against  an  average  of 
13,714  tons  in  the  previous  three  years.  Almost  the  whole 
of  this  was  taken  by  the  Great  Indian  Peninsula  Railway. 
Extensive  coal-fields  have  recently  been  discovered  at  Umaria, 
within  the  Native   State  of  Rewa,  only  34  miles  beyond  the 


COAL-FIELDS  OF  INDIA.  621 

northern    boundary    of    the    Central    Provinces,    which    are 
beheved  to  extend  into  the  northern  portion  of  Jabalpur. 

The  principal  drawback  of  Indian  coal  is  its  large  proportion  Excessive 
of  ash  ;  varying  from  14  to  20  per  cent.,  as  against  3  to  6  per  jf^j^n 
cent,  in  English  coal.     This  places  Indian  coal  measures  at  coals, 
a  great  disadvantage,  alike  for  iron-smelting  and  locomotive 
purposes.     But  it  has   been  proved  that,  with  efficient  fire- 
grates and  proper  manipulation,  135  lbs.  of  Warora  coal  will 
do  the  work  of  100  lbs.  of  English  coal. 

The  Raniganj  coal-field  has  been  estimated  at  an  area  of  500  Raniganj 
square  miles.  In  this  '  black  country  '  of  India,  which  is  dotted  coal-tield. 
with  tall  chimney-stalks,  many  European  companies  are  at  work, 
besides  many  native  firms. ^  At  first  coal  was  raised  from  open 
workings ;  but  regular  mining  is  now  carried  on,  according  to 
the  system  known  as  '  pillar  and  stall.'  The  seams  are  entirely 
free  from  gas,  so  that  the  precautions  usual  in  England  against 
explosion  are  found  unnecessary.  The  miners  are  all  drawn 
from  the  aboriginal  races,  chiefly  Santals  and  Bauri's,  who  are 
noted  for  their  endurance  and  docility.  Bauris  work  with  the 
pick,  but  Santals  will  consent  to  use  no  other  instrument  than 
the  crowbar.  Wages  are  high,  and  the  men  look  well-fed, 
although  they  waste  their  surplus  earnings  in  drink. 

The  coal-fields  of  India  lie  almost   entirely  in  the  broad  Distrilm- 
centre  of  the  peninsula,  between  the  Ganges  and  the  Godavari.  ''^'^  9*^ 
South  of  the  Godavari  no  carboniferous  strata  exist ;  and  the  India, 
whole  Presidency  of  Madras  is  thus  compelled  to  depend  for 
its  supply  upon  importation.     North  of  the  Ganges,  the  only 
extensive  fields  are  to  be  found  in  the  outlying  Province  of  Outlying 

Assam.     There,  in  the  Khasi  and  Taintia  Hills,  mines  have  ^^'^^ '" 

11  Assam, 

been  worked  on  a  small  scale  for  many  years ;  but  the  aggre- 
gate of  the  deposits  is  insignificant,  and  the  difficulties  of 
carriage  almost  insurmountable.  Still  farther  away,  in  the 
frontier  District  of  Lakhimpur,  a  large  coal-field  of  excellent 
quality  was  discovered  at  Makum  ;  and  a  private  company  has 
been  established  with  a  view  to  open  out  the  field,  by  means  of 
a  railway.  The  company  obtained  a  lease  of  the  coal-beds  for 
a  period  of  twenty  years,  and  a  light  railway  has  been  con- 
structed to  the  mines.  Operations  have  not  yet  been  carried 
sufficiently  far  to  justify  any  forecast  as  to  the  profitable  work- 

^  For  a  full  account  of  the  Raniganj  coal-field,  see  article  Raniganj  in 
The  Imperial  Gazetteer ;  and  for  its  geological  aspects,  see  a  subsequent 
chapter. 


622  MINES  AXD  MINERALS. 

ing  of  these  deposits.  In  1SS3-S4,  the  out-turn  from  the 
Makum  mines  was  about  450  tons  a  week;  but  the  company- 
hopes  to  increase  the  out-turn  to  3000  tons  a  week,  which  it  is 
estimated  will  allow  the  mines  to  be  worked  at  a  fair  profit. 
Darjiling,  Coal  is  also  found  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Darjiling,  and  in 
Punjab.      the  Salt  Range  of  the  Punjab. 

Apart  from  these  outlying  beds,  the  central  coal-fields  of  India 
have  been  divided  by  ^Nlr.  Blanford,  of  the  Geological  Survey, 
The  four     into  the  four  following  groups  : — (i)  The  Damodar  valley,  in- 
^^\A~  ^'^^^'  eluding  both  Raniganj  and  Karharbdri,  which  yields  at  least 
nine-tenths  of  all  the  coal  as  yet  produced  in  India,  and  finds  a 
ready  market  at  Calcutta.     (2)  The  Chutia  Nagpur  group,  ex- 
tending over  a  wide  area  of  mountainous  and  difficult  country, 
as   yet   but   imperfectly  explored.      (3)  The  Narbada  valley, 
south  of  the  Satpura  range,  where  actual  borings  have  hitherto 
proved  disappointing,  except  in  the  case  of  the  Mohpani  colliery, 
which  is  connected  by  a  short  branch  with  the  main  line  of  the 
Great  Indian  Peninsula  Railway.     (4)  The  Godavari  valley, 
where  coal  has  been  traced  from  Nagpur  southwards  as  far  as 
Ellore :  In  this  coal-field  the  only  successful  works  are  at  Warora. 
Future  of        Of  the  future  of  Indian  coal  it  is  difiicult  to  speak  with 
coa/^  certainty.     On  the  one  hand,  the  demand  is  constant,  and 

increases  with  the  construction  of  every  fresh  mile  of  railway, 
and  every  new  factory.  On  the  other  hand,  the  quality  is  dis- 
tinctly inferior  to  English  coal,  which  comes  out  to  India  at  a 
low  freight — almost  at  ballast  rates.  Raniganj  coal,  which  is 
the  best  of  the  Indian  coals,  can  do  only  from  one-half  to  two- 
thirds  of  the  duty  performed  by  the  same  amount  of  English 
coal.  It  contains  a  low  proportion  of  fixed  carbon,  and  more 
than  three  times  the  average  percentage  of  ash. 

Indian  Salt,  an  article  of  supreme  necessity  to  the  Indian  peasant, 

^^  '  who  eats  no  butcher's  meat,  except  a  festival  goat  or  kid  at 

rare  intervals,  is  derived  from  three  main  sources,  exclusive 
Its  three     of  importation  from  Europe.^     (i)  By  evaporation  from  sea- 
water  along  the  entire  double  line  of  seaboard  from  Bombay 
to  Orissa,  but  especially  in  Gujarat  and  on  the  Coromandel 
coast.     (2)  By  evaporation  from  inland  salt  lakes,  of  which  thfy: 
Sambhar  Lake  in  Rajputana  affords  the  chief  example.     Th 
right  of  working  this  lake  was  leased  byGovernment  in  1870  fron 
the  Maharajas  of  Jaipur  and  Jodhpur,  within  whose  territories  it 
is  situated,  and  who  are  paid  a  royalty  upon  the  out-turn.     (3) 

1  For  the  administrative  aspects  of  Indian  salt,   see  ante^  chap.  xvi.  ; 

and  for  its  geological  aspects,  post,  chap.  xxii. 


sources. 


SALT:  SALTPETRE.  623 

By  quarrying  solid  hills  of  salt  in  the  north-east  of  the  Punjab. 
The  last  is  the  only  source  in  which  salt  in  India  can  be  said 
to  exist  as  a  mineral.  It  occurs  in  solid  cliffs,  which  for  extent 
and  purity  are  stated  to  have  no  rival  in  the  world.  The  Salt 
Range  runs  across  the  two  Districts  of  Jehlam  (Jhelum)  and  The  Pun- 
Shahpur,  from  the  bank  of  the  Jehlam  river  to  Kalabagh  in  J^^  ^^'"^ 
Bannu  District.  Similar  deposits  are  found  beyond  the  Indus 
in  Kohat  District,  where  the  salt  is  of  two  kinds,  red  and 
green ;  and  in  the  Hill  State  of  Mandi  bordering  on  Kangra 
District.  The  salt  is  found  in  the  red  marls  and  sandstones  of 
the  Devonian  group.  In  some  cases  it  can  be  obtained  from 
open  quarries ;  but  more  generally  it  is  approached  by  regular 
mining  by  pick  and  blasting,  through  wide  galleries.  The 
principal  mine  is  at  Kheura  in  Jehlam  (Jhelum)  District,  now 
called  after  Lord  Mayo.  The  total  annual  out-turn  in  the 
Punjab  is  returned  at  about  50,000  tons,  yielding  an  average 
net  revenue  to  Government  of  from  ;!^3oo,ooo  to  ^^350,000. 

In   Southern    India,   salt   made   by  evaporation   is   almost  Salt  supply 
universally  consumed.     Lower  Bengal,  and  especially  Eastern  of  Madras 
Bengal,   use   salt   imported   from    Cheshire,   at   low  rates   ofc'rai. 
freight,  and  paying  the  excise  duty  at  Calcutta  or  other  port  of 
entry.     In  Orissa  and  South-Western  Bengal,  both  imported 
salt  and  salt  made  by  solar  evaporation  are  consumed  ;  the 
solar  salt  being  alone  considered  pure  for  religious  purposes  or 
for  the  priests. 

India   has   almost   a   monopoly   of  the   supply  of  natural  Indian 
saltpetre,  upon  which  Europe  largely  depends  for  the  manu-  saltpetre. 
facture  of  gunpowder.     It  occurs  with  other  saline  substances 
,  as  a  white  efflorescence  upon  the  surface  of  the  soil  in  many 
I  parts  of  the  country,   especially  in  the  upper  valley  of  the 
\Ganges.      Its  preparation  leaves  common  salt  as  one  of  the 
rtesiduary   products;    and   fiscal    restraints    have   accordingly 
t^  ;nded  to  limit  the  manufacture  to    the  most   remunerative 
r4,^gion,  which  is  found  in  North  Behar. 
\  The    system    of   saltpetre   manufacture    is   simple,    and   is  .System 
entirely   in    the   hands   of  a   special   caste  of  natives,  called  °^'"^""'' 
Afuniyas,  who  are  conspicuous  for  their  capacity  of  enduring 
J    hard  work.     As  is  the  case  with  most  Indian  industries,  they 
work  under  a  system  of  money  advances  from  middle-men, 
who  are  themselves  sub-contractors  under  large  central  houses 
of  business.     In  former  times,  the  East  India  Company  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  on  its  own  account ;  and  when  it  gave  up 
its  private  trade,  the  works  were  taken  over  by  European  firms. 


624  MINES  AND  MINERALS. 

But  these  have  in  their  turn  retired  from  the  business,  which  is 
now  in  a  state  of  decline  (ahiiost  killed  in  Southern  India), 
partly  owing  to  the  general  fall  in  price,  and  partly  to  the 
restrictions  imposed  by  the  salt  preventive  department. 
Process  The  manufacturing  season  begins  with  the  cold  season  in 

facuire^'  November.  The  presence  of  saltpetre  in  the  soil  is  revealed 
by  efflorescence  after  a  heavy  fall  of  rain.  This  earth  is 
scraped  together,  and  first  placed  in  a  large  vessel,  through 
which  water  is  filtered.  The  brine  is  then  boiled  in  pots,  and 
crude  saltpetre  mixed  with  common  salt  is  the  result.  The 
])roportion  of  salt  to  saltpetre  is  said  to  be  about  one-sixth. 
The  sale  of  this  salt  is  prohibited  under  stringent  penalties. 
The  crude  saltpetre  is  now  handed  over  to  the  refiners,  who 
work  on  a  larger  scale  than  the  Nuniyas.  It  is  again  subjected 
to  a  process  of  boiling  in  large  iron  boilers  of  English  manu- 
facture, and  is  allowed  to  crystallize  gradually  in  open  wooden 
troughs.  In  refining,  it  loses  nearly  one-half  its  weight,  and  is 
now  ready  for  the  market.  In  1873,  the  single  District  of 
Tirhut  contained  22,528  filters,  and  305  refineries. 

Exports  of  The  exports  of  saltpetre  from  Calcutta  are  fairly  constant, 
sa  pe  re.  averaging  about  450,000  cwts.  a  year,  of  which  one-half  goes  to 
the  United  Kingdom.  More  than  two-thirds  of  the  total  comes 
from  Behar,  chiefly  from  the  Districts  of  Tirhut,  Saran,  and 
Champaran,  though  Patna  is  the  railway  station  for  despatch  to 
Calcutta.  Cawnpur,  Ghazipur,  Allahabad,  and  Benares,  in  the 
North-Western  Provinces,  send  small  quantities  ;  while  a  little 
comes  from  the  Punjab. 

Indian  Although  silver  has  ever  been  the  currency  of  India  in  his-  j 

gold.  torical  times,  that  metal  is  nowhere  found  in  the  country,  nor ' 

in  the  adjoining  States  of  Central  Asia.     Gold,  on  the  othc 

hand,  exists  in  many  parts  of  India,  and  probably  in  larr  A 

quantities.     The  '  Ophir '  of  King  Solomon  has  been  identifif  r- 

by  some  scholars  with  the  Malabar  coast.     However  that  m;  id 

be,  India  claims  to  rank  as  a  gold-producing  country.     Mar  1), 

hill  streams  are  washed  for  gold,  alike  in  the  extreme  soutl  ch 

in  the  central  plateau,  and  on  the  north-east  and  north-west 

frontiers.      Gold-washing  is  everywhere  in  India  a  miserable 

business,  affording  the  barest  livelihood ;  but  the  total  amount 

of  gold  obtained  cannot  be  insignificant. 

Gold-  In  recent  years,  attention  has  been  prominently  drawn  to 

mining  in    jj^g  possibility  of  extracting  gold  from  the  quartz  formation 

ot  Southern  India,  which  bears  many  points  of  resemblance  to 


\ 

I 


GOLD-MINING :  COPPER.  625 

the  auriferous  quartz  reefs  of  Australia,  The  principal  locali- 
ties are  in  the  Waindd  (Wynaad)  Sub-division  of  the  Nilgiri 
District,  and  in  Kolar  District  of  Mysore.  Gold-washing  has 
always  been  practised  here ;  and  the  remains  of  old  workings 
show  that  at  some  unknown  period  operations  have  been 
conducted  on  a  large  scale.  Since  about  1870,  individual 
pioneers  have  been  prospecting  in  this  region.  Crushing  the 
quartz  by  rude  native  methods,  they  proved  that  it  contained 
a  larger  proportion  of  gold  than  is  known  to  give  a  profit  in 
Australia.  These  experiments  on  the  southern  ends  of  six 
reefs  yielded  an  average  of  7  dwts.  per  ton  of  quartz,  rising  in 
one  case  to  11  dwts.  The  best  assay  of  the  gold  showed  a 
fineness  of  slightly  over  20  carats.  In  1879,  Government 
summoned  a  practical  mining  engineer  from  Australia,  whose 
report  was  eminently  hopeful.  He  described  the  quartz  reefs  as 
of  great  extent  and  thickness,  and  highly  auriferous.  One  reef 
in  Kolar,  laid  bare  100  feet  longitudinally,  had  given  an  average 
of  I  oz.  of  gold  per  ton.  In  order  to  attract  capital,  Govern- 
ment proposed  to  grant  mining  leases  at  a  dead  rent  of  Rs.  5 
(los.)  per  acre,  subject  to  no  royalty  or  further  tax.  Several 
English  companies  with  large  capital  entered  the  field,  and  the  • 
reports  of  their  professional  advisers  held  forth  high  hopes  of 
success.  Those  hopes  have  not,  however,  been  yet  realized. 
Gold-mining  in  Southern  India  is  in  a  depressed  state;  although 
some  of  the  operations  again  hold  out  promise  of  success  (1885). 

The  other  Indian  metals  comprise  copper,  lead,  and  tin.  Other 
Copper  exists  in  many  parts  of  the  country  in  considerable  '^^^^'^• 
quantities.     The  richest  mines  are  in  the  lower  ranges  of  the  Copper. 
Himalayas,  from  Darjiling  westward  to   Kumaun.     The  ore 
occurs  in  the  form  of  copper  pyrites,  often  accompanied  by 
lundic,  not  in  true  lodes,  but  disseminated  through  the  slate 
tr  d  schist.     The  miners  are  almost  always  Nepali's,  and  the  Nepali 
Pcnoteness  of  the  situation  has  deterred  European  capital.  "''^"^'^-'^ 
ot  .e  extent  of  abandoned  workings  shows  that  these  mines 

ve  been  known  and  worked  for  many  years.      The  best 

ams  show  a  proportion  of  copper  slightly  above  the  average 
/jf  Cornish  ore,  but  the  ordinary  yield  is  not  more  than 
about  4  per  cent. 

The   mines   resemble   magnified   rabbit-holes,    meandering  '  Rabbit- 
passages  being  excavated  through  the  rock  with  little  system.  "9^^ 
The  tools  used  are  an  iron  hammer  and  chisel,  with  some- 
times a  small  pick.     After  extraction,   the   ore  is  pounded, 
washed,    and   smelted   on   the   spot.      The    price    obtained 

2  R 


62  6  MINES  AND  MINERALS. 

for  the  metal  is  Rs.  2.  8.  per  3  sers^  or  at  the  rate  of  about 

lod.  a  pound.     Copper-ore,  of  fair  purity  and  extending  over 

Singbhum  ^   considerable   area,    also   occurs   in    Singbhum    District    of 
copper.  .  .      . 

Chutia  Nagpur,  where  there  are  many  deserted  diggmgs  and 

heaps  of  scoriae.     In  1857,  a  company  was  started  to  reopen 

the  workings  at  these  mines ;  but  although  large  quantities  of 

ore  were  produced,  the  enterprise  did  not  prove  remunerative, 

and  was  finally  abandoned  in  1864.     A  similar  attempt  to 

Nellore.  work  the  copper  found  in  Nellore  District  in  Madras  also 
ended  in  failure. 

Lead.  Lead  occurs,   in   the  form  of  sulphuret  or  galena,   along 

the  Himalayas  on  the  Punjab  frontier,  and  has  been  worked 

Tin.  at  one  place  by  an  English  company.     Tin  is  confined  to 

the  Burmese  peninsula.  Very  rich  deposits,  yielding  about 
70  per  cent,  of  metal,  occur  over  a  large  extent  of  country  in 
Mergui  and  Tavoy  Districts  of  the  Tenasserim  Division.  The 
ore  is  washed  and  smelted,  usually  by  Chinese,  in  a  very  rough 
and  unscientific  way.  Recent  experiments  by  a  European  firm 
tend  to  show  that  the  deposits,  although  rich  and  extensive, 
are  not  sufficiently  deep  to  repay  more  elaborate  processes. 

Antimony.  Antimony,  in  the  form  of  sur/ud,  largely  used  by  the  natives 
as  a  cosmetic  for  the  eyes,  is  chiefly  derived  from  the  hill 
States  of  the  Punjab.  It  is  also  found  in  Mysore  and  Burma , 
The  minerals  of  Rajputana   have    not   yet   been  thoroughly 

Cobalt.  investigated ;  but  they  include  an  ore  of  cobalt,  used  for 
colouring  enamel. 

Tetroleum,  Petroleum  is  produced  chiefly  in  Independent  Burma,  but 
it  has  also  been  found  in  British  Burma,  in  Assam,  and  in 
the   Punjab.       Near  the  village  of  Ye-nan-chaung  in  Upper 

in  Burma  ;  Burma,  on  the  banks  of  the  Irawadi,  there  are  upwards  of 
100  pits  or  wells  with  a  depth  of  about  250  feet,  from  which 
petroleum  bubbles  up  in  inexhaustible  quantities.  The  annu.^.' 
yield  in  1877  was  estimated  at  11,000  tons,  of  which  a  consider- 
able quantity  was  exported.  Petroleum  wells  are  also  fourd 
in  the  British  Districts  of  Akyab,  Kyauk-pyu  (Kyouk-hpyi), 
Pegu,  and  Thayet-myo,  which  first  attracted  British  capital  wih 
most  promising  results  in  1877. 

Oil-iefin-  Two  private  oil-refining  companies  having  obtained  a  lease 
from  Government,  under  favourable  conditions,  of  certain 
areas  at  Minbyin  in  Ramri  island,  Kyauk-pyu  District,  are 
working  a  number  of  wells  by  means  of  steam  boring  machinery, 
under  the  superintendence  of  Canadian  experts,  with  satisfac- 
tory results.     The  oil  when  refined  is  of  a  high  quality ;  but 


Burma. 


OTL-REFINING:  LIME.  627 

the  expensiveness  of  the  machinery  and  costly  European 
agency  have  so  far  proved  an  obstacle  to  the  financial  suc- 
cess of  the  industry.  The  native  oil-wells  are  constructed 
and  managed  on  much  more  economical  principles  than  the 
English  companies,  and  many  of  them  yield  large  profits. 

The  principal  English  company,   the  Boronga,  has  (18S4)  Chief  oil 

24   wells,  one  of  them   having  a  depth  of  over   1200  feet.  ^°'"." 

^  '  .  panies : 

Only  10  were  at  work  in  1883-84,  yielding  an  out-turn  of 

234,000  gallons  of  oil,  of  which  65,400  gallons  was  refined, 

and  the  remainder  sold  in  a  crude  state,  the  total  realizations 

for  the  year  being  about  ;!^6ooo.     The  Arakan  Oil  Company, 

newly  started,  yielded  during  1883-84  an  out-turn  of  107,800 

gallons  from  5  wells  out  of  7  sunk  by  them,  the  deepest  being  400 

feet,  all  of  which  was  sold  on  the  spot  in  its  crude  state.     The 

native  wells,  bored  by  means  of  locally-made  tools,  windlasses, 

and  sheers,  run  down  to  a  depth  of  250  to  350  feet.    The  total 

out-put  of  the  whole  field,  including  English  companies  and 

native  wells,  numbering  about  170  in  all,  during  the  year,  was 

404,325  gallons.      The  imports  of  crude  oil  from  the  Ye-nan- 

chaung  wells  in  Upper  Burma  were  968,210  gallons,  most  of 

which  was   taken  by  the  Rangoon  refinery,  which  produced 

640,000  gallons  of  refined  oil  during  the  year. 

■'   In  Assam,  petroleum  occurs  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  in  Assam , 

coal-fields  in  the  south  of  Lakhimpur  District.     It  was  formerly 

worked  in  connection  with  the  coal  by  a  private   European 

capitalist,  but  the  enterprise  failed  to  prove  a  success.     A 

Government  concession  to  work  the  oil-beds  was  granted  to 

the  Assam  Railways  and  Trading  Company,  along  with  the 

Makum  coal-fields;  but  up  till  1884  no  attempt  had  been 

made   by  the   company  to  work   the   oil.      In   the   Punjab,  in  Punjab. 

petroleum   is   worked   experimentally   by   the    Public    Works 

Department  at  two  spots  in  Rawal  Pindi  District.    In  1873-74, 

the  total  yield  was  2756  gallons;  and  in  1882-83,  5°°°  gallons. 

Petroleum  is  also  found  in  Bannu  District,  and  probably  in 

other  neighbouring  Districts  of  the  Punjab. 

The  commonest  and  also  the  most  useful  stone  of  India  is  Stone,  etc. 
kafikar,  a  nodular  form  of  impure  lime,  which  is  found  in 
almost  every  river  valley,  and  is  used  from  one  end  of  the  pen- 
insula to  the  other  for  metalling  the  roads.  Lime  for  building  Lime. 
{chnndm)  is  derived  from  two  sources — (i)  from  burning  lime- 
stone and  kankar,  and  (2)  from  the  little  shells  so  abundantly 
found  in  the  marshes,  rivers,  and  lakes.  Calcutta  derives  its 
chief   supply  of  limestone   from   the   quarries   of  the  Khasi 


628 


MINES  AND  MINERALS. 


Kankar. 


Potter}-. 


BuildiiK 
stone. 

Marble. 


Slate. 

I\Iica  and 
talc. 


Hills  in  Assam,  known  as  '  Sylhet  lime,'  and  from  the  Susunid 
quarries  in  Bankura  District.  Except  for  occasional  beds  of 
kankar,  the  lower  valley  of  the  Ganges  is  absolutely  destitute 
of  stone ;  nor  does  the  alluvial  soil  aiford  good  materials  for 
brickmaking  or  fine  pottery.  But  a  European  firm  has  recently 
established  large  pottery  and  cement  works  at  Raniganj  in 
Bard  wan,  which  employ  about  500  hands,  and  carry  out  con- 
tracts for  drainage  pipes  and  stoneware.  These  works  are 
annually  increasing  in  importance  and  value. 

The  centre  of  the  peninsula,  and  the  hill  country  generally, 
abounds  in  building-stone  of  excellent  quality,  which  has 
been  used  locally  from  time  immemorial.  Among  the  finest 
stones  may  be  mentioned — the  pink  marble  of  Rajputana, 
of  which  the  historical  buildings  at  Agra  were  constructed  ; 
the  trap  of  the  Deccan ;  the  sandstone  of  the  Godavari 
and  the  Narbada ;  and  the  granite  of  Southern  India. 
Quarries  of  slate  are  scattered  through  the  peninsula,  and 
sometimes  worked  by  European  capital.  Mica  and  talc  are 
also  quarried  to  make  ornaments.  Among  the  hills  of  Orissa 
and  Chutia  Nagpur,  household  vessels  and  ornaments  are 
skilfully  carved  out  of  an  indurated  variety  of  potstone. 


Precious  Despite  its  legendary  wealth,   which  is  really  due  to  the 

stones.  accumulations  of  ages,  India  cannot  be  said  to  be  naturally 
prolific  in  precious  stones.  Under  the  Muhammadan  rule. 
Diamonds,  diamonds  were  a  distinct  source  of  State  revenue ;  but  at  the 
present  day,  the  search  for  them,  if  carried  on  anywhere  in 
British  territory,  is  too  insignificant  an  occupation  to  have 
attracted  the  notice  of  Government.  The  name  of  Golconda 
has  passed  into  literature ;  but  that  city,  once  the  Musalman 
capital  of  the  Deccan,  was  rather  the  home  of  the  diamond- 
cutters  than  the  actual  source  of  supply.  It  is  believed  that  the 
far-famed  diamonds  of  Golconda  actually  come  from  the  sand- 
stone formation,  which  extends  across  the  eastern  borders  of 
the  Nizam's  Dominions  into  the  Madras  Districts  of  Kistna 
and  Godavari.  A  few  worthless  stones  are  still  found  in  this 
region, 
in  Sam-  Sambalpur,  on   the   upper  channel  of  the  Mahanadi  river 

balpur;  jj^  ^j^g  Central  Provinces,  is  another  spot  once  famous  for 
diamonds.  In  the  last  century,  a  British  officer  was  despatched 
to  Sambalpur  by  Clive  to  arrange  for  remittances  home  by 
means  of  Sambalpur  diamonds.  As  late  as  18 18,  a  stone  is 
said  to  have  been  found  here  weighing  84  grains  and  valued 
at  ;!^5oo.     The  river  valleys  of  Chutia  Nagpur  are  also  known 


at  Gol- 
conda ; 


PEARL  FISHERIES.  629 

to  have  yielded  a  tribute  of  diamonds  to  their  Muhammadan 
conqueror. 

At  the  present  day,  the  only  place  where  the  search  for 
diamonds  is  pursued  as  a  regular  industry  is  the  Native 
State  of  Panna  (Punnah)  in  Bundelkhand.  The  stones  in  Bun- 
are  found  by  digging  down  through  several  strata  of  gravelly  "^I'^hand. 
soil,  and  washing  the  earth.  Even  here,  however,  the  pursuit 
is  understood  to  be  unremunerative,  and  has  failed  to  attract 
European  capital. 

About  other  gems  very  little  information  is  available.  The 
town  of  Cambay  in  Gujarat  (Guzerat)  is  celebrated  for  its  Came- 
carving  of  carnelian,  agate,  and  onyx.  The  stones  come  from  ^'^"^• 
the  neighbourhood  of  Ratanpur,  in  the  State  of  Rajpi'pla. 
They  are  dug  up  by  Bhil  miners,  and  subjected  to  a  process 
of  burning  before  being  carved.  The  most  valued  colour  for 
carnelians  is  red,  but  they  are  also  found  white  and  yellow. 
Lapis  lazuli  is  found  in  the  mountains  of  the  north,  and  is 
freely  used  in  the  decoration  of  temples  and  tombs. 

Inferior  pearl  fisheries  are  worked  off  the  coast  of  ]\Iadura  Pearl 
District  in  the  extreme  south,  and  in  the  Gulf  of  Cambay ;  fisheries, 
but  the  great  majority  of  Indian  pearls  come  either  from 
Ceylon  (which  is  also  rich  in  other  gems)  or  from  the  Persian 
Gulf.  In  the  year  1700,  the  Dutch  obtained  a  lease 
of  all  the  pearl  fisheries  along  the  Madura  coast,  and  sublet 
the  right  of  fishing  to  native  boatmen,  of  whom  700  are 
said  to  have  taken  licences  annually  at  the  rate  of  60  ecus 
per  boat. 

We  have   now  sketched  the  physical  aspects  of  India,  its  Scientific 
past   history,  and   its   present   administration   and  condition  branches 
under  British  rule.     It  remains  to  briefly  deal  with  the  topics  subject, 
of  scientific  interest  connected  with  the  country :  its  material 
framework  or  geology  ;  its  climatic  conditions,  or  meteorology ; 
its  animal  and  vegetable  products ;  and  the  health  statistics  of 
its  population.     Each  of  these  subjects  forms  the  subject  of 
many  elaborate  volumes,  and  the  adequate  treatment  of  any 
one  of  them  would  demand  a  body  of  scientific  coadjutors  not 
available  to  the  author  of  this  work.     But  some  account  of 
them  may  be  useful  for  administrative  purposes. 

The  following  pages  are  offered,  not  for  the  instruction  of  Scope 
specialists,  but   to  the   general  reader  who  wishes   to   study  °f/'^^. 
India  m  all  its  various   aspects.      In  previous  sections,  the  chapters? 
author  has  not  hesitated  to  repeat  himself  when  dealing  with 
Indian  products,  such  as  opium,  cotton,  and  salt;  first  from 


630 


MINES  AND  MINERALS. 


the  administrative  and  then  from  the  economic  point  of  view. 
For  he  believes  that  such  repetitions  are  convenient  to  many 
who  desire  a  view  of  the  subject  under  each  head.  In  Hke 
manner,  the  following  sections  will  not  shrink  from  repetitions, 
in  referring  to  certain  productions,  such  as  coal,  iron,  or 
forests,  in  their  scientific  aspects. 


[631  ] 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

GEOLOGY   OF    INDIA. 

For  geological  purposes  British  India  may  be  mapped  out 
into  the  four  geographical  divisions  of — the  Himalayan  region, 
the  Indo-Gangetic  plain,  Peninsular  India,  and  Burma. ^ 

The  Himalayan  Region. — The  geology  of  this  tract  is  more  iiimd- 
complex  and  less  fully  known  than  that  of  the  Peninsular  '^y^^. 
area.     Until  the  ground  has  been  carefully  gone  over  by  the 
( leological  Survey,  many  points  must  remain  doubtful ;   and 
large  areas  of  the  Himalayas  {Nepal  and  Bhutan)  are  still  in- 
accessible to  Europeans.     The  oldest  rock  of  the  Himalayas 
is  a  gneiss,  differing  in  character  from  the  gneiss  of  the  Penin-  Gneiss, 
sula,  and  from  that  of  Assam  and  Burma.     The  Himalayan 
gneiss  is  usually  white  and  grey,   its  felspar  orthoclase  and 
albite ;  it  contains  much  mica  and  mica  schist,  and  is  more 
uniform  in  character  than  the  gneiss  of  the  Peninsula.     The 
latter  is  usually  pink,  its  felspar  being  orthoclase  and  oligo- 
clase ;  it  contains  little  mica  schist,  but  often  has  quartzite  and 
hornblendic  rock.     Hornblende  occurs  in  the  syenitic  gneiss 
of  the  Northern  Himalayan  (or  Ladakh)  range. 

The  Central  Himalayan  region  may  be  described  as  con-  Central 
sisting  of  two  gneissic  axes,  with  a  trough  or  synclinal  valley  g^^'^sic 
between  them,  in  which  fossiliferous  beds  have  been  deposited 
and  are  now  preserved.  The  gneiss  of  the  southern  or  main 
axis  (the  'central  gneiss'  of  Dr.  Stoliczka)  is  the  oldest;  that 
of  the  northern  or  Ladakh  axis  comes  next  in  age.  The  gneiss 
of  the  Ladakh  axis  is  generally  syenitic,  or  is  that  variety 
of  the  Himalayan  gneiss  already  described  as  containing 
hornblende.  It  is  probably  an  extremely  altered  condition  of 
ordinary  marine  sediment.  The  gneiss  of  the  central  axis  is 
the  ordinary  kind ;  it  is  penetrated  by  granite,  which  ranges 
along  some  of  the  highest  peaks.     Between  these  two  gneissic 

^  This  section  is  based  upon  the  official  Mammal  of  the  Geology  of  India, 
by  Messrs.  H.  B.  Medlicott  and  W.  T.  Blanford,  2  vols.,  Government 
Press,  Calcutta,  1879.  ^'^'■-  ^^'^-  Topley,  of  the  English  Geological  Survey, 
conducted  the  preliminary  condensation. 


632  GEOLOGY  OF  INDIA. 

axes  occurs  the  basin-shaped  valley,  or  the  Hundes  and 
Zanskar  synclinal.  In  this  valley,  fossiliferous  rocks  are  pre- 
served, giving  representatives  of  the  Silurian,  Carboniferous, 
Triassic,  Jurassic,  and  Cretaceous  formations.  All  these  seem 
there  to  have  followed  each  other  without  important  breaks  or 
unconformities ;  but  after  the  deposition  of  the  Cretaceous 
rocks  of  the  Himalayan  region,  important  changes  appear  to 
have  taken  place  in  its  physical  geography.  The  Nummulitic 
(Eocene)  strata  were  laid  down  on  the  eroded  edges  of  some 
of  the  older  beds,  and  in  a  long  trough  within  the  Silurian 
gneiss  of  the  Ladakh  axis. 
Lower  On  the  south  of  this  true  Himalayan  region  there  is  a  band 

Hima  Qf  country  known  as  the  Lower  Himalaya,  in  which  the  beds 
are  often  greatly  disturbed,  and  even  completely  inverted,  over 
great  areas ;  the  old  gneiss  apparently  overlying  the  sedimen- 
tary rocks.  This  Lower  Himalayan  region  is  about  50  miles 
wide,  and  consists  of  irregular  ridges,  varying  from  5000  to 
Sooo  feet  in  height,  and  sometimes  reaching  12,000  feet. 
Resting  upon  the  gneiss,  but  often  through  inversion  apparently 
imderlying  it,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Simla,  is  a  series  of 
unfossiliferous  beds  (schists,  quartzites,  sandstones,  shales, 
limestones,  etc.)  known  in  descending  order  as  the  Krol, 
Infra-Krol,  Blaini,  and  Infra-Blaini  beds.  In  the  Krol  beds  is 
Krol  a  massive  limestone  (Krol  limestone)  probably  representing 

the  limestone  of  the  Fir  Panjal  range,  which  is  most  likely  of 
Carboniferous    age.      The  Blaini  and   Infra-Blaini   beds   are 
probably  Silurian. 
Sub-^  The  Lower  Himalayan  range  ends  at  the  Sutlej  valley,  west 

1-.!!"-^'  of  which  the  continuation  of  the  central  range  is  followed 
immediately  by  the  third  or  sub-Himalayan  range.  This 
occurs  almost  always  on  the  south  of  the  Lower  Himalayas, 
and  is  composed  of  later  Tertiary  rocks  (Siwaliks,  etc.),  which 
stretch  parallel  with  the  main  chain.  Generally,  the  sub-Himd- 
layas  consist  of  two  ranges,  separated  by  a  broad,  fiat  valley 
(dim  or  '  doon ') ;  the  southern  slope,  overlooking  the  great 
Indo-Gangetic  plain,  is  usually  the  steepest.  Below  Naini  Tal 
and  Darji'ling  (Darjeeling),  the  sub-Himalayan  range  is  want- 
ing; on  the  Bhutan  frontier  the  whole  range  is  occasionally 
absent,  and  the  great  alluvial  plain  slopes  up  to  the  base  of  the 
Lower  Himalayan  region. 
Siwalik  It  is  within  the  sub-Himilayan  range  that  the  famous  Siwalik 

beds  occur,  long  known  for  their  vast  stores  of  extinct  mammalia. 
Of  about  the  same  age  are  the  Manchhar  beds  of  Sind,  which 
also  contain  a  rich  mammalian  fauna.     The  Lower  Manchhars 


layas. 


beds. 


SALT  RANGE,  GANGETIC  PLAIN.  633 

probably  correspond  to  the  Nahan  beds,  the  lowest  of  the 
Siwaliks  ;  they  rest  upon  the  Gaj  beds,  which  are  probably 
Upper  Miocene.  From  this  it  would  seem  that  the  lowest 
Siwaliks  are  not  older  than  Upper  Miocene.  The  higher 
Siwalik  beds  are  considered  by  Mr.  W.  T.  Blanford  to  be  Plio- 
cene, and  to  this  later  period  he  also  refers  the  mammalian  beds 
of  Pikermi  in  Greece.  These  have  a  large  number  of  fossils  in 
common  with  the  Siwaliks ;  but  they  contain,  at  their  base,  a 
marine  band  with  Pliocene  shells.  The  Manchhar  and  Siwalik 
beds  are  chiefly  of  fresh-water  origin. 

The  Salt  Range  in  the  north-west  of  the  Punjab  has,  in  Salt 
addition  to  its  economic  value,  a  special  geological  importance.  ^'^"S^- 
Representatives  of  most  of  the  great  European  formations  of 
Silurian  and  later  epochs  are  found  in  it ;  and  throughout 
the  vast  length  of  time  represented  by  these  formations  there 
is  here  no  direct  evidence  of  any  important  break  in  suc- 
cession, or  unconformity.  The  lowest  beds  (salt  marl, 
probably  Silurian)  and  the  highest  (Siwaliks)  are  found  through 
the  range.  But  the  others  cannot  be  traced  continuously 
throughout ;  some  occur  well  developed  in  one  place,  some 
in  another.  All  the  principal  fossiliferous  beds  of  the  Jurassic, 
Triassic,  and  Carboniferous  formations  are  confined  to  the 
western  part  of  the  range. 


The  Indo-Gakgetic  Plain  covers  an  area  of  about  300,000  Indo- 
square   miles,   and   varies  in  width  from    90    to   nearly  300  p|^"^^^"^ 
miles.     It  rises  very  gradually  from  the  sea  at  either  end.    The 
lowest  point  of  the  watershed  between  the  Punjab  rivers  and 
the  Ganges  is  about  924  feet  above  sea-level.    This  point,  by  a 
line  measured  down  the  valley,  but  not  following  the  winding 
of  the  river,  is  about  1050  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges 
and  850  miles  from  the  mouth  of  the  Indus,  so  that  the  average 
inclination  of  the  plain,  from  the  central  watershed   to   the  Its  slope 
sea,  averages  only  about  i  foot  per  mile.     It  generally  exceeds  ^°  '  ^^  ^^'^' 
this  near  the  watershed ;  but  there  is  here  no  ridge  of  high 
ground  between  the  Indus  and  the  Ganges,  and  a  very  trifling 
change  of  level  would  often  turn  the  upper  waters  of  one  river 
into  the  other.     It  is  not  unlikely  that  such  changes  have  in 
past   time   occurred.      Towards  the  sea,  the  slope  becomes 
almost  imperceptible. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  the  Indo-Gangetic  plain  existed  as  Its  geo- 
such  in  pre-Tertiary  times.    The  alluvial  deposits  made  known  logical  age. 
by  the  boring   at   Calcutta,  have   already  been  described   in 


634  GEOLOGY  OF  INDIA. 

Its  alluvial  suflficient  detail.i  They  prove  a  gradual  depression  of  the  area 
P  ■  •  through  the  later  Tertiary  times.  There  are  peat  and  forest 
beds,  which  must  have  grown  quietly  at  the  surface,  alternating 
with  deposits  of  gravel,  sand,  and  clay.  The  thickness  of  the 
delta  deposit  is  unknown;  481  feet  was  proved  at  the  bore 
hole,  but  probably  this  represents  only  a  very  small  part  of  the 
deposit.  Outside  the  delta,  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal,  is  a  deep 
depression  known  as  the  '  swatch  of  no  ground ' ;  all  around 
it  the  soundings  give  only  5  to  10  fathoms,  but  they  very 
rapidly  deepen  to  over  300  fathoms.  The  sediment  seems  to 
be  carried  away  from  this  hole  by  the  set  of  the  currents  ;  so 
that  it  has  remained  free  from  silt  whilst  the  neighbouring 
sea-bottom  has  gradually  been  filled  up.  If  so,  the  thickness 
of  the  alluvium  is  at  least  1800  feet,  and  may  be  much  more. 
Its  geo-  The  Indo-Gangetic  plain  dates  back  to  Eocene  times;  the 

history  origin  of  the  Himalayas  may  be  referred  to  the  same  period. 
Numerous  minor  disturbances  occurred  in  the  area  which  is 
now  Northern  India  during  Palaeozoic  and  Secondary  times, 
but  the  great  disturbance  which  has  resulted  in  the  formation 
of  the  existing  chain  of  the  Himalayas  took  place  after  the 
deposition  of  the  Eocene  beds.  Disturbances  even  greater  in 
amount  occurred  after  the  deposition  of  the  Pliocene  beds. 
The  Eocenes  of  the  sub-Himalayan  range  were  deposited 
upon  uncontorted  Palaeozoic  rocks,  but  the  whole  has  since 
been  violently  contorted  and  disturbed.  There  are  some 
indications  that  the  disturbing  forces  were  more  severe  to  the 
eastward  during  middle  Tertiary  times,  and  that  the  main 
action  to  the  westward  was  of  later  date.  It  seems  highly 
probable  that  the  elevation  of  the  mountain  ranges  and  the 
depression  of  the  Indo-Gangetic  plain  were  closely  related. 
This  view  gains  some  support  from  a  glance  at  the  map,  where 
we  see  that  the  curves  of  the  great  mountain  chains  are 
strictly  followed  by  those  of  the  great  alluvial  plain.  Pro- 
bably both  are  due  to  almost  contemporary  movements  of  the 
earth's  crust ;  these  movements,  though  now  of  greatly  dimi- 
nished intensity,  have  not  wholly  ceased.  The  alluvial  deposits 
prove  depressions  to  have  occurred  in  quite  recent  geological 
times  ;  and  within  the  Himalayan  region  earthquakes  are  still 
common,  whilst  in  Peninsular  India  they  are  rare. 


Peninsular      PENINSULAR  India. — The  oldest  rocks  here  consist  of  gneiss, 
"  '^"         in  three  tracts  : — throughout  a  very  large  part  of  Bengal  and 

•'•  Vide  ante,  chap.  i.  p.  26. 


VINDHYAN  AND  GONDWANA  BEDS.       635 

Madras,  extending  to  Ceylon  ;  among  the  Aravalli  ranges ; 
and  in  Bundelkhand.  Of  these  formations,  the  gneiss  cf 
Bundelkhand  is  known  to  be  the  oldest,  because  the  oldest 
Transition  rocks  rest  upon  it ;  whereas  the  same  Transition 
rocks  are  altered  and  intersected  by  granitic  dykes  which 
proceed  from  the  gneiss  of  the  other  tracts.  The  Transition 
rocks  are  of  great  but  unknown  age.  The  Vindhyan  rocks 
which  succeed  them  are  of  very  old  Palaeozoic  age,  perhaps 
pre-Silurian.  Yet  long  before  the  earliest  Vindhyan  rocks 
were  laid  down,  the  Transition  rocks  had  been  altered  and 
contorted.  In  more  recent  times  there  have  been  local  dis- 
turbances, and  large  faults  have  in  places  been  found  ;  but 
the  greater  part  of  the  Peninsular  rocks  are  only  slightly 
.disturbed,  and  the  most  recent  of  the  great  and  widespread 
earth  movements  of  this  region  date  back  to  pre-Vindhyan 
times. 

The  Vindhyan  series  are  generally  sharply  marked  off  from  vindhyan 
older   rocks  ;   although   in   the  Godavari  valley  there   is  no  rocks, 
well-defined  line  between   these   and   the  Transition  rocks. 
The   Vindhyan   beds    are   divided   into   two    groups.      The  Lower 

Lower,  with  an  estimated  thickness  of  only  2000  feet,  or  slightly  ^  m^h- 

.,,,.,,  vans. 

more,  cover  a  large  area, — extendmg,  with  but  little  change 

of  character,  from  the  Son  (Soane)  valley  in  one  direction  to 
Cuddapah,  and  in  a  diverging  line  to  near  Bijapur — in  each 
case  a  distance  of  over  700  miles.  The  Upper  Vindhyans  Upper 
cover  a  much  smaller  area,  but  attain  a  thickness  of  about  ^'"tl'i- 
12,000  feet.  The  Vindhyans  are  well-stratified  beds  of  sand- 
stone and  shale,  wuth  some  limestones.  As  yet  they  have 
yielded  no  trace  of  fossils,  and  their  exact  age  is  consequently 
unknown.  So  far  as  the  evidence  goes,  it  appears  probable  that 
they  are  of  very  ancient  Palaeozoic  age,  perhaps  pre-Silurian. 
The  total  absence  of  fossils  is  a  remarkable  fact,  and  one  for 
which  it  is  difficult  to  account,  as  the  beds  are  for  the  most 
part  quite  unaltered.  Even  if  they  are  entirely  of  fresh-water 
origin,  we  should  expect  that  some  traces  of  life  from  the 
waters  or  neighbouring  land  would  be  found. 

The  Gondwana  series  is  in  many  respects  the  most  interest-  Gondwana 
ing  and  important  of  the  Indian  Peninsula.  The  beds  are  series, 
almost  entirely  of  fresh-water  origin.  Many  sub-divisions 
have  been  made,  but  here  we  need  only  note  the  main 
division  into  two  great  groups: — Lower  Gondwanas,  13,000 
feet  thick;  Upper  Gondwanas,  11,000  feet  thick.  The  series 
is  mainly  confined  to  the  area  of  country  between  the  Narbada 
and  the  Son  (Soane)  on  the  north,  and  the  Kistna  (Krishna)  on 


636 


GEOLOGY  OF  INDIA. 


Gondwana 
fossils. 


Pancliet 
group. 

Talcher 
group. 


Damodar 
series  and 
coal-fields. 


the  south  ;  but  the  western  part  of  this  region  is  in  great  part 
covered  by  newer  beds.  The  lowest  Gondwanas  are  very 
constant  in  character,  wherever  they  are  found  ;  the  upper 
numbers  of  the  lower  division  show  more  variation,  and  this 
divergence  of  character  in  dififerent  Districts  becomes  more 
marked  in  the  Upper  Gondwana  series.  Disturbances  have 
occurred  in  the  lower  series  before  the  formation  of  the 
upper. 

The  Gondwana  beds  contain  fossils  which  are  of  very  great 
interest.  In  large  part  these  consist  of  plants  which  grew  near 
the  margins  of  the  old  rivers,  were  carried  down  by  floods, 
and  deposited  in  the  alluvial  plains,  deltas,  and  estuarine 
areas  of  the  old  Gondwana  period.  So  vast  was  the  time 
occupied  by  the  deposition  of  the  Gondwana  beds,  that  great 
changes  in  physical  geography  and  in  the  vegetation  repeatedly 
occurred.  The  plants  of  the  Lower  Gondwanas  consist  chiefly 
of  acrogens  (Equisetacese  and  ferns)  and  gymnogens  (cycads 
and  conifers),  the  former  being  the  more  abundant.  The 
same  classes  of  plants  occur  in  the  Upper  Gondwanas ;  but 
there  the  proportions  are  reversed,  the  conifers,  and  still  more 
the  cycads,  being  more  numerous  than  the  ferns,  whilst  the 
Equisetacese  are  but  sparingly  found.  But  even  within  the 
limits  of  the  Lower  Gondwana  series  there  are  great  diversities 
of  vegetation,  three  distinct  floras  occurring  in  the  three  great 
divisions  of  that  formation.  In  many  respects  the  flora  of  the 
highest  of  these  three  divisions  (the  Panchet  group)  is  more 
nearly  related  to  that  of  the  Upper  Gondwanas  than  it  is  to 
the  other  Lower  Gondwana  floras. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  in  the  history  of  the 
Gondwana  series  is  the  occurrence  near  the  base  (in  the  Talcher 
group)  of  large  striated  boulders  in  a  fine  mud  or  silt,  the 
boulders  in  one  place  resting  upon  rock  (of  Vindhyan  age) 
w'hich  is  also  striated.  There  seems  good  reason  for  believing 
that  these  beds  are  the  result  of  ice-action.  They  probably 
nearly  coincide  in  age  with  the  Permian  beds  of  Western 
Europe,  in  which  Professor  Ramsay  long  since  discovered 
evidence  of  glaciation.  But  the  remarkable  fact  is  that  this 
old  ice-action  occurred  within  the  tropics,  and  probably  at  no 
very  great  height  above  the  sea. 

The  Damodar  series,  the  middle  division  of  the  Lower  Gond- 
wanas, is  the  chief  source  of  coal  in  Peninsular  India,  yielding 
more  of  that  mineral  than  all  other  formations  taken  together. 
The  Karharbari  group  is  the  only  other  coal-bearing  formation 
of  any  value.     The  Damodars  are  8400  feet  thick  in  the  Rani- 


DAMODAR  COAL  AND  IRON  FIELDS.      637 

ganj  coal-field,  and  about  10,000  feet  thick  in  the  Satpura  basin. 

They  consist  of  three  divisions  ;  coal  occurs  in  the  upper  and 

lower,  ironstone  (without  coal)  in  the  middle  division.     The 

Raniganj  coal-field  is  the  most  important  in   India.     So  far  Ram'ganj 

as  yet  known,  it  covers  an  area  of  about  500  square  miles,  '^°^^""^'d- 

running   about  18  miles  from  north  to  south,  and  about  39 

miles  from  east  to   west ;  but  it  extends  farther  to  the  east 

under    the   laterite   and   alluvium.      It   is    traversed   by   the 

Damodar  river,  and  also  the  road  from  Calcutta  to  Benares 

and  by  the  East  Indian  Railway.      From  its  situation   and 

importance,   this  coal-field  is    better   known  than  any  other 

in  India.     Much  has  been  learnt  concerning  it  since  the  last 

examination  by  the  Geological  Survey,   especially   from   the 

recent  reports  by  Mr.  H.  Bauermann. 

■    The   upper   or  Raniganj    series  has   eleven   seams,  with  a  Ram'ganj 

total  thickness  of  120  feet,  in  the  eastern  district,  and  thirteen  ^°''^'" 

r  1  •  1      •        1  T      •  rr^,  seams. 

seams,   100  feet  thick,  m  the  western  district.     The  average 

thickness  of  the  seams   worked   is  from    12  to   18  feet,  but 

occasionally  a  seam  reaches  a  great  thickness — -20  to  80  feet. 

The  lower  or  Barakhar  series  (2000  feet  thick)  contains  four  Bardkhar 

seams,  of  a  total  thickness  of  69  feet.     Compared  with  Eng-  ^^^™^- 

lish  coals,  those  of  this  coal-field  are  of  a  poor  quality ;  they 

contain  much  ash,  and  are  generally  non-coking.     The  seams 

of  the  lower  series  are  the  best,  and  some  of  these  at  Sank- 

toria,  near  the  Barakhar  river,  are  fairly  good  for  coke  and 

gas. 

The  best  coal  in  India  is  in  the  small  coal  -  field  at  Karhar- 
Karharbari.  The  beds  here  are  lower  in  the  series  than  !?^"  '^°^^' 
those  of  the  Raniganj  field ;  they  belong  to  the  upper  part  of 
the  Talcher  group,  the  lowest  of  the  Gondwana  series.  The 
Karharbari  coal-beds  cover  an  area  of  about  1 1  square  miles ; 
and  have  three  seams,  varying  from  9  to  33  feet  thick.  The 
lowest  seam  is  the  best,  and  it  is  nearly  as  good  as  English 
steam  coal.  This  coal-field,  now  largely  worked,  is  the  property 
of  the  East  Indian  Railway,  which  is  thus  supplied  with  fuel  at 
a  cheaper  rate  than  any  other  railway  in  the  world.  Indian 
coal  usually  contains  phosphoric  acid,  which  greatly  lessens 
its  value  for  iron-smelting.^ 

The  Damodar  series,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  chief  Damodar 
source  of  coal  in  India,   is  also  one  of  the  most  important  '^°""^^°"^* 

^  The  economic  aspects  of  Indian  coal  have  been  dealt  with  in  the 
chapter  on  Mines  and  Minerals.  For  full  accounts  of  the  Indian  coal- 
fields, see  articles  RANIGA^7,  Karharbari,  etc.,  in  The  Imperial  Gazetteer 
of  India. 


638 


GEOLOGY  OF  INDIA, 


sources  of  iron.  The  ore  occurs  in  the  middle  division,  coal 
in  the  highest  and  lowest.  The  ore  is  partly  a  clay  ironstone, 
like  that  occurring  in  the  coal-measures  of  England,  partly 
an  oxide  of  iron  or  haematite.  It  generally  contains  phos- 
phorus, which  prevents  its  use  in  the  preparation  of  the  finer 
qualities  of  steel.  A  similar  difficulty  attends  the  use  of  the 
Cleveland  ore  of  North  Yorkshire.  Experiments  have  been 
in  progress  for  years  in  search  of  a  process  which  shall,  in  an 
economical  manner,  obtain  iron  from  Cleveland  ore  free  from 
phosphorus,  latterly,  it  is  hoped,  with  some  success.  If  this 
be  so,  India  will  be  a  great  gainer.  Excellent  iron-ore  occurs 
in  the  metamorphic  rocks  south  of  the  Damodar  river.  Laterite 
(see  below)  is  sometimes  used  as  ore.  It  is  very  earthy,  with 
a  low  percentage  of  metal;  but  it  contains  only  a  comparatively 
small  proportion  of  phosphorus.^ 

The   want    of    limestone   for   flux,    within    easy   reach,   is 
generally  a  great  drawback  as  regards  iron-sraelting  in  India. 

Kankar.  Kankar  or  gluifin  (concretionary  carbonate  of  lime)  is  col- 
lected for  this  purpose  from  the  river  beds  and  alluvial 
deposits.  It  sometimes  contains  as  much  as  70  per  cent,  of 
carbonate  of  lime ;  but  generally  the  proportion  is  much  less, 
and  the  fluxing  value  proportionally  diminished.  The  real 
difficulty  in  India  is  to  find  the  ore,  the  fuel,  and  the  flux,  in 
sufficiently  close  proximity  to  yield  a  profit. 

Deccan  The  enormous  mass  of  basaltic  rock  known  as  the  Deccan 

trap.  j-j-^p^  jg  qC  gfeat  importance  in  the  geological  structure  of  the 

Indian  Peninsula.  It  now  covers  an  area  of  about  200,000 
square  miles,  and  probably  extended  in  former  times  over  a 
much  wider  area.  Where  thickest,  the  traps  are  at  least 
6000  feet  in  depth.  They  form  the  most  striking  physical 
features  of  the  country,  many  of  the  most  prominent  hill 
ranges  being  the  denuded  edges  of  the  basaltic  flows.  The 
great  volcanic  outbursts  which  produced  this  trap  com- 
menced in  the  Cretaceous  period,  and  lasted  into  the 
Eocene  period. 

Laterite ;  Laterite  is  a  ferruginous  and  argillaceous  rock,  varying  from 
30  to  200  feet  thick,  which  often  occurs  over  the  trap  area, 
but  is  also  found  in  other  tracts.  As  a  rule,  it  makes  rather 
barren  land ;  it  is  highly  porous,  and  the  rain  rapidly  sinks 
into  it.      Laterite  may  be  roughly  divided  into  two  kinds, 

high-level;  high-level  and  low-level  laterite.  The  former,  which  covers  a 
large  area  of  the  high  basaltic  plains,  is  believed  by  Mr.  R.  B. 

^  For  the  economic  aspects  of  Indian  iron,  see  chapter  on  Mines  and 
Minerals. 


DECCAN  TRAP:  BURMA.  639 

Foote  to  be  very  frequently  the  product  of  decomposition  of 
tlie  trap,  and  to  have  been  thus  formed  in  the  place  where  it 
is  now  found.  Sometimes  the  high-level  laterite  overlies 
gneiss  or  other  rocks ;  and  in  these  cases  it  has  probably 
been  transported.  The  low-level  laterite  is  generally  more  low-level, 
sandy  in  character,  and  is  often  associated  with  gravels.  In 
most  cases  this  has  clearly  been  carried  down  to  its  present 
position,  probably  largely  by  sub-aerial  action,  aided  by  rains 
and  streams.  Possibly  in  some  cases  it  has  been  spread  out 
along  the  coasts  by  marine  action.  The  low-level  laterite 
fringes  the  coast  of  the  Peninsula,  from  near  Bombay  on  the 
west  and  Orissa  on  the  east,  to  Cape  Comorin.  It  is  not 
continuous  throughout  these  regions  ;  and  it  is  of  very  varying 
width  and  elevation.  The  age  of  the  high-level  laterite  is 
unknown.  Its  form.ation  probably  extended  throughout  a  long 
period  of  time,  much  of  which  must  be  of  very  ancient 
date ;  for  the  laterite,  together  with  the  underlying  basalt,  has 
suffered  extensive  denudation. 

As  regards  gems,   the   geologist  comes  to  the  same  con-  Precious 
elusion    as    the    economist,    viz.    that    the    precious    stones  ^'o"^^' 
of  ancient    India   were   the   product   of  forced   labour,   and 
that  the  search  for  them  in  our  days  can  scarcely  repay  the 
working  expenses. 


British  Burma. — The  geological  structure  of  Burma  com-  Burma : 

prises   three  sections — western,  middle,  and  eastern,  nearly  ^'^  *^'^^^ 

sections, 
corresponding  to  the  Divisions  of  Arakan,  Pegu,  and  Tenas- 


The  geological  groups  met  with  in  Arakan  and  Pegu  are,  Pegu  and 
in  the  ascending  order,  as  follow.  The  crystalline  rocks  of  Arakan. 
Taung-ngu;  age  undetermined,  comprising  beds  of  different 
ages.  Axial  or  Arakan  group,  occupying  the  northern  part  of 
Arakan  range ;  age  probably  Triassic.  Nummulitic  group, 
including  the  entire  range  of  Arakan ;  age  Eocene  or  early 
Tertiary.  Pegu  group,  occupying  the  whole  of  the  country 
east  of  the  Irawadi  to  the  Sittaung  river;  age  Miocene  or 
middle  Tertiary.  Fossil-wood  group,  most  largely  developed 
in  eastern  Prome,  in  which  fossil-wood,  in  the  form  of  silicified 
trunks  of  trees,  some  of  them  30  to  40  feet  long,  is  plentifully 
present;  age  probably  Pliocene  or  newer  Tertiary.  Lastly,  the 
Alluvium  group,  comprising  older  alluvial  deposits  in  places 
where  the  river  channels   are  excavated,  and  newer  alluvial 


serial. 


640  GEOLOGY  OF  INDIA. 

deposits  thrown  down  on  the  surface  by  the  Irawadi  and  other 
rivers. 

Tenas-  jn  geological  Structure,  Tenasserim  is  entirely  distinct  from 

Pegu  and  Arakan ;  the  groups  in  ascending  order  are  as  follow. 
The  crystalline  rocks ;  age  uncertain.  Mergui  group,  largely 
developed  in  Mergui  District ;  age  perhaps  Silurian.  Maul- 
main  group,  well  seen  near  Maulmain  and  Amherst;  age  lower 
Carboniferous.  Tenasserim  group,  embracing  the  various  coal- 
fields in  the  southern  part  of  the  Tenasserim  Division;  age 
doubtful,  but  probably  Tertiary. 


{ 


[641   ] 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 


METEOROLOGY  OF  INDIA. 


The  great  peninsula  of  India,  with  its  lofty  mountain  ranges  Meteoro 
and  its  extensive  seaboard,  exposed  to  the  first  violence  of  ^^7- 
the  winds  of  two  oceans,  forms  an  exceptionally  valuable  and 
interesting  field  for  the  study  of  meteorological  phenomena. 
■But  the  Department  of  Government  which  deals  with  these 
phenomena  has  had  to  contend  with  many  obstacles ;  and  it 
is  only  within  the  last  few  years  that  trustworthy  statistics  have 
been  obtained  from  a  complete  system  of  registration  stations. 
Every  year,  however,  is  now  adding  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
meteorology  of  the  country,  and  supplying  authentic  materials 
for  purposes  of  comparison  and  induction. 

Meteorological  Geography. — After  the  general  description  Meteoro- 
of  the  country  given  at, the  beginning  of  this  volume,  it  is  only  J:5^gical 
necessary  to  sketch  very  briefly  the  meteorological  geography 
of  India.  The  following  paragraphs  are  condensed  from 
an  interesting  account  in  the  official  Report  on  the  Meteorology 
of  India  (for  1883),  by  Mr.  H.  F.  Blanford.  Mr.  Blanford's 
volume  on  the  Aleteorology  of  India,  being  the  second  part  of 
The  Indian  Meteorologist's  Vade-Mecum  (Government  Press, 
Calcutta,  1877),  should  be  in  the  hands  of  every  student. 

The  great  mountain  ranges  of  the  Himalayas  and  the  Sulai- 
mans,  which  form  the  northern  and  north-western  boundaries  of 
India,  have  been  fully  described.^  From  the  gorge  of  the  Indus 
to  that  of  the  Dihong  (Brahmaputra),  a  distance  of  1400  miles, 
the  Himalayas  form  an  unbroken  watershed,  the  northern  flank  Himd- 
of  which  is  drained  by  the  upper  valleys  of  these  two  rivers  ;  '-ly'is. 
while  the  Sutlej  (Satlaj),  starting  from  the  southern  foot  of  the 
Kailas  peak,  breaks  through  the  watershed,  dividing  it  into 
two  very  unequal  portions,  that  to  the  north-west  being  the 
smaller.  The  average  elevation  of  the  higher  Himdlayas  may 
be  taken  at  not  less  than   1 9,000  feet,  and  therefore  equal  to 

1  Vide  ante,  chap.  i.  pp.  3-10  ;  also  articles  Himalayas  and  Sulaiman 
Mountains,  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India. 

2  S 


642  METEOROLOGY  OF  INDIA. 

the  height  of  the  lower  half  of  the  atmosphere ;  indeed,  few 
of  the  passes  are  under  16,000  or  17,000  feet.     Across  this 
mountain  barrier  there  appears  to  be  a  constant  flow  of  air, 
more  active  in  the  day-time  than  at  night,  northwards  to  the 
I  lima-        arid  plateau  of  Tibet.     There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  any 
ayan  an-    j-,-j^j-(gfgj.  of  air  takes  place  across  the  Himalayas  in  a  southerly 
direction ;   unless,  indeed,  in   those   elevated  regions    of  the 
atmosphere  which  lie  beyond  the  sphere  of  observation.     But 
a  nocturnal  flow  of  cooled  air,  from  the  southern   slopes,  is 
felt  as  a  strong  wind  where  the  rivers  debouch  on  the  plains, 
more  especially  in  the  early  morning  hours.      This  current 
probably  contributes  to  lower  the  mean  temperature  of  the  belt 
of  plain  country  which  fringes  the  mountain  zone. 
Eastern  The  Eastern   Himalayas  present  many  points   of  contrast 

lavar'  ^^^^^^  ^^  western  parts  of  the  range.  The  slopes  of  the  Sikkim 
and  Bhutan  Hills,  where  not  denuded  for  the  purposes  of  cul- 
tivation, are  clothed  with  an  almost  impenetrable  forest,  which 
at  the  lower  levels  abounds  in  figs,  rattans,  and  representatives 
of  a  tropical  humid  climate.  At  higher  levels  they  are  covered 
with  oaks,  chestnuts,  magnolias,  pines,  etc.,  of  the  most 
luxuriant  growth. 
Western  In  the  Western  Himalayas,  on  the  other  hand,  the  spurs  of 

J  ''"^"  the  outer  ranges  are  more  sparsely  clad  with  forest,  especially 
on  their  western  faces ;  and  naked  precipitous  crags  are  of 
constant  occurrence.  The  vegetation  of  the  lower  and  warmer 
valleys,  and  of  the  fringing  belt  (the  Tarai),  is  comparatively 
thin,  and  such  as  characterizes  a  warm  but  dry  region.  Pines 
of  several  species  form  a  conspicuous  feature  of  the  landscape 
at  lower  levels.  It  is  chiefly  the  outer  ranges  that  exhibit 
these  contrasted  features  ;  and  they  depend  partly  on  the 
difference  of  latitude,  but  mainly  on  that  of  rainfall.  In 
Sikkim  and  Bhutan  this  is  abnormally  copious,  and  is  dis- 
charged full  on  the  face  of  the  range.  As  the  chain  recedes 
to  the  north-west,  the  greater  is  the  distance  to  be  traversed 
Vapour-  by  the  vapour-bearing  winds  in  reaching  it,  and  the  more 
vWnds^'  easterly  is  their  direction.  For  such  winds,  whether  coming 
from  the  Bay  of  Bengal  (apparently  their  principal  source)  or 
from  the  Arabian  Sea,  turn  on  reaching  the  Gangetic  valley, 
and  blow  more  or  less  parallel  to  its  axis  and  that  of  the 
mountain  range. 
I'unjab  'I'he   country   on    either   side   of    the    Sulaiman    range   is 

fruniier.  characteristically  arid.  Dry  winds  from  the  desert  tracts  of 
Persia  and  Baluchistdn  predominate  throughout  the  year. 
The    scanty    cultivation    on    the    hills    is   dependent   on    the 


INDUS  AND  GANGETIC  PLAINS.  643 

winter  snows,  or  the  rare  showers  which  reach  them  from  the 
eastward,  or  the  supply  of  the  larger  local  streams.  The 
lower  plains  would  be  uninhabitable  but  for  the  fertilizing 
irrigation  furnished  by  the  great  river  that  traverses  them. 

At  the  foot  of  the  great  Himalayan  barrier,  and  separating  it 
from  the  more  ancient  land  which  now  forms  the  highlands  of 
the  peninsula,  a  broad  plain,  for  the  most  part  alluvial,  stretches  Indus 
from  sea  to  sea.     On  the  west,   in    the  dry  region,   this   is  P  ^"^ 
occupied  partly  by  the  alluvial  deposits  of  the  Indus  and  its 
tributaries ;  partly  by  the  saline  swamps  of  Kachchh  (Cutch),  and 
the  rolling  sands  and  rocky  surface  of  the  desert  of  Jaisalmer  The  great 
(Jeysulmere)  and    Bikaner;   and   partly   by   the   more  fertile  ,'Y'^" 
tracts  to  the  eastward.     Over  the  greater  part  of  this  region 
rain  is  of  rare  occurrence ;  and  not  infrequently  more  than  a 
year  passes  by  without  a  drop  falling  on  the  parched  surface. 
On  its  eastern  margin,  however,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
Aravalli  Hills,  and  again  in  the  Northern  Punjab,  rain  is  more 
frequent,  occurring  both  in  the  south-west  monsoon,  and  also 
at  the  opposite  season  in  the  cold  weather.     As  far  north  as 
Sirsa  and  Multan,  the  average  rainfall  does  not  much  exceed 
7  inches. 

The  alluvial  plain  of  the  Punjab  passes  into  that  of  the  Gangetic 
Gangetic  valley  without  visible  interruption.  Up  or  down  this  ^  "" 
plain,  at  opposite  seasons,  sweep  the  monsoon  winds,  in  a 
direction  at  right  angles  to  that  of  their  nominal  course  ;  and 
in  this  way  the  vapour  brought  by  winds  from  the  Bay 
of  Bengal,  is  discharged  as  snow  and  rain  on  the  peaks  and 
hill-sides  of  the  Western  Himalayas.  Nearly  the  whole  surface 
is  under  cultivation  ;  and  it  ranks  among  the  most  productive 
as  well  as  the  most  densely  populated  regions  of  the  world. 
The  rainfall  diminishes  from  100  inches  at  the  south-east 
corner  of  the  Gangetic  delta  to  less  than  30  inches  at  Agra 
and  Delhi,  and  there  is  an  average  difference  of  from  15  to 
25  inches  between  the  northern  and  southern  borders  of  the 
pla;n. 

Eastward  from  the  Bengal  delta,  two  alluvial  plains  stretch  Eastern 
up  between  the  hills  that  connect  the  Himalayan  system  with  bengal. 
that  of  the  Burmese  peninsula.  The  first  is  that  of  Assam  and 
the  Brahmaputra,  long  and  narrow,  bordered  on  the  north  by 
the  Himalayas,  on  the  south  by  the  lower  plateau  of  the  Garo, 
Khasi,  and  Naga  Hills.  The  second,  or  Sylhet  and  Cachar 
valley,  is  chiefly  occupied  by  swamps  and  jh'ils,  and  separates 
the  Garo,  Khasi,  and  Naga  Hiils  from  those  of  Tipperah  and 
the  Lushai  country.      The  climate  of  both    these    plains    is 


644 


METEOROLOGY  OF  INDIA. 


Central 
table-land. 


Satpura 
range. 


Malwa 
plateau. 

Aravalli 
range. 


Southern 
plateau. 


damp  and  equable,  and  the  rainfall  is  prolonged  and  gene- 
rally heavy,  especially  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the  hills.  A 
meteorological  peculiarity  of  some  interest  has  been  noticed, 
more  especially  at  the  stations  of  Sibsagar  and  Silchar,  viz. 
the  great  range  of  the  diurnal  variation  of  barometric  pressure, 
particularly  during  the  cool  months  of  the  year.  It  is  the 
more  striking,  since  at  Riirki,  Lahore,  and  other  stations  near 
the  foot  of  the  Himalayas,  this  range  is  less  than  on  the  open 
plains. 

The  highlands  of  the  peninsula  are  cut  off  from  the 
Himalayan  ranges  by  the  Indo-Gangetic  plain.  They  are 
divided  into  two  unequal  parts,  by  an  almost  continuous  chain 
of  hills,  loosely  known  as  the  Satpura  range,  running  across  the 
country  from  west-by-south  to  east-by-north,  just  south  of  the 
Tropic  of  Cancer.  This  chain  may  be  regarded  as  a  single 
feature,  forming  the  principal  watershed  of  the  peninsula.  The 
waters  to  the  north  of  it  drain  chiefly  into  the  Narbada  (Ner- 
budda)  and  the  Ganges ;  those  to  the  south,  into  the  Tapti, 
the  Godavari,  the  Mahanadi,  and  smaller  streams.  In  a 
meteorological  point  of  view,  this  central  chain  of  hills  is  of 
much  importance.  Acting  together  with  the  two  parallel 
valleys  of  the  Narbada  and  Tapti,  which  drain  the  flanks  of 
its  western  half,  it  gives  a  more  decided  easterly  and  westerly 
direction  to  the  winds  of  this  part  of  India,  and  con- 
denses a  tolerably  copious  rainfall  during  the  south  -  west 
moonsoon. 

Separated  from  this  chain  by  the  valley  of  the  Narbada  on 
the  west,  and  that  of  the  Son  (Soane)  on  the  east,  the  plateau 
of  jNIaUva  and  Baghelkhand  occupies  the  space  intervening 
between  these  valleys  and  the  Gangetic  plain.  On  the  western 
edge  of  the  plateau  are  the  Aravalli  Hills,  which  run  from 
near  Ahmadabad  up  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Delhi,  and 
include  one  hill,  Mount  Abii,  over  5000  feet  in  height.  This 
range  exerts  an  important  influence  on  the  direction  of  the 
wind,  and  also  on  the  rainfall.  At  Ajmere,  an  old-established 
meteorological  station  at  the  eastern  foot  of  the  range,  the 
wind  is  predominantly  south-west.  Both  here  and  at  Mount 
Abii  the  south-west  monsoon  rains  are  a  regular  phenomenon  ; 
which  can  hardly  be  said  of  the  region  of  scanty  and  uncertain 
rainfall  which  extends  from  the  western  foot  of  the  range  and 
merges  in  the  Bikaner  desert. 

The  peninsula  south  of  the  Satpura  range  consists  chiefly 
of  the  triangular  plateau  of  the  Deccan,  terminating  abruptly 
on    the   west    in    the    Sahyadri  range   (Western    Ghats),   and 


SOUTHERN  INDIA  AND  CEYLON.         645 

shelving  to  the  east  (Eastern  Ghats).  This  plateau  is  swept  by 
the  south-west  monsoon  after  it  has  surmounted  the  western 
barrier  of  the  Ghats.  The  rainfall  is  consequently  light  at 
Poona  and  places  similarly  situated  under  the  lee  of  the  range, 
and  but  moderate  over  the  more  easterly  parts  of  the  plateau. 
The  rains,  however,  are  prolonged  to  the  north  of  the  Satpuras 
three  or  four  weeks  later  than  in  Southern  India,  since  they  are 
brought  there  by  the  easterly  winds  which  blow  from  the  Bay 
of  Bengal  in  October  and  the  early  part  of  November ;  when 
the  re-curved  southerly  wind  ceases  to  blow  up  the  Gangetic 
valley,  and  sets  towards  the  Karnatik.  This  was  formerly 
thought  to  be  the  north-east  monsoon,  and  is  still  so  spoken 
of  by  some  writers ;  but  the  rainy  wind  is  really  a  diversion 
of  the  south-west  monsoon. 

At  the  junction  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Ghats  rises  the  Anamalai 
bold  triangular  plateau  of  the  Nilgiris,  and  to  the  south  of  ^^'"^■ 
them  come  the  Anamalais,  Palnis  (Pulneys),  and  Travancore 
Hills.  These  ranges  are  separated  from  the  Nilgiris  by  a 
broad  depression  or  pass  known  as  the  Palghat  gap,  some 
25  miles  wide;  the  highest  point  of  which  is  about  1500  feet 
above  the  sea.  This  gap  affords  a  passage  to  the  winds,  which 
elsewhere  are  barred  by  the  chain  of  the  Western  Ghats.  The 
country  to  the  east  of  the  gap  receives  the  rainfall  of  the 
south-west  monsoon;  and  during  the  north-east  monsoon, 
ships  passing  Beypur  meet  with  a  stronger  wind  from  the 
land  than  is  felt  elsewhere  on  the  Malabar  coast.  According 
to  Captain  Newbold,  the  Palghat  gap  '  affords  an  outlet  to  those 
furious  storms  from  the  eastward  which  sweep  the  Bay  of 
Bengal,  and,  after  traversing  the  peninsula,  burst  forth  through 
it  to  the  neighbouring  sea.' 

In  the  coast-strip  of  low  country  which  fringes  the  peninsula  Southern 
below  the  Western  Ghats,  the  rainfall  is  heavy,  the  climate  warm  coast- 
and  damp,  the  vegetation  dense  and  tropical.     The  steep  slopes  '^      *" 
of  the  Ghats,  where  they  have  not  been  artificially  cleared,  are 
also  thickly  clothed  with  forest. 

Ceylon   should,  for   meteorological   purposes,  be  included  Meteoro- 

in  this   survey.      The  country  both   south   and  west  of  the '°sy  °f 

liills   which   occupy  the  south   centre  of  the   island  is  very 

rugged  down  to  the  coast.     The  rainfall  is  here  frequent  and  Rainy 

heavy  :    and  the   temperature  being   high   and   equable,  the  somh-west 

.        .      ,  t  ,  •      ,  1  •       , '  .     .     region, 

vegetation  is  dense  and  very  luxuriant,  such  as  is  characteristic 

of  islands  in  tropical  seas,  and  also  of  the  coast  of  Travancore. 

The  plains  on  the  east  coast  are  drier,  and  both  in  climate  Drier  east 

and  vegetation  bear  much  resemblance  to  those  of  the  Karnatik.  <^°^*'- 


6^6 


METEOROLOGY  OF  INDIA. 


The  con- 
trast. 


British 
Burma. 


Upper 
Burma. 


Oliserva- 
tories. 


When  the  south-west  monsoon  is  blowing  in  May  and  June, 
and  discharging  torrents  of  rain  on  the  forest-clad  spurs  and 
slopes  that  face  to  windward,  the  contrast  presented  by  the 
eastward  face  of  the  same  hills  is  very  striking,  and  the  two 
phases  of  climate  are  sharply  demarcated.  Newara  Eliya 
(7000  feet),  day  after  day,  and  even  week  after  week,  lies 
under  a  dense  canopy  of  cloud,  which  shrouds  all  the  higher 
peaks,  and  pours  down  in  almost  incessant  rain.  But  let  the 
traveller  leave  the  station  by  the  Badulla  road,  and  cross  over 
the  main  range  at  a  distance  of  two  or  three  miles  from 
Newara  Eliya.  As  he  begins  the  descent  towards  Wilson's 
bungalow,  he  emerges  on  a  panorama  of  the  grassy  downs  of 
the  lower  hills,  bathed  in  dazzling  sunshine  ;  while  on  the  ridge 
above  he  sees  the  cloud-masses  ever  rolling  across  from  the 
west,  and  dissolving  away  in  the  drier  air  to  leeward.  Hence 
the  east  and  west  coasts  of  Ceylon  are  as  strongly  contrasted 
in  climate  as  those  of  the  southern  extremity  of  the  Indian 
peninsula. 

In  British  Burma,  the  western  face  of  the  Arakan  Yoma 
hills,  like  that  of  the  Indian  Western  Ghats,  is  exposed  to  the 
full  force  of  the  south-west  monsoon,  and  receives  a  very  heavy 
rainfcTll.  At  Sandoway,  this  amounts  to  an  annual  mean  of 
212  inches.  It  diminishes  to  the  northwards;  but  even  at 
Chittagong,  it  amounts  to  104^  inches  annually. 

The  country  around  Ava,  as  well  as  the  hill  country  of  North 
Burma,  is  the  seat  of  occasional  severe  earthquakes,  one  of 
which  destroyed  Ava  city  in  1S39.  The  general  meridianal 
direction  of  the  ranges  and  valleys  determines  the  direction  of 
the  prevailing  surface  winds ;  subject,  however,  to  many  local 
modifications.  But  it  would  appear,  from  Dr.  Anderson's 
observations  of  the  movement  of  the  upper  clouds,  that 
throughout  the  year  there  is,  with  but  slight  interruption,  a 
steady  upper  current  from  the  south-west,  such  as  has  been 
already  noticed  over  the  Himalayas.  The  rainfall  in  the  lower 
part  of  the  Irawadi  valley,  viz.  the  delta  and  the  neighbouring 
part  of  the  Province  of  Pegu,  is  very  heavy,  about  190  inches; 
the  climate  is  warm  and  equable  at  all  seasons.  But  higher 
up  the  valley,  and  especially  north  of  the  Pegu  frontier,  the 
country  is  drier,  and  is  characterized  by  a  less  luxuriant 
vegetation,  and  by  a  retarded  and  more  scanty  rainfall  of 
about  56  inches. 

Observatories. — Up  to  the  year  1883,  meteorological  obser- 
vatories had  been  established  at  125  stations  in  India  (includ- 
ing   British    Burma,    the   Andamans,    and    Nepal).       These 


OBSERVATORIES:  MEAN  TEMPERATURES.   647 

observatories  are  situated  at  all  elevations,  from  the  highest, 
Leh  (11,502  feet  above  mean  sea-level)  and  Chakrata  (7051 
feet),  to  Sagar  Island,  25  feet,  and  Negapatam,  only  15  feet 
above  mean  sea-level. 

Observations. — The  observations  taken  at  Indian  meteoro-  Gbsarva- 
logical  stations  record  —  (i)  temperature  of  solar  and  of^'°"^" 
nocturnal  radiation,  (2)  air  temperature,  (3) atmospheric  pressure, 
(4)  direction  and  velocity  of  the  wind,  (5)  humidity,  (6)  cloud 
proportion,  and  (7)  rainfall.  For  full  information  on  each  of 
these  subjects,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  valuable  and  deeply 
interesting  reports  of  Mr.  F.  Blanford  and  Mr.  Eliot,  printed 
at  the  Government  Press,  Calcutta,  and  available  to  all 
inquirers  at  the  India  Office,  London. 

Solar  Radl\tion. — Although,  theoretically,  differences  in  Solar 
the  height  above  ground  of  the  registering  thermometer  produce  ''^'l'^"'-'"- 
little  difference  in  the  amount  of  radiation  from  the  ground, 
yet  the  nature  of  the  surface  forms  an  important  feature, 
the  action  of  which  differs  very  considerably  in  different  parts 
of  India,  and  interferes  with  an  exact  comparison  of  results 
obtained  from  different  stations.  Thus,  the  radiation  from 
the  parched,  heated,  and  bare  surface  of  the  soil  in  the 
North-AVestern  Provinces  in  May,  must  be  considerably  greater 
than  from  the  moist  grass-covered  surface  of  the  soil  at  the 
coast  stations  of  Bengal  and  A\'estern  India  in  the  same 
month. 

The  following  figures  are  obtained  from  Bengal  stations  Return;;. 
where  the  instruments  are  believed  to  be  accurate  and  com- 
parable. The  yearly  average  maximum  equilibrium  tempera- 
tures of  compared  sun  thermometers  in  vacuo.,  varied  in  these 
stations  from  121  "5°  F.  at  Darjiling  (much  the  lowest  average) 
and  13 1 '3°  at  Goalpara  (the  next  lowest),  to  145  "6°  at 
Bardwan  and  147*4°  at  Cuttack,  The  excess  of  the  above 
over  the  corresponding  maximum  shade  temperatures  was  : — 
at  Darjiling,  59*1°;  at  Goalpara',  4S'4° ;  at  Bardwan,  57°;  and 
at  Cuttack,  55-8°. 

Temperature  of  the  Air. — From  the  average  annual  mean  Tempern- 
temperatures  of  117  stations  (derived  from  the  means  of  three  ^V'^  °^  ''^'^ 
or  more  years),  the  following  figures  are  taken.     In  the  two 
following  stations  in  this  list,  the   average  mean  yearly  tem-  Mean 
perature  was  over  82°  F.  : — Trichinopoli,  82*1°;  Vizagapatam,  y'^''^''y 
82'8°.  Both  of  these  stations  are  in  the  Madras  Presidency.  The  tmes. 
next  highest  means  are  returned  by  Madras,  82°;  Madura  (also  in 
Madras),  8 1 '9°;  Negapatam,  81 '6° ;  Masulipatam,  8i'3° ;  Kar- 
niil,  8i"2°;  Sironcha,  Si°j  Cuttack,  807°;  Bellary  and  Salem, 


648 


ME TE OROLOG  Y  OF  INDIA. 


Hill 
stations. 


Monthly 
tempera- 
tures. 


Atmo- 
spheric 
pressure. 


AVind. 


Humidity 


Cloud  pro 
portion. 


80-4° ;  Port  Blair,  80-3° ;  Bikaner,  80^ ;  False  Point,  79"3° ;  Goa, 
79'9  i  Cochin,  79*6°;  Sagar  Island,  78"6° ;  Deesa,  79*9°;  and 
Calcutta,  77*8°.  The  mean  annual  temperature  of  Bombay  is 
79-7°,  The  lowest  means  are  obtained  at  the  hill  stations  of 
Darjiling,  51  "8";  Simla,  55°;  Murree,  56"i°;  and  Chakrata, 
56'3°.  Between  these  and  the  next  coolest  stations  is  a  gap, 
Masuri  (Mussoorie)  following  with  59*2°,  Ram'khet  with  6o'2°, 
Pachmarhi  with  687",  and  Rawal  Pindi  with  a  yearly  mean  of 
69"3°.  The  highest  mean  monthly  temperatures  given  are  : — 
947°  at  Jhansi,  in  May;  94*4°  at  Miiltan,  in  June ;  937°  at 
Lahore,  Delhi,  and  Agra,  in  June.  The  lowest  monthly  means 
are  returned  by  the  four  coldest  hill  stations  mentioned  above, 
the  figures  being  : — Murree — January  39°,  February  39 "4°  ; 
Simla  —  January  40*4°,  February  41  "4°;  Chakrata  —  January 
42-3°,  February  43*4°;  Darjiling  —  January  39*4°,  February 
41*2°.  The  mean  temperature  at  Leh  in  January  is  I7■I^ 
and  in  December  23"i°  F. 

Atmospheric  Pressure. — The  Meteorological  Report  for 
1883  contains  a  table  showing  the  annual  mean  pressure  at 
I  r  I  stations,  corrected  (except  in  the  case  of  Madras)  to  the 
Calcutta  standard,  which  reads  o'oii  inch  higher  than  that 
of  Kew.  From  that  table  the  following  figures  are  obtained. 
The  mean  yearly  pressure  in  inches  at  the  highest  stations  is  : 
— 22'944  at  Darjiling,  23*224  at  Chakrata,  23*275  at  Simla, 
24*059  at  Ranikhet,  26*392  at  Pachmarhi,  and  26*924  at 
Bangalore.  The  greatest  annual  mean  pressures  returned  are  : 
— 29  889  at  Cochin,  29*845  at  Negapatam,  29*840  at  Madras, 
and  29*821  at  Bombay.  These  pressures  are  not  reduced  to 
the  level  of  the  sea. 

Wind. — The  general  directions  of  the  wind  in  different  parts 
of  the  peninsula  have  already  been  noticed  in  the  introductory 
portion  of  this  chapter  describing  the  meteorological  geography 
of  the  country. 

Humidity. — The  humidity  figures  given  in  the  Report  for 
1877  are,  according  to  Mr.  Eliot,  the  Officiating  Meteorological 
Reporter  to  the  Government  of  India,  not  generally  inter- 
comparable,  as  the  mean  relative  humidity  is  deduced  from  a 
varying  number  of  daily  observations. 

Cloud  Proportion. — The  Report  for  1 883  gives  the  averages 
of  estimated  cloud  proportion  for  113  stations  in  India,  an 
^overcast  sky  being  represented  by  10  and  a  clear  sky  by  o. 
Some  of  the  extreme  figures  follow.  The  average  annual 
proportion  of  clouded  sky  is  represented  at  Sibsagar  by  7*19; 
at  Merkara  by  6*68;  at  Darjiling  by  6*44;  at  Trichinopoli  by 


STATISTICS  OF  RAINFALL.  649 

6-04;  at  Coimbatore  by  S'lp;  at  Salem  by  4"66.  The  lowest 
I'roportions  recorded  are:  —  for  Jhansi,  1*20;  Hyderabad 
(Sind),  i'69;  Multan,  i '66 ;  Dera  Ismail  Khan,  2-04;  Sagar 
(Saugor),  in  the  Central  Provinces,  2 '43. 

Rainfall. — The  average  annual  rainfall  at  435  stations  is  Rainfall, 
recorded  in  the  Meteorological  Report  for  1883,  from  which 
the  following  figures  were  derived. 

In  the  Punjab,  the  highest  average  fall  (i24"9i  inches)  is  at  The 
Dharmsala,  which  is  situated  on  the  face  of  the  hills,  and  l*""jab. 
exposed  to  the  full  force  of  the  monsoon ;  the  next  highest 
recorded  is  little  more  than  half  that  amount,  or  71  "24  inches, 
at  Simla.  The  lowest  average  falls  in  the  Punjab  are: — 5 '88 
inches  at  Muzaftargarh,  7-07  at  Multan,  7*03  at  Dera  Ghazi 
Khan,  and  8 "46  at  Dera  Ismail  Khan.  All  these  stations  are 
protected  by  the  Sulaiman  range  from  the  monsoon. 

In  Rajputana  and  Central    India   the   minimum  is   12  "07  Rdjputana 
inches  at  Pachbadra,  and  the  maximum,  63-2 1,  at  Mount  Abii,  ^""^  ^^'^' 

,,.,  .       .       ,.  ._,.  tral  India. 

the  highest  pomt  m  this  part  of  India. 

In  the  North-Western  Provinces  the  heaviest  rainfalls  are  North- 
at  Masuri  (9472  inches),  Naini  Tal  (91-17),  and  Dehra  (74-91),  }Vestem 
all  of  which  lie  high;  the  minimum  average  fall  is  25-28  at 
Muttra,  the  next  lowest  figures  being  26-06  at  Aligarh,  25-66  at 
Agra,  and  25-70  at  Bulandshahr — all  stations  on  the  plains. 

In  Oudh,  the  maximum  rainfall  is  at  Bahraich,  43-48  inches;  Omlli. 
and  the  minimum  at  Rai  Bareli,  32-18  inches. 

The  following  stations  of  Bengal  have  an  average  rainfall  of  Beni^al.  ^ 
more  than  100  inches: — Baxa,  220-91;  Jalpaiguri,  129-21; 
Mongpii,  128-43  j  Darjiling,  120-85  \  "^^^  Kuch  Behar, 
130-89 — all  at  the  base  of  the  hills;  Noakhali,  111-75  ;  Dema- 
giri,  112-97;  Cox's  Bazaar,  141-60;  and  Chittagong,  104-58, 
all  near  the  north-east  corner  of  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  The 
lowest  averages  are  returned  by  Keunjhar,  32-61  inches; 
Buxar,  39-04;  Chhapra,  39-15;  and  Gaya,  40-29.  The 
average  rainfall  throughout  Bengal  is  67  inches. 

Assam  possesses  in  Cherra  Poonjee  (Chard  Punji)  the  Assam, 
station  with  the  largest  rainfall  in  the  world.  Former  returns 
gave  the  fall  at  368  inches;  later  and  fuller  returns  at  481-80 
inches.  A  total  fall  of  805  inches  was  reported  in  1 861,  of  which 
366  were  assigned  to  the  single  month  of  July.  In  1850,  Dr. 
Hooker  registered  30  inches  in  twenty-four  hours,  and  returned 
the  fall  from  June  to  November  of  that  year  at  530  inches. 
In  the  four  days  9th  to  12th  September  1877,  S^"^9  inches 
were  registered.      The  cause  of  this  extraordinary  rainfall  is 


650  ME TEOROLOGY  OF  INDIA. 

noticed  in  the  chapter  on  Physical  Geography.  The  following 
stations  in  Assam  have  also  a  very  high  average  rainfall : — 
Silchar,  ii8'85  ;  Sylhet,  i56"i2  ;  Dibrugarh,  H3'53  ;  and 
Tura,  i23"8o.  The  lowest  recorded  averages  in  Assam  are  at 
Samaguting  (5 2  "5 8  inches)  and  Gauhati  (69 "2 6  inches),  both 
on  the  northern  side  of  the  hills  separating  Cachar  from 
Assam. 

Central  In  the  Central  Provinces,  the  highest  average  falls  are  at 

Provinces,  p^chmarhi,  77*85  inches,  and  Balaghat,  65*92  ;  lowest 
averages,  Khandwa,  33*29  inches,  and  Arvi,  35*09  inches. 

Bombay.  In  Bombay,  two  stations  on  the  Ghats  are  recorded  as 
having  an  average  rainfall  of  over  250  inches,  viz.  : — Malcolm- 
pet  (Mahableshwar),  25S"49  ;  and  Baura  (Fort),  255*28.  Next 
in  order  come  Matheran,  with  245*24  inches;  Lonauli,  with 
1 65*13;  Honawar,  1380S  ;  and  Igatpuri,  Karwar,  A^ingiirla, 
and  Ratnagiri,  with  124*19,  116*03,  iio'89,  and  104*55  inches 
respectively.  The  lowest  average  rainfalls  recorded  in  Bombay 
are: — 18*82  inches  at  Mandargi ;  20*97  at  Dhulia  ;  and  21*41 
at  Gokak.     The  average  rainfall  in  Bombay  is  67  inches. 

Sind.  In  Sind,  the  average  rainfall  is  very  low,  varying  from  16*17 

inches  at  Nagar,  and  11*09  ^^  Umarkot,  to  4*65  at  Shikarpur, 
and  4*33  at  Jacobabad. 

Madras.  In  Madras,  the  highest  local  averages  recorded  are: — 132*87 

inches  at  Mangalore  ;  129*68  at  Cannanore  ;  128*21  at  Mer- 
kara;  125*66  at  Tellicherri ;  115*04  at  Calicut;  and  1 15*02  at 
Cochin — all  on  the  west  coast.  The  lightest  falls  recorded  are : 
■ — at  Bellary,  17*64;  Tuticorin  (sheltered  by  the  Ghats),  19*44; 
Guti  (Gooty),  21*79;  ^"^  Coimbatore,  2 1  *34.  All  these  stations 
lie  low.  The  average  fall  at  the  stations  on  the  east  coast  is 
about  41  inches.  A  fair  average  rainfall  for  Madras  Presidency 
is  44  inches. 

British  The  rainfall  along  the  coast  of  British  Burma  is  heavy,  as 

Burma.  might  be  expected,  the  following  averages  being  recorded : — 
Sandoway,  212*03  inches;  Tavoy,  197*02;  Akyab,  197*61; 
Maulmain,  189*37;  Kyauk-pyu,  174*79.  The  smallest  rainfall 
is  at  Thayet-myo  (47*37)  ^"d  Prome  (53*00),  sheltered  by  the 
Yoma  range. 

Port  Blair.  The  rainfall  at  Port  Blair  and  Nancowry  is  also  heavy,  the 
averages  being  returned  as  118*38  and  108*91  inches  respec- 
tively. 

Sun-spot         Sun-Spot  Cycles. — These  alleged  cycles  have  formed  the 

cycles.        subject   of    several    separate    papers,    and    the    results   were 

popularly   summed   up   in   a   joint   article    by   Mr.    Norman 


SUN-SFOT  CYCLES.  651 

Lcckyer  and  the  present  author  in  the  Nineieciith  Century 
for  November  1877.  It  will  therefore  suffice  here  to  state 
the  views  of  the  Indian  Meteorological  Department  on  the 
intricate  questions  involved.  The  following  are  the  inferences 
which  the  meteorology  of  India  appears  to  suggest,  if  not 
to  establish.  There  is  a  tendency  at  the  minimum  sun-spot 
periods  to  prolonged  excessive  pressure  over  India,  and  at 
the  maximum  sun-spot  periods  to  an  unusual  development  of 
the  winter  rains,  and  to  the  occurrence  of  abnormally  heavy 
snowfall  over  the  Himalayan  region  (to  a  greater  extent  pro- 
bably in  the  Western  than  the  Eastern  Himalayas).  This 
appears  also  to  be  usually  followed  by  a  weak  south-west 
monsoon.  The  characteristics  of  a  weak  monsoon  are,  great 
irregularity  in  the  distribution  of  the  rainfall  over  the  whole  of 
India,  and  the  occurrence  of  heavy  local  rainfalls,  which  tend, 
by  a  law  of  rainfall  and  of  air-motion,  to  recur  over  the  same 
limited  areas.  The  irregularity  of  rainfall  distribution  is  often 
shown  by  the  persistence  of  dry  land  winds  and  the  prolonged 
absence  of  rain  over  considerable  areas.  These  areas  of 
drought  and  famine  are  partly  marked  off  by  nature,  depending 
to  a  certain  extent  on  the  geographical  features  and  position 
of  the  district.  Thus,  the  rains  are  more  likely  to  fall  below 
the  amount  necessary  for  cultivation  in  the  dry  region  of  the 
Deccan  or  in  Upper  India,  than  over  the  Malabar  coast  area 
or  the  Province  of  Bengal. 


[  653  ] 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 

Mammals.  WiLD  Animals. — First  among  the  wild  animals  of  India  must 

•  be  mentioned  the  lion  (Felis  leo),  which  is  recorded  to  have 

been  not  uncommon  within    historical   times   in    Hindustan 

Lion.  Proper  and  the  Punjab.    The  lion  is  now  confined  to  the  Gir^  or 

rocky  hill-desert  and  forest  of  Kathiawar.  A  peculiar  variety 
is  there  found,  marked  by  the  almost  total  absence  of  a  mane ; 
but  whether  this  variety  deserves  to  be  classed  as  a  distinct 
species,  naturalists  have  not  yet  determined.  The  lion  has 
now  almost  entirely  disappeared ;  and  the  official  Gazetteer  of 
Kathiawar  states  that  there  are  now  (18S4)  probably  not  more 
than  ten  or  a  dozen  lions  and  lionesses  left  in  the  whole  Gir 
forest  tract.  They  are  strictly  preserved.  The  former  extent 
of  the  lion's  range,  or  the  degree  to  which  its  presence  im- 
pressed the  imagination,  may  be  inferred  from  the  common 
personal  names,  Sinh  or  Singh,  Sher,  and  Haidar,  which  all 
signify  '  lion.'     Sher,  however,  is  also  applied  to  the  tiger. 

Tiger.  The  characteristic  beast  of  prey  in  India  is  the  tiger  (Felis 

tigris),  which  is  found  in  every  part  of  the  country  from  the 
slopes  of  the  Himalayas  to  the  Sundarban  swamps.  Sir  Joseph 
Fayrer,  the  highest  living  authority  on  this  subject,  believes 
that  12  feet  is  the  maximum  length  of  the  tiger,  when  measured 
from  nose  to  tip  of  tail  immediately  after  death.  The  advance 
of  cultivation,  even  more  than  the  incessant  attacks  of  sports- 
men, has  gradually  caused  the  tiger  to  become  a  rare  animal 
in  large  tracts  of  country ;  but  it  is  scarcely  probable  that  he 
ever  will  be  exterminated  from  India.  The  malarious  tardi 
fringing  the  Himalayas,  the  uninhabitable  swamps  of  the 
Gangetic  delta,  and  the  wide  jungles  of  the  central  plateau, 
are  at  present  the  chief  home  of  the  tiger.  His  favourite 
food  appears  to  be  deer,  antelope,  and  wild  hog.  ^Vhen 
these  abound,  he  does  not  attack  domestic  cattle.  Indeed, 
the  natives  of  certain  Districts  consider  the  tiger  as  in 
some  sort  their  protector,  for  he  saves  their  crops  from 
destruction  by  the  wild  animals  on  which  he  feeds.     But  when 


TIGER:  LEOPARD:  CHEETAH.  653 

once  he  develops  a  taste  for  human  blood,  then  tlie  slaughter 
which  he  works  becomes  truly  formidable. 

The  confirmed  man-eater,  generally  an  old  beast,  disabled  -Man- 
from  overtaking  his  usual  prey,  seems  to  accumulate  his  tale  of  f,?-""^ 
victims  in  sheer  cruelty  rather  than  for  food.  A  single  tiger  is 
known  to  have  killed  108  people  in  three  years.  Another  killed 
an  average  of  about  80  persons  per  annum.  A  third  caused 
13  villages  to  be  abandoned,  and  250  square  miles  of  land  to 
be  thrown  out  of  cultivation.  A  fourth,  so  lately  as  1869, 
killed  127  people,  and  stopped  a  public  road  for  many 
weeks,  until  the  opportune  arrival  of  an  English  sportsman, 
who  killed  him.  Such  cases  are,  of  course,  exceptional,  and 
generally  refer  to  a  past  period,  but  they  explain  the  super- 
stitious awe  with  which  the  tiger  is  regarded  by  the  natives. 

The  favourite  mode  of  shooting  the  tiger  is  from  the  back 
of  elephants,  or  from  elevated  platforms  {machdns)  of  boughs 
in  the  jungle.  In  Central  India  and  Bombay,  tigers  are  shot 
on  foot.  In  Assam,  they  are  sometimes  speared  from  boats,  and 
in  the  Himalayas  they  are  said  to  be  ensnared  by  bird-lime. 
Rewards  are  given  by  Government  to  native  shikaris  for  the 
heads  of  tigers  varying  in  time  and  place  according  to  the 
need.  In  1877,  819  persons  and  16,137  cattle  were  reported 
to  have  been  killed  by  tigers.  On  the  other  side  of  the  account, 
1579  tigers  were  destroyed  by  native  hunters,  and  ^3777  paid 
in  rewards  ;  besides  the  slaughter  by  English  sportsmen.  In 
1882,  no  fewer  than  895  persons  and  16,517  cattle  were 
returned  as  killed  by  tigers.  The  sum  of  ^4800  was  paid 
during  the  year  to  native  shikaris  for  the  destruction  of  1726 
tigers. 

The  leopard  or  panther  (Felis  pardus)  is  far  more  common  Leopard, 
than  the  tiger  in  all  parts  of  India,  and  at  least  equally  de- 
structive to  life.  The  greatest  length  of  the  Indian  leopard 
is  about  7  feet  6  inches.  A  black  variety,  as  beautiful  as  it 
is  rare,  is  sometimes  found  in  the  extreme  south  of  the  Indian 
peninsula,  and  also  in  Java.  The  cheetah  or  hunting  leopard  Cheetali. 
(Felis  jubata)  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  leopard 
proper.  This  animal  appears  to  be  a  native  only  of  the 
Deccan,  where  it  is  trained  for  hunting  the  antelope.  In  some 
respects  it  approaches  the  dog  more  nearly  than  the  cat  tribe. 
Its  limbs  are  long,  its  hair  rough,  and  its  claws  blunt  and  only 
partially  retractile.  The  speed  with  which  it  bounds  upon  its 
prey,  when  loosed  from  the  cart,  exceeds  the  swiftness  of  any 
other  wild  mammal.  If  it  misses  its  first  attack,  it  scarcely 
ever  attempts  to  follow,  but  returns  to  its   master.     Among 


654        ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 

Other         other  species   of  the  family  Felidie  found  in   India  may  be 

species.  mentioned  the  ounce  or  snow  leopard  (F.  unica),  the  clouded 
tiger  (F.  macroscelis),  the  marbled  tiger  cat  (F.  marmorata), 
the  jungle  cat  (F.  chaus),  and  the  common  viverrine  cat  (F. 
viverrina). 

Wolf.  Wolves  (Canis  lupus)  abound  throughout  the  open  country, 

but  are  rare  in  the  wooded  districts.  Their  favourite  prey  is 
sheej:),  but  they  are  also  said  to  run  down  antelopes  and  hares, 
or  rather  catch  them  by  lying  in  ambush.  Instances  of  their 
attacking  man  are  not  uncommon  \  and  in  1882,  278  persons, 
])rincipally  children,  besides  8661  cattle,  were  reported  to  have 
been  killed  by  wolves.  In  1827,  upwards  of  30  children 
were  carried  off  by  wolves  in  a  single  pargand  or  fiscal  division  ; 
and  the  story  of  Romulus  and  Remus  has  had  its  counterpart 
in  India  within  recent  times.  The  Indian  wolf  has  a  dingy 
reddish-white  fur,  some  of  the  hairs  being  tipped  with  black. 
By  some  naturalists  it  is  regarded  as  a  distinct  species,  under 
the  name  of  Canis  pallipes.  Three  distinct  varieties,  the 
white,  the  red,  and  the  black  wolf,  are  found  in  the  Tibetan 
Himalayas. 

Fox.  The  Indian  fox  (Vulpes  bengalensis)  is  comparatively  rare  ; 

but  the  jackal    (Canis  aureus)  abounds   everywhere,   making 

Jackal.  night  hideous  by  its  never-to-be-forgotten  yells.  The  jackal, 
and  not  the  fox,  is  usually  the  animal  hunted  by  the  packs  of 
hounds  kept  by  Europeans. 

Dog.  The   wild   dog   or   dhole   is    found   in    very   many   of   the 

wilder  jungles  of  India,  including  Assam  and  British  Burma. 
.  Its  characteristic  is  that  it  hunts  in  packs,  sometimes  containing 
30  dogs,  and  does  not  give  tongue.  When  once  a  pack  of 
wild  dogs  has  put  up  any  animal,  whether  deer  or  tiger,  that 
animal's  doom  is  sealed.  They  do  not  leave  it  for  days,  and 
finally  bring  it  to  bay,  or  run  it  down  exhausted.  These  wild 
dogs  have  sometimes  been  half  domesticated,  and  trained  to 
hunt  for  the  use  of  man.  A  peculiar  variety  of  wild  dog  exists 
in  the  Karen  Hills  of  Burma,  thus  described  from  a  specimen 
in  confinement.  It  was  black  and  white,  as  hairy  as  a  Skye- 
terrier,  and  as  large  as  a  medium-sized  spaniel.  It  had  an 
invariable  habit  of  digging  a  hole  in  the  ground,  into  which  it 
crawled  backwards,  remaining  there  all  day  with  only  its  nose 
and  ferrety  eyes  visible.  Among  other  dogs  of  India  are  the 
pariah,  which  is  merely  a  mongrel,  run  wild  and  half  starved  ; 
the  poligar  dog,  an  immense  creature  peculiar  to  the  south  ; 
the  greyhound,  used  for  coursing  ;  and  the  mastiff  of  Tibet 
and  Bhutan. 


BEAR:   WILD  ELEPHANT.  655 

The  striped  hyaena  (Hycena  striata)  is  common,  being  found  Ilya^m. 
wherever  the  wolf  is  absent.     Like  the  wolf,  it  is  very  destruc- 
tive both  to  the  flocks  and  to  children. 

Of  bears,  the  common  black  or  sloth  bear  (Ursus  labiatus)  Bear, 
is  common  throughout  India  wherever  rocky  hills  and  forests 
occur.  It  is  distinguished  by  a  white  horse-shoe  mark  on  its 
breast.  Its  food  consists  of  ants,  honey,  and  fruit.  When  dis- 
turbed it  will  attack  man,  and  it  is  a  dangerous  antagonist,  for 
it  always  strikes  at  the  face.  The  Himalayan  or  Tibetan  sun- 
bear  (Ursus  tibetanus)  is  found  along  the  north,  from  the 
Punjab  to  Assam.  During  the  summer  it  remains  high  up 
in  the  mountains,  near  the  limit  of  snow,  but  in  the  winter 
it  descends  to  5000  feet,  and  even  lower.  Its  congener,  the 
Malayan  sun-bear  (Helarctos  malayanus),  is  found  in  British 
Burma,  where  also  there  is  a  smaller  species  (Helarctos  eury- 
spilus),  and  a  very  large  animal  reported  to  be  as  big  as  the 
American  griz/ly.  There  were  114  j)ersons  returned  as  killed 
by  bears  in  1882. 

The  elephant  (Elephas  indicus)  is  found  in  many  parts  of  The  Ele- 
India,  though  not  in  the  north-west.  Contrary  to  what  might  l-'^^"^- 
be  anticipated  from  its  size  and  from  the  habits  of  its  African 
cousin,  the  Indian  elephant  is  now,  at  any  rate,  an  inhabitant, 
not  of  the  plains,  but  of  the  hills ;  and  even  on  the  hills  it  is 
usually  found  among  the  higher  ridges  and  plateaux,  and  not 
in  the  valleys.  From  the  peninsula  of  India  the  elephant  has 
been  gradually  exterminated,  being  only  found  now  in  the 
primaeval  forests  of  Coorg,  Mysore,  and  Travancore,  and  in 
the  Tributary  States  of  Orissa.  It  still  exists  in  considerable 
numbers  along  the  tardi  or  submontane  fringe  of  the  Hima- 
layas. The  main  source  of  supply  at  the  present  time  is  the 
confused  mass  of  hills  which  forms  the  north-east  boundary  of 
British  India,  from  Assam  to  Burma.  Two  varieties  are  there 
distinguished,  the  gunda  or  tusker,  and  the  mahia  or  hine, 
which  has  no  tusks. 

The  reports  of  the  height  of  the  elephant,  like  those  of  its 
intelligence,  seem  to  be  exaggerated.  The  maximum  is  pro- 
bably 12  feet.  If  hunted,  the  elephant  must  be  attacked  on 
foot,  and  the  sport  is  therefore  dangerous,  especially  as  the 
animal  has  but  few  parts  vulnerable  to  a  bullet.  The  regular 
mode  of  catching  elephants  is  by  means  of  a  kheda  or  gigantic  Elephant- 
stockade,  into  which  a  wild  herd  is  driven,  then  starved  into  '^^''^''""S- 
submission,  and  tamed  by  animals  already  domesticated.  The 
practice  of  capturing  them  in  pitfalls  is  discouraged  as  cruel 
and  wasteful.     Elei)hants  now  form  a  Government  monopoly 


656        ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 

throughout  India.    The  shooting  of  them  is  prohibited,  except 
when  they  become  dangerous  to  man   or  destructive  to  the 
crops ;  and  the  right  of  capturing  them  is  only  leased  out  upon 
conditions. 
Elephant        A   special   law,   under   the   title  of   '  The    Elephants    Pre- 
tion  Act."    servation   Act'   (No.   VI.    of  1879),   regulates   this   licensing 
system.     Whoever  kills,  captures,  or  injures  an  elephant,  or 
attempts  to  do  so,  without  a  licence,  is  punishable  by  a  fine  of 
500  rupees  for  the  first  offence ;  and  by  a  similar  fine,  together 
with  six  months'  imprisonment,  for  a  second  offence.     In  the 
year  1877-7S,  a  total  of  264  elephants  were  captured  in  the 
Province  of  Assam,  yielding   to   Government   a   revenue  of 
^3600.     In  1882-83,  475  elephants  were  captured  in  Assam, 
yielding  a  revenue  to  Government  of  ^8573.     In  the  season 
of  1873-74,  no  less  than  53  elephants  were  captured  at  one 
time  by  Mr,  Sanderson,  formerly  the  superintendent  of  the 
Kheda  Department  in  Mysore,  who  has  made  a  special  study 
of  the  Indian  elephant,  as  Sir  S.  Baker  has  of  the  same  animal 
in  Ceylon.     Although  the  supply  is  decreasing,  elephants  con- 
tinue to  be  in  great  demand.     Their  chief  use  is  in  the  timber 
trade,  and  for  Government  transport.     They  are  also  bought 
up   by  native   chiefs   at   high    prices  for   ostentation.      Sixty 
persons  were  reported  as  killed  by  elephants  in  1882. 
The  Rhin-      Of  the  rhinoceros,  four  distinct  varieties  are  enumerated,  two 
oceros.        \^\\S\  a  single,  and  two  with  a  double  horn.     The  most  familiar 
is  the  Rhinoceros  unicornis,   commonly  found  in  the  Brahma- 
putra valley  and  its  wide  swamps.     It  has  but  one  horn,  and 
is  covered  with  massive  folds  of  naked  skin.      It  sometimes 
attains  a  height  of  6  feet ;  its  horn,  which  is  much  prized  by  / 
the  natives  for  medicinal  purposes,  seldom  exceeds  14  inche;  « 
in  length.     It  frequents  swampy,  shady  spots,  and  wallows  i), 
mud  like  a  pig.     The  traditional  antipathy  of  the  rhinocerc' 
to  the  elephant  seems  to  be  mythical.     The  Javan  rhinocer, 
(R.  sondaicus)  is  found  in  the  Sundarbans.     It  also  has  ',- 
one   horn,   and   mainly  differs  from   the  foregoing  in   b  j, 
smaller,  and  having  less  prominent  '  shields.'     The  Sum?,., 
rhinoceros  (R.  sumatrensis)  is  found  from  Chittagong  sc|f^ 
wards  through  Burma.     It  has  two  horns  and  a  bristly  Cj]- 
The   hairy -eared   rhinoceros    (R,   lasiotis)  is   known  fron^ 
specimen  captured  at  Chittagong,  and  sent  to  the  Zoologi 
Gardens,  London.     Two  are  at  Calcutta. 
The  wiW         The  wild  hog  (Sus  scrofa,  var.  indica)  is  well  known  a , 
°^"  affording  the  most  exciting  sport  in  the  world — '  pig-sticking.  \ 

It  frequents  cultivated  localities,  and  is  the  most  mischievous^ 


HOG :   UILD  ASS:  SHEEP:  GOAT,  ETC.     657 

enemy  which  the  husbandman  has  to  guard  against ;  doing 
more  damage  than  elephants,  tigers,  leopards,  deer,  and  ante- 
lope, all  put  together.  A  rare  animal,  called  the  pigmy  hog 
(Porculia  salvania),  exists  in  the  tarai  of  Nepal  and  Sikkim, 
and  has  been  shot  in  Assam.  Its  height  is  only  10  inches, 
and  its  weight  does  not  exceed  12  lbs. 

The   wild    ass   (Equus    onager)   is    confined    to    the   sandy  The  wild 
deserts  of  Sind  and  Kachchh  (Cutch),  where,  from  its  speed  ^  ^''" 
and  timidity,  it  is  almost  unapproachable. 

Many  wild  species  of  the  sheep  and  goat  tribe  are  to  be  Sheeji  and 
found  in  the  Himalayan  ranges.  The  Ovis  amnion  and  O.  °^^^' 
poli  are  Tibetan  rather  than  Indian  species.  The  nrial  and 
the  shapu  are  kindred  species  of  wild  sheep,  found  respectively 
in  Ladakh  and  the  Sulaiman  range.  The  former  comes  down 
to  2000  feet  above  the  sea,  the  latter  is  never  seen  at  altitudes 
lower  than  12,000  feet.  The  barhal,  or  blue  wild  sheep,  and 
the  markhor  and  iahr  (both  wild  goats)  also  inhabit  the  Hima- 
layas. A  variety  of  the  ibex  is  also  found  there,  as  well  as  in 
the  highest  ranges  of  Southern  India.  The  sarau  (Nemor- 
h?edus  rubidus),  allied  to  the  chamois,  has  a  wide  range  in  the 
mountains  of  the  north,  from  the  Himalayas  to  Assam  and 
Burma. 

The   antelope   tribe   is   represented   by  comparatively  few  Antelopes, 
species,  as  compared  with  the  great  number  found  in  Africa. 
The  antelope  proper  (Antilope  cervicapra),  the  '  black  buck ' 
of  sportsmen,  is  very  generally  distributed.     Its  special  habitat 
is  salt  plains,  as  on  the  coast-line  of  Gujarat  (Guzerat)  and 
Orissa,  where  herds  of  50  does  may  be  seen,  accompanied  by 
single  buck.     The  doe  is  of  a  light  fawn  colour,  and  has  no 
orns.     The  colour  of  the  buck  is  a  deep  brown-black  above, 
(larply  marked  off  from  the  white  of  the  belly.    His  spiral  horns, 
Tisted  for  three  or  four  or  more  turns  like  a  corkscrew,  often 
d,  ch  the  length  of  30  inches.    The  flesh  is  dry  and  unsavoury, 
wl.  is  permitted  meat  for  Hindus,  even  of  the  Brahman  caste, 
"j' four-horned  antelope  (Tetraceros  quadricornis)   and  the 
inte  'e  (Gazella  bennettii)  are  also  found  in  India.     The  chini 
babl:holops  hodgsoni)  is  confined  to  the  Himalayan  plateaux, 
footie  nilgai  or  blue  cow  (Portax  pictus)  is  also  widely  dis- Xiigdi. 
ani'ited,    but   specially   abounds   in    Hindustan   Proper   and 
mcarat.     As  with  the  antelope,  the  male  alone  has  the  dark 
st.e  colour.     The  nilgai  is  held  peculiarly  sacred  by  Hindus, 
sjm  its  fancied  kinship  to  the  cow,  and  on  this  account  its 
.estructive  inroads  upon  the  crops  are  tolerated. 
The  king  of  the  deer  tribe  is  the  sdmhhar  or  gerau  (Cervus  Deer. 

2  T 


658        ZOOLOG  V  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 

aristotelis),  erroneously  called  '  elk '  by  sportsmen.  It  is 
found  on  the  forest-clad  hills  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  It  is 
of  a  deep-brown  colour,  with  hair  on  its  neck  almost  like  a 
mane ;  and  it  stands  nearly  5  feet  high,  with  spreading  antlers 
nearly  3  feet  in  length.  Next  in  size  is  the  swamp  deer  or 
bdra-singha,  signifying  'twelve  points'  (Cervus  duvaucelli), 
which  is  common  in  Lower  Bengal  and  Assam.  The  chitdl  or 
spotted  deer  (Cervus  axis)  is  generally  admitted  to  be  the 
most  beautiful  inhabitant  of  the  Indian  jungles.  Other  species 
include  the  hog  deer  (Cervus  porcinus),  the  barking  deer  or 
muntjac  (Cervulus  muntijac),  and  the  so-called  mouse  deer 
(Tragulus  meminna).  The  musk  deer  (Moschus  moschiferus) 
is  confined  to  Tibet. 

The  Bison.  The  ox  tribe  is  represented  in  India  by  some  of  its  noblest 
species.  The  gaiir  (Bos  gaurus),  the  '  bison  '  of  sportsmen, 
is  found  in  all  the  hill  jungles  of  the  country,  in  the  Western 
Ghats,  in  Central  India,  in  Assam,  and  in  British  Burma. 
This  animal  sometimes  attains  the  height  of  20  hands  (close 
on  7  feet),  measuring  from  the  hump  above  the  shoulder.  Its 
short  curved  horns  and  skull  are  enormously  massive.  Its 
colour  is  dark  chestnut,  or  coffee-brown.  From  the  difficult 
nature  of  its  habitat,  and  from  the  ferocity  with  which  it 
charges  an  enemy,  the  pursuit  of  the  bison  is  no  less  dangerous 
and  no  less  exciting  than  that  of  the  tiger  or  the  elephant. 
Akin  to  the  gaiir,  though  not  identical,  are  the  gaydl  or  mitJmn 
(Bos  frontalis),  confined  to  the  hills  of  the  north-east  frontier, 
where  it  is  domesticated  for  sacrificial  purposes  by  the  ab- 
original tribes;  and  the  tsine  or  banting (Qos  sondaicus),  found 
in  Burma. 

The  The  wild  buffalo  (Bubalus  ami)  differs  from  the  tame  buffalo 

Buffalo.  Qj-j]y  [^  being  larger  and  more  fierce.  The  finest  specimens 
come  from  Assam  and  Burma.  The  horns  of  the  bull  are 
thicker  than  those  of  the  cow,  but  the  horns  of  the  cow  are 
larger.  A  head  has  been  known  to  measure  13  feet  6  inches 
in  circumference,  and  6  feet  6  inches  between  the  tips.  The 
greatest  height  is  6  feet.  The  colour  is  a  slaty  black ;  the  hide 
is  immensely  thick,  with  scanty  hairs.  Alone  perhaps  of  all 
wild  animals  in  India,  the  buffalo  will  charge  unprovoked. 
Even  tame  buffaloes  seem  to  have  an  inveterate  dislike  to 
Europeans. 

Rat  tribe.  The  rat  and  mouse  family  is  only  too  numerous.  Con- 
spicuous in  it  is  the  loathsome  bandicoot  (Mus  bandicota), 
which  sometimes  measures  2  feet  in  length,  including  its  tail, 
and  weighs   3   lbs.      It  burrows    under   houses,   and   is  very 


BIRDS  OF  PREY:  GAME  BIRDS.  659 

destructive  to  plants,  fruit,  and  even  poultry.  More  interesting 
is  the  tree  rat  (Mus  arboreus),  a  native  of  Bengal,  about 
7  inches  long,  which  makes  its  nest  in  cocoa-nut  palms  and 
bamboos.  The  voles  or  field  mice  (genus  Arvicola)  occasion- 
ally multiply  so  exceedingly  as  to  seriously  diminish  the  out- 
turn of  the  local  harvest,  and  to  require  special  measures  for 
their  destruction. 

The  ornithology  of  India,  although  it  is  not  considered  so  Birds, 
rich  in  specimens  of  gorgeous  and  variegated  plumage  as  that 
of  other  tropical  regions,  contains  many  splendid  and  curious 
varieties.  Some  are  clothed  in  nature's  gay  attire,  others  dis- 
tinguished by  strength,  size,  and  fierceness.  The  parrot  tribe  is 
the  most  remarkable  for  beauty.  So  various  are  the  species,  that 
no  attempt  is  made  here  even  to  enumerate  them,  but  the  reader 
is  referred  for  details  to  the  scientific  works  on  the  subject.^ 

Among  birds  of  prey  four  vultures  are  found,  including  the  Birds  of 
common  scavengers  (Gyps  indicus  and  G.  bengalensis).  The  ^'^'^^' 
eagles  comprise  many  species,  but  none  to  surpass  the  golden 
eagle  of  Europe.  Of  falcons,  there  are  the  peregrine  (Falco 
peregrin  us),  the  shain  (Falco  peregrinator),  and  the  lagar 
(Falco  jugger),  which  are  all  trained  by  the  natives  for 
hawking;  of  hawks,  the  shikara  (Astur  badius),  the  sparrow 
hawk  (Accipiter  nisus),  and  the  crested  goshawk  (Astur 
trivirgatus).  Kingfishers  of  various  kinds,  and  herons  are 
sought  for  their  plumage.  No  bird  is  more  popular  with 
natives  than  the  inaina  (Acridotheres  tristis),  a  member 
of  the  starling  family,  which  lives  contentedly  in  a  cage, 
and  can  be  taught  to  pronounce  words,  especially  the  name  of 
the  god  Krishna. 

Waterfowl  are  especially  numerous.  Of  game-birds,  the  Game 
floriken  (Sypheotides  auritus)  is  valued  as  much  for  its  rarity  as  '^"^"^* 
for  the  delicacy  of  its  flesh.  Snipe  (Gallinago  scolopacina,  etc  ) 
abound  at  certain  seasons,  in  such  numbers  that  one  gun  has 
been  known  to  make  a  bag  of  100  brace  in  a  day.  Pigeons, 
partridges,  quail,  plover,  duck,  teal,  sheldrake,  widgeon — all 
of  many  varieties — complete  the  list  of  small  game.  The  red 
jungle  fowl  (Gallus  ferrugineus),  supposed  to  be  the  ancestor 
of  our  own  poultry,  is  not  good  eating ;  and  the  same  may 
be  said  of  the  peacock  (Pavo  cristatus),  except  when  young. 
The  pheasant  does  not  occur  in  India  Proper ;  but  a  white 
variety  is  found  in  Burma,  and  several  beautiful  species  (con- 
spicuously the  manaul)  abound  in  the  Himalayas. 

^  Especially  those  of  Jerdon,  Gould,  Hume,  and  Marshall. 


66o        ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 


Reptiles. 


The 

'cobra.' 


Deaths 

from 

snake-bite. 


Statistics, 
1877; 


and  1SS2. 


Crocodile. 


The  serpent  tribe  in  India  is  numerous;  they  swarm  in 
the  gardens,  and  intrude  into  the  dwelHngs  of  the  inhabitants, 
especially  during  the  rainy  season.  Most  are  comparatively 
harmless,  but  the  bite  of  others  is  speedily  fatal. ^  The  cobra 
di  capello — the  name  given  to  it  by  the  Portuguese,  from  the 
appearance  of  a  hood  which  it  produces  by  the  expanded  skin 
about  the  neck — is  the  most  dreaded  (Naja  tripudians).  It 
seldom  exceeds  3  or  4  feet  in  length,  and  is  about  an  inch 
and  a  quarter  thick,  with  a  small  head,  covered  on  the  fore- 
part with  large  smooth  scales ;  it  is  of  a  pale  brown  colour 
above,  and  the  belly  is  of  a  bluish-white  tinged  with  pale 
brown  or  yellow.  The  Russellian  snake  (Daboia  Russellii), 
about  4  feet  in  length,  is  of  a  pale  yellowish-brown,  beautifully 
variegated  with  large  oval  spots  of  deep  brown,  with  a  white 
edging.  Its  bite  is  extremely  fatal.  Itinerant  showmen  carry 
about  these  serpents,  and  cause  them  to  assume  a  dancing 
motion  for  the  amusement  of  the  spectators.  They  give  out 
that  they  render  snakes  harmless  by  the  use  of  charms  or 
music — in  reality,  by  extracting  the  venomous  fangs.  But, 
judging  from  the  frequent  accidents,  they  sometimes  seem 
to  dispense  with  this  precaution.  All  the  salt-water  snakes  in 
India  are  poisonous,  while  the  fresh-water  forms  are  innocuous. 

Sir  Joseph  Fayrer  has  demonstrated  that  none  of  the 
reputed  antidotes  will  cure  the  bite  of  the  cobra,  if  the  snake 
is  full-grown,  and  if  its  poison  fang  is  full  and  be  not  inter- 
fered with  by  clothing.  The  most  hopeful  remedy  in  all  cases 
of  snake-bite  is  the  injection  of  ammonia.  The  loss  of  life 
from  this  cause  in  India  is  painful  to  contemplate.  But 
the  extermination  of  snakes  is  attended  with  great  difficulty, 
from  the  great  number  of  the  species,  the  character  of  the 
country,  the  rapid  undergrowth  of  jungle,  and  the  scruples 
of  the  people.  Something,  however,  is  being  effected  by  the 
offer  of  rewards.  In  1877,  a  total  of  16,777  persons  are 
reported  to  have  been  killed  by  snakes,  as  compared  with  only 
819  by  tigers.  In  the  same  year,  rewards  to  the  amount  of 
;^8ii  were  given  for  the  destruction  of  127,295  snakes.  In 
1882,  a  total  of  19,519  persons  are  reported  to  have  been 
killed  by  snakes,  as  compared  with  2606  by  tigers,  leopards, 
and  all  other  wild  beasts.  A  sum  of  ;^i487  was  paid  in 
1882  for  the  destruction  of  322,421  venomous  reptiles. 

The  other  reptiles  include  two  varieties  of  crocodile  (C. 

'  Sir  Joseph  Fayrer's  Thanatophidia  is  the  standard  work  on  Indian 
snal<es.  Vincent  Richards'  Landmarks  of  Snake  Poison  Literature  is  an 
excellent  compendium. 


FISHES:  DOLPHIX.  66i 

porosus  and  C  biporcatus)  and  the  garial  (Gavialis  gangeticus). 
Scorpions  also  abound. 

All  the  waters  of  India — the  sea,  the  rivers,  and  the  tanks —  Fishes, 
swarm  with  a  great  variety  of  fishes,^  which  are  caught  in  every 
conceivable  way,  and  furnish  a  considerable  proportion  of  the 
food  of  the  poorer  classes.  They  are  eaten  fresh,  or  as  nearly 
fresh  as  may  be ;  for  the  art  of  curing  them  is  not  generally 
practised,  owing  to  the  exigencies  of  the  salt  monopoly.  In 
Burma,  the  favourite  relish  of  nga-pi  is  prepared  from  fish.  At 
Goalanda,  at  the  junction  of  the  Brahmaputra  with  the  Ganges, 
and  along  the  Madras  coast,  establishments  have  been  estab- 
lished for  salting  fish  in  bond.  The  indiscriminate  slaughter 
of  fry,  and  the  obstacles  opposed  by  irrigation  dams  to  breeding 
fish,  are  said  to  be  causing  a  sensible  diminution  in  the  supply  in 
certain  rivers.  Measures  of  conservancy  have  been  suggested  ; 
but  their  execution  is  attended  with  great  difficulty,  owing  to 
the  habits  and  the  necessities  of  the  poorer  population. 

Among  Indian  fishes,  the  Cyprinidae  or  carp  family  and  the 
Siluridre  or  cat-fishes  are  best  represented.  From  the  angler's 
point  of  view,  by  far  the  finest  fish  is  the  }nahsir,  found  in  all 
hill  streams,  whether  in  Assam,  the  Punjab,  or  the  south. 
One  has  been  caught  weighing  60  lbs.,  which  gave  plav  for 
more  than  seven  hours.  Though  called  the  salmon  of  India, 
the  inahsir  is  really  a  species  of  barbel.  One  of  the  richest 
and  most  delicious  of  Indian  fishes  is  the  hilsd,  which  tastes 
and  looks  like  a  sort  of  fat  white  salmon.  It  is  caught  in 
immense  quantities  in  the  rivers  of  the  Bengal  delta,  and 
forms  a  staple  article  of  food  in  Calcutta.  The  Bombay  and 
Madras  markets  are  still  better  supplied  by  a  variety  of  delicate 
fishes.  But  the  enhanced  price  of  this  important  article  of  native 
diet  throughout  the  country,  the  decreased  supply,  and  the 
ever-increasing  fineness  of  the  meshes  of  the  nets  employed  in 
catching  the  fry,  are  matters  of  grave  concern  alike  to  the 
Government  and  to  the  poorer  classes  of  the  population. 

In  this  connection  may  be  mentioned  the  susii  or  Gangetic  Dolphin, 
dolphin  (Platanista  gangetica) ;   a  mammal  often  erroneously 
called  a  porpoise.      Both  the   structure   and   habits   of  this 
animal  are  very  singular.     It  measures  from  6  to  12  feet  in 

^  The  latest  standard  works  on  Indian  fishes  and  their  economic  aspects 
are  the  Reports  and  official  volume  by  Dr.  Francis  Day,  late  Inspector- 
General  of  Fisheries  to  the  Government  of  India  ;  available  to  all  inquirers, 
at  the  India  Office,  London. 


662        ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 

length,  and  in  colour  is  sooty-black.  Its  head  is  globular, 
with  a  long,  narrow,  spoon-shaped  snout.  Its  eyes  are  rudi- 
mentary, like  those  of.  the  mole ;  and  its  ear-orifices  are  no 
bigger  than  pin-holes.  Its  dentition,  also,  is  altogether 
abnormal.  It  frequents  the  Ganges  and  Indus  from  their 
mouths  right  up  to  their  tributaries  within  the  hills.  A 
specimen  has  been  taken  at  least  loco  miles  above  Calcutta. 
Ordinarily  its  movements  are  slow,  for  it  wallows  in  the  muddy 
bed  of  the  river,  and  only  at  intervals  comes  to  the  surface  to 
blow.  The  susic  belongs  to  the  order  Cetacea ;  and  inquiries 
have  recently  been  directed  to  the  point  whether  its  blubber 
might  not  be  utilized  in  commerce. 

Insect?.  The  insect  tribes  in  India  may  be  truly  said  to  be  innumer- 

able ;  nor  has  anything  like  a  complete  classification  been 
given  of  them  in  the  most  scientific  treatises.  The  heat  and 
the  rains  give  incredible  activity  to  noxious  or  troublesome 
insects,  and  to  others  of  a  more  showy  class,  whose  large  wings 
surpass  in  brilliancy  the  most  splendid  colours  of  art. 
Stinging  musquitoes  are  innumerable,  with  moths  and  ants  of 
the  most  destructive  habits,  and  other  insects  equally  noxious 
and  disagreeable.     Amongst  those  which  are  useful  are  the 

Locusts,  bee,  the  silkworm,  and  the  insect  that  produces  lac.  Clouds 
of  locusts  occasionally  appear,  which  leave  no  trace  of 
green  behind  them,  and  give  the  country  over  which  they 
pass  the  appearance  of  a  desert.  Dr.  Buchanan  saw  a  mass 
of  these  insects  in  his  journey  from  Madras  to  the  Mysore 
territor}',  about  3  miles  in  length,  like  a  long  narrow  red  cloud 
near  the  horizon,  and  making  a  noise  somewhat  resembling  that 
of  a  cataract.  Their  size  was  about  that  of  a  man's  finger, 
and  their  colour  reddish.  They  are  swept  north  by  the  wind 
till  they  strike  upon  the  outer  ranges  of  the  Himalayas. 


Indian  Flora.^ — Unlike  other  large  geographical  areas,  India  is 

remarkable    for    having    no    distinctive    botanical    features 
peculiar   to   itself.      It   differs   conspicuously  in  this   respect 

^  For  a  general  sketch  of  the  flora  of  India,  recourse  must  still  be  had 
to  the  introductory  essay  to  the  Flora  Iiidica,  published  by  Hooker  & 
Thomson  in  1855.  'Y\\t.  Flora  of  British  India,  the  preparation  of  which 
is  in  progress  at  Kew,  will  comprise  descriptions  of  all  the  species  known 
to  science  up  to  the  date  of  publication.  It  will  form  a  great  national 
work  on  the  botany  of  India.  For  the  following  paragraphs  on  the  flora, 
written  by  Mr.  W.  T.  T.  Dyer  of  Kew,  the  author  is  indebted  to  the  courtesy 
of  Messrs.  A.  &  C.  Black,  publishers  of  the  Encydofaaiia  Britannica. 


HIM  ALA  YAN  FL  OR  A.  663 

from  such  countries  as  Australia  or  South  Africa.  Its  vege- 
tation is  in  point  of  fact  of  a  composite  character,  and  is 
constituted  by  the  meeting  and  blending  of  the  various 
floras  adjoining, — of  those  of  Persia  and  the  south-eastern 
Mediterranean  area  to  the  north-west,  of  Siberia  to  the  north, 
of  China  to  the  east,  and  of  Malaya  to  the  south-east.  Space 
does  not  admit  of  a  minute  discussion  of  the  local  features 
peculiar  to  separate  districts ;  but  regarded  broadly,  four 
tolerably  distinct  types  present  themselves :  namely,  the  Hima- 
layan, the  North-Western,  the  Assamese  or  Malayan,  and  the 
Western  India  type. 

The  upper  levels  of  the  Himalayas  slope  northwards  Upper 
gradually  to  the  Tibetan  uplands,  over  which  the  Siberian  ^^™^' 
■temperate  vegetation  ranges.  This  is  part  of  the  great  tem- 
perate flora  which,  with  locally  individualized  species  but 
often  with  identical  genera,  extends  over  the  whole  of  the 
temperate  zone  of  the  northern  hemisphere.  In  the  Western 
Himalayas,  this  upland  flora  is  marked  by  a  strong  admixture 
of  European  species,  such  as  the  columbine  (Aquilegia)  and 
hawthorn  (Crataegus  oxyacantha).  These  disappear  rapidly 
eastward,  and  are  scarcely  found  beyond  Kumaun. 

The  base  of  the  Himalayas  is  occupied  by  a  narrow  belt  Lower 
forming  an  extreme  north-western  extension  of  the  Malayan  "'"■'^■ 

°  ...  lavas 

type  described  below.  Above  that,  there  is  a  rich  temperate 
flora  which  in  the  eastern  chain  may  be  regarded  as  forming 
an  extension  of  that  of  Northern  China,  gradually  assuming 
westwards  more  and  more  of  a  European  type.  Magnolia, 
Aucuba,  Abelia,  and  Skimmia  may  be  mentioned  as  examples 
of  Chiriese  genera  found  in  the  Eastern  Himalayas,  and  the 
tea-tree  grows  wild  in  Assam.  The  same  coniferous  trees  are 
common  to  both  parts  of  the  range.  Pinus  longifolia  extends 
to  the  Hindu-Kush  ;  P.  excelsa  is  found  universally  except  in 
Sikkim,  and  has  its  European  analogue  in  P.  Peace,  found  in 
the  mountains  of  Greece.  Abies  Smithiana  extends  into 
Afghanistan  ;  Abies  Webbiana  forms  dense  forests  at  altitudes 
of  8000  to  12,000  feet,  and  ranges  from  Bhutan  to  Kashmir; 
several  junipers  and  the  common  yew  (Taxus  baccata)  also 
occur.  The  deodar  (Cedrus  Deodara),  which  is  indigenous  to 
the  mountains  of  Afghanistan  and  the  north-west  Himalayas, 
is  nearly  allied  to  the  Atlantic  cedar  and  to  the  cedar  of 
Lebanon,  a  variety  of  which  has  recently  been  found  in  Cyprus. 
Another  instance  of  the  connection  of  the  Western  Hima'layan 
flora  with  that  of  Europe  is  the  holm  oak  (Quercus  Ilex),  so 
characteristic  of  the  Mediterranean  rec;ion. 


664        ZOOLOGY  AND  BOTANY  OF  INDIA. 

North-  The   north-western  area   is  best   marked   in   Sind  and  the 

west.  Punjab,    where   the   cHmate    is   very  dry   (rainfall    under    15 

inches),  and  where  the  soil,  though  fertile,  is  wholly  dependent 
on  irrigation  for  its  cultivation.     The  low-scattered  jungle  con- 
tains such  characteristic  species  as  Capparis  aphylla,  Acacia 
arabica   {babul),    Populus    euphratica    (the    '  willows '    of  Ps. 
cxxxvii.  2),  Salvadora  persica  (erroneously  identified  by  Royle 
with  the  mustard  of  Matt.  xiii.  31),  tamarisk,  Zizyphus,  Lotus, 
etc.     The  dry  flora  extends  somewhat  in  a  south-east  direction, 
and  then  blends  insensibly  with  that  of  the  western  peninsula ; 
some  species  representing  it  are  found  in  the  upper  Gangetic 
plain,   and  a  few  are  widely  distributed   in  dry  parts  of  the 
country. 
Assam  and      This  area  is  described  by  Sir  Joseph  Hooker  as  comprising 
Malayan     <  {-|^g  ^qj.^^  q[  l-|^g  perennially  humid  regions  of  India,    as  of 
iicninsula.     ,  1     ,      ,  t   1  ■      \         1  .  n  1 

the  whole  Malayan    penmsula,    the  upper  Assam   valley,  the 

Khasi  mountains,  the  forests  of  the  base  of  the  Himalayas 
from  the  Brahmaputra  to  Nepal,  of  the  Malabar  coast,  and 
of  Ceylon.' 
Western  '^^^  Western  India  type  is  difficult  to  characterize,  and  is 
India.  intermediate  between  the  two  just  preceding.  It  occupies  a 
comparatively  dry  area,  with  a  rainfall  under  75  inches.  In 
respect  to  positive  affinities,  Sir  Joseph  Hooker  has  pointed 
out  some  relations  with  the  flora  of  tropical  Africa  as  evidenced 
by  the  prevalence  of  such  genera  as  Grewia  and  Impatiens,  and 
the  absence,  common  to  both  countries,  of  oaks  and  pines 
which  abound  in  the  Malayan  archipelago.  The  annual  vegeta- 
tion which  springs  up  in  the  rainy  season  includes  numerous 
genera,  such  as  Sida  and  Indigofera,  which  are  largely  repre- 
sented both  in  Africa  and  Hindustan.  Palms  also  in  both 
countries  are  scanty,  the  most  notable  in  Southern  India  being 
the  wild  date  (Phoenix  sylvestris) ;  Borassus  and  the  cocoa-nut 
are  cultivated.  The  forests,  although  occasionally  very  dense, 
as  in  the  "Western  Ghats,  are  usually  drier  and  more  open  than 
those  of  the  Malayan  type,  and  are  often  scrubby.  The  most 
important  timber-trees  are  the  tun  (Cedrela  Toona),  sal  (Shorea 
robusta),  the  present  area  of  which  forms  two  belts  separated 
by  the  Gangetic  plain ;  satin  -  wood  (Chloroxylon  Swietenia), 
common  in  the  drier  parts  of  the  peninsula;  sandal-wood, 
especially  characteristic  of  •Mysore ;  iron-wood  (Mesua  ferrea), 
and  teak  (Tectona  grandis). 


[665  ] 


CHAPTER    XXV. 


VITAL    STATISTICS    OF    INDIA. 


The    vital  statistics   of   India^  are    derived    from   five    cliief  Five 
sources.     Of  these,  the  first   or   European   army  consists  of  j^g^^j^' 
foreigners  under  special   medical   conditions,  and  subject  to  letuvns. 
the  disturbing  influence  of  '  invaliding.'     The  second,  or  native 
army ;  the  third,  or  jail  population  ;  and  the  fourth,  or  police  ; 
are  all  composed  of  natives,  but  of  natives  under  special  con- 
ditions as  regards  food,  discipline,  or  labour.     It  is  dangerous 
to  generalize  from  returns  thus  obtained,  with  regard  to  the 
health  statistics  of  the  ordinary  population  of  India.     For  that 

^  The  literature  of  Indian  health  statistics  and  medical  aid  may  be 
divided  into  eight  chief  classes  : — (l)  Separate  treatises  by  a  series  of 
medical  observers,  dating  from  the  latter  part  of  the  iSth  century  and 
continuing  up  to  the  present  time.  (2)  Official  special  Reports  of  the 
Medical  Boards  of  Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay  on  the  great  outbreak  of 
cholera  in  1817  ;  the  Medico-Topographical  Reports  (1S25-40)  of  the  chief 
stations  of  the  Madras  Presidency,  by  the  Medical  Board  of  that  Presidency. 
(3)  The  Transactions  of  the  Medical  Physical  Society  of  Calcutta  (1823-39), 
and  of  Bombay  (1837-76)  ;  the  Indian  Annals  of  Medical  Science  (Cal- 
cutta) from  1853-80  ;  other  medical  journals  at  different  periods  in  the 
three  Presidencies.  (4)  Reports  on  the  Medical  Education  of  the  Natives 
of  India,  commencing  with  vernacular  medical  schools  in  Calcutta  and 
Bombay  (1820-30),  developing  (1835-57)  into  the  Medical  Colleges  of 
Bengal,  Madras,  and  Bombay,  and  extending  into  medical  schools  at 
Ilaidarabad  (Deccan),  Nagpur,  Agra,  Lahore,  Balrampur  (Oudh),  Patna, 
Dacca,  Poona,  Ahmadabad.  (5)  Reports  on  Vital  Statistics  by  the  various 
Medical  Boards,  Medical  Departments,  and  Inspectors-General  of  Hospitals ; 
since  1S27  these  assume  a  prominent  place.  (6)  The  Annual  Reports  of 
the  Sanitary  Commissioner  with  the  Government  of  India,  since  1874, 
and  of  the  Sanitary  Commissioners  to  the  local  Governments  ;  the  Annual 
Reports  of  the  Inspectors-General  of  Jails,  of  the  Inspectors-General  of 
Police,  and  of  the  health  officers  to  municipal  bodies  in  the  various  Presi- 
dencies and  Provinces.  (7)  Reports  by  special  Committees  or  Commis- 
sions, such  as  those  on  the  Bard  wan  fever,  on  the  cattle-plague  in  Bengal, 
the  Orissa  famine  of  1866,  the  Madras  famine  of  1878,  etc.  (8)  Annual 
Reports  of  the  public  hospitals,  dispensaries,  and  other  medical  charities. 
The  author  has  been  unable  to  test  all  the  dates  in  this  footnote  ;  but  he 
reproduces  some  of  them,  unverified,  from  a  memorandum  supplied  to  him 
1  y  Dr.  Morehead,  formerly  of  Bombay. 


666  VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 

population,  however,  a  system  of  registration  exists,  and  this 
system  forms  the  fifth  source  of  our  data  on  the  subject. 
Regi&tra-  In  certain  Provinces,  registration  is  carried  out  with  some 
tion  of  degree  of  efficiency.  But  the  natives  shrink  from  publicity 
population,  touching  the  details  of  their  life.  They  could  only  be  forced 
Why  to  give  uniform  and  absolutely  trustworthy  returns  of  birthr, 

""^'th*^-'  deaths,  marriages,  sex,  and  age  by  a  stringent  legislation,  and 
a  costly  administrative  mechanism,  from  which  the  Govern- 
ment wisely  abstains.  In  municipalities,  however,  registration 
furnishes  a  fairly  accurate  account  of  the  vital  statistics  of  the 
urban  population.  For  the  rural  Districts,  special  areas  in 
some  Provinces  were  selected  for  statistical  supervision  ;  and 
this  has  been  now  gradually  extended,  with  the  exception  of 
certain  exceptionally  situated  tracts,  to  practically  the  whole 
population.  But  the  results  obtained  are  still  necessarily 
imperfect. 
The  The  Census  operations,  conducted  under  special  legislation, 

^"^"^-  ■will  furnish  a  general  picture  of  the  Indian  people  every  ten 
years.  But  the  complete  details  have,  up  to  the  present  time 
of  writing,  been  obtained  only  for  the  two  Censuses  of  1871 
and  1881.  The  chief  results  of  the  Census  of  1881  are  given 
in  chapter  ii.,  and  in  Appendices  I.  to  X.  at  the  end  of  this 
volume. 
Sources  of  In  treating  of  the  public  health  of  India,  therefore,  three 
^'^'^°'*  points  must  always  be  borne  in  mind.     The  data  are  obtained 

either,  first,  from  limited  classes  under  special  medical  condi- 
tions ;  or  second,  from  limited  areas  under  special  statistical 
supervision  ;  or  third,  from  a  general  system  of  registration 
spread  over  the  whole  country,  but  which  has  hitherto  failed 
to  yield  trustworthy  results.  General  averages  from  such 
sources,  struck  for  the  entire  population,  can  only  be  accepted 
as  estimates  based  upon  the  best  information  at  present 
available. 
Death-rate  Subject  to  the  above  remarks,  it  may  be  stated  that  the 
111  India,  evidence  goes  to  show  an  annual  death-rate  of  Z'^'Sl  P^^ 
thousand  in  India.  During  the  famine  of  1877-78,  the  death- 
rate  in  Madras  was  ascertained  to  be  equal  to  an  annual  rate 
of  53*2  per  thousand.  In  1877,  the  death-rate  among  the 
European  troops  in  India  was  12*71  per  thousand,  being  the 
lowest  recorded  up  to  that  year;  in  the  native  army,  i3'38 
per  thousand  ;  in  the  public  jails,  61 '95  per  thousand,  rising 
to  176  per  thousand  in  the  Madras  prisons,  which  were  flooded 
by  the  famine-stricken  population.  In  1883,  the  death-rate 
returns  of  European  troops  in  India  showed  a  mortality  of 


BIRTHS  AND  DEATHS:  BENGAL.  667 

10 '88  per  thousand,  the  lowest  recorded  in  any  year  for  which 
full  returns  have  been  compiled.  In  the  native  army  in  1883 
the  mortality  on  the  total  strength  was  11 7  6  per  thousand,  or 
including  men  absent  from  their  regiments,  i4*3i  per  thousand, 
being  about  one-half  the  average  rates  for  1877-81.  The  jail 
mortality  also  showed  a  satisfactory  reduction,  the  death-rate 
having  fallen  to  33  "64  per  cent. 

The  returns  of  births,  as  given  hereafter  for  each  Province, 
are  too  untrustworthy  to  allow  of  an  attempt  to  calculate  the 
birth-rate  for  the  whole  country.  The  average  duration  of  life  Average 
in  India  is,  on  slender  foundation,  estimated  at  30I  years,  '^"y?.'^" 
Instead  of  attempting  generalizations,  which,  although  interest- 
ing to  the  speculative  statist,  might  mislead  the  actuary  and  be 
perverted  into  an  unsound  basis  for  induction,  the  following 
paragraphs  are  confined  to  the  returns  as  furnished  for  the 
separate  Provinces ;  together  with  the  health  statistics  of  the 
European  troops,  the  native  army,  and  the  jail  population. 
The  following  paragraphs  are  condensed  from  the  Reports  of 
the  Sanitary  Commissioner  with  the  Government  of  India,  for 
1877  and  1883. 

In  Bengal,  the  system  of  collecting  statistics  over  specially  Vital 
selected  areas  has  been  abolished,  and  an  attempt  is  being  ^^f^^J^*"^'^ 

'  ^  »  of  Eenqal 

made  to  obtain  returns,  equally  from  the  whole  Province.  The  in  1877. 
registration  of  deaths  in  1877  showed  a  ratio  of  17*96  per 
thousand  (varying  in  different  Districts  from  36  down  to  8), 
which,  according  to  the  Sanitary  Commissioner,  '  must  be  very 
much  under  the  truth.'  The  mortality  in  towns  (where  the  regis- 
tration is  less  incomplete)  was  returned  at  32*49  per  thousand, 
compared  with  17  "39  in  the  rural  circles.  Of  the  total  death- 
rate,  20*24  per  thousand  was  among  males,  and  onlyi5*69  among 
females,  '  a  discrepancy  which  must  be  due  in  the  main  to 
defective  registration.'  The  birth-rate,  which  averaged  10*20 
per  thousand  for  the  whole  Province,  varied,  according  to  the 
returns,  from  35  in  Patna  to  only  6  per  thousand  in  Bardwan  and 
Bakarganj  Districts.  The  male  births  were  returned  in  1877 
as  exceeding  the  female  births  in  the  proportion  of  118  to  100. 

Registration   of  vital   statistics  in  Bengal  is  still  very  im-  Vital 
perfect,  and  it  is  only  with  regard  to  deaths  that  any  attempt  ^'.^'f  ^'cs 
is  made  at  a  general  registration.     The  total  number  of  deaths  in  1S83.' 
returned  in  1883  as  occurring  among  a  population  under  regis- 
tration of  66,163,884,  was   1,245,676,  or  at  the   rate  of  \2>\ 
per  thousand  (varying  in  different  Districts  from  a  maximum 
of  36  down  to  a  minimum  of  10  per  thousand).    The  defective 
character  of  the  registration  is  shown  bv  the  fact  that  the 


668  VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 

death-rate  among  the  males  was  20*59  P^^"  thousand,  and 
among  the  females  1 7  'oS  per  thousand,  showing  an  apparent 
increase  of  over  18  per  cent,  of  male  over  female  deaths. 
It  is  also  exhibited  in  a  comparison  of  the  mortality  in 
towns  and  rural  circles.  In  96  towns  in  Bengal  where 
registration  is  necessarily  under  closer  control,  the  death-rate 
amounted  to  27*28  per  thousand,  while  in  552  rural  registra- 
tion circles  it  was  only  18 '49,  Compulsory  birth  registration 
in  Bengal  is  only  enforced  in  46  towns  and  municipalities, 
with  a  population  of  1,685,159.  These  returned  a  total  birth- 
rate of  2  2 '08  per  thousand  in  1883  ;  but  that  this  is  below  the 
truth  is  exhibited  by  the  fact  that  the  deaths  exceeded  the 
births  in  the  ratio  of  7 '8 7  per  thousand,  as  well  as  by  the  fact 
that  the  registered  male  births  in  towns  exceeded  the  female 
births  by  14  per  cent.  The  following  figures  show  the  causes 
of  the  registered  deaths  in  1883,  and  the  ratio  they  bear  to  the 
general  mortality  : — Fevers,  i3'8i  per  thousand;  cholera,  i'36  ; 
small-pox,  o'i4;  bowel  complaints,  0*83;  injuries,  0*35;  all 
other  causes,  2*30  per  thousand. 
Vital  In  the   Madras  Presidency,   both   births  and   deaths  were 

statistics     much  affected  in    1877   by  the  famine  which  desolated  that 

of  Madras  .     ,  '       ^        .  .  ,  1  j 

in  1877.  P-'irt  of  the  country,  and  registration  was  conducted  under 
special  difficulties.  Though  many  defects  are  consequently 
apparent,  the  Sanitary  Commissioner  is  of  opinion  '  that  the 
relative  intensity  of  the  famine  in  different  circles  is  fairly  repre- 
sented by  the  mortuary  registration.'  The  general  registered 
death-rate  was  53*2  per  thousand;  and  in  Madras  city, 
1 167  per  thousand  {see  article  Madras  Presidency,  The 
Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India).  Among  males,  the  rate  is  given 
as  58'4,  and  among  females  48*06  per  thousand,  'which  points 
to  imperfections  in  the  record  of  female  deaths.'  The  following 
figures  show  the  causes  under  which  the  deathsof  1877  in  Madras 
were  classified  : — Cholera,  i2"2  per  thousand  ;  small-pox,  3*02  ; 
fevers,  i6'o6;  bowel  complaints,  4*5;  injuries,  0*5;  all  other 
causes,  16 '8  per  thousand.     The  number  of  registered  deaths  in 

1876  was  23"34,  and  in  1875,  2i'i  per  thousand.  The  famine 
resulted  in  a  marked  reduction  in  the  birth-rate,  the  ratio  for 

1877  being  only  i6'3,  or  less  than  that  of  1876  bymore  than  5  per 
thousand.  For  every  100  female  births,  107  male  births  were 
registered.  In  the  nine  Districts  where  the  famine  was  most 
severe,  the  birth-rate  was  only  12  per  thousand,  whereas  in  the 
eight  where  the  people  suffered  less,  the  rate  was  20  per  thousand. 
Excess  of  deaths  over  births  in  Madras  Presidency  in  1877, 
according  to   the   above    figures,   36*9  per   thousand  of  the 


BIRTHS  AND  DEATHS:  BOMBAY.  669 

population.      The  registration   of  births  and  deaths  was  not 
compulsory  in  Madras  in  1877. 

Registration  of  vital  statistics  is  still  very  imperfect  in  Vital 
Madras,  although  better  than  in  the  Bengal  Districts.  "The  ^j^Jj^'f^^^^ 
total  number  of  deaths  returned  in  1883  as  occurring  among  in  1883. 
a  population  under  registration  of  28,503,100,  was  541,930,  or 
at  the  rate  of  1 9-0  per  thousand  (varying  in  the  several  Districts 
from  a  maximum  of  38"6  to  a  minimum  of  11 '8  per  thousand), 
the  rate  of  male  deaths  being  197,  and  of  female  deaths  i8"3 
per  thousand.  The  urban  death-rate  in  76  towns,  with  a 
population  of  1,696,075,  was  24*9  per  thousand,  as  against 
i8-6  per  thousand  in  153  rural  registration  circles,  with  a  total 
population  of  26,839,745.  The  total  number  of  births  regis- 
tered in  1883  was  791,774,  or  277  per  thousand,  a  larger 
number  and  ratio  than  in  any  year  since  1869,  when  registra- 
tion was  first  commenced.  The  excess  of  male  over  female 
births  is  less  in  proportion  in  Madras  than  in  any  other  Pro- 
vince of  India,  the  ratio  being  io4"6  males  to  100  females. 
The  death-rate  from  different  causes  in  1883  was  returned  as 
follows: — Fevers,  7-i  per  thousand;  cholera,  i"2;  small-pox, 
I '3;  bowel  complaints,  07;  injuries,  0*4;  all  other  causes, 
8*0  per  thousand.  Excess  of  births  over  deaths  registered  in 
1883,  87  per  thousand  of  population. 

In  the  Bombay  Presidency,  famine  affected  the  death-rate  in  Vital 
1877,  and   the   year  was   also   more   than   usually  unhealthy,  ^^f^ji^^'^j' 
cholera  and  small-pox  being  both  epidemic.     The  mortality,  in  1S77.' 
according  to  the  returns,  was  at  the  rate  of  3876  per  thousand. 
In  the  famine-stricken  Districts  the  mortality  was  55*09,  com- 
pared with  2571  per  thousand  in  1876.     The  following  figures 
show  the  causes  of  the  deaths  registered  in  1877  '• — Cholera, 
2"53  ;  small-pox,  i"69;  fevers,  2079;  bowel  complaints,  372; 
injuries,  0*46  ;  all  other  causes,  8*55  per  thousand.     The  birth- 
rate in  1877  was  i9"26  per  thousand  (varying  from  29  to  6),  or 
2*09  per  thousand  less  than  the  rate  for  1876 — 'a  result  which 
is  for  the  most  part  ascribed  to  the  effects  of  famine  ;  but  also, 
in  great  measure,  to  neglect  in  registration.'     For  every  100 
female  births,    1 1 1   male  births  were  registered.      Excess  of 
deaths  over  births  in  Bombay  Presidency  in  1877,  i9'54  per 
thousand  of  the  population. 

Registration  shows  better  results  in  the  Bombay  Presidency  Vital 
than  in  Madras  or  Bengal,  but  in  the  Sind  Districts  it  is  still  ^'i^J'^tics 

r  11  r  1  •,  ,  O'  Boml)ay 

very  miperfect,  and  the  returns  from  these  lower  the  average  in  18S3. 
for  the  entire  Presidency.      The  total  number  of  deaths  re- 
turned in   1883  was  420,198,  or  25*53  P^^^  thousand  of  the 


670  VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 

total  population  (varying  from  41 '97  per  thousand  in  Khandesh 
to  9 "1 9  in  the  Upper  Sind  Frontier  District),  the  ratio  of  male 
deaths  being  26"02,  and  of  female  deaths  25*02  per  thousand. 
The  male  deaths  registered  were  iii'o6,  for  every  100  female 
deaths.  The  urban  death-rate  in  62  towns  and  municipalities, 
with  a  total  population  of  2,105,756,  was  29-61  per  thousand, 
as  against  24*94  per  thousand  in  223  rural  registration  circles, 
with  a  population  of  14,348,658.  The  ratio  of  mortality  due 
to  different  causes  was  returned  as  follows  : — Fevers,  16  •21  per 
thousand;  cholera,  2 •31;  small-pox,  o"8i  ;  bowel  complaints, 
2'i4;  injuries,  0*36;  all  other  causes,  370.  The  number  of 
births  registered  during  the  year  was  501,801,  giving  a  rate  of 
30'5o  per  thousand  of  the  population,  which  would  be  con- 
siderably higher  but  for  defective  returns  from  Sind.  Through- 
out the  entire  Presidency,  109*22  male  births  were  registered 
for  every  100  female.  The  excess  of  the  registered  births 
over  the  deaths  was  at  the  rate  of  4*97  per  thousand  of  the 
population. 
Vital  The  North-Western  Provinces  and  Oudh  together  returned  a 

statistics  of  (jgath-rate  in  1877  of  19*67  per  thousand,  varying  from  29  to  12 
Western     P^^  thousand.     For  Oudh  alone,  the  rate  was  17*1;  and  for 
Provinces    the  North-Westem  Provinces  alone,  20*6.     The  mortality  in 
in  1877       ^^^^  towns  of  the  amalgamated  Province  was  29*43,  compared 
with  18*99  if^  the  rural  circles;  and  of  the  total  death-rate, 
21*06   was  among  males,   and    18*12    among  females.      The 
registration   of  births,    which   in    1877   was  confined  to  the 
municipalities,  showed  an  average  rate  of  39*22  per  thousand, 
varying  from  70  at  Urai  to  14  at  Dehra.     Excess  of  births  over 
deatlis,  10*27  per  thousand  of  the  population. 
Vital  Considerable  improvement  in  registration  of  vital  statistics 

statistics  of  jj-j  j-|-,g  North-Western  Provinces  and  Oudh  has  been  eftected 

-North-  .  ,    ,  .     ,  ,,  T       ,  ... 

Western  smce  1 87 7,  and  birth  as  well  as  death  registration  is  now 
Provinces  carried  on  throughout  the  entire  Lieutenant-Governorship.  The 
in  iSS-".  statistics,  however,  still  bear  internal  evidence  that  at  the  best 
they  are  only  approximately  accurate.  The  total  number  of 
deaths  returned  in  1883  (a  year  of  improved  health,  accom- 
panied by  plenty  and  cheapness  of  food)  was  1,216,297,  o^"  ^t 
the  rate  of  27*57  per  thousand  of  the  population,  the  lowest 
for  any  year  since  1877  (varying  from  48*33  to  17*49  per 
thousand),  the  rate  of  male  deaths  being  28*49,  ^'^^  °f  female 
deaths  26*58  per  thousand,  the  excess  of  male  over  female 
deaths  being  on  an  average  1 5  '88  per  cent.  The  urban  death- 
rate  in  103  towns  and  municipalities,  with  a  total  population 
of  2,756,493,  was   35*32   per  thousand,  as  against   27^05  per 


BIR  THS  AND  DBA  THS :  PUNJAB.  6  7 1 

thousand  in  1044  rural  registration  circles,  with  a  population 
0541,351,376.  The  ratio  of  mortality  due  to  different  causes 
was  returned  as  follows  : — Fevers,  18 "8 2  per  thousand  ;  cholera, 
o'4i  ;  small-pox,  3"i4;  bowel  complaints,  i'5i  ;  injuries,  o"48; 
all  other  causes,  3  "21  per  thousand.  The  mortality  from  small- 
pox was  unusually  high  during  the  year.  The  average  birth- 
rate in  1883  was  40^84  per  thousand,  the  highest  on  record  since 
1879,  when  the  general  registration  of  births  was  first  intro- 
duced into  these  Provinces,  and  the  highest  in  any  of  the 
Provinces  of  India  in  1883.  The  birth-rates  in  the  various 
Districts  ranged  from  58*24  per  thousand  in  Lalitpur  to  20*39 
per  thousand  in  Dehra  Dun.  Throughout  the  Lieutenant- 
Governorship  as  a  whole,  iii'8i  boys  were  born  for  every  100 
girls.  Except  in  the  malaria-infested  Tarai,  the  registered 
births  exceeded  the  deaths  in  every  District,  the  total  excess 
of  births  over  deaths  being  at  the  ratio  of  i3'27  per  thousand 
of  the  population. 

In  the  Punjab,  the  death-rate  for  1877  was  recorded  as  20  per  Vital 
thousand,  and  the  same  rate  applies  to  both  males  and  females  statistics 

'  .V  .  of  the 

taken  separately.  The  District  average  varies  from  27  per  Punjab 
thousand  in  I-ahore  to  8  in  Kohat  on  the  frontier.  In  the  towns,  ^"  ^'^77- 
the  mean  mortality  was  33  per  thousand,  varying  between  a 
maximum  of  52  (in  the  town  of  Delhi)  and  a  minimum  of 
12  (in  Kohat).  In  1S77,  births  were  registered  only  in  the 
municipal  towns  of  the  Punjab,  and  the  results  showed  a  birth- 
rate of  3 1  "86  per  thousand.  Excess  of  births  over  deaths,  5 
per  thousand  of  the  population. 

In  1883,  the  total  number  of  deaths  returned  in  the  Punjab  Vital 
was   475,741,  or  at  the  rate  of  25-25   per  thousand  of  the  ^^^''-'^"'^^ 
population  (varying  in  the  several  Districts  from  35  to  16  per  Punjab 
thousand),  the  rate  of  male  deaths  being  25 '13,  and  of  female  in  1S83. 
deaths  25-39  per  thousand.     The  urban  mortality  in  1883,  in 
49  towns  and  municipalities,  with  a  population  (excluding  that 
of  four  hill  sanitaria)  of  1,310,383,  was  at  the  rate  of  30  per 
thousand,  as  against  25  per  thousand  in  397  rural  registration 
circles,  with  a  population  of  17,512,378.    The  ratio  of  mortality 
due   to   different   causes   was   returned   as   follows : — Fevers, 
i6'25  per  thousand;  cholera,  o'oi  ;   small-pox,  0-64;    bowel 
complaints,  0*77  ;  injuries,  0*28;     all  other  causes,  7*29  per 
thousand.     The  average  birth-rate  during  the  year  was  39  per 
thousand  throughout  the  Punjab  as  compared  with  an  average 
of  41  in  municipal  towns.    Throughout  the  Punjab  as  a  whole, 
1 15  "14  boys  were  born  for  every  100  girls,  or  an  excess  of 
15T4  per  cent,  of  male  over  female  births.     The  excess  of 


672 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


Vital 
statistics 
of  the 
Central 
Provinces 
in  1877. 


Vital 
statistics 
of  the 
Central 
Provinces 
in  i8S^ 


Vital 
statistics 
of  Berar 
in  1S77. 


births  over  deaths  was  at  the  rate  of  14  per  thousand  of  tlie 
general  population.  The  year,  however,  was  an  exceptionally 
healthy  one,  and  the  mortality  from  the  chief  diseases  was  less 
than  in  any  year  since  1877. 

In  the  Central  Provinces  and  in  Berar,  the  registration  of 
births  and  deaths  is  more  general,  and  the  results  obtained 
approach  nearer  to  accuracy  than  in  any  of  the  other  Provinces 
of  India.  The  recorded  death-rate  in  the  Central  Provinces 
in  1877  was  2y<^\  per  thousand,  varying  from  38  in  Mandla  to 
only  18  in  Nagpur  District.  Among  males  the  death-rate  was 
2 5 '66,  and  among  females  2  2"ii  per  thousand.  In  the  towns^ 
the  rate  was  35  "86  per  thousand.  In  1877,  the  total  number 
of  births  registered  in  the  Central  Provinces  show  a  rate  of 
39"26  per  thousand  ;  varying  from  a  maximum  of  45  per 
thousand  in  Bilaspur  to  a  minimum  of  31  in  Nagpur.  The 
proportion  of  male  births  recorded  was  iii  for  every  100 
female  births.  Excess  of  registered  births  over  deaths  in 
the  Central  Provinces  in  1877,  15*35  per  thousand  of  the 
population. 

In  1883,  the  total  number  of  deaths  returned  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  among  a  population  of  8,817,185  under  registration, 
was  304,763,  or  an  average  rate  of  34  "5 6  per  thousand 
(varying  in  the  several  Districts  from  48-84  to  26'i3),  the 
rate  of  male  deaths  being  35*83,  and  of  female  deaths  33"28 
per  thousand,  the  excess  of  male  over  female  deaths  being  9 
per  cent.  The  urban  mortality  in  18S3,  in  74  towns  and 
municipalities,  with  a  total  population  of  757,092,  was  at  the 
rate  of  35*56  per  thousand,  as  compared  with  34*48  per 
thousaiid  in  94  rural  registration  centres,  with  a  population  of 
8,060,093.  The  ratio  of  mortality  due  to  different  causes  was  as 
follows: — Fevers,  19*86  per  thousand;  cholera,  1*84;  small- 
pox, 0*53;  bowel  complaints,  3*02;  injuries,  0*52;  all  other 
causes,  879  per  thousand.  Total  number  of  births  regis- 
tered, 357,864,  or  at  the  average  rate  of  40*59  per  thousand, 
varying  in  the  several  Districts  from  54*29  to  34*15.  Male 
births  preponderated  over  female  births  by  7*61  per  cent. 
The  excess  of  registered  births  over  deaths  was  at  the  rate 
of  6*03  per  thousand  of  the  population. 

In  Berar,  the  general  registered  death-rate  was  returned  in 
1877  at  28*1  per  thousand.  In  the  towns  alone  the  mortality 
was  31*4  per  thousand.  The  birth-rate  shown  by  the 
returns  of  1877  was  39*5  per  thousand,  varying  from  47  in 
Akola  to  35  in  Wiin  District.  The  number  of  male  births 
recorded  was   109   for  every  100  female   births.      Excess    of 


BIRTHS  AND  DEATHS:  BERAR:  ASSAM.     673 

births  over  deaths  in  Berar  in  1877,  11-40  per  thousand  of  the 
population. 

The  year  1883  was  a  particularly  unhealthy  one  in  Berar,  Vital 
owing,  it  is  supposed,  to  abnormally  heavy  rainfall ;  and  a  severe  of^j^e'rar 
epidemic  of  cholera  largely  raised  the  mortality  returns.  The  in  1883. 
total  number  of  deaths  returned  during  the  year  was  135,081, 
or  at  the  rate  of  51  "3  per  thousand  of  the  population  (varying 
in  the  several  Districts  from  657  to  39*3  per  thousand)  ; 
the  rate  of  male  deaths  was  51*4,  and  of  female  deaths  51  "3 
per  thousand,  the  excess  of  male  over  female  deaths  being 
7  per  cent.  The  urban  death-rate  in  11  towns  and  muni- 
cipalities, with  a  population  of  138,378,  was  53-2  per  thousand, 
as  against  51-3  per  thousand  in  134  rural  registration  circles, 
with  a  population  of  2,491,640.  The  ratio  of  mortality 
due  to  different  causes  was  as  follows  : — Fevers,  20*3  per 
thousand;  cholera,  io-6 ;  small-pox,  1-5;  bowel  complaints, 
7*2;  injuries,  0-4;  all  other  causes,  11 '3  per  thousand.  The 
average  birth-rate  in  1883  was  40-3  per  thousand,  varying 
from  43 '2  to  3  7 '8  per  thousand,  the  male  births  exceeding  the 
female  by  6'5  per  cent.  Owing  to  the  cholera  epidemic,  and 
general  unhealthiness  of  Berar  in  1883,  the  registered  deaths 
exceeded  the  births  in  that  year  in  the  ratio  of  1 1  per  thousand 
of  the  population. 

In   Assam,    the   system   of  registration    in    1877   was   that  Vital 
formerly  in  vogue  in    Bengal,   of  which  this  Province  until  ^i-^^'stics 

,1  rr-,!  of  Assam 

recently  formed  part.  The  returns  were  taken  over  certain  in  1877. 
selected  areas,  and  the  results  were  quite  untrustworthy.  The 
death-rate,  as  ascertained  from  these  returns,  was  only  10-9 
per  thousand,  varying  in  the  several  Districts  from  29  to 
5  per  thousand.  The  births  recorded  in  the  selected  areas  were 
at  the  rate  of  20  per  thousand,  ranging  from  34  to  10  per 
thousand.  The  figures  show  an  excess  of  deaths  over  births  in 
Assam  in  1877  of  4*9  per  thousand  of  the  population. 

Compulsory  registration   throughout    the   whole  of  Assam,  Vital 
with  the  exception  of  certain  hill  tracts,  was  not  introduced  statistics 
till  the  latter  half  of  1882  ;  and  the  results,  as  might  be  ex- in  1883. 
pected,  do  not  even  approximate  to  accuracy.     In   1883,  the 
total  number  of  deaths   registered  was   returned  at  122,932, 
or    an    average   of   27-14    per    thousand   of  the   population 
(varying  in  the    several    Districts   from  41-89  to    16-27    pei" 
thousand;,  the  rate  of  male  deaths  being  28-34,  and  of  female 
deaths    25-89  per   thousand.      Excess  of  male   over   female 
registered  deaths,  16  per  cent.    In  21  towns  and  municipalities, 
with  a  total  population  of  99.202,  the  average  death-rate  was 

2  u 


674 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


Vital 
statistics 
of  British 
Burma 

in  1S77. 


Vital 
statistics 
of  British 
Burma  in 
iSSr 


30 '07  per  thousand,  as  against  27*08  per  thousand  in  657 
rural  registration  circles,  with  a  population  numbering  4,428,732. 
The  ratio  of  mortality  due  to  different  causes  was  as  follows  : — 
Fevers,  i4'9o  per  thousand;  cholera,  3*29;  small-pox,  i"36; 
bowel  complaints,  3'i9;  injuries,  0-27;  other  causes,  4"i2 
per  thousand.  The  average  birth-rate  in  1883  was  2  3 "91  per 
thousand,  those  of  the  males  exceeding  the  females  by  nearly 
10  percent.  Excess  of  registered  deaths  over  births,  3*23  per 
thousand  of  the  population. 

In  British  Burma,  registration  is  shown  to  be  even  more 
defective  than  in  the  worst  Provinces  of  India.  The  average 
death-rate,  according  to  the  returns  in  1877,  was  17 '44  per 
thousand,  the  rate  for  males  being  18,  and  for  females  16  per 
thousand.  In  Myanaung  the  deaths  were  returned  at  119,  and 
at  Maulmain  at  less  than  13  per  thousand.  In  the  towns  the 
mortality  was  34  per  thousand,  compared  with  15  in  the  rural 
circles.  The  birth  returns  showed  a  rate  of  only  21  per 
thousand;  'and  this  general  average,'  to  use  the  words  of  the 
Report  in  1877,  'is  made  up  of  such  extremes  that  no  reliance 
can  be  placed  on  the  figures.'  In  one  place  the  birth-rate  was 
no  less  than  115  per  thousand,  in  another  it  was  as  low  as  5. 
Excess  of  registered  births  over  deaths  in  British  Burma  in  1877, 
4  per  thousand  of  the  population. 

No  improvement  in  registration  in  British  Burma  seems  to 
have  been  effected  up  to  18S3.  Indeed,  in  that  year  the 
death-rate  had  fallen  below  the  figures  returned  for  1877.  ^^ 
1883,  the  total  registered  deaths  numbered  53,583,  or 
rate  of  i4'67  per  thousand  of  the  population  under  regis- 
tration (varying  in  the  several  Districts  from  21 '42  to  9"22), 
the  male  deaths  being  returned  at  15 '37,  and  the  female 
deaths  at  13  "86  per  thousand.  The  excess  of  registered 
male  deaths  over  female  deaths  was  27  per  cent.  In  20 
towns  and  municipalities,  with  a  total  population  of  425,775, 
the  registered  death-rate  was  25-50  per  thousand,  against 
i3'24  per  thousand  in  823  rural  registration  circles,  with 
population  numbering  3,227,854.  The  ratio  of  mortality 
due  to  different  causes  was  as  follows  : — Fevers,  7 '19  per 
thousand;  cholera,  o'6o ;  small-pox,  0-19;  bowel  complaints, 
076;  injuries,  0*17;  other  causes,  576.  The  birth-rate  of 
the  Province  was  returned  at  23  per  thousand,  ranging  in 
the  several  Districts  from  31  "65  to  i6'6o.  The  registered 
male  births  exceeded  those  of  the  females  by  6  per  cent. 
The  registered  births  exceeded  the  deaths  in  the  ratio  of 
80  per  thousand  of  the  population.      A   revised   scheme  of 


HEALTH  OF  THE  EUEOPEAJST  ARMY.      C75 

registration  for  British  Burma  is  now  (1SS4)  under  considera 
tion,  the  adoption  of  which  it  is  hoped  will  result  in  more 
accurate  statistics. 

After  what  has  been  stated  in  the  introductory  paragraph  of  I^'^nger  of 
this  section,  it  is  manifest  that  the  figures  quoted  from  the  statistics 
Reports  of  the  Sanitary  Commissioner  with  the  Government 
of  India  are  of  Httle  or  no  value  for  the  purpose  of  establishing 
the  comparative  healthiness  or  unhealthiness  of  the  different 
portions  of  the  country.  To  construct  a  comparative  table  out 
of  the  provincial  returns  would  .be  misleading,  if  any  attempt 
were  made  to  use  it  for  actuarial  purposes.  But  the  tables  on 
the  four  following  pages  may  be  interesting  as  showing  the 
defects  and  uncertainties  of  Vital  Statistics  in  India,  as  well  as 
the  progress  towards  accuracy  which  has  been  effected  between 
1877  and  1883  in  registering  births  and  deaths  among  the 
general  population.  The  wide  variations  in  both  the  birth  and 
death  rates  for  various  Districts  usually  arise  from  different 
degrees  of  imperfection  in  the  registration. 

Health  of  the  European  Army.— The  sanitary  statistics  Health 
of  the  army  in  India  are,  in  every  way,  more  trustworthy  than  European 
those  obtained  for  the  general  population  ;  and  as  they  have  Army  ; 
been  regularly  collected  on  a  uniform  system  for  a  number  of 
years,  it  is  possible  to  draw  valuable  inferences. 

The  sanitary  history  of  the  European  Army  during  1877  its  general 
was  more  favourable  than  in  any  previous  year  for  which  the  ^^^"stics 
statistics  are  on  record.  The  total  strength  of  the  Euro- 
pean Army  in  India  in  1877  was  returned  at  57,260  men  ;  the 
admissions  into  hospital  numbered  71,992  (1257  per  thousand 
of  average  strength);  daily  sick,  3196  (56  per  thousand);  deaths, 
728  (1271  per  thousand).  The  averages  for  the  five  years 
1871-1875  were  as  follows: — admissions  into  hospital,  1394 
per  thousand;  daily  sick,  57;  deaths,  17-62  per  thousand. 
'  Not  only,'  writes  the  Sanitary  Commissioner,  '  do  the  results 
compare  favourably  with  the  averages  of  the  five  years  1871  to 
1875,  but,  what  is  deserving  of  special  notice,  the  admission- 
rate  and  death-rate  are  the  lowest  which  have  yet  (1877)  been 
attained.' 

In  1883,  the  total  strength  of  the  European  Army  in  India  and  1SS3. 
was    55,525;    the   average    admission   into  hospital  being  at 
the  rate  of  1336  per  thousand;  daily  sick,  63  per  thousand; 
while   the  deaths  were    10 "88   per  thousand,  the   lowest  on 

\Sentence  continued  on  page  680. 


676 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


w 
o 

> 
o 

< 


O 

w 
;? 

w 
O 

o 

o 


H 


><   rt.i;   2   O, 
O^       fin 


Excess  of 
Births  ova 
Deaths  pe 
1000  of 
Population 

Number  of 
Males  born 
,0  every  100 
emales  born. 

3  c  tS 

9-3T„ 


U-l         l-O         M 


"-  O         "^  ("O         t^  >H 


=  s  y 

0 

N 

VO 

vn 

n 

1^ 

0 

0 

VO 

ts 

M 

00 

rj 

10 

0 

ON 

rO 

M 

§§0 

00 

0^ 

L, 

ON 

ON 

0 

VO 

ON 

Ph 

CO 

ro 

f^ 

ro 

M 

M 

305 

g   Xu 

VO 

^ 

M 

i_i 

U-) 

i-n 

n 

iJ-l 

VO 

•SS.S 

•" 

ro 

ro 

S^C5 

sS  . 

305 

E  >.-n 

VO 

n 

H^ 

VO 

I^ 

10 

^ 

VO 

ON 

Maxi 

for  an 

Disi 

ro 

t^ 

uo 

■^ 

'^ 

'-' 

ro 

ro 

rj 

rOTl-i-<^u-)i-ii-iNw 


ro 

r^ 

t^ 

Tf 

00 

t^ 

■^ 

■>+ 

L'l 

0 

0 

ON 

ON 

00 

vr> 

r-^ 

1-H 

N 

00 

^ 

Ti- 

0 

Ov 

HH 

CO 

(N 

0 

CO 

ro 

n 

0 

00 

(S 

0 

Tf 

a\ 

M 

M 

ro 

t^ 

M 

M 

ON 

VO 

•AD.vaaisa>ij 
^vo^[3a: 


2  ^ 


l4 

4) 

pq 

& 

c 

>-■ 

-c 

rt 

0 

P 

m 

n 

2  -n 


.S  '5 


6  g 


00      o 


0      S 


a. 

VO 


1)  00 


>  2  ^  "3 

■^  :3  C  " 

—  ^  c 

t;  «  rt  c 


^  fe 


■5  00 


GENERAL  DEATH  STATISTICS,  1877.       677 


000. 
ale. 

PI 

8 

-, 

p*^ 

^ 

P 

p 

E 

10 

QO 

b 

N 

vi> 

'■^ 

00 

>i> 

C^ 

p) 

N 

•<* 

CO 

Id 

h 

< 

K 

t 

0 

0 

0 

r-. 

0 

0 

PI 

i! 

N 

P 

p 

0 

_ 

_■* 

rO 

.■^ 

p 

< 

Jh 

b 

»-« 

b 

"1 

00 

0 

00 

►-* 

Id 

^ 

04 

PI 

PI 

PI 

U-) 

Tf 

Q 

c 

\o 

r^ 

0 

Nl 

0 

rf 

0 

0 

vO 

!>. 

CN 

vp 

0 

CN 

.■<1- 

ON 

r" 

f>. 

0     . 

u 

r^ 

CN 

b 

ro 

CO 

i^ 

b 

PO 

cJo 

8*^ 

s 

-N 

i-« 

p) 

PI 

PI 

t-« 

u-i 

PO 

0  y 

a  «) 

. 

^Q 

E 

?  z 

3 

CO 

PI 

xj 

CO 

0 

„ 

u-i 

r^ 

CO 

PI 

?« 

^  z 

'c 

?i 

«P 

S 

S3 

2£ 

E 

f"p 

3 

<:cw 

E 

0 

C^ 

t-» 

00 

"i- 

Cn 

c^ 

ON 

<-l 

P< 

C4 

ro 

PI 

N 

PO 

ro 

i-M 

PI 

►^ 

0 

•^ 

>^ 

»^ 

s 

c  a 

"  0  i; 

"1 

CN 

0 

p^ 

rt- 

PO 

M 

PI 

0 

0 

0 

'O 

PO 

i-O 

PI 

!*    3C/3S 

^ 

•* 

^i^ 

NM 

f^ 

l-l 

PI 

HH 

>■  a./S 

<  0  J; 

"  a. 

■r. 

I 

™ 

^ 

PI 

u^ 

PI 

r>. 

PO 

CN 

CO 

NO 

—  \''\ 

0 

r^ 

0 

PI 

00 

l-t 

CN 

'Z'^ 

0 

>* 

C^ 

PI 

PI 

PO 

PO 

•^ 

ci 

V    4) 

<3 

T 

Tt 

n- 

lJ^ 

vO 

00 

r^ 

00 

■<1- 

rr 

0 

0 

vO 

00 

PI 

PO 

M          1 

tr 

en 

1  .1 

p) 

ir^ 

"+ 

wi 

rt- 

PI 

"■O 

-t 

PI 

Tt- 

CO 

^O 

Tj- 

■^ 

r<-) 

0. 

M 

q 

0 

On 

PO 

lA) 

t^ 

^s  2 

rn 

T}- 

r-- 

CO 

■* 

^ 

vo 

c> 

M 

^  ■"  tjj 

0 

Pl 

O) 

0 

CO 

"■O 

0 

0 

CO 

0  ="a 

Ov 

t^ 

•* 

•^ 

C; 

CO 

PI 

'-' 

CL,        ^ 

cR 

Pi" 

rC 

rC 

pT 

pT 

ro 

cK 

no" 

"^ 

"^ 

PI 

c 

• 

CJ 

. 

in 
0 

0     . 

1-1 

■J 

a 

c 

0 

_ 

0 

." 

c: 

^ 

5 

0 

0 

S 

^ 

> 

3 

0 

50 

C 
c^ 

rt 

Li 
a 

c 

a 

1^ 

r 

U 

K 

K 

< 

a 

-O 

"Y 

•ADMaaiSHHi 

rt 

^0 

1 

IVE 

-^3a 

l< 

«  ^ 


.s  t! 


-^    t^    a 


U 


i2 

p 

H 

M 

rt 

S 

^^ 

r3 

•>, 

>M 

^ 

0 

,0 

C 

> 

2 

0 

K 

^n 

0 

■p 

<. 

0 

(/) 

rt 

£^ 

Uh 

67S 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


o 

> 

o 

P-. 
<; 


o 
P-i 


O 
o 
o 


« 


1 

1  §  S.^.2 

t^ 

0 

ro 

X  rt.b  2  0. 

<>0 

0 

r' 

r-^ 

„ 

n 

HH 

ess  of 
s  over 
hs  per 
10  of 
lation. 

r^ 

0 

m 

0 

0 

r>. 

M 

p 

p 

p 

r^ 

p 

Exc 
Birth 
Beat 

ICC 

Popu 

ro 

'tC 

0 

(>0 

Vi 

Vl- 

w.  r-  0  c 

0 

M 

•* 

w 

0 

0 

^0 

0 

N 

S-S  >.-s 

p 

^ 

0 

LO 

p 

t^ 

0 

M 

•5  S  S  " 

"■* 

'„ 

u-i 

r^ 

0 

0 

'as 

'■+ 

C\ 

5-5  ""3 

■- 

— 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

S  rl  0  q 

^S  0  5 

'■^ 

Z 

0 

c  s  y 

C/D 

r}- 

0 

ON 

0 

N 

0 

0 

rt-£.S 

p 

C>0 

p 

u-l 

P 

0 

o^ 

r^ 

\j~> 

*5  t  0 

n 

b 

CS 

b 

b 

N 

ro 

t^ 

b 

M 

■^ 

ro 

■^^ 

^ 

M 

M 

M 

ro 

0 

Ph 

0 

u 

0 

£  = 

8 

s  >•■= 

0 

0 

Tl- 

10 

0 

0 

00 

0 

N 

.'T 

P 

p 

^ 

03 

0 

r* 

t-^ 

OS 

e: 

•s§t? 

0 

"0 

b 

Vj- 

t^ 

0 

po 

ro 

i/^ 

Id 

S^« 

r) 

ro 

ro 

"^ 

^^ 

•^ 

pa 

s  1  • 

0 
0 

So  — 

I^ 

M- 

M 

On 

0 

ir^ 

ro 

0 

CN 

CS 

'■0 

0 

ON 

b 

P 

Lh 

J2  "r^ 

■<J- 

w-l 

u-i 

\J~t 

^ 

ro 

ir^ 

■>* 

■<J- 

< 

S^"' 

Cn 

ON 

^ 

u-1 

00 

0 

-* 

8 

■>i- 

c       ?; 

"^ 

0 

0 

CO 

M 

ro 

.2  1.-2 

NM 

CO 

CS 

0 

0^ 

Cv 

•^ 

rt  -^    ^ 

w-> 

rC 

N 

t^ 

6 

ro 

r^ 

ro 

■^ 

■7;    ^  " 

CO 

0 

1- 

M 

ro 

to 

N 

0 

u-i 

0  "'c/; 

0^ 

co 

00^ 

o_ 

0^ 

10 

VO 

^ 

■^ 

CO 

00 

pT 

ro 

•^ 

CO 

vo" 

't 

N 

>H 

^ 

« 

r: 

_aj     • 

0     • 

. 

, 

CJ 

.■^ 

c: 

]G 

L 

<u 

c 

0 

ij 

r^ 

u 

c; 

2 

<5 

0 

'> 

>. 

0 

>-, 

0 

0    - 

0 

e 

0 

(5 

U)0 

"rt 

U4 

K 

c5 

0 
0 

0 
'3) 

r  H 

SO 

S 

0 

0 

'C 

U) 

eS 

^ 

«C 

U 

M 

" 

< 

rt 

•A3\-3a 

IS3VJ 

rt 

5 

avoxaa 

S 

'v^ 

GENERAL  DEATH  STATISTICS,  i88: 


679 


0 

V 

00 

00 

On 

00 

0 

NO 

0 

0 

CM 

"rt 

p 

W1 

fO 

O) 

ro 

cp 

cw 

fO 

P 

" 

E 

r- 

0 

w-i 

CO 

CO 

m 

CO 

1-0 

a 

" 

M 

N 

CO 

u-> 

" 

CM 

'"' 

CM 

<: 

i 

4J 

Cn 

0 

ro 

i-O 

0 

r^ 

^ 

0 

CM 

*15 

W-) 

;^ 

^ 

00 

.-^ 

CO 

CO 

P 

< 

s 

b 

OD 

iri 

in 

M 

u-l 

CO 

On 

NO 

u 

M 

0 

N 

CO 

w-> 

CM 

CM 

Q 

M 

i^ 

m 

NO 

0 

r-^ 

■* 

0 

CO 

[I. 

C 

&0 

yo 

r* 

w-1 

CO 

NO 

p 

i-n 

0   . 

4) 

00 

r^ 

in 

Vj- 

M 

^ 

r-» 

ON 

LO 

8  H 

CM 

M 

ro 

w-i 

CM 

CM 

0  y 

J2 

u  w 

►T-* 

«Q 

i 

ro 

ON 

0 

CO 

0 

CNl 

t~» 

0 

On 

0 

h5 

ON 

7J- 

P 

^ 

^0 

r' 

_M 

cp 

<  2 

On 

r- 

MS 

NO 

ON 

b\ 

NO 

i-« 

On 

0 

s 

" 

CM 

CO 

ii.  <: 
0  J 

H  0 

3 

r^ 

ro 

0 

tJ- 

0 

CM 

On 

0 

I^ 

c 

<a, 

_B 

p 

ro 

P 

CO 

t-^ 

.-* 

OO 

'•P 

ON 

0 

« 

'x 

i 

i>0 

10 

00 

io 

M 

t^ 

CO 

i_ 

■^ 

rt 

s 

CO 

■* 

CO 

^ 

NO 

CM 

^ 

CO 

•* 

-2 

to 
ci 

}-< 

c  0) 
u  0  t; 

wn  2   • 

r^ 

0 

u-i 

t 

Tl- 

ON 

ro 

H 

2i3  a-" 

10 

i-^ 

ri 

NO 

"^ 

NO 

M 

CO 

0 

«    3C/2S 

M- 

^ 

CM 

^   O-i-S 

r-l 

^^ 

<   0   ^ 

c 

ftn   0. 

ci 

:= 

-ii 

ro- 

-* 

On 

m 

CM 

t^ 

NO 

8 

3 

>— ' 

—  S 

VO 

0 

CO 

Tt- 

NO 

CO 

NO 

NO 

CO 

ON 

M 

0 

q^ 

0 

CTn 

00 

ci 

f^   ^1 

(U    1> 

■* 

0 

1-^ 

f-i 

NO 

LO 

r^ 

On 

CO 

■^ 

<3 

^ 

0 

0 

r^ 

t~. 

CM 

ro 

cs 

.2 

"^ 

ci 

a* 

H-> 

w 

G 

ci 

-ci 

g  J 

'J- 

OS 

^ 

u-l 

00 

CJN 

'* 

0 

■* 

co 

^ 

NO 

00 

CN) 

CO 

0 

4= 

00 

00 

CM 

0 

NO 

On 

'^ 

^ 

'Jls 

r-n 

r^ 

CM 

I^ 

0" 

CO 

t^ 

CO 

Tj- 

3  =  Si 

vO 

0 

Tf 

ro 

u-) 

C-) 

0 

10 

u 

a  5- 

0      tj) 

00 

CO 

NO 

NO 

l/^ 

i/^ 

<* 

JZ 

vo" 

■^ 

00" 

00" 

cm" 

CO 

4 

00" 

o" 

w- 

vO 

'^ 

M 

M 

^ 

0 

gj 

t» 

'3; 

C 

■ 

' 

13 

t:^j 

6     . 

u 

G 

0       . 

'"' 

0 
0 

u 

U 

>-• 

ci 

7. 

0 

> 

>~, 

T^ 

0 

— 

>-. 

0 

0 

0 

« 

0 

C 
a; 

c 

CLI 

£ 

1 

I-'  ^ 

"rt 

n 

i^ 

g" 

OJ 

a 

rt 

0 

c 
0 

SO 

c 

<u 

•J^ 

P-l 

(i; 

M 

^ 

cS 

U 

M 

H 

< 

>N 

/ 

<ri 

rt 

V 

AOtcaaisa 

^d 

rt 

s 

'IVON!3'fl 

s 

pH 

6So 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


Nine  chief 
causes  of 
sickness. 


The  chief 
causes  of 
mortality. 


Sentence  continued  from  page  675.] 

record  since  1870.  The  loss  from  invaliding  was  -^T)  P^^ 
thousand,  making  a  total  loss  from  all  causes  of  44  per  thousand 
of  average  strength,  or  about  12  per  thousand  below  the 
average  of  thirteen  previous  years.  The  ratio  of  loss  due  to 
invaliding  in  1883  was  about  4  per  cent,  below  the  average. 
In  1883,  the  death-rate  in  the  Bengal  Army  was  as  low  as 
1 1  "2 1  per  thousand.  In  Madras,  the  death-rate  in  1883  was  as 
low  as  I o" 1 9  per  thousand,  the  lowest  in  the  three  Presidencies. 
Rate  of  mortality  in  the  Bombay  Army  in  1883,  io'5o  per 
thousand  of  average  strength. 

In  all  three  Presidencies,  the  same  diseases  form  the  nine 
chief  causes  of  sickness,  with  slight  variations  in  the  order 
in  which  they  occur.  These  nine  were  : — malarial  fevers, 
venereal  diseases,  wounds  and  accidents,  abscess  and  ulcer, 
respiratory  diseases,  rheumatism,  diarrhoea,  hepatitis,  and 
dysentery.  They  are  here  given  in  the  order  of  their  frequency 
(1883)  in  Bengal.  Malarial  fevers,  which  stood  first  in  both 
Bengal  and  Bombay  (486  and  436  admissions  per  1000  respec- 
tively), were  replaced  at  the  top  of  the  list  in  Madras  by 
venereal  diseases  (289  admissions  per  1000) ;  respiratory 
diseases  and  rheumatism,  which  took  the  fifth  and  sixth  places 
in  Bengal,  were  seventh  and  ninth  in  Madras,  and  fourth  and 
sixth  in  Bombay  ;  whereas  dysentery  and  hepatitis,  which  came 
fifth  and  eighth  in  Madras,  came  ninth  and  eighth  in  Bengal, 
and  occupied  the  same  position  in  Bombay.  The  arrangement 
of  the  diseases  in  all  three  Presidencies  accorded  generally,  to 
a  remarkable  extent,  with  the  experience  of  previous  years  ; 
and  the  year  1883  may  be  taken  as  a  typical  one.  Total 
admissions  into  hospital  from  all  causes,  1336  per  1000  in  all 
India,  In  the  Bengal  Army,  the  average  admissions  were 
1463  per  1000;  in  Madras,  1013;  and  in  Bombay,  1249  per 
1000. 

The  six  principal  causes  of  deaths  in  Bengal  in  1877  were 
in  the  order  of  their  frequency  :  enteric  fever,  apoplexy,  hepa- 
titis, cholera,  remittent  and  continued  fevers,  and  dysentery. 
In  all  three  Presidencies,  the  six  forms  of  disease  which 
contributed  most  to  the  death-rate  were  the  same.  The 
total  death-rate  from  these  six  diseases  were — -in  Bengal, 
6-6o  out  of  a  total  mortality  of  11-21  per  1000;  in  Madras, 
6-47  out  of  a  total  mortality  of  10-19  P^^^  ^°°°  \  ^"^  in 
Bombay,  5-39  out  of  a  total  of  10-50  per  1000.  Enteric 
fever  headed  the  list  of  the  chief  causes  of  death  in  all  three 
Presidencies  ;  Madras  having  the  highest  ratio  (2  -8  6  per  i  000 


INVALIDING:  ARMY  DEATH-RATE. 


68i 


followed   by   Bengal   (2"52  per   looo),  and   Bombay  (i '55  per 
1000). 

Cholera  was  not  prevalent  during  1883,  and  added  but 
little  to  the  army  mortality  throughout  India.  The  experience 
of  a  number  of  years  goes  to  show  that  enteric  fever  is  in  the 
main  a  disease  of  young  soldiers  new  to  India,  the  majority 
of  sufferers  being  men  in  their  first  or  second  year.  With 
reference  to  the  great  prevalence  of  venereal  diseases  in  the 
European  Army,  it  is  stated  that  '  the  working  of  the  lock 
hospitals  in  all  three  Presidencies  during  1877  must  be  i)ro- 
nounced  to  have  been  more  or  less  a  failure; "and  in  1S83 
the  admission  rate  into  military  hospitals  for  venereal  diseases 
was  reported  to  be  only  a  fraction  lower  in  j)rotected  than  in 
unprotected  stations. 

Out  of  a  total,  in  1883,  of  604  deaths  in  the  European  British  Causes  of 
Army  in  India,  133  were  due  to  enteric  fever,  26  to  other  fevers,  '"vahchng. 
51  to  cholera,  63  to  hepatitis,  61  to  apoplexy,  38  to  phthisis, 
37  to  diseases  of  the  respiratory  organs,  17  to  heart  disease, 
and  23  to  dysentery  and  diarrhoea. 

The  following  tables  show — (i)  the  health-statistics  of  the 
European  troops  throughout  all  India,  for  a  series  of  years 
ending  1883;  and  (2)  the  sickness,  mortality,  and  invaliding 
among  those  troops  in  1883,  arranged  separately  under  the 
three  Presidencies  : — 


Death-rate  among  European  Troops  in  India,  1871-1883, 


Strength. 

Ratio  per  iooo  of  Average  Strength. 

Period. 

0        c« 

-ii 

bi 

W 

•— 

-0 

t  « 

fi 

> 

h^ 

1871     to    1875 

(average),      . 

58,432 

1394 

57 

17-62 

43-09 

61 

1876, 

57,858 

1361 

56 

I5'32 

38-90 

54 

1877, 

57,260 

1257 

55 

1271 

42-25 

55 

1878, 

56,475 

1651 

68 

21  46 

45 

66 

1879, 

49,582 

1977 

78 

24-28 

49 

73 

1880, 

51-796 

1789 

74 

24-85 

26 

51 

1881, 

58,728 

1605 

70 

16-86 

38 

55 

1882, 

57,269 

1445 

65 

1 2 -07 

33 

45 

1883, 

55,525 

1336 

63 

10-88 

33 

44 

Averag 

e, 

56,666 

1492 

63 

17-43 

40 

57 

682 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


Sickness,  Mortality,  and  Invaliding  AxMong  European 
Troops  in  the  Three  Presidencies  during  1883. 


Health 
of  the 
Native 
Army, 
in  1877 
and  1SS3, 


of  BenjTal 


Presidency. 

Average 
Strength. 

Ratio  per  iooo  of  Average  Strength. 

2     "« 

Q 

Q 

B 

> 
c 

Total 
Loss. 

Bengal,    . 
Madras,   . 
Bombay,  . 

34,079 
10,498 
10,948 

1463 
1013 
1249 

66 
59 

57 

1 1 -2 1 

10-19 

io'5o 

31 

38 

42  "21 

43'i9 
48-50 

Health  of  the  Native  Army. — The  sickness  and  mortality 
in  1877  in  the  regular  Native  Armies  of  Bengal,  Madras,  and 
Bombay,  the  Central  India  Regiments,  Punjab  Frontier  Field 
Force,  and  Haidarabad  Contingent,  are  shown  by  the  following 
figures  : — average  strength  of  troops  (present  with  regiments), 
113,966;  admissions  into  hospital,  1030  per  thousand;  daily  sick, 
32;  deaths  from  cholera,  i"53;  deaths  from  all  causes,  10-90, 
or,  including  men  dying  while  absent  from  their  regiments, 
13-38  per  thousand.  In  1883,  the  total  average  strength  of  the 
Native  Army  of  India  (present  with  regiments)  was  114,830  ; 
admissions  into  hospital,  923  per  thousand ;  average  daily 
sick,  31 ;  deaths  from  cholera,  1-15  per  thousand  ;  deaths  from 
all  causes,  ii-76  per  thousand  of  actual  regimental  strength,  or 
14*3 1  per  thousand,  including  deaths  among  absentees.  Malarial 
fevers  are  the  chief  cause  of  admission  into  hospital ;  wounds 
and  accidents  come  next ;  followed  by  dysentery,  diarrhoea,  and 
enteric  fever.  The  mortality  amounted  to  27*28  per  cent,  of 
the  total  treated,  the  lowest  since  1877.  Respiratory  diseases 
were  the  cause  of  the  largest  mortality,  namely,  3*91  per 
thousand,  followed  by  fevers,  i'4i  ;  and  by  cholera,  1-15  per 
thousand. 

;  In  the  Bengal  Native  Army,  the  death-rate  in  1883  was 
10 '5  5  per  thousand,  a  lower  ratio  than  for  any  one  year  since 
1877,  when  it  was  io'32  per  thousand.  In  the  Central  India 
Regiments,  the  mortality  was  as  low  as  7-89  per  thousand  in 
1883,  compared  with  9-71  in  1877,  and  with  11 -lo,  the  average 
of  the  ten  years  preceding  1877.  In  the  Punjab  Frontier 
Force,  the  death-rate,  including  deaths  among  absentees,  was 
23 '35  per  thousand  in  1883,  and  excluding  absentees,  21-46  ; 
while  in  1877  the  rate  was  12-26  per  thousand.  Altogether, 
the    Sanitary   Commissioner   reports    that    the    health   of  the 


HEALTH  OF  THE  NATIVE  ARMY. 


68- 


Native  Army  in  Bengal  is  very  satisfactory,  and  that  there  is 
still  a  tendency  towards  diminishing  mortality  in  normal  years. 

In  the  Madras  Native  Army,  the  regimental  mortality,  in-  of  Madras; 
eluding  deaths  among  absentees,  was  14*36  per  thousand  in 
1877,  and  12-51  per  thousand  in  1883.  Excluding  deaths  of 
absentees,  the  ratio  was  11 -So  per  thousand  in  1877,  and  10-76 
I)er  thousand  in  1883.  Besides  garrisoning  its  own  Province, 
the  Madras  Army  supplies  troops  for  British  Burma  and  the 
Andaman  and  Nicobar  islands,  as  also  to  certain  Districts  in 
the  Central  Provinces,  and  to  Cuttack  District  in  Orissa. 

In  the  Bombay  Native  Army,  the  death-rate,  including  of  Bombay, 
deaths  among  absentees,  in  1877  was  12-96  per  thousand, 
varying  from  11 '65  for  regiments  in  the  northern  Division  of 
Bombay,  to  18 '81  for  those  in  the  Konkan.  In  1883,  the  rate 
of  mortality,  including  deaths  among  absentees,  was  i4'96  per 
thousand ;  excluding  absentees,  the  rate  among  those  actually 
serving  with  their  regiments  was  12 -81  per  thousand. 

The  returns  for  the  Haidarabad  Contingent,  both  for  1877  Haidar- 
and  1883,  are  more  favourable  than  those  for  any  other  portion  ^^^'^  Y'" 
of  the  Native  Army.  The  admissions  into  hospital  in  187  7  were 
only  806  per  thousand ;  daily  sick,  26  ;  and  mortality  (includ- 
ing deaths  among  absentees),  9*61  per  thousand.  The  number 
of  deaths  from  cholera,  however  (4"43  per  thousand),  was 
much  above  that  recorded  in  any  other  part  of  the  Native 
Army.  In  1883,  the  admissions  into  hospital  had  fallen  to  an 
average  of  572  per  thousand,  the  daily  sick-rate  to  20  per 
thousand,  and  the  mortality  to  7-59  per  thousand. 

The   sickness  and  mortality  in   the  Regular  Native  Army  Results  in 

and  other  forces   in    1877    and    1883   are   compared  in  the  p^^  ^._  ^^ 

following  tables  : —  dencies 

compared. 

Sickness  and  Mortality  among  Native  Troops  in  1877, 


Pkesidency,  etc. 

0  rt  *- 
M    u   c 

u  g  a 
2  2; « 

< 

Ratio  per  icoo. 

0     ■« 

Hi 

u 

'3 

Q 

E 
•£•0 

0  s 

_ 

Bengal  Native  Army,    . 
Madras      ,,          ,, 
Bombay    ,,           ,, 
Centril  India  Regiments, 
Punjab  Frontier  Field  Force, 
Haidarabad  Contingent, 

India, 

13-63 
14-36 

12-96 

10-59 
14-55 

9-61 

39,649 

28,304 
23,388 

5,046 
10,359 

7,220 

1096 
860 

1074 
810 

1403 
806 

33 

28 

33 
25 
41 
26 

•35 
2-79 
1-93 

-79 

4-43 

10-32 

1 1 -So 

10-90 
9-71 

12-26 
9-42 

13-38 

113,966 

1030 

32 

•53 

10-90 

684 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


Sickness  and  Mortality  among  Native  Troops  in  188; 


Health  of 
the  jail 
popula- 
tion. 


General 

statistics, 

1877. 


0^   v 

^ 

Ratio  per  iooo. 

l^l 

i'^S 

s         s  . 

Presidency,  etc. 

^^< 

"^gs 

§   ii. 

^ 

,2d 

§,'i 

«;  O;0h 

S--  0 

•5-0 

1^ 

o.s^ 

< 

-     X 

G 

„u 

0  ta 

Bengal  Native  Army,    . 

13-98 

40,932 

98  s 

32 

0-56 

10-55 

Madras      ,,           ,, 

12-51 

27,703 

737 

27 

2-92  j  10-76  1 

Bombay     ,,           ,, 

14-96 

23,576 

994 

35 

0-47 

12-81 

Central  India  Regiments, 

io-i6 

5,197 

595 

19 

0-39 

7-89 

Punjab  Frontier  Field  Force, 

23-35 

10,438 

1,419 

45 

0-00 

21-46 

Haidarabad  Contingent, 
India, 

9-31 

6,983 

572 

20 

2-15 

7-59 

14-31 

114,830 

923 

31 

1-15  11-76 

Health  of  the  Jail  Population. — The  Report  of  the 
Sanitary  Commissioner  with  the  Government  of  India  for 
1877,  was  the  first  which  included  the  vital  statistics  of  the 
jails  of  all  three  Presidencies.  'The  year  1877,  to  which 
it  refers,'  says  the  Sanitary  Commissioner,  '  is  particularly 
unfortunate  for  commencing  this  change,  as,  owing  to 
famine  and  distress  over  great  portion  of  both  Madras  and 
Bombay,  the  number  of  prisoners  in  those  parts  was  sud- 
denly increased  far  beyond  all  precedent ;  the  new  prisoners 
were,  in  large  proportion,  received  in  a  low  state  of  health, 
consequent  on  continued  privation  ;  the  jails  having  such  large 
and  unexpected  calls  for  accommodation  on  them,  were,  as  a 
rule,  greatly  overcrowded,  and  the  sickness  and  mortality,  as 
was  to  be  expected,  have  been  lamentably  in  excess  of  former 
years.' 

The  average  number  of  prisoners  throughout  India  in  1877 
was  returned  at  110,147;  admissions  into  hospital  numbered 
1017  per  thousand;  daily  sick,  36  per  thousand;  average 
death-rate,  61-95  P^r  thousand.  The  months  of  October  and 
November  gave  the  highest  admission  rate,  97 ;  and  the 
month  of  November  the  highest  death-rate,  9-18.  Dysentery, 
diarrhoea,  and  cholera  were  the  main  causes  of  mortality,  the 
three  together  accounting  for  33-6 r  out  of  the  total  of  61-95 
per  thousand.  '  There  are  no  previous  figures  with  which 
these  general  results  of  1877  can  be  compared;  they  deserve 
attention  as  the  first  collection  of  statistics  regarding  the  sick- 
ness and  mortality  among  the  prisoners  of  all  India,  a  collection 
which  cannot  fail  in  a  few  years  to  contribute  very  valuable 


HEALTH  OF  JAIL  POPULATION.  6S5 

information.'    The  returns  for  the  Bengal  Presidency  were  very  Returns 
favourable,  the  mortality  being  31  "88  per  thousand,  as  com- :?'^     p 
pared  with    3y5i    in   1876,    33'65   in  1875,  and   46-09,   the  sidencies, 
average  for  the  ten-year  period,  1864-73.     I^^  the  Madras  Pre-  ^^  '^77  • 
sidency,  the  returns  showed  a  mortality  of  176 •01,  while  the 
ratio  for  the  Bombay  Presidency  was   54*37   per   thousand. 
The  causes  of  these  high  figures  have  already  been  indicated. 
In  only  17  of  the  34  jails  in  the  Madras  Presidency  was  the 
death-rate  under  100  per  thousand;   in  the  others  it  varied 
much,  rising  to  200,  300,  500,  and  in  one  (Coimbatore  District 
Jail)  to   657    per   thousand.       And   in    Bombay  Presidency, 
where  similar  causes  were  at  work,  though  in  a  minor  degree, 
the   mortality,  54*37  per  thousand,  was  double  what  it   had 
been  for  years. 

Although  1877  was  an  abnormal  year,  especially  in  Madras  in  1SS3. 
and  Bombay,  owing  to  the  causes  stated  above,  the  returns  for 
1883  show  a  great  improvement  in  the  vital  statistics  of  Indian 
jails  over  those  of  the  previous  five  years.  The  average  prison 
population  in  India  in  1883  was  88,174,  as  against  112,670  in 
the  previous  five  years ;  the  admissions  into  hospital  were 
996  per  thousand,  as  compared  with  an  average  of  1189  in 
1877-81  ;  average  daily  sick,  36  per  thousand  in  1883,  as 
compared  with  44-9  per  thousand  in  1877-81.  The  cholera 
mortality  was  in  the  ratio  of  2*28  per  thousand  in  1883,  against 
an  annual  average  of  4'48  for  the  previous  five  years ;  deaths 
from  dysentery  and  diarrhoea  showed  a  ratio  of  io'64  per 
thousand  in  1883,  against  24*97  per  thousand  in  the  years 
1877-81  ;  while  the  deaths  from  all  causes  were  31*37  per 
thousand  in  1883,  as  against  63-01  per  thousand  in  the  five 
years  1877-81.  The  heaviest  jail  mortality  in  18S3  was  in 
the  Central  Provinces  (70*97  per  thousand),  Bengal  (52-21 
per  thousand),  and  Assam  (43-12  per  thousand),  while  the 
lowest  ratio  was  reached  in  Berar,  with  only  8-49  deaths  per 
thousand. 

The  following  tables  condense  the  health  statistics  of  the 
Indian  jails  in  1877  and  in  1883  : — 


[Sickness 


6S6 


VITAL  STATISTICS  OF  INDIA. 


Sickness  and  Mortality  in  Indian  Jails,  1877. 


c 

Ratio  per 

1000  OF 

AVERA 

3E  Strength. 

. 

Deaths. 

Province. 

-t, 

• 

rt 

'5-  0.- 

-3     w 

'c3 

i 
■0 

0  n. 

e  § « 

0 

3 
« 
t_) 

< 

<     * 

« 

u 

K  6 

<   < 

0 

^    1 

Bengal  Proper, 

17,862 

1276 

39 

8-29 

18-98 

342 

49-66 

North-Western  Provi 

ices,i 

21,668 

535 

21 

I '43 

5  "45 

I  89 

19-71 

Oudh.i 

6,726 

504 

16 

2 -08 

1-19 

10-56 

Punjab, 

12,129 

1504 

37 

•08 

10-64 

I  07 

33 'So 

Central  Provinces, 

3.484 

907 

37 

•29 

12-92 

I2'92 

45-06 

Berar, 

963 

937 

26 

1-04 

519 

15-58 

Assam, 

1,261 

1382 

40 

II'IO 

23-00 

238 

56-30 

British  Burma,    . 

4,686 

844 

38 

19-63 

18-56 

4-27 

5676 

Madras,  2     . 

20,328 

967 

40 

26'12 

85-15 

24 '50 

176-01 

Bombay,  2    . 

11.S31 

935 

27 

3 '64 

26-19 

8-67 

54-37 

Andamans, 

9.039 

1687 

76 

5-20 

7-19 

34-30 

1  These,  although  now  under  one  Local  Government,  are  shown  separately 
for  comparison  with  former  years.  The  favourable  results  in  Oudh  are  worthy 
of  attention. 

-  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  mortality  in  the  Madras  and  Bombay 
Jails  in  1877  was  greatly  increased  by  the  reception  of  starving  prisoners  during 
the  famine. 


Sickness  and  Mortality  in  Indian  Jails,  1883, 


Province. 


Bengal  Proper, 
North-Western 

and  Oudh, 
Punjab, 
Central  Provinces, 
Berar, 
Assam, 

British  Burma,    . 
Madras, 
Bombay, 
Andamans, 


Provinces) 


14,288 
22,924 
12,128 

3.875 
1,060 
1,206 

5.149 

7,666 

7,806 

11,511 


Ratio  per  iooo  of  Average  Strength. 


1498 

50 

563 

23 

951 
919 

558 

2125 

27 
36 
14 
56 

1159 
861 

39 

.32) 

734 
1454 

27 
67 

2-84 

5-80 
7-96 

I  "96 

2-05 


Deaths. 


—  c 

i  .i 

^■5. 

2S« 

m  S 
0 

-  "  c 

<   < 

u 

23  "44 

2-94 

4-32 

1-48 

6-i8 

1-24 

4671 

4-13 

1-89 

16-58 

3 '32 

7-96 

1-55 

12-78 

2-6i 

6-79 

1-67 

2-87 

•69 

52-21 
19-76 

29'II 

70-97 
8-49 

43'i2 
28-94 
29-87 

34-33 
19-63 


APPENDICES. 


APPENDICES. 


689 


■asnoq 

yisp  <~o  On 

.rl- 

PI  ^  l^  M   On  10 

P 

0    •— 

I 

0 

ui  u-ivo  vo 

<i> 

Tl"  10  10  t-^  t-.  10 

NO 

c     " 

•aiiui  gjEnbs 
ja'd  sssnojj 

vO   ON  0  fO 

10 

0    O^OO    N  NO  00 

I^ 

ft! 

■<*•  N  \o  m 

vo 

ro  «-i  N  rn  « 

PO 

bl 

0    C-i 

O 

•aSeniA 
jad  suosjaj 

N   On  ro  0\ 

00 

^00    On  ro  ■^nO 

0 

0   ■£ 

^ 

OnnO  vO   Th 

00   I-  1^  N   10  ro 

NO 

100    M   U-) 

■<*• 

e»   N   ■^nO   ro  N 

PO 

<: 

a. 

«         >N 

•S3]IUI 

ajEnbs  001  jad 

r-~  0  r^  M 

% 

—  00   M   t^  M  00 
Tf  -^  fO  P)  ro  -■ 

PI 

NO 

0       ^ 

> 

'•DJ3   'S3gEII!A 

^ 

< 

a>     JJ 

jad  suosja j; 

"-   ro  0  t^ 

NO 

r^  10  >-i  0   ""O  ro 

P) 

-^    --^ 

5- 

—  0  vo  r^  —   -^ 

PI 
P) 

^ 

«   ,^„  t^ 

ON 

—  NO    fO  M    M    - 

t^ 

t/)  "^ 

c 

rO  •-  NO   ro 

0 

On  M   t^  N    0    t^ 

ON 

c    c 

_  0 

NO    'd-OO    '^ 

c» 

t~,  -*nO  t^  rn  r^ 

CO 

si 

0"  ^VO"  0" 

rC 

00"  -   pT  o'cCo" 

00" 

T.    c 

Hi 

ir^  \r\  r*^.  \J~\ 

0 

c.oo  i^nO  i^  fO 

00 

r!    -j; 

—^    Tf   U->CC 

CO  CO  NO    •*  -   t^ 

00 

'5      '^ 

0 

"-"no"  0^00" 

'i^ 

0  ■^  pT             ro 

,J" 

§      g' 

z 

(^  «  ^O    « 

Tf 

0 
p) 

W      « 

00  vO   0    ■* 

ro 

vo  PO  1-  00  rONO 

00 

"S       45 

0 

ui 

00    ON  t^QO 

10  P)  00    t^NO  NO 

tf3    rt 

r^ 

u 

"^nO   N   ro 

0 

PO  t^  -00  00   t^ 

0 

< 

E 

o^-o"  "  0" 

10 

oi  i~C  PI   —"  rC  10 

co" 

Ji     C^ 

-J 

3 

Tj-   LO   -      "^ 

ON 

r^  t^  On  —  r^  ■* 

rl 

^ 

r^  On  On  no 

00    CO  P4    P)           t^ 

0 

,0      0) 

b 

3      > 

0 

»^tC  ■^foo 

1-4 

tJ;  m"  -         - 

cf; 

M         ro 

N 

ON 

vj.      rt 

rooo  "   <~0 

NO 

10  r'l  P>    rr  ON  10 

ON 

1     ^ 

•^^  -.   ON  10 

10 

ro  0    On  Tt-  PO  0 

r^ 

-fi 

0  t^  i-n  0 

10 

Tl-  t^  T)-00    tT  0 

CO 

'-:      0 

^ 

«  t^  W-)  0 

M 

0  i-o  0  CO  0  - 

o~ 

e 

A 

M    ON  M    - 

10  0  00    ■*  0    On 

vo 

cS       t/) 

% 

Ti-  Tj-vO    M 

On 

On  10  PO  PI    —    On 

CO 

-a  .S 

"^00    '^O 

M 

Tj-  P4    -                 - 

sT 

P     b/3 

1-1         ro  -H 

N 

0 

li^"   Tl-  'i- 

r^ 

NO  00    t^OO    t^  P< 

vo 

-d   M 

eg   -e- 1^  — 

0 

r^oo  P)  —  lovo 

00 

ro  t^  t^  On 

vo 

On  PO  0    —    P^  CO 

■* 

c 

Is 

i-T  pTo  no' 

NO 

NcT  OnnO    ■^  pT  r^ 

0" 

iT  2 

d  0 

"    M    "^  0 

0 

^<^  ionO  nO   p)   t-^ 

1~~ 

^X 

t^io  0  t-^ 

00 

rooo    ■*            NO 

"J? 

0  '  rt 

to  pf  i-T  m" 

no' 

pT 

ro 

p^ 

^  s 

^  ^ 

00  00  u->  Tj- 

„ 

N  00  10  ON  por^ 

0 

"s  g 

Tl-  OnnO   M 

N 

—    C  CO    PO  0   vo 

0 

g  be  t1  0 

no  "^  t^  r^ 

'i- 

NO    -^  vo  t^  VOOO 

^ 

0)     i^ 

^  rt  ?;  *2 

Q   — -        M       ^ 

N    Ti-  "^  ■* 

10 

Tj-  PI    vo                vo 

rt     0 

f->^ 

to  N  NO   ro 

0 

PO  P)                        — 

NO 

N 

VO 

1   ^ 

"    N  00    N 

„ 

vo  —   —   —    r^  0 

vo 

NO        t 

.S  0  ^ 

0   N   On  <^ 

1^ 

Tj-  Tt-  -   —  CO   P) 

I^ 

r^    vo 

^  A   ^ 

0   -   -NO 

t-« 

Tj-  r^  r-»  r^  vo  P< 

0 

^  ^ 

»-o  00 

"    'rl-i-OO 

NO 

•^vO  t^  N  —  t^ 

t-t 

■^  N   ON  0 

0 

00   Tl-  "-I            00 

On 

B   ^ 

-i-ip^ 


E    ,,    1»         ^  ' 


^  o  c  o 


-.0  <  o  .£>^o  o, 
_■_=  "7^  '7^  ^  *^  ^IS. 


r-S    C    O 


:i  "c5 


o 


-of 
•r  3 

Jo 


000 


o 


.s  o 


2  X 


690 


APPENDICES. 


^ 
^ 


u    G 


■s^ 


2     .^ 


^  k   J 

CO  O)   un  rh 

^ 

M  CO    i^  OS  ro         t^ 

0 

0  g=  s  S 

■^  CnO   M 

N 

>-<    0  CO   ro  0         "-1 

so 

\0  iJ^t^  ro 

-a^ 

so   ■*  "-1  r-»  10      00 

'^ 

N    '*  "*  "* 

lJ^ 

■^  M    uo                       vri 

i-i 

IT)  ^^  v£)  ro 

0 

ro  M                               "-I 

so 

0 

N 

10 

■S  ,i^ 

I-   •  ^^  c 

«  -  0  rt 

OsO  -  :« 

•+ 

ro   :    :    :    :       n 

ro 

0.      o,j 

u-) 

^    g,i 

0  c.  ± 

6  ■^'~'  c 

2  8  g  2 

►-  ro  ri  ro 

00 

ro  :  N  M    :       N 

so 

M   «  n   « 

ON 

fa  X- 1-3 

0  0  55 

0    c    "I 

£    n'~   C 

s  8  0  5 

"ICO   ^00 

0 

ro   :  N  -<    :       "^ 

»rl 

fa  ^§:s 

N-l                  >-( 

N 

r^ 

ly  0  pJ 

*"   «J3 

0   C   m 

et"  C 

Froi 
1,00c 
,000 
bita 

00  0  Ov  0 

^ 

t^  roso    :    :       N 

10 

'^•ro  '^  N 

10 

p) 

p» 

o  «o  rt 

"     MJ2 

s°"oi 

•^  N  VO    "^ 

M 

PI  "^  'd-  ■*  «       0 

't 

0  0  0  ™ 

fa  0  S'S 

0    ^-^  " 

Cn 

ro       N                    — 

so 

Tt    -<      "      1-1 

" 

q^ 

•"  0  rt 

MJ= 

s2i| 

ro  0  0   0 

ro 

«  t^  <-o„  «      00 

ITS 

0  0  -  i3 

-   -    ^  '^ 

00 

\0                LO   11 

't 

fa  0  2"^ 

00   roro  ro 

■^ 

■<J 

"  in  rt 

eT 

\C 

From 
2000  to 
[000  In- 
abitants 

"-   iy->30   ro 

0 

►-  vn  M  0   ro        Cs 

p) 

0  -Jl-  u-i  Cn 

CN 

M  ro  t^  —              1- 

10 

M   w-i  0  0 

o_ 

'~' 

OS 

tn 
to 
In-     3 

nts.  h; 

1 

N    ^  "*  ■* 

^ 

rOsO  SO    >-•  0          N 

OS 

rfvo   OS  i^ 

'i- 

Os  W   »^  LO  •-<          "^ 

t-^ 

0  0  «  1 

0    't  OS  ON 

C7N 

SO   ro  ro                    >- 

OS 

r^    °    §•- 

fa  0  fija 
"  °  rt 

>J->  M  vO    P) 

U-) 

^ 

P) 

j= 

esii 

0  -    >-  CO 

0 

Cs  0   N   10  OS        OS 

ro 

r^  i^^c   ^ 

OS 

r-  Osso   N   OS        1-1 

P» 

°  0  oS 

ro  ^  iJ-l  ro 

VO 

ro  N   OS  1-1              00 

n 

fa  g>g:3 

ON  ii-1  rovO 

VO 

ro  M 

00 

N 

HH 

so 

.C 

,     « 

t^  •*  t^  ON 

t^ 

ro  10  ro  T)-  0       so 

Tj- 

G  2    =    C 

vO    ro  0    t^ 

rOOO  00    ■5j-  Tj-        00 

00 

So     2 

0   "^  royD 

00 

M    P)  CO    P)    ii         CO 

PI 

^  5  o.ti 

fa  2  0^ 

T)-CO    t~~  "I 

^ 

1-    u-i  1-1                         Tj- 

0 

"^  w  10  rt 

«         vo    " 

ro 

so 

X 

ON  r^  ro  r^ 

VO 

r--  Os  vn  —   ■*       ro 

„ 

u-)0  ^    ro 

ON 

r^o  PI  r^  ro      so 

so 

:i -^  rt 

"-1  0    PI    ON 

0 

0    ■*  Pi    PI    P)           OS 

^i?83 

i-T  rC  "o  «" 

0" 

CN  -^  P)                          OS 

00 

(U     N     rt 

n       vD  >- 

-^J- 

OS 

~     J= 

»-< 

P) 

-,   ■    , 

•— t       -       •       •       ■       .     r^        • 

^ 

2                   .-£ 

_-  rt^ 

^ 

•  -r  t/5  b  0    ■  j=. 

■5       •<        <u     „  0 

< 

c   c  ■"  * 

-'     •  <_ 

.«   •  ^  ^r  S  £/3      • 

•^ 

u 

°      °  S  S  0  a. 

s 

2 

^  0  £    - 

.,  c   a3 

.      S'^'^'^i 

w 

0 

C.2 

-   _  c  _^         _o    _ 

0 

00,? 

£  .3 

•^       '■^'          l-l                                      *^ 

^      0 

c  S 

^'B  a       « 

►J 

c       ^ 

y  p  0        s  .. 

< 

^       a 

^    c 

f- 

-^  0 

S  ■  "p         '  s 

P 

0    "  ^ 

->^ 

Cu  '0  5          'o  iH 

K'JJ 

0      .5 

'-G 

-    j=  0        ^ 

0      K-1 

CJ 

uu        u 

APPENDICES. 


691 


tL    ^ 


M      ^       5 


w    G 


u      S 


^    hi 

Z     o      5j 


U 


5    "^ 


■3J3V  pSJBAIJin^ 
J3d  ]U3y^  JO 

.^-  «l»           .  -In 

0     •    c  ■* 

i-t» 

CO 

.   .  0  0 

SDUSppuj  32BJ3AV 

1        .             ■     = 

vO 

« 

•■     ^vol 

•3J0V  psjBAUjn^ 

^-  -Hr:H>  ^ 

Hx 

H» 

-^i-«c?;h 

1 ..     1 

J3d  snU3A3^t 

1    ^    ~    0   '^  0 

On 

CN~  0  0 

0 

ON 

JU3U1UJ3A0Q  JO 

" 

,        33U3ppUI  aSBJSAV 

o,-    Tt  «           N 

<^ 

0 

w    N  VO    N 

'd- 

N 

_ 

"      . vO   •* 

r^ 

Tt- 

.      .00       . 

0 

t       S  h^-O 

00     <«  On  "^ 

>o 

M 

03     »■.   IV-)    m 

"■•      00 

c  >.  0  ^  c    , 

t  s  "„  q. 

r^ 

0 

£50     = 

£          N 

Re 

idb 

;vat 

es  a 

ates 

1.  ,MD    5  Cf^  ON 

vo" 

3  Hvo"  H 

U     U   CO    u 

u         On 

Total 

pai 

Culti 

incI 

Cess 

R; 

I^   >-   rfiO 

^O 

ro 

0 

0   il  ^  -d^ 

« 

" 

00        0 

^2;     ^; 

Z         ro 

•      "S"^  „-d 

(Tir^  rj-Ov 

VO 

in 

ro  r^oo  ro 

«^         N 

-T3^    C    S    C 

0   0^00  "^ 

CO 

'i- 

•^  -   ir-.  rn 

ro         M 

S^-o  csS  § 

0  q^  t-.ro 

i^ 

m 

VJ-)  ro  0   On 

N           N 

,     0"  i^r  _r  n" 

ro 

rC 

ro  rCvo"  d" 

ro       00" 

S?  <-o  0  Tf  0 

I~- 

^ 

CC   r-.  ro  ^ 

0          ro 

^^  *-'  3  Jjj  "p;  0 

^  ~  0^  4  ro 

w^ 

VO 

rovo 

r^        \r\ 

Total 
mer 
Revem 
ingC 
Loc; 
levied 

>J^  f^  -rf  n' 

no" 

Tt 

N 

1 

t/    y' 

cn           u5 

tfi 

<f- 

ji 

00   E  E  ^ 

CN 

VO 

S  0  E  0 

£      i~- 

u 

,  -a 

«    3    =  ro 

"1 

CJN 

3  VO      3    M 

3     00 

J 

►5  > 

"    u    u  ^ 

vO_ 

^r 

■500     -CO 

%     00 

g 

t^B 

fC  '-  ^  d 

"^ 

CTN 

^ 

;;         ro 

0    0  ro 

N 

0           0 

0       00 

Id 
< 

" 

2:2; 

z     2; 

IZ 

1 

roi^   E  -1 

VO 

ro 

E  ro  OnvO 

ro         i-i 

w 

N    t^    30 

VO 

VO 

3  r^  On  ro 

>*         ^ 

Z 

_> 

N  VO    J5  N 

M 

1— 

%  ^ 

^ 

2         •» 

-•-; 

ro  M     ■"   Tj- 

Cn 

0 

»-• 

u 

"    "     °  fO 

PJ 

0 

'A 

0 

a 
w 

•u 

rou-i  S  t^ 

VO 

ri 

•*  ovo  0 

0           N 

u 

vy->  -1     i,\0 

10 

VO 

-0  03    « 

0         ro 

u? 

rt 

t^  0     =    ■* 

0 

"*■ 

t^  0     -     ON 

^        0 

u 

■5 

•  — 

c«  "«  ?;  M 

ri 

-1- 

vo"  0" 

VO          P) 

t/3 

< 

2 

"5 
0 

2: 

w-i 

f) 

s 

Tf  N     c  N 

I.H 

i-t 

Tt-  N   li-ivO 

ro 

0 

2 

CS  On   »-nO 

CO 

N 

«    0  CO  VO 

■* 

VO 

a 

""rt 

q^o_  =vo 

ON 

*-t 

t^  r^  P)  t^ 

'i^ 

^ 

u 

> 

= 

0\  ^o   u  rC 

\r\ 

•* 

VO    P<            w 

VO 

rC 

H 

mvO    ^  On 

CN 

VO 

NH 

0 

6 

•z. 

^ 

rt"?-^  „ 

"  r^c«   0 

„ 

VO 

0     Ti-  ro  - 

0 

vb 

"  '^  If  rt  ^ 

(S  vnco  — 

1-1 

rf 

0    "  CO    - 

P) 

Cl 

O^'S  S  3  s 

CO    t^  LO  0 

N^ 

•>*• 

vD   r--  •o  r^ 

r) 

VO 

T^  ^  ^  ill  "^ 

0  r^  0  r-~ 

VO 

Tf 

1^  t--  —   c^ 

t^ 

ro 

52  Srt  ri       H 

Tf-  iA>o 

0 

00 

N   " 

00 

Tt- 

CO 

^^^ 

.     .     .     .    1) 

£^ 

•  £ 

•      •     •     •  .J3 

. 

^"  ^"T^ 

rt 

.-^ 

rt  •:: 

2 

tr 

."Zii 

0 

•  < 

•   •   •   •;5 

. 

CJ    3    0 

^° 

0 

-  'j"'^ 

C3 

-  .-  tc  ^  0 

.    .  c  "^  c 

^— ^  !-     ^  1) 

.-  ^^  IS 

t«    CI. 

JN, 

^  ^  R  S  o. 

l 

Provinces. 

-5  S  0  S-F^ 
rt  c  c^=  5 

0  0  0  s  0 

0  ^ 

■>  0 

0  c 

*-■    0 

|i 

0  c 

,15 

.S  0 
2  .^ 

y  i)  0 .—,.-- 
^^'o  0  1 

< 

3 

ii  Ji  e  0  c 

lisps 

?  0 

aj   S  <u  3   S 

>     S     C     C     rj 

•5;  0  c  0  £ 

=  •:;:  -t^  -^^  ° 

S 

£   2   0     .   0 

s;  1:  a  3  3 

5   5   (U   u   a 

g  S  S  Sul 

-S  g  S.ii 

0  0  0  J= 

M 

0  0  J  J  J 

U 

6 

0  u  u  0 

=3.-^ 


>  g 

2  « 


.3  o 

X   o 

p  c 
S  o 


u 

^ 

h 

rt 

te 

jj 

c 

r 

0 

Zi 

m 

•  1  ■ 

ri 

0 

(U 

;- 

Hr 


692 


APPENDICES. 


^ 
^ 


G 


2     ^ 


o      -^ 


M 

^ 

^ 

r^ 

Oi 

^ 

NO 

m 

N 

N 

„ 

t^ 

m 

-O 

ON 

1^ 

0 

t^ 

ON 

•a -J 

vo^ 

■* 

t^ 

NO 

1^ 

r^ 

C  rt 

cT 

VO 

0 

r^ 

0 

CO 

t-^ 

0 

t^ 

t^ 

2  0 

» 

nO^ 

Tt- 

CH 

i. 

vo" 

0^ 

co" 

? 

c? 

■^ 

« 

fn 

0 

^ 

« 

j^ 

t^ 

NO 

« 

0 

M 

3  (^ 

.0 

fO 

tC 

: 

no" 

y. 

bJ)  u 

ON 

C4 

r4 

fO 

w 

<  & 

^ 

t/3 

N 

o\ 

(N 

0 

N 

CO 

m 

m 

t^ 

m 

in 

0 

H 
0 
03 

VO 

0 

0 

t^ 

ON 

0 

NO 

i2  rJ  "O 

■^ 

l^ 

■^ 

00 

■^ 

t^ 

« 

'^ 

m 

in 

oo" 

tc 

ro 

0 

0" 

^ 

0 

i-T 

no" 

00" 

in 

tC 

.—             Ut 

0 

NO 

On 

3-3  rt 

0 

vo 

r^ 

^«* 

c<r 

0" 

^ 

^ 

r>. 

in 

cT 

^ 

w" 

eT 

M 

^ 

M 

N 

M 

CO 

in 

00 

0 

t^ 

vo 

m 

CO 

m 

t>. 

NO 

in 

m 

0 

ON 

0- 

o_ 

t^ 

^_ 

0 

0\ 

2  S 

tc 

tC 

cR 

r^ 

(^ 

d^ 

d 

^ 

cS 

J" 

^ 

^ 

0 

NO 

« 

o_ 

C3N 

o_ 

o_ 

^^ 

<o 

rC 

tC 

>o 

^ 

h- 

00 

00 

\o 

0 

^ 

c^ 

NO 

m 

^. 

00 

m 

NO 

■3-5 

01 

t^ 

r^ 

NO 

o_ 

t^ 

r^ 

o- 

0 

On 

r-. 

cSg 

^ 

^ 

On 

r-^ 

ON 

t^ 

-^ 

0^ 

h. 

0 

o\ 

00 

m 

c^ 

t^ 

li. 

'i 

tc 

;^ 

co" 

N 

^ 

N 

tt 

"' 

On 
C3N 

.i 

-* 

^ 

<o 

t^ 

VO 

r^ 

V  4) -: 

M  a  S 

m 

'i- 

0 

■-. 

^ 

11 

• 

" 

u 

<  g'^ 

0 

0 

^ 

"Sn 

<; 

5 

■* 

" 

NO 

5 

0 

1^ 

lO 

o\ 

0 

t^ 

t^ 

-* 

c^ 

^. 

1^ 

^ 

ON 

fe 

tC 

0 

(i 

vo" 

rn 

cS 

6\ 

^ 

no" 

co" 

^ 

CJN 

CJ> 

00 

On 

M- 

^^§^ 

d\ 

:^ 

^ 

On 

:? 

t^ 

o_^ 

On 

d 

NO 

„ 

VO 

Oi 

„ 

'J- 

f^ 

in 

NO 

„ 

^- 

NO 

On 

vo 

0 

On 

t^ 

f/:    *-■ 

CO 

o> 

VO 

o_ 

t^ 

0 

-^ 

ON 

m 

m 

m" 

in 

d 

Tp 

bT 

ON 

00" 

rC 

in 

00 

■^ 

On 

m 

0- 

t^ 

t^ 

o_ 

'»^ 

f^ 

^ 

On 

ON 

t~ 

■«• 

3 

■n 

ro 

^ 

m 

tC 

"" 

tC 

n 

00 

„ 

m 

^ 

in 

m 

N 

^ 

ON 

m 

c^ 

•tf 

o\ 

0 

On 

-* 

0 

t^ 

0_ 

t^ 

0 

1^ 

00_ 

o_ 

^  u 

tC 

0" 

On 

0 

8 

0 

0  rt 

o> 

0 

00 

E-S 

■^ 

^ 

io_ 

"^ 

CT> 

CJN 

^ 

« 

M 

^ 

«^ 

■^ 

0 

(nT 

•^ 

N 

0 

.i 

r^ 

t^ 

^ 

0 

0 

m 

t^ 

0 

0 

q_ 

o_ 

<X 

« 

" 

ON 

<:s« 

oi 

r? 

r^ 

ON 

^ 

3 

-^ 

w 

t^ 

>o 

CJv 

0-. 

in 

■^ 

m 

NO 

m 

0 

„ 

m 

m 

CO 

!3 

(U   "   »•  'ji 

r-^ 

0 

r^ 

00 

^-   "^    3  -rj 

«  — _    " 

6 

10 

t^ 

t-^ 

o- 

■<i- 

1^ 

«r^  3T3  ra 

t^ 

t^ 

r^ 

0 

0 

NO 

NO 

0 

<5^  c  ^ 

0 

1-^ 

Cl 

i-" 

On 

CO 

^ 

« 

-1^  « 

CJi 

in 

0" 

10" 

T 

(M 

" 

" 

no" 

t^ 

o\ 

o\ 

00 

m 

C3N 

0 

N 

m 

NO 

0 

NO 

10 

r^ 

0 

00 

C3N 

ON 

0 

0 

0^ 

0 

C3N 

^  J- 

0    (U 

no" 

m" 

cS 

ocT 

in 

rn 

rn 

d; 

6 

no" 

in 

t^ 

00 

m 

t^ 

00_ 

m 

*1 

O; 

1^ 

q_ 

o_^ 

m 

ts. 

no 

3 

10 

tn 

if 

m 

00 

« 

" 

0" 

_ 

^■' 

. 

OJ    ■ 

e 

_rt 

X  j: 

^ 

rt 

a 

bJ) 
a 

3 

0    * 

< 

s 

£? 

P5 
0 

1 

(u'O 

0 

0 

3 

U 
U 

> 

ni 

>• 

S 
0 

m 

0) 

& 
IS 

■5S 

0  5! 

O..S 
^  0 

.2- 
IS  ,^- 

»j  u 

c  c 

'T:   0 

.0 

S3 

n 
0 
a 

0 

0 
0 

0 

.5" 
'.S 

< 

h 
0 
H 

0 

0 

0 

c 

£ 

/^  >- 

I/:    u 

Ul 

u 

1-1 

j2 

a, 

c 

1 

c 

> 

0 

0 

c 

So, 

E15 

E 

u 

c 
0 

c 
_o 

c 
0 

0 

E 

e 

c 

0 

> 

0 

II 

0  ii 

0 
u 

E 

1 

E 

E 

0 
U 

> 

^ 

1 

C 

9> 

!5o 

V 

0 

0 

J= 

IS 

0 

0 

0 

2 

0 

0 

3 

hJ 

l3 

u 

u 

u 

u 

u 

U 

APPENDICES. 


693 


9     s 


Q 

t 

0 

u 

u 

1^ 

< 

S 

Q 

0 

u 

■~v> 

« 

te. 

i« 

■^ 

< 

^ 

<1 

d    c3 


- 

■3- 

_ 

r^ 

:7- 

vo" 

— fo" 

— ^ 

— fT 

— j^ — 

•s.voiona-g 

0 

^ 

? 

rC 

00 

T 

vO_ 

t^ 

^ 

1^ 
1^ 

oo_ 

lav  do  iviox 

M 

* 

s 

0? 

M 

s 

1^ 

S 

HI 

^ 

0 

" 

'^ 

0 

'^ 

m 

0 

On 

tr> 

^ 

^. 

N 

•sjaqjQ  puB 

? 

0 

00 

n 

VO 

paifpsdsufi 

^ 

^ 

" 

<» 

•SEitjiEdntquin;^ 

:             ;               ;               •                  .               \o             .          .          .          .            . 

VO 

m 

CO 

vO 

CN 

t^ 

r- 

f^— 

•SOUHJBJa 

"^ 

t^ 

; 

■^ 

0 

CJ 

ON 

„ 

m 

fn 

•SA3f 

q 

M 

VO 

: 

ON 

f*1 

J? 

-0 

01 

■^ 

(,, 

tn 

^ 

m 

•SISJEJ 

" 

1^ 

" 

- 

" 

t^ 

« 

CO 

•Sjgddm&iOyy^ 

ci^ 

=;s 

-i^N 

'^ 

"^ 

^ 

^■^ — 

'sjmuBdjiqB^ 

: 

1 

^ 

— -^ — 

VO 

■simEnjBg 

fn 

-a- 

0^ 

w 

c^ 

CO 

OD 

CO 

Ov 

u~, 

•supf 

q> 

VO 

" 

t^ 

" 

0 
d 

2 

CJ> 

ON 

CO 

0 

o~ 

^ 

^f. 

— uS" 

— « — 

~~uS — 

•SH^iS 

fr 

M 

0 

1^ 

ir; 

0 

^ 

Ov 

m 

IT) 

(^ 

■soBqsuq^ 

c^ 

^ 

00 

ro 

t^ 

t^ 

^ 

« 

fn 

c^ 

VO 

^1 

o> 

■J 

r-* 

t^ 

r^j 

„ 

VO 

R 

" 

VO 

CO 

CN. 

•sjsiqppna 

H 

? 

^ 

VO 

• 

'k 

*2 

OV 

•saqiJX 

^- 

"I 

t 

•^ 

^0 

[EuiSuoqv 

"Si 

0 

s 

" 

m 

r^ 

'i- 

0 

•-" 

'^ 

t^ 

0 

to 

i/^ 

00 

0 

•sUEpEuiui-Eqnj\[ 

ro 

« 

0 

fl? 

N 

JQ 

r^ 

t^ 

i^ 

« 

oo' 

tN. 

C\ 

ir) 

w 

m 

M 

M 

" 

m 

« 

2 

■" 

- 

^ 

0 

t^ 

VO 

10 

10 

00 

HI 

NO 

0 

* 

m 

•snpujH 

0 

•^ 

0 

"o 

"^ 

m 

VO 

00 

oc 

00 

M 

^ 

t^ 

fl 

t^ 

CO 

" 

? 

^■-^ 

c'-^ 

, ^^ 

,— '-^ 

F 

^^-. 

-G          £ 

*- 

^ 

.£*  ' 

0  go 

0    ■ 

< 
0 

rt 

i 

F 

^ 

15 

< 

z 

^  ^  a 

a 

t: 

2 

c 

C 

si-s 

"u:     r» 

-c 

CQ 

< 

U 

c 

z 

0 

>    . 

>   . 

ses 

^c 

S 

a 

a 

a 

« 

> 

0 

0      . 

0  -i'S 

*7  ?■ 

.2 

-c 

-= 

j~ 

i:  E 

§1 
0- 

n 

Fh 

0 

0 
c 

c  " 

1    rt 

0  u.!2 

c  i  e 

«•£  0 

S- 

f= 

c 
0 

s 

0 

c 
0 

0 

b 

e 

h 

r;  '^. 

U  i! 

0 

tn 

(^ 

■^ 

•   "^ 

< 

> 

'      .y 

s 

F 

F 

u-'*^ 

0 

>■ 

-  d 

4> 

Fi 

F 

F 

H 

.S     2 

^ 

j: 

0 

0 

0 

J2 

0 

0 

hJ 

hJ 

►J      U 

0 

U 

u 

u 

U 

0 

694 


APPENDICES. 


o    En 


<    c3 


•psyioadsun  pu^ 

gisi 

'S3ujun03 

onEisy  J31J10 

' 

N 

"Ejsv  ni  Agjjanj, 

IN 

vO 

01 

lO 

o 

M 

CO 

n 

« 

R, 

o 

VO 
VO 

VO 
lO 

j             '^sqix 

o 

tN 

ON 

cf 

o 

O 

o 

t^ 

•<J- 

0 

VO 

•SJU3U1 

o 

CO 

CN 

t-( 

^ 

lO 

-apjsy  sjiEJig 

CO 

H 

" 

w 

IH 
H 

VO 

CO 

c< 

On 

•UIEIg 

M 

IH 

lO 

cf 

VO 

cf 

„ 

CI 

CO 

CO 

lO 

tN 

«H 

CO 

Ov 

^ 

tN 

VO 

vO 

VO 

CI 

•Eisaaj 

cT 

CO 

CO 

1                              -BAEf 

•* 

lO 

" 

" 

■ 

1                  "UEdEf 

ON 

CO 

>o 

CO 

w 

CO 

(N 

o 

tN 

00 

M 

N 

>H 

t-1 

•* 

M 

00 

•uoi^^aO 

CO 
CO 
CI 

CN 

Cv 

tN 

00 

VO 

o 

o 

tN 

f^ 

H 

>*• 

Tt- 

CO 

VO 

VO 

•UEimia 

CO 

CO 

Tf 

•ciuauijv 

s 

Tt- 

CI 

^ 

'^ 

00 

C". 

CO 

ON 
CO 

■Euung  43dd/| 

t 

CO 

co 

CO 

o 

lO 

_ 

o 

o 

VO 

lO 

m 

tN 

H 

o 

o 

CO 

o 

ON 

O 

M 

NO 

Ti- 

•IVdsN 

CO 

H 

lO 
00 

VO 

cf 

CO 

CO 
VO 

CO 

w 

„ 

lO 

lO 

IN 

00 

tx 

CO 

H 

■* 

Tj- 

xn 

00 

00 

CI 

Ov 

c< 

M 

HI 

M 

tN 

-BUI113 

o 

00 

CO 

H 
M 

NO 

cT 

;+ 

CI 

00 

M 

i-i 

CI 

CI 

•UBjsiqDniEg 

CO 

^ 

Ov 

oo" 

VO 

CO 

00 

^0 

Th 

VO 

CO 

o 

M 

■>*• 

■^ 

tX 

o\ 

<M 

lO 

o\ 

CI 

n 

M 

CI 

t^ 

CO 

•^ 

■<+■ 

CO 

c« 

O 
no" 

r>. 

lO 

Tl- 

« 

O 

m 

00 

o 

VO 

t^ 

00 

C) 

VO 

CO 

M 

-r 

CI 

lO 

CN 

O 

w 

CI 

ON 

■UE]siuEi[3jy 

M 

CI 

00 

tN 

cT 

CI 

VO 

cf 

CI 

" 

w 

,        . 

^ 

rt 

j: 

.i: 

Si 

" 

't/i 

fcn 

ti^ 

*w 

o  ^ 

o 

o 

< 

"o 

C 

ci 

bo 
o 

c/i 

C3 

:h 

t- 

O  C3 

"5 

.& 

< 

o 
U 

Province 

-a 

o 
c 
£ 

£ 
o 
« 

o 

e 

£ 

o 

s 

o 

a 

c 
c 

o 
c     • 

o 

o  • 

it 

gs 

11 

£t 
o„ 

S2 

o 

£ 
£ 
o 

o 
.2 

o 

o 
c 
o 

o 
.2 

o    • 

c 

_o 

£ 
£ 

b 
h 

> 

o 

o 

»J*  i> 

c 

c 

c 

3 

oCh 

l'^ 

•sd 

_o 

o 

E 
o 

£ 
o 

•^M 

O 

a 

J 

J 

J 

u 

U 

U 

U 

U 

u 

APPENDICES. 


695 


Q    ^ 


^ 


•paypadsun 
puE  's'sujuno^ 
UEsdojnjj  Jamo 

H; 

10 

^ 

~ —     1 

??  'S   P) 

■sdojng  UI  X3>nnj_ 

vo    : 

0      10         00        :        :        : 
10      w          NO        :        :        : 

p) 

:        :      p^ 

p) 

LO 

CO 

•put;[j3z)!.«s     1 

1^  m 

ro 

OH           ON      M         :       H 

CO 

;     ;    -^1 

LO 
00 

ut  by  c 
the  Bri 
ia  at  i^ 

•uspaAvg 

00     LO 
Pi     M 

H           r}-                M         00          H             ■ 

CO 

H 

CO 

vO 

CO 
CO 

■uiBdt;     1 

OvO 

OS      'I-         00         :         ■        : 
p)       H                     .         :        : 

:         :       <N 

CO 

"^  >>p 

tissn^j 

0     10 

^      M           p»         :        :        : 

OS       ■                   M            .            .            . 

.            .        VO 
P) 

00      i 

OS 

rial  Census  Report, 
counted  for  (probab 
Dther  Europeans  in  1 

•E)UBUjno»        1 

■^        :             :        :        :        : 
P)         .             .... 

PI 

•■Bissmj 

0    CO 

:       LO         NO         ;        :         : 

;     ;     : 

0 
CO 

•;BSn]joj 

On  0 
LO  N 

CO         00                     PI             LO           H 

p) 

00        :      t^ 

CO 

CO 

•Aea\jo^nj 

0    CO 

M 

PI                  ■                          •              M              M                  • 

00         •             :                         : 

:        :       0 

:        .     NO 

10 

CO 

••BJiEj^ 

10   -1 

PI      00           0         :       H         : 

PI                                 M              . 

10 

CO 

PI 
0 

curt  -a 
S§5 

•XiEji 

On  C) 

00      00           •+      OS      Pi         : 

LO                             t 

CO          P)          00 
00 
CO 

^ 

^.5  H 
•S-a  0 

C  XI 

•saj-ij  uEuioj 

rh    : 

^ 

ed  from 
ion  of  I 
British- 

•pUEpOI 

:       10          CO        :         :        ; 

CO 

PIIHJIOH 

CO  M 
(M 

t^      ^             :       PI         :         : 

:        :       p) 

^ 

•3333J0 

■^  OS 

H       pj          00       p)         :        : 

NO                              LO                         .             . 

:        :       ON 

LO 

OS 

:3  rt  0 

•AUEUI.13Q 

Tf  On 

0       CO          -f      to      LO      CO 

0          Cv             NO 
CO 

NO        0        tv 

M              CO 

CO 

ON 

a.2  0 

■30UEJJ 

CI    CO 

00    01 

.    CO  w 

NO           PI                CO           -1-        CO          M 

H              Tj-                     Tt-            PI 

N 

'^      CO       10 

CO 

M 

On 

t*  p  ^ 

•>[aEUlUSQ 

VO    H 
0 

On      PI             :        :       w         : 

:       -t- 

CO 
P) 

3.     This 
of  the  no 
nd  sect  re 

•LuniSpg 

NO      0 

CO          CO                 M              •           CO          M 
LO 

H          ;        n 

•EURAEq 

P) 

India,  88,78 
ible  number 
ing  to  race  a 

••Euisny 

m'oo 

CO     00           t^        :        :         : 
CO                                   ... 

:        :       f) 
:        :      10 

On 

•E!|Ejjsnv 

10  '^i- 

CO  OS 

CO      M          NO       0       ■*        : 

H              M                       LO            M              M 

CO          H          00 

Hi 

LO 
LO 

CO 

•Eouauiy 

(N  NO 

Tl-CO 

C^           C>                   LO         NO           NO           NO 

OS        On              On        P)          pi 

CO                                       M 

OS          P)           CO 

M 

CO 

CO 
HI 

British 
Dnsider 
accorc 

•E3UJV 

NO    LO 
CO     t^ 

M 

LO        CO              CO       NO        NO         10 
M            PI                 00 
CO                                       H 

•>*-           M           CO 

PI 

N 

CO 

^  0  c 

°  ci-B 

ulopSuI^J  psinifi^ 

CO  P) 

CO   r^ 

00    IN 
10  CO 

CO        0                -1-        'I-        LO        C^ 
CO          0             00          r^        On        On 
UO        to              M          t-^        C^ 

0'       t<,          d       PI 

MM                       PI 

PI                ■+            NO 

t^          CO          ^ 

00          M          CO 

LO 

0 

CO 

o_ 

co" 

ic  popula 
lently  lea 
stian  pop 

Pkovinces. 

H 

■a  P 

0  0 

5 

s  . 

> 
0 

0 

Lieutenant  -  Governorship 

of  Bengal 

Lieutenant  -  Governorship 

of  the  Punjab,  .  .  . 
Lieutenant -Governorship 

of  the   North-Western 

Provinces  and  Oudh,  . 
Chief  -  Commissionership 

of  tlie  Central  Provinces, 
Chief  -  Commissionership 

of  Assam 

Commissionersh  p  of 

Berar 

Commissionership  of  Aj- 

mere, 

Commissionership  of 

Chief  -  Commissionership 
of  British  Burma,    .     . 

< 

0 

Grand  total  non-Asiat 
with  other  materials,  it  evi 
The  table  showing  the  Chr 

696 


APPENDICES. 


APPENDIX  VIII.— List  of  the  149  Town-s  in  British  India  of  which  the  Population 

EXCEEDS   20,000,    IN    1881. 


(C 

omp 

tledj 

rom  t 

lie  1  able  in  tne  Imperii 

U  census  n.epori.) 

Name  of  Town.                   1            Province. 

District. 

Population.  \ 

I.  Bombay  City  and  Island,  . 

Bombay,    . 

773,196 

2./Calcutta  City 

Bengal, 

433.219 

3.  Calcutta  Suburbs, 
/                               Total,       . 

Bengal, 

251,439 

684,658 

4.1  South  Suburban, 

Bengal, 

24  Parganas, 

51,658 

S. 'North  Suburban, 
Grand  total  of  Calcutta  and  suburbs, 

Bengal, 

24  Parganas, 

29,982 

766,298 

6.  Madras  City,       .... 

Madras,     . 

... 

405,848 

7.  Lucknow,    . 

Oudh, 

Lucknow,  . 

261,303 

8.   Benares, 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Benares,     . 

199,700 

9.  Delhi, 

Punjab, 

Delhi, 

173,393 

10.  Patna, 

Bengal, 

Patna, 

1 7°,  654 

II.  Agra,  . 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Agra, 

160,203 

12.  Bangalore,  . 

Mysore, 

Bangalore. 

155,857 

13.   Amritsar, 

Punjab, 

Amritsar,  . 

151,896 

14.   Cawnpur,     . 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Cawnpur,  . 

151,444 

15.   Lahore, 

Punjab, 

Lahore, 

149,369 

16.  Allahabad,  . 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Allahab.ad, 

148,547 

17.  Rangoon,    . 

British  Burma,  . 

Rangoon,  . 

134,176 

18.  Poena, 

Bombay,    . 

Poona, 

129,751 

19.  Ahmadabad, 

Bombay,    . 

Ahmadabad, 

127,651 

20.  Bareilly  (Bareli), 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Bareilly,     . 

113.417 

21.  Surat, . 

Bombay,    . 

Surat, 

109,844 

22.   Howrah, 

Bengal, 

Howrah,    . 

105,206 

23.   jSIeerut, 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Meerut,      . 

99.565 

24.  Nagpur, 

Central  Provinces,     . 

Nagpur,     .         . 

98,299 

25.  Trichinopoli, 

Madras, 

Trichinopoli, 

84,449 

20.  Peshawar,   . 

Punjab, 

Peshawar, 

79,982 

27.   Dacca, 

Bengal, 

Dacca, 

79,076 

28.  Gaya,  . 

Bengal, 

Gaya, 

76,415 

29.  Jabalpur,     . 

Central  Provinces,     . 

Jabalpur,  . 

75.7°5 

30.  Shahjahanpur, 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Shahjahanpur,  . 

74,830 

31.  Madura, 

Madras, 

Madura,    . 

73,807 

32.  Karachi, 

Sind,  .... 

Karachi,    . 

73.560 

33.  Multan, 

Punjab, 

Multan,      . 

68,674 

34.  Bhagalpur,  . 

Bengal, 

Bhagalpur, 

68,238 

35.  Arabala, 

Punjab, 

1   Ambala,      . 

67,463 

36.   Moradabad, 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

1   Moradabad, 

67,387 

37.  Darbhanga, 

Bengal, 

1  Darbhanga, 

65,955 

38.   Farukhabad. 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Farukhabad, 

62,437 

59-  Koil  (Aligarh), 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

AHgarh,     . 

61,730 

40.   Sholapur,     . 

Bombay.    . 

[  Sholapur,   . 

61,281 

41.  Saharanpur, 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

1  Saharanpur, 

59,194 

42.  Gorakhpur, 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Gorakhpur, 

57,922 

43.  Calicut, 

Madras, 

Malabar,    . 

57,^85 

44.  Mirzapur,    . 

1  N.-W.  Provinces, 

'   Mirzapur,  . 

56,378 

45.  Faizabad,    . 

'  Oudh, 

Faizabad,  . 

55,570 

46.  Monghyr,    . 

j   Bengal, 

Monghyr,  . 

55,372 

47.  Tanjore, 

1  Madras,     . 

Tanjore,     . 

54,745 

48.  Negapalam, 

Madras,     . 

Tanjore,     . 

53.855 

49.   Bellary, 

Madras,     . 

Bellary,  _    . 

53.460 

50.  Maulmain,  . 

British  Burma,  . 

Maulmain, 

53.107 

SI.  Rawal  Pindi, 

Punjab,      . 

Rawal  Pmdi, 

52.97s 

52.  Jalandhar,  . 

1   Punjab, 

Jalandhar, 

52.119 

53.  Chapra, 

Bengal, 

Saran, 

51.670 

54.  Khampti,     . 

Central  Provinces,     . 

Nagpur,     . 

50,987 

5S.  Salem, 

1  Madras,     . 

Salem, 

50,667 

56.  Combaconum, 

Madras, 

1  Tanjore,     . 

50,098 

57.   Behar, 

1   Bengal, 

Patna, 

48,968 

58.  Ajmere, 

Rajputana, 

Ajmere, 

48,735 

59.  Haidarabad, 

Sind. 

Haidarabad, 

48,153 

60.  Muttra, 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Muttra, 

47,483 

61.  Sialkot, 

Punjab,      .         . 

Sialkot, 

45,762 

62.  Sagar  (Saugor) 

1  Central  Provinces,     . 

Sagar, 

44,416 

63.  Ludhiana,   . 

Punjab, 

Ludhiana, . 

44,163 

64.  Cuddalore,  . 

1  Madras,     . 

South  Arcot, 

43,545 

65.  Arrah, 

Bengal, 

Shahabad, 

42,998 

66.  Jaunpur, 

1  N.-W.  Provinces, 

Jaunpur,    . 

42,845 

67.  Cuttack, 

!  hiengal. 

Cuttack,     . 

42,656 

68.  Shikarpur,  . 

Sind 

Shikarpur, 

42,496 

69.   ^luzaffarpur, 

Bengal, 

Muzaffarpur,      . 

42,460 

70.   Murshidabad, 

Bengal, 

1  Murshidabad,    . 

39,231 

71.   Firozpur, 

Punjab,      . 

1   Firozpur,   . 

39,570 

72.  Coimbatore, 

Madras. 

1   Coinibatore, 

3^,967 

73.  Dinapur, 

.  Bengal, 

1  Patna, 

37,893 

APPENDICES. 


697 


List  of  149  Towns  in  British  India  of  which  the  Population  exceeds  20,000 — continued. 


Name  of  Town. 

Province. 

District. 

Population. 

74.  Ahmadnagar,     .... 

Bombay,    . 

Ahmadnagar,     . 

37,492 

75.  Vellore,       . 

Madras, 

Norih  Arcot, 

37,49' 

76.  Broach, 

Bombay,    . 

Broach, 

37,281 

77.  Conjevaram, 

Madras,     . 

Chengalpat, 

37,27s 

78.  Hubli,        . 

Bombay,    . 

Dharw.-ir,   . 

36,677 

79.   Palghat, 

Madras, 

Malabar,    . 

36,339 

80.  Amroha,    . 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Moradabad, 

36,145 

81.  Bandar  (Masulipatan 

(i), 

Madras,     . 

Kistna, 

35,056 

82.  Etawah,     . 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Etawah,     . 

34,721 

83.   Bardwan,  . 

Bengal, 

Bardwan,  . 

34,080 

84.  Akyab,       . 

British  Burma,  . 

Akyab,       . 

33,989 

85.  Bhiwani,   . 

Punjab, 

Hissar, 

33,762 

86.  Budaun,     . 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Budaun, 

33,680 

87.  Midnapur,. 

Bengal, 

Midnapur, 

33,560 

88.  Ghazipur,  . 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Ghazipur,  . 

32,885 

89.   Belgaum,  . 

Bombay,   . 

Belgaum,  . 

32,697 

90.  Mangalore, 

Madras,     . 

S.  Kanara. 

32,099 

91.  Hugli  and  Chinsura, 

Bengal, 

Hugll,        .        . 

31,177 

92.  Agarpara, 

Bengal, 

24  Parganas, 

30,317 

93.  Vizagapatara,     . 

Madras,     . 

Vizagapatam,     . 

30,291 

94.   Burhanpur, 

Central  Provinces,     . 

Nimar, 

30,017 

95.   Pih'bhit,      . 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Pilibhit,      . 

29,721 

96.  Sanlipur,  . 

Bengal, 

Nadiya, 

29,687 

97.   Satara, 

Bombay,    . 

Satara, 

29,028 

98.  Banda, 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Banda, 

28,974 

99.  Coconada, 

Madras, 

Godavari,  . 

28,856 

100.  Prome, 

British  Burma,  . 

Prome, 

28,813 

loi.   Nadiad,     . 

Bombay,    . 

Kaira, 

28,304 

102.  Bassein,     . 

British  Burma,  . 

Bassein,     . 

28,147 

103.  Chandausi, 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Moradabad, 

27,521 

104.  Nellore, 

Madras,     . 

Nellore,     . 

27,505 

105.  Krishnagar, 

Bengal,      . 

Nadiya, 

27,477 

106.  Sukkur, 

Sind, .... 

Shikarpur, 

27,389 

107.   Dharwar,   . 

Bombay,    . 

Dharwar,   . 

27,191 

108.   Khurja, 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Bulandshahr, 

27,190 

109.  Nasik, 

Bombay,    . 

Nasik, 

,            27,070 

no.   Ellichpur,  . 

Berar, 

Ellichpur,  . 

;               26,728 

III.  Tellicherri, 

Madras,     . 

Malabar,    . 

26,410 

112.   Cannanore, 

Madras, 

Malabar,   . 

26,386 

113.   Hathras,  . 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Aligarh,     . 

25,656 

114.   Serampur, 

Bengal, 

Hugll,     .   . 

25,559 

115.   EUore, 

Madras,     . 

Godavari,  . 

25,092 

116.  Hajipur,    . 

Bengal, 

Muzaffarpur, 

25,078 

117.  Panipat,     . 

Punjab, 

Karnal,      . 

25,022 

118.   Raipur, 

Central  Provinces,     . 

Raipur, 

24,948 

119.  Rajahmahendri(Raj: 

ihmu 

ndry) 

Madras,     . 

Godavari,  . 

24,555 

120.   Batala, 

Punjab, 

Gurdaspur, 

24,281 

121.  Rewari, 

Punjab, 

Gurgaon,   . 

23,972 

122.   Berhampur, 

Bengal,      . 

Murshidabad, 

23,605 

123.  Berhampur, 

Madras,     . 

Ganjam,     . 

23,599 

124.  Amraoti,     . 

Berar, 

.\mraoti,     . 

23,550 

125.  Tinnevelli, 

Madras,     . 

Tinnevelli, 

23,221 

126.   Karnal, 

Punjab, 

Karnal, 

23,133 

127.  !Mayavaram, 

Madras,     . 

Tanjore,     . 

23,044 

128.  Gujranwala, 

Punjab, 

Gujranwala, 

22,884 

129.  Vizianagaram,  . 

1   Madras,     . 

Vizagapatam, 

22,577 

130.  Adoni, 

Madras,     . 

Bellary,      . 

22,441 

131.  Dera  Ghazi  Khan, 

Punjab, 

D.  G.  Kh.-in, 

22,309 

132.   Dera  Ismail  Khan, 

Punjab, 

D.  I.  Khai,, 

22,164 

153.  Deoband,  . 

N.-W.  Provinces,       . 

Saharanpur, 

22,116 

134.   Puri,  . 

Bengal, 

Puri, . 

22,09s 

135.  Naihati,     . 

Bengal, 

24  Parganas, 

2', 533 

136.  Brindaban, 

N.-W.  Provinces,      . 

Muttra,      . 

21,467 

137.   Sambhal,  . 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Moradabad, 

21,373 

138.   Hoshiarpur, 

Punjab, 

Hoshiarpur, 

21,363 

139.   Fatehpiir, . 

N.-W.  Provinces,-     . 

Fatehpur,  . 

21,328 

140.   Nasirabad, 

.^jmere, 

Aj  mere, 

21,320 

141.   Bettiah,     . 

Bengal,       . 

!  Champaran, 

21,263 

142.  Jehlam  (Jhelum), 

Punjab, 

[  Jehlam, 

21,107 

143.   Sirajganj,  . 

Bengal,       . 

Pabna, 

21,037 

144.   Chittagong, 

Bengal,       . 

j  Chittagong, 

20,969 

145.  Nagina, 

N.-vv'.  Provinces, 

Bijnaur,     . 

20,503 

146.   Karniil  (Kurnool), 

Madras,     . 

Karniil, 

20,329 

147.   Balasor,     . 

Bengal, 

Balasor, 

20,265 

148.   Mainpun, 

N.-W.  Provinces, 

Mainpuri,  . 

20,236 

149.  Panroti,     . 

^ladras,     . 

1  S.  Arcot,    . 

20,172 

Population  of  56  towns  with  above  50,000  inhabitants. 

6,591,810 

Population  of  93  towns  between  20,000  and  30,000, 

2,794,935 

Total  population  of  149  largest  towns, 

1      9.386,745 

698 


APPENDICES. 


tv 

-1- 

M 

CO       VO 

CO 

0 

CO 

CO 

•1-        00 

CO 

PI 

co 

VO 

w          Cv 

VO 

ON 

0 

oc        •:^ 

00 

— '  —  i2 

t^ 

0^ 

CJ 

VO          PI 

CO 

VO 

w 

CO 

tN             PI 

00 

1  c-5 

M 

VO" 

•+ 

no"      d 

ts 

^ 

CO 

CO 

""       "f 

pf 

H^l 

o\ 

l-" 

C^ 

^         ^ 

00 

IN 

IN 

IN          1-1 

0 

ro 

0 

00 

PI          PI 

vO_ 

^ 

»-1 

CO 

'f 

^o" 

of 

CO      00" 

CO 

t-T 

M 

M 

0" 

r! 

£ 

M 

tN 

jle  to 
ad  and 
ile,  but 
under 
struc- 
ion. 

vO 

ts. 

0 

CO         -1- 

~zr 

PI 

VO 

0 

VO        VO 

00 

ro 

CO 

VO 

t-N       P-, 

•^ 

00 

"*- 

VO 

Tl-            VO 

0 

10 

0 

co" 

Ov       CO 
h"         0" 

OV 

Cv 

■^ 

"^ 

M               CO 

<^n" 

0 

CO 

M 

CO 

co" 

u  u 

en 

„ 

VO 

CO      00 

-d- 

PI 

„ 

VO 

CO          tN 

III 

M 

CO 

On 

M               OV 

On 

00 

PI 

00 

CO          PI 

Cv 

" 

CO 

PI 

On        pi 

tN 

T*- 

P) 

CO       PI 

0 

cf 

VO" 

M 

CO 

)-7 

tN 

t/5 

»— '  ^ 

CI 

P) 

10 

D 

C 

z 

u 

„ 

CO 

Th 

10      00 

t^ 

00 

„ 

VO 

VO         ON 

PI 

"rt  uj 

LO 

0 

Tt- 

M          On 

VO 

VO 

Tf 

PI 

0        PI 

CO 

ffi 

21 

C^ 

10 

vo 

ON         0 

T^ 

■+ 

VO 

PI 

IN          CN 

Tj- 

-f 

M 

00" 

CO         CO 

0" 

0" 

Pi" 

pi" 

0"          CO 

Pl" 

rt  .2 

0 

ON 

t«s 

00               M 

0 

00 

vn 

0 

CN         Cn 

tN 

^=^ 

M 

0 

10 

00        00 

IN 

VO 

Pl_ 

CI 

VO 

TT 

vo" 

pf 
P) 

CO       c?. 

CO 

M 

"" 

CO 

tN 

■a  =  s  • 

0 

„ 

0 

On         pi 

M 

VO 

CO 

M 

PI        0 

M 

« -a  «  =  i  c 

0 

^ 

VO         00 

tN 

PI 

PI 

CO 

00        0 

■* 

"rt 

00 

go' 

IT) 

vO~ 

0          « 
VO         C?. 

PI 
0" 

NO 

pi" 

VO 

0" 

H 

Cv         CO 
vo"         VO 

0 
0" 

»=; 

.5  g-r  ^  ^'x: 

^O 

00 

-1- 

PI          t^ 

CO 

VO 

m 

M 

hi 

00 

<«^g'= 

^ 

VO 

CO       CO 

" 

00 

c  --• 

-^ 

10 

t^ 

0          VO 

VO 

CO 

ON 

t^ 

t-^           ON 

M 

S? 

0 

VO 

0          VO 

tN 

CO 

VO 

PI 

M              VO 

0 

i-  "Zi 

0 

c^ 

CI 

0          0 

-1- 

CO 

vO_ 

CO           CO 

PI 

0   u 

c?. 

<5 

CO 

vo"         pi" 

ro 

■^ 

CO 

CO 

CO         m" 

0" 

ID    Z3 

•+ 

ON 

VO 

IN         CO 

VO 

P) 

PI 

CO 

t^^ 

'^ 

t^ 

PI 

00 

n 

00 

VO 

0 

Tj-         CO 

0 

CO 

^ 

CO 

CO        vO 

00 

00 

CO 

ON 

tv 

00               M 

10 

PI 

03 

IN 

VO         VO 

rt    rJ  -ti 

LO 

NO 

PI 

CO         CO 

CO 

tN 

00 

OD           tN 

0 

^   0 

a, 

(5. 

vo" 

M 

0"          VO 

ON 

c^ 

pi" 

^ 

IN          VO 

O0~ 

•^ 

VO 

'I-         On 

tN 

In 

ON 

IN        rt- 

CO 

t^ 

On 

ON 

VO          M 

00 

CO 

pi 

PI 

tN 

0 

VO 

t^ 

-f 

00"         m" 

■*• 

pi" 

hT 

H 

ON 

-•^ 

CO 

PI 

__<^— 

— ' 

M 

00 

On 

tN         0 

IN 

VO 

ON 

CO 

VO         0 

VO 

rt 

t^ 

^ 

Tt- 

0          Cv 

CO 

00 

00 

VO 

VO        -* 

00 

E 

VO 

0 
cf 

^ 

"t        '^ 

Co"          m' 

Tf 

H 

tN 

Ov 

CO           tN 

00 

-^K^g- 

c^ 

CO 

VO 

PI 

CO 

VO 

PI 

^ 

S" 

0 

0 

M               M 

n 

00 

VO 

VO 

M             VO 

CO 

0 

NO 

VO 

0               t^ 

tN 

VO 

VO 

CO          VO 

PI 

•a  C  c 

^ 

Cv. 

M               tN 

o_ 

CO 

PI 

^      o_ 

VO 

z 

c  tS  2 

c5. 

00" 

VO 

vo"         ON 

CO 

10 

0 

5 

CO 

l-l 

CO 

CO 

• 

CO 

00 

„ 

CO       vO 

VO 

CO 

pi 

"* 

ON        VO 

ON 

^ 

Ov 

VO         VO 

CO 

0 

ON 

^ 

CO       0 

tN 

PS 

rt  0 

q 

t^ 

m 

0           VO 

Tl- 

tN 

•t 

CO 

TJ-     0 

00 

J 

S  rt 

i-T 

t^ 

VO 

0"       pf 

CT. 

CO 

0" 

00" 

0"       "-T 

.9, 

J 

0) 

On 

PI 

VO 

0 

CO 

rf 

0          Cv 

10 

■< 

"Ss, 

^ 

^ 

VO 

n       ON 

ON 

\n 

CO 

PI 

M             ON 

03 

0  0 

to 

co" 

-f 

6       pi" 

^f 

pT 

H 

M 

pf 

H&H 

CO 

M               PI 

0 

M 

:l4li, 

0 

10 

CO 

ON       00 

CO 

•:)- 

tN 

VO 

ON      en 

PI 

s. 

ON 

On 

00 

PI       10 

PI 

Tf 

PI 

00 

CO         PI 

0 

"rt 

c^ 

00 

VO 

M               -^ 

0 

VO 

00 

T^ 

00         00 

VO 

^ 

— -0  u  3  i;  c 

u^ 

pf 

(_7 

pi"          CO 

tc 

d^ 

tN 

-f 

OO"         m" 

VO 

CO 

t^ 

On 

CO            CO 

VO 

tN 

VO 

C) 

0 

tT 

10 

VO 

qv 

'*"     ° 

M 

Cv 

tN 

>-^ 

H* 

^ 

vo" 

C   s 

CO 

S" 

ON 

CO          VO 

ON 

VO 

tN 

tN 

00           tN 

CO 

►"•   0 

C) 

vO 

s 

PI        PI 

tN 

1- 

CN 

VO           CO 

M 

t-  '13 

00 

^ 

On 

VO          PI 

00 

CO 

co 

VO 

PI        PI 

ON 

Ov 

HI 

6s 

t^      c?. 

vo" 

CO 

tN 

VO 

■vf        VO 

d 

r^ 

0 

VO         OV 

tN 

CO 

PI 

M 

PI 

VO 

a 

o_ 

H             PI 

PI 

VO 

of 

.  JL     ■  OJ 

E 

•;S    • 

C3 

• 

• 

'rt 

3  <<  d  0 

• 

•C3    • 

tn 

^    0 

< 

p" 

, 

o|!Z    r^ 

. 

0 

j-T 

5 

p 

0 

_ 

sA 

■"■ 

■^          p  -^ 

.B* 

0 

•'— ) 

0  c\ 

U 

£ 

"o 

0  0  ;g 

«- 

C3 

< 

u-^ 

'O 

£ 

.£■ 

t.i| 

0 
0 

0 

'0 

"o 

0  s  • 

> 
c 

0 

c 

c 

g. 

c 

IS 

C2 

t- 

S    0  •- 

_o 

_o 

K 

0 

0    t.    c 

0 

tn 

eu, 

0 

0 

■"  c  S 

s 

aj 

1 

5 

0 

.  >  E  0 

-  0  a>  0 

"s 

E 

.2 

. 

-E  cs 

1 

. 

0 

1      OJ      ' 

c 

0 

u 

E 
E 
0 

u  E 

0 

■3 

15 

a 

'-' 

J     u 

u 

u 

u 

APPENDICES. 


699 


1 

4J     1 

O) 

tN 

0 

vO         VO          On 

10 

CO 

^ 

tN 

8 

to 

ON 

C^l 

M 

tv        to         tN 

0 

VO 

tN 

Cn 

tN 

i3    —  'if    ^ 

C\ 

w 

":)- 

CO         rr         tN 

o_ 

to 

VO 

CO 

00 

to 

0   f-C   rt 

H 

tv. 

d 

00        vo"         rf- 

CO 

w 

cA 

pf 

H[^U- 

^ 

LO 

^ 

H 

CO 

10 

jj 

CO 

to 

Tt- 

xo 

N 

0      0      fN 

PI 

PI 

On 

tN 

PI 

0 

rt 

00 

CO 

P) 

to         CO         PI 

ON 

00 

PI 

!>» 

M 

tl- 

E 

d 

ON 

vd 

CO 

6 

to        0         CO 
CO        !>.         l-T 

rt- 

w 

CO 

PI 
in 

CO 

vO" 

"*«^§^ 

N 

to 

s-<   0 

(N 

ON 

to 

ON      00        to 

^ 

CO 

VO 

PI 

„ 

1    „ 

^    3   f4 

G\ 

ON 

PI         to        -t- 

0 

CO 

0 

VO 

10 

On 

z 

to 

Cn 

P) 

VD          On       VO 

CO 

M 

On 

-+• 

^^" 

pT 

CO 

to 

h"         CO 

pf 

w" 

CO 

H 

N 

0 

to 

•*       00          0 

00 

PI 

M 

to 

C3N 

■<J- 

u. 

■*-•  n  t-  G 

00 

CN 

•^      0       tN 

CO 

tN 

to 

tN 

M 

X 

0 

tv 

0               PI               M 

0 

tN 

to 

CN 

•i- 

0 

CJ 

O^J=    rt 

c?. 

»-« 

tN. 

to         m"         tC 

^ 

^ 

M 

vo" 

vo" 

rt- 

00 

VO 

PI            CO 

-*- 

co 

VO 

0  c  s   "  u 

VO 

CO 

On 

'^      CO        CO 

ON 

-t- 

0 

VO 

•i- 

VO 

t^ 

-1- 

^ 

tN      00        1-1 

-th 

Pl 

Pi 

VO 

'rt 

M 

ON 

00           ON         PI 

to 

^ 

M 

tN 

0 

S 

c< 

CO 

6 

tv.         d\        rf 

„" 

H 

t^ 

■*■ 

10 

0 

PI 

M             M 

VO 

J-  6 

0 

CO 

00 

Tl-          P)            M 

M 

00 

-1- 

^ 

0 

VO 

CI 

ON 

to         CO         tN 

^ 

Cn 

to 

■tl- 

VO 

tN 

0 

tN 

■^ 

PI         VO          On 

^ 

PI 

w 

In, 

c^ 

IN 

pf         to 

vo" 

co" 

N 

to 

ro 

tN 

CO 

to         M          PI 

CO 

to 

0 

„ 

0 

0 

V    rt    ^r. 

tN 

!>. 

to 

0          ^       VO 

CO 

PI 

0 

to 

ON 

11%% 

M 
M 

co" 

00" 

CO        rl-         -_ 

to      d^      to 

CO 
CO 

CO 

d 

00 

to 

VO 

co" 

pf 

^H\ 

CO 

0 

-i- 

00           0           CO 

•+ 

ON 

PI 

to 

00 

o\ 

■+ 

00 

CO             ON           M 

VO 

On 

.3 

" 

d 

^f      pT 

PI 

-a  -S  t. 

"« 

0  c  =  J^  ti 

•"    rt-^T3    3      . 

M 

0 

tN 

On        ^         tN 

to 

tN 

to 

0 

■+ 

to 

s 

P) 

CO 

•^ 

C>         tN       VO 

0 

M 

to 

CO 

ON 

ON 

w 

10 

x>. 

CO         Tl-       VO 

PI 

M 

0_ 

^ 

^ 

-2    n-r;  „    'i.-Z 

00" 

•:f 

H 

w"         CO 

H 

pf 

" 

CO 

I.    0 

CO 

vO 

H 

-1-        CO           M 

ON 

10 

„ 

to 

„ 

M- 

z 

«J    =    ^ 

10 

(N 

"+ 

PI           PI           to 

CO 

00 

Tl- 

CO 

vo 

CO 

CO 

to 

PI 

PI          -1-         rf 

M 

vO_ 

< 

^J" 

'f 

CO 

co" 

CO        pf 

Hi 

CO 

PI 

2 

0 

CO 

-t 

^ 

to         to          H 

C3N 

0 

Cv 

0 

M 

CO 

< 

-^  3  rt 

00 

to 

tN 

-t         •+          " 

00 

CO 

Ov 

00 

CO 

■^ 

D 

CO 

0" 

pf 

to 

CO           Tf-        VO 

(5      pT       d 

CO 

Pl_ 

ts. 

On 

00 

tN 

(N 

d 

01 

LO 

to 

CO         PI           Tt- 

fN 

ON 

CO 

'l- 

f=^ 

Os 

VO 

CO 

vo        0        H 

VO 

M 

H" 

H 

" 

d 

to       CO 

CO 

'O    *-     I- 

°gi^i!  . 

IN 

C3N 

VO 

vO          CO         0 

rv 

On 

CO 

PI 

CO 

o\ 

00 

VO 

H        VO          PI 

0 

to 

to 

PI 

0 

rt 

00 

0 

03 

M 

vO_ 

to 

CO_         !>.         tN 

to     vd       pT 

CO 

00 
CO 

00_ 
M 

H 

pf 

0 

tN 

OV             M               H 

PI 

VO 

" 

■<1- 

00 

.-  6 

VO 

tx 

00 

WOW 

>1- 

0 

tN 

to 

„ 

„ 

10 

tX 

to 

to        to        to 

VO 

tN 

0 

III 

CO 

t 

10      00        tN 

Co"         fi       vo" 
VO          to 

VO 
IS 

tN 
Pi" 

Cn 

CO 

to 

vO_ 
CO 

tN 

"^ 

PI 

'^t- 

.  ^    •  1)    • 

. 

'■S 

"rt  "S  ^"  — 

E 

•- 

. 

• 

'rt 

<^ 

. 

"0 

to 

< 

(U 

. 

. 

0 

0  ^^ 

"o 

C3 

s 

0 

s 

c3 

0 

•;:   C   0   0 

3 

<' 

0    £V 

Us 

U 

z 

13 

0 

m 
'0 

•p 

4) 

"o 

"o 

0  fe 

0 

K 

0 

c 

-S  •>  -s  .S 

J?  0  .S2  > 

g£S2 

.0 

a. 
1 

.2 

■;^ 

OJ 

-  >  c  0  ^ 

-  0  oju  ca 

■    0    1    c 

g 

CD 

£ 

0 

0 

6 

.0 

- 

-  B 

cT 

S 

_ 

0 

0 

u 

6 
S 
0 

~  0 
u 

> 

0 

5j 

"3. 

a 

3 

K-S        u 

u 

U 

U 

yoo 


APPENDICES. 


c5  rt  _2 

o  S3 


— -a  ii  3  ■"  2 


^^*' 


IS 

hi! 


n   d   -^   v  ,» 

jj-o  u  5  i  o 


o  c-a 


o  a_3^  6 


-5  ^-n  -  S 


i  o 


j5  a'-" 


<^^ 


OJ  3    * 

c  S.2 

t3  C" 


^■5     ^ 


n 

y, 

T 

'o 

tin 

o 

aj 

y 

■a 

a 

*-• 

,!_; 

o 

o 

<u 

in 

C  o 

o 

o 

"ui 

■^ 

'i/i 

C 

<) 

> 

C 

a. 

C 

OJ 

c 

o 

"^ 

" 

O 

o 

U 

C 

jj 

., 

;-; 

dj 

-J 

CJ 

hJ 

U 

S     -2 


u    u 


s 

-  S  ci 
o  E 

u 


APPENDICES. 


701 


0    . 

VO 

M 

On 

0  0  -t- 

10 

•+ 

OD          tN 

00 

0  =,S 

»/1 

CO 

CO 

>0         CJ           CO 

00 

PI 

PI 

_U 

^(SS 

10 
CO 

10 

CO 

Able  to 
Read  and 
Write,  but 
not  under 

Instruc- 
tion. 

n 
S 

t^ 

CO 

0 

'J-             H               CV 

0 

NO 

■*       CO 

M 

CO 

N 

01               H               ^3- 

• 

CO 

0" 

u  6 
03* 

■* 

0 

tN 

w          CO         0 

NO 

^ 

H          PO 

NO 

-0  i  = 

10 

M                                 W 

ON 

c  t?.2 

On 

On 

K 

^^" 

CO 

CO 

< 

»-* 

fk 

rt       . 

t^ 

3: 

t^ 

N          CO           >0 

t^ 

M 

CO         NO 

0 

S| 

00 

■i- 

"        CO        0 

10 

to 

M            10 

ON 

t^ 

M 

CO                     C4 

M 

00 

|s 

CO 

pi 
CO 

H 

•a  -t;  I-   , 

jj 

°  §4-3  =  A 

VO 

0 

m 

00         0         Cv 

P) 

t^ 

Pi       •* 

,_, 

rt 

"1 

m 

tN 

•^         t^         t^ 

On 

CO 

H             CO 

to 

S 

^Ti  2=^5 

CO 

M                                 )-f 

0 

J2    d-r-  -.    S'S 

00 

en 

t.  6 

-SSg 

ON 

CO 

P) 

M               M              10 

PI 

M 

H            tN 

w 

H 

VO 

0 

■*           H             CO 

PI 

PI 

c  -7.2 

^ 

J 

NO 

t)  =- 

00 

00" 

u 

M 

^ 

•0 

ON        00          CO 

CO 

CO 

P) 

CO          Pi 

■^■ 

rt  cc  E2 

M 

t^ 

CO 

t^          CO         -t 

NO 

NO 

CO 

NO 

0  S-5 

00 

t^ 

•* 

vo"         tC.         Ci" 

P) 

On 

•^ 

CO 

M 

On 

"          CO        0 

M 

0 

"(J 

s 

Pi 

Able  to 
Read  and 
Write,  but 
not  under 

Instruc- 

■   tion. 

On 

0 

10 

w 

Cn      0        -r 
w        t^       0 

t-t             M 

C^ 

PI 

B; 

^-  6 

•S  2  = 

M 

M 

0 

ON            Tt-             0 

NO 

0 

M 

c  *-*  0 

CO 

0 

M               t^             CJN 

H 

0 

t3_C- 

0 

M 

NO 

2 

. 

< 

_g 

w 

0 

Tt- 

r>.      <3N      0 

to 

P) 

NO 

NO          CO 

CO 

' — I 

■«'« 

•o 

in 

t~> 

'I-       M        t^ 

■^ 

10 

-1- 

NO 

CO 

2i 

t^ 

CO 

*-* 

°       °l       ^ 

M 

t^ 

CO 

to 

N 

00" 

H* 

CJN         m"          CO 

0" 

pT 

M 

M 

M 

M             Tl-           (N 

H 

rf 

S 

H 

PI 

^"O  3  S:   ■ 

jj 

CO 

CO 

NO 

rt-         N          ON 

CO 

ON 

NO 

tN       CO 

0 

"rt 

00 

05 

M 

CO       CO          0 

CO 

-1- 

00 

0 

■*• 

0 

t^ 

0          U-)       00_ 

M 

t^ 

PI 

M 

% 

CO 

<7^ 

ts,       no"        no" 

Pf 

IN 

■^ 

^ 

(H 

On 

c  c 

i-i  0 

CO 

0 

03 

CO        w          tN 

On 

W 

CO 

i_4 

NO 

»-  '^ 

N 

OD 

CO 

CO         t^       0 

P) 

^ 

(U    0 

0 

VO 

M 

PJ          CO        0 

CO 

CO 

NO 

-a  3 

c  ^ 

H 

IH 

H          CO        Pf 

M 

H 

PI 

, 

.    ■       •    <U      • 

^ 

•g^.--5 

E 

1 

^ 

'c°^ 

ci 

•^ 

• 

• 

"Ti 

£^(5°  ■ 

tn 

• 

•  P    • 

to 

< 

0" 

0 

H^^a. 

0 

0 

s 

^"0 

1 

ca 

-z^  S--    • 

E 

0 

>, 

.      .       C3  -^ 

CI. 

0 

0  a 

-a 

B 
0 

0 

of 
lip  of 
nces 
oners 
ces, 

CI 
'o 

"o 

0  g  • 

0 

s 

u 

norsl 
Provi 
missi 
rovin 

0 

.£■ 

c 
_o 

ce: 

I*-. 

U-, 

0 

*C/5 

tn 

PLi 

0 

0 

C 

Ul 

}-. 

l/l 

w 

Igli 

1 

E 

5 

0 

'g20'i 

E 

.9 

. 

-E  cj 

S 

0 

0 

w 

* 

"c3| 

c 

- 

■    V    '    G 

u 

6 
E 
0 

> 

0 

i 

_aj 

a 

J 

J     u 

U 

U 

u 

702 


APPENDICES. 


g 

►-■1? 


t^  rr 


^S 


'S    3 
rt^  I-  C 
"J     „  U   O 

Pi  u-o-n 
-.■SCO 
°   I-   3   3 

^-a  CO 


1 

ro 

tN 

VO 

(^ 

H 

CO 

0 

1 

•^ 

ON 

H 

o 

LO 

M 

t^ 

lO 

C^ 

h-l 

H 

0 

00 

CO 

CT^ 

M 

8 

ci 

=  '^    3   O 

o  j2  -O  D, 
-^  ^-g 

•  o  a  -  -    - 
ex  u  n  <u 

•p;  S  O  cj 

.    >      n      O  r-J 

-  o  (uu  S 
^  "  ,  5 

aj       ■?: 
^       U 


« 


u    u 


•C3 


o  a, 


U 


APPENDICES. 


703 


^j 

-t 

M 

t>. 

Ov 

„ 

VO 

CO 

a 

PI 

M 

Cv 

ro 

>o 

CO 

VO 

cv 

PI 

tv 

PI 

0 

Cv 

Ov 

a  j 

\o 

'J- 

00 

^ 

00 

tN. 

■* 

VO 

tv 

CO 

tv 

CO 

z  <: 

d 

•*■ 

vo" 

6 

l-^ 

00" 

cT 

0" 

oo~ 

vc" 

00" 

S  t 

t^ 

10 

CO 

10 

0 

CO 

00 

fv 

VO 

tv 

CO 

00 

?P 

-i- 

m 

00 

00 

CO 

vO__ 

Tt 

Cv 

oo_ 

OH 

CO 

vo" 

t-i 

co" 

•^ 
•^ 

s 

■* 

pT 

CO 

0 

CI 

,- 

N 

0 

-i- 

Ov 

10 

0 

0 

WJ 

Ov 

0 

-1- 

CI 

^  'j^ 

0 

r^ 

CO 

N 

Cv 

in 

CI 

Cv 

Cv 

U   3 

n 

C^ 

CO 

CO 

Cv 

VO 

Cv 

Cv 

vO 

w 

't; 

CI 

u  0 
^1 

00" 

CO 

in 

„' 

CO 

d\ 

vo" 

d 

-f 

in 

d 

IN 

PI 

Cv 

vo 

00 

9^ 

CI 

PI 

ov 

4 

-*• 

'-' 

VO 

CO 

0 

« 

CO 

vo" 

00 

01 

Ov 

M 

00 

CO 

i  J  « 

r^ 

0) 

CN 

m 

CO 

CO 

o_ 

00_ 

m 

N 

CO 

VO 

9^2 

cT 

UO 

CO 

CO 

Cv 

Cv 

vO 

10 

CO 

OD 

CO 

Cv 

<  ^H 

LO 

o_ 

Cl" 

10 

■^ 

vO_^ 

-t- 

M 

rl- 

VO 

CO 

j_, 

-+ 

0 

00 

VO 

Cv 

■suBaaoing 

00 

0 

M 

t^ 

CO 

VO 

CO 

CI 

0 

"2 

0 

w 

t^ 

0 

M 

CI 

PI 

C4 

CO 

0 

jaqio  puE 

10 

CO 

K 

t<L 

vo" 

10 

tv 

in 

ujog  H^ijua 

N 

(N 

N 

d 

d 

^ 

2 

PI 

N 

CO 

»o 

„ 

VO 

0 

i-t 

CI 

VO 

tv 

CO 

H 

< 

0 

o\ 

0 

N 

« 

CO 

CO 

Ti- 

ov 

00 

ov 

PI 

H 

•suEisBjng 

CO 

00 

t^ 

°°- 

tv 

Cl_ 

vq 

in 

CI 

Cv 

Ov 

i£ 

i_r 

ci 

4- 

M 

t-^ 

hT 

w 

4 

C^ 

u 

M 

in 

-)- 

CO 

vO 

CO 

10 

CO 

N 

ON 

OV 

Cv 

in 

M 

0 

N 

0 

CI 

10 

m 

VO 

t-v 

ON 

CO 

in 

0 

0 

00 

CO 

00 

Cl_ 

10 

Tt- 

vn 

Cv 

VO 

CO 

VO 

■SSAIIB^ 

vd 

CO 

CO 

CO 

10 

10 

cf 

tv 

in 

VO 
00 

vO 

o~ 

0 

Cv 

in 

r^ 

CO 

0 

_r 

CI 

0 

10 

CO 

LO 

in 

0 

CV 

Cv 

M 

0 

. 

•pagpadsuf]^ 

0 

MD 

vO_ 
10 

0 

0 

CI 

Cl^ 

c> 

in 

^ 

• 

in 
in 

Cv 

CI 

03 

-t 

j+ 

00 

VO 

0 

CN 

c\ 

z 

•flZlT^JEJ 

0 

t^ 

•i- 

^ 

CI 

CO 

-1- 

CO 

CO 

CI 

§ 

< 
a 

'siqpqeAV 

- 

m" 

0" 

" 

" 

co" 

00 

00 

^^ 

CO 

\r, 

t^ 

« 

tv 

0 

Cv 

M 

tv 

c^ 

CO 

Cv 

i^ 

-d- 

t-^ 

tv 

VO 

Tf 

00 

•*• 

CO 

10 

CI 

VO 

"1 

Cv 

CO 

CO 

m 

d 

Cv 

< 

•sqBii^s 

-t- 

00" 

cT 

10 

d 

vo- 

vd 

i-i 

C^ 

-i- 

t> 

vo 

0^ 

t>. 

Cv 

s 

N 

M 

VO 

»o 

Tf 

t^ 

M 

VO 

ce 

CI 

VO 

PI 

0_ 

M 

S? 

c^ 

VO 

"1 

CI 

10 

0 

oc 

VO 

CI 

0 

CO 

t^ 

VO 

0 

0 

VO 

tv 

VO 

Cl_ 

in 

00 

m 

■siuung 

co" 

0" 

'f 

6 

cr 

d 

°9 

in 

Cv 

cf 

ii 

0" 

10 

Tj- 

VO 

0 

u-l 

in 

0 

00 

m 

M 

in 

c^ 

<:^ 

Cv 

CO 

t^ 

CI 

CO 

H 

Ht 

Cv 

' 

" 

N 

0" 
CI 

0 

LO 

" 

CO 

CO 

10 

CI 

vO 

0 

^ 

C) 

CI 

in 

^■ 

Cv 

0 

Tf 

0 

m 

vO 

Cv 

r-N 

CO 

in 

0 

VO 

Cv 

00 

M 

CO 

CI 

Cn. 

Cv 

in 

tv 

Cv 

in 

M 

CO 

co 

tC 

d 

C^ 

d 

CO 

cf 

CO 

t^ 

dv 

00 

d 

•S31SK3  jaqio 

0 

00 
0 

^. 

CO 

VO 
Cv 

CO 

Cv 

M 
CO 

CO 
CO 

in 

CO 

^ 

t-c 

j^ 

M 

d 

vo" 

cf 

cf 

co" 

N 

'-' 

^ 

CO 

Pl 

u^ 

vO 

T)- 

M 

0 

ON 

M 

00 

VO    ^ 

0 

8 

a 
■A 

VO 

0 

10 

CO 

0 

•1- 

rf 

^ 

fv 

CO 

■* 

0^ 

CO 

•^ 

00 

in 

IH 

CO_ 

■4- 

p) 

•sjndfE^j 

ts. 
0 

§ 

dv 
0 

cT 

VO 

0" 

% 

in 

M 

00~ 
CO 

S 

CI 

'd;; 

VO 

q 
co_ 

N 

tv 

in 

0 

^ 

8 

M 

-t- 

Cv 

tn 

Tt 

00 

in 

>n 

t^ 

CO 

0 

0 

tv 

in 

00 

^ 

to 

q 

-r 

M 

0 

^ 

CI 

0 

tv 

CO 

Cv 

•SUElUlJUia 

cJ 

.  Cl 

V? 

0 

«o 
10 

cT 

CO 

d. 

in 

VO 

cf 

CI 

cf 

vd 
1- 

VO 

t^ 

CO 

vO 

CO 

M 

m 

"^ 

cf 

■f 

6 

£, 

< 

3 

Q 

0 

2 

•"* 

• 

rt 

* 

35 

'J 

0 

0) 
CJ 

P 

z 

0 
2 

.E 

ci 

s 

> 
0 
a 

rt 

"rt 

i 

5 
>■ 

g 

1 

E 

C 

^ 

E 

3 

a 

ca 
0 

•0 
cd 

s 

0 

C 

3 
CI. 

0 
0 

C3 

2 

0 
0 
U 

(S 

0 

C-i 

c  0 

■rf 

'-> 

j=  0 

Ui 

0 

c;  ^  y 

b«-5   hn 


J'  -a 
I  o  o 

o  ^  p  "rt 

O    °  o 

-  0)        -^ 

E  =2  o  rr 

— "S  c^' 
-cS  >  <u 

■X  I-  a  u 

,/■  a^  =^ 

E.E  o  2 


— ;  ^    10    CJ    C2 


la  3 

.  -    a 


2  5-M_  I. 
3  E       S^ 

'-^    o    3    vj 

3  rt  _  — '  =< 


«  -.  ^  0. 


c  .p 


ii°E  c 


H  "-   -S 


•v,  ■  -     o     ^ 

<  -3    C  C 


O   3 


INDEX. 


Abars,  an  aboriqjinal  tribe  in  Assam,  57. 

Aboriginal  criminal  tribes,  71,  T^- 

Aboriginal  tribes,  non-Aryan  population, 
chap.  iii.  pp.  53-74-  Kistvaen  builders, 
flint  and  bronze  periods,  53 ;  non- 
Aryans  of  Vedic  India,  53)  54!  Anda- 
man islanders,  55  ;  Anamalai  hillmen, 
55  ;  Gonds  and  aboriginal  tribes  of  the 
Central  Provinces,  55,  56  ;  the  Juangs 
or  leaf-wearers  of  Orissa,  56  ;  tribes  of 
the  Himalayas,  56 ;  of  Assam,  57 ; 
Santals,  their  tribal  government,  his- 
tory, religion,  57-60;  the  Kandhs  of 
Orissa,  their  tribal  government,  blood 
revenge,  marriage  by  capture,  and 
human  sacrifice,  60-63  >  origin  of  the 
non-Aryan  tribes,  63  ;  the  three  non- 
Aryan  stoclvs — Tibeto-Burman,  Dra- 
vidian,  Kolarian, — their  languages, 
63-68  ;  statistics  of  non- Aryan  races  in 
1872  and  1881,  69-71  ;  Hinduizing 
tendency  among  aboriginal  tribes,  70, 
71  ;  crushed  aboriginal  tribes,  71  ; 
gipsy  clans,  71  ;  aboriginal  criminal 
tribes,  71,  72;  the  non-Aryan  hill 
tribes  as  soldiers,  72  ;  Colonel  Dixon's 
work  among  the  Mhairs  of  Rajputana, 
73  ;  Sir  James  Outram's  work  among 
the  Bhils,  73 ;  fidelity  of  the  hill 
races,  73. 

Aborigines  of  India,  by  Mr.  B.  H.  Hodg- 
son, quoted,  340  (footnote  i). 

Abu,  Mount,  in  Rajputana,  held  sacred 
by  the  Jains,  35  ;   159. 

Abul  Fazl,  Akbar's  finance  minister  and 
historian,  and  the  author  of  the  Ain-i- 
Akbari,  300. 

Acta  Sanctorum,  The,  of  the  Hindus, 
208. 

Adams,  Major,  defeat  of  Mir  Kasim  by, 
at  Gheriah  and  Udhanala,  386. 

Adams,  Mr.,  acting  Governor-General 
(1823),  403. 

Adam's  Peak  in  Ceylon,  Shrine  common 


to  Buddhism,  .Siva-worship,  and  Mu- 
hammadanism,  203. 

Adil  Shahi,  Muhammadan  dynasty  in 
Southern  India  (1490-1636  a.  n.),  288. 

Administration  of  British  India.— AVf 
British  Administration. 

Adoption,  Hindu  practice  of,  414,  415. 

Afghan  dynasty  of  Delhi  (1540-56  A.D.), 
291. 

Afghanistan,  History  of,  under  the 
Duranis  (1747  -  1826),  406  ;  early 
British  dealings  with  {1800  -  37), 
407  ;  Afghan  dynastic  quarrels,  407  ; 
Russian  intrigues,  407  ;  installation  of 
Shah  .Shuja,  and  occupation  of  Kabul 
by  a  British  force  {1S39),  407,  408: 
rising  of  the  Afghan  people,  murder  of 
the  British  envoy,  and  massacre  of  the 
British  army  on  its  retreat  through 
the  passes  to  India  (1841-42),  408  ;  the 
British  army  of  retribution,  408,  409  ; 
Lord  Ellenborough's  proclamation, 
409;  second  Afghan  war  (1878-S1), 
426,  427  ;  murder  of  Sir  L.  Cavagnari, 
the  British  Resident,  427  ;  retributive 
occupation  of  Kabul,  427  ;  Sir  F. 
Roberts'  march  from  Kabul  to  Kan- 
dahar, and  defeat  of  Ayi'ib  Khan,  424  ; 
recognition  of  Abdurrahman  Khan  as 
Amir,  427  ;  the  Rawal  Pindi  darlnir, 
427  ;  trade  routes  to  Afghanistan,  586  ; 
value  of  Afghan  trade,  586. 

Agastya,  the  Brahman  Saint  of  Southern 
India,  Legend  of,  329.  , 

Aghori,  a  carrion-eating  sect  of  Sivaite 
devotees,  214. 

Agni,  the  Vedic  God  of  Fire,  80. 

Agra,  capital  of  Akbar  the  Great,  who 
built  the  fort,  294  ;  Akbar's  tomb  at 
Sikandra  near,  295  ;  embassy  of  Sir 
Thomas  Roe  to  the  Emperor  Jahangir, 
301  ;  367  ;  Shah  Jahan's  great  architec- 
tural works  at  the  Taj  Mahal  and  Moti 
Masjid,  304  ;  deposition  of  Shah  Jahan 
and  imprisonment  within  Agra  Fori 
(where  he  died),  by  his  usurping  son 
2  Y 


7o6 


INDEX. 


Aurangzeb,  305  ;  establishment  of 
English  factory  at  (1620  A.D.),  367. 

Agra  Canal,  29  ;  532,  533. 

Agricultural  Relief  Acts  for  Southern 
India,  449,  450. 

Agricultural  school  at  Saidapet  in  Madras, 
516. 

Agricultural  stock  in  India,  519-523; 
famous  breeds  of  cattle  and  horses, 
520,  521. 

Agriculture  and  products,  chap.  xvii. 
pp.  482-544.  Agriculture  in  India, 
the  occupation  of  almost  the  entire 
population,  482,  483  ;  various  systems 
of  agriculture,  483  ;  rotation  of  crops, 
petite  culture,  4S3,  484 ;  statistics  of 
rice  cultivation  in  different  Provinces, 
484-486  ;  hill  cultivation,  486  ;  wheat, 

486  ;  area  under  principal  food-grains, 

487  ;  millets  and  minor  cereals,  4S8, 
489  ;  pulses,  489  ;  oil-seeds,  489  ; 
vegetables,  fruits,  and  spices,  490 ; 
palms  and  sugar-cane,  491  ;  cotton, 
491-494;  jute,  494,  495;  indigo, 
495-498 ;  opium,  498,  499  ;  tobacco, 
499,  500  ;  uncertainty  of  Indian  crop 
statistics,  500  ;  approximate  area  under 
certain  principal  crops,  501  ;  special 
crops,  coffee,  502-504  ;  tea,  504-509  ; 
cinchona,  509-511  ;  silk,  511-514;  lac 
and  lac-dye,  515  ;  model  farms,  their 
small  success,  515,  516;  the  problem 
of  improved  husbandry,  5^7  >  the  im- 
pediments to  better  husbandr}-,  namely, 
want  of  cattle,  want  of  manure,  and 
want  of  water,  517-519;  agricultural 
stock,  519-523  ;  forest  conservancy  and 
growth  of  the  Indian  Forest  Depart- 
ment, 522  ;  524-527  ;  nomadic  cultiva- 
tion, 527,  528  ;  irrigation  and  its 
function  in  India  during  famine,  528, 
529 ;  irrigation  areas  in  the  different 
Provinces,  529-538  ;  irrigation  statistics 
for  British  India,  538,  539 ;  famines 
and  their  causes,  539,  540  ;  summary 
of  Indian  famines,  541,  542  ;  the  great 
famine   in  Southern    India    (1876-78), 

542-544- 
Agriculture  in  India,  small  holdings,  62  ; 

absence   of   large   commercial   towns, 

62.      . 
Ahams,    tribe   in   Assam,    formerly    the 

ruling  race  in    that    Province,   now   a 

crushed  tribe,  71  ;  present  descendants 

of,  188. 
Ahi,  the  Vedic  Demon  of  Drought,  81 

and  footnote. 
Ahmadnagar,  Muhammadan  Kingdom  of 

Southern  India  (1490-1636  A.D.),  288. 
Ahmad    Shah,    Durani    (1747-61    A.D.), 

314,  315- 
Ain-t-Akbari,    or    chronicles    of  Akbar, 
translated  by  Professor  TI.  Blochmann, 


272  (footnote) ;  291  (footnote  i)  ;  295 

(footnotes). 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  Madras  restored  to  the 

English  by  the  treaty  of  (1748),  379. 
Ajmere,     establishment    of    an    English 

factory  at  (1614  A.D.),  366. 
Akas,  an  aboriginal  hill  tribe  in  Assam, 

57- 

Akbar  the  Great,  founder  of  the  Mughal 
Empire  (1556-1605  A.D.),  291-300; 
chief  events  of  his  reign,  291  (footnote) ; 
his  work  in  India,  292,  293  ;  concilia- 
tory policy  towards  the  Hindus,  293  ; 
conquest  of  Rajput  chiefs,  and  exten- 
sion and  consolidation  of  the  Mughal 
Empire,  293,  294  ;  change  of  capital 
from  Delhi  to  Agra,  294  ;  his  religious 
faith,  295  ;  army,  judicial,  and  police 
reforms,  296  ;  his  revenue  survey  and 
land  settlement  of  India,  297,  29S  ; 
revenues  of  the  Mughal  Empire  under 
Akbar,  297-300. 

Alabaster,  Mr.,  The  Wheel  of  the  Law, 
quoted,  137  (footnote). 

Ala-ud-din,  the  second  King  of  the  Khilji 
dynasty  (1295-1315  a.d.),  281  ;  his 
invasion  and  conquest  of  Southern 
India,  281,  282  ;  massacre  of  Mughal 
settlers,  282  ;  Hindu  revolts,  282. 

Albuquerque,  second  Viceroy  of  Portu- 
guese India  (1509  A.D.),  359;  his 
capture  of  Goa,  and  death  there,  359  ; 
his  policy  towards  the  natives,  359, 
360. 

Albuquerque,  John  de,  first  Bishop  of 
Goa  (1539-53  A.D.^,  244. 

Alexander  the  Great,  his  expedition  to 
India,  and  campaigns  in  the  Punjab 
and  Sind  (327-325  B.C.),  163-166. 

Alexandria,  the  modern  Uchh  in  the 
Punjab,  founded  by  Alexander,  166. 

Alfred  the  Great's  Mission  to  India 
(883  A.D. ),  239. 

Ali  Vardi  Khan,  Nawab  of  Bengal 
(1740-56) ;  construction  of  the  Maratha 
ditch  around  Calcutta  as  a  protection 
against  the  Marathas,  381. 

Aligarh,  Defeat  of  the  Marathas  at,  by 
Lord  Lake  (1803),  398. 

Aliwal,  Battle  of,  in  the  first  Sikh  war, 

4"; 

Allahabad  and  Kora  made  over  to  the 
Mughal  Emperor  by  Clive,  387  and 
footnote  ;  their  resumption  by  Hastings 
and  sale  to  the  Wazir  of  Oudh,  389, 
390. 

Almeida,  Francisco  de,  first  Viceroy  of 
Portuguese  India  (1505  A.D.),  359. 

Alphabets  of  ancient  India,  102,  103. 

Altamsh,  the  third  monarch  of  the  .Slave 
dynasty  (121 1-36  A.D. ),  invasion  by 
^IughaIs,  279. 

Ambala  darhar,  The,  425. 


INDEX. 


707 


Amhoyna,  massacre  of,  362  ;  368  ;  561. 

Amlierst,  Lord,  Governor  -  Cleiieral  of 
India  (1823-28),  first  Burmese  war 
(1824-26)  ;  capture   of  Bhartpur,  403, 

404- 

Amir  Khan,  the  Pindari  leader  (1817), 
404. 

An  or  Aeng,  Pass  over  the  Arakan  Yoma 
Mountains  in  Burma,  6. 

Analysis  of  the  Constitution  of  the  Eait 
India  Company,  by  P.  Auber,  quoted, 
364,  365  (footnotes). 

Analysis  of  Indian  foreign  import  and 
export  trade,  principal  staples,  565- 
581. 

Ancient  India  as  described  by  Megas- 
thenes  and  Arrian,  by  Mr.  J.  M'Crin- 
dle,  quoted,  168  (footnote  i),  356 
(footnote). 

Ancient  land  system  of  India,  438. 

Ancient  mingling  of  castes,  195,  196. 

Andaman  Islanders,  The,  55  ;  assassina- 
tion of  Lord  Mayo  at  Port  Blair,  425. 

Anecdota  Oxoniensia,  Aryan  series,  1 02 
and  footnote. 

Annals  and  Atitiquities  of  Rdjasthdn,  by 
Colonel  Tod,  quoted,  180  (footnotes 
I  and  3);  184  (footnote  2);  185  (foot- 
notes I  and  3). 

Antelope  and  deer.  Varieties  of,  657, 
658. 

Antimony,  626. 

Arab  expeditions  to  Bombay  and  Sind 
(636-828  A.  D.),  263. 

Arakan  Oil  Company,  626,  627. 

Arakan  Yomas,  range  of  hills  in  Burma,  3. 

Archirological  Survey  of  li  estcrn  India, 
Mr.  E.  Thomas'  Papers  in,  quoted,  147 
(footnote);  172  (footnotes);  175  (foot- 
note 3);  182  (footnotes  i  and  4);  1S5 
(footnote  4). 

Architecture,  ancient  Indian,  112;  170  ; 
under    the    Mughal     Emperors,    294, 

304- 

Arcot,  capture  and  defence  of,  by  Clive 
(1751),  379;  rival  French  and  English 
nominees  lor  the  throne  of,  379. 

Area,  towns,  villages,  houses,  population, 
etc.,  of  British  India,  Appendix  I., 
6S9. 

Argaum,  Battle  of,  323;  398. 

Armagaon,  East  India  Company's  fac- 
tory established  at  (1625-26  a.d.), 
368. 

Army  of  India,  its  constitution,  470,  471  ; 
the  armies  of  the  three  Presidencies, 
471  ;  strength,  471  ;  health  and  vital 
statistics,  675-684. 

Art  and  architecture  in  ancient  India, 
112  ;   170,  171. 

Arts  and  manufactures,  1 12,  1 13,  also 
chap.  XX.  pp.  598-617.  English  com- 
petition   with    native    art-work,    598 ; 


native  rural  industries,  599 ;  forti- 
fied weaving  settlements  of  the  East 
India  Company,  599  ;  cotton-weaving 
an  indigenous  industry  in  India,  599  ; 
its  decline,  but  still  a  domestic  industry 
supplying  three-fifths  of  the  Indian 
consumption,  600 ;  cotton-weaving  in 
different  Provinces,  600,  601  ;  sjiecial 
Indian  cotton  fabrics,  601-603  !  Indian 
silk-weaving  in  Burma,  Assam,  and 
Bengal,  602 ;  classes  of  silk  fabrics, 
602,  603  ;  steam  silk  factories,  603  ; 
embroidery,  603 ;  Kashmir  shawls, 
603  ;  leather  work,  603  ;  velvet  work, 
603  ;  jewelled  embroider)',  604  ;  carpets 
and  rugs,  604,  605  ;  goldsmith's  work 
and  jeweller)-,  605,  606 ;  precious 
stones,  606 ;  iron  work  and  cutlery, 
606 ;  chain  armour  and  damascene 
w  ork,  606,  607  ;  brass,  copper,  and 
bell-metal  work,  607,  608;  pottery 
and  tile  work,  608 ;  sculpture,  608 ; 
609 ;  wood  carving,  609 ;  inlaying 
and  ivory  carving,  609 ;  European 
industries,  cotton  mills,  610-615  ;  jute 
mills,  614-616;  breweries,  616,  617; 
paper  mills,  617 ;  leather  factories, 
617. 

Aryan  and  Turanian  migrations  from 
Central  Asia,  174,  175  ;   130,  131. 

Aryan  races  of  India,  number  in  i88r, 
51.  Also  chap.  iv.  pp.  75-131.  The 
Aryan  stock,  its  European  and  Eastern 
branches,  75  ;  the  Aryans  in  their  pri- 
mitive home,  75,  76 ;  European  and 
Indian  languages  merely  varietits 
of  Aryan  speech,  76;  Indo-European 
words,  76  ;  common  origin  of  Euro- 
pean and  Indian  religions,  76 ;  the 
Indo-Ar)-ans  on  the  march,  and  in 
their  new  settlements,  76,  77  ;  the 
Rig- Veda,  its  supposed  dates,  77  ; 
Vedic  hymns,  78  ;  caste  and  widow- 
burning  unknown  to  the  Rig-Veda, 
78  ;  Aryan  civilisation  in  the  Veda,  79  ; 
eastern  spread  of  the  Aryans,  79  ;  the 
gods  of  the  Veda,  79  ;  Indra,  the  Cloud 
Compeller  or  rain-bringer,  and  Agni, 
the  God  of  Fire,  80,  81  ;  other  Vedic 
gods,  81  ;  the  Brahmanical  triad,  81  ; 
blood-loving  deities  of  Hinduism 
scarcely  known  in  the  Veda,  82  ;  the 
Horse  Sacrifice  a  sul  stitution  for 
Human  Sacrifice,  82;  Vedic  conceptions 
of  the  Deity,  82  ;  a  Vedic  hymn,  82, 
83  ;  primitive  Aryan  burial,  84  ;  burn- 
ing of  the  dead,  84,  85  ;  Veiiic  legend 
of  Yama,  the  King  of  Death,  85  ; 
Vedic  farewell  to  the  dead,  85  ;  Vedic 
conception  of  immortality,  86  ;  Aryan 
advance  towards  the  Jumna  and  Upper 
Ganges,  86 ;  Aryan  tribes  organized 
into  kingdoms,  87  ;  origin  of  priestly 


7o8 


INDEX. 


families,  87 ;  growth  of  the  priest- 
hood, 87,  88;  the  four  Vedas,  88;  the 
Biahmanas,  88,  89;  the  Sutras  or 
sacred  traditions,  89 ;  formation 
of  the  Brahman  caste,  89 ;  growth 
of  the  warrior  or  Kshattriya  caste, 
89,  90 ;  the  cultivating  caste  (Vaisya), 
90;  the  four  Hindu  castes,  90,  91; 
increase  of  Brahman,  Kshattriya,  and 
Siidra  castes,  91  ;  decrease  of  Vaisyas, 
91,  92  ;  struggle  between  the  priestly 
and  warrior  castes,  92  ;  rising  preten- 
sion of  the  Brahmans,  92  ;  well-known 
prehistoric  legends  of  Kshattriyas attain- 
ing Brahmanhood,  92,  93  ;  the  Middle- 
land,  the  focus  of  Brahmanisn,  93 ; 
Aryan  tribes  outside  the  Brahmanical 
pale,  93  ;  establishment  of  Brahman 
supremacy,  94;  four  stages  of  a 
Brahman's  life,  95  ;  the  Brahman  rule 
of  life  and  its  hereditary  results  on 
the  caste,  96  ;  work  done  by  Brahmans 
for  India,  97  ;  Brahman  theology,  97  ; 
the  post-Vedic  gods,  97,  98 ;  the 
Hindu  triad,  98  ;  Brahman  philosophy, 
its  six  darsanas  or  schools,  98,  99 ; 
summary  of  Brahman  religion,  ico ; 
Brahman  science,  100  ;  Sanskrit  gram- 
mar, 100,  loi  ;  Sanskrit  and  Prakrit 
speech,  lOi ;  Sanskrit  manuscripts,  102; 
the  Indian  alphabets,  102,  103  ;  Sans- 
krit writings  almost  entirely  in  verse, 
103  ;  prose,  a  forgotten  art,  103,  104  ; 
Sanskrit  dictionaries,  104 ;  Brahman 
astronomy,  104-106;  Brahman  mathe- 
matics, 106  ;  Brahman  medicine,  106- 
lio;  Indian  surgery,  107,  108; 
Buddhist  public  hospitals,  108,  109 ; 
decline  of  Hindu  medicine,  109  ;  Eng- 
lish Medical  Colleges,  108,  109  ;  verna- 
cular medical  pul:)lications,  no;  Hindu 
art  of  war,  1 10 ;  Indian  music,  1 10- 
112;  Indian  architecture,  II2;  Indian 
decorative  art  and  painting,  112,  113; 
Brahman  law,  113-118  ;  code  of  Manu, 
113,  114;  code  of  Vajnavalkya,  1 14, 
115;  scope  of  Indian  law,  its  rigid  caste 
system,  115,  116;  growth  of  Hindu 
law,  116;  its  incorporation  of  local 
customs,  117;  perils  of  modern  codi- 
fication, 117,  118;  secular  literature 
of  the  Hindus,  118-129;  the  Maha- 
bharata,  I18-122;  the  Ramayana, 
122-125  ;  age  of  the  Sanskrit  drama, 
125,  126  ;  Sakuntala  and  other  Hindu 
dramas,  1 26,  127  ;  the  Hindu  novel, 
127  ;  Beast  stories,  127  ;  Sanskrit 
lyric  poetry,  128 ;  the  Puraiias,  128, 
129  ;  Indian  modern  vernacular  litera- 
ture, 129  ;  intellectual  and  religious 
development  of  the  early  Aryans, 
129,  130;  the  Brahmans  in  Indian 
history,    and   attacks    on    Brahmanism 


from  the  6th  to  the  19th  century,  130, 

131-. 

Aryan  influences  on  the'Dravidian  races, 
329,  330 ;  the  modern  Aryan  verna- 
culars of  India,  334-355.  _ 

Asiatic  non-Indian  population  of  British 
India,  Appendix  VI.,  694. 

Asoka,  Buddhist  King  of  Magadha  or 
Behar  (257  B.C.),  144-147;  his  Great 
Council  (244  B.C.),  144;  his  Rock 
and  Cave  Edicts,  145  and  footnote  ; 
his  Department  of  Public  Worship, 
145  ;  his  missionary  efforts  and  doc- 
trinal code,  145  ;  character  of  the  Rock 
Edicts,  146,  147  and  footnote. 

Assam,  unsuccessful  invasion  of,  by 
Aurangzeb's  general,  Mir  Jumla,  309  ; 
expulsion  of  the  Burmese  from,  and 
annexation  of  Assam  to  British  terri- 
tories (1826),  404;  yearly  settlement 
of  the  land  revenue,  445  ;  frontier 
trade  of,  588-590. 

Assaye,  Battle  of,  323  ;  398. 

"Assisted"  railways  in  India,  548. 

Astronomy,  Brahmanical  system  of,  104- 
106;  astronomy  of  the  Vedas,  104; 
Greek  influences  on  Indian  astronomy, 
105  ;  decay  of  astronomical  science 
under  Muhammadan  rule,  105  ;  Raja 
Jai  Singh's  obser\atories  in  the  i8th 
century,  105,  106. 

Aswamedha  or  Great  Horse  Sacrifice  of 
ancient  India,  82  ;  connection  of  the 
Horse  Sacrifice  with  the  Human  Sacri- 
fice of  pre-Buddhistic  times,  175,  176. 

Atharva-Veda,  The,  88. 

Atrai,  river  of  Bengal ;  its  changes  of 
course,  30. 

Auber's  Analysis  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  East  India  Company,  quoted,  364, 
365  (footnotes). 

Auckland,  Lord,  Governor- General  of 
India  (1836-42),  406-409  ;  Afghan 
affairs  and  our  early  dealings  with 
Kabul,  406,  407;  Dost  Muhammad, 
Afghan  dynastic  wars,  407  ;  Russian 
influences  in  Afghanistan  and  the  in- 
stallation of  Shah  Shuja  and  occupa- 
tion of  Kabul  by  a  British  force,  407, 
408  ;  rising  of  the  Afghan  people,  and 
massacre  of  the  British  army  on  its 
retreat  to  India,  408. 

Aurangzeb,  sixth  Mughal  Emperor  of 
India  (1658-1707  A.D.),  305-312;  his 
rebellion  and  usurpation  of  the  throne, 

305,  306  ;  chief  events    of  his    reign, 

306,  307  and  footnote  ;  murder  of  his 
brothers,  307  ;  conquests  in  Southern 
India,  307  ;  rise  of  the  Maratha  power, 

307,  308  ;  Aurangzeb's  Grand  Army 
and  twenty  years'  guerilla  war  with 
the  Marathas,  308,  309  ;  his  despair 
and   death,    309  ;  unsuccessful   cxpcdi- 


INDEX. 


709 


tion  to  Assam,  309 ;  his  bigotry  and 
])crsccution  of  the  Hindus,  309  ;  revolt 
of  the  Rajputs,  309,  310;  revenues 
of  the  Empire,  310,  31 1  ;  Aurangzeb's 
character,  312. 

Austraha,  India's  trade  with,  578,  579. 

Avatars  or  Incarnations  of  Vishnu,  215, 
216  (footnote  3). 


B 


Biibar,  first  Mughal  Emperor  of  Delhi, 
{1526-30  A.D.),  early  life,  defeat 
and  overthrow  of  Ibrahim  Lodi  at 
Panipat ;  conquest  of  Northern  India, 
290,  291. 

Uahmani,     Muhammadan      dynasty      in 
Southern  India  (1347- 1525  a.  D. ),  287. 
,  IJairam    Khan,    regent    of    the    Mughal 
Empire    during     the    early    years    of 
Akbar's  reign,  291,  292. 

Baji  Rao,  second  Maratha  Peshwa 
(1721-40  A.D.)  ;  his  conc[uest  of  the 
Deccan  and  Malwa  from  the  Mughals, 
and  capture  of  Eassein  from  the  Portu- 
guese, 320. 

Baji  Rao  II.,  seventh  and  last  Maratha 
Peshwa  ( 1 795-1818),  323;  second  and 
third  Maratha  wars,  and  annexation 
of  the  Peshwa's  territories,  323,  324. 

Balaji  Baji  Rao,  third  Maratha  Peshwa 
(1740-61)  ;  his  expeditions  to  Bengal 
and  to  the  Punjab  ;  defeat  of,  l)y 
Ahmad  Shah  Durani  at  the  third  battle 
of  Panipat,  320,  321. 

Balaji  Viswanath,  first  Maratha  Peshwa 
(1718-20),  extorts  chaidli  from  the 
Delhi  Emperor  for  the  Deccan,  320. 

Balance-sheet  of  British  India,  465,  466. 

Balance  of  trade  (India's),  55S,  559;  Sir 
R.  Temple's  Minute  on,  581-583. 

Balasor,  East  India  Company's  factory 
founded  at  (1642  a.d.  ),  369. 

Balban,  the  last  King  but  one  of  the 
Slave  dynasty  (1265-87  A.D. );  his 
cruelties  to  the  Hindus  ;  Rajput  revolts 
and  Mughal  inroads  ;  his  fifteen  royal 
pensioners,  280. 

Ballantyne,  Dr.,  The  Sdnkhya  Apho7-isms 
of  Kapila,  quoted,  154  (footnote  i). 

Bankipur,  old  settlement  of  the  Ostend 
East  India  Company  on  the  Hugli 
between  Calcutta  and  Chinsurah  ;  its 
destruction     by     the     Muhammadans 

(1753),  374. 
Bantam,  a  Presidency  of  the   East  Ind.a 

Company  in  Java,  368,  369. 
Baptist  Mission  of  Carey,  Marshman,  and 

Ward  at  Serampur,  260. 
]>arak  river.  Steam  Navigation  on,  552. 
Barakhar  coal  seams,  637. 
Bari  Doab  Canal,  29 ;  532,  533. 


Barid  Shahi,  Muhammadan  dynasty  of 
Southern  India  (1492-1657  a.d.),  288. 

Barlaam  and  Josaphat  (Saints).  Legend 
of,  and  its  analogies  with  that  of 
Buddha,  151,  152. 

Barlow,  Sir  George,  ad  interim  Gover- 
nor-General (1805-07);  Mutiny  of 
Vellore,  399. 

Baroda,  Maratha  State  of  Western  India, 
322,  323  ;  deposition  of  the  late  Gaek- 
war  for  an  attempt  to  poison  the  British 
Resident  at  his  Court,  323  ;  426. 

Bartholomew  the  Apostle,  his  preachings 
in  India  certified  by  Pantrenus  the 
Alexandrian  (2nd  century  A.D. ),  235; 
conversion  of  India  proper  ascribed  10 
St.  Bartholomew,  and  of  Persia  and 
Central  Asia  to  .St.  Thomas,  according 
to  Hippolytus  (220  A.D. ),  235. 

Barth's  Religions  of  Imiia,  quoted,  161 
(footnote  2) ;  and  his  Kevtic  de  F His- 
ioire  des  Rfligions,  quoted,  16 1  (foot- 
note 2). 

Bassein,  capture  of,  from  the  Portuguese 
by  the  Alarathas,  320  ;  treaty  of,  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  second  Maratha 
war,  323. 

Baxar,  deleat  of  the  Mughal  and  Oudh 
armies  at,  by  Major  Munro,  386. 

Beal,  Samuel,  Si-yti-ki,  or  Buddhist  Re- 
cord of  the  U'cslern  IVorld,  translated 
from  the  Chinese  of  Hiuen  Tsiang, 
quoted,  2  (footnote)  ;  137  (footnote  2)  ; 
I54>  155  (footnote  3);  155  (footnote 
2);  175  (footnote  i) ;  Catena  of  Bud- 
dhist Scriptures  from  the  Chinese,  142 
(footnotes)  ;  147  (footnote  2) ;  151 
(footnote  i)  ;  157  (footnote  2)  ;  204 
(footnote  2). 

Beames,  Mr.  John,  Comparative  Gram- 
mar of  the  iModtrn  Aryan  Languai^es 
of  India,  67  (footnote)  ;  103  (footnote); 
335  and  footnote  ;  22)7  (footnote  2) ; 
339  and  footnote. 

Bears,  Species  in  India  of,  655. 

Beast  stories  and  /ables,  127  ;  beast 
hospitals,  201. 

Bediyas,  a  semi-Hinduized  gipsy  clan  of 
Lower  Bengal,  71. 

Bells,  manufacture  of,  607. 

Benfey,  Professor,  article  '  Indien  '  (pub- 
lished in  Ersch  and  G ruber's  Encyclo- 
picdie),  quoted,  no  (footnote  2). 

Bengal,  early  English  settlements  in, 
368-385  ;  first  permission  to  trade 
(1634  A.D.),  368;  factories  at  Hugh, 
Balasor,  and  Kasimbazar,  369,  370 ; 
Bengal  separated  from  Madras,  370 ; 
English  in  Bengal  and  their  early 
factories,  3S0  ;  native  rulers  of  Bengal 
(1707-56),  Murshid  Kuli  Khan,  All 
Vardi  Khan,  and  Siraj-ud-daula,  3S0, 
381  ;  capture  of  Calcutta,  the  '  Black 


710 


INDEX. 


Hole,'  and  battle  of  Plassey,  381, 
382;  Mir  Jafar  (i757-6o),  383;  385; 
Permanent  Settlement  of  (1793), 
441-445. 

Bengali  literature  and  authors,  346-354  ; 
geographical  area  and  linguistic  feat- 
ures of  the  Bengali  language,  347  ; 
Sanskritizing  tendency  of  Bengali,  347  ; 
the  three  periods  of  Bengali  litera- 
ture, 347,  348  ;  court  poets  of  Bengal 
in  the  14th  and  15th  centuries,  348  ; 
Vishnuite  and  Sivaite  religious  poetry, 
349>  350 ;  Makunda  Ram  and  the 
stories  of  Kalketu,  and  the  Srimanta 
Sadagar,  350,  351  ;  Kasi  Ram  Das, 
the  translator  of  the  Mahabharata,  351  ; 
Ram  Prasad,  court  poet  of  Nadiya  in 
the  i8th  century,  352  ;  Bengali  prose 
in  the  19th  centurj-,  and  modern  Ben- 
gali poets  and  authors,  353,  354. 

Bentinck,  Lord  William,  Governor- 
General  of  India  (1S28-35),  404-406  ; 
his  financial  reforms,  abolition  of  Sati, 
suppression  of  Thagi,  405  ;  the  renewal 
of  the  Company's  Charter,  405,  406  ; 
Mysore  taken  under  British  adminis- 
tration, and  Coorg  annexed,  406. 

Berars  handed  over  to  the  British  by  the 
Nizam  as  a  territorial  guarantee  for  his 
arrears  of  subsidy  and  for  the  pay  of 
the  Haidarabad  contingent,  415. 

Beschi,  Pere,  Jesuit  missionary  and 
scholar,  245  ;  253  ;  333. 

Bttwa  Canal,  a  famine  insurance  work, 

5,33- 

Btiagirathi,  the  name  of  the  source  and 
head-waters  of  the  Ganges,  16. 

Bhakta-Mala,  the  Hindu  Acta  Sanc- 
torum, 208. 

Dharat  Chandra  Rai,  famous  Bengali 
poet  of  the  i8th  century,  352. 

Bhars,  an  aboriginal  and  formerly  domi- 
nant race  in  Oudh,  now  a  crushed 
tribe,  71  ;  1S7  ;  present  descendants 
of,  187. 

Bhartpur,  repulse  of  Lord  Lake  before, 
398 ;  capture  of,  by  Lord  Comber- 
mere,  404. 

Bhils,  aboriginal  tribe  of  Khandesh  and 
Rajputana,  formerly  a  predatory  clan, 
now  largely  converted  into  peaceable 
cultivators     and     loyal    soldiers,    72, 

Bhonsla,  family  name  of  the  Maratha 
Chiefs  of  Nagpur,  lapsed  to  the  British 
for  want  of  heirs  in  1853,  322. 

Bhor  Ghat,  mountain  pass  in  the 
Western  Ghats,  36  ;  550. 

Bhutan,  war  with  (1S64-65),  424,  425; 
trade  with  (1883),  58S-590. 

Bidar,  Muhammadan  Kingdom  of 
Southern  India  (1492  -  1657  a.d.), 
2S8. 


Bidai-i  work,  damascening  of  silver  on 

bronze,  607. 
Bidyapati  Thakur,  Court  poet  of  Tirhut 

in  the  14th  century,  348. 
Bigandet,    Bishop,    Life    or    Legend    of 

Gaudaina,  quoted,  137  (footnote) ;   160 

(footnote  3). 
Bihari    Lai,     Hindi    poet   of   the    17th 

century,   and  composer  of  the  Satsai, 

345- 

Bijapur,  Muhammadan  Kingdom  of 
Southern  India  (14S9-1688  a.'d.  ),  288. 

Biliapatam,  East  India  Company's  factory 
started  at  (1661  A.D.),  370. 

Bird,  INIiss,  Unbca'en  Tracks  in  Japa7i, 
quoted,  152  (footnote  3)  ;  202  (fi^oi- 
note  l)  ;  224  (footnote  3). 

Birds  of  prey,  659. 

Birdwood,  Sir  G.,  Handbook  to  the  British 
Indian  Sectio?t  of  the  Paris  Exhibition 
of  1S78,  quoted,  163  (footnote  2)  ; 
Report  on  the  Miscellaneoics  Old  Re- 
cords in  the  India  Office,  quoted,  359 
(footnote  2);  360;  364  (footnotes  I 
and  2)  ;  368  (footnote)  ;  370  (footnote). 

Bison,  The  Indian,  658. 

Black  Hole,  The  tragedy  of  the,  at  Cal- 
cutta (1756),  381. 

Black-Skins  or  non-Aryans,  described  by 
the  Aryans,  53,  54. 

Blochmann,  Professor  H.,  translation  of 
the  Ain-i-Akbari,  272  (footnote)  ;  291 
(footnote  i)  ;  295  (footnotes). 

Boats,  Bridges  of,  551. 

Bolan,  mountain  pass  over  the  Brahul 
hills,  between  Sind  and  Afghanistan,  6. 

Bombay,  ceded  to  the  East  India  Company 
(166 1  A.D.),  370;  made  a  Presidency 
(1684-87),  370;  the  main  centre  of 
Indian  foreign  trade,  560. 

Book-binding  and  illumination,  112,  II3. 

Bore,  The,  or  tidal  wave  in  the  Hugli 
and  Meghna,  30,  31. 

Boronga  Oil-rehning  Company  in  Akyab, 
627. 

Boscawen,  Admiral,  his  ineffectual  siege 
of  Pondicherri  (1748),  379. 

Botany  of  India,  662-664. 

Boundaries  of  India,  3,  4. 

Brahma,  the  Creator,  the  first  person  in 
the  Hindu  triad,  98. 

Brahman  founders  of  Hinduism,  207. 

I'rahmanas,  sacred  San>krit  writings  ex- 
planatory of  the  sacrifices  and  duties  of 
the  priests,  etc.,  88,  89. 

Brahmanical  castts,  north  and  south  of 
the  Vindhyas,  193,  194  and  footnote. 

Brahmans,  the  priestly  caste  of  ancient 
India,  87-100  ;  origin  of  priestly 
families,  87  :  growth  of  the  priesthood, 
87,  88 ;  the  Brahman  caste  fully 
formed,  89,  90  ;  struggle  between  the 
priestly  and  warrior  castes,  and  ultimate 


INDEX. 


711 


supremacy  of  the  Brahnians,  92-94 ; 
Viswamitra  the  Kshattriya,  and 
Vasishtha  the  Brahman,  92,  93  ;  the 
four  stages  of  a  Brahman's  Ufe,  95  ; 
Brahman  rule  of  life  and  its  hereditary 
results  on  caste,  95,  96 ;  Brahman 
theology,  the  post-Vedic  gods,  97,  98  ; 
the  Hindu  triad,  98  ;  the  six  darsanas 
or  Brahman  schools  of  philosophy, 
98,  99  ;  Sanskrit  grammar  and  speech, 
100,  loi  ;  Sanskrit  manuscripts  and 
dictionaries,  101-104;  Brahman  astro- 
nomy, 104-106;  mathematics,  106; 
medicine,  106-IIO;  war,  IIO;  music, 
II0-II2  ;  architecture  and  decorative 
art,  112,  113;  painting,  1 13;  law, 
113-118;  secular  literature,  the  epics, 
I18-124;  poetry  and  the  drama,  125, 
126  ;  novels,  Beast  stories  and  fables, 
127,  128  ;  post-Vedic  theological 
literature,  the  Puranas,  128,  129 ; 
modern  Indian  literature,  129  ;  attacks 
on  Brahmanism  from  the  6th  century 
B.C.  to  the  19th  century  A. D.,  130,  131-  ; 
the  Brahman  caste  analyzed,  193,  194. 

Brahmaputra,  one  of  the  great  rivers  of 
India,  13-16;  its  course  and  tributaries, 
13  ;  discharge,  13,  14  ;  silt  islands,  14, 
15;  changes  in  course,  15;  traffic,  15, 
16  ;  junction  of  Ganges,  Brahmaputra, 
and  Aleghna,  24  ;  their  combined  delta 
and  estuaries,  24,  25  ;  alluvial  deposits 
of  the  Brahmaputra,  27  ;  steam  navi- 
gation on,  552. 

Brahui  hills,  a  southern  offshoot  of  the 
north-western  Himalayas,  marking  a 
portion  of  the  boundary  between  India 
and  Baluchistan,  "]. 

Brand reth,  Mr.  E.  L.,  Papers  on  the 
(jaurian  languages,  published  in  the 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society, 
vol.  X.  pp.  64-66  (footnotes),  vols.  xi. 
and  xii.,  103. 

Brass  and  copper  work,  607. 

Breweries,  616,  617. 

Bridges  of  boats,  551. 

Kriggs',  Lieutenant-Colonel,  Translation 
of  Firishta's  History  of  the  Rise  of  the 
Muhammadan  Power  in  India,  271  ; 
273  (footnote) ;  285  (footnotes  2  and  4) ; 
287  (footnote)  ;  291  (footnotes). 

British  Administration  of  India,  chap, 
xvi.  pp.  431-481.  Control  of  India 
in  England  under  the  Company  and 
under  the  Crown,  431  ;  Council  of  the 
Secretary  of  State,  431  ;  the  Viceroy 
and  Governor-General  in  Council,  431, 
432  ;  Executive  and  Legislative  Coun- 
cils, 432,  433  ;  High  Courts  of  Jus- 
tice, 433  ;  Law  of  British  India,  433, 
434  ;  Provincial  administration,  434, 
435;  ' Regulation '  and  'Non-Regula- 
tion '  territory,  435  ;  duties  of  District 


Officers,  435,  436 ;  Districts,  number 
of,  in  India,  436,  437  ;  the  Secietariats 
of  the  Government  of  India  and  of  the 
Local  Governments,  437,  438 ;  the 
land-tax,  438-452 ;  ancient  land  sys- 
tem of  India,  438  ;  the  Musalman  land- 
tax,  439  ;  the  Zaniinddr  made  landlord, 
439  ;  landed  property  in  India,  and 
the  growth  of  private  rights,  439,  440  ; 
rates  of  assessment.  Government  share 
of  the  crop,  441  ;  methods  of  assess- 
ment, 440,  441  ;  the  Permanent  Settle- 
ment of  Bengal,  creation  of  proprietors 
by  law,  441,  442  ;  intermediate  tenure- 
holders,  443 ;  Statistical  Survey  of 
Bengal,  443  ;  oppression  of  the  cultiva- 
tors, 443  ;  Land  Law  of  1859,  443,  444  ; 
subsequent  enhancements  of  rent  and 
appointmentof  a  Rent  Commission,  444, 
445  ;  its  recommendations,  three  years' 
tenant  right,  and  compensation  for 
disturbance,  444,  445  ;  Orissa  tem- 
porary Settlement,  445  ;  Assam  yearly 
Settlement,  445  ;  r^Tya/Tctfr/ Settlement 
in  Madras,  445,  446 ;  Sir  Thomas 
Munro's  method  of  assessment,  446  ; 
Permanent  Settlement  in  estates  of 
zatninddrs  TinA  native  chiefs  in  Madras, 
446,  447  ;  growth  of  cultivators  into 
proprietors  in  Madras,  and  extension  of 
tillage,  447  ;  reduction  of  average  land- 
tax  in  Madras,  448  ;  Bombay  land 
system,  the  '  survey  tenure,'  its  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages,  448,  449  ; 
debts  of  the  Deccan  peasant,  449  ; 
Bombay  Agricultural  Relief  Acts  of 
1S79  and  1 88 1,  and  rural  insolvency 
procedure,  449,  450 ;  land  Settlement 
in  the  North- Western  Provinces  and 
Oudh,  corporate  holdings,  451  ;  land 
system  of  Oudh,  the  '1  dlukdars,  451, 
452  ;  land  system  of  the  Central  Pro- 
vinces, 452  ;  land  revenue  of  British 
India,  452  ;  salt  administration,  sources 
of  salt  supply,  and  realization  of  salt 
duty,  452,  453  ;  working  of  the  salt 
monopoly,  453,  454 ;  process  of  salt 
manufacture,  444 ;  excise  on  country 
spirits,  rice  -  beer,  opium,  gdnjd,  and 
charas,  454,  455  ;  municipal  adminis- 
tration and  statistics,  455-457  >  I™" 
perial  finance,  and  the  'business'  of 
the  Indian  Government,  457i  45^  ! 
changes  in  systems  of  account  and  the 
obscurities  resulting  therefrom,  458, 
459  ;  gross  and  net  taxation  of  British 
India,  459-461  ;  English  and  Indian 
taxation,  459-461  ;  Indian  taxation 
under  the  Mughals  and  under  the 
British,  462,  463  ;  incidence  of  taxa- 
tion in  Native  States  and  British  terri- 
tory, 463-465  ;  gross  balance-sheet  of 
British  India,  and  analysis  of  Indian 


712 


INDEX. 


revenues,  465,  466  ;  nature  of  the  land- 
tax,  467;  items  of  taxation  summarized, 
460,  461  ;  467,  468  ;  Indian  expendi- 
ture,— the  army,  public  debt,  loss  by 
exchange,  public  works,  railways,  etc., 
468-470 ;  local  and  municipal  finance, 
470  ;  constitution  and  strength  of  the 
three  Presidency  armies,  471  ;  police 
and  jail  statistics,  472  ;  education,  472- 
479  ;  education  in  ancient  India,  village 
schools  and  Sanskrit  tols,  472,  473  ; 
the  Company's  first  efforts  at  education, 
the  Calcutta  JMadrasa  and  other 
colleges,  473  ;  mission  schools,  473  ; 
State  system  of  education,  474,  475  ; 
the  Education  Commission  of  1882-83, 
and  its  recommendation,  474  ;  educa- 
tional statistics  of  British  India,  474, 
475  ;  the  Indian  Universities  and  their 
constitution,  475,  476;  colleges,  middle 
schools,  and  primary  schools,  in  the 
various  Provinces,  476-478  ;  girls' 
schools,  478,  479  ;  normal  and  other 
special  schools,  479 ;  the  vernacular 
press  and  native  journalism,  4S0 ; 
registered  publications  in  India,  480, 
48i. — For  historical  details,  see  Eng- 
lish IN  India,  and  History  of 
British  Rule. 

liritish  Burma,  its  physical  geography, 
products,  etc.,  41,  42. — .SYvalso  Burma. 

British  conquest  of  India,  not  from  the 
Mughals  but  from  the  Hindus,  317. 

British  India,  its  twelve  Provinces,  area 
and  population  in  1 881,  43-45  ;  also 
Appendices  I.  to  X.,  689-703. 

Britto,  John  de,  Jesuit  priest  in  Southern 
India,  murdered  (1693  a.d.),  245. 

lirocades,  603. 

Brydon,  Dr.,  the  solitary  survivor  of  the 
Kabul  garrison  in  its  retreat  from  Af- 
ghanistan, 408. 

Bucephala,  memorial  city  on  the  west 
bank  of  the  Jehlam,  founded  by 
Alexander,  and  named  after  his  favourite 
charger,  Bucephalus,  near  the  modern 
Jalalpur,  165. 

Buchanan  -  Hamilton,  Dr.  Francis,  his 
MS.  Survey  of  the  North  -  Eastern 
Districts  of  Bengal,  quoted,  205,  206 
(footnote  4) ;  207  (footnote  i). 

Buckingham  Canal  in  Madras,  navigation 

on.  553- 

Buddha,  the  Sakya,  176,  177. 

Buddha,  his  Life,  his  Doctrine,  his  Order, 
by  Professor  Oldenberg,  quoted,  16 1 
(footnote  3). 

Buddhism,  and  life  of  Gautama  Buddha, 
chap.  V.  pp.  132-162.  The  story  of 
Buddha  modelled  on  the  pre-existing 
Indian  epic  type,  132-135  ;  Buddha  and 
Rama  compared,  132  ;  parentage  of 
Buddha,  his  youth   and   early   married 


life,  133  ;  his  Great  Renunciation,  133, 
134  ;  his  Temptation  in  the  forest,  134  ; 
his  '  Enlightenment,'  134,  135  ;  his 
public  teachings  and  disciples,  135  ;  his 
conversions  in  the  Gangetic  valley,  and 
of  his  own  family,  135,  136  ;  his  last 
words  and  death,  136;  different  versions 
of  the  legend  of  Buddha,  136,  137  ; 
biographies  of  Buddha,  137,  138  ;  the 
southern  and  northern  versions,  138  ; 
political  life  of  Buddha,  139  ;  defeat 
of  his  opponents  by  magical  arts,  139, 
140 ;  overthrow  of  the  schismatic 
Devadatta,  140 ;  Buddha  as  a  Sakya 
prince,  140 ;  Chinese  text  of  Buddha's 
dying  discourse,  141  ;  his  doctrines, 
141  ;  law  of  Karma,  141,  142;  law  of 
Nii-vana  or  'liberation,'  142;  moral 
code  of  Buddhism,  143  ;  missionary 
aspects  of  Buddhism,  143  ;  the  four 
great  Buddhist  Councils,  143-147  ; 
the  work  of  Asoka,  his  great  Council, 
144-146;  his  Rock  Edicts,  144,  145; 
Asoka's  missionary  efforts,  146,  147  ; 
his  reformed  canon  of  the  Buddhist 
scriptures,  146,  147  ;  Kanishka's 
Council  and  his  three  commentaries 
on  the  Buddhist  faith,  147  ;  the 
northern  and  southern  canons,  147, 
148  ;  Buddhism  as  a  national  religion, 
148  ;  its  religious  orders  and  practical 
morality,  148,  149 ;  spread  of 
Buddhism  in  the  south  to  Ceylon,  and 
in  the  north  to  China,  149,  150  ; 
Buddhist  influence  on  Christianity,  150, 

151  ;  Buddha  as  a  Christian  saint,  151  ; 
legend  of  saints  Barlaam  and  Josaphat, 
151,  152  ;  a  Japanese  temple,  its 
analogies  to  Hinduism  and  Christianity, 

152  ;  Buddha  as  an  incarnation  of 
Vishnu,  153  ;  Buddha's  personality 
denied,  153,  154  ;  continuous  co- 
existence of  Buddhism  and  Brahman- 
ism,  154  ;  modern  Hinduism,  the 
joint  product    of   both   religions,    154, 

155  ;  Buddhism  in  India  in  the  7th 
century  A.  D.,  156;  Council  of  Siladitya, 

156  ;  Siladitya's  charity,  156,  157  ; 
monastery  of  Nalanda,  157  ;  mingling 
of  Buddhism  and  Brahmanism,  157  ; 
victory  of  Brahmanism,  157,  158  ; 
Buddhism  an  exiled  religion  from  India, 
158  ;  its  foreign  conquests,  158  ; 
Buddhist  survivals  in  India,  i5S-iti2  ; 
the  Jains,  158-162  ;  Jain  doctrines,  159; 
Jain  temple  cities,  159  ;  relation  of 
Jainism  to  Buddhism,  159,  160;  anti- 
quity of  the  Jains,  160,  161  ;  date  of 
tlie  Jain  scriptures,  161,  162  ;  the 
Jains  an  independent  sect,  162  ;  modern 
Jainism,  162. 

Buddhist   population   in   India,  136  (and 
footnote)  ;  see  a'.so  Appendix  V.,  693  ; 


IXDEX. 


in 


Buddhist  influences  on  later  religions, 
analogies  of  a  Japanese  temple  to 
Hinduism  and  Christianity,  152;  202. 

Buffaloes,  520 ;  658. 

Buhler,  Dr.  G.,  Tour  in  Search  of  Sanskrit 
J/SS.,  published  in  \\\t.  Journal  of  the 
Bombjy  Branch  of  the  Asiatic  Society, 
No.  xxxiv.  A,  vol.  xii.,  1877,  quoted, 
102  (footnotes  i  and  3) ;  Digest  of  the 
Hindu  Law  of  Jnhcritaiue,  Partition, 
anil  Adoption,  117  (footnote  2). 

Ikiilding  stone,  627,  628. 

liundelas,  a  Rajput  tribe,  formerly 
the  ruling  race  in  Bundelkhand, 
ousted  by  the  Marathas,  71  and  foot- 
note. 

Burma,  in  ancient  times  and  in  the  15th 
century  A.u.,  403  ;  encroachments  on 
India  and  first  Burmese  war  (1S24-26), 
403,  404 ;  annexation  of  Assam, 
Arakan,  and  Tenasserim,  404  ;  second 
Burmese  war  (1852)  and  annexation  of 
Pegu,  413,  414  ;  prosperity  of  Burma 
under  British  rule,  414  ;  annexation  of 
Upper  Burma  (ist  January  1886), 
430  ;  export  of  rice  from,  572  ;  trans- 
Irontier  trade  with,  588-590  ;  geology 
of,  639,  640.  —  Ste  also  British 
Burma. 

Burnell,  Dr.,  Pahxography  of  Southern 
India,  quoted,  103  (footnote)  ;  The 
Ordinances  of  Mann,  114  (footnotes)  ; 
Daya-vibhagha,  117  (footnote)  ;  195 
(footnote  2). 

Burnes,  Sir  Alexander,  assassination  of, 
in  Kabul  (1841),  408. 


Cabot's  attempt  to  reach  India  by  way  of 
the  north-west  passage,  363. 

Cabral's  expedition  to  India  (1500  A.D.), 
and  establishment  of  Portuguese  fac- 
tories at  Calicut  and  Cochin,  358. 

Cacharis,  a  semi-Hinduized  aboriginal 
tribe  of  Assam  and  North -Eastern 
Bengal,  71  (footnote). 

Calcutta  founded  (16S6  A.D.),  371  ;  cap- 
ture of,  by  Siraj-ud-Daula,  and  the 
Black  Hole,  381 ;  re-capture  of  Calcutta 
by  Clive,  381,  382  ;  Calcutta  Canals, 
553  ;  Calcutta  as  a  seaport  and  its  share 
of  trade,  559,  560. 

Caldwell,  Bishop,  Comparative  Grammnr 
of  the  Dravidian  Languages,  quoted, 
65-68,  and  footnotes  ;  173  (footnote  2) ; 
240  (footnote  i) ;  327  (footnotes  2  and 
3)  ;  328  (footnote) ;  330  (footnote  2)  ; 
332  (footnote) ;  340  (footnote  i);  369 
(footnote). 

Calicut,  visits  of  Vasco  da  Gama  to,  and 
establishment  of  a  Portuguese  factory, 


357,   358 ;   attempt  of  the  English  to 

establish  a  factory  at,  367. 
Camels,    520 ;    camel-hair    embroidered 

shawls,  603. 
Campbell,  Sir  Colin  (Lord  Clyde),  relief 

of    Lucknow    by,    421  ;    campaign    in 

Oudh,  421,  422. 
Campbell,   Sir  George,  Speciinetts  of  the 

Languages  of  India,  quoted,  67  (foot- 
note). 
Canals  (irrigation)  in  Bind  and  Bombay, 

530,  531 ;  the  three  great  Punjab  canals, 

531,  532  ;  the  Doab  canals  in  the  North- 
\Vestern  Provinces,  532,  533  ;  Orissa 
canal  system,  534 ;  the  Son  canals 
and  irrigation  in  Bengal,  534,  535  ; 
irrigation  works  in  the  Madras  deltas, 
536,  537- 

Canning,  Earl,  Governor  -  General  of 
India  (1856-62),  417-424.  The  Mu- 
tiny of  1857-58,  417-424  ;  downfall 
of  the  Company,  422  ;  India  trans- 
ferred to  the  Crown,  and  the  Queen's 
Proclamation,  423,  424  ;  Lord  Canning 
the  first  Viceroy,  424  ;  financial  antl 
legal  reforms,  424. 

Car-Festival  of  Jagannath,  224-226  ;  self- 
immolation  not  practised,  224  ;  blood- 
less worship  and  gentle  doctrines  of, 
225,  226. 

Carnelians,  629. 

Carpet-weaving,  604. 

Caste,  formation  of  »he  four  castes, 
87-91. 

Caste  rewards  and  punishments,  199, 
200. 

Caste  system,  its  religious  and  social 
aspects,  192-200. 

Catena  of  Buddhist  Scriptures  from  the 
Chinese,  by  Mr.  S.  Beal,  quoted,  142 
(footnote  i);  147  (footnote  2);  150 
(footnote  3);  157  (footnote  2);  176 
(footnote  2)  ;  204  (footnote  2). 

Cathay  and  the  IVay  Thither,  by  Colonel 
Yule,  quoted,  233  (footnote  2) ;  238 
(footnote  3). 

Catholic  Missions  in  India,  229-259. 
Origin  of  Christianity  in  India,  229, 
230 ;  the  three  legends  of  St.  Thomas 
the  Apostle,  Thomas  the  Manichrean, 
and  Thomas  the  Armenian,  and  their 
respective  claims  as  the  founder  of 
Indian  Christianity,  231-235;  Nes- 
torian  Church  in  Asia  side  by  side 
with  Buddhism  for  1000  years,  its 
wide  diffusion,  235,  236  ;  the  forcible 
conversion  of  the  Nestorians  or  St. 
Thomas  Christians,  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  by  the  Portuguese,  241-243  ; 
Syrian  and  Jacobite  Catholics  in 
Malabar,  243,  244 ;  labours  of  St. 
Francis  Xavier,  244,  245  ;  early  Jesuit 
priests,   their  conversions  and  literary 


714 


INDEX. 


labours,  agricultural  settlements,  and 
collegiate  city  of  Cochin,  245-253 ; 
Portuguese  inquisition  estaljlished  at 
Goa,  atdos  da  fe,  and  abolition  of  the 
inquisition,  253,  254 ;  suppression  of 
thejesuits(  1759-73),  and  their  re-estab- 
lishment (1814),  254,  255  ;  organiza- 
tion of  modern  Roman  Catholic  Mis- 
sions, 255  ;  jurisdiction  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Goa,  255,  256  ;  distribution 
of  Roman  Cathohcs,  257  ;  Syrian  and 
Roman  Catholic  Christians,  257 ; 
Roman  Catholic  population  of  India, 
258;  progress  of  Roman  Catholicism, 
its    missions,     colleges,    and    schools, 

259- 

Cattle,  Breeds  of,  520. 

Cave  inscriptions  of  Asoka,  145,  146. 

Cawnpur,  the  Mutiny  at,  massacre  of 
the  garrison  and  the  women  and  chil- 
dren, 420. 

Central  Asia,  trans-Himalayan  trade  with, 
586-590. 

Ceylon,  India's  trade  with,  578,  579. 

Chain  armour,  manufacture  of,  606,  607. 

Chaitanya,  Hindu  religious  reformer 
(1485- 1 527  A.D. ),  his  life  and  teach- 
ings, 219-221. 

Chait  Singh,  Raja  of  Benares,  exactions 
of  Warren  Hastings  from  (1780),  390. 

Chandarnagar,  French  Settlement  in 
Bengal,  381  ;  bombardment  and  cap- 
ture of,  by  Admiral  Watson  (1757), 
382. 

Chand  Bardai,  Hindi  poet  (12th  century), 

345- 

Chandelas,  formerly  a  ruling  race  in 
Bundelkhand,  North  -  Western  Pro- 
vinces, 71. 

Chandi  Das,  religious  poet  of  the  15th 
century,  34S  ;   hymn  to  Krishna,   348, 

349- 
Chandra  Gujna,  King  of  Magadha  (326 

B.C.),    166-170;  cession  of  the  Greek 

pos>essions     in     the     Punjab     to,     by 

Seleukos,    Alexander's  successor  (306 

B.C.);   the  Embassy  of  Megasihenes, 

167-170. 
Changes    of    caste    occupation    by    the 

Shahas,  Telis,  and  Tambulisof  Bengal, 

196,  197. 
Changes  of  river-beds  and  deserted  river 

capitals,  30. 
Character  of  the  non-Aryan  tribes,  their 

fidelity  as  soldiers,  72. 
Charak-piija    or    hook -swinging  festival, 

213. 
Charas,  Excise  duty  on,  455. 
Charities  of  Indian  trade  guilds,  198. 
Chauth,    or    '  quarter-revenues  '    exacted 

by  the  Maraihas  in  the  Deccan  and  in 

Bengal,  320,  321. 
'  Cheetah  or  hunting  leopard,  653,  654. 


Chera,  ancient  Hindu  dynasty  in  Southern 

India,  286. 
Cherra-Piinji,  rainfall  at,  7  ;  649,  650. 
Child,    Sir  John,    '  Captain-General  and 

Admiral  of  India '(1684),  also  (jovernor- 

General,  370,  371. 
Child-worship  of  Krishna,  222. 
Childers,    Mr.,    Dictionary   of  the   Fa'i 

Language,  quoted,  132  ;  134,  137,  138; 

142  (footnotes). 
Chilianwala,  Battle  of,  412,  413. 
China,    India's    trade    with,    577  ;    582, 

583. 

Chinsurah,  defeat  of  the  Dutch  at,  by 
Clive,  362,  363  ;  head-quarters  of  the 
Dutch  settlement  in  Bengal,  381. 

Chips  f7-oni  a  German  Workshop,  by 
Professor  Max  Midler,  quoted,  83 
(footnote  i);  127  (footnote  3);  142 
footnote  2);  151  (footnote  i). 

Chola,  Ancient  Hindu  dynasty  in 
Southern  India,  286. 

Christianity  in  India  (lOO  to  18S1  A.D.\ 
chap.  ix.  pp.  229-267.  Christianity 
coeval  with  Buddhism  in  India  for  900 
years,  229  ;  origin  of  Christianity  in 
India,  229  ;  Syrian  Christians  in  India, 
230  ;  the  three  legends  of  St.  Thomas, 
230-233  ;  wide  meaning  of  India  in 
the  writings  of  the  Christian  Fathers, 
233,  234  ;  first  glimpse  of  Indian 
Christians  (190  A.D.),  234  ;  ancient 
Roman  trade  with  India,  234 ;  Jew 
Settlements  in  ancient  Malabar,  234, 
235  ;  Indian  Christians  (190-547  A.  D.), 
as  described  by  Pantoenus,  Hippolytus, 
and  Cosmos  Indicopleustes,  235  ; 
Nestorian  Church  in  Asia,  235,  236  ; 
Nestorianism  and  Buddhism  side  by 
side  for  looo  years,  236  ;  wide  diffu- 
sion of  the  Nestorian  Church,  236, 
237  ;  the  '  Thomas  Christians '  of 
Persia  and  of  India,  237  ;  localization 
of  the  legend  of  St.  Thomas,  237-239  ; 
embassy  of  Alfred  the  Great  to  India 
(833  A.D.),  239  ;  troubles  of  the 
ancient  Indian  Church,  240  ;  the 
Nestorian  St.  Thomas  Christians  of 
Malabar,  a  powerful  and  respected 
military  caste,  240,  241  ;  Portuguese 
efforts  at  their  conversion  to  Rome, 
241  ;  Synod  of  Diamper  (1599  A.D. ), 
241,  242  ;  Malabar  Christians  freed 
from  Portuguese  oppression  by  the 
Dutch,  242,  243  ;  Jacobite  and  Syrian 
Christians  in  Malabar,  243  ;  extinction 
of  Nestorianism  in  Malabar,  243,  244  ; 
early  Portuguese  missionaries  identi- 
fied with  Portuguese  aggressions,  244  ; 
Xavier  and  the  Jesuits  (1542  A.D. ), 
244,  245  ;  work  done  by  the  Madras 
Jesuits,  245,  246  ;  early  Jesuit  stations 
in    India,    246 ;     conquest    and    con- 


INDEX. 


71 S 


version  the  basis  of  Portuguese  Indian 
rule,  246,  247  ;  parochial  organiza- 
tion of  Portuguese  India,  247 ;  Jesuit 
station  of  Thana  (1550  A.D. ),  its 
Christian    craftsmen    and    cultivators, 

247,  248  ;  Jesuit  rural  organization, 
248  ;  Cochin,   a  Jesuit  collegiate  city, 

248,  249 ;  Jesuit  itineraries  and  con- 
versions, 250,  251  ;  the  Malal  ar 
Mission  in  the  lytli  and  iSth  centuries, 
251  ;  caste  questions  among  Malabar 
Christians,  251,  252;  Christian  martyr- 
doms, 252,  253  ;  establishment  of  the 
inquisition  at  Goa,  253,  254 ;  autos 
da  fe,  254  ;  persecutions  and  aggres- 
sions by  Portuguese,  254  ;  Goa  inquisi- 
tion abolished  (1812),  254  ;  suppression 
of  the  Jesuits  (1759),  254,  255;  their 
re-establishment  (1814),  255  ;  organiza- 

■  tion  of  Roman  Catholic  Missions  in 
India,  255  ;  separate  jurisdiction  of 
the  Arclibishop  of  Goa,  255,  256 ; 
distribution  of  Roman  Catholics,  257  ; 
the  Verapoli  vicariate  in  Travancore, 
257  ;  Syrian  and  Roman  Catholic 
Christians,  257  ;  statistics  of  Roman 
Catholic  population  of  India,  258  ; 
Roman  Catholic  progress,  259  ;  Pondi- 
cherri  Mission,  259  ;  Catholic  colleges 
and  schools,  259  ;  first  Protestant 
Missions  in  India  (1705),  259,  260; 
vernacular  translation  oi  the  Bible 
(1725  A.D.),  260;  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries in  Tanjore,  Calcutta,  and 
Serampur,  260  ;  oppo^ition  of  the 
East  India  Company  to  Missions,  260  ; 
Bishopric  of  Calcutta,  261  ;  other 
Indian  sees,  261  ;  Presbyterian  and 
other  Protestant  Missions,  261  ; 
statistics  of  Protestant  Missions,  261, 
262  ;  increase  of  native  Protestants, 
262,  263  ;  extended  use  of  native 
agency,  263 ;  rapid  development  of 
school  work  of  Protestant  Missions, 
262,  263  ;  general  statistics  of  Chris- 
tian population  in  India,  263,  264  ; 
Protestant  denominational  statistics, 
264,  265  ;  Indian  Ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment, 266,  267. 

Chronicle  of  the  Pathdn  Kings  of  Delhi, 
by  Mr.  E.  Thomas,  quoted,  271  (foot- 
note) ;  280,  281  (footnotes)  ;  283 
(footnote  l);  284  (footnote  i)  ;  285 
(footnote  3) ;  287  (footnote  2) ;  291 
(footnote) ;  298  (footnote  i). 

Chronological  table  of  Governors,  Gover- 
nors-General and  Vicerovs  of  India 
(1758-1885),  384. 

Chronological  taiile  of  Muliamniadan 
conquerors  and  dynasties  (1001-1857 
A.D.),  271. 

Chronology  of  early  European  travellers 
to  Indin,  356,  357  (footnote). 


Cinchona  cultivation,  509-511  ;  intro- 
duction of  plant,  509  ;  the  plantations 
in  Southern  India  and  at  Darjiling, 
509,  510;  statistics  of  out-turn  and 
financial  results,  510,  511. 

Clive,  struggle  with  Dupleix  in  the  Kar- 
natik,  378,  379  ;  defence  of  Arcot,  379  ; 
re-capture  of  Calcutta,  381,  382  ;  battle 
of  Plassey  and  its  results,  382  ;  Clive's 
Jdgir,  3S3,  384  ;  appointed  Gover- 
nor of  Bengal,  3S4 ;  Clive's  second 
Governorship,  386 ;  his  partition  of 
the  Gangetic  valley,  387  ;  giant  of  the 
di-adnl  of  Bengal,  387  ;  reorganization 
of  the  Company's  service,  387. 

Clyde,    Lord,   relief  of  Lucknow,   420  ; 
campaign  in  Oudh,  and  suppiession  of. 
the  Mutiny,  421. 

Coal  and  coal  mining,  41  ;  619  ;  history 
of  Bengal  coal  mining,  619,  620  ;  coal 
in  the  Central  Provinces,  620,  621  ; 
Raniganj  coal-fields,  621  ;  outlying 
coal-beds,  621,  622  ;  future  of  Indian 
coal,  622;  geology  of  Indian  coal- 
fields, 636,  637. 

Coalition  of  Vishnuism  with  Islam  in 
Kabir's  teaching,  219. 

Coasting  trade  of  India  and  coast-shipping, 
583-5S6.    ^ 

Cobalt  in  Rajputana,  626. 

Cobra  di  capello.  The,  660. 

Cochin,  the  Jesuit  Collegiate  city  of  the 
i6th  century,  248-250  ;  first  establish- 
ment of  T'ortuguese  factory  at  (1500 
A.D.),  358. 

Coffee  cultivation,  502-504 ;  its  intro- 
duction into  India,  502  ;  area  under 
cultivation,  502,  503  ;  suitable  sites  for 
gardens,  503  ;  processes  of  preparation, 
503,  504;  exports  of,  575. 

Colebrooke's  Essays,  quoted,  191  (foot- 
note 2). 

Colleges  and  high  schools,  476,  477. 

Commerce  a?id  Navigation  of  the  Ancients 
in  the  Indian  Ocean,  by  Dean  Vincent, 
quoted,  164  (footnote  l)  ;  356  (foot- 
note). 

Commerce  and  Navigation  of  the  Eryth  • 
ntan  Sea,  by  Mr.  J.  M'Crindle,  quoted, 
166  (footnotes  I  and  2)  ;  356  (footnote). 

Commerce  and  trade,  chap.  xix.  pp. 
555-597.  Ancient  and  medieval  trade 
of  India,  555  ;  function  of  modern 
Indian  trade,  555,  556  ;  sea-borne  trade 
impossible  under  the  Mughals,  556 ; 
growth  of  trading  and  industrial  cities 
imder  British  rule,  556,  557  ;  summary 
of  Indian  exports  ^1700-1885),  558; 
India's  balance  of  trade,  558,  559  ;  the 
Home  charges,  559  ;  India's  yearly 
trade  savings,  559  ;  the  chief  Indian 
ports  of  export  trade,  559,  560  ;  early 
Portuguese  trade,  560  ;   Dutch  mono- 


71 6. 


INDEX. 


poly  of  eastern  trade,  560  ;  early 
English  factories  and  advance  of  Eng- 
lish trade,  560,  561  ;  Company's  trade 
in  1834,  561,  562  ;  abolition  of  inland 
duties  (1836-48),  562;  growth  of 
Indian  foreign  trade  (1840-84),  562, 
563  ;  Indian  trade  statistics  (1878-85), 
563  -  565  ;  Suez  Canal  trade,  564  ; 
tabular  statistics  of  import  and  export 
trade  (18S2-83),  566,  567  ;  Manchester 
cotton  goods  import  trade,  565-568  ; 
treasure,  import  of,  and  proportion  of 
gold  to  silver,  56S,  569 ;  raw  cotton 
export  trade,  569,  570  ;  jute  exports, 
57°)  571  j  rice  export  trade,  572  ;  rice 
export  duty,  572,  573  ;  wheat  trade 
and  exports,  573  ;  oil-seeds,  573,  574  ; 
indigo,  safflower,  myrobalams,  turmeric, 
and  lac,  574,  575  ;  tea  and  coffee  ex- 
ports, 575  ;  exports  of  cotton  and  jute 
manufactures,  575,  576;  India's  trade 
with  different  countries,  577  -  580  ; 
growth  of  Suez  Canal  trade,  5S1  ;  Sir 
K.  Temple's  Minute  on  the  balance  of 
Indian  trade,  5S1-583;  coasting  trade 
and  shipping  of  India,  583-586;  frontier 
trade,  586  ;  trans-frontier  trade  with 
Afghanistan,  Central  Asia,  Nepal, 
Tibet,  Burma,  and  Siam,  586-590  ; 
internal  trade  of  India,  591  ;  trading 
castes  in  Southern  and  Northern  India, 
591,  592  ;  local  trade  of  India,  village 
money-lenders,  travelling  brokers,  re- 
ligious fairs,  etc.,  592,  593;  internal 
trade  the  chief  safeguard  against  famine, 
593,  594 ;  normal  action  of  internal 
trade,  594 ;  Provincial  statistics  of 
internal  trade,  594,  595 ;  trade  of 
Patna  town,  595,  596  ;  the  village 
mart  of  Dongargaon,  596  ;  rural  fair  at 
Karagola,  596,  597. 

Common  origin  of  European  and  Indian 
religions,  76. 

Common  shrines  of  various  faiths,  203, 
204 ;  Muhammadan  and  Hindu  wor- 
ship at  St.  Thomas'  shrine  in  Madras, 
238. 

Communication,  Means  of. — See  Means 
OF  Communication. 

Comorin,  cape  at  the  southernmost  ex- 
tremity of  India,  3. 

Comparative  Dictionary  of  the  Bihdri 
Language,  by  Messrs.  Hoernle  and 
Grierson,  quoted,  336  and  footnote  ; 
337  (footnote  I);  341  and  footnote; 
344  (footnote). 

Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Dravidiaii 
Language,  by  Bishop  Caldwell,  quoted, 
66,  67,  and  footnotes  ;  173  (footnote  2)  ; 
240  (footnote  I) ;  327  (footnotes  2  and 
3);  328  (footnote);  330  (footnote  2); 
332  (footnote) ;  340  (footnote  2) ;  369 
(footnote). 


Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Gandian 
Languages,  by  Professor  Hoernle, 
quoted,  336  and  footnote ;  337  (foot- 
note i). 

Comparative  Grammar  of  the  Modern 
Aryan  Languages  of  India,  by  Mr. 
John  Beames,  quoted,  67  (footnote)  ; 
103  (footnote)  ;  335  ;  337  (footnote  2). 

Compensation  for  disturbance  on  eviction 
in  Bengal,  445. 

Complexity  of  the  Hindu  caste  system, 
192-194. 

Control  of  India  in  England  under  the 
Company  and  under  the  Crown,  the 
Secretary  of  State's  Council,  431. 

Coote,  Sir  Eyre,  defeat  of  Lally  aiWande- 
wash  (1761),  379,  380;  in  the  first 
Mysore  war  (1780),  392. 

Copper  and  copper-mining,  42 ;  607 ; 
625,  626. 

Cornwallis,  Marquis  of  (1786- 1793), 
392-394  ;  his  revenue  reforms  and  the 
Permanent  Settlement  of  Bengal,  393  ; 
second  Mysore  war,  394  ;  second  ad- 
ministration of  Lord  Cornwallis  (1805); 
and  his  death  after  a  few  weeks  in 
India,  399. 

Corporate  holdings  of  cultivated  land  in 
North  -  Western  Provinces  and  the 
Punjab,  451. 

Cosmos  Indicopleustes'  history  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  Ceylon  and  along 
the  Malabar  seaboard  (547  A.D. ),  235. 

Cosquin,  M.  Emmanuel,  Rn'ue  des  Ques- 
tions Historiques,  liv.  56,  quoted,  151 
(footnote  3)  ;   152  (footnote  2). 

Cotton  cultivation  and  manufacture,  491; 
the  American  war,  its  effects  on  Indian 
cotton-growing,  491,  492  ;  cotton  dis- 
tricts in  India,  area  under  cultivation, 
and  out-turn,  492,  493  ;  cotton-clean- 
ing, 494  ;  imports  of  Manchester  goods, 
565,  566  ;  exports  of  raw  cotton,  569, 
570  ;  exports  of  manufactured  cotton, 
575  ;  decline  of  cotton-weaving  owing 
to  Manchester  competition,  but  still  a 
domestic  industry  in  India,  599-601  ; 
steam  cotton  mills  in  different  Pro- 
vinces, 611,612;  sound  basis  of  Indian 
cotton  manufacture,  611-613;  exports 
of  Bombay  manufactured  cotton  to 
China  and  Africa,  613,  614 ;  future 
prospect  of  Indian  cotton  manufactures, 
614. 

Cotton  import  duties.  Abolition  of,  468. 

Covelung  (or  Coblom),  old  settlement  of 
the  Cstend  East  India  Company  on  the 
Madras  coast,  373. 

Covilham,  earliest  recorded  Portuguese 
traveller  to  Cochin  (1487  A.D.),  357; 
Jesuit  missionary  in  Southern  India, 
killed  in  1500,  244. 

Criminal  Tribes  .A.ct,  71. 


INDEX. 


717 


Crocodiles,  660,  661. 

Crops  of  tlie  Himalayas,  8;  of  the  river 
]ilains  and  Gangelic  delta,  32,  2)1)  »  of 
Southern  India,  40,  41 ;  of  Burma,  42. 
— Sec  also  chap,  xvii.,  Agriculture  and 
Products,  484-51 1. 

Crop  statistics  lor  India,  Uncertainty  of, 
500,  501. 

Crushed  tribes,  71. 

Csoma  de  Kords,  Life  and  Works  of,  by 
Dr.  Theodore  Duka,  quoted,  153  (foot- 
note i). 

Cultivated,  cultivable,  and  uncultivable 
area,  etc.,  of  certain  Provinces  of 
British  India,  Appendix  III.,  691. 

Cultivators,  Rights  of,  reserved  by  the 
Permanent  Settlement  of  Bengal,  442, 
443  ;  oppression  of,  by  rack-renting 
landlords,  443;  the  Land  Act  of  1859, 

.  444  ;  Rent  Commission  of  1879,  and 
its  proposed  reforms  in  the  direction  of 
fixity  of  occupation  and  compensation 
for  disturbance,  444,  445. 

Cunningham,  General,  Corpus  Tnscrip- 
tioimin  Lidicarum,  quoted,  103  (foot- 
note) ;  144  (footnote) ;  145  (footnote) ; 
146  (footnotes);  153  (footnote  2) ;  167 
(footnote  i);  Ancient  Geography  of 
India,  155  (footnote) ;  157  (footnote  l); 
164  (footnotes  l  and  3) ;  165  (footnote); 
166  (footnote  i);  167  (footnote  3); 
185  (footnote  2)  ;  Reports  of  t/ic 
Arcluvological  Surz'ey  of  India,  185 
(footnote  4). 

Cust,  Mr.  R.  'i^..  Linguistic  and  Oriental 
Essays,  quoted,  103  (footnote). 

Customs,  inland  lines,  abolished  by  Lord 
Mayo,  425 ;  customs  import  duties 
abolished  by  Lord  Ripon,  429. 

Customs  revenue,  467. 

Cutch,  Silver  jewellery  of,  605. 

Cutlery  manufactures,  606. 


Dacca  muslins,  a  decaying  manufacture, 
601. 

Dadu,  religious  reformer  and  sacred  poet 
of  Rajputana  (i6th  century),  344. 

Dae,  Mr.  Arcy,  Ihe  Literature  of  Bengal, 
quoted,  347  (and  footnote)  ;  348,  349 
(and  footnote) ;  352  (footnote). 

Dalhousie,  Earl  of.  Governor  General  of 
India  (1848-56),  412-417;  his  ad- 
ministrative reforms,  412  ;  inaugura- 
tion of  the  Indian  railway  system  and 
the  Pvblic  Works  Department,  412; 
second  Sikh  war  and  annexation  of  the 
Punjab,  412,  413  ;  second  Burmese 
war  and  annexation  of  Pegu,  413, 
414  ;  Lord  Dalhousie's  policy  towards 
Native   States,  414,  415  ;  Lord  Dal- 


housie's annexation  of  Oudh,  and  jus- 
tification of  the  measure,  415-417 ; 
Lorti  Dalhousie's  scheme  of  trunk 
military  railways,  545. 

Dalton,  Colonel  E.  T. ,  Et/molo^y  of 
Bengal,  quoted,  67  (footnote). 

Damascened  steel  work,  607. 

Damodar  coal  tract.  Geology  of,  636-638. 

Dandis,  a  sect  of  Sivaite  religious  as- 
cetics and  mendicants,  213,  214. 

Danish  East  India  Companies  (1612  and 
1670  A. D.),  and  their  settlements,  372. 

Danish  missionaries,  259,  260. 

Dasyus,  the  Aryan  name  for  the  non- 
Ayrans,  or  aborigines,  53. 

Davitls,  Mr.  Rhys,  Buddhism,  quoted, 
137  (footnote) ;  Buddhist  Birth  Stories, 
137  (footnote). 

Death-rate  and  average  duration  of  life 
in  India,  666,  667  ;  death  and  birth 
rates  in  different  Provinces,  667-679. 

Debt  of  India  and  its  growth,  469. 

Deccan,  The,  or  Southern  India,  34-41  ; 
its  mountain  ranges  and  elevated  table- 
land, 35,  36  ;  mountain  passes,  36,  37  ; 
rivers,  37 ;  forests,  38,  40 ;  scenery, 
40;  crops,  40,  41  ;  minerals,  41  ; 
Maratha  power  in  the  Deccan,  320, 
322,  323- 

Deccan  Agriculturists'  Relief  Acts,  a 
rural  insolvency  law,  449,  450. 

Decennial  Settlement,  The  (1789-1791), 
393- 

Decline  and  fall  of  the  Mughal  Empire 
(1707 -1857  A.D.),  312-316;  chief 
events,  312,  313  and  footnote  ;  the 
six  puppet  kings,  313  ;  independence 
of  the  Deccan  and  Oudh,  314;  the 
Maratha  chaiith,  314;  invasions  of 
Nadir  Shah  the  Persian,  and  Ahmad 
Shah  the  Afghan,  314,  315;  misery 
of  the  Provinces,  315  ;  third  battle  of 
Panipat,  315  ;  fall  of  the  Empire,  315, 
316. 

Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
quoted,  230  (footnote  i);  239  (foot- 
note 2). 

Decline  of  the  Peshwas  (1772-1S18),  321, 
322. 

Decorative  art  in  India,  112,  113. 

Deer,  Varieties  of,  657,  658. 

Delhi,  Siege  and  storm  of,  421. 

Del  Mar's  History  of  Money  in  Ancient 
Countries,  quoted,  163. 

Delta  of  Bengal,  23-28  ;  deltaic  distribu- 
taries, 23 ;  combined  delta  of  the 
Ganges,  Brahmaputra,  and  Meghna, 
24;  deltaic  swamps,  24  ;  land-making, 
25  ;  size  of  the  Bengal  delta,  26  ; 
deltaic  depressions,  26 ;  subterranean 
structure  of  the  Bengal  delta  at  Cal- 
cutta, 26  (footnote) ;  alluvial  deposits 
of  the  Ganges  and  Brahmaputra,  26, 


7i8 


INDEX. 


27  ;  amount  of  silt  deposited  at  Ghazi- 
pur  and  in  the  delta,  27,  28 ;  age  of 
the  Bengal  delta,  28. 
Deltaic  channel  of  the  Ganges,  Section  of, 

Density  of  the  Indian  population,  46 ; 
overcrowded  and  under-peopled  Pro- 
vinces, 46,  47 ;  population  entirely 
rural,  46 ;  immobility  of  the  rural 
population,  47  ;  relation  of  labour  to 
land,  48,  49  ;  unequal  pressure  of  the 
population  on  the  land,  49,  50  ;  in- 
crease of  population  since  1872,  50. 

Deserted  river-marts  and  capitals,  30. 

Devadatta,  the  Buddhist  schismatic, 
140. 

Dhangars,  a  semi-Hinduized  tribe  of 
Bengal  and  Chutia  Nagpur,  their 
numbers  in  1872,  71  (footnote  i). 

Diamonds,  41  ;  628,  629. 

Dictionary  of  Hindu  Mythology,  by 
Professor  Dowson,  quoted,  180  (foot- 
note 4)  ;   1 84  (footnote  l). 

Dig,   Battle  of,   and  defeat   of  Holkar, 

.323- 

Diminution  of  population  in  Madras  and 
Mysore,  50. 

Dina  Bandu  Mitra,  dramatic  poet  and 
author  of  the  Nil  Dar/>an,  354. 

Dina  Krishna  Das,  Uriya  poet  of  the 
1 6th  century,  343. 

Distillation  of  country  spirits,  454. 

Distribution  of  Indian  trade  with  foreign 
countries,  565-580. 

District  officers,  Duties  of,  436. 

Districts,  Number  of,  in  India,  their 
varying  size  and  population,  436,  437. 

Diwani,  or  financial  administration  of 
Bengal,  granted  to  the  East  India 
Company  (1765),  387. 

Dnyanoba,  Marathi  poet  of  the  13th 
century,  346. 

Doctrines  of  Buddha,  141,  142  ;  moral 
code  and  missionary  aspects  of  Buddh- 
ism, 143. 

Dog,  Different  varieties  of,  654. 

Dongargaon,  mart  in  the  Central  Pro- 
vinces, 596. 

Dowson,  Professor,  Dictionary  of  Htmlu 
Mythology,  quoted,  180  (footnote  4); 
184  (footnote  i). 

Drama,  The  Indian,  125-127  ;  354. 

Draupadi,  the  wife  of  the  five  Pandava 
brethren  in  the  epic  of  the  Maha- 
bharata,  195. 

Dravidians,  The,  aboriginal  races  of 
Southern  India,  their  languages,  64- 
68 ;  place  of  Dravidian  languages 
in  philology,  327,  328  ;  the  Dravidians 
in  Sanskrit  literature,  328  ;  pre-Aryan 
Dravidian  civilisation,  328  ;  Dravidian 
art,  32S,  329  ;  Brahmanical  influence 
on  the  Dravidians,  329,  330 ;  develop- 


ment of  Dravidian  speech  into  ver- 
nacular literatures,  330 ;  Tamil,  the 
oldest  and  the  most  influential  ver- 
nacular of  Southern  India,  330 ;  Jain 
cycle  of  Tamil  literature,  earliest 
Tamil  poets,  331  ;  Tamil  hymnology, 
332 ;  modern  Tamil  writers,  Beschi, 
the  Italian  Jesuit  and  Tamil  scholar, 
333 ;  recent  statistics  of  Tamil  litera- 
ture, 333. 

Droughts. — See  Famines. 

Drugs  and  medicines,  34. 

Dual  system  of  administration  in  Bengal 
(1767-72),  387,  388. 

Duarte  Nunez,  first  Portuguese  bishop  in 
India  (1514-17  A.D.),  244. 

Duff,  Rev.  Alexander,  first  Presbyterian 
missionary  to  India,  261. 

Dufterin,  Earl  of,  Viceroy  (1884),  430. 

Duka,  Dr.  Theodore,  iJfe  and  Works  of 
Alexander  Csoma  de  Kords,  quoted, 
153  (footnote  l). 

Duncker,  Professor  Max,  Ancient  History 
of  India,  quoted,  81  (footnote  2);  84 
(footnotes  2 and  4);  115  (footnote);  163 
(footnote  4). 

Dupleix,  French  administrator,  his  ambi- 
tion of  founding  a  French  Empire  in 
India,  and  his  struggles  in  the  Karnatik 
with  Clive,  378,  379. 

Durani  rule  in  Afghanistan  (1747- 1826), 
406,  407. 

Duration  of  life  (average)  in  India,  667. 

Durga,  one  of  the  forms  of  the  wife  of 
Siva,  211,  212. 

Dutch,  The,  in  India  (1602-1824  A.D.), 
361-363;  Dutch  East  India  Com- 
panies, 361,  362  ;  supremacy  of  the,  in 
the  Eastern  Seas,  brilliant  progress,  and 
decline,  362  ;  Dutch  relics  in  India, 
363  ;  English  '  Treaty  of  Defence ' 
with  the  Dutch  (1619),  367  ;  massacre 
of  Amboyna,  and  expulsion  of  the 
English  from  the  Eastern  Archipelago 
(1624),  368  ;  Dutch  conquests  in  India, 
371,  372;  Dutch  defeated  by  Clive  at 
Chinsurah,  385  ;  Dutch  monopoly  of 
Eastern  trade  (1600),  560. 

Dyes,  export  of,  574,  575. 


E 


Early   Greek   historians   of   India,    163, 

164. 
Early  History  of  Tibet  and  A'hoten,  in 

Mr.    Rockhill's   Life   of  the  Btiddha, 

from  the  Tibetan  classics,  176  and  177 

(footnotes). 
Early    Muhammadan    rulers    (711-1526 

A.  D.),       chap.       X.      pp.      268-289. 

Early   Arab    expeditions    to    Bombay 

(636-711     A.D.),     268;    MuhammaJan 


INDEX. 


719 


setllement  in  Sincl  (711  A.n.),  268; 
expulsion  of  the  Muhammadans  from 
Sind  (828  A.D.),  268;  India  on  the 
eve  of  the  Muhammadan  conquest 
(1000  A.D.),  268,  269;  the  Hindu 
kingdoms  and  Hindu  power  of  resist- 
ance, 269  ;  slow  progress  of  Muham- 
madan conquest,  269,  270  ;  Muhamma- 
dan conquest  only  partial  and  tempo- 
rary, 270 ;  recapture  of  India  from 
the  Muhammadans  by  the  Hindus 
(1707-61  A.n.),  270;  chronology  of 
Muhammadan  conquerors  and  dynas- 
ties of  India  (1001-1857  A.D.),  271  ; 
first  Tiirki  invasions,  Subuktigin 
(977-997  A.D.),  272;  the  seventeen 
invasions  of  Mahmud  of  Ghazni  (looi- 
24  A.D.),  272-274;  the  Somnath  ex- 
pedition, 273,  274  ;  Mahmud's  con- 
quest of  the  Punjab,  274  ;  the  Ghor 
dynasty  (i  152-1206  A.D.),  275-278; 
Muhammad  of  Ghor's  invasions  (1191- 
1206  A.D.),  275,  276;  his  conquest  of 
Bengal  (1203  A.  D. ),  277,  278  :  Muham- 
mad's work  in  India  and  subjugation 
of  Northern  India,  278  ;  Kutab-ud- 
din  (1206-10  A.D.),  278;  the  Slave 
dynasty,  278-280;  Altamsh  (i  21 1-36 
A.D. ),  279  ;  the  Empress  Raziya(i236- 
39  A.  D.),  279;  Mughal  irruptions  and 
Rajput  revolts  (1244-88),  279,  280; 
Baiban  (1265-87  A.D.),  his  cruelties, 
280  ;  his  Royal  pensioners,  280  ;  end 
of  the  Slave  Kings,  280  ;  the  house  of 
Khilji  (1290-1320  A.D.),  280-283  ;  Ala- 
ud-din's  raids  into  Southern  India 
(1294),  281  ;  conquest  of  Northern 
India  (1295-1303),  281  ;  conquest  of 
Southern  India  (1303-15),  281,  282  ; 
Muhammadan  power  and  population 
in  India  (1306),  282  ;  Mughal  merce- 
naries and  Hindu  revolts,  281  ; 
Khusru,  the  renegade  Hindu  Emperor 
(1316-20  A.D.),  282,  283  ;  the  house 
of  Tughlak  (1320-1414  A.D.),  283-286  ; 
Muhammad  Tughlak  (1324-51  A.D. ), 
his  expeditions,  cruelties,  forced  cur- 
rency, 283,  284 ;  revolts,  284  ;  Mu- 
hammad I'ughlak's  revenue  exactions, 
284,  285  ;  Y'xxoz  Shah  Tughlak  (1351- 
88  A.D. );  his  canals,  285;  Timur's 
invasion  (1398  A.D.),  285  ;  ruin  of  the 
Tughlak  dynasty,  285,  286  ;  the  Say- 
yid,  Lodi,  and  Bahmani  dynasties  (1450- 
1526  A.D.),  286,  287  ;  Muhammadan 
States  of  the  Deccan,  288  ;  the  Hindu 
kingdom  of  Vijayanagar,  286,  288  ; 
independent  Nayaks  and  Palegars  of 
Southern  India,  288 ;  independent 
Muhammadan  kingdoms  of  Bengal, 
Gujarat,  and  Jaunpur,  289. 
East  India  Companies,  and  early  Euro- 
pean Settlements;  Portuguese,  356-36 1  ; 


Dutch,  361-363  ;  English,  363-371  ; 
other  India  Companies,  371  ;  French, 
372  ;  Danish,  Scotch,  and  Spanish, 
372  ;  German  or  Ostend,  372-374, 
376  ;  Prussian,  374-376 ;  Swedish, 
376  ;  causes  of  failure,  376,  377. 

East  India  Company  ^English),  363- 
365  ;  first  Charter,  364  ;  amalgamated 
Companies,  365  ;  early  voyages,  365, 
366 ;  defeat  of  the  Portuguese  at 
Swally,  366  ;  wars  with  the  Dutch,  367, 
368  ;  massacre  of  Amboyna,  368  ;  early 
English  factories,  368-370 ;  founda- 
tion of  Calcutta  (1686),  371  ;  the 
Company  embarks  on  territorial  sway 
(1689  A.D.),  371;  downfall  of  the 
Company,  and  transfer  of  India  to 
the  Crown  (1858  A.n.),  422. 

Eastern  branches    of  the    early  Aryans, 

75- 

Eastern  Ghats,  mountain  range  along  the 
Eastern  coast  of  India,  36,  38  ;  forests 
of,  39- 

Eastern  Jumna  canal,  29  ;  532. 

Ecclesiastical  Department,  The  Indian, 
266,  267. 

Education  Commission  appointed  by  Lord 
Ripon,  429  ;  its  recommendations,  429  ; 
474- 

Education  in  India,  472-479  ;  educa- 
tion in  ancient  India,  472  ;  Sanskrit 
tols,  472  ;  Calcutta  Aladrasa  and  other 
colleges,  473  ;  IMission  schools,  473  ; 
State  system  of  education,  473,  474  ; 
educational  finance,  475  ;  Indian  uni- 
versities, 475,  476 ;  colleges,  476 ; 
upper,  middle,  and  primary  schools, 
476,  477  ;  girls'  schools,  478,  479  ; 
normal  and  other  special  schools,  479  ; 
educational  classification  of  the  popu- 
lation, Appendix  IX.,  698-702. 

Elephants,  domestic  and  wild,  521  ;  655  ; 
elephant-catching  a  Government  mono- 
poly, 655,  656 ;  Elephant  Preserva- 
tion Act,  656. 

Elgin,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India  (1862-63), 
424. 

Ellenborough,  Earl  of,  Governor-General 
of  India  (1842-44),  408,  409  ;  the 
Afghan  army  of  retribution  under 
Generals  Nott  and  Pollock,  40S,  409  ; 
Ellenborough's  Somnath  proclamation, 
409  ;  conquest  and  annexation  of  Sind, 
409  ;  Gwalior  outbreak,  and  the 
battles  of  Maharajpur  and  Punniah, 
409. 

Ellichpur,  Muhammadan  kingdom  of 
Southern  India  (1484- 1572  A.D.),  288. 

Elliot,  Sir  Henrj',  Tribes  of  the  North- 
li'cstcrn  Prcwiiues,  195  (footnote  2)  ; 
History  of  India  as  told  by  its  oivft 
Historians,  T.'ji  (footnote) ;  272  (foot- 
notes 3  and  4)  ;  273  (footnote) ;  2S7 


720 


INDEX. 


(footnote  2)  ;  290,  291  (footnotes)  ; 
295  (footnote  i)  ;  300  (footnote)  ;  302 
(footnote) ;  306  (footnote  2) ;  313  (foot- 
note l). 

Elphinstone's  History  of  India,  quoted, 
175  (footnote  2);  180  (footnote  2); 
273  (footnote)  ;  291  (footnote)  ;  300 
(footnote  2) ;  302  (footnotes) ;  306 
(footnote  l). 

Embden  East  India  Company.  —  See 
Prussian  and  Embden  East  India 
Companies. 

Embroidery  work,  603. 

English  in  India,  The  (1496-16S9  A.D.), 
pp.  363-377.  Attempts  to  reach  India 
by  the  North  -  West  passage,  363  ; 
Thomas  Stephens,  the  earliest  recorded 
English  traveller  in  India  ( 1579  a.d.I, 
363,364;  Fitch,  Ne\s  berry,  and  Leedes  i 
(1583  A.D.),  364;  first  Charter  of  the 
East  India  Company  (1600  A.D.),  364  ; 
later  East  India  Companies,  365  ;  the 
amalgamated  Company  (1709  A.D. ), 
365  ;  early  English  voyages  to  India 
(1600-12  A.D.),  365,  366;  British 
defeat  of  the  Portuguese  fleet  at 
Swally  (1615  A.D. ),  366  ;  Sir  Thomas 
Roe,  British  Ambassador  to  India 
(1615  A.D.),  367;  wars  between  Eng- 
lish and  Dutch,  367,  368  ;  massacre  of 
Amboyna,  and  expulsion  of  the  British 
from  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  368 ; 
early  Indian  factories  in  India,  367, 
368;  Madras  founded  (1639  a.d.), 
369  ;  Hugh',  Balasor,  and  Kasimbazar 
factories,  369,  370  ;  Bombay  ceded  to 
the  British  Crown  (1661  A.D.),  and 
the  Presidency  transferred  thither 
from  Surat  (1684-87  a.d.),  370; 
Bengal  separated  from  Madras  (1687 
a.d.),  370;  Sir  John  Child,  first 
'  Governor-General,'  370,  371  ;  Eng- 
lish oppressed  in  Bengal  by  the  native 
Viceroys,  371  ;  the  Company  starts  on 
territorial  sway  (1689  A.D.),  371  ; 
causes  of  England's  success  in  India, 
and  of  the  failure  of  other  European 
powers,  377. 

Ethnical  division  of  the   population,  51, 

52  ;  73,  74- 

European  and  Indian  languages  merely 
varieties  of  Aryan  speech,  76. 

European  Settlements  (1498  to  l8th  cen- 
tury A.D.),  chap.  xiv.  pp.  356-377. 
The  Portuguese  in  India,  356-361  ; 
early  Portuguese  voyages,  Covilham 
(1487  A.D.),  and  Vasco  da  Gama  (1498 
A.D.),  357,  358  ;  state  of  India  on 
arrival  of  Portuguese,  358  ;  Portu- 
guese territorial  expedition  (1 500  A. D.), 
358  ;  Portuguese  supremacy  in  the 
Eastern  Seas  (1500- 1600  a.d.),  358, 
359;    capture  of  Goa  by  Albuquerque 


(i5iOA.n.),  359  ;  Portuguese  cruelties, 

359  ;  Albuquerque's  policy  of  concilia- 
tion, 359,  360  ;  later  Portuguese  Vice- 
roys, their  oppressions  and  conquests, 

360  ;  downfall  of  the  Portuguese  in 
India  (1639-1739),  360,  361  ;  Portu- 
guese possc-sions  in  1881,  361  ;  mixed 
descendants,  361.  The  Dutch  in  India 
(1602-1824),  359-362;  Dutch  East 
India  Companies,  361  ;  Dutch  supre- 
macy in  the  Eastern  Seas  (1600- 1700 
A.D.),  362  ;  their  brilliant  progress, 
but  short-slighted  policy  and  ultimate 
downfall,  362  ;  Dutch  relics  in  India, 
363.  The  early  English  in  India, 
363-371  ;  attempts  to  reach  India  by 
the  North-West  passage,  363  ;  Thomas 
Stephens,  the  first  authentic  English 
traveller  in  India  (1579  A.D.),  363,364  ; 
later  travellers.  Fitch,  Newberry,  and 
Leedes  (1583  a.d.),  364;  first  Charter 
of  the  East  India  Company  (1600  a.d.), 
364 ;  later  East  India  Companies, 
(1635,  1655,  and  1698  A.D.),  365  ;  the 
amalgamated  Company  (1709  A.D.), 
365  ;  early  English  voyages  (1600-12 
A.  D.),  365  ;  defeat  of  the  Portuguese 
fleet  at  Swally,  off  Surat  (1615),  366  ; 
Sir  Thomas  Roe,  first  English  Ambas- 
sador to  India  (1615  A.D.),  367  ;  treaty 
with  the  Dutch  (1619  a.d.),  367; 
English  expelled  from  the  Spice  islands 
and  Java  Vjy  the  Dutch  (1620-21  a.d.), 
367  ;  establishment  of  English  factories 
at  Agra  and  Patna  (1620  A.D.),  367  ; 
Masuiipatam  factory  established  (1622 
A.D. ),  368  ;  English  expelled  from 
Eastern  Archipelago,  and  retire  to 
India,  368  ;  Emperor's  Fannan  grant- 
ing English  liberty  to  trade  in  Bengal, 
368,  369  ;  Madras  founded  (1639 
A.D.),  369  ;  Hugh  factory  established 
(1640  A. D.),  369;  Kasimbazar  factory 
(1658  A.D.),  369,  370;  Bombay  ceded 
to  the  British  Crown  (1661  A.D.),  370  ; 
Presidency  removed  from  .Surat  to 
Bombay  (1684-87  a.d.  ),  370  ;  separa- 
tion of  Bengal  from  Madras  (1681), 
370  ;  Sir  John  Child,  first  '  Governor- 
General '  (1686  A.D.),  370,  371; 
Calcutta  founded  (x686),  371  ;  the 
Company  embarks  on  territorial  sway 
(1689  A.D.),  371  ;  P^ench  East  India 
Companies  and  possessions  in  1 881, 
372 ;  Danish,  Scotch,  and  Spanish 
Companies,  372  ;  the  German  or 
Ostend  Company,  372 ;  its  Indian 
settlements  (1772  a.d.),  373;  its 
successful  experimental  voyages  and 
political  objects,  373,  374  ;  Ostend 
Company  bankrupt  and  destroyed 
(1783-84  A.D.),  and  extinguished  (1793 
(a.d.),  374  ;  the  Prussian  and  Embden 


INDEX. 


721 


Companies,  374-376  ;  Swedish  Com- 
pany (173 1  A.U.  \  376  ;  causes  of  fail- 
ure of  foreign  European  Companies, 
and  of  English  success  in  India,  376, 
377  ;  European  traders  in  India  in 
1872  and  1881,  377. 

Everest,  Mount,  peak  of  the  Himalayas, 
and  highest  measured  mountain  in  the 
world,  5. 

Everest,  Rev.  Mr.,  calculations  regard- 
ing silt  discharge  of  Ganges,  27. 

Exchange,  Loss  by,  469. 

Excise  administration,  distilleries,  rice- 
beer,  opium,  gdnjd,  ckaras,  454,  455  ; 
467;  expenditure  and  income  of  British 
India,  465-470. 

Excommunication  from  caste  privileges, 
199,  200. 

Executive  Council  of  the  Governor- 
General,  432. 

Export  trade  of  India,  its  origin  and 
growth,  analysis  and  principal  staples 
of,  567  ;  569-580  ;  distribution  of  ex- 
ports to  different  countries,  569,  580 ; 
coasting  trade,  584-586. 

External  sources  of  the  ancient  history 
of  India,  16^. 


Fa-Hian,  Chinese  Buddhist  pilgrim  of 
the  5th  century  .A.n.,  155. 

Famine  relief  expenditure,  469. 

Famines,  539'544 !  causes  of  scarcity 
and  of  real  famine,  539 ;  means  of 
husbanding  the  water-supply,  54°  '■> 
irrigation  area,  540,  541  ;  summary  of 
Indian  famines,  541,  542;  the  great 
famine    of    1876-78,    its    causes,    542, 

543  ;    famine  expenditure,    543  ;  mor- 
tality from  disease  antl  starvation,  543! 

544  ;  famine  a  weak  check  on  popula- 
tion, 544. 

Faulmann,    Biich    der    Sclirift,    quoted, 

103  (footnote). 
Fauna  of  India,  10. — Sec  also  ZOOLOGY, 

652-662. 
Female  education,  478,  479. 
Feraa    Naturae   of  India. — See  Zoology 

AND  Botany. 
Ferdousi,  Persian   poet  and  historian   in 

the  days  of  Mahmud  of  Ghazni,  275. 
Fergusson,     Mr.    James,    Paper    in    the 

Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  for 

April   1880,    quoted,    147    (footnote)  ; 

Tree  and  Serpent    Worship,    quoted, 

185   (footnote   4)  ;    204    (footnote    l)  ; 

History  of  Architecture,  304  (footnotes). 
Fetish-worship  in  Hinduism,  205,  206. 
Feudatory  India,    the  thirteen  groups  of 

Native  States,  43  ;  population,  45. 
Filatures. — See  SiLK. 


I'inal  Struggles  of  the  French  in  India, 
by  Colonel  Malleson,  379  (footnote). 

Finances  and  taxation  of  India,  obscuri- 
ties and  changes  in  system  of  account, 
457-465  ;  taxation  of  British  India, 
459-461  ;  taxation  under  the  Mughals 
and  under  the  British,  462,  463  ;  taxa- 
tion in  Native  States,  464  ;  inci- 
dence of  taxation  in  British  India,  464, 

,.465- 

Pirishta's  Rise  of  the  Muhammadan 
Fozuer  in  India,  Colonel  Briggs'  trans- 
lation, quoted,  271  (footnote)  ;  287 
(footnote  2)  ;  291  (footnotes). 

Firozshahr,  Battle  of,  411. 

First  Buddhist  Council  (543  K.C.),  143. 

Firuz  Tughlak,  the  third  king  of  the 
Tughlak  dynasty  (1351-88  A.D.),  his 
great  canals  and  public  works,  285. 

Fishes,  661,  662. 

Fitch,  Newberry,  and  Leedes,  the  fiist 
English  traders  in  India  (1583  a.d.  ), 
364- 

Flint  weapons  of  ancient  India,  53. 

Flora  of  India,  662-664. 

Food-grains,  Export  of,  571-573. 

Forde,  Colonel,  recapture  of  Alasulipatam 
from  the  French  (1759),  385. 

Foreign  trade  of  India,  its  gradual 
growth,  561-5S1  ;  returns  of  foreign 
trade  (1840-84),  562-564;  staples  of 
import  and  export  sea-borne  trade 
(1882-83),  565-581. 

Forest  Department,  Growth  of,  and  ils 
administration,  522-528  ;  Forest  Con- 
servancy statistics,  526,  527  ;  '  open  ' 
and  '  reserved  '  forests,  526. 

Forests  of  the  Himalayas,  8  ;  in  .Southern 
and  South-Western  India,  38-40 ;  in 
Sind  and  Punjab,  524,  525  ;  North- 
western Provinces,  525  ;  Sundarbans, 
525  ;  Assam  and  Burma,  525,  ^ib.—See 
also  Forest  Department,  ut  supra. 

Fortified  weaving  settlements  of  the  East 
India  Company,  599. 

Fourth  Buddhist  Council  (40  A.D.),  147. 

Fo-wei-kian-king,  Chinese  translation 
from  the  Sanskrit  of  the  'dying  instruc- 
tions of  Buddha,'  141  and  footnote. 

Fox,  The  Indian,  654. 

France,  India's  foreign  trade  with,  578, 

579- 

French  East  India  Companies,  and  the 
present  French  possessions  in  India, 
372  ;  French  and  English  in  the  Kar- 
natik,  the  fir>t  French  war  (1746-48), 
378  ;  capture  of  Madras  by  the  French 
(1746),  and  its  restoration  to  the  Eng- 
lish (174S),  379;  French  influence  in 
India  (1 798- 1800),  and  intrigues  with 
Tipu  Sultan  and  the  Nizam  of  Haidar- 
abad,  394,  395. 

Frobisher's,  Davis',  Hudson's,  and  Baffin's 
2  Z 


722 


INDEX. 


attempts  to  reach  India  by  way  of  the 

North-West  passage,  363. 
Frontier  trade  of  India,  585-590. 
Fruits,  Varieties  of,  490. 
Funeral  mounds  and  ceremonies  of  the 

Sakyas  and  Buddhists  in  ancient  India, 

178. 


G 

Gaekwar,  family  name  of  the  chief  of 
the  Maratha  State  of  Baroda,  rise  of 
the  family,  deposition  of  the  late 
Gaekwar,  322,  323  ;  426. 

Game  birds  of  India,  659,  660. 

Gandamak,  Treaty  of,  426. 

Ganges,  The,  11  ;  16-32;  its  river  sys- 
tem and  course,  16,  17  ;  discharge,  17; 
sanctity,  17,  18;  the  fertilizer  and 
highway  of  Bengal,  19,  20  ;  traffic,  20, 
21  ;  great  cities,  20,  21  ;  different 
stages  in  the  life  of  the  Ganges  or  any 
great  Indian  river,  21-25  ;  as  a  silt 
collector,  21,  22  ;  as  a  land-maker, 
22,  23  ;  section  of  a  deltaic  channel 
of  the  Ganges,  23  ;  combined  delta  of 
the  Ganges,  the  Brahmaputra,  and  the 
Meghna,  24,  25  ;  subterranean  struc- 
ture of  the  Gangetic  delta,  26  and 
footnote  ;  silt  brought  down  by  Ganges 
at  Ghazipur,  27  and  footnote ;  esti- 
mated silt  of  united  river  system,  28  ; 
age  of  the  Bengal  delta,  28  ;  river 
irrigation,  28  ;  the  Ganges  and  Jumna 
Canals,  28,  29  ;  Ganges  floods,  29  ; 
saline  deposits,  29  ;  changes  of  Ganges 
channel,  30  ;  deserted  river  capitals, 
30  ;  the  '  bore '  of  the  Ganges  and 
Meghna,  30,  31  ;  the  Goalanda  rail- 
way station  washed  away  by  the 
Ganges,  31,  32  ;  fluvial  changes,  allu- 
vion and  diluvion,  30-32  ;  navigation 
on  the  Ganges,  552. 

Ganges  Canals,  28,  29  ;  532,  533. 

Gangetic  historical  and  commercial  cities, 
20  ;  deserted  cities,  30. 

Ganja,  Excise  duty  on,  455. 

Gaulis,  an  ancient  ruling  race  in  the 
Central  Provinces,  now  a  crushed  tribe, 

71- 

Gautama  Buddha,  the  founder  of  the 
Buddhist  religion,  his  life  and  doctrine. 
— See  Buddhism. 

Geography  of  India. — See  Physical 
Aspects. 

Geology  of  India,  chap.  xxii.  pp.  631- 
640.  Geology  of  the  Himalayas,  631  ; 
the  central  gneissic  axis,  631,  632  ; 
lower  Himalayas,  633  ;  the  sub- Hima- 
layas and  Sivaliks,  632,  633  ;  the  Salt 
Range,  633  ;  Indo-Gangetic  plain,  its 
age,   history,  and   geological  deposits. 


^1>1)^  634  ;  peninsular  India,  634-639  ; 
the  Vindhya  system,  635  ;  Gondwana 
series,  635,  636  ;  Panchet  and  Talcher 
group,  636  ;  Damodar  series  and  coal- 
fields, 636-638  ;  Deccan  trap  and 
laterite,  638,  639  ;  precious  stones, 
639  >  geological  structure  of  Burma, 
639,  640. 

Ghakkars,  a  tribe  in  Rawal  Pindi  Dis- 
trict, their  invasions  of  India,  and  their 
present  descendants,  185. 

Ghats,  Eastern,  mountain  range  along 
the  Eastern  coast  of  India,  36  ;  38  ; 
forests  of,  39. 

Ghats,  Western,  mountain  range  along 
the  Western  coast  of  India,  36  ;  the 
Bhor  Ghat  pass,  36  ;  Thai  Ghat  pass, 
37  ;  Palghat  pass,  37  ;  rivers  of  the 
Western  Ghats,  37,  38  ;  rainfall,  38  ; 
forests,  39. 

Gheriah,  defeat  of  Mir  Kasim  at,  by 
Major  Adams,  386. 

Gl)iyas-ud-din  Tughlak,  founder  of  the 
Tughlak  dynasty  (1320-1324  A.D.), 
283. 

Ghor,  Dynasty  of  (i  152 -1206  A.D.), 
Muhammad  of  Ghor's  invasions,  his 
first  defeats  and  ultimate  conquest  of 
Northern  India  and  Bengal,  275  - 
278.  ^ 

Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  quoted,  230  (footnote  i)  ;  239 
(footnote  2). 

Gingi,  Surrender  of,  by  the  French  to 
Sir  Eyre  Coote,  380. 

Gipsy  clans,  71. 

Girls'  schools,  478,  479. 

Gita  Govinda,  The,  or  '  Divine  Herds- 
man,' the  song  of  Krishna,  128. 

Goa,  Supposed  relics  of  St.  Thomas  at, 
238  ;  John  de  Albuquerque,  first  bishop 
of  (1539-53  A.D.),  244;  establish- 
ment of  Archbishopric  of,  245  ;  Arch- 
bishop Menezes  (1596-99),  245  ; 
jurisdiction  of  the  Goa  Archbishopric, 
255,  256  ;  capture  of  Goa  by  Albu- 
querque (1510  A.D.),  359. 

Goalanda  railway  station  washed  away  iiy 
the  Ganges,  31. 

Godavari  river,  37  ;  irrigation  works, 
improvement  of  navigation  on,  551, 
552- 

Goddard,  General,  his  march  across 
India   during  the    first    Maratha   war, 

391- 
Golconda,  Diamonds  of,  41  ;  628. 
Golconda,     Muhammadan     kingdom    of 

Southern  India  (1512-1688  a.d.  ),  288. 
Gold  and  gold-mining  in  .Southern  India, 

624,  625. 
Gold  and  silver,  imports  of,   562,   568, 

569-   . 
Goldsmith  caste  in  Madras,  196. 


INDEX. 


723 


Goldsmiths'    and  jewellers'   \vork,    605, 

606. 
Gold-washintj  in  Indian  rivers,  624. 
Gonds,   aboriginal   tribe  in    tlie  Central 

Provinces,  55  ;  71  ;  187  ;  189. 
Gondwana,  Geology  of,  635,  636. 
Gough,  Lord,  battles  of  Ctiilianwala  and 

Gujrat,  412,  413. 
Governors,       Governors  -  General       and 

Viceroys    of   India   (1757-1885   a.d.), 

384. 

Grammar  of  the  Sindhi  Language  by 
Dr.  E.  Trumpp,  quoted,  335. 

'Grand  Army,'  The,  of  Aurangzeb,  and 
its  twenty  years'  campaign  in  the 
Deccan,  308,  309. 

'  Grand  Trunk  Road '  of  India,  The, 
550. 

Grant  Duff's  History  of  the  Mjrdthds, 
quoted,  chap.  .\ii.  pp.  317-324,  foot- 
notes passim. 

Greek  intluence  on  Indian  art  and  archi- 
tecture, 112  ;   170,  171. 

Greeks  in  India,  The  (327  to  161  B.C.), 
chap.  vi.  pp.  163-173.  Early  Greek 
writers,  163  ;  Megasthenes,  the  Greek 
Ambassador  to  tlie  Court  of  Chandra 
Gupta,  163,  164 ;  Alexander  the 
Great's  expedition  to  India,  163-166  ; 
his  defeat  of  Porus,  164,  165  ;  his  ad- 
vance through  the  PunjalD  and  Sind,  165, 
166  ;  cities  founded  by  Alexander,  164, 

165  ;   results  of  his  Indian  expedition, 

166  ;  Greek  military  settlements,  166  ; 
cession  of  the  Punjab  and  Sind  to 
Chandra  Gupta  by  Seleukos,  167  ;  Me- 
gasthenes' embassy  to  Chandra  Gupta's 
Court,  163,  164  ;  167  ;  the  India 
of  Megasthenes,  168  -  170 ;  ancient 
petty  Indian  kingdoms,  170  ;  Indo- 
Greek  treaty  (256  B.C.),  170;  later 
Greek  invasions  of  India,  170  ;  Greek 
influence  on  Indian  art,  1 12  :  170,  171  ; 
Greek  and  Hindu  types  of  sculpture, 
171  ;  Greeks  in  Bengal,  172  ;  Greek 
survivals  in  India,  172  ;  the  Yavanas, 

172,  173- 
Growth  of  trading  and   industrial   cities 

under  the  English,  556,  557. 
Guaranteed  railways,  tlie  eight  great  lines 

of,  546,  547. 
Gujrat,  Battle  of,  413. 
Gunny  bags.  Exports  of,  576  ;  614-616. 
Gupta,      ancient      Indian      dynasty      in 

Northern  India  (319-470  a.d.)  ;  their 

struggle    with    and    overthrow    by   an 

invasion  of  Scythians  or  White  Iluns, 

182. 
Gurkhas,  War  with  the  (1814-  15),  400  ; 

services  during  the  Mutiny,  421. 
Gvvalari,  mountain  pass  over  the  Brahui 

hills  from  the  Punjab  into  Baluchistan, 

6. 


Haas,  Dr.  E.,  '  Ueber  die  Urspriinge  der 
Indischen  Medizin,  mit  besondereni 
Bezug  auf  Susruta,'  and  '  Hipjiokrates 
und  die  Indische  Medizin  des  Mittel- 
alters,'  published  in  the  Zcitschrift  der 
Deutschen  Aforgenldmiischen  Gesell- 
schaft  for  1876  and  1877,  quoted,  no 
(footnote). 

Hab  river,  the  westernmost  boundaiy  of 
India,  separating  Southern  Smd  from 
Baluchistan,  3  ;  6,  7. 

Haidar  AH,  his  wars  with  the  British, 
392. 

Hala  mountains,  a  southerly  offshoot' of 
the  Himalayas,  marking  a  portion  of 
the  western  boundary  of  India,  3. 

Hand-loom  and  steam-mill  woven  cotton, 
601. 

Hardinge,  Lord,  Governor-General  of 
India  (i84;.-48),  410,  411;  history 
of  the  SiHi-i  and  of  the  first  Sikh  war  ; 
battles  of  Mudki,  Firozshahr,  Aliwal, 
and  Sobraon,  410,  411. 

Hardy,  Mr.  '6Y>tnct,  Majiualof  Buddhism, 
quoted,  137  (footnotes). 

Harris,  General,  storming  of  Seringa- 
patam,  397. 

Hastings,  Marquis  of,  Governor-General 
of  India  (1814-23),  400-402;  war 
with  Nepal  and  treaty  of  Segauli,  with 
cession  of  Himalayas  tracts  (1815), 
400  ;  Pindari  war,  401  ;  third  and  la-^t 
Maratha  war  and  annexation  of  the 
Peshwa's  dominions  (1818),  401,  402. 

Hastings,  Warren  (1772-85),  388-392  ; 
his  administrative  reforms  and  poHcy 
towards  native  powers,  388  ;  first 
Governor  -  General  of  India  (1774), 
38S  ;  makes  Bengal  pay,  389  ;  sale  of 
Allahabad  and  Kora  to  the  Wazir  of 
Oudh  (1773^  390;  the  Rohilla  war, 
plunder  of  Chait  Singh  and  the  Oudh 
Begams,  390,  391  ;  Hastings'  impeach- 
ment and  seven  years'  trial  in  England, 
391  ;  the  poor  excuse  for  his  measures, 
391  ;  first  Maratha  war  and  treaty  of 
.Salbai,  391,  392  ;  first  war  with 
Mysore  (1780-84),  392. 

Haug,  Dr.,  The  Origin  of  Brdhmanism, 
quoted,  212  (footnote  4). 

Havelock,  Sir  Henry,  defeat  of  the 
Cawnpur  mutineers,  first  relief  of  Luck- 
now,  420. 

Hawkins,  Captain,  Envoy  from  James  I. 
and  the  East  India  Company  to  the 
Court  of  the  Great  Mughal  (1608  a.d.), 
366. 

Heber,  Bishop  of  Calcutta  (1S23  -  26), 
261. 

Hekataios,  the  earliest  Greek  historian 
who  refers  to  India,  163. 


724 


INDEX. 


High  Courts  of  Justice  in  India,  433. 

Hijili  navigable  canal  in  Mainapur 
District,  553. 

Hill  cultivation,  9  ;  486. 

Hill  forts  (Maratha)  in  the  Deccan,  31S. 

Himalaya  mountains,  The,  4- 10;  the 
double  wall  and  trough,  5,  6  ;  passes 
and  offshoots,  6  ;  water-supply  and 
rainfall,  7  ;  scenery,  vegetation,  irriga- 
tion and  products,  7-10  ;  animals  and 
tribes,  10  ;  geology,  631-633  ;  meteor- 
ology,  641,   642.  —  See  also   Trans- 

HlMALAYAN  TRADE. 

Hindi  literature  and  authors,  345,  346. 

Hinduism,  Rise  of  (750  to  1 520  A.D.), 
chap.  viii.  pp.  192-228.  Disinte- 
gration of  Buddhism,  191  ;  preaching 
of  Kumarila,  191  ;  persecution  of 
Buddhism,  191,  192  ;  caste  and  reli- 
gion the  twofold  basis  of  Hinduism, 
192  ;  race  origin  of  caste,  192  ;  modi- 
fied by  'occupation'  and  'locality,' 
192  ;  complexity  of  caste,  192,  193  ; 
the  Biahman  caste  analyzed,  193,  194  ; 
building  of  the  caste  system,  194;  Hindu 
marriage  law,  195  ;  ancient  mingling 
of  castes,  195;  'occupation'  basis  of 
caste,  196-199  ;  the  Vaisyas  or  ancient 
cultivating  caste,  196  ;  the  '  right- 
hand  '  and  '  left-hand  '  castes  of  Madras, 
196,  197  ;  the  Dattas  of  Bengal, 
197  ;  Shahas,  Telis,  and  Tambulis 
forcing  their  way  to  higher  castes,  197  ; 
caste,  a  system  of  trade-guilds,  197, 
198 ;  working  of  the  Indian  trade- 
guild,  its  funds,  charities,  rewards, 
and  punishments,  198,  199  ;  excom- 
munication a  penalty  for  a  breach 
of  caste  rules,  199,  200;  the  reli- 
gious basis  of  Hinduism,  its  stages  of 
evolution,  and  how  far  influenced  by 
Buddhism,  200,  201  ;  Beast  hospitals, 
201  ;  monastic  religious  life,  201,  202  ; 
analogies  of  Japanese  worship  to  Hin- 
duism and  Christianity,  202  ;  serpent 
ornamentation  in  Buddhist,  Hindu, 
and  Christian  art,  202,  203  ;  coalition 
of  Buddhism  with  earlier  religions, 
203  ;  shrines  common  to  various  faiths, 
203,  204  ;  non- Aryan  elements  in 
Hinduism,  204  ;  phallic  emblems  in 
Hinduism,  204,  205;  fetish- worship 
in  Hinduism,  205,  206  ;  the  Salgidin 
or  village  deity,  206  ;  jungle  rites, 
206,  207  ;  non-Aryan  religious  rites 
merging  into  Hinduism,  207  ;  Brah- 
man founders  of  Hinduism,  207;  low 
caste  apostles,  207,  208 ;  mediceval 
Hindu  saints,  their  miracles,  208  ; 
Kabir's  death,  208  ;  Brahman  reli- 
gious reformers,  209,  210  ;  growth  of 
Siva-worship,  210-215;  Siva  -  worship 
in  its  philosophical  and  terrible  aspects, 


211  ;  twofold  aspects  of  Siva  and  of 
Durga  his  queen,  and  their  twofold 
sets  of  names,  211,  212  ;  human  sacri- 
fices as  late  as  1866,  212,  213  ;  animals 
substituted  for  human  sacrifice,  213  ; 
the  Charak piijd  or  swinging  festival, 

213  ;    the    thirteen   Sivaite  sects,    213, 

214  ;   gradations  of  Siva-worship,  214, 

215  ;  secret  orgies  of  Sivaism,  215  ; 
the  'right-hand'  and  'left-hand' 
forms  of  Siva  -  worship,  214,  215  ; 
Siva  and  Vishnu  compared,  215  ; 
Vishnu  the  Preserver  always  a  friendly 
god,  215  ;  his  incarnations  or  avatars, 
215  (and  footnote)  ;  216  ;  the  Vishnu 
Puranas,  216,  217  ;  Brahmanical  and 
popular  Vishnuism,  217  ;  Vishnuite 
religious  reformers,  217-222  ;  Rama- 
nuia,  217  ;  Ramanand,  218 ;  Kabir, 
218,  219;  Chaitanya,  219-221  ; 
Vallabha-Swami,  221,  222  ;  Krishna- 
worship,  222,  223  ;  the  twenty  chief 
Vishnuite  sects,  223  ;  theistic  move- 
ments in  Hinduism,  223 ;  the  Sikhs, 
and  Nanak  Shah,  their  spiritual  founder, 

223  ;  Jagannath,  the  coalition  of 
Brahman  and  Buddhist  doctrines 
forming  the  basis  of  Vishnu- worship, 
223,   224  ;    Car  festival  of  Jagannath, 

224  ;  bloodless  worship  of  Jagannath, 
self-immolation  a  calumny,  224-226 ; 
gentle  doctrines  of  Jagannath,  226  ; 
religious  nexus  of  Hinduism,  226 ; 
practical  faith  of  the  Hindus,  its  toler- 
ance, 226,  227  ;  the  modem  Hindu 
triad,  227  ;  recapitulation,  228. 

Hindu  architecture,  112. 

Hindu  kingdoms  of  the  Deccan,  2S6. 

Hindu  population  of  India,  51- — See  also 
A))pendix  V.,  693. 

Hindu  Tribes  and  Castes,  by  the  Rev. 
M.  A.  Sherring,  quoted,  193  (footnote 
i);  194  (footnotes  2,  3,  and  4);  195 
(footnote  2)  :  221  (footnote  4). 

Histoire  dii  Christianistne  dcs  Indes,  by 
La  Croze,  232  (footnote  i) ;  240 
(footnote  4);  241  (footnote  l) ;  242 
(footnotes). 

Histoire  de  la  Littcratiire  Hindonie  et 
HiiidoHstanie,  by  Garcin  de  Tassy, 
343  and  footnote. 

History  of  Architecture,  by  Mr.  J.  Fer- 
gusson,  quoted,  304  (footnotes). 

History  of  British  Rule  (1757-1885  A.D.), 
chap.  XV.  pp.  378-430.  Madras,  the 
first  British  territorial  possession  in 
India  (1639),  378  ;  Southern  India 
after  the  death  of  Aurangzeb  (1707), 
378  ;  French  and  English  in  the 
Karnatik,  378  ;  first  French  war  and 
capture  of  Madras  by  the  French 
(1746),  379  ;  second  French  war (1750- 
61),    379 ;    Clive's    defence   of    Arcot 


INDEX. 


725- 


fl750>  379;  Sir  Eyre  Coote's  victory  of 
Wandewash  (1760),  379;  capitulation 
of  Pondicherri  and  Gingi,  3S0 ;  the 
English  in  Bengal  {1634-96),  3S0  ; 
native  rulers  of  Bengal  (1707-56), 
Murshid  Kuli  Khan,  AH  Vardi  Khan, 
and  Siraj-ud-daula,  380,  381  ;  capture 
of  Calcutta  by  Siraj-ud-daula  (1756), 
381  ;  recapture  of  Calcutta'  and 
battle  of  Plassey,  382;  Mirjafar  (1757- 
^'))  3S3-385  ;  Za?iiiiidcirl  gxa.r\\.  of  the 
Twenty-four  Parganas,  383  ;  Clive  s 
/tigh;  383,  384  ;  Clive,  Governor 
of  Bengal,  384 ;  deposition  of  Mir 
Jafar  and  enthronement  of  Mir  Kasim 
(1 761),  385  ;  Mir  Kasim's  quarrel 
with  the  English,  and  massacre  of 
Patna,  385,  386  ;  first  Sepoy  Mutiny 
(1764),  386;  battle  of  Baxar  (1764), 
386 ;  Clive's  second  Governorship 
(1765-67),  partition  of  the  Gangetic 
valley,  the  Diwani  grant  of  Bengal, 
and  reorganization  of  the  Company's 
service,  386,  387  ;  dual  system  of  ad- 
ministration (1767-72),  abolished  by 
Warren  Hastings,  387,  388  ;  Warren 
Hastings'  administration  (1772-85), 
388-392 ;  his  administrative  reforms, 
and  policy  with  native  powers,  388  ; 
Warren  Hastings,  the  first  Governor- 
General  of  India  (1774),  388  ;  his 
financial  administration,  and  sale  of 
Allahabad  and  Kora  to  the  Wazir 
of  Oudh,  389,  390 ;  withholds  the 
Emperor's  tribute,  390 ;  the  Rohilla 
war  (1773-74),  390;  plunder  of  Chait 
Singh  and  of  the  Oudh  Begams,  390  ; 
charges  against  Hastings  and  his  im- 
peachment, 392  ;  the  first  Marathaand 
Mysore  wars,  392,  393  ;  Lord  Corn- 
wallis'  administration  (1786-93),  his 
revenue  reforms,  the  Permanent  Settle- 
ment of  Bengal,  and  second  Mysore 
war,  393,  394;  Sir  John  Shore  (1793- 
98),  394  ;  Lord  Wellesley's  administra- 
tion (1798-1S05),  394-399;  French 
influence  in  India,  394  ;  state  of  India 
before  Lord  Wellesley,  395  ;  Lord 
Wellesley's  scheme  for  crushing  French 
influence  in  India,  395,  396  ;  treaties 
of  Lucknow  and  with  the  Nizam,  396  ; 
third  Mysore  war  and  fall  of  Seringa- 
patam,  396,  397  ;  Wellesley's  dealings 
with  the  Marathas,  and  the  second 
Marathawar,  397,  398;  British  victories 
and  annexations  (1803);  British  dis- 
asters. Colonel  Monson's  retreat,  and 
General  Lake's  repulse  before  Bhartpur 
(1804-05),  398  ;  India  on  Lord  Welles- 
ley's departure  (1805),  398,  399;  Lord 
Cornwallis'  second  administration  as 
(jOvernor-General  (1805),  399  ;  Sir 
George  Barlow  (1805),  399  ;    Earl  of 


Minto's    administration   (1807-13),  his 

embassies  to  the  Punjab,  Afghanistan, 
and  Persia,  399,  400;  Marquis  of 
Hastings'  administration  (1814-23),  the 
Nepal  war  and  treaty  of  Segauli,  the 
Pindari  campaign,  the  third  and  last 
Maratha  war,  and  annexation  of  the 
Peshwa's  territories,  400-402 ;  Mr. 
Adam,  fro  ton.  Governor  -  General 
(1823),  403;  Lord  Amherst  (1823-28), 
Burmese  encroachments  on  India,  first 
Burmese  war  and  annexation  of  Assam, 
Arakan,  and  Tenasserim,  403,  404 ; 
capture  of  Bhartpur,  404;  Lord  William 
Bentinck  (1828-35),  his  financial  re- 
forms, abolition  of  Sat?,  suppression  of 
Tliagi  and  cruel  rites,  renewal  of  Com- 
pany's Charter,  Mysore  taken  under 
British  administration,  and  Coorg 
annexed,  404-406;  Sir  Charles  Metcalfe 
(1835-36),  the  grant  of  liberty  to  the 
Press,  406;  Lord  Auckland  (1836- 
42),  our  early  dealings  with  Kabul, 
and  the  disastrous  Afghan  campaign, 
and  annihilation  of  our  army,  406-408  ; 
Earl  of  Ellenborough  (1842-44),  the 
Kabul  army  of  retribution,  the  '  Gates 
of  Somnath  '  travesty,  annexation  of 
Sind,  and  Gwalior  outbreak,  408,  409  ; 
Lord  Hardinge  (1844-48),  the  first 
Sikh  war  and  annexation  of  the 
Cis-Sutlej  tract,  410,  41 1  ;  Earl  of 
Dalhousie  (1848-56),  41 1 -417;  his 
administrative  reforms  and  public 
works,  412 ;  second  Sikh  war  and 
annexation  and  pacification  of  the 
Punjab,  412,  413  ;  second  Burmese 
war  and  annexation  of  Pegu,  413, 
414  ;  Lord  Dalhousie's  dealings  with 
the  Native  States,  the  doctrine  of 
'  Lapse'  in  the  case  of  Satara,  Jhansi, 
and  Nagpur  States,  414,  415  ;  Berar 
handed  over  by  the  Nizam  of  Haidara- 
bad,  as  a  territorial  guarantee  for  arrears 
of  subsidies  and  for  the  payment  of  the 
Haidarabad  contingent,  415  ;  annexa- 
tion of  Oudh  and  Lord  Dalhousie's 
grounds  for  the  measure,  415-417  ; 
Earl  Canning  (1856-62),  417-424; 
the  Sepoy  Mutiny  and  its  causes,  417- 
419 ;  the  outbreak  at  Meerut  and  Delhi, 
and  spread  of  the  Mutiny,  419  ; 
loyalty  of  the  Sikhs,  419,  420  ;  the 
siege  of  Cawnpur  and  massacre  of  the 
survivors,  420  ;  Lucknow,  420,  421  ; 
siege  and  capture  of  Delhi,  421  ;  re- 
duction of  Oudh  by  Lord  Clyde,  and  of 
Central  India  by  Sir  Hugh  Rose,  421, 
422  ;  India  transferred  to  the  Crown, 
the  Queen's  Proclamation  and  general 
amnesty,  423,  424 ;  Lord  Canning's 
financial  and  legal  reforms,  424  ;  Lord 
Elgin  (1862-63),  his  death  at  Dhann- 


726 


INDEX. 


sala,  424  ;  Lord  Lawrence  (1864-69), 
the  Bhutan  war  and  Orissa  famine, 
424,  425;  Lord  Mayo  (1869-72),  the 
Ambala  Daridr ;  internal  and  finan- 
cial reforms,  and  abolition  of  inland 
customs  lines,  his  assassination,  425  ; 
Lord  Northbrook  (1872  -  76),  the 
Bengal  famine  of  1874,  dethronement 
of  the  Gaekvvar  of  Baroda,  and  visit  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales  to  India,  425,  426 ; 
Lord  Lytton  (1876-80),  Proclamation 
of  the  Queen  as  Empress  of  India, 
famine  of  1877-78  ;  the  second  Afghan 
campaign,  426,  427  ;  Lord  Ripon 
(1S80-S4);  end  of  the  second  Afghan 
campaign,  rendition  of  Mysore  to  its 
hereditary  Hindu  dynasty,  internal 
administration  reforms,  local  Govern- 
ment Acts,  amendment  of  Criminal 
Procedure,  reconstitution  of  the  Agri- 
cultural Department,  revenue  reforms, 
the  Education  Commission,  abolition 
of  customs  duties,  Bengal  Tenancy 
Bill,  427-429  ;  Earl  of  Dufferin  (1884), 
430 ;  annexation  of  Upper  Burma 
(1 886),  430. 

History  of  British  India,  by  J.  Mill, 
quoted,  314  (footnote  3);  365  (foot- 
note 2). 

History  of  India,  by  the  Hon.  Mount- 
stuart  Elphinstone,  quoted,  270  (foot- 
note) ;  291  (footnote);  300  (footnote)  ; 
302  (footnotes) ;  306  (footnote  i). 

History  of  India  as  told  by  its  oiv7i 
Historians,  by  Sir  Henry  Elliot, 
quoted,  271  ;  287  (footnote  2)  ;  291 
(footnotes)  ;  295  (footnote  2)  ;  300 
(footnote)  ;  302  (footnote  2)  ;  306 
(footnote  I);  313  (footnote). 

History  of  the  Seltlevtcnts  and  Trade  of 
the  Etu-opeans  in  the  East  and  West 
Indies,  by  Abbe  Raynai,  quoted,  374 
(footnote). 

History  of  the  French  in  India,  by 
Colonel  Malleson,  379  (footnote). 

History  of  the  Mardthds,  by  James  Grant 
Duff,  quoted,  chap.  xii.  pp.  317-324, 
footnotes,  passim. 

History  of  the  Manithds,  by  E.  Scott 
Waring,  quoted,  317  (footnote  l). 

Hiuen  Tsiang,  Chinese  Buddhist  pilgrim, 
2;  155  and  footnote;  156,  157;  178, 
179  ;  182. 

Hog,  wild.  The,  656,  657. 

Holkar,  family  name  of  the  Chief  of  the 
Maratha  State  of  Indore ;  rise  of  the 
family  to  power,  322  ;  war  with  the 
British,  323. 

Horses,  Breeds  of,  520 ;  Government 
studs,  520;  horse  fairs,  521. 

Hugli,  East  India  Company's  factory 
established  at  (1640),  369;  oppressed 
by  the  Mughal  governor,  370. 


Human  sacrifice  among  the  Kandhs,  62 ; 
in  Siva  -  worship,  212;  substitute  of 
animals  for  human  offerings,  213. 

Humayun,  second  Mughal  Emperor  of 
Delhi  (1530-56  A.D.),  290,  291  ;  ex- 
pulsion from  India  by  his  Afghan 
governor  of  Bengal  (1540),  291  ;  sub- 
sequent recovery  of  the  throne  by  the 
second  battle  of  Panipat,  291. 


Ibrahim  Lodi,  Defeat  and  overthrow  of, 

by  Babar  at  the   first  battle  of   Panipat 

(1526  A.D.),  290. 
Imad    Shahi,  Muhammadan    dynasty  of 

Southern  India  (1484-1572),  2S8. 
Immobility  of  the  Indian  peasant,  47. 
Impediments    to    improved     husbandry, 

namely,  want  of  cattle,  want  of  manure, 

and  want  of  water,  517-519. 
Import    trade     of     India,    analysis    and 

principal  staples  of,  565-568  ;  coasting 

imports  and  exports,  584-586. 
Incarnations    of  Vishnu,    215,    216    and 

footnote. 
Income  and  expenditure  of  British  India, 

465-470. 
Increase  of  population  between  1872  and 

1881,  47;  49,  ,50- 
Independent    Nayaks    and    Palegars    of 

Southern  India,  288. 
India  on  the  eve  of  the  Mughal  conquest 

(1526  A.D.),  290. 
India,  origin  of  the  name,  I-3. 
Indian   Caste,  by  Dr.  J.  Wilson,  quoted, 

194  (footnote    i)  ;    195    (footnote    2); 

196  (footnote  i). 
Indian  products  mentioned  in  the  Bible, 

Indian  Society  as  described  by  Megas- 
thenes  (300  B.C.),  168,  169. 

Indian  vernaculars  and  their  literature, 
chap.  xiii.  pp.  325-355.  Asiatic 
civilisation  of  India  as  found  by  the 
early  European  powers,  325,  326 ; 
India  in  ihe  1st  and  the  i6th  centuries 
A.D. ,  326,  327  ;  the  Dra vidians  or  non- 
Aryans,  their  language  and  its  place 
in  philology,  326-328 ;  the  Dravi- 
dians  in  Sanskrit  literature,  328  ;  pre- 
Aryan  Dravidian  civilisation,  328  ; 
Brahmanic  influence  on  the  Dravidians, 
329,  330 ;  development  of  Dravidian 
speech  into  vernacular  literatures,  330  ; 
the  Tamil  language,  330,  331  ;  Jain 
cycle  of  Tamil  literature,  331  ;  the 
Tamil  Ramdyana,  331,  332;  Sivaite 
and  Vishimite  Tamil  hymnology,  332, 
333 ;  modern  Tamil  writers,  333 ; 
Beschi,  the  Jesuit  Tamil  scholar,  2i2)3)  '■> 
recent   statistics   of    Tamil    literature, 


INDEX. 


727 


333  ;  Aryan  languages  of  Xortli  India,  1 
Sanskrit,    334,    335 ;    evidence    as    to 
whether  Sanskrit  was  ever  a  spoken 
language,   334-336  ;  Panini  and  Vara- 
ruchi,   ancient   Sanskrit   grammarians, 

336  ;  the  Prakrits  or  ancient  spoken 
dialects  of  India,  their  divergence  from 
Sanskrit,  336  ;  routesof  Prakrit  speech, 

337  ;  Prakrits  developed  by  Buddhists 
for  their  Scriptures,  338  ;  evolution  of 
modern  vernaculars  from  Prakrits,  33S, 
339 ;  their  Prakrit  framework  and 
Sanskrit  enrichments,  339  ;  non-Aryan 
element  in  the  vernaculars,  proi:)or- 
tion  of  non- Aryan  words,  340,  341  ; 
the  fourfold  composition  of  the  verna- 
culars, namely,  the  Prakrit  and  aborigi- 
nal elements,  Sanskrit  borrowings  and 
Persian  terms,  342  ;  the  seven  verna- 
culars of  India,  342,  343  ;  vernacular 
literature  and  vernacular  writers,  343, 
344 ;  Rajputana  religious  literature, 
344 ;  Hindi  authors  from  the  12th 
to  the  19th  centuries,  345,  346  ; 
Marathi  literature  and  authors,  346  ; 
Bengali  literature,  its  three  periods, 
343-348  ;  Bengali  religious  poetry, 
349-351  ;  Bengali  poets  from  the  1 6th 
to  the  i8th  centuries,  349-352 ;  the 
court  of  Nadiya,  the  chief  seat  of 
learning  in  Bengal  in  the  last  century, 
352  ;  Bengali  prose  literature  in  the 
19th  century,  354  ;  the  Bengali  drama, 

354- 

Indigo,  Cultivation  of,  in  different  locali- 
ties, 495,  496  ;  systems  of  indigo- 
planting,  and  out-turn  in  Bengal  and 
Behar,  497  ;  export  of,  497  ;  574. 

Indische  Alterthumsktinde,  by  Professor 
Lassen,  quoted,  161  (footnote  i);  191 
(footnote  2)  ;  340  (footnote  2). 

Indo-Aryan  stock,  its  European  and 
Eastern  branches,  75,  76  ;  their  march 
towards  and  into  India,  religion,  etc., 
76-78. 

Tndo-Gangetic  plain,  Geolog)-  of,  633, 
634  ;  meteorology  of,  643,  644. 

Indo-Greek  treaties  (306  and  256  B.C.), 
167,  170. 

Indra,  the  Vedic  God  of  Rain,  80,  81  ; 
influence  of  the  rainy  season  on  Aryan 
mythology,  80  ;  Indra  displaced  by 
the  modern  Brahmanical  Triad,  81. 

Indus,  great  river  of  Northern  India 
and  Sind,  II-13;  its  upper  waters, 
II  ;  its  feeder  the  Sutlej,  11,  12  ;  its 
inundations,  11  ;  lower  course,  12  ; 
irrigation  facilities,  13  ;  529  ;  silt  de- 
posits, 13  ;  Indus  steam  flotilla  recently 
broken  up  on  completion  of  the  railway 
system,  552. 

Inlaying  work,  609. 

Inquisition  established  by  the  Portuguese 


at  Goa  (1560),  241,  253  ;  aiilos  da  fe, 
254;  abolished  (1812),  254. 

Inscribed  pillars  of  Asoka,  145,  146. 

Insects,  Indian,  662. 

Internal  and  local  trade  of  India,  591- 
596  ;  village  money-lenders,  travelling 
brokers,  and  religious  fairs,  592,  593  ; 
internal  trade  the  safeguard  against 
famine,  593  ;  normal  action  of  internal 
trade,  594 ;  provincial  statistics  of 
internal  trade,  594,  595  ;  trade  statis- 
tics of  a  large  town,  village  mart,  and 
annual  fair,  594-596. 

Introduction  to  the  Malta  Langtiage,  by 
the  Rev.  E.  Droese,  quoted,  327  (foot- 
note i). 

In-tu,  the  Buddhist  derivation  of  the 
word  India,  2. 

Invaliding,  Causes  of,  in  the  European 
army,  681. 

Iron  mining  and  smelting,  difficulties  of 
Indian  ironworks,  41  ;  619  ;  indigenous 
methods  of  iron-smelting,  618  ;  failure 
of  English  efforts,  618,  619  ;  Govern- 
ment efforts,  619. 

Ironwork,  606. 

Irrigated  area  in  different  tracts  with 
statistics,  528-538. 

Irrigation  from  hill-streams  in  the  Hima- 
layas, 9  ;  river  irrigation  in  the  plains, 
28,  29. 

Iswar  Chandra  Vidyasagar,  famous 
modem  Hindu  social  reformer,  353. 

Italy,  India's  trade  with,  578,  579. 

Itinerary  Jesuit  missionaries  in  the  15th 
and  1 6th  centuries  ;  their  labours  and 
conversions,  250,  25 1. 

Ivory  carving,  609. 


Jackal,  The,  654. 

"Jackson,  Lowis  U'A.,  Hydraulic  Manual, 
quoted,  17  (footnote). 

Jacobi,  Hermann,  The  Jaina  Sutras, 
forming  vol.  xxii.  of  Prof.  Max  Miiller's 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  161  (foot- 
notes 4  and  5)  ;   167  (footnote  l). 

Jacobite  branch  of  the  Syrian  Church  in 
India,  242,  243  ;  257. 

Jagannath,  Worship  of,  223-226  ;  his 
Brahmanical  and  Buddhist  origin,  224  ; 
the  Car  festival,  225  ;  English  calum- 
nies against  Jagannath,  self-inmiola- 
tion  seldom  practised,  224,  225  ;  his 
bloodless  worship  and  gentle  doctrines, 
225,  226. 

Jahangir,  fourth  Mughal  Emperor  of 
India  (1605-27  A.D.),  300-302  ;  chief 
events  of  his  reign,  300  (footnote  2)  ; 
rebellion  of  his  son  Shah  Jahan,  301  ; 
his  Empress  Xur  Jahan,  301  ;  personal 


728 


INDEX. 


character,  justice  and  religious  tolera- 
tion, 301,  302. 

Jai  Singh,  Raja  of  Jaipur,  his  astro- 
nomical observatories  at  Jaipur,  Delhi, 
Benares,  Muttra,  and  Ujjain  in  the 
i8th  century,  105,  106. 

Jail  statistics,  472  ;  vital  statistics  of 
Indian  prisons,  684,  685. 

Jains,  the  modern  representatives  of  the 
Buddhists  in  India,  158  ;  Jain  popu- 
lation in  India,  158  (footnote)  ;  Jain 
doctrines,  159 ;  temple  cities,  159  ; 
relation  of  Jainism  to  Buddhism,  159, 
160;  antiquity  of  the  Jains,  160;  date 
of  the  Jain  scriptures,  161  ;  the  Jain-^, 
an  independent  sect,  162  ;  modern 
Jainism,  162. 

Jaipal,  Hindu  chief  of  Lahore,  his  defeats 
by  Subuktigin  and  Mahmud  of  Ghazni, 
272. 

Jalal-ud-din,  the  first  king  of  the  Khilji 
dynasty  (1290-95  A.n.),  280. 

Jama  Masjid,  Shah  Jahan's  great  mosque 
at  Delhi,  304. 

Jamuna,  the  name  of  the  Brahmaputra 
from  its  entering  the  Bengal  delta  to 
its  junction  with  the  Ganges,  14. 

Jang  Bahadur,  assistance  rendered  by, 
during  the  suppression  of  the  Mutiny, 
421. 

Jats,  The,  their  Scythian  origin,  179, 
180. 

Java,  Conquest  of,  by  Lord  Minto,  399. 

Jayadeva,  a  celebrated  Sanskrit  poet  of 
the  I2th  century,  128. 

Jaziyd,  or  Mughal  poll-tax  on  non- 
Musalmans,  309. 

Jesuits  in  India,  244-255  ;  first  Portu- 
guese missionaries  (1500  A.D.),  244; 
St.  Francis  Xavier,  244,  245  ;  the 
Madras  Jesuits,  245-;  letters  of  the  early 
Jesuit  missionaries,  246  ;  Thana,  a 
Jesuit  station  (1550  A.D.),  with  its 
colony  of  Christian  artisans  and  culti- 
vators, 247,  248  ;  rural  organization  of 
the  Jesuits,  248 ;  the  Jesuit  college 
at  Cochin,  248-250 ;  Jesuit  itinerary 
missionaries,  and  their  conversions,  250, 
251  ;  Jesuit  missions  in  Malabar  in 
the  17th  and  i8th  centuries,  251,  252  ; 
Jesuit  martyrdoms,  252,  253  ;  literary 
labours  of  the  Jesuits,  253  ;  establish- 
ment of  the  Portuguese  inquisition 
at  Goa  (1560),  251-253  ;  autos  da  fe, 
253>  254  ;  abolition  of  the  inquisition 
(1812),  254;  the  Jesuits  suppressed 
(1759-73).  254,  255;  re-established 
(1814),  255. 

Jewellery  and  goldsmiths'  work,  605, 
606. 

Jewish  settlements  in  ancient  Malabar, 
234,  235. 

Jhansi,  Native  State,  lapsed  to  the  British 


for   want   of  heirs,  415  ;  revolt    of  the 

ex-princess  in  1857,  421,  422. 
Jones,  Sir  William,  114;   126. 
Josaphat,  a  saint  of  the  Christian  Church, 

analogies  between  him  and  Buddha,  and 

asserted  identity  of  the  two,  151.  152. 
Journal  Asiatique,  Paper  by  ^L  Senait, 

quoted,  175  (footnote  3). 
Journalism  and  ne\\spapers,  480. 
Juangs,  a  leaf-wearing  tribe  in  Orissa,  56. 
Jumna,   great   river  in    Northern    India, 

and  chief  tributary  of  the  Ganges,  17. 
Jumna   Canal,   Eastern,  Statistics  of,  29; 

532)  533. 
Jumna  Canal,  Western,  Statistics  of,  29  ; 

531- 
Jungle    products,    (asar    silkworm,     lac, 

etc.,  34;  513-515-  . 
Jungle  rites  in  Hinduism,  206,  207. 
Jute,  Cultivation  of,  494,  495  ;  export  of 

raw  and   of  manufactured    jute,   495; 

570,  571  ;  576;  615  ;  steam  jute  mills, 

614-616. 


Kabir,  Vishnuite  religious  reformer 
(1380- 1420),  claimed  as  a  saint  by  both 
Hindus  and  Muhammadans,  208  ;  his 
doctrines,  218,  219;  coalition  of  Visli- 
nuism  with  Islam,  219  ;  Kabir's  religi- 
^  ous  poetry,  345. 

Kaders,  aboriginal  tribe  of  the  Anamalai 
Hills,  Madras,  55. 

Kailds,  sacred  mountain  in  Tibet,  and 
the  watershed  from  which  the  Indus, 
Sutlej,  and  Brahmaputra  take  their  rise, 

_ii,  13- 

Kaimur,  range  of  mountains  in  Central 
India  and  Bengal,  an  oftshoot  of  the 
Vindhyas,  35. 

Kalanos,  the  Brahman  at  Alexander's 
court,  169. 

Kali,  the  non-Aryan  form  of  the  wife  of 
Siva,  211,  212. 

Kalidasa,  famous  Hindu  poet  and  dra- 
matist (56  B.C.),  125;  his  drama  of 
SakiDitald,  1 26. 

Kanauj,  ancient  city,  now  deserted  by 
the  Ganges,  30  ;  court  i^ageant  at,  in 
the  I2th  century  A. D.,  276. 

Kanchanjanga,  mountam  in  the  Hima- 
layas, 5. 

Kandahar,  wrested  from  the  Mughal 
Empire  during  the  reign  of  Shah 
Jahan,  303;  occupation  of,  during  the 
first  Afghan  campaign  (1839),  408; 
defeat  of  Ayub  Khan  at,  in  the  second 
campaign  (1880),  427. 

Kandhs,  aboriginal  hill  tribe  of  Orissa 
and  northern  Madras,  60-63 ;  their 
patriarchal  government,  60;  wars  and 


INDEX. 


729 


punishments,  and  blood  revenge,  60,61 ; 
agriculture,  61  ;  marriages  by  capture, 
61  ;  serfs  attached  to  their  villages, 
61,  62  ;  human  sacrifices,  62  ;  the 
Kandhs  under  British  rule,  62,  63. 

Kanishka,  Buddhist  king  in  North- 
western India  (40  A.U. ),  his  great 
Council,   147,  148;   175,  176;   178. 

Kankar,  or  nodular  limestone,  628  ;  638. 

Karagola,  large  trading  fair,  596,  597. 

Karakoram,  pass  over  the  Himala^-as  on 
the  trading  route  from  the  Punjab  into 
eastern  Turkistan,  6. 

Karengs,  an  aboriginal  tribe  of  Burma 
and  Siam,  71. 

Karharbari  coal-field,  637. 

Karma,  Buddhist  doctrine  of,  141,  142. 

Karnatik,  The,  English  and  French 
Avars  in,  rival  English  and  French 
candidates  for  the  throne  of  Arcot 
(1746-61),  379,  390. 

Karntil  canal  purchased  by  Government 
from  the  Madras  Irrigation  Company, 

.  536,  537- 
Kartabhajas,   a    reformed  \  ishnuite  sect 

in  the  Districts  around  Calcutta,  223. 
Kashmir  shawls,  \Veavi  g  of,  603. 
Kasimbazar,      East      India      Company's 

factory  established  at  (165S),  369  ;  the 

chief  emporium  of  the  Gangetic  trade 

in  the  middle  of  the  i8th  century,  380. 
Kasim's  expedition  and   temporary  con- 
quest of  Sind  (711-714  A.D.),  268. 
Kasi  Ram  Das,  Bengali  poet  of  Bardwan 

District,  and   translator  of  the   Maha- 

bharata  (17th  centur}-),  351. 
Kauravas,    their    quarrel    and    struggle 

with  the  five  Pandavas,  as  related   in 

the  Mahabharata,  119,  120. 
Kaveri   (Cauvery)    river,    37  ;    irrigation 
^  works,  536,  537. 
Kennet,  Reverend  Dr.,  St.   Thomas  the 

Apostle  of  India,  quoted,  233  (footnote 

3);  235  (footnote);  237  (footnote  4); 

239  (footnote  I). 
Keshava  Das,   Hindi  poet   of  the    i6th 

century,   and   composer  of  the    Ram- 

chandrika,  345. 
Khaibar,  mountain  pass  into  Afghanistan 

from  the  Punjab,  6. 
Khandesh,  Annexation  of,  to  the  Mughal 

Empire  by  Akbar,  294. 
Khasis,  an  aboriginal  tribe  of  Assam,  71 

(footnote). 
Khilji    dynasty,    The  (1290- 1 320    A.D.), 

280-283  ;  Jalal-ud-din  (1290-95),  280  ; 

Ala-ud-din     (1295-1315),     281,     282; 

Mughal  mercenaries  and  Hindu  revolts, 

282,   283  ;    Khu>ru,    renegade    Hindu 

Emperor  (1316-20),  282,  2S3. 
Khusrii  Khan,  renegade  Hindu  emperor 

ot   the  Khilji   dynasty  (1316-20  A.D.), 

282,  283. 


Kiernander,  Danish  Protestant  missionary, 
260. 

Kiiki,  attack  on  by,  and  repulse  of,  the 
Marathas  (1817),  402. 

Kirtibas  Ojha,  Sivaite  religious  poet  of 
the  i6th  century,  349,  350. 

Kistvaen  builders  of  ancient  India,  53. 

Koch,  an  aboriginal  tribe  in  Northern 
Bengal,  187,  188. 

Kolarians,  aboriginal  races  of  Bengal 
and  Central  India,  64-68  ;  their  con- 
vergence in  Central  India,  64  ;  their 
dispersion,  64,  65  ;  scattered  Kolarian 
fragments,  65  ;  Kolarian  languages, 
65-68. 

Koros,  Alexander  Csoma  de.  Life  and 
Works  of,  by  Dr.  '1  heodore  Duka, 
quoted,  153  (footnote  2)  ;  Journal 
Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal  (1833), 
quoted,  175  (footnote  I). 

Krishna  -  worship,  222  ;  a  religion  of 
pleasure,  222,  223  ;  love  songs,  223  ; 
hymn  to,  34S,  349. 

Kshattriya  or  warrior  caste  of  ancient 
India,  89,  94 ;  growth  of  the  caste, 
89-91  ;  struggle  between  the  priestly 
and  warrior  castes,  92-94;  casts  of 
Kshattriyas  attaining  Brahmanhood, 
92,  93  ;  legendary  extermination  of  the 
Kshattriyas  by  Parasurarna,  the  sixth 
incarnation  of  Vishnu,  94. 

Kumarila,  a  Brahmanica!  religious  re- 
former (750  A.D.),  191;  209;  329, 
^330. 

Kuram,  mountain  pass  into  Afghanistan 
from  the  Punjab,  6. 

Kushtia,  river  station  of  the  Eastern 
Bengal  Railway  terminus  removed 
owing  to  silting  of  Ganges,  30. 

Kutab-ud-din,  the  first  of  the  Slave 
dynasty,  and  the  first  resident  Muham- 
madan  sovereign  in  India  (1206- 10 
A.D.),  278. 

Kutab  Shahi,  Muhammadan  dynasty  in 
Southern  India  (1512-1688  a.d.),  2S8. 


La  Bourdonnais,   capture  of  Madras   by 

a  French  squadron  under  the  command 

of  (1746),  379. 
Labour  and  land,  Relation  between,  in 

former  times  and  at  the  present  day  in 

India,  48,  49. 
La  Croze's  Histoire  dti  Christianisnie  des 

hides,  232  (footnote   l)  ;  240  (footnote 

4)  ;     241    (footnotes    l    and    3)  ;    242 

(footnotes). 
Lac  industry,   513,   515  ;    export  of  lac 

and  lac-dye,  575. 
Lake,  Lord,  victories  over  the  Marathas 

at  Laswari  and  Dig,  323  ;  398. 


73° 


INDEX. 


Lakshman  Sen,  last  independent  Hindu 
king  of  Bengal,  his  overthrow  by 
Muhammad     of    Ghor    (1203    a.  D.), 

277- 
Lai  Kavi,   Hindi   poet    of   Bundelkhand 

in  the  17th  century,  and  author  of  the 

Chhatra  Prakas,  345. 
Lally,  Defeat  of,'  at  Wandewash  by  Coote 

(1761),  379,  3S0  ;  siege  and  surrender 

of  Pondichern  and  Gingi,  3S0. 
Land-making   powers   of  deltaic   rivers, 

22-25 ;  27. 

Land  revenue  of  India  under  the  Mughals, 
297-299  ;  304  ;  land  revenue  of  British 
India,  452. 

Land  Settlement,  438-452  ;  ancient  land 
settlement  of  India,  438  ;  Musalman 
land-tax,  439  ;  the  Company's  efforts 
at  land  settlement,  439  ;  growth  of 
private  rights,  439 ;  the  Permanent 
Settlement  of  Bengal  (1793),  441  ; 
rights  of  the  cultivators  and  intermedi- 
ate tenure-holders,  442,  443  ;  oppres- 
sion of  the  cultivators,  543;  land  reform 
of  1859,  443,  444  ;  the  Rent  Commis- 
sion (1879),  and  further  schemes  for 
reform,  444,  445  ;  temporary  Settle- 
ment in  Orissa,  445  ;  yearly  Settlement 
in  Assam,  445  ;  Madras  rdyatzvdri 
Settlement,  445-447  ;  '  survey  '  tenure 
of  Bombay,  448,  449  ;  Southern  India 
Agriculturists'  Relief  Acts  (1879  and 
1 88 1),  449,  450;  land  system  of  the 
N.-W.  Provinces  and  the  Punjab,  451  ; 
tdlukddrs  of  Oudh,  451  ;  land  system 
of  the  Central  Provinces,  452  ;  the 
land  revenue  of  India,  452  ;  nature  of 
the  land-tax,  469. 

Languages  (Aryan)  of  Northern  India, 
Sanskrit,  334  ;  the  evidence  for  and 
against  Sanskrit  ever  having  been  a 
spoken  language,  334-336  ;  divergence 
of  Sanskrit  and  Prakrit,  336  ;  spread 
of  the  Prakrits,  336,  337  ;  classifica- 
tion of  Prakrits — Maharashtri  or  Mara- 
thi,  the  Sauraseni  or  the  Braj  of  the 
North-Western  Provinces,  the  ^lagadhi 
or  modern  Bihari,  and  the  Paisachi  or 
non-Aryan  dialects,  337  ;  evolution  of 
modern  vernaculars  from  the  Prakrits, 
338,  339 ;  the  Sanskrit,  Prakrit, 
and  non-Aryan  elements  in  modern 
vernaculars,  339-342;  the  seven  modern 
vernaculars,  342,  343  ;  vernacular 
literature  and  writers,  343-354. 

Languages  of  non-Aryan  tribes,  63-68  ; 
the  Dravidian  languages  of  Southern 
India ;  Tamil,  its  principal  develop- 
ment, 330-333- 

'Lz?-SQn,IndischeAltci-lhu7)iskiinde,c[-ao\.Q^, 
161  (footnote  I);  191  (footnote  2); 
340  (footnote  I). 

Laswari,  Defeat  of  liolkar  at,  323  ;  398. 


Laterite,  62S  ;  63S,  639. 

Lazv  and  Custom  of  Hindu  Castes,  by 
Mr.  Arthur  Steele,  quoted,  195  (foot- 
note 2). 

Law,  Brahmanical  codes  of,  113-11S; 
the  Grihya  Sutras,  an  outgrowth  from 
the  Vedas,  113  ;  code  of  Manu  and  its 
date,  113,  114;  code  of  Yajnavalkya, 
114,  115;  scope  of  Hindu  law,  I15  ; 
its  rigid  caste  system,  115,  I16  ;  growth 
of  the  law,  116;  its  incorporation  of 
local  customs,  117  ;  perils  of  modern 
codification,  I17,  I18;  modern  legal 
literature,  118. 

Law,  The,  of  British  India,  433,  434. 

Lawrence,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India  (1S64- 
69)  ;  famine  in  Orissa  ;  Bhutan  war  ; 
inquiry  into  the  status  of  the  Oudh 
peasantry ;  the  commercial  crisis  of 
1866,  424,  425. 

Lawrence,  Major,  his  ineffectual  siege  of 
Pondicherri  in  1748  in  co-operation 
with  the  English  fleet  under  Admiral 
Boscawen,  379. 

Lawrence,  Sir  Henry,  Resident  at  Lahore 
(1S45),  410;  Chief  Commissioner  of 
Oudh,  415  ;  killed  at  Lucknow  (1857), 
420. 

Lead,  626. 

Leaf-wearing  tribe  of  Orissa,  56. 

Leather  work,  603  ;  leather  factories  at 
Cawnpur,  417. 

Left-hand  and  Right-hand  castes  of 
Madras,  196,  197. 

Legislative  Council  of  the  Governor- 
General,  432  ;  of  Madras,  Bombay, 
and  Bengal,  433. 

Leopard,  The  Indian,  653,  654. 

Limestone,  41,  42  ;  627,  628. 

Lion,  The  Indian,  or  maneless,  of  Gujarat, 
652. 

Literature  of  Bengal,  The,  by  Mr.  Arcy 
Dae,  quoted,  347  and  footnote  ;  348, 
349,  and  footnote  ;  352  (footnote). 

Literature  of  India,  I18-129;  343-354; 
and  480,  481  ;  the  Mahabharata,  I18- 
122;  the  Ramayana,  122-124;  ^^^^^ 
Sanskrit  epics,  124.  125  ;  Valmiki,  the 
author  of  the  Ramayana,  123  ;  the 
poet  Kalidasa,  125  ;  the  Sanskrit 
drama,  125,  126;  the  Hindu  novel, 
127  ;  Beast  stories  and  fables,  127  ; 
Sanskrit  lyric  poetry,  128  ;  the  Puranas 
or  Brahmanical  mediceval  theological 
writings,  128,  129  ;  modern  Indian 
literature,  129;  Uriya  literature  and 
authors,  343,  344  ;  Rajputana  sacred 
literature,  344 ;  Hindi  literature  and 
authors,  345,  346  ;  Bengali  literature 
and  authors,  346-354;  480,  4S1. 

Local  finance,  470. 

Local  and  internal  trade,  statistics  of, 
592-597. 


INDEX. 


731 


Locusts,  662. 

Lodi  dynasty,  The  (1450-1526  a.d.), 
286. 

Loss  by  exchange,  469. 

Love  poems  in  Krishna- worsliip,  223. 

Low-caste  npostles  in  religious  reforma- 
tions in  Siva  and  Vishnu  worship,  207, 
208. 

Lower  Ganges  Canal,  Statistics  of,  29  ; 
532,  533. 

Lucknow,  vSiege  and  relief  of,  420,  421. 

Lucknow,  Withdrawal  of  English  factory 
at,  369. 

Lutheran  Missions,  259,  260. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  Principles  of  Geology, 
quoted,  27. 

Lytton,  Lord,  Viceroy  of  India  (1876-80) ; 
Proclamation  of  the  Queen  as  Empress 
of  India;  great  famine  of  1877-78,- 
second  Afghan  war,  426,  427. 


M 

Macaulay,  Lord,  first  Law  Member  of 
the  Council  of  India,  406. 

Macnaghten,  Sir  William,  Assassination 
of,  at  Kabul  (1839),  408. 

Madhava  Acharya,  a  Sanskrit  religious 
writer  of  the  14th  century,  191. 

Madhu  Rao,  fourth  Maratha  Peshwa 
(1761-72),  321. 

Madhu  Rao  Narayan,  sixth  Maratha 
Peshwa  (1774-95)  ;  first  Maratha  war, 
and  treaty  of  Salbai,  323. 

Madhu  Sudan  Datta,  Bengali  epic  poet 
of  the  19th  century,  354. 

Madras,  founded  in  1639,  the  first  terri- 
torial British  possession  in  India,  369  ; 
378  ;  capture  of,  by  the  French  ;  in- 
effectual siege  of,  by  the  English ; 
restoration  to  the  British,  379. 

Madrasa,  Muhammadan  College  of  Cal- 
cutta, 473. 

Mahabharata,  the  epic  poem  of  the 
heroic  age  in  Northern  India,  118- 
122  ;  the  struggle  between  the  Kaura- 
vas  and  Pandavas,  II9,  120;  the 
polyandry  of  Draupadi,  121. 

Mahmud  of  Ghazni  (1001-30  A.D.), 
272-275  ;  his  seventeen  invasions  of 
India,  272,  273  ;  patriotic  resistance  of 
the  Hindus,  273  ;  sack  of  Somnath, 
273,  274  ;  conque>t  of  the  Punjab, 
274  ;  Mahmud's  justice  and  thrift,  274, 

275-, 

Mahmiid  Tughlak,  last  king  of  the  Tugh- 
lak  dynasty  (1398-1414  A.D.),  invai^ion 
of  Timur  (Tamerlane),  285. 

Mailapur  (St.  Thomas'  Mount),  legend- 
ary martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas  the 
Apostle  at,  near  Madras  city,  231. 

Makum  coal-beds  in  Assam,  621. 


Makunda  Ram,  famous  poet  of  Bardwan 
in  the  1 6th  century  ;  story  of  Kalketu 
the  hunter,  350,  351  ;  the  Srimanta 
Sadagar,  351. 
Malabar  Christians,  legendary  preaching 
of  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle  on  the 
Malabar  and  Coromandel  coasts  (68 
A.D.),  229;  Thomns  the  Manicha;an 
and  Thomas  the  Armenian  merchant, 
their  rival  claims  as  founders  of  Chris- 
tianity in  .Southern  India,  231,  232  ; 
troubles  of  the  ancient  Indian  Church, 
240  ;  the  St.  Thomas  Nestorian  Chris- 
tians of  Malabar,  a  powerful  and  re- 
spected military  caste,  240,  241  ;  Por- 
tuguese efforts  at  their  conversion  to 
Rome,  241  ;  incorporation  of  the  St. 
Thomas  Christians  into  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  and  downfall  of  the 
Nestorian  Church,  241  ;  Synod  of 
Diamper  (1599  A.D. ),  241  ;  Malabar 
Christians  under  Jesuit  prelates  (1601 
to  1653  A.D.),  241,  242;  Malabar 
Christians  freed  from  Jesuit  supre- 
macy by  the  Dutch  conquest  of  Cochin 
(1563),  242;  first  Jacobite  Bishop  to 
Malabar  (1665),  242,  243;  Malabar 
Christians  since  1665,  their  division 
into  Syrians  and  Jacobites,  and  present 
numbers,  243  ;  tenets  of  the  Jacobites 
of  Malabar,  243  ;  Nestorianism  extinct 
in  Malabar,  243,  241  ;  the  Jesuit 
Malabar  Mission  in  the  17th  and 
18th  centuries,  251  ;  caste  among 
Malabar  Christians,  251,  252  ;  letters 
of  the  Jesuit  missionaries  of  Malabar, 
252. 

Malabar  navigable  back  -  w^aters  or  la- 
goons, 553. 

Malik  Kafiir,  slave-general  of  Ala-ud- 
din  (1303-15  A.D.);  his  conquest  of 
Southern  India,  282. 

Malleson,  Colonel,  History  of  the  French 
in  India,  and  Final  Sti-tiggles  of  the 
French  in  India,  by,  quoted,  379  (foot- 
note). 

Mammalia  of  India,  652-659. 

Manchester  cotton  imports,  565  ;  568. 

'  Man  hunts  '  of  Muhammad  Tughlak, 
284,  285. 

Man  Singh,  Akbar's  Hindu  general  and 
governor  of  Bengal,  293. 

Manu,  the  legendary  founder  of  Sanskrit 
law,  113,  114. 

Manufactures  and  Arts. — See  Arts  and 
Man-ufactures. 

Manure,  Use  of,  483  ;  want  of,  a  draw- 
back to  improved  husbandry,  518. 

Maratha  power.  The  ( 1 634-1818  A.D.I, 
chap.  xii.  pp.  317  -  324.  British 
India  won,  not  from  the  IVIughals  but 
from  the  Hindus,  317;  rise  of  the 
Marathas,  Shahji  Bhonsla,  317;  Sivaji, 


732 


INDEX. 


the  consolidator  of  the  Maratha  power, 
317;  state  of  parties  in  the  Deccan, 
(1650),  318  ;  the  Marathas  courted  by 
the  two  rival    Muhammadan    powers, 

318  ;  Sivaji's  hill  forts,  army  of  cavalrj-, 
tactics,  etc.,  319;  his  murder  of  the 
Bijapur  general  Akbar  Khan,  319 ; 
coins  money  in  his  own  name,  319; 
visits  Delhi  (1666),  319;  enthrones 
himself  as  an  independent  prince  at 
Raigarh    (1674),    319;    death    (16S0), 

319  ;  Aurangzeb's  mistaken  policy  in 
the  Deccan,  319  ;  Sambhaji  and  Sahu, 
successors  of  Sivaji,  319  ;  the  Satara  ! 
and  Kolhapur  families,  the  last  of 
Sivaji's  line,  320  ;  rise  and  progress  of 
the  Peshwas,  320 ;  second  Peshwa 
(1721-40),  conquers  the  Deccan,  320; 
third  Peshwa  (1740-61),  conquests  in 
the  Deccan,  and  raids  Irom  Bengal  to 
the  Punjab,  320,  321  ;  defeat  of  the 
Marathas  by  Ahmad  Shah  the  Afghan 
(1761),  321  ;  fourth  Peshwa  (1761- 
72),  321  ;  the  five  great  Maratha 
branches,  321  ;  fifth  Peshwa  {1772), 
his  assassination,  321  ;  decline  of  the 
Peshwas  (1772-78),  321,  322;  the 
northern  Marathas,  Sindhia  and 
Holkar  (1761-1803),  322  ;  the  Bhons- 
las  of  Berar  (1751-53),  322;  the 
Gaekwars  of  Baroda,  322,  323  ;  the 
sixth  and  seventh  Peshwas  (1774- 
1818),  and  the  three  Maratha  wars, 
323,  324;  end  of  the  Peshwas  (1849), 

324- 

'Maratha  Ditch,' The,  moat  constructed 
partly  around  Calcutta  as  a  protec- 
tion against  the  Marathas,  320, 
321. 

Maratha  wars,  the  first  (1778-81), 
323;  391;  the  second  (1802-04), 
398  ;  third  and  last,  annexation  of 
the  Peshwa's  dominions  (1818),  323; 
402. 

]\Iarathi  literature  and  authors,  346. 

Marble  carving,  112;  marble  building 
stone,  62S. 

Marco  Polo,  by  Colonel  Yule,  quoted, 
152  (footnote  i);  231  (footnote  i); 
233  (footnotes  i  and  2)  ;  237  (foot- 
note 4)  ;  239  (footnote  3)  ;  356  (foot- 
note). 

Mar  Gregory,  first  Jacobite  Bishop  to  the 
Syrian  Church  in  India,  242,  243. 

Marias,  aboriginal  tribe  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  55. 

Maris,  aboriginal  tribe  in  the  Central 
Provinces,  55. 

Marriage  law  of  the  Hindus,  195,  196. 

Martyrdoms  of  Jesuit  missionaries,  252, 
253. 

Masulipatam,  East  India  Company's  fac- 
tory    established      at      (1622),      368; 


temporarily  abandoned  (1628),  but  re- 
established under  a  farman  from  the 
King  of  Golconda  (1632),  368  ;  murder 
of  the  Company's  factors  at  (1689), 
371  ;    recapture  of,  from  the  French, 

385. 
Mathematics,     Brahmaiiical    system    of, 

106. 
Mauritius,  India's  trade  with,  578,  579. 
Mausoleums,  112. 

Mayo,  Earl  of.  Viceroy  of  India  (1869- 
72),  425,  426;  the  Ambala  darbdr ; 
visit  of  the  Duke  of  Edinburgh, 
administrative  reforms,  abolition  of 
customs  lines,  assassination  at  the 
Andaman  Islands,  425  ;  his  scheme 
for  Indian  feeder  lines  of  railway,  445, 
446. 
Mayi'ir   Pandit,    Marathi    religious    poet 

of  the  i8th  century,  346. 
M'Crindle,  Mr.  J.  \V.  M.,  Commerce  and 
A'aviQation  of  the  Erythraan  Sea, 
quoted,  166  (footnotes  I  and  2)  ;  356 
(footnote)  ;  Ancient  India  as  described 
by  Mcgasthcnes  and  Arrian,  quoted, 
168  (footnote  1)  ;  356  (footnote). 
Means  of  communication,  chap,  xviii. 
pp.  545-554.  History  of  Indian 
railways,  545 ;  Lord  Dalhousie's  trunk 
railway  lines,  545  ;  Lord  Mayo's 
branch  or  feeder  Hnes,  545,  546  ;  the 
four  classes  of  Indian  railways,  '  Guar- 
anteed,' '  State,'  '  Assisted,'  and 
'  Native  State,'  546-549  ;  statistics 
of  Indian  railways,  549,  550 ;  roads, 
the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  extension  of 
minor  roads,  550,  551  ;  road  metal, 
551  ;  bridges  of  boats,  551  ;  navigable 
rivers,  551-553  ;  navigable  canals,  553, 
554- 
Mediaeval  trade  of  India,  555- 
Medical  colleges  in  India,  109. 
Medicine  and  drugs,  34 ;  Brahmanical 
system  of  medicine,  I06-IIO;  its  in- 
dependent development,  4th  to  8th 
century,  107;  scope  of  Indian  medicine, 
107  ;  Indian  surgery,  107,  loS  ;  Bud- 
dhist public  hospitals,  loS,  109  ;  decline 
of  Hindu  medicine,  109;  English  Medi- 
cal Colleges,  109  ;  vernacular  medical 
literature,  109,  1 10. 
Medlicott  and  Blanford,  Geology  of  India, 

quoted,  27  (footnote)  ;  631-640. 
Meerut,  outbreak  of  the  mutiny  at,  419. 
Megastiienes,    Seleukos'    ambassador    to 
the  ciurt  of  Chandra  Gupta,  154;   163; 
his  description  of  India  and  of  Indian 
society  (300  B.C.),  167-170;  division  of 
India  into  petty  kingdoms,  170. 
Meghna,  the  eastern  estuary  of  the  united 
waters  of  the  Brahmaputra  and  Ganges, 
15  ;  21  ;  28  ;  its  'bore'  or  tidal-wave, 
31  ;  the  Meghna  delta,  25. 


INDEX. 


733 


Mehidpur,  defeat  of  Ilolkar  at,  in  the  last 
Maratha  war  (1817-18),  402. 

]M:i)ioirof  the  IVar  in  India,  condurtcd  by 
General  Lord  Lake,  by  Major  William 
Thorne,  quoted,  317  (fooinote  i). 

Metcalfe,  Lord,  Governor  -  General  of 
India  (1S35-36),  406. 

Meteorology  of  India,  chap,  xxiii. 
pp.  641  -  655.  Meteorological  geo- 
graphy of  the  Himalayas  and  Punjab 
frontier,  641-643  ;  the  Indus  plain, 
and  great  Indian  desert,  643  ;  Gan- 
getic  plain  and  Eastern  Bengal,  643, 
644;  the  Central  Indian  and  Southern 
plateaux,  644,  645  ;  Anamalai  Hills. 
645  ;  southern  coast  strip  and  Ceylon, 
645,  646  ;  Burma,  646  ;  solar  radia- 
tion, 647  ;  air  temperature,  atmo- 
spheric pres>ure,  wind,  humidity,  647, 
648  ;  rainfall  statistics,  649,  650 ;  sun- 
spot  cycles,  650,  651. 

Mhairs,  aboriginal  tribe  in  Raj pii tana, 
72,  73- 

Miani,  Defeat  of  the  Sind  Mirs  at,  by  .Sir 
C.  Napier  (1843),  409. 

Mica,  628. 

Middleton,  first  Bishop  ofCalcutta  ( 1814), 
261. 

Middleton,  Sir  Henry,  his  naval  defeat 
of  the  Portuguese  at  Cambay  (i6u), 
366. 

Migration  of  the  people,  47. 

Military  caste  of  St.  Thomas  Nestorian 
Christians,  240 ;  Portuguese  efforts  at 
their  conversion  to  Rome,  241. 

Military  Traitsactions  in  Lndostan,  by 
Orme,  quoted,  379  (footnote)  ;  380 
(footnote  2). 

Mill,  James,  Hist07'y  of  British  fndia, 
quoted,  314  (footnote  3)  ;  365  (foot- 
note 2)  ;  379  (footnote) ;  383  (foot- 
note). 

Millets,  Statistics  of  cultivation  of,  and 
chief  varieties,  487,  4S8,  489. 

Mdls  by  water-power  in  the  Himalayas,  9. 

Mineral  oils.  42  ;  petroleum  wells  and 
oil-refining  companies  in  Burma.  626, 
627  ;  petroleum  in  Assam  and  the 
Punjab,  627. 

Minerals  and  Mines. — See  Mines  and 
Minerals. 

Mines  and  Minerals,  chap.  xxi.  pp.  618- 
630.  Indian  iron,  indigenous  methods 
of  working,  618  ;  failure  of  English 
efforts,  618,  619  ;  Government  eflbrts, 
619  ;  Indian  coal  and  history  of  Bengal 
coal-mining  (1820-83),  619,  620;  the 
Central  Provinces  and  Bengal  coal- 
fields, 620,  621  ;  coal-beds  in  Assam, 
621  ;  future  of  Indian  coal,  622  ;  salt 
mining  and  manufacture,  622,  623  ; 
saltpetre,  623,  624  ;  gold  -  washing, 
624  ;    gold  -  mining    in    Madras    and 


Mysore,  624,  625  ;  copper  -  mining, 
626  ;  lead,  tin,  antimony,  and  cobalt, 
625,  626;  petroleum  in  Burma,  Assam, 
and  the  Punjab,  626,  627  ;  lime  and 
building  stone,  627,  628  ;  marble,  628  ; 
slate,  628 ;  diamonds  and  precious 
stones,  628,  629  ;  pearl  fi.sheries,  629. 
— See  also  Geology  of  India. 

Miniature  painting,  113. 

Minto,  Earl  of,  Governor  -  General  of 
India  (1807-13);  expeditions  to  Java 
and  Mauritius  ;  embassies  to  the 
Punjab,  Afghanistan,  and  Persia,  399, 
400. 

Mir  Jafar,  Nawab  of  Bengal  (1757-60)  ; 
compensation  for  losses  at  Calcut'a, 
grant  to  the  Company  of  the  zaiiiinddri 
of  the  Twenty-four  Parganas,  Clive's 
Jdglr,  dethronement  of  Mir  Jafar,  383 ; 
385- 

Mir  Jumla's  unsuccessful  expedition  to 
Assam  in  the  reign  of  Aurangzeb 
(1662),  309. 

Mir  Kasim,  Nawab  of  Bengal  (1760-63), 
grant  of  Bardwan,  Midnapur,  ancl 
Chittagong  to  the  Company,  his  quarrel 
with  the  English,  massacre  of  Patna, 
and  defeat  at  Gheriah  and  Uclhanala, 
38s,  386. 

Miracles  of  Buddhist  and  Hindu  religious 
founders,  139,  140,  20S  ;  miracles  of 
the  early  Jesuits,  252. 

Rlisccllaneoiis  Essays,  by  Mr.  B.  H. 
Hodgson,  340  (footnote  l). 

Missionary  efforts  of  Asoka,  146. 

Missions,  Christian,  in  India.  —  See 
Catholic  Missions,  Christianiiy 
IN  India,  Protestant  Missions. 

Mixed  population,  51. 

Model  farms,  the  small  success  hitherto 
attained,  515,  516. 

Mohpani  colliery  in  the  Central  Pro- 
vinces, 620,  621. 

Moira,  Earl  of. — ^Vt' Hastings,  Marquis 
•of. 

Monasteries  (Hindu),  201,  202. 

Monopoly,  Salt,  453;  opium,  455. 

Monson,  Colonel,  his  retreat  before 
Ilolkar,  398. 

Monze,  Cape,  and  promontory  in  .Sind, 
marking  the  extreme  western  boundary 
of  British  India,  3. 

Mornington,  Lord.  — See  Wellesley, 
Marquis  of. 

Moti  Masjid  or  Pearl  Mosque  in  Agra 
Fort,  304. 

]Mudki,  Battle  of,  411. 

Mughal  Empire,  The  (1526-1761  A. D.), 
chap.  xi.  pp.  290-316.  State  of  India 
in  1526,  290  ;  early  life  of  Babar  ( 1482- 
1526),  290;  invasion  of  India  and 
defeat  of  Ibrahim  Lodi  at  Panipat,  290; 
Babar's  conquest  of  Northern   India, 


734 


INDEX. 


(1526-30),  290;  Humayun  (1530-56), 
his  expulsion  from  India  (1540),  and 
reconquest  by  the  second  battle  of 
Panipat  (1556),  290,  291,  and  foot- 
note; Akbar  the  Great  (1556-1605), 
291-300;  Akbar's  work  in  India,  292 
and  footnote;  conciliation  of  the  Hindus, 
293 ;  extension  of  the  Mucjhal  Empire, 
and  reduction  of  the  Rajputs  (1561- 
68),  293  ;  Akbar's  Hindu  officers, 
Rajas  Man  Singh  and  Todar  Mall,  293  ; 
Akbar's  reform  of  Hindu  customs, 
293 ;  reconquest  of  Bengal  and  sub- 
jugation of  Muhammadan  States,  294  ; 
change  of  capital  from  Delhi  to  Agra, 
294  ;  annexation  of  Khandesh  in  the 
Deccan,  294  ;  Akbar's  death,  295  ;  his 
religious  principles  and  new  faitli,  295  ; 
Akbar's  reorganization  of  the  army, 
police,  and  judicial  administration  of 
the  Empire,  296 ;  his  revenue  system 
and  land  revenue,  296,  297,  and  foot- 
note ;  large  totals  of  Mughal  taxation, 
298,  299  ;  Jahangir  (1605-27),  300  and 
footnote ;  Rajput  revolts,  301  ;  the 
Empress  Nur  Jahan,  301  ;  Jahangir's 
personal  character,  justice,  and  religion, 
301,  302;  Shah  Jahan  (1628-58),  302- 
305  ;  loss  of  Kandahar,  303  ;  Muglial 
conquests  in  the  Deccan,  303,  304 ; 
Shah  Jahan's  buildings,  the  Taj  Mahal, 
the  Jama  and  Moti  ^lasjids,  and  palace 
at  Delhi,  304,  305 ;  rebellion  of  Prince 
Aurangzeb,  and  deposition  of  Shah 
Jahan  (1657-58),  305;  revenues  of 
Shah  Jahan,  305  ;  Aurangzeb's  usurpa- 
tion and  reign  (1658-1707),  306-312; 
murder  of  his  brothers,  307  ;  rise  of  the 
Maratha  power,  307,  308  ;  Aurangzeb's 
southern  campaign  and  twenty  years' 
war  with  the  Marathas,  308  ;  Aurang- 
zeb's '  Grand  Army '  worn  out  in  the 
struggle  (1705),  his  despair  and  death 
(1707),  308,  309;  Mir  Jumla's  dis- 
astrous expedition  to  Assam,  306  ; 
Aurangzeb's  bigoted  policy,  and 
oppressicm  of  the  Hindus,  309  ;  revolt 
of  the  Rajputs,  309,  310;  Aurangzeb's 
revenues  and  land-tax,  310,  311; 
character  of  Aurangzeb,  312  ;  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Mughal  Empire,  the 
six  puppet  kings  (1707  -  20),  312, 
313;  independence  of  the  Deccan,  of 
Oudh,  and  of  the  Rajput  States,  314; 
oppressions  of  the  Sikhs,  314;  the 
Maratha  chaiith,  314;  Persian  and 
Afghan  invasions  from  the  north,  314, 
315;  third  battle  of  Panipat  (1761), 
and  fall  of  the  Mughal  Empire,  315  ; 
the  last  of  the  Mughals  (1862),  316. 
Muhammad  of  Ghor,  the  first  king  of 
the  Ghor  dynasty  in  India  (1186-1206), 
275-278 ;    his   conquests   in   Northern 


India  and  overthrow  of  the  Rajput 
clans,  275,  276  ;  subjugation  of  Bengal 
and  defeat  of  its  last  independent 
Hindu  king  (1203  A.D.),  277,  278. 

Muhammad  Tughlak,  second  king  of 
the  Tughlak  dynasty  (1324-51  A.D.), 
283-285  ;  expeditions  to  the  south, 
283  ;  his  cruelties,  enforced  change  of 
capital,  revolts,  revenue  exactions,  284, 
285  ;   '  man-hunts,'  284,  285. 

Muhammadan  architecture,  1 12;  304. 

Muhammadan  conquest  of  India  only 
partial  and  temporary,  270. 

Muhammadan  population  of  India,  51  ; 
also  Appendix  V.,  693. 

Muhammadan  States  of  the  Deccan 
(1489-168S  A.D.),  288. 

Muir,  Dr.  John,  Sanskrit  Texts,  quoted, 
81  (footnote  2)  ;  84  (footnote  3)  ;  94 
(footnote)  ;  212  (footnote  4)  ;  334  (foot- 
notes I  and  2). 

Mulberry  cultivation  in  Bengal,  513. 

Mules,  521. 

Muller,  Professor  yi.a.x,  History  of  Sanskrit 
Literature,  translation  of  Rig  -  Veda, 
83  (footnotes  i  and  2)  ;  84  (footnotes)  ; 
85  (footnote)  ;  Chips  from  a  German 
Workshop,  83  (footnote  I);  127  (foot- 
note 3) ;  142  (footnote  2) ;  151  (foot- 
note 2)  ;  Contemporary  Review  for 
July  1870,  151  (footnote  3);  Sacred 
Books  of  the  East,  vol.  xxii.,  the  Jaina 
Sutras,  by  Hermann  Jacobi,  16 1  (foot- 
notes 4,  5,6,  7,  and  8). 

Mundas,  an  aboriginal  tribe  of  Kols  in 
Chutia  Nagpur,  71  (footnote). 

Mundavers,  a  wandering  pastoral  tribe  in 
the  Anamalai  Hills,  55. 

Municipal   administration  and    statistics, 

455-457  ;  470. 

Muiiro,  Major  (afterwards  Sir  Hector), 
Suppression  of  the  first  Sepoy  Mutiny 
by,  386  ;  defeat  of  the  Imperial  and 
Oudh  armies  at  the  battle  of  Baxar,  386. 

Munro,  Sir  Thomas,  introducer  of  the 
rdyat-ikiri  system  of  land  settlement  in 
Madras,  446. 

Murshid  Kuli  Khan,  Nawab  of  Bengal, 
his  transfer  of  the  capital  from  Dacca 
to  Murshidabad,  380,  381. 

Music,  Hindu,  110-112  ;  peculiarities  of 
Indian  music,  iii;  its  modern  revival, 
III,  112. 

Muslin  manufactures  of  Dacca  and 
Madras,  decline  of  industry,  602,  603. 

Mustagh,  pass  over  the  Himalayas  on 
the  trade  route  from  the  Punjab  into 
Eastern  Turkistan,  6. 

Mutiny,  The,  of  1857-58,  417-421  ;  its 
causes,  417,  418;  outbreaks  at  Meerut 
and  Delhi,  419  ;  spread  of  the  revolt, 
419  ;  loyalty  of  the  Sikhs,  419  ;  mas- 
sacre   at    Cawnpur,    420  ;    siege    and 


INDEX. 


735 


relief  of  Lucknow,  420,  421 ;  siege  of 
Delhi,  421;  reduction  of  Oudh,  421; 
campaigns  of  Sir  Colin  Campbell  (Lord 
Clyde)  and  Sir  Hugh  Rose  (Lord 
Strathnairn),  421,  422. 

Myrobalams,  Export  of,  574,  575. 

Mysore,  First  war  with,  a_i;ainst  Haidar 
All  (1780-84),  392;  second  Mysore 
war  (1790-92),  394;  Tipti's  intrigues 
with  France,  and  the  third  Mysore 
war  (1799),  396;  fall  of  Seringapatam, 
and  death  of  Tipu  in  the  breach,  397  ; 
Mysore  taken  under  British  administra- 
tion and  protection,  406  :  rendition  of, 
to  its  ancient  hereditary  Hindu  rulers, 
427,  435- 


N 


Nabhaji   Das,    Hindi   poet   of  the   i6th 
century,  and  author  of  the  Bhaktamala, 

345- 
Nadir  Shah's  invasion  of  India  and  sack 

of  Delhi,  314. 
Nadiya    rivers.     Engineering    works    to 

keep   open   the   navigation    of,    during 

the  dry  season,  552,  553. 
Naga  Hills,  the  most  easterly  offshoot  of 

the  Himalayas,  3. 
Nagas  or   serpent-worshippers,    Ancient 

dynasties  of,  185,  1S6;  204. 
Nagpur,   the  territories  of  the    Maratha 

Blionsla   family  lapsed   to    the    British 

for  want  of  heirs  (1853),  415. 
Nairs,  tribe  of  south-western  India,  their 

polyandry,  55. 
Nalanda,  famous  Buddhist  monastery  of 

the  7th  century  A.D.,  157. 
Nam   Deva,    Marathi   poet   of  the  13th 

century,  346. 
Nana  Sahib,  his  proclamation  as  Peshwa 

at  the  outbreak  of  the  ^lutiny,  and  the 

massacre  of  the  Cawnpur  garrison,  420. 
Nanak   Shah,   the   founder   of   the    Sikh 

religion,  223  ;  410. 
Napier,    Sir    Charles,    conquest    of   Sind 

by  (1843),  409. 
Narayan    Rao,    fifth    Maratha    Peshwa 

(1772),  his  assassination,  321. 
Narrative     of   Political    and    Military 

Transactions  of  British    India  under 

the  Marqziis  of  Hastings,  by  Henry  T. 

Prinsep,  quoted,  317  (footnote  l). 
Native  States  of  India,  their  relation  to 

the  British  paramount  power,  43  ;  area 

and  population  of  the  thirteen  groups 

of  States,  45. 
Nats,    a  semi-Hinduized    gipsy   tribe    of 

Lower  Bengal,  71. 
Natural  calamities. — See  Famines. 
Navigable  canals,  553,  554. 
Navak  and  Palegar  chieftains  of  Southern 

India,  288. 


Nelson,  Mr.  J.,  Hindu  Law  as  admini- 
stered by  the  Hi^h  Court  of  Judicature 
at  Madras,  quoted,   117  (footnote  i)  ; 

195  (footnote  2). 
Nepal,    War  with,   400 ;    Gurkha  assist- 
ance in  the  Mutiny,  421  ;  trade  with, 

587-589. 
Nestorianism  among  early  Indian  Chris- 
tians,   236  ;    Its    wide    diffusion,    236, 

237  ;    its    suppression    and    downiall, 

241-243;    Nestorian   remnants,    242, 

243- 
Nicholson,    General,    his    death    at    the 

storm  of  Delhi,  421. 
Nikaia,  town  founded  by  Alexander  the 

Great  and  identified  with  the  modern 

town  of  Mong  in  Gujrat  District,  165. 
Nil  Darpan,  a  famous   modern    Bengali 

play,  127  ;  354. 
Nilgai  or  blue  cow,  65  7. 
Nilgiri  hills  in  Southern  India,  36. 
Nirvana,  Buddhist  doctrine  of,  142. 
Nizam  Shahi,   Muhammadan  dynastv  in 

Southern  India  (1490- 1636  a.d.  ),  288. 
Nobilis,  Robert  de,  founder  of  the  Madras 

Jesuits  (1606-56),  245. 
Nomadic    cultivation,  9  ;    47,    48  ;    522  ; 

the    merits     and     destructiveness     of 

nomadic  tillage,  528. 
Non-Ar)^an  or  aboriginal  races,  51,  52. — 

See  also  Aboriginal   Tribes,  chap. 

iii.  and  Appendix  V.,  693. 
Non-Aryan  rites  merging  into  Hindu'sm, 

207. 
Non-Asiatic  population  of  British  India, 

Appendix  VII.,  695. 
Normal  schools,  479. 
Northbrook,    Earl  of.   Viceroy  of  India 

(1872-76),  dethronement  of  the  Gaek- 

war  of  Baroda  ;  visit  of  the  Prince  of 

Wales  to  India,  425,  426. 
North-West  passage,  Attempts  to  reach 

India  by  way  of,  363. 
Nott,  General,  his  march  from  Kandahar 

to  Kabul  (1842),  408,  409. 
N'uiiiismata  Orientalia  (Ceylon  fasc),  167 

(footnote  2). 
Nur  Jahan,  the  Queen  of  the  Emperor 

Jahangir,  301. 
Nyaya,  one  of  the  six  darsanas  or  Brah- 

manical  schools  of  philosophy,  99. 


Occupation  basis  of  caste,  ig6,  197. 
Ochterlony,   General,    his    campaigns    in 

Nepal  (1814-15),  400,  401. 
Oil-seeds,  Cultivation  of,  489  ;  export  of, 

573'  574- 
Oldenberg,  Professor  Hermann,  Buddha, 

his    Life,     his    Doctrine,     his    Order, 

quoted,  161  (tootncte  3). 


736 


INDEX. 


Opium,  Excise  duly  on,  455  ;  cultivation 
of,  in  Bengal  and  Mahva,  498,  499  ; 
exjiort  of,  499  ;  Bengal  opium  system, 

499- 

Origin  of  Christianity  in  India,  its  con- 
nection with  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle, 
229. 

Orissa,  by  W.  W.  Hunter,  quoted,  91 
(footnote) ;  173  (footnote  i) ;  193  (foot- 
note I) ;  194  (footnote  5) ;  215  (foot- 
note i);  224  (footnote  4);  225  (foot- 
notes 2,  4,  and  6)  ;  343  (footnote  2). 

Orissa  Province,  annexe^l  to  the  Mughal 
Empire  by  Akhar's  Hindu  General, 
Raja  Todar  Mall  (1574),  294:  ceded 
to  the  British  (1803)  by  the  Nagpur 
Bhonsia  on  the  termination  of  the 
second  Maratha  war,  398  ;  the  famine 
of  1866,  424  ;  542  ;  settlement  of  the 
land     revenue,    445 ;     canal     system, 

534- 

Orme's  Military  Transactions  in  Indos- 
tan,  quoted,  379  (footnote) ;  380  (foot- 
note 2). 

Ostend  East  India  Company  established 
1722;  its  factories  at  Covelong  on  the 
]\Iadras  coast,  and  at  Bankipur  on  the 
Hugli,  372-374  ;  political  objects  of 
the  Ostend  Company,  373,  374  ;  de- 
struction of  the  Bankipur  settlement 
by  the  Muhammadans  (1733),  374; 
bankruptcy  and  downfall  of  the  Ostend 
Company  '(1784-93), 374. 

Oudh,  Sale  of  Allahabad  and  Kora  to  the 
Wazir  of,  by  Warren  Hastings  (1773), 
389 ;  the  Rohilla  war,  390 ;  plunder 
of  the  Oudh  Begams,  390,  391. 

Oudh,  Annexation  of,  415  ;  Lord  Dal- 
housie's  justification  of  the  measure, 
416;  the  mutiny  in,  421  ;  inquiry  into 
the  status  of  the  peasantry  in,  424. 

Outrani,  Sir  James,  his  works  among  the 
Bhil-  of  Kliandoh,  72,  73  ;  annexation 
of  Oudli,  416  ;  relief  of  Lucknow,  420. 

Overcrowded  and  under-peopled  districts, 
46,  47. 

Owen,  Sidney  J-.  Selections  from  the 
Despatches  of  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley, 
quoted,  317  (footnote  l)  ;  Selections 
from  the  Indian  Despatches  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  quoted,  317  (foot- 
note i). 


Pal)  hills,  a  southern  offshoot  of  the 
North-Western  Himalayas,  forming  a 
portion  of  the  lioundary  between  India 
and  Baluchistan,  7. 

Paikasht  rdyats,  or  temporary  cultivators, 
48. 

Painting,  Indian  art  of,  113. 


Palegar  and  Nayak  chieftains  of  Southern 

India,  288. 
Palghat  Pass,  a  remarkable  break  or  gap 

in  the  Western  Ghats,  37. 
Palitana,  sacred  temple  city  of  the  Jain>, 

159- 

Palm-leaf  writings,  102. 

Palms,  \'arieties  of,  491. 

Pan  lavas,  the  five  brethren  of  the  Maha- 
bharata  ;  their  quarrel  and  struggle  with 
the  Kauravas,  119-121. 

Pandya,  ancient  Hindu  dynasty  in 
Southern  India,  286. 

Panini,  the  compiler  of  the  Sanskrit 
grammar  (350  B.C.),  100  ;  336. 

Panipat,  celebrated  battlefield  in  Northern 
India  ;  defeat  of  Ibrahim  Lodi  by 
Babar  (1526  A.D.),  290;  defeat  of 
Afghans  by  Akbar  and  restoration  of 
Humayiin  to  the  throne  (1556  A.D. ), 
291  ;  overthrow  of  the  Marathas  by  the 
Afghans  under  Ahmad  Shah  Durani 
(1761  A.D.),  315;  321. 

Panna,  Diamond  mines  of,  629. 

Pantcenus,  the  Alexandrian  stoic,  his 
evidence  as  to  Christianity  in  India  at 
the  end  of  the  2nd  century  A.D.,  235. 

Paper-making,  617. 

Parameskvara,  tiie  one  First  Cause,  or 
Supreme  Deity  of  Hinduism,  227. 

Parasnath,  hill  in  Bengal,  held  sacred  by 
the  Jains,  35  ;   159. 

Parasurama,  the  sixth  incarnation  of 
Vishnu,  his  legendary  war  of  extermina- 
tion with  the  Kshattriyas,  94. 

Parochial  organization  of  Portuguese 
India,  247. 

Partition  of  the  Gangeiic  Valley  by  Clive 

(1765),  387- 

Passes  of  the  Himalayas,  the  Khaibar, 
Kuram,  Gvvalari,  Tal,  and  Bolan 
passes,  29  ;  of  the  Western  Ghats,  the 
Bhor,  Thai,  and  Palghat  passes,  36,  37. 

Patala,  town  founded  by  Alexander  the 
Great,  and  identified  with  the  modern 
city  of  Haidarabad,  the  historic  capital 
of  Sind,  166. 

Pathdn  Kings  of  Delhi,  by  Mr.  E. 
Thomas,  quoted,  271  (footnote)  ;  279, 
280.  281  (footnotes)  ;  283  (footnotes  i 
and  2);  284  (footnote  i)  ;  285  (foot- 
note 3);  287  (footnote  2) ;  291  (foot- 
note). 

Patna,  East  India  Company's  Agency 
at  (1620),  367;  massacre  of,  386; 
trade  of,  595,  596. 

Pearl  fisheries,  629. 

Pegu,  Annexation  of,  as  the  result  of  the 
second  Burmese  war,  413,  414. 

Peninsular  India,  Geology  of,  634-639. 

Permanent  Settlement,  The,  of  Lord 
Cornwallis  and  Sir  John  Shore,  393, 
394- 


INDEX. 


737 


Peshwas,  the  rise  and  progress  of  their 
power  (1718-1818),  320-324;  annexa- 
tion of  the  Peshwa's  dominions,  402. 

Petroleum  or  mineral  oil,  42  ;  mines  and 
oil-refining  Companies  in  Burma,  626, 
627. 

Petty  kingdoms  of  ancient  India  in  the 
time  of  Megasthenes,  170. 

Phallic  emblems  in  Hinduism,  204,  205. 

Philosophical  and  terrible  aspects  of  Siva- 
worship,  210,  211. 

Philosophy  of  the  Brahmans,  its  six 
darsanas  or  schools,  98,  99. 

Physical  aspects  of  India,  chap.  i.  pp. 
1-42.  General  outline,  I  ;  origin  of 
the  name  of  India,  1-3;  boundaries, 
3,  4  ;  the  three  regions  of  India,  4. 
First  region,  the  Himalayas,  i-io  ;  the 
Himalayan  wall  and  trough,  4-6 ; 
Himalayan  passes,  6  ;  offshoots  of  the 
Himalayas,  6  ;  the  gateways  of  India, 
6,  7  ;  Himalayan  water-supply  and 
rainfall,  7  ;  scenery,  7,  8  ;  vegetation 
and  forests,  7  ;  cultivation,  7,  8  ;  irri- 
gation and  mill  power,  9  ;  saleable 
produce,  9,  10 ;  fauna  of  the  Hima- 
layas, 10.  Second  region,  the  northern 
river  plains,  10-34.  The  three  river 
systems  of  India,  10,  il  —  (i)  the 
Indus  and  Sutlej,  11,  12;  lower 
course  of  the  Indus,  12,  13  ;  (2)  the 
Tsan-pu  or  Brahmaputra,  13-16  ;  the 
Kailas  watershed,  13 ;  the  Brahma- 
putra tributaries  in  Assam,  13,  14  ;  the 
Brahmaputra  in  Bengal,  14,  15  ; 
Brahmaputra  silt  deposits  and  islands, 
14,  15;  changes  in  Brahmaputra 
course,  15  ;  the  Brahmaputra  as  a 
high-road,  15,  16 ;  (3)  the  Gangetic 
river  system,  16-29;  the  growth  of  the 
Ganges  and  its  discharge  at  different 
points,  17 ;  its  great  tributary  the 
Jumna,  17  ;  sanctity  of  the  Ganges, 
its  places  of  pilgrimage,  17,  i^  ;  the 
Ganges  as  water  -  carrier,  fertilizer, 
and  great  water  highway  of  Bengal, 
19-20 ;  traffic  on  the  Ganges,  20 ; 
great  Gangetic  cities,  20,  21  ;  first 
and  second  stages  in  the  life  of  a 
great  Indian  river  as  a  silt  collector, 
21,  22  ;  loss  of  carrying  power  in 
second  stage,  22  ;  third  stage  as  a 
land-maker,  21,  22  ;  the  delta  of  Bengal, 
and  of  Gangetic  deltaic  distributaries, 
23;  character  of  a  deltaic  river,  23,  24; 
section  of  a  deltaic  channel  of  the 
Ganges,  23 ;  junction  of  the  Ganges,  the 
Brahmaputra,  and  the  Meghna — their 
combined  delta,  24  ;  last  scene  in  the 
life  of  an  Indian  river,  land-making 
in  the  estuary,  24,  25  ;  Bengal,  the 
'  gift  of  the  Ganges,'  in  the  same 
sense  as  Egypt  the  '  gift  of  the  Nile,' 


25 ;  size  of  the  Bengal  delta,  25 ;  succes- 
sive depressions  of  the  delta,  26,  27  ; 
its  subterranean  structure,  26  (foot- 
note) ;  amount  of  silt  brought  down  by 
the  Ganges  at  Ghazipur,  27  ;  estimated 
silt  of  united  river  at  the  delta,  28  ; 
time  required  to  construct  the  Bengal 
delta,  28  ;  river  irrigation  by  means  of 
canals,  28,  29  ;  the  rivers  as  highways 
of  trade,  29  ;  saline  deposits  from 
canal  irrigation,  29  ;  changes  of  river 
beds  and  deserted  river  capitals,  30 ;  the 
'  bore '  of  the  Hugh  and  Meghna, 
30,  31  ;  destruction  of  river  -  side 
villages,  31,  32;  poetry  of  the  Indian 
river  names,  32  ;  crops  of  the  river 
plains  of  North- Western  Bengal  and  the 
delta,  32,  T,T^ ;  scenery  of  the  river  plains, 
33,  34.  Third  region,  the  southern 
table-land  or  the  Deccan,  34-42  ;  its 
three  supporting  mountain  walls,  35  ; 
the  Vindhya  mountains  and  their 
ranges,  the  ancient  barrier  between 
Northern  and  Southern  India,  35,  36  ; 
the  Eastern  and  Western  Ghats,  36  ; 
the  central  triangular  plateau,  36  ;  the 
Bhor  Ghat,  36 ;  the  Thai  Ghat,  37  ; 
the  Palghat  pass,- 37 ;  rivers  of  the 
inner  plateau,  37,  38;  historical  signi- 
ficance of  the  Eastern  and  Western 
Ghats,  38  ;  rainfall  of  the  Deccan,  38  ; 
the  four  forest  regions  of  Southern 
India,  38-40 ;  scenery  of  Southern 
India,  40  ;  crops,  40,  41  ;  minerals,  41 ; 
recapitulation  of  the  three  regions  of 
India,  their  races  and  languages,  41  ; 
British  Burma,  42. 

Pillar  and  Rock  inscriptions  of  Asoka, 
145  (footnote)  ;   146. 

Pindari  freebooters,  Expedition  against 
the  (1817),  401. 

Pippli,  early  seaboard  settlement  and 
port  of  the  East  India  Company,  now 
far  inland,  368,  369. 

Plassey,  Battle  of  (1757),  382. 

Police  statistics,  472. 

Pollock,  his  march  from  the  Punjab  to 
Kabul  (1842),  409. 

Polyandry  among  the  Nairs  and  Hima- 
layan tribes,  55  ;  polyandry  of  Drau- 
padi,  the  wife  of  the  five  Pandava 
brethren  in  the  Mahabharata,  121  ; 
polyandry  in  the  Hindu  marriage  law, 
195  ;  modern  survivals  of,  195. 

Pondicherri,  Roman  Catholic  Mission, 
259  ;  ineffectual  siege  of,  by  Admiral 
Boscawen's  fleet  and  a  land  force  under 
Major  Lawrence  {1748),  379  ;  siege  of, 
and  capitulation  to,  Sir  Eyre  Coote 
(1760),  380. 

Poona,  Treaty  of  (1S17),  402. 

Popham,  Captain,  storm  of  Gwalior  for- 
tress during  the  first  Maratha  war,  391. 

3  A 


738 


INDEX. 


Popular  Vishnuism,  217. 

Population  of  India,  chap.  ii.  pp.  43-52. 
General  survey  of  the  people,  43  ;  the 
feudatory  chiefs  and  their  poweis,  43  ; 
the  twelve  British  Provinces,  44 ; 
Census  of  1872  and  of  1S81,  44,  45  ; 
population  tables  of  British,  Feudatory, 
and  Foreign  India,  44,  45  ;  density 
of  the  population,  46  ;  absence  of 
large  towns,  46  ;  overcrowded  dis- 
tricts, 46,  47  ;  under-peopled  tracts, 
47  ;  immobility  of  the  Indian  peasant, 

47  ;    nomadic    system    of   tillage,   47, 

48  ;  relation  of  labour  to  land  in  the 
last  century,  and  at  the  present  day, 
48,  49  ;  serfdom,  49  ;  unequal  division 
of  the  people,  49,  50 ;  increase  of 
jiopuiation  since  1872,  50  ;  ethnical 
history  of  India,  51  ;  fourfold  division 
of  the  people,  into  Aryans,  non-Aryans, 
mixed  Hindus,  and  jMuhammadans,  51, 
52  ;  population  tables  for  1881,  51  (foot- 
note), and  Appendices  I.-X.,  689-703. 

Portuguese  in  India,  356-361  ;  Covilham, 
357 ;  Vasco  da  Gama,  357,  35S ;  Cabral, 
358 ;  Francisco  de  Almeida,  359  ; 
Albuquerque,  359,  360 ;  oppressions 
of  the  Portuguese,  359,  360  ;  downfall 
of  the  Portuguese  power,  360 ;  Portu- 
guese Indian  posses>ions  in  1S71,  361  ; 
mixed  descendants,  361  ;  defeat  of  the 
Portuguese  fleet  at  Swally  off  Surat 
(1615),  366;  temporary  expulsion  of 
the  Portuguese  from  Bengal,  368,  369; 
early  Portuguese  trade  with  India,  560. 

Porus,  Defeat  of,  by  Alexander  the  Great, 
164. 

Post-Vedic  Gods,  Rise  of,  97,  98  ;  the 
Hindu  triad,  98. 

Potato  cultivation  in  the  Himalayas,  9. 

Pottery  manufactures,  608  ;  628. 

Practical  faith  of  the  Hindus,  its  toler- 
ance and  fairness  to  Christianity,  226, 
227. 

Pre-Aryan  kingdoms  in  Northern  India, 
184  ;  pre-Aryan  civilisation,  328,  329. 

Pre  -  Buddhistic  Scythian  influences  in 
India,  connection  of  the  Horse  Sacrifice 
with  the  Human  Sacrifice  of  pre-Buddh- 
istic  India,  175,  176;  183,  184;  Scythic 
and  N.-iga  intluences  on  Hinduism,  and 
on  the  religions  and  domestic  life  of 
modern  India,  189,  199. 

Precious  metals  in  India,  imports  of 
treasure,  562,  568,  569  ;  gold-mining, 
624,  625. 

Precious  stones,  9  ;  606  ;  628,  629  ;  639. 

Predatory  hill  races ;  their  conversion 
from  marauding  tribes  into  peaceful 
cultivators  and  good  soldiers,  71-73. 

Presbyterian  Missions,  261. 

Primary  education,  477,  478. 

Primitive  Aryan  burial,  85-S7. 


Prince  of  Wales'  visit  to  India  (1S75-76), 

426. 
Prinsep,  Henry  T.,  ISiarrative  of  Political 
and  Military   Transactions  of  British 
India  under  the  Marquis  of  Hastings, 
quoted,  317  (footnote). 

Proclamanon  of  the  Queen  as  Empress  of 
India,  426. 

Products  and  agriculture. — See  Agricul- 
ture AND  Products. 

Protestant  Missions  in  India,  259-269  ; 
first  translation  of  the  Bible  into  the 
vernacular,  260;  Schwartz,  Kiernander, 
Marshman,  Carey,  and  Ward,  260,  261 ; 
opposition  of  the  Company  to  Christian 
missionaries,  260  ;  withdrawal  of  the 
Company's  opposition,  260,  261  ; 
Bishopric  of  Calcutta,  261  ;  statistics  of 
Protestant  Missions,  261-264. 

Provincial  Administration,  '  Regulation  ' 
and  '  Non-Regulation  '  territory-.  Dis- 
trict officers  and  their  duties,  434-437. 

Prussian  and  Embden  East  India  Com- 
panies (1750  and  1753),  Dutch  and 
English  jealousy  of,  and  their  down- 
fall, 374-376. 

Public  Works  expenditure,  469,  470. — 
See  also  Means  of  Communication, 
Railway  System,  Roads,  Canals, 
etc. 

Puliars,  a  wild  aboriginal  tribe  in  the 
Anamalai  Hills,  Madras,  55. 

Pulses,  Cultivation  of,  489. 

Puranas,  The,  their  place  in  Indian 
literature,  216,  217. 


R 


Race  origin  of  caste  modified  by  '  occu- 
pation'  and  'locality,'   192,  193. 

Raigarh,  enthronement  of  Sivaji  as  an 
independent  monarch  at,  in  the  Deccan 
(1674),  319. 

Railway  system  of  India,  inaugurated 
by  Lord  Dalhousie,  545  ;  extended  by 
Lord  Mayo,  545,  546  ;  the  eight 
guaranteed  trunk  lines,  546,  547  >  State 
and  '  Assisted '  railways,  547,  548  ; 
railways  in  Native  States,  548,  549  ; 
statistics  of  traffic  and  capital  invested, 

549,  550.  ^    , 

Rainfall,  Himalayan,  7  ;  Western  Ghats, 

38  ;  statistics  of  rainfall  for  435  Indian 

stations,  649,  650. 
Rajputana   literature  and   sacred  poetry, 

344- 
Rajputs,  their  reputed  Scythian  origin, 
1 80  ;  number  of  Rajput  castes  in  modern 
India,  194  ;  distribution  of  Rajputs  in 
the  1 2th  century  A.D.,  276,  277  ; 
Rajput  revolts  against  the  Slave  kings, 
280;  against  the  Khilji  dynasty,  282  ; 


INDEX. 


739 


against  the  Tughlak  dynasty,  284 ; 
conciliation  of  Rajputs  by  Akbar,  293  ; 
revolt  against  Jahangi'r,  301  ;  against 
Aiirangzeb,  309,  310. 

Rama,  the  hero  of  the  Sanskrit  epic 
Kamayana,  123,  124. 

Rrimanand,  Vishnuite  religious  reformer 
(1300- 1400  A.D.)  ;  his  low-caste  dis- 
ciples, 218. 

Ramanuja,  Vishnuite  religious  reformer 
(1150  A.n.),  217. 

Ramayana,  the  Sanskrit  epic  relating  to 
the  Aryan  advance  into  Southern  India, 
121,  122  ;  the  story  of  Rama,  his  exile 
together  with  his  \\ife  Sita  ;  the  war 
with  the  aboriginal  king  of  Ceylon,  and 
triumphant  return,  123,  124. 

Ram  Alohan  Rai,  theistic  religious  re- 
former and  prose  religious  writer,  353. 

Ram  Prasad  Sen,  court  poet  of  Nadi)a 
in  the  iSth  century,  352. 

Ranjit  Singh,  the  founder  of  the  Sikh 
kingdom,  410,  41 1. 

Rdyatwdri  settlement  of  the  land  in 
Madras,  445,  446  ;  growth  of  the 
Madras  cultivator  into  a  proprietor, 
447  ;  extension  of  tillage,  447  ;  reduc- 
tion of  average  land-tax,  448. 

Raynal,  Abbe,  Histojy  of  the  Settlements 
and  Trade  of  the  Etii-opeans  in  the  East 
and  West  Indies,  quoted,  374  (footnote). 

Raziya,  Empress  of  Delhi  (1236-39),  the 
only  lady  who  ever  occupied  that 
throne,  279. 

Reconquest  of  India  from  the  Muham- 
madans  by  the  Hindus  ( 1 707-61  A.D. ), 
270. 

Reform  of  Hindu  customs  by  Akbar,  293. 

'  Regulation  '  and  '  Non  -  Regulation  ' 
Provinces,  435. 

Religion  of  the  Hindus,  by  Dr.  H.  H. 
Wilson,  quoted,  201  (footnote  2)  ;  205 
(footnote  i) ;  206  ((ootnote  2);  208 
(footnote  2)  ;  210  (footnote  2)  ;  213 
(footnote  i)  ;  221  (footnote  2)  ;  223 
(footnotes  3  and  4) ;  225  (footnote  5). 

Religions  of  India,  by  Dr.  Barth,  quoted, 
161  (footnote  2). 

Religious  classification  of  the  population 
of  British  India,  Appendix  V.,  693. 

Rennel,  Major,  map  of  Bengal  in  1765,  15. 

Rent  Commission  of  Bengal  (1879),  and 
its  reforms  in  the  extension  of  tenant- 
right  and  compensation  for  disturbance, 

444,  445- 

Repoj-t  en  the  Miscellaneous  Old  Records 
in  the  India  Office,  by  Sir  George  Bird- 
wood,  358  (footnote  2) ;  360  (footnote 
1);  364  (footnotes  i  and  2);  368 
(footnote) ;  370  (footnote). 

Reptiles,  660  ;  poisonous  serpents,  and 
deaths  from  snake-bite,  660. 

Rezenue  Resources  of  the  Mughal  Empire, 


by  Mr.  E.  Tliomas,  quoted,  271  (foot- 
note) ;  297  (footnote  2)  ;  299  ;  301 
(footnote  i);  304,  305  (footnote);  311 
(footnotes). 

Revenue  system  of  British  India,  the 
land-tax,  438-441,  452  ;  salt-duty,  453, 
454;  excise  and  opium,  453-455  ;  muni- 
cipal revenues,  455-457  ;  revenue  and 
expenditure  of  British  India,  455-470. 

Revenue  of  the  Mughal  Empire  under 
Akbar,  297 ;  growth  of  the  Mughal 
revenues  (i  593-1 761  A.D.),  269. 

Revue  de  P Histoire  des  Religions,  by  Dr. 
Barth,  quoted,  161  (footnote  2). 

Rhinoceros,  The  Indian,  656. 

Rice  cultivation  in  Bengal,  32,  33  ;  in 
other  Provinces  of  India,  its  numerous 
varieties,  485  ;  out-turn,  485,  486  ; 
export  of,  572  ;  export  duty  on,  573. 

'  Right-hand  '  and  '  left-hand  '  castes  of 
Aladras,  196,  197. 

Rig- Veda,  the  earliest  Sanskrit  hymnal, 
77,  88  ;  its  antiquity,  77,  78  ;  caste  and 
widow-burning  unknown,  78  ;  the  story 
of  the  Aiyan  advance  into  India,  79  ; 
Aryan  civilisation  in  the  Veda,  79  ;  the 
gods  of  the  Veda,  79-81  ;  Vedic  con- 
ceptions of  the  Deity,  the  modern  blood- 
loving  gods  unknown,  82 ;  Vedic 
hymns  and  prayers,  S4-S6  ;  primitive 
Aryan  form  of  burial,  84  ;  cremation 
substituted  for  burial,  84,  85  ;  Vedic 
legend  of  Vama,  the  king  of  death, 
85  ;  the  Vedic  farewell  to  the  dead, 
85,  86. 

Ripon,  Marquis  of  (Viceroy  of  India, 
1880-84) ;  conclusion  of  the  Afghan 
war,  amendment  of  criminal  procedure, 
revenue  reforms.  Education  Commis- 
sion, abolition  of  customs  duties,  Ben- 
gal Tenancy  Bill,  427-429. 

Rise  of  the  Maratha  power,  307,  30S. 
— See  also  chap.  xii. ,  '  The  Maratha 
Power,  317-324. 

River  communications,  15,    16;   19,   20; 

551-553- 

River  plains  of  India,  10-34 ;  the  great 
rivers,  Ganges,  Jumna,  Indus  (wi  h 
Sutlej),  and  Brahmaputra,  11-20  ;  the 
different  stages  in  the  life  of  an  Indian 
river,  21-23  !  the  Bengal  delta  anti 
process  of  land-making,  23-28  ;  rivers 
as  irrigators  and  highways,  28,  29 ; 
destructive  floods,  29-32 ;  poetry  of 
Indian  river  names,  32  ;  crops  and 
scenery  of  the  river  plains  and  the 
Bengal  delta,  32-34. 

River  systems  of  Northern  India,  10,  11  ; 
of  Southern  India,  37,  38. 

River  traffic  on  the  Ganges  and  Gangetic 
channels,  and  of  the  port  of  Calcutta, 
20. 

Roads,  old  military  routes,  the  '  Grand 


740 


INDEX. 


Trunk  Road,'  inland  route  from  Bom- 
bay, extension  of  minor  roads,  550,  551. 

Roberts,  Sir  Frederick,  his  march  from 
Kabul  to  Kandahar  and  defeat  of 
Ayub  Khan,  427. 

Rock  Edicts  of  Asoka,  144,  145  (foot- 
note) :   146  and  footnote. 

Rockhili,  Mr.  W.  Woodville,  Life  of  the 
Buddha,  and  the  ea7-ly  Hist07y  of  his 
Order,  derived  from  Tibetan  works, 
and  translated  by,  quoted,  137  (foot- 
note 2);  138  (footnote  2);  154  (foot- 
note 2)  ;  160  (footnote  2) ;  176  (fool- 
note  i) ;  177  (footnotes). 

Roe,  Sir  Thomas,  first  British  Ambassador 
to  India,  in  the  reign  of  Jahangir 
(1615  A.D),  301;  367. 

Rohilkhand  and  Bijnaur  canal,  533. 

Rohilla  war,  390. 

Roman  Catholics,  Distribution  of,  in 
India,  257  ;  the  Verapoli  vicariate,  257 ; 
Roman  and  Syrian  Catholic  population 
of  India,  257-259  ;  Catholic  progress, 
colleges  and  schools,  257-259.  — See 
also  Catholic  Missions. 

Roman  trade  with  India  (190  a.  D.),  234. 

Rose,  Sir  Hugh  (Lord  Strathnairn), 
campaign  in  Central  India,  421,  422. 

Rotation  of  crops,  483. 

Roth,  Professor,  '  Indische  Medicin, 
Karaka.'  published  in  the  Zeitschrift 
dcr  Deiitschen  Alorgenldndischen 
Gcsellschaft  Jor  1872,  quoted,  1 10 
(footnote). 

Rural  population,  46;  proportion  of  town 
to  rural  population,  46;  number  and 
population  of  villages  and  towns, 
Appendix  II.,  690. 


Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  by  Professor 
Max  Mviller,  quoted,  161  (footnotes  4, 
5,  6,  7,  and  S). 

Safed  Koh,  mountain  range  forming  a 
portion  of  the  western  boundary'  be- 
tween British  India  and  Afghanistan, 
3;  6. 

Safflower,  Export  of,  574. 

Sagar  Island  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges, 
a  celebrated  place  of  pilgrimage,  17,  18. 

Sahu,  son  and  nominal  successor  of  Sam- 
bhaji,  319,  320. 

Saidapet,  Government  model  farm  at,  in 
Madras,  recently  closed,  516;  agri- 
cultural school  at,  516. 

Saka  or  Scythian  era  (78  A.D. ),  181. 

Sakhi  Sarwar,  place  of  pilgrimage  in  the 
Punjab,  sacred  both  to  Hindus  and 
Muhammadans,  203,  204. 

Sakta  or  Tantrik  sect  of  Siva-worshippers, 
214. 


Sakuntala,  famous  Sanskrit  drama,  126. 

Sakya  race  customs,  178. 

Salbai,  Treaty  of,  323  ;  392. 

Salim,  Prince,  Akbar's  favourite  son  and 
successor  as  the  Emperor  Jahangir, 
300-302. 

Saline  deposits  from  canal  irrigation,  29. 

Salivahana,  King  of  Southern  India,  his 
wars  with  the  Scythians,  181. 

Salt  administration,  452  ;  sources  of 
supply  and  systems  of  manufacture, 
453)  454  >  t^e  Madras  monopoly,  453  ; 
equalization  of  duty,  453,  454  ;  yield 
of  salt  duty,  468  ;  the  Kajputana  salt 
lakes,  and  Punjab  salt  mines,  622,  623. 

Saltpetre,  Manufacture  of,  623,  624. 

Salt  range,  Geolog\-  of,  633. 

Sama-Veda,  The,  88. 

Sambalpur,  Diamonds  of,  628. 

Sambhaji,  son  and  successor  of  Sivaji, 
put  to  death  by  Aurangzeb,  319. 

Sam  vat  and  Sakaeras(57and78A.D.),  181. 

Sanctity  of  the  Ganges,  17,  18. 

Sandwip  island,  Slavery  in,  49. 

Sankara  Acliar}a,  a  Sivaite  religious  re- 
former (9th  century  a.d.),  209,  210. 

Sankhya,  one  of  the  six  darsaiias  or 
Brahmanical  schools  of  philosophy,  99. 

Sanskrit  Gra»unar,hy  Professor  Whitney, 
334  (footnote  i). 

Sanskrit  grammar  and  literature,  100-104 ; 
334-336  ;  Panini's  grammar,  100,  loi  ; 
Sanskrit  and  Prakrit  speech,  101  ; 
Sanskrit  manuscripts,  loi,  102 ;  the 
Indian  Alphabet,  102,  103  ;  Sanskrit 
writings  almost  entirely  verse,  103  ; 
prose  a  forgotten  art,  103,  104 ;  Sans- 
krit dictionaries,  104  ;  evidence  as  to 
whether  Sanskrit  was  ever  a  spoken 
vernacular,  334-336. 

Sanskrit  Texts,  by  Dr.  John  Muir,  quoted, 
81  (footnote  2);  84  (footnote  3);  94 
(footnote);  212  (footnote  4);  334 
(footnotes  2  and  3). 

Santals,  an  aboriginal  tribe  of  Bengal, 
57  ;  their  village  government,  57 ; 
social  ceremonies,  58  ;  religion,  58,  59  ; 
the  Santals  under  British  rule,  59 ; 
Santal  rising  (1855),  59,  60. 

Satara,  Native  State,  lapsed  to  the  British 
for  want  of  heirs  (1849),  415. 

Sat/,  or  widow-burning,  unknown  in  the 
Rig- Veda,  78  ;  abolition  of  the  rite  by 
Lord  W.  Bentinck,  405. 

Satnamis,  a  reformed  Vishnuite  sect  in 
the  Central  Provinces,  223. 

Satpura,  range  of  mountains  in  Bombay 
and  Central  India,  35. 

Sayyid  dynasty.  The  (1414-50  A.D.),  286. 

Scarcities. — See  Famines. 

Schools. — See  Education. 

Schwartz,  Protestant  missionary  in  Tan- 
jore,  260. 


INDEX. 


741 


Scott-WarinfT,  Mr.  Edward,  Hisloiy  of 
the  Mardihds,  quoted,  317  (footnote  l). 

Sculpture,  Greek  and  Indian  types  of, 
171  ;  60S,  609. 

Scythic  invasions  and  inroads  (126 
n.c.  to  544  A.D. ),  chap.  vii.  pp. 
174-190.  Aryan  and  Turanian  inva- 
sions from  Central  Asia,  174;  Scythic 
movements  towards  India,  174,  175  ; 
Kanishka's  fourth  Buddhist  Council 
(40  A.  D.),  175  ;  pre-Buddhistic  Scythic 
influences,  175  ;  Buddha  a  Sakya 
(?  Scythian),  176,  177;  early  Tibetan 
traditions,  177,  178  ;  Sakya  race 
customs,  178;  Scythic  Buddhism  in 
India,  178,  179  ;  Scythic  elements  in 
the  Indian  population — the  Jats  and 
Rajputs,  179.  180;  Indian  struggle 
against  the  Scythians,  180-182  ;  Vik- 
ramaditya's  achievements,  181  ;  Sen, 
Gupta,  and  Vallabhi  dynasties,  182, 
183  ;  the  pre- Aryan  element  in  ancient 
India,  183  ;  ancient  pre-Aryan  king- 
doms, 184-189;  theTakshaks  of  Rawal 
Pindi,  1S4,  185  ;  the  Nagas,  185,  1S6  ; 
the  Ghakkars  of  Rawal  Pindi,  186  ; 
the  Bhars  of  Oudh  and  the  North- 
western Provinces,  187  ;  Koch  king- 
dom of  Northern  Bengal,  187,  188  ; 
the  Ahams  of  Assam,  188  ;  Bundelas, 
188  ;  Gonds,  Ahirs,  and  Bhils  of 
Central  India,  189  ;  pre-Aryan  ab- 
original tribes  of  Lower  Bengal  and 
Southern  India,  189  ;  Scythic  and 
Naga  influences  on  Hinduism,  and  on 
the  religion  and  domestic  life  of  modern 
India,  189,  190. 

Sea-borne  trade  of  British  India,  559- 
581  ;  the  great  seaports,  559,  560 ; 
early  European,  Portuguese,  Dutch, 
and  English  traders,  560,  561 ;  advance- 
ment of  English  trade,  561,  562  ; 
Indian  trade  (1878-85),  563,  564  ; 
staples  of  foreign  sea  -  borne  import 
and  export  trade,  561-581. — Sec  also 
Commerce  and  Trade. 

Secret  orgies  in  Siva-wor.-hip,  215. 

Secretariats  of  the  Government  of  India, 
and  of  the  minor  governments,  437,  438. 

Secretary  of  State's  India  Council  in 
London,  431. 

Sect  and  national  classification  of  the 
population,  Appendix  X.,  703. 

Secular  literature  of  the  Hindus,  1 18-128. 
—  See  also  chap.  xiii. ,  'The  Indian 
Vernaculars  and  their  Literature,'  325- 

35S-. 

Segauli,  Treaty  of,  at  the  termination  of 
the  Gurkha  war  (1S14-15),  400. 

Selections  from  the  Despatches  of  the 
Ma7-quis  of  Wellesley,  by  Sidney  J. 
Owen,  quoted,  317  (footnote  i) ;  Selec- 
tions from  the  Despatches  of  the  Duke  of 


Wellington,  by  Sidney  J.  Owen,  quoted, 
317  (footnote  I). 

Seleiikos,  Alexander's  successor  to  his 
conquests  in  Bactria  and  the  Punjab 
(312-306  B.C.),  166,  167  ;  cession  of  the 
Punjab  to  Chandra  Gupta,  167;  Megas- 
thenes'  embassy  to  Chandra  Gupta's 
court  at  Pataliputra  (the  modern 
Patna),  167,  168. 

Sena  dynasty  of  Surashtra  (70   B.C. -235 

A.D.),    182. 

Serampur  or  Fredriksnagar.  settlement 
of  the  Danish  East  India  Company 
(1616),  acquired  by  the  English  by 
purchase  (1845),  372  ;  Baptist  Mission 
at,  founded  by  Carey,  Marshman,  and 
Ward,  260. 

Serfdom  in  India,  49. 

Seringapatam,  Capture  of,  and  death  of 
Tipii  Sultan,  396,  397. 

Serpent-worship,  its  influences  on  Hindu- 
ism, 185,  1S6 ;  serpent  ornamentation 
in  Hinduism,  Buddhism,  and  Christi- 
anity, 202,  203. 

Shah  Jahan,  fifth  Mughal  Emperor  of 
India  (1628-58  A.D.),  302-305  ;  chief 
events  of  his  reign,  302  (footnote)  ; 
loss  of  Kandahar  (1653),  303  ;  Deccan 
conquests,  303,  304  ;  Taj  Alahal  and 
other  architectural  works,  304  ; 
revenues,  304  (footnote  3)  ;  deposed 
by  his  rebellious  son.  Prince  Aurang- 
zeb,  305  ;    magnificence   of  his   court, 

30s- 

Shahji  Bhonsla,  founder  of  the  Marathi 
power  (1634),   317. 

Shah  Shuja  installed  by  the  British  as 
Amir  of  Kabul  (1839),  407. 

Shawls,  112;  603;  an  Indian  jewelled 
shawl,  604. 

Sheep  as  beasts  of  burden  in  the  Hima- 
layas, 10. 

Sheep  and  goats,  521  ;  657. 

Sherring,  Rev.  M.  A.,  Hindti  Tribes  and 
Castes,  193  (footnote  i);  194  (footnotes 
2,  3,  and  4)  ;  195  (footnote  2)  ;  221 
(footnote  4). 

Sher  Shah,  Afghan  Emperor  of  Delhi 
(1540-45),  killed  while  storming  the 
fortress  of  Kalinjar,  291. 

Shore,  Sir  John,  Governor- General  of 
India  (i793-9S)>  394- 

Shrines  common  to  different  faiths,  203. 

Siam,  trans-frontier  trade  with,  589,  590. 

Sikandra,  Tomb  of  Akbar  at,  295. 

Sikhs,  history  of  the.  Nanak,  the 
founder  of  the  religious  sect,  223  ; 
410  ;  Ranjit  Singh,  the  founder  of  the 
kingdom,  410,  41 1  ;  first  Sikh  war 
(1S45)  ;  battles  of  Miidki,  Firozshahr, 
Aliwal,  and  Sobraon,  411  ;  second 
Sikh  war  (1848-49);  battles  of 
Chilian wala    and    Gujrat,    412,    413  ; 


742 


INDEX. 


annexation  of  the  Punjab  and  its 
pacification,  413  ;  loyalty  of  the  Sikhs 
during  the  Mutiny  of  1857,  419,  420. 

Siladitya,  Buddhist  King  of  Northern 
India  (634  a.d.  ),  156. 

Silk  and  sericulture,  51 1-5 15  ;  the  Com- 
pany's factories,  511-512  ;  area  and 
out-turn,  512,  513  ;  silk-weaving  in 
Bengal,  Burma,  and  Assam,  602,  603  ; 
jungle  silks  [lasar),  513,  514;  steam 
silk  factories,  603. 

Silt  islands  in  the  Brahmaputra,  14,  15  ; 
in  the  estuaries  and  along  the  sea  face 
of  Bengal,  24,  25. 

Silver. — See  Precious  Metals. 

Sindhia,  the  family  name  of  the  ruler 
of  the  Maratha  State  of  Gwalior  in 
Central  India  ;  rise  of  the  family  to 
power,  322  ;  wars  with  the  English,  323. 

Singha  and  Sena  dynasties  of  Surashtra 
(70  B.C. -235  A.D.),  182. 

Siraj-ud-daula,  Xawab  of  Bengal  (1756- 
57),  380-382  ;  capture  of  Calcutta  by, 
the  Black  Hole,  3S0,  381  ;  recapture 
of  Calcutta  and  the  battle  of  Plassey, 
381,  382. 

Sirhind  canal,  532. 

Sittar,  a  theistic  school  of  Tamil  hym- 
nulogists,  332,  333. 

Siva,  the  Destroyer  and  Reproducer,  the 
third  person  in  the  Hindu  triad,  98  ; 
his  twofold  aspects,  21  r,  212. 

Sivaji  the  Great,  the  consolidator  of  the 
Maratha  power  (i627-8o\  317-319; 
his  hill  forts  and  guerilla  warfare, 
31S,  319;  coins  money  and  enthrones 
himself,  319. 

Siva-worship,  210-215  ;  twofold  aspects 
of  Siva  and  his  wife  —  their  philo- 
sophical and  their  terrible  iorms, 
211,  212;  human  sacrifice,  212,  213; 
the  Charak-puja  or  swinging  festival, 

213  ;    the  thirteen  Sivaite  sects,  213, 

214  ;  gradations  of  Siva-worship,  214  ; 
secret  orgies  in  Siva-worship,  215  ; 
Siva  and  Vishnu  compared,  215. 

Siwalik  hills,  an  offshoot  of  the  Hima- 
layas, geology  of,  632,  633, 

Slate,  628. 

Slave  kings.  The  (1206-90  A.n.),  27S- 
2S0  ;  Kutab-ud-din,  278  ;  Altamsh,  the 
greatest  of  the  Slave  kings,  279  ; 
the  Empress  Raziya,  279  ;  Mughal 
inroads  and  Rajput  revolts,  279, 
2S0 ;  Balban,  his  cruelties  and  royal 
pensioners,  2S0. 

Slavery  and  serfdom,  49. 

Slow  progress  of  Muhammadans  in  India, 
Hindu  resistance  and  internal  revolts  ; 
reconquest  of  India  from  the  Musal- 
mans,  269,  270. 

Smarta  Brahmans  of  Southern  India,  209, 
210. 


Smith,  Colonel  Baird,  Calcutta  Journal 
of  A'atural  History,  quoted,  27. 

Sobraon,  Battle  of,  41 1. 

Somnath,  Sack  of,  by  INIahmud  of 
Ghazni  (1024  a.d.),  293,  274.  The 
Somnath  proclamation  and  procession 
of  the  so-called  gates  by  Lord  Ellen- 
borough,  409. 

Son  canal  and  irrigation  works,  534,  535. 

Spices,  Cultivation  of,  490,  491. 

Sridhar,  Marathi  poet  of  the  l6th 
centuiy,  and  compiler  of  the  Marathi 
paraphrase  of  the  San>krit  Puranas, 
346. 

Srimanta  Sadagar,  famous  Bengali  poem 
of  the  i6th  century  by  Makunda  Ram, 

351- 
Stamp  revenue,  467. 
State  railway  system,  547,  548. 
Statistical  Survey  of  Bengal,  completion 

of,  443- 

St.  Bartholomew  the  Apostle,  his  preach- 
ings and  alleged  conversion  of  India 
testified  to  by  PantKuus  (190  A.D.) 
and  Hippolytus  (220  A.D.),  235. 

St.  Thomas  the  Apostle,  the  traditionary 
founder  of  Christianity  in  India,  229, 
230  ;  the  three  St.  Thomas  of  India, 
and  the  legends  cinnected  with  each, 
230-232  ;  tradition  of  the  Indian  King 
Gondaphorus  and  St.  Thomas,  232, 
233;  Gondaphorus  an  Indo-Scythic 
Punjab  monarch,  233  ;  wide  meaning 
of  India  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers, 
233,  234  ;  St.  Thomas'  work  in  Persia 
and  Central  Asia  instead  of  in  India 
proper,  235  ;  localization  of  the  legend 
of  St.  Thomas  in  North  India  or 
Persia,  237  ;  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  at 
Madras,  237  ;  mixed  worship  at  St. 
Thomas'  Mount,  Madras  ;  238  ;  St. 
Thomas'  relics  at  Goa,  238  ;  the  St. 
Thomas'  Nestorian  Christians,  a  power- 
ful and  respected  military  caste  in 
Southern  India,  241  ;  downfall  of 
Nestorianism,  241-243. 

St.  Thomas  the  Apostle  of  India,  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Kennet,  quoted,  233  (footnote 
3)  ;  235  (footnote) ;  237  (footnote  4)  ; 
239  (footnote  i). 

St.  Xavier,  his  labours  in  India,  244,  245. 

Steel,  Mr.  Arthur,  La~u  and  Custom  of 
Hindu  Castes,  quoted,  195  (footnote  2). 

Stephens,  Thomas,  the  first  authentic 
English  traveller  in  India,  and  rector 
of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Salsette  (1579 
A.  D.),  363,  364. 

Stevenson,  David,  Canal  and  River 
Eni^incering,  quoted,  23. 

Strachey,  General  Sir  R.,  calculations 
on  the  age  of  the  Bengal  delta,  28. 

Straits  Settlements,  India's  trade  with, 
577  ;  579,  5S0. 


I 


INDEX. 


743 


'  Strikes  '  among  Indian  castes,  198. 

Su,    a    Tartar  tribe,    their  overthrow    of 

the  Greek  settlements  in  ]?actria,  175. 
Subuktigin,  first  Turki  invader  of  India 

(977  A.D.),  272. 
Sucihanwan's   alleged  persecution  of  the 

Buddhists,  191  and  footnotes. 
Sudras,  the  servile  caste  of  ancient  India, 

90,  91. 
Suez  Canal,  Trade  with  India  via,  564, 

565;  581. 
Suled    Koh,    range    in    Afghanistan,    an 

offshoot  of  the  Himalayas,  3. 
Sugar-cane,  Cultivation  of,  491. 
Sugar  duties,  Abolition  of  Inland  (1836), 

Suiaiman  range  of  hills,  marking  a 
portion  of  the  western  boundary 
between  British  territory  and  Afghanis- 
tan, 3  ;  6. 

Sun-spot  cycles,  650,  651. 

Sun-worship,  Traces  of,  among  the  San- 
tals,  58. 

Surat,  English  obtain  leave  to  trade  at 
(1612  A.  D.),  366  ;  defeat  of  the  Portu- 
guese fleet  at  Swally,  the  port  of  Surat, 
by  Captain  Best  (1615  A.D.),  366  ; 
Surat,  the  chief  seat  of  the  Company's 
government  in  Western  India  till 
1684-S7,  when  it  was  transferred  to 
Bombay,  370  ;  Surat  pillaged  by  Sivaji 
(1664),  370;  treaty  of  Surat  between 
Raghunath  Rao  and  the  British,  391. 

Si'ir  Das,  poet  of  Mathura  in  the  i6th 
century,   and  author   of  the   Sursagar, 

345- 

'  Survey '  land  tenure  in  Bombay,  its 
simplicity,  advantages,  and  disadvan- 
tages, 448,  449. 

Sutlej,  great  river  of  the  Punjab  and 
chief  tributary  of  the  Indus,  1 1. 

Sutras  or  sacred  Sanskrit  traditions,  89. 

Swally,  Defeat  of  the  Portuguese  fleet  at 
(1615),  366. 

Swedisli  East  India  Company,  376. 

Synod  of  Diamper  (1599  a.d.),  241. 

Syrian  Christians  in  India,  their  numbers 
and  antiquity,  230 ;  Syrian  Catholics 
in  Malabar,  243,  244  ;  Syrian  rite  re- 
formed, 245  ;  Syrian  and  Roman 
Catholic  Christians  at  the  present  day, 
257,  258. 


Taj  Mahal,  The,  112  ;  304. 

Takht-i-Sulaiman,  mountain  in  the  Suiai- 
man range,  6. 

Takkas,  a  Turanian  race,  and  the  earliest 
inhabitants  of  Rawal  Pindi  District, 
164  (footnote  2);  their  present  descend- 
ants, 184. 


Takshaks,  an  early  Scythian  tribe  in  the 
Punjab,  184,  185. 

Tal,  mountain  pass  over  the  Brahui  hills 
from  the  Punjab  into  Baluchistan,  6. 

Talikot,  Battle  of,  and  overthrow  of  the 
Vijayanagar  kingdom  (1565  A.D. ),  288. 

Tdliikddrs  or  great  landlords  of  Oudh, 
451,  452. 

Tamil,  the  oldest  and  most  influential 
of  the  vernacular  literatures  of  Southern 
India,  330 ;  first  cultivation  of  Tamil 
by  the  sage  Agastya,  330,  331  ;  Jai-i 
cycle  of  Tamil  literature  from  the  9th 
to  the  13th  century,  331  ;  its  great 
Pariah  poet  and  poetess  (900  a.d.?), 
331  ;  the  Tamil  Ramayana,  331  ; 
Sivaite  and  Vishnuite  Tamil  h)m- 
nologies,  332 ;  the  Sittar  or  anti- 
Brahmanical  Tamil  poets  of  the  17th 
century,  332  ;  modern  Tamil  writers, 
333 ;  Beschi,  the  Jesuit  priest,  333 ; 
recent  statistics  of  Tamil  literature,  333. 

Tantrik  sect  of  Siva-worshippers,  214. 

Tartar  overthrow  of  Greek  conquests  in 
Bactria,  175. — See  also  ScYTHic  In- 
vasions. 

Tasar,  or  jungle  silkworm,  34  ;  513,  514. 

Tassy,  Garcin  de,  Histoirc  dc  la  Littha- 
ture  Hindouie  et  Hindoustanie,  quoted, 
343  and  footnote  i. 

Taxation  of  India  under  the  Mughal 
Emperois(i593-i76i  a.d.),  299  ;  taxa- 
tion under  the  Mughals  and  the  British, 
463,  464  ;  taxation  in  Native  States, 
464  ;  incidence  of  taxation  in  British 
India,  464,  465. — See  also  Finances 
and  Revenue  System. 

Taxila,  ancient  town  in  Rawal  Pindi 
District,  Punjab,  the  home  of  the 
Takkas,  identified  with  the  ruins  of 
Deri  Shahan,  164  (footnote  2)  ;  184. 

Tea  cultivation  and  manufacture,  504- 
509  ;  indigenous  to  Assam,  504  ;  early 
experiments  and  failures,  504,  505  ; 
rapid  progress  of  the  industry,  505  ; 
statistics  of  out  -  turn,  505  -  507  ; 
varieties  of  the  plant,  508  ;  the  work 
of  a  tea-garden,  50S,  509  ;  export  of 
,  tea,  575. 

Teak  forests,  39  ;  42. 

Tegnapatam  (Fort  St.  David),  East 
India  Company's  factory  established  at 
(1686-92),  371. 

Temperature  of  various  meteorological 
stations  in  India,  647-649. — See  also 
Meteorology  or  India. 

Temple's,  Sir  R.,  Minute  on  the  balance 
of  Indian  trade,  581-583. 

Tenancy  (Bengal)  Bill,  429. 

Tenant-right  in  Bengal,  compensation  for 
disturbance,  444,  445. 

T/tagi  or  professional  strangling,  Sup- 
pression of,  by  Lord  W.  Ben'.inck,  405. 


744 


INDEX. 


Thall     Ghat,     mountain     pass     in     the 

Western  Ghats,  37. 
Thana,  a  Jesuit  station  (1550  a.d.),  its 

colony    of    Christian    craftsmen    and 

cultivators,  247,  248. 
Thani  rdyats,  or  stationary  husbandmen, 

48. 

Theistic  movements  in  Vishnuite  reli- 
gious reforms,  223  ;  theistic  hymns, 
332,  333. 

Thomas  the  Apostle,  Thomas  the 
Manichrean,  and  Thomas  the  Armenian 
juerchant,  conversion  of  India  variously 
ascribed  to. — See  chap,  ix.,  'Christi- 
anity in  India,'  229-238. 

Thomas,  Mr.  E.,  Paper  on  the  Sah  and 
Gupta  coins,  in  the  Report  of  the 
ArcluTological  Survey  of  Western  India 
for  1874-75,  quoted,  147  (footnote) ; 
172  (footnotes  I  and  2);  175  (foot- 
note 3) ;  182  (footnotes  i  and  4) ; 
Jainism,  or  the  Eaiiy  Faith  of  Asoka, 
160  (footnote) ;  Revenue  Resources 
of  the  jMugiial  Empire,  271  (footnote)  ; 
297  (footnote  2)  ;  299,  301  (foot- 
note i),  304,  305  (footnote);  311 
(footnote)  ;  Chronicle  of  the  Pathdn 
Kings  of  Delhi,  271  (footnote),  280, 
281  (footnotes);  283  (footnotes  I  and  2); 
2S4  (footnote)  ;  285  (footnote  3)  ;  287 
(footnote  2);  291  (footnote);  298  (foot- 
note 2). 

Thome's,  Major  William,  Memoir  of 
the  War  in  India  conducted  by  General 
Lord  Lake,  317  (footnote  i). 

Tibetan  ideas  and  early  traditions  of 
Buddhism,  176-178. 

Tibeto-Burmans,  non- Aryan  tribes  of 
the  lower  Himalayas,  their  languages, 
63  ;  68. 

Tiger,  The  Indian,  652,  653  ;  man-eating 
tigers,  653. 

Tile  pottery  of  the  Punjab  and  Sind,  608. 

Timber  trees,  34  ;  39  ;  41. — See  also 
Forest  Department. 

Timur  (Tamerlane),  Invasion  of  India 
by  (1398  A.D. ),  285. 

Tin  in  British  Burma,  42  ;  626. 

Tipii  Sultan,  son  of  Haidar  All  ;  second 
Mysore  via.r  (1790-94),  394;  third 
Mysore  war  (1799);  fall  of  Seringa- 
patam  and  death  of  Tipu,  396,  397. 

Tista,  river  of  Bengal,  its  changes  of 
course,  30. 

Titles  of  Siva  and  his  wife  in  their 
different  Aryan  and  non-Aryan  forms, 
211,  212. 

Tot^acco  cultivation  and  manufacture, 
growth  of  the  trade,  42  ;  499,  500. 

Tod,  Colonel,  Annals  and  Antiquities  of 
Riijasthdn,  quoted,  1 80  (footnotes  I 
and  3)  ;  184  (footnote  2)  ;  185  (foot- 
notes \  and  3). 


Todar  Mall,  Akbar's  Hindu  general  and 
finance  minister,  his  revenue  settle- 
ment, 293,  300. 

Tolerant  spirit  of  Hinduism,  226,  227. 

Topographia  Christiana  (Paris,  1 707), 
quoted,  183. 

Towns  and  villages  of  British  India  classi- 
fied according  to  population,  Appendi.x 
II.,  690. 

Towns  of  British  India  with  a  popula- 
tion exceeding  20,000,  Appendix  VIII., 
696,  697. 

Towns,  Absence  of  large,  in  India,  46. 

Trade  and  commerce. — See  Commerce 
AND  Trade. 

Trade,  Tabular  statement  of,  with  foreign 
countries,  579. 

Trade-guilds,  197,  198  ;  guild -funds  and 
charities,  trade  versus  caste  interests, 
198,  199;  caste  a  'mutual  insurance,' 
and  substitute  for  a  poor  law,  199. 

Trade-unions. — See  Trade-Guilds. 

Trading  castes  in  Northern  and  Southern 
India,  591,  592. 

Tranquebar,  settlement  of  the  Danish 
East  India  Company  (1616),  acquired 
by  the  English  by  purchase  (1845),  372. 

Trans-Himalayan  trade,  586-590. 

Treasure,  Import  of,  proportion  of  gold 
to  silver,  gold  and  silver  currency,  568, 

569- 
Treaties,  Early  Indo-Greek  (306  and  256 

B.C.),  166  ;  170. 
Tree   and  Serpent   Worship,   by    Dr.    J. 

Fergusson,  quoted,  204  (footnote  i). 
Tribes  of  the  North-  Westa-n  Provinces, 

by  Sir  Henry  Elliot,  195  (footnote  2). 
Troubles   of  the   early    Indian    Church, 

240. 
Trumpp,  Dr.  E.,  Grammar  of  the  Sindhi 

Language,  quoted,  335. 
Tsan-pu,  the  libetan  name  for  the  upper 

waters   of  the    Brahmaputra   before   it 

forces  its  way  through  the  Himalayas, 

Tue-chi  overthrow  of  the  Grceco-Bactrian 
settlement  in  the  Punjab,  175. 

Tughlak  dynasty.  The  (1320-1414  A.D.), 
2S3-286  ;  Ghiyas  -  ud  -  din  Tughlak 
(1320-24),  283;  Muhammad  Tugh- 
lak (1324-51),  283;  his  cruelties, 
forced  currency,  etc.,  283,  284;  revolt 
of  the  Provinces,  284  ;  revenue  exac- 
tions, 284;  'man-hunts,'  284,  285; 
Firuz  Shah  Tughlak  (1357-88),  285; 
Mahmud  Tughlak,  285  ;  Timiir's  inva- 
sion (1398),  285  ;  ruin  of  the  Tughlak 
dynasty  (1399-1414),  285,  286. 

Tukaram,  Maratha  Vishnuite  religious 
poet  of  the  17th  centuiy,  346. 

Tungabhadra  irrigation  works,  536. 

Turanian  and  Aryan  migrations  into  India 
from  Central  Asia,  174,  175. 


IXDEX. 


745 


Tiirki  invasions  of  India,  272. 
Turmeric,  Export  of,  575. 


Udhanala,  Battle  of,  and  defeat  of  Mir 

Kasim,  386. 
Uma,  the  Aryan  form  of  the  wife  of  Siva, 

211,  212. 
Unbeaten  Tracks  in  Japan,  by  Miss  Bird, 

quoted,    152   (footnote   3)  ;  202   (foot- 
note l) ;  224  (footnote  3). 
Under-peopled    Districts  and  Provinces, 

47. 
Unequal  pressure  of  population  on  the 

land,  49. 
United   States,   India's  trade  with,  578, 

579- 
Universities,  Indian,  475,  476. 
Upendra    Bhanj,     Raja    of    Gumsar,    a 

famous  Uriya  poet,  344. 
Uraons,   an  aboriginal   tribe   of  Kols   in 

Western  Bengal  and  Chutia  Nagpur, 

71  (footnote). 
Uriya  vernacular  writers  and  poets,  343, 

344- 
Usman's  Arab  expedition  to  Thana  and 

Broach  (647  a.d.),  268. 
Usurpation  of  Aurangzeb,  and  murder  of 

his  brothers,  306,  307. 


Vaiseshikha,  one  of  the  six  darsaiias 
or  Brahmanical  systems  of  philosophy, 
99- 

Vaisya  or  cultivating  caste  of  ancient 
India,  90 ;   196. 

Valabhi,  ancient  Indian  dynasty  in 
Western  India  and  Sind  (480-722 
A.D.),  their  overthrow  by  Arab 
invaders  of  Sind,  182. 

Vallabha-swami,  Vishnuite  religious  re- 
former (1520  A.D.),  Krishna- worship, 
221,  222. 

Valniiki,  the  reputed  composer  of  the 
Raniayana,  123. 

Vararuchi,  Prakrit  grammarian  of  the 
1st  century  B.C.,  336,  337. 

Vasco  da  Gama — his  three  voyages  to 
India,  and  death  at  Cochin,  356-358. 

Vedatitas,  two  of  the  six  darsanas,  or 
Brahmanical  systems  of  philosophy, 
99. 

\  edas,  the  four  Sanskrit  hymnals,  77- 
89 ;  their  antiquity  and  inspired 
origin,  78  ;  caste  and  widow-burning 
unknown,  78 ;  Aryan  civilisation  in 
the  Veda,  79 ;  the  gods  of  the  Veda, 
78-81  ;  a  Vedic  hymn,  82,  83  ;  Vedic 
prayers,  83,  84  ;  Vedic  legend  of  Yama, 


the  king  of  death,  85  ;  Vedic  concep- 
tions  of    immortality,    86  ;    the    Rig- 
Veda    composed  during  the    march  of 
the  Aryans  through   Upper  India,  86, 
87  ;  the  Sama  \'eila,  Yajur  Veda,  and 
Atharva    Veda    composed   at   a   later 
date    than    the    Rig-Veda,    after    the 
BrahiTians  had  established  their  priestly 
power,  88  ;  the  Brahmans  or  inspired 
guides  to  the  four  Vedas,  88,  89. 
Vegetables,  Cultivation  of,  490. 
Vellore,  Mutiny  of  (1806),  399. 
Velvet  work,  603. 

Verapoli,  Roman  Catholic  Vicariate,  257. 
Vernacular  journalism,  480,  481. 
Vernaculars   (Indian)    and    their    Litera- 
ture,   chap.    xiii.    pp.     325-355.  —See 
Indian   Vernaculars    and    their 
Literature. 
Viceroys     and      Governors  -  General    of 

India,  384. 
Victoria-Gitika,  a  Sanskrit  ode,   in  cele- 
bration   of    the    sovereigns    of    Eng- 
land, III. 
Victoria    Point,     marking    the    extreme 
eastern  and  southern  limits  of  British 
India,   at  the  mouth  of  the  Kra  river, 
the  boundary  between  Tenasserim  and 
Siam,  4. 
Vieiv   of  Hindu   Latv,   by  Mr.    Nelson, 

C.S.,  195  (footnote  2). 
Vijayanagar,       Hindu       kingdom       of 
Southern      India     (1185-1565    a.d.)  ; 
subjugation  by  the  Muhammadans    at 
the  battle  of  Talikot,  286;  288. 
Vikramaditya,     King     of    Ujjain       (57 
B.C.)  ;     his    war    with    the    Scythian 
invaders,  181. 
Vincent's,  Dean,   Commerce  and   Navi- 
gation of  tlie   Ancients  in  the  Indian 
Ocean,     quoted,     164     (footnote     l)  ; 
356  (footnote). 
Vindhyas,  range  of  mountains,  35,  36  ; 

geology  of,  635. 
Vishnu,  the  Preserver,  the  second  person 
of  the    Hindu    trinity,    98. — See    also 
Hinduism. 
Vishnuite  symbols  in  Hinduism,  206. 
Vishnu    Purdna,    The,  by    Dr.    H.    H. 
Wilson,  quoted,    216,  217,    and   foot- 
notes. 
Vishnu-worship,    215-226;    Vishnu   and 
Siva   compared,   215  ;    incarnations  of 
Vishnu,  215,  216  ;  the  Vishnu  Purana, 
the  eighteen  Puranas,  216,  217  ;  Brah- 
manical and  popular  Vishnuism,  217  ; 
Vishnuite    religious    reformers    (1 150, 
1520  a.d.),  217-222;  Vishnuite  sects- 
223  ;  theistic  movements  in  Vishnuism, 
223  ;  Jagannath,    223-225  ;   the   truth 
about    the    Car    Festival,    224,   225 ; 
bloodless  worship   of  Jagannath,  225, 
226. 

3   B 


746 


INDEX. 


Vital  statistics  of  India,  chap.  xxv. 
pp.  665-686.  The  principal  sources 
of  health  returns,  665  ;  untrustworthy 
registration  statistics,  666,  667  ;  death- 
rate  and  average  duration  of  life 
in  India,  666,  667  ;  birth  and  death 
rates  for  different  Provinces,  667-679  ; 
health  and  mortality  in  the  European 
army,  675  ;  680-682  ;  in  the  native 
army,  682-6S4  ;  jail  vital  statistics, 
684-686. 

Von  Fiohlen,  Das  Alte  Indicn,  quoted, 
1 10  (footnote  2). 

Vyasa,  Brahman  sage,  the  legendary 
compiler  of  the  four  Vedas  (3101  B.C.), 
and  of  the  epic  of  the  Mahabharata, 
118. 


w 

Wandewa^h,  Battle  of,  and  defeat  of  the 
French  under  Lally  (1761),  379,  3S0. 

War,  Art  of,  in  Vedic  and  Sanskrit 
times,  1 10. 

Wargaum,  Convention  of  (1779),  391. 

Warora  coal-field  in  the  Central  Pro- 
vinces, 620. 

Warren  Hastings. — See  Hastings, 
Warren. 

Water-mills  in  the  Himalayas,  9. 

Watson,  Admiral,  bombardment  and 
capture  of  Chandarnagar,  382. 

Weber,  Professor,  History  of  Imiian 
Literature,  quoted,  94  (footnote)  ;  102 
(footnote  i);  105  (footnote);  xio 
(footnote  i) ;  127  (footnote  3)  ;  154 
(footnote);  168  (footnote  2) ;  172  (foot- 
notes 2  and  3) ;  175  (footnote  i) ;  176 
(footnote  3) ;  Jndische  Studien,  quoted, 
161  (footnote  i). 

Wellesley,  General  (afterwards  Duke  of 
Wellington) — the   victories   of  Assaye 


and  Arsraur 


;  398. 


Wellesley,  Marquis  of,  Governor- General 
of  India  (1798-1803),  394-397  ;  French 
influence  in  India,  394,  395  ;  Lord 
Wellesley 's  scheme,  395,  396 ;  treaty 
with  the  Nizam,  396  ;  third  Mysore 
war  and  storming  of  Seringapatam, 
396,397;  second  Maratha  war  (1802-04) 
and  annexations  to  British  territory, 
398 ;  British  successes  and  disasters, 
.398. 

^\  estern  Ghats,  mountain  range  along  the 
western  coast  of  India,  36 ;  39 ;  its 
passes,  36,  37  ;  rivers,  37  ;  rainfall, 
38  ;  forests,  39. 

Western  Jumna  Canal,  29  ;  532. 

Wheat,  Statistics  of  cultivation  and  out- 
turn of,  486-488  ;  export  of,  573. 

Whitney,  Piofessor,  Sanskrit  Grammar, 
quoted,  334  (footnote  i). 


Widows,  Position  of,  in  ancient  India,  78. 
Williams,    Professor    Monier,   114;    129 

(footnote  i). 
Willoughby,  Sir  John's  attempt  to  force 

an    eastern   passage    along   the   north 

of  Europe  and  Aiia,  363. 
Wilson,  Dr.    H.    H.,    Works  of,  quoted, 

no   (footnote   i)  ;     127    (footnote   2); 

154  (footnote     i);    Ariatta    Antiqua, 

175    (footnote    l)  ;     Vishnu    Purana, 

180 (footnote  4);  216,217  (footnotes); 

Essays,   191   (footnote  2)  ;  Relis^ion  of 

the    Hindus,    201     (footnote    2)  ;    205 

(footnote    l)  ;    206    (footnote    2);    210 

(footnote   2);    221    (footnote   2);    223 

(footnotes  3  and  4). 
Wilson,   Dr.    J.,    Indian    Caste,  quoted, 

194   (footnote    i);    195    (footnote   2); 

no  (footnote  i). 
Wilson,  Mr.  James,  his  financial  reforms 

after  the  Mutiny,  424. 
W' ise.  Dr.  T.   A. ,  Kevieiv  of  the  History 

of    Medicine     aviong     the     Asiatics, 

quoted,  no  (footnote  i). 
Wolf,  The  Indian,  654. 
Women,    Position   of,   in  ancient    India, 

and  in  Vishnu- worship,  78  ;  221. 
W'ood-cavving,  112;  609. 


Xavier,  St.  Francis,  his   work   in   India, 
244,  245. 


Yajnavalkya's  Code  of  Hindu  Law,  n4, 

"5- 

Yajur-Veda,  The,  88. 

Yak  cow,  The,  a  remarkably  sure-footed 

beast  of  burden  in  the  Himalayas,  9, 

10. 
Yama,  the  Hindu  god   of  death,  Vedic 

legend  of,  85. 
Yandabu,  Treaty  of  (1826),  403,  404. 
Yavanas,   the   name   applied    to   Greeks 

and  Scythians  by  the   Brahmans,  93  ; 

172,  173- 
Yoga,  one  of  the  six  darsanas  or  Brah- 

manical  systems  of  philosophy,  99. 
Yogis,  a  sect  of  Sivaite  devotees,  214. 
Yoma  mountain  range  in  Burma,  6. 
Yule,  Colonel  Henry,  Marco  Polo,  quoted, 

151     (footnotes);     152    (footnote    i)  ; 

231  (footnote  i);  233  (footnotes  i  and 

2) ;  237  (footnote  4)  ;  238  (footnotes) ; 

239    (footnote     3)  ;     356     (footnote)  ; 

Cathay    and   the    Way    Thither,    233 

(footnote  2) ;  283  (footnote  5). 


INDEX. 


1A1 


Zamiiiddri  grant  of  the  Twenty-four 
Parganas,  383. 

Zanitnddrs  or  revenue  land  collectors 
under  the  Mughals,  converted  into  a 
proprietary  body  by  the  Permanent 
Settlement  of  Bengal,  439  ;   442. 

Zoology  and  Botany  of  India,  chap, 
xxiv.   pp.   652-664.     The    Gujarat   or 


maneless  lion,  652  ;  tiger,  652  ;  leopard, 
cheetah,  653,  654  ;  wolf,  fox,  jackal, 
dog,  654;  bear,  655;  elephant  and 
elephant-catching,  655,  656 ;  rhinoceros, 
656  ;  wild  boar  and  hog,  656,  657  ; 
sheep  and  goats,  657  ;  antelope  and 
deer,    657,    658  ;    bison    and    buffalo, 

658  ;    birds    of  prey  and   game   birds, 

659  ;  reptiles,  660,  661  ;  insects,  662  ; 
Indian  flora,  662-664. 


MORRISON   AND   GIBB,    EDINBURGH, 
IKINTERS   TO   HE.'?   .MAJESTY'S   STATIO.NEKY   OFFICE. 


S^loifes  t)^  ti}t  same  Eulfjor. 


JSorks  hi)  t\)t  same  ^luti^or. 


THE   ANNALS    OF    RURAL    BENGAL. 

Fifth  Edition,   i6s. 

'  One  of  the  most  important  as  well  as  most  interestinsj  works  which  the  records 
of  Indian  literature  can  show.  .  .  .  Yellow-stained  volumes  from  each  District 
Treasury  in  Bengal,  family  archives  from  the  stores  of  Rajas,  local  information 
collected  by  Pandits  specially  employed  for  the  purpose,  folk-lore  supplied  by 
the  laborious  inquisition  of  native  gentlemen,  manuscripts  in  London,  Calcutta, 
and  Bengal, — have  all  been  laid  under  contribution  ;  and,  as  the  initial  result,  we 
have  the  first  volume  of  what  promises  to  be  a  delightful  and  valuable  history.' — 
lVest!innste7-  Rez'ieiv. 

'  It  is  hard  to  over-estimate  the  importance  of  a  work  whose  author  succeeds  in 
fascinating  us  with  a  subject  so  generally  regarded  as  unattractive,  and  who, 
on  questions  of  grave  importance  to  the  future  destiny  of  India,  gives  the  results 
of  wide  research  and  exceptional  opportunities  of  personal  study,  in  a  bright, 
lucid,  forcible  narrative,  rising  on  occasion  to  eloquence.' — Times. 

'  Mr.  Hunter,  in  a  word,  has  applied  the  philosophic  method  of  writing  history 
to  a  new  field.  .  .  .  The  grace,  and  ease,  and  steady  flow  of  the  writing  almost 
made  us  forget,  when  reading,  the  surpassing  severity  and  value  of  the  author's 
labours. ' — Fortnightly  Fevieio. 

'A  work  of  the  greatest  talent,  and  one  which  will  make  an  epoch  in  Indian 
literature.  The  facts  are  set  forth  with  the  scrupulous  exactness  of  an  honest  and 
impartial  judge,  the  scientific  details  are  clothed  in  a  dress  at  once  clear  and 
picturesque.' — Revue  Bibliographiqiie  Universelle. 


A    LIFE    OF   THE    EARL    OF    MAYO, 

FOURTH     VICEROY     OF     INDIA. 
Second  Edition,  Two  Vols.,  24s. 

'  The  picture  presented  to  us  of  the  late  Lord  Mayo  is  a  fair  and  noble  one, 
and  worthy  of  the  much  lamented  original.' — Edinbur^^h  Revieiu. 

'  This  masterly  work  has  two  great  recommendations :  it  is  the  vividly  and 
faithfully  told  narrative  of  the  lile  of  a  man  ;  and  it  contains  a  lucid  and 
comprehensive  history  of  recent  administration  in  India.' — The  World. 

'  It  IS  long  since  we  have  come  across  a  more  admirable  specimen  of 
biographical  literature.  .  .  .  Nothing  could  exceed  the  completeness  with  whicli 
the  biographer  has  told  the  story  of  a  noble  life  and  a  great  career.' — The  Hour. 

'The  story  told  in  Dr.  Hunter's  book  is  full  of  the  d:epest  interest.  ...  A 
permanent  and  very  valuable  addition  to  the  standard  literature  of  India.'-- 
Calcutta  Quarterly  Reviciv. 

'  It  is  simply  impossible  that  the  story  of  this  truly  great  and  noble  man's  career 
could  have  been  told  more  simply  or  more  impressively.  .  .  .  The  second  volume 
constitutes  a  masterly  and  a  complete  account  of  the  progress  of  legislation, 
administration,  and  reform  in  India  during;  the  last  five  years.' — Home  Ncu-s. 

'  In  no  other  book  with  which  we  are  acquainted  can  so  comprehensive  a  sketch 
of  the  machinery  of  the  Indian  Government,  and  of  the  history  of  the  great 
Departments  which  compose  it.  be  {owndi.'  —  Calcutta  Englishman. 


WORK'S  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


O  R  I  S  S  A: 


THE   VICISSITUDES  OF  AN  INDIAN  PROVINCE  UNDER 
NATIVE  AND  BRITISH  RULE. 

Two  Vols.,  Map  and  Steel  Engravings,  32s. 

*  The  mature  and  laborious  work  of  a  man  who  has  devoted  the  whole  power 
of  his  mind,  first  to  the  practical  duties  of  his  profession  as  an  Indian  civilian, 
and  next  to  the  study  of  all  that  relates  to  or  can  illustrate  it.  As  long  as 
Indian  civilians  write  hooks  like  this — as  long  as  they  interest  themselves  so 
passionately  in  their  work,  and  feel  so  keenly  its  connection  with  nearly  every 
subject  which  can  occupy  serious  thought — the  English  rule  will  not  only  last, 
but  will  prosper,  and  make  its  subjects  prosper  too.' — Pall  Mall  Gazelle. 

'  A  model  of  what  official  research  and  scholarly  zeal  ought  to  do.  Mr. 
Hunter's  forcible  and  excellent  literary  style  is  a  gift  of  the  utmost  importance, 
and  makes  his  work  as  fascinating  as  it  is  full  and  laborious.  A  book  of  striking 
giasp,  interest,  and  completeness.' — Fortnii^htly  Revicu. 

'  It  is  difficult  to  know  whether  the  book  is  most  praiseworthy  for  its  literary 
Style,  its  wide  grasp  of  facts,  or  its  humane  zeal.' — West?iiinster  Revieiv. 

'  More  complete,  more  full  of  deep  research,  and  more  interesting  than  his  first 
[work],  excellent  as  that  was.  The  present  volumes  lead  us  closely  among  the 
millions  who  form  the  Indian  subjects  of  the  Queen  ;  teach  us  what  they  are  in 
social,  religious,  and  industrial  aspects  ;  make  us  acquainted  with  their  ancient 
and  modern  history  ;  and  show  us  what  waves  of  vicissitude  have  passed  over 
them  in  faith  and  in  administration,  from  the  earliest  period  to  which  inves- 
tigation can  extend.' — Colonel  Meadoius  Taylor  in  '  Ocean  Highibays.'' 

'  A  great  subject  worthily  handled.  He  writes  with  great  knowledge,  great 
sympathy  with  the  Indian  people,  a  keen  and  quick  appreciation  of  all  that  is 
striking  and  romantic  in  their  history  and  character,  and  with  a  flowing  and 
picturesque  style,  which  carsies  the  reader  lightly  over  ground  which,  in  less 
skilful  hands,  might  seem  tedious  beyond  endurance.' — Saturday  Review. 


FAMINE  ASPECTS  OF  BENGAL  DISTRICTS. 

Second  Edition,  7s.  6d. 

'  One  of  the  boldest  eftbrts  yet  made  by  statistical  science.  ...  In  this  work 
he  has  laid  down  the  basis  of  a  system,  by  which  he  may  fairly  claim  that 
scarcity  in  Bengal  has  been  reduced  to  an  atfair  of  calm  administrative  calcula- 
tion.'— Daily  News. 

'  A  work  which  deserves  to  be  widely  known  and  carefully  considered  by  every 
one  who  wishes  to  understand  the  policy  of  the  Government  of  India  in  relation 
to  the  famine.' — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


THE     INDIAN     M  U  S  A  L  M  A  N  S. 

Second  Edition,  8s. 

'A  masterly  Essay.' — Daily  News. 


WORKS  B  Y  THE  SAME  A  UTHOR. 


A  DICTIONARY  OF  THE  NON-ARYAN  LANGUAGES 
OF  INDIA  AND  HIGH  ASIA: 

BEING  A  GLOSSARY  OF  139  LANGUAGES,   BASED  UPON  THE 
HODGSON  PAPERS,   OFFICLAL  RECORDS,  AND  MSS. 

WITH  A  POLITICAL  DISSERTATION  ON  THE  ABORIGINAL  RACES. 

Quarto,  Two  Guineas, 

'  We  trust  that  this  book  will  be  the  starting-point  in  a  new  era  for  our  Indian 
Empire,  and  that  the  course  recommended  in  it  will  immediately  engage  the 
attention  of  our  Indian  statesmen.' — AtheiuTiini. 

'  -Mr.  Hunter  has  prefixed  to  the  body  of  his  work  a  Dissertation  which  it  is 
within  our  competence  to  appreciate,  and  which  we  unhesitatingly  pronounce  to 
contain  one  of  the  most  important  generalizations  from  a  series  of  apparently 
isolated  facts  ever  contributed  to  Indian  history.  ...  It  is  between  these  [non- 
Aryan]  masses  and  the  British  Government  that  Mr.  Hunter  hopes  by  his  book  to 
establish  a  lasting  link  ;  and  whatever  the  result  of  his  linguistic  laiiours,  in  this 
one  labour  of  mercy  he  has,  we  believe,  succeeded.  Non-Aryans  will  not  again 
be  shot  down  on  the  faith  of  statements  from  Hindu  settlers,  who  first  seize 
their  lands,  and  then  bind  them  down,  under  the  Indian  law  of  debt,  into  a 
serfdom  little  removed  from  slavery.' — Spectator, 

'  The  political  value  of  Mr.  Hunter's  new  book  is  this,  that  he  has  put  before 
the  public,  official  and  non-official,  such  a  view  of  the  character  and  capacities 
of  the  non-Aryan  tribes,  and  of  our  gross  mismanagement  of  them  in  the  past, 
that  no  one,  whether  the  Government  or  the  Christian  Church,  will  dare  to 
withhold  from  them  the  civilisation  which  will  convert  at  least  twelve  millions 
of  frank,  truthful,  industrious  races  into  the  most  loyal  of  our  subjects.' — Friend 
of  India. 

'  The  primitive  non-Aryan  population  of  India  has  seldom  been  the  subject 
of  European  research.  The  ignorance  of  their  habits  and  views  inevitably  brings 
forth  mistakes  in  dealing  with  them,  and  the  author  traces  their  chronic  hostility 
to  the  British  power  in  a  large  measure  to  this  source.  He  discloses  the  means 
for  putting  an  end  to  this  unhappy  state  of  things,  and  for  utilizing  the  tribes  as 
soldiers  and  reclaimers  of  the  soil.  .  .  .  Besides  this  very  practical  aim,  Mr. 
Hunter's  Dictionary  will  bring  the  important  ethnological  questions  which  he 
has  propounded  in  his  Dissertation  nearer  to  a  definite  solution.' — Litcrarisches 
Centralblatt. 

'  It  is  a  singular  good  fortune  for  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  India  to  have  drifted 
into  the  favour  of  so  brilliant  a  writer  and  so  accomplished  a  scholar.  Their 
connection  with  Mr.  Hunter  was  one  of  those  accidents  in  history  which  are  the 
mother  of  great  events.' — Hindu  Patriot. 


ESSAYS  ON  THE  EXTERNAL  POLICY  OF  INDIA. 

BY  THE  LATE  J.  W.  S.  WYLLIE,  M.A.,  C.S.I., 

0/  Her  Majesty's  India  Civil  Service,  sometime  Aciitig  Foreign  Secretary  to  ilie 
Government  of  India. 

Edited,  with  a  Life  and  Notes,  by  W.  W.  HUNTER,  B.A.,  LL.D. 

One  Vol.,  14s. 

'  The  editorship  of  Mr.  W.    W.    Hunter  is  a  guarantee  that  the  work  is  all 
that  literary  accomplishments  can  make  it.' — Saturday  Review. 


\ 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


A  STATISTICAL   ACCOUNT  OF    BENGAL. 

In  Twenty  Vols.,  Half  Morocco,  5s.  each,  with  Maps; 

AND 

A   STATISTICAL    ACCOUNT    OF    ASSAM. 

Two  Vols.,  Half  Morocco,  7s.  6d.  each,  with  Maps. 

'  Un  ensemble  d'effbrts  digne  d'une  grande  nation,  et  comme  aiicune  autre 
n'en  a  fait  jusqu'ici  de  semblable  pour  son  empire  colonial.' — Rciue  Critique. 

'  The  Englishman  who  dips,  as  we  have  done,  into  this  deep  spring,  will  be 
filled  wi'h  a  new  and  nobler  pride  for  the  Empire  which  his  nation  has  made 
and  maintained  as  their  own  in  the  East.  Not  warlike  fame,  nor  imposing 
majesty,  wealth,  or  the  national  power  which  guarantees  the  sovereignty  of 
India,  make  upon  him  the  strongest  impression  ;  it  is  much  more  the  feeling 
of  the  earnest  anl  responsible  duty  which  fate  has  imposed  upon  his  country 
to  free  India  from  anarchy  and  misrule, — to  make  it  the  England  of  Asia,  and 
the  centre  of  a  new  civilisation  for  that  continent  from  which  issued  the  first 
stream  of  enlightenment  to  enrich  the  world.' — Berlin  Magazin  fiir  die  Lileraliir 
des  Atislaiidts. 

'  We  have  here  for  the  first  time  a  trustworthy,  intelligent,  and  interesting 
account  of  each  District  of  the  principal  Province  of  India — a  marvel  of  industry 
and  organization  of  which  any  man  might  be  proud.' — Calcutta  Quarterly 
Revie^o. 

'  A  mine  of  varied  and  valuable  material  is  here  offered  to  the  student  of  human 
history.' — North  Atitei-ican  Reviau. 

'  Twenty  volumes  of  material,  collected  under  the  most  favourable  auspices,  are 
built  up  under  his  hands  into  a  vast  but  accessible  storehouse  of  invaluable  facts. 
Invaluable  to  the  statesman,  the  administrator,  and  the  historian,  they  are  no  less 
interesting  to  the  general  reader.  Mr.  Hunter  undoubtedly  has  the  faculty  of 
making  the  dry  bones  of  statistics  live.  But  they  also  contain  matter  which  may 
be  regarded  as  the  foundation  of  the  yet  unwritten  history  of  Bengal.  They  are 
a  guide  for  administrative  action  now.  They  also  seem  to  be  the  point  of  a  new 
departure  for  the  future.' — Nineteenth  Century. 


TPIE  IMPERIAL  GAZETTEER  OF  INDIA. 


OPINIONS  OF  THE  PRE.SS  ON  THE  FIRST  EDITION. 

'  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  will  be  the  fruit  and  condensation  of  a  series  of  .Statis- 
tical Surveys  of  each  of  the  Administrative  or  Political  Divisions  of  India,  specially 
and  minutely  compiled  within  moderate  limits  of  time.' — Despatch  Jrom  the 
Secretary  0/ State  to  the  Government  of  India,  dated  22nd  Fel>rnary  1 877. 

'  A  great  work  has  been  unostentatiously  carried  on  for  the  last  twelve  years  in 
India,  the  importance  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  e.xaggerate,  and  the  results  of 
which  are  now,  in  a  carefully  digested  form,  presented  to  the  public.  This  is 
nothing  less  than  a  complete  Statistical  Survey  of  the  entire  British  Empire 
in  Hindustan,  which  Dr.  Hunter  has  condensed  into  the  practical  form  of  an 
Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India.  .  .  .  The  article  India,  in  Volume  IV.,  is  the 
touchstone  of  the  work,  and  proves  clearly  enough  the  sterling  metal  of  whicii 
it  is  wrought.  It  represents  the  essence  of  the  loO  volumes  which  contain  the 
results  of  the  Statistical  Survey  conducted  by  Dr.  Hunter  throughout  each  of 
the  240  Districts  of  India.  It  is,  moreover,  the  only  attempt  that  has  ever  been 
made  to  show  how  the  Indian  people  have  been  built  up,  and  the  evidence  from 
the  original  materials  has  been  for  the  first  time  sifted  and  examined  by  the  light 


IVORA'S  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


of  the  local  researches  in  which  the  author  was  for  so  long  engaged.  .  .  . 
treating  of  ancient  India,  the  author  has  made  no  use  of  Mill's  work,  but  has 
written  the  history  afresh  from  original  translations  of  the  Sanskrit  literature  of 
the  period.  The  stoiy  of  mediceval  India  could  scarcely  be  told  without  the 
aid  of  Elphinstone's  well-known  work,  but  Dr.  Hunter  has  gone  back  in  every 
case  to  the  original  sources,  from  Elphinstone  to  Ferishta,  and  from  him  to  the 
Arab  geographers  and  Persian  historians  contained  in  Sir  Henry  Elliot's  nine 
volumes  on  the  same  subject.  In  the  accounts  both  of  ancient  and  mediaeval 
India,  use  has  been  made  of  the  latest  discoveries  of  the  Archaeological  Survey, 
which  is  still  being  carried  on.  The  great  feature  of  this  remarkable  article, 
and  that  in  which  its  chief  usefulness  consists,  is,  perhaps,  the  constructive 
account  of  the  Indian  people,  and  the  synthesis  of  Hinduism  from  the  actually 
existing  facts,  as  revealed  by  Dr.  Hunter's  survey  and  by  the  first  Indian  census.' 

—  The  Times  (first  notice,  May  26,  iSSi). 

'  The  publication  of  the  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India  marks  the  completion  of 
the  largest  national  enterprise  in  statistics  which  has  ever  been  undertaken.  This 
gigantic  work  has  been  carried  out  under  the  uninterrupted  direction  of  Dr. 
Hunter,  its  original  designer,  from  the  initial  stage  of  local  inquiry  in  each  of  the 
240  Districts  of  India  to  the  final  arrangement  of  the  results  in  an  alphabetical 
form.  .  .  .  The  great  value  of  this  work  is  not  only  that  it  gives  for  the  first  time 
a  complete  account  of  India,  and  places  in  a  clear  light  before  our  eyes  the 
political,  social,  and  physical  condition  of  millions  of  our  fellow-subjects,  ot 
whom  before  we  had  no  accurate  conception  ;  but  that  it  also  breaks  the  long 
spell  of  disappointment  and  failure,  which  has  hitherto  hung  over  the  efforts  of 
the  Indian  Government  towards  an  elucidation  of  the  country  it  governs. 
Hitherto  no  one  has  believed  in  Indian  statistics.  Every  official  statement  made 
on  any  Indian  subject  has  been  contradicted  point-blank.  .  .  .  The  volumes 
supply,  for  the  first  time,  materials  by  means  of  which  British  statesmen  at  home, 
and  the  Biitish  public  at  large,  can  criticise  the  actions  of  our  Proconsuls  in  the 
East.  Both  Englishmen  and  native  Indians  will  be  thankful  for  a  work,  the 
accuracy,  fulness  of  detail,  completeness  of  information,  and  masterly  arrange- 
ment of  which  constitute  it  a  real  and  invaluable  help  to  all  who  do  honest  wurk 
in  India,  and  to  all  who  honestly  judge  of  Indian  work  at  home.  ...  It  is  one 
of  the  grandest  works  of  admini'^trative  statistics  which  have  ever  been  issued  by 
any  nation,  and  should  earn  for  its  author  and  designer  the  gratitude  of  every 
one  who  has  the  welfare  and  good  government  of  our   Indian  Empire  at  heart.' 

—  The  Times  (second  notice). 

'  The  Statistical  Survey  of  India  marks  an  epoch  in  the  approximation  of  Indian 
rule  to  our  English  ideas  of  good  government,  and  forms  the  necessary  comple- 
ment to  the  transfer  of  India  from  a  Commercial  Company  to  the  direct  admini- 
stration of  the  Crow^n.  That  transfer  placed  the  authority  over  the  Indian 
Government  in  the  hands  of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  but  it  supplied  no  data  by 
which  the  people  of  England,  through  their  constitutional  representatives,  could 
safely  wield  their  newly  acquired  authority.  .  .  .  Of  the  oljstructions  and  difficulties 
which  such  a  work  was  sure  to  encounter.  Dr.  Hunter  says  not  a  word.  .  .  . 
This  masterful  silence  as  to  difficulties  thrust  on  one  side,  obstacles  beaten  down, 
unjust  jealousies  and  just  susceptibilities  conciliated,  and  individual  wills  con- 
trolled, is  the  finest  characteristic  of  the  body  of  Englishmen  who  administer 
India  ;  and  is  a  distinctive  trait  of  our  countrymen,  wherever  they  are  called  upon 
to  mle  in  the  colonies  and  outlying  dependencies  which  form  the  mighty 
aggregate  of  the  wide-scattered  British  Empire.  .  .  .  No  nation  has  ever 
attempted  so  comprehensive,  so  detailed,  and  so  stupendous  a  statistical  enterprise, 
and  the  whole  has  been  planned  and  executed  with  a  smoothness  and  a  certainty 
which  are  truly  marvellous.' — The  AtliemFiim. 

'  England  has  brought  India  for  the  first  time  under  one  empire  ;  and  Mr. 
Hunter,  also  for  the  first  time,  has  exhibited  before  us  on  a  panoramic  scale  the 
vastness  of  our  responsibility,  and  has  afforded  us  the  means  of  performing  our 
trust  under  the  guidance  of  full  knowledge.' — Tlie  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

'  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  is  the  crowning  work  which  brings  the  results  of  the 
great  Statistical  Survey  within  reach  of  the  general  public.  It  represents  twelve 
years  of  incessant  labour,  demanding  many  high  qualities  for  its  efficient  execu- 
tion, and  natural  gifts  such  as  are  rarely  combined  in  one  man.  Learning, 
experience,  and  scholarly  research  were  no  less  essential  than  habits  of  accurate 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


thoui^ht,  administrative  talent,  and  orderly,  methodical  arrangement.  Above  all, 
imagination  was  needed — that  quality  without  which  work  cannot  be  endued 
with  life  and  movement,  but  remains  dead,  a  mere  receptacle  of  lifeless  facts.  It 
is  to  the  rare  combination  of  literary  skill  and  the  imaginative  faculty,  with  the 
qualifications  of  an  able  and  energetic  administrator,  that  we  owe  the  completion 
of  this  great  and  difficult  task.  It  is  no  ordinary  service  that  Dr.  Hunter  has 
done  to  India  and  to  England  ;  and,  for  his  hard  and  admirably  performed 
achievement,  he  has  earned  the  gratitude  of  his  countrymen.' — CUments  R. 
JMarkham  in  the  '  Academy. ' 

'  A  model  of  combined  lucidity,  conciseness,  and  comprehensiveness.  .  .  . 
Emphatically  a  great  work — great  in  its  magnitude,  and  still  greater  in  the 
beneficial  results  it  is  calculated  to  produce.' — T//e  Economist. 

'  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  which,  without  exaggeration,  may  be  called 
a  magnificent  work,  alike  in  its  conception  and  execution,  will  go  far  to  supply 
the  present  and  future  guardians  of  our  great  dependency  with  the  accurate  and 
systematized  knowledge  of  the  countries  and  peoples  under  their  rule,  without 
which  the  highest  political  ability  and  the  very  best  intentions  are  condemned  to 
work  in  the  dark.  If  Dr.  Hunter  had  no  other  claim — and  he  has  many— to  the 
gratitude  of  all  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  inhabitants  of  India,  and  the 
efficiency  of  the  machine  of  government  on  which  much  of  their  happiness  and 
prosperity  depends,  this  splendid  memorial  of  his  ability,  industry,  and  persever- 
ance would  have  been  sufficient  to  give  him  a  place  among  those  who  have  worthily 
performed  great  and  useful  tasks.' — TJie  Statist. 

'  Hitherto  tiie  cardinal  defect  in  our  administration  of  India,  keenly  felt  and 
bitterly  deplored  by  all  earnest  men  in  the  country,  has  been  lack  of  adequate 
continuous  trustworthy  information.  It  is  clearly  not  too  much  to  say  of  Dr. 
Hunter's  magmim  opKs,  that  it  has  changed  all  that  ;  the  system  and  method  of 
Indian  administration  take  a  new  departure  from  the  date  of  its  publication.  .  .  . 
No  one  undertaking  that  we  have  yet  accomplished  in  India,  or  for  India,  has 
promised  such  far-reaching  benefits.  Dr.  Hunter,  handing  over  to  a  successor  the 
easy  task  of  keeping  his  work  serviceable  and  in  good  repair,  will  doubtless 
receive,  from  the  Government  which  he  has  served  so  well,  promotion  commen- 
surate with  the  importance  of  his  labours  ;  but  he  will  have  the  far  higher 
"satisfaction  of  feeling  that  in  the  Imperial  Gazetteer  he  has  left  a  monument  of 
his  ability  and  industry  more  lasting  than  brass.' — Allen  s  Indian  Mail. 

'  Between  1769  and  1S55,  the  East  India  Company  set  on  foot  many  attempts 
towards  the  production  of  a  comprehensive  description  of  its  possessions.  The 
only  result  was  a  storehouse  of  important  materials  in  a  fragmentary' state.  With 
the  transference  of  the  government  to  the  Crown  in  1858,  the  need  of  information 
became  more  and  more  urgently  felt.  The  half-personal,  half-traditional  know- 
ledge possessed  by  the  Company's  officers  disclosed  many  deficiencies  from  its 
i'^olated  character  ;  while  they  also  held  far  too  lightly  the  English  responsibility 
of  governing  in  a  constitutional  manner  the  subjugated  States.  Lord  Mavo  as 
Viceroy,  appointed  Dr.  Hunter  to  the  head  of  the  Indian  Statistical  Department, 
and  entrusted  to  him  the  descriptive  survey  of  this  great  country  inhabited  by  240 
millions  of  men.  .  .  .  In  nine  volumes  he  presents  an  exposition  of  the  Indian 
Empire.  The  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India  is  an  example  of  clearness  and  com- 
prehensiveness with  the  concise  treatment  of  all  the  essential  features  of  a  country. 
Although  alphabetically  arranged,  the  Gazetteer  is  no  bare  survey  of  the  matter.s 
dealt  with.  It  sets  forth  the  fruits  of  the  author's  personal  and  long-protracted 
researches,  and  forms  a  monument  of  Dr.  Hunter's  knowledge  of  the  topography, 
agriculture,  administration,  and  health-aspects  of  the  whole  Empire  of  India.' — 
KiJlnische  Zeitiin^. 


PRICE    ONE    SHI  LLING. 
ENGLAND'S     WORK     IN     INDIA. 

'  The  fruit  and  condensation  of  Mr.  Hunter's  labours.' 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


PRICE    THREE    AND    SIXPENCE. 

A  BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  THE  INDIAN  PEOPLE. 

Seventh  Edition.     Forty-Seventh  Thousand. 

This  Edition  incorporates  the  suggestions  received  by  the  author  from  Directors 
of  Public  Instruction  and  other  Educational  authorities  in  India  ;  its  statistics  are 
brou"ht  down  to  the  last  Census  ;  and  its  narrative,  to  the  year  1884.  The  work 
has  received  the  emphatic  approval  of  the  organ  of  the  English  School  Boards, 
and  is  largely  employed  for  educational  purposes  in  Europe  and  America. 

'  Within  the  compass  of  some  250  pages  we  know  of  no  history  of  the  peojile 
of  India  so  concise,  so  interesting,  and  so  useful  for  educational  purposes  as  this.' 
—  l^ie  School  Board  Chronicle  (London). 

'  "  A  Brief  History  of  the  Indian  People,"  l)y  W.  W.  Hunter,  presents  a  sort  of 
bird's-eye  view  both  of  India  and  of  its  people  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  historical 
records.  Although  designed  as  a  popular  handbook,  the  liule  volume  is  a  work 
of  authority  and  of  original  value.' — The  Daily  NlIos  (London). 

'  Dr.  Hunter  may  be  said  to  have  presented  a  compact  epitome  of  the  results 
of  his  researches  into  the  early  history  of  India  ;  a  subject  upon  which  his 
knowledge  is  at  once  exceptionally  wide  and  exceedingly  thorough.  .  .  .  The 
book  is  excellently  adapted,  either  as  an  introduction  to  more  extended  studies  on 
the  subject,  or  to  give  a  respectable  measure  of  general  knowledge  to  people  whc 
have  not  the  time  or  opportunity  to  acquire  more.' — 1  he  Scots»ian  (Edinburgh). 
'  Dr.  Hunter's  history,  if  brief,  is  comprehensive.  It  is  a  storehouse  of  fact' 
marshalled  in  a  masterly  style  ;  and  presented,  as  history  should  be,  without  the 
slightest  suspicion  of  prejudice  or  suggestion  of  partisanship.  Dr.  Hunter 
observes  a  style  of  severe  simplicity,  which  is  the  secret  of  an  impressive  presenta- 
tion of  detail.^.' — The  Daily  Revieio  (Edinburgh). 

'  We  pari  from  Mr.  Hunter  with  much  respect  for  the  care  he  has  taken  in 
writing  this  small  manual.  We  consider  it  to  be  by  far  the  best  manual  of 
Indian  History  that  has  hitherto  been  published,  and  quite  equal  to  any  of  the 
Historical  Series  for  Schools,  edited  by  Dr.  Freeman.  We  trust  that  it  will  soon 
be  read  in  all  the  schools  in  this  Presidency.' — The  Times  of  India. 

Extract  from  a  criticism  by  Edward  Giles,  Esq.,  Inspector  of  Schools, 
Northern  Division,  Bombay  Presidency  : — '  My  knowledge  of  Schools  in  this 
coantry  has  led  me  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  experience  of  the  students  of  history 
is  confined  to  the  acquisition  of  masses  of  statistics,  names  and  dates,  learnt 
without  intelligence.  What  we  require  is  a  book  which  shall  be  accurate  as  to 
facts,  but  not  overloaded  with  them  ;  written  in  a  style  which  shall  interest, 
attract,  and  guide  uncultivated  readers  ;  and  short,  because  it  must  be  sold  at  a 
reasonable  j^rice.  'i  hese  conditicms  have  never,  in  my  opinion,  been  realized 
previous  to  the  introduction  ol  this  book.' 

'  The  publication  of  the  Hon.  W.  W.  Hunter's  .School  History  of  India  is  an 
event  in  literary  history.' — Ken  <^  Ravyet  (Calcutta). 

'  We  have  not  come  across  a  single  work  on  Indian  History  which  we  have 
read  wiih  greater  pleasure  and  greater  pride.  As  a  historian,  Dr.  Hunter  has 
done  full  justice  to  the  people  of  India.  He  has  succeeded  in  writing  a  history 
of  India,  not  only  in  such  a  way  that  it  will  be  read,  but  also  in  a  way  which  we 
hope  w^ill  lead  young  Englishmen  and  young  natives  of  India  to  think  more 
kindly  of  each  other.  The  Calcutta  University  has  done  wisely  in  prescribing 
this  brief  history  as  a  text-book  for  the  Entrance  Examination.' — The  Hindoo 
Patriot  (Calcutta). 


London  :  TRUBKEJl  &  CO..  Ludgate  Hill. 


^,Vo 


PLEASE  DO  NOT  REMOVE 
CARDS  OR  SLIPS  FROM  THIS  POCKET 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO  LIBRARY