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The Library 
 
 of 
 
 Literary History 
 
®hc tibrarg of titerarg liatorg 
 
 A LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA. By R. W. 
 Frazer, LL.B. 
 
 Other Vol uines in Preparaaon. 
 
 A LITERARY HISTORY OF FRANCE. Volume I. 
 From the Origin to 1550. By Marcel Schwob. 
 
 A LITERARY HISTORY OF IRELAND. By Douglas 
 Hyde. 
 
 A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE JEWS. By 
 Israel Abrahams. 
 
 A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 By Barreit Wendell. 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC. 
 
 In Demy 8j/o, Cloth, gilt. 
 
 There is for every nation a history, which does not respond to the 
 tiumpet'Call of battle, which does not limit its interest to the coufiict of 
 dynasties. This— the history of intellectual growth and artistic achievement 
 — if less romantic than the popular panorama of kings and queens, finds its 
 material in imperishable masterpieces, and reveals to the student something 
 at once more vital and more picturesque than the quarrels bf rival parlia* 
 ments. Nor is it in any sense unscientific to shift the point of view from 
 politics to literature. It is but a fashion of history which insists that a 
 nation lives only for her warriors, a fashion which might long since have 
 been ousted by the commonplace reflection that, in spite of history, the poets 
 are the true masters of the earth. If all record of a nation's progress were 
 blotted out, and its literature were yet left us, might we not recover the out- 
 lines of its lost history ? 
 
 It is, then, with the literature of nations, that the present series is 
 concerned. 
 
 Each volume will be entrusted to a distinguished scholar, and the aid of 
 foreign men of letters will be invited whenever the perfection of the series 
 demands it. 
 
2HE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 LITER JRT HISJORT 
 
 A Literary History of India 
 
A Literary History 
 of India 
 
 By 
 
 R. W. Frazer, LL.B. 
 
 Lecturer in Tehigii and Tamil at University College, and the Imperial Institute . 
 
 Awards from Govemmettt o/ Madras for High Proficiency in Sanskrit, 
 
 Vriya, and Telugu ; Member of Council, Royal Asiatic Society, 
 
 Author of ■* 
 
 Silent Gods and Sun-Steeped Lands '' 
 
 and 
 British India ("Story of the Nations" Series) 
 
 New York 
 Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII 
 
PREFACE 
 
 -■♦■ ■■- 
 
 In essaying to set forth a connected history of India from 
 such evidences as I have selected from its literature, I have 
 been obliged to evade, and not to emphasise, difficulties 
 everywhere patent to the scholar or specialist. In most 
 cases, however, I have accepted the conclusions of those 
 who are recognised authorities. In those cases where 
 scholars still disagree I have indicated in footnotes the 
 evidences on which I had to form conclusions of my own. 
 
 On many points, especially those relating to the signi- 
 ficance of the early, sacrificial systems, to the origin and 
 purport of the Epics, and to the Grseco-Roman influence 
 on the form of the Indian Drama, it was manifestly im- 
 possible, in a work such as this, to enter on any prolonged 
 discussion. 
 
 The main outlines of the history are never likely to be 
 materially affected by future decisions on these debatable 
 points. 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 The early incursion of fair-skinned Aryan tribes, amid 
 the darker aboriginal inhabitants, forms the starting-point 
 Of these Aryans, the only literary record we possess is that 
 preserved in the Vedic Hymns, for it does not seem 
 probable that an unaided Science of Philology will ever 
 throw much light on their past history or religious beliefs. 
 The early course of these invading tribes can be traced as 
 they forced their way among the aborigines, and made 
 their settlements in the most favoured river tracts north of 
 the Vindhya range of mountains. The vast area over 
 which the tribes, whose members can never have been very 
 numerous, spread themselves prevented them from forming 
 a united and compact nationality of their own among the 
 ruder aboriginal races. The tribal deities lost their im- 
 portance and failed to coalesce into the ideal of one 
 national God. 
 
 As the early sacrificial cult drifted from its primitive 
 significance the idea was evolved of a Brahman, or self- 
 existent Cause or Force, underlying the Universe. The 
 nature of this Brahman was ultimately declared to be 
 Unknowable to reason, but to have been revealed in the 
 sacred Vedic literature to the Brahmans, or descendants of 
 the early poet-priests who composed the hymns, prayers, 
 or incantations to their tribal deities. 
 
 The first hope that Aryans and aborigines might become 
 infused with a common ideal and faith dawned with the 
 personality and teachings of the Buddha at a time when the 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 full strength of Aryan intellectual vigour was about to cul- 
 minate in phases of thought which gave rise to the schools 
 of formulated philosophic reasoning. I have endeavoured 
 to trace the political effects of these forces, and to indicate 
 the causes which prevented the great civilising power 
 of early Aryanism in India from saving the people from 
 divisions and dissensions, which left them an easy prey to 
 foreign invaders. The divisions of the people were stereo- 
 typed by a system of caste originally based on racial and 
 intellectual differences. The intrusion of Scythian, Persian, 
 Arab, Afghan, and Mughal hordes but increased the 
 diversity of the factors into which the community was 
 divided. The primary forces which prevented even an 
 Akbar from implanting vital principles of union among 
 the people were religious fanaticism, class distinctions, 
 and race hatred. While these forces still exist, the in- 
 troduction of printing into India, and the higher education 
 of the natives through the medium of English, are im- 
 planting new modes of thought and new principles ot 
 action among the class which claims to represent public 
 opinion. The orthodox Brahmans, and the high-caste 
 natives of the old conservative school, however, remain 
 hostile to all innovations, determined to maintain the 
 fundamental doctrines of their religion, and preserve the 
 best of their ancient social customs. On the other hand, 
 the more advanced natives of the new school, whose 
 trend of thought is, for the most part, towards agnosticism 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 and freedom from all caste and social restraints, strive 
 more and more to assume the position of leaders of the 
 people and exponents of their views. The position is 
 one produced by the deliberate and consistent policy of 
 education in India. The stage is a stage of transition 
 and unrest but happily for India it seems to be fraught 
 with fewer elements of danger than the stage through 
 which the nations of the West seem destined to 
 pass. 
 
 Throughout the work the transliteration of native words 
 has been of great difficulty. Cerebrals and nasals are 
 unmarked, as the omission will not confuse any one 
 acquainted with Eastern languages, and my experience, 
 after many years teaching of Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, 
 is that it is impossible for any one unfamiliar with the 
 sound of the languages as spoken in India to acquire 
 even an approximate pronunciation of these letters. 
 
 I regret that it is impossible for me fully to acknow- 
 ledge my indebtedness to the many works I have 
 consulted. To the delegates of the Clarendon Press I 
 am especially indebted for permission to quote from the 
 Series of the " Sacred Books of the East " — a monumental 
 undertaking full of evidence of the scholarship, untiring 
 "industry and wide sympathies in all matters connected 
 with the East of Professor The Right Honourable F. 
 Max Miiller. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr Pope, the Oxford Professor of Tamil 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 my sincere thanks are due for having placed valuable 
 original translations at my disposal, and I trust that I 
 have not too freely availed myself of his permission to 
 quote from them. To the Editor of the Series in which 
 this history appears I owe much for valuable suggestions 
 and literary criticism, all of which I have most gladly 
 accepted. To Miss C. M. Duff I am grateful for having 
 kindly allowed me to peruse the proof sheets of her forth- 
 coming "Chronology of India." Had I seen her work 
 earlier I should have been spared several months of un- 
 congenial labour in preparing a chronological framework 
 for the present history. 
 
 R. W. FRAZER. 
 
 London Institution, 
 ^th November 1897. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Aryans ...... i 
 
 II. The Grey Dawn Mists . . . lo 
 
 III. The Early Bards ..... 17 
 
 IV. The Twilight of the Older and the Dawn 
 
 OF Newer Deities .... 40 
 
 V. Brahmanism ...... 63 
 
 VI. From Brahmanism to Buddhism ... 94 
 VII. Buddhism . . . . . .114 
 
 VIII. The Power of the Brahmans . . .148 
 
 IX. The Final Resting-Place of Aryan Thought 188 
 
 X. The Epics ...... 210 
 
 XI. The Attack ...... 242 
 
 XII. The Drama ...... 263 
 
 XIII. South India ...... 300 
 
 XIV. The Foreigner in the Land . . .332 
 XV. The Fusing Point of Old and New . 384 
 
 Frontispiece.— From " Manners in Bengal," by Mrs Belnos. 
 
LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE arya:ms. 
 
 No invasion of India is feasible in the present day save by 
 a maritime nation holding the supremacy of the seas, or by 
 a force advancing from Central Asia with strength sufficient 
 to break its way through the defences on the west and 
 north-west frontiers. From Chitral in the extreme north, 
 where the Ikshkamun and Baroghil Passes show the way 
 across the Hindu Kush to the lonely heights of the Pamirs, 
 southwards to where the Khaibar Pass gives access to 
 Kabul,' the Gumal and Tochi Passes lead to Ghazni, and 
 the Bolan still further south to Quetta and Chaman, on to 
 the seaport town of Karachi in Sind, a distance of 1200 
 miles, the whole north-west and west frontiers are held 
 by British troops, backed by defensive entrenchments and 
 batteries, prepared to meet the first advancing armies that 
 venture to tread the historic paths of old that so often led 
 the nomad hosts of Central Asia to the conquest of India. 
 From time immemorial, bands of warlike invaders have 
 swarmed down from beyond these barrier passes to conquer 
 the effete inhabitants of the fertile river - valleys of the 
 plains of India, only themselves in turn to fall subdued 
 
 A 
 
2 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 by the enervating influence of the climate, and be swept 
 away by succeeding bands of hardier invading races. 
 
 When the history of India first dawns in literature, it is 
 through these same bleak mountain passes that tribes 
 of warrior heroes, bred in cold and northern climes, are 
 seen slowly advancing to seek new homes beneath the 
 warm and southern sun. Proud in their conquering might, 
 these tribes called themselves Arya, or "Noble," a term 
 denoting the contempt they felt for the dark-skinned races 
 they found in possession of the land. Full four thousand 
 years ago, these first historic invaders of India must have 
 stood gazing, in wonder and amazement, from the lofty 
 heights of some one of these northern passes, on the rich 
 valleys lying smiling at their feet. To their gods they 
 sang their songs of thanksgiving that at length their weary 
 journey from colder realms was at an end, and that victory 
 had been given them over their foes, who lurked amid the 
 mountain forests, and opposed their progress with fierce 
 cries and rude weapons. These invading tribes were a 
 fair-skinned race ^ with whom all Brahmans and twice-born 
 higher castes of India now claim kindred,^ holding them- 
 selves aloof from the darker-skinned descendants of the 
 aboriginal inhabitants. The birthright of the Brahmans 
 of India is to keep preserved in their memories the early 
 hymns sung by their Aryan forefathers. These hymns — 
 every stress and accent marked as in days long past, every 
 syllable and word intoned according to ancient usage, 
 
 ' " A tall feir-complexioned dolichocephalic and presumedly lepterhine race. '' 
 — Risley, "Study of Ethnology in India," p. 2^<j ; Jottmal Anthropological 
 Institute (February 1891). 
 
 2 It must be borne in mind that in using the term, " Arj'an," with reference to 
 modem India, it merely refers to those people who speak Aryan languages, 
 no suggestion being made that these people are necessarily of Aryan descent. 
 As clearly stated by Max MuUer, in a letter to Mr Risley ("Biographies of 
 Words," p. 245) : " Aryas are those who speak Aryan language, whatever 
 their colour, whatever their language. In calling them Aryas, we predict nothing 
 of them except that the grammar of their language is Aryan." 
 
THE ARYANS 3 
 
 remain the sacred treasure of. their hereditary custodians, 
 so that the utterances of the early Aryan invaders of India 
 live to-day as clear and distinct as when first sung by the 
 Vedic poets. These treasured verses, as collected together 
 in the 1028 hymns, known as the " Hymns of the Rig Veda," 
 are all that are left to enable us of to-day to pierce the mists 
 of the long past history of India. To all orthodox Hindus, 
 they are held as having been breathed forth as a divine 
 revelation from before all time. The reducing of them to 
 writing, and even the hearing of their recitation by foreigners, 
 or by any but the twice-born castes, is still looked upon as 
 sacrilege and profanation by those who claim the sole right 
 to hear their sacred sound. 
 
 The iirst of a long line of priestly legislators who strove 
 to reduce all the laws and customs of the people of India 
 to ideals founded on priestly ordinances declared ^ that a 
 Sudra, or one of non-Aryan blood, who dared to listen to 
 the recitation of the Vedic Hymns, should have his ears 
 filled with molten tin or lac ; should the Sudra repeat the 
 words he had heard, his tongue should be cut out; should 
 he remember the sound, his body should be split in twain. 
 
 These Hymns, though they are still held as revelations 
 from the Creator of the universe, tell nothing of the long, 
 dark night that preceded the advent of these Aryan tribes, 
 who loom so indistinct on the horizon of the literary history 
 of India. 
 
 To the Vedic bards, standing as they did on the threshold 
 of a new world, the story of their nation's past faded into in- 
 significance before the brightness of its present. Enthroned 
 in the pride of race, the poet sang of the might of his 
 people, of his own power to win, by the magic of his words 
 and cunning of his spells, the favour of the gods, so that 
 they might lead the Aryan tribes to victory. For him the 
 hand of time passed by unnoticed. To have told of the 
 
 ' "Gautama," chap xii. 4-6, S.B.E. vol. ii. 
 
4 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 past in the intoxicated fervour of his imagination, as he 
 alone could have done it, would have dimmed the glory 
 of the present. The time had not come when his mind, 
 grown full of halting fears, would brood in misgivings over 
 the future. Yet, strange to say, the very words over which 
 the poets lingered in syllables of soft cadence, or which 
 came rushing from their lips with the sound of the heavy 
 roll of war chariots, held the secret, not only of their own, 
 but of many other people's past. 
 
 The torch of learning, set aglow by the first Aryan 
 invaders of India, was kept for long alight by an hereditary 
 line of Brahman priests, poets, and philosophers, who 
 ministered, sang, and reasoned far and wide — from the 
 holy land of Aryavarta, to the distant seminaries in the 
 South ; from the Buddhist monasteries in the West, to the 
 renowned schools of logic in the East Fresh conquerors 
 appeared in the land, but still the Brahmans kept on their 
 even way. At length the advancing wave of a Western 
 civilisation, founded on new ideals, crept up the banks 
 of the sacred rivers of India, and spread all over the land. 
 In the eager race for wealth that ensued on the entry of 
 these new invaders, the whole foundations on which the 
 fantastic structure of the religious and social life of India 
 was based remained unnoticed, as though Vedic song had 
 never been sung in the land, and Brahman had never 
 existed. 
 
 The first to take note of the ancient learning of the land 
 was the English Governor-General Warren Hastings, who 
 summoned eleven Brahmans to Calcutta, there to compile 
 for their new rulers a code of Hindu religions and customs.^ 
 The reasons set forth by the Governor-General for thus 
 desiring to ascertain somewhat of the laws of the Brahmans 
 
 ^ The first published translation from Sanskrit into any European language 
 was " Bhartrihari's Satakas," by Abraham Roger, first Dutch chaplain at 
 Pulicat (1631-1641), Grierson, "Satsaiya ofBihari," p. 2. 
 
THE ARYANS 5 
 
 was, that "the Hindus had for long fallen under the 
 Muhammadan rule, so that terror and confusion had 
 found a way to all the People, and Justice was not 
 impartially administered." ^ The work compiled by these 
 eleven Brahmans reached England in the year 1776, but 
 still the Sanskrit on which it had been founded held its 
 secret safe. Nine years later (1785) a young merchant, 
 J. Wilkins, sent forth his translation of the Indian Song of 
 Songs, the " Bhagavadgita,'' and two years later (1787), the 
 collection of Hindu stories, known as the " Hitopadesa," the 
 original source of the famed fables of Bidpai. Yet the 
 West woke not up to the fact that India possessed aught 
 of more value than bales of calico, rich spices, and gems. 
 Two years later, a drama of Kalidasa, the Shakespeare of 
 India, was given to the West by Sir William Jones. This 
 drama, the now well-known " Sakuntala," showed that India 
 possessed a literature. To Kalidasa Alexander von 
 Humboldt allotted " a lofty place among the poets of all 
 ages," and of the drama itself Goethe sang in raptures in 
 his well-known lines : — 
 
 " Willst du die Bluthe des friihen, die Friichte des spateren Jahres, 
 Willst du was reizt und entziiekt, willst du was sattigt und nahrt, 
 Willst du den Himmel die Erde, mit einem Namen begreifen ; 
 Nenn' ich SakuntaM dich und so ist alias gesagt." 
 
 The attention, not only of men of taste but also of 
 scholars,^ was naturally attracted to these works, and 
 efforts were made in Europe to study and master the 
 Sanskrit in which they were composed. So far an interest — 
 an interest of curiosity — was aroused in the literature of 
 India, but no expectations were entertained that the West 
 had anything further to learn from the lore of the East. 
 
 ^ Halhed's Introduction to "The Code of Gentoo Laws" (London, 1776). 
 2 F. Schlegel (1808), " Upon the Language and Wisdom of the Hindus," 
 where he derives the Indo-Germanic family from India, 
 
6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Soon, however, it came to light^ that India not only possessed 
 a sacred literature, that of the Vedic Hymns, but that the 
 Sanskrit of these hymns was of a primitive and archaic 
 type, preserving in structure and grammatical forms 
 affinities with the Aryan languages of Europe. At once 
 the belief arose that this Vedic Sanskrit was the primitive 
 language of humanity ,2 and the old belief that the East 
 was the cradle of the human race gained new strength. 
 It was fondly hoped that the Brahmans of India had 
 preserved the parent speech, out from which had grown 
 the Greek, Latin, Iranian, Celtic, Lettic, Teutonic, and 
 Slavonic languages. Soon these hopes were doomed to 
 disappointment. Sanskrit was found to be but one branch 
 of the great Indo-European family of languages, and not 
 even as such to have preserved a structure which can be 
 considered more primitive than that of the other known 
 branches.^ 
 
 The plea for India as the lost home of primitive man 
 died away, and in its place the belief* that the nations of 
 Europe had migrated in early days from the Bactrian plains 
 of Central Asia, was held as a fundamental axiom in all en- 
 quiries into the origin of the Indo-European races. Even the 
 routes by which these early people spread from their Asiatic 
 home towards Europe were clearly traced out,^ and acknow- 
 ledged as correct. The ablest scholars^ accepted this Asiatic 
 
 1 F. Rosen (1838), " Rig Veda, Sanhita Sanskrite et Latine." 
 
 2 Weber, "Modern Investigations on Ancient India" (1857). 
 
 ' " Although no historic conclusions may be drawn from the primitiveness 
 
 of Sanskrit, that primitiveness itself remains the same as ever." Max Muller 
 
 "Biographies of Words," p. 99. 
 
 " Of all the existing tongues of the whole great family, the Lithuanian or 
 the Baltic retains by far the most antique aspect." — Whitney, "Language 
 and the Study of Language," p. 203. 
 
 < Grimm, "Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache," pp. 113-122. 
 
 ^ Pictet, "Origines Europ^ennes," 1859. 
 
 ° Max Muller, " Lectures on the Science of Language." 
 
THE ARYANS 7 
 
 theory, while Sayce^ agreed that "it is in the highlands 
 of Middle Asia, between the sources of the Oxus and 
 Jaxartes," that the first traces of the Aryan languages 
 appear in history. 
 
 The most pathetic instance of the unrelenting vindictive- 
 ness meted out by orthodoxy to originality, is to be seen 
 in the ridicule showered on Dr Latham, when he ventured ^ 
 upon the enunciation of a new suggestion, that the original 
 home of the Aryans might be sought in Europe rather than 
 in Asia.* Various theories followed in rapid succession. It 
 was not long before . grounds were found for locating the 
 primitive Aryans somewhere to the north* of the Black 
 Sea, from the Danube to the Caspian, while again on further 
 investigation, the home was shifted to Central and West 
 Germany.^ The habitat was then removed to the whole of 
 North Europe,* from the shores of the Atlantic to the con- 
 fines of the Ural range of mountains, until at length the theory 
 was propounded that the Aryan people have always occupied 
 the same relative position they now hold, and that linguistic 
 varieties arose in situ!' 
 
 In 1878, Poesche,^ met by the difficulty arising from 
 connoting unity of race, with unity of language, called in 
 
 1 "Principles of Comparative Philology" (1874), p. 101. 
 
 * First in "Native Races of the Russian Empire," 1854. See Rendall, 
 "Cradle'of the Aryans," p. 8. 6'«e Schrader, " Prehistoric Antiquities," p. 85. 
 
 5 Max Miiller still declares himself " more inclined to the Asiatic hypothesis " 
 XAthencBum, April 4, 1896). 
 
 * Benfey's Introduction to Fichte's " Worterbuch der Indo-Germanischen- 
 Grundsprache " (1868), p. ix. and "Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft," 1869. 
 
 ^ Geiger, "Zur Entwickluiigsgeschichte der Menschheit" (1871). See 
 Schrader, p. 87. 
 
 s Cuno, "Forschungen in Gebiete der alten Volker-kunde '' (1871). See 
 Schrader, p. 89. 
 
 ' See Taylor, " Origin of the Aryans," p. 36. 
 
 8 "Die Arier, Ein Beitrag zur historischen Anthropologie" (1878). In the 
 marshes of Pinsk, "the phenomenon of depigmentation or abhnism is of 
 extremely common occurrence, and is clearly marked in men, animals, and 
 plants," and accounts for the blonde colour of Indo-Europeans. See Schrader, 
 p. 100. 
 
8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the aid of anthropology and archaeology, and propounded 
 his theory that there was but one true Aryan race, a race 
 tall, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, with a dolichocephalic skull, 
 whose ancestral home he assigned to a clime where plants, 
 animals, and men soon became bleached, to the Rokitno 
 swamps of Russia.^ 
 
 More plausible and fascinating was the theory ^ that 
 Scandinavia was the original home of the typical Aryans, 
 who are now only to be found in North Germany and 
 Scandinavia, language alone being left in other parts of 
 Europe and in India as a sign of an Aryan conquest, the 
 Aryan race itself having succumbed in Southern climes to 
 climatic influences. That there did exist a people, living 
 united somewhere, probably in Europe,^ known to us as 
 Aryans, who spoke a language from which the modern 
 languages of Europe have diversified, as well as the languages 
 spoken by the Zend-speaking Iranians of Persia, and the 
 Sanskrit-speaking peoples of Vedic times in India, admits of 
 but little doubt. That these Aryan-speaking people separated 
 the one from the other in some ancient period, the ancestors 
 of the Indo-Iranians travelling East to seek new pasture- 
 lands and homes, the Europeans holding together until they 
 reached a halting ground, probably bordered on * the South 
 
 ^ Taylor, "Origin of the Aryans," p. 43. 
 
 2 Penka, " Origines Ariacae" (1883) ; " Die Herkunft der Arier" (1886). 
 
 "The Ice Age drove the majority of the human race from central Europe. 
 The Aryans remained, and it is " the climate of the Ice Age, and the struggle 
 with their environment that they have to thank for their blonde hair, blue 
 eyes, gigantic limbs, and dolichocephalous skulls." — Schrader, p. 102. 
 
 ^Huxley, Nineteenth Century, 1890, pp. 750-777: — "As to the 'home' 
 of the Aryan race, it was in Europe, and lay chiefly east of the central high- 
 lands and west of the Ural." Van den Gheyn has in " L'Origine Europeenne 
 des Aryas " (1885), analysed all these theories. 
 
 R. von Iheringin "The Evolution of the Aryan" (tr. A. Drucker, 1897), 
 has adopted "the prevailing opinion that the original home of the Aryans 
 was in Ancient Bactria (Central Asia)," and holds that "the ancient Aryans 
 lived in a hot zone " (see pp. i, 2). 
 
 * Schrader, "Prehistoric Antiquities," chap. xiv. p. 434. 
 
THE ARYANS g 
 
 by the Danube, and on the West by the Carpathians, where 
 they evolved the elements of their future civilisation, seems 
 now the most reliable conjecture. From the Celts who 
 followed their ever-waning fortunes towards the Main and 
 Rhine ; from the Teutons who stolidly marched along the 
 Vistula and Oder ; from the Greeks who found a resting- 
 place at the foot of Mount Olympus, thence to send South 
 tribes of lonians, .^olians, Achseans and Dorians ; from the 
 Latin, Slav and Lithuanian races, the Indo-Iranians parted 
 for ever, to carry to the East the intellectual vigour and 
 physical energy they inherited, in common with all races 
 bred and nurtured amid the harsh necessities of a northern 
 clime. Of the long pilgrimage of these eastward-travelling 
 tribes, along the pasture-lands of the Oxus and Jaxartes — 
 the only natural route — neither archaeology nor philology 
 can throw any light. On this long march the eastern-going 
 tribes first became known as Aryans. 
 
 Speaking some language, older in its primitive form than 
 Zend or Sanskrit, the Indo-Iranians held long together, until 
 at length a feud, probably religious, arose and divided them 
 for ever. All that is certainly known is, that one division 
 of the tribes, the Iranian, sought a home in Persia, the other, 
 the Indo- Aryans, passed onwards towards the Indus, to seek 
 new homes in the sunlit plains of India. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE GREY DAWN MISTS. 
 
 For long it was hoped that the Science of Compara- 
 tive Philology might weave out a history of the period 
 before the Aryan people separated to build up their own 
 distinctive languages and civilisations. In spite of the 
 brilliant results at first obtained/ it is now recognised that 
 only here and there a few faint clues can be found as to the 
 mode of life of these Aryans before the time when their 
 literary records rise from out the dim mists of the pre- 
 historic days. 
 
 The Science of Language, in the words of Dr Schrader, 
 " can only give us a skeleton, and to cover the dry bones 
 with flesh and blood is the prerogative of the Comparative 
 History of Culture. That the Indo-Europeans did possess 
 the notion of a house the philologists show us, for the 
 Sans, damd, Lat. domus, Greek Sd/zos, Slav. domU, corre- 
 spond ; but how these houses were constituted the historian 
 of primitive culture alone can ascertain." ^ 
 
 For the construction of such a skeleton, the strict rules of 
 philological research demand, in order that a word may be 
 
 ^ The earliest list of common Aryan words was by Colebrooke (1803). See 
 Max MuUer's " Biographies of Words," p. iz8; Schrader, " Prehistoric An- 
 tiquities," p. 149. 
 
 ° Schrader, p. 149. 
 
THE GREY DAWN MISTS ii 
 
 taken as a fossil of prehistoric life, that it should not only 
 be represented in at least one section of the European and 
 one of the Asiatic groups, but that it should also agree in 
 suffix as well as root.^ Care must also be taken to 
 eliminate from consideration such concepts as may possibly 
 have been borrowed by one language from another.^ 
 
 Allowing for all these and similar restrictions, which hold 
 the imagination ruthlessly bound to the dry accuracy of 
 scientifically-proved fact, some flickering gleam of light can 
 still be shed on the dim past of the Indo-Aryans — before 
 history dawns in the Vedic Hymns — as they emerge on the 
 North-West passes, thence to descend down the river- 
 valleys of the Ganges and Jumna, take up their abodes in 
 the fertile plains, send their warriors and missionaries 
 across the Vindhya range of mountains, only to see their 
 vaunted pride droop before the eternal decrees of Fate, 
 which ever bid the Aryan succumb, as he drifts further 
 from the cold realms wherein his warlike manhood was 
 first nurtured. 
 
 Philology, however, affords but vague and uncertain 
 evidence respecting the thoughts, beliefs, and ideals of 
 the primitive Aryans before they left their cold northern 
 homes. It may be assumed that, as human beings, they 
 had their own aspirations towards the ideal, and longings 
 for a knowledge of the Divine. It may be held for certain 
 that they had not sunk their heritage as reasoning 
 creatures to the level of the brute instincts of the flocks 
 they pastured. 
 
 The chilling hand of science, however, lies heavy on 
 those who fain would paint a brilliant sunlit background 
 to light up the simple picture of the life and homes of our 
 earliest historic forefathers. 
 
 1 Schrader, p. 30 ; Rendall, "Cradle of the Aryans," p. 9. 
 = See also Max MuUer, " Contributions to the Science of Mythology," 
 vol. i. p. xi. 
 
12 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 It has even been held^ that the early Aryans were 
 devoid of all religious ideas. Again they are declared 
 merely to have " believed in a multitude of ghosts and 
 goblins, making offerings to the dead and seeing in the 
 bright sky a potent deity." ^ 
 
 Professor Max Miiller, however, still contends ^ that not 
 only had the Aryans, before their arrival in India, gods who 
 were the personified representations of the phenomena of 
 Nature, but thatthey,in common with the undivided branches 
 of the Aryan family, had an abiding faith in deitieis known 
 as " asuras," or " devas."* These were the gods of whom the 
 myths were told, chief of them all being the supreme deity 
 of the sky ; for, as the same authority says : " Even the 
 most stubborn opponents of all attempts at tracing Greek 
 and Indian gods back to a common source seem to have 
 yielded an unwilling assent^ to the relationship between 
 the Greek Zeus-^rar^p, the Vedic Dyaush-pitar, the Latin 
 Jupiter, and the Teutonic Tyr^ ® 
 
 Yet in India in the first utterances of the Vedic Hymns, 
 Dyaus appears merely as a designation of the visible sky, 
 his personality as a supreme god having faded before the 
 purely Vedic " devas," or bright ones.'^ According to Dr 
 
 1 Otto Gruppe, "Die Griechischen Kulte und Mythen." See Schrader, 
 p. 410. 
 
 ^ Sayce, p. 890, British Association (1887). 
 
 ' Max Miiller, " Contributions to Science of Mythology," vol. i. p. 74. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. ii. p. 448, arguing from Lat. crSdo, etc., "the idea of 
 faith also must have been realised," etc. See, however, Schrader, p. 
 415. 
 
 5 " Many equations of names once made in the first enthusiasm of discovery 
 and generally accepted, have since been rejected, and very few of those that 
 remain, rest on a firm foundation. Dyaiis — Tievi, is the only one which can be 
 said to be beyond the range of doubt." — A. A. Macdonell, " Vedic Mythology " 
 (Grundriss), p. 8. 
 
 * Max MUUer, "Contributions to Science of Comp. Mythology," vol. ii. 
 p. 498. 
 
 ' Sans, devds, Lat. deus, O. N. tivdr and div. Lat. flamen Sans. 
 brahman — worshipping. Schrader, " Prehistoric Antiquities," p. 416. 
 
THE GREY DAWN MISTS 13 
 
 Schrader,! " the personification of the sky cannot have gone 
 very far in that prehistoric period, else it would be difficult 
 to see why the meaning of ' sky ' should have got the upper 
 hand again in later times." The Aryans, in fact, present 
 in their Vedic Hymns the first literary landmarks in 
 the history of India, and beyond those same Vedic Hymns, 
 little can be definitely asserted as to their mythology or 
 their beliefs in God or the after life. 
 
 Philology can, however, tell that the Aryans came from a 
 land where the climate was, for the most part, cold, although 
 a summer was known.^ Time was there measured by the 
 moon ; the year was lunar, unadjusted to a solar year, 
 and time itself was computed by the night, a reminis- 
 cence of which computation still lives in the English 
 fortnight and sennight.^ 
 
 That they had made some advance towards civilisation 
 is clear. Copper was probably known, but it is doubtful 
 if iron, gold, or silver were in use.* 
 
 The people were grouped together in clans ; each member 
 within the separate clans bearing, as a distinctive appellation, 
 the name of some common ancestor or father, under whose 
 patriarchal authority the "sib," or clan would have remained 
 if he were living.^ The clans united together for warfare, 
 defence, or corporate management, formed the tribe. 
 Strangers were held as enemies, so that with them no trade 
 or commerce was possible. Inside the tribe, exchange 
 
 ' Schrader, " Prehistoric Antiquities," p. 417. 
 
 ^ "That the Aryans did not come from a very southern clime has long 
 been known, since they possessed common names for winter, such as Sanskrit, 
 hima, Greek, x^'-l^'^^' Latin, kiems, Old Slav, eima, Irish, gam."— Ma.x. 
 Miiller, " Biographies of Words," p. 103. 
 
 " See Schrader, "Prehistoric Antiquities," p. 311 ; Tacitus, "Germ." XI. : 
 JVec dieruin numerum sed noctium computant. See Schrader, chap, vi ; Sayce, 
 British Association (1887), p. 889. 
 
 * Max Miiller, "Biographies of Words," p. 180; Kendall, "Cradle of the 
 Aryans," p. 12. 
 
 * Schrader, " Prehistoric Antiquities," pp. 398-9. 
 
14 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 was carried on by barter, the standard of value being the 
 cow. Marriage was as a rule monogamous, the bride being 
 purchased from a neighbouring tribe, or captured by force 
 from a hostile tribe. On entering her new home, the wife 
 fell absolutely under the dominion of the patriarchal head 
 of the household. The term " daughter " may be derived 
 from a common root, which, according to one view, would 
 pleasantly depict her as filling up the outlines of an idyllic 
 picture, as the milkmaid of the household,^ or, according 
 to the more probable, though more prosaic, rendering, 
 would view her as nothing more than a mere nourisher 
 of offspring.^ However this may be, the husband's power 
 over his wife was absolute. He had the right to decide 
 if her offspring should be allowed to live, or, in consequence 
 of infirmity or sex, be exposed to die. In the words of 
 Dr Schrader, "the wife belongs to the man, body and 
 soul, and what she produced is his property, as much as 
 the calf of his cow and crop of his fields."* Philology 
 affords no evidence of any matriarchate system under 
 which the children and property would belong to the 
 mother, the father being a subsidiary element in the family 
 life.* 
 
 The word "father" itself may be traced back through 
 a series of equations which would represent him as the 
 protector of the family, and the word " mother " ^ through a 
 parallel series, representing her as a mere maker or fashioner 
 of children, or, according to Sir John Lubbock and others, 
 those very terms "Pa" and "Ma," which denote protection 
 and fostering, may have been evolved from the earliest spon- 
 
 ' Grimm, "Geschichte der Deutscben Sprache," p. 694; Max Muller, 
 " Selected Essays," I., p. 124. 
 
 *Rendall, p. 11 : "The derivation iiom duh, 'suck,' has rather better 
 phonetic warrant." 
 
 » Schrader, p. 388. 
 
 * Max Muller, " Biographies of Words," p. xvii. 
 
 » Schrader, p. 371 ; Max Muller, " Biographies of Words," p. xvi. 
 
THE GREY DAWN MISTS 15 
 
 taneous utterances of a child by mere labial or dental 
 suppression of its breath.^ 
 
 In their original habitat the early Aryans were, for 
 the most part, pastoral, though agriculture ^ was practised 
 to some extent The ploughs, however, were primitive 
 and simple, being made of bent wood shod with stone. 
 Seeds were sown, the cereal rye at least was grown, the 
 reaping-hook and mill-stone were used, as was the yoke 
 for oxen. Cows were milked ; oxen drew such rude 
 waggons as were fashioned. Horses were kept in droves 
 for milk or food, but not until Vedic and Homeric times 
 were they ridden. 
 
 The tribes, for the most part pastoral nomads, drove their 
 flocks from grazing-ground to grazing-ground, ever ready 
 to migrate and seek more favoured pasture-lands. Their 
 houses were domed, of basket-work, daubed with mud, or 
 else the family lived underground. Scraped skins sewn 
 together by bone-needles, or wool close pressed together 
 and made with glutinous fat into felt,^ formed their cloth- 
 ing, while a mead made from honey was an intoxicating 
 beverage to which they seem to have been addicted. 
 
 Such is the main outline of the meagre skeleton which 
 philology builds up of the life lived in common by the 
 primitive ancestors of the European peoples, and by those 
 of the first Aryan invaders of India. It shows them tied 
 down to a neolithic primitiveness, preparing for an advance 
 to an Age of Bronze. 
 
 At what period these Aryans entered India is unknown. 
 
 1 Lubbock, "Origin of Civilisation," p. 427; Westermarck, " History of 
 Human Marriage," p. 88. 
 
 2 "When we say that the Aryas before their separation were agricultural, 
 we mean no more than that they did not depend for their food on mere chance, 
 but cultivated the soil and grew some kind of corn."— Max Miiller, "Biographies 
 of Words," p. 134. 
 
 3 "All the other arts which we ascribe to the Ancient Aryans, such as 
 plaiting, sewing, spinning, weaving, must all be conceived as most simple and 
 primitive."— Max MUUer, "Biographies of Words," p. 135. 
 
i6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Pride of race, and pride of birthright still hold the imagina- 
 tion of the pious and orthodox Brahman of to-day to the 
 fond belief that the Vedic Hymns were a revelation from 
 before all time. Even though this be considered no longer 
 worthy of credence, yet the Brahman views, with impassive 
 face, the efforts of historic enquiry to pierce through the 
 mists of an antiquity he still feels to be beyond the ken of 
 man. To the unbiassed enquirer the period of civilisation, 
 which witnessed the composition of the Vedic Hymns, 
 seems to fade further into distant time, instead of, as might 
 be hoped, drawing nearer to such historic dates as fall within 
 the limits even of Homeric time. From 1 200 to 1 500 years ^ 
 before the Christian era was for long held the earliest 
 period to which, with safety, the composition of the Vedic 
 Hymns could be assigned.^ Should the latest theories, based 
 on astronomical data, fail to win adherents to the con- 
 clusion that the period of Vedic civilisation extended back 
 as far as 4500 years B.C., and the Hymns themselves to 
 2500 B.C., it seems daily to grow more probable that the 
 whole period of early Sanskrit literature must be placed 
 at a much earlier date than that to which it has until lately 
 been allotted.* 
 
 Be the date what it may, it is in these Hymns that must 
 be sought the evidences as to what were the hopes and 
 ideals of the times, for in them is contained all that the 
 tribe, sib, or family of the poets who composed them 
 deemed worthy of being preserved as a record of the best 
 the age knew, as a record of tlie literature of their race. 
 
 1 Max Milller, "India: What Can It Teach Us," p. 202 (1500 B.C.); 
 Kaegi, "Rig Veda," p. 11 (2000 to 1500 B.C.); Haug, " Introd. to Ait 
 Brah.,"i. 47(2400-14003.0.). 
 
 2 Max MuUer, "Bi<^raphies of Words," p. 153 :—" Within sight of the 
 Indus and its tributaries, the undivided South-Eastern Aryas spoke a language 
 more primitive than Sanskrit or Zend, about 2000 B.C." 
 
 * See Earth, " Ind. Ant.," September 1894. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EARLY BARDS. 
 
 On the first dawn of Vedic history, the Aryans appear 
 amid the bleak mountain ranges in the north-west of India, 
 where the Swat, Kabul, Kumar, and Kuram rivers find their 
 way through unfrequent fertile valleys to the lowland plains 
 and land of the Five Rivers of the Panjab. These rivers 
 the Aryans had to cross before they could set aside their 
 conquering arms, and, beyond the sacred Sarasvati, seek 
 rest in the holy land of Brahmavarta,^ thence to spread 
 their civilising mission down the rich river-valleys of the 
 Ganges and Jumna, and claim all India north of the 
 Vindhya as the abode of their race — as the renowned 
 Aryavarta.^ For weary centuries the tribes had journeyed 
 on towards the rising sun, their hopes buoyed up by stories 
 told of the warm, sunlit plains. These once gained, 
 no longer would the sacred and first duty of each head 
 of a family be to nourish and cherish, as the chief great 
 friend of their race, the heaven-sent "Agni," the God 
 of Fire. 
 
 ^ " Manu," II, 17 : — " Between the two divine rivers, Sarasvati and Drish- 
 advatl, lies the tract of land, which the sages have named " Brahma varta," 
 because it was frequented by gods." — G. C. Haughton. 
 
 ^ Ibid,, II, 22: — "As far as the eastern, and as far as the western 
 oceans, between the two mountains, Himalaya and Vindhya, lies the tract which 
 the wise have named Arya varta, or "abode of the learned." 
 
 B " 
 
i8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Then there would be time for peace, and rest, and sleep, 
 and thought ; for once the dark aborigines were conquered 
 or propitiated, to them could be allotted all manual labour. 
 No wonder that the imagination of the Vedic poet was 
 stirred to its deepest depths as he stood amid the moving 
 times. From the shadowed recesses of the silent forests 
 bordering the mountain ranges, murmuring echoes answered 
 back the poet's exulting song of joy and the tribesmen's 
 fiercer notes of warlike might. From the far-off plains the 
 rain-clouds rolled on towards the mountain passes, in black 
 and heaving billows, while from out them dashed the vivid 
 gleam of an Indian lightning as the thunder sent its peals 
 from mountain peak to peak. It was down in the arid, 
 lowland plains that Indra, the God of Rain, became the 
 Aryan tribesmen's champion — the god who won their 
 battles, broke open the heavenly fortresses, and let the 
 waters forth to cool the parched fields. It was Nature ^ that 
 held spell-bound the imagination of the new-come Aryans, 
 and it was to glorify her, and seek the aid of her powers — 
 vaguely personified as "devas," "deities," or " bright ones," — 
 that the Vedic poets composed their songs of praise. Of 
 history, pure and simple, the hymns tell but little. The 
 comings and goings of the people, the trivial life of mankind, 
 appeared but as a breath when compared to the mystery of 
 the unchanging vault of Heaven, the depths of the clear, 
 starlit nights ever soothing to rest, the sad rise and wane 
 of the moon, the glad, red blush of the dawn as it awoke 
 all Nature to life, the unchanging passings of the sun 
 in its three steps across the sky, until, in the silence of 
 eventide, it descends towards the land of the fathers, there 
 to abide until it again rises towards morn over the land 
 of the living. 
 
 » See Regnaud, p. 64, for the theory that the adoration of Nature in Vedic 
 times was only an illusion produced by the phraseology, or rather by the 
 rhetoric of the hymns. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 19 
 
 To those whose ears are not attuned to the sound of the 
 music that throbs through every stanza of the Vedic Hymns, 
 the whole secret of the power they held over the hearts of 
 the people will be lost. Held as sacred treasures of the race, 
 they have been handed down from generation to generation, 
 as all that has been deemed worthy of preservation, as the 
 best the age brought forth. In verses full of the sound of the 
 rush of moving waters, the poet tells, with swelling pride, 
 the glories of the new-found land his race had come to 
 claim and make its own, as far as from the Sindhu or 
 Indus in the West, away to the distant Ganges in the 
 then unknown East : — 
 
 " Let ^ now the poet, here waiting in the place of sacrifice, tell, O rivers, 
 your chief glories. The Rivers have come forth by seven and seven 
 from three quarters, the Sindhu surpassing all in her glory. From 
 the mountains onward towards the sea, the Sindhu hasteneth in her 
 strength, rushing in the path that Varuna had smoothed out ; eager 
 for the prize, she surpasses in the race all that run. Above the earth, 
 even in the heavens, is heard the sound of her rolling waters ; the 
 gleam of bright light lengthens out her unending course. From the 
 mountain-side the Sindhu comes roaring like a bull, as from the clouds 
 the waters rush amid the roll of thunder. The other rivers run to 
 pour their waters into thee. 
 
 "From both sides thou drawest on the flowing streams like to a 
 conquering king rushing to the front, leading his following hosts. 
 O Ganges, Jumna, Sarasvati, Sutlej, and Ravi, and you also, O 
 Asiknl, Marudvridha, hearken O Vitasta and Arjiklya with the 
 Sushoma, listen now to this my praise. Flashing, sparkling, gleam- 
 ing, in her majesty the unconquerable, the most abundant of streams, 
 beautiful as a handsome, spotted mare, the Sindhu rolls her waters 
 over the lands. 
 
 " Mistress of a chariot, with noble horses richly dressed, golden, 
 adorned, yielding nutriment, abounding in wool, youthful, gracious, 
 she traverses a land full of sweetness. May she grant us vigour in this 
 struggle ; for greatly celebrated is the glory of that unconquered, 
 illustrious, and much-lauded Sindhu.^ 
 
 1 Re-translated with the aid of Muir's "Sanskrit Texts," vol. v. p. 343; 
 cf. R.V.,x. 75, andMaxMuUer, "India: What Can It Teach Us? "pp. 164-5 
 (1892); Griffith, R.V., p. 251. 
 
 ' Muir, vol. V. p. 344. 
 
20 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 It was in the extreme north-west of India that the Aryans 
 first made their homes. Thence tribes spread South as far 
 as the junction of the Indus, with the rivers of the Panjab;* 
 Yet all those who remained there, as well as all those who 
 formed alliances, matrimonial or political, with the aboriginal 
 inhabitants, were held by the orthodox Aryan of later times 
 as impure. They were considered as having fallen from the 
 ranks of those Aryans who left the plain-land of the Five 
 Rivers behind them, and passed onwards to the Sarasvati, 
 Ganges and Jumna, there to rest and collect the treasured 
 hymns of their forefathers into what is now known as the 
 Sanhita of Vedic Hymns. Centuries, not years, represent 
 the period of the composition of these verses, but 1017 or 
 1028 ^ in number, which contain 1 5 3,826 words, and now hold 
 all that will ever be known of the past of the Aryan fore- 
 fathers of the great priestly families of India. 
 
 Of the aboriginal inhabitants whom the Aryans found in 
 possession of the land history has preserved no record. The 
 Vedic Hymns merely mention their existence in order to 
 revile them as Dasyus ' (foes), as slaves. To the fair-skinned 
 Aryans these dark aborigines were no-nosed and fierce, 
 eaters of raw flesh, and godless. Yet of their forts and castles 
 there is mention, and of their wealth there are clear indica- 
 tions,* while there is ample evidence that with many of 
 them the Aryans made matrimonial connections, and that 
 the offspring formed a new cleiss, considered as of more or 
 less pure blood and social position. The Aryans, however, 
 
 ' In the North, probably in Kashmir, tribes known as the Kuru-Krivis (in 
 later times renowned as the Panchalas), are held to have taken up their abode ; 
 to the further West, in the valleys of the Kabul and Kuram, the tribes known 
 as the Gandhara found a home ; while even as far South as Sind, tradition 
 tells of the tribe known as the Yadavas (see Baden-Powell, "Ind. Vill. 
 Com.," p. 97; and Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," pp. 122-124). 
 
 * Max MUller, "Hibbert Lectures," p. 153. 
 
 s Ste Muir, O.S.T., voL i. p. 174 (ed. 1890) ; Zimmer, " Alt. Ind. Leben.," 
 pp. 115-118. 
 
 * R.V., 3, 34, 9. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 21 
 
 for the most part lived as joint families, united in their 
 ancient sibs, or clans, into settlements 1 under a common 
 chief.2 When the clans or settlements joined together for 
 war or defence, they formed the tribe.* The king, or " raja," 
 was elected from among the chieftains,* as their chosen 
 representative, though the office soon became practically 
 hereditary. 
 
 By the king's side stood his priestly counterpart, the 
 "purohita,"^ who, by his solemn invocations and charms 
 of noted potency, held his position secure. On the 
 election of a chieftain to be king, the chosen poet of the 
 people poured forth his benediction in flowing verse, such as 
 has been so aptly translated by Mr Griffith : * — 
 
 " Be with us ; I have chosen thee ; stand steadfast and immovable. 
 Let all the people wish for thee : let not thy kingdom fall away. 
 Be even here ; fall not away : be like a mountain unremoved. 
 Stand steadfast herelike Indra'sself, and hold thekingship in thygrasp. 
 
 Firm is the sky, and firm the earth, and steadfast also are these hills. 
 Steadfast is all this living world, and steadfast is this king of men. 
 
 On constant Soma let us think with constant sacrificial gift. 
 
 And then may Indra make the clans bring tribute unto thee alone.'' 
 
 Other verses tell of the power and influence of the king's 
 " purohita," or domestic chaplain : — 
 
 " May this prayer of mine be successful ; may the vigour and strength 
 
 ' "V\i," Schrader, pp. 399, 403. 
 
 " "Vi^ pati," Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," p. 172. 
 
 ' Baden-Powell, "Ind. Vill. Com.," p. 204 (cf. R.V., 2, 26, 3), in which 
 the tribe, clan, or minor clan, or connected single families held together by 
 some tie of descent. Robertson Smith, " Religion of the Semites," p. 34. 
 
 * Jevons, " Introduction to History of Religion, " for separation of Kingly and 
 Priestly Functions, originally united, p. 275. 
 
 " Probably, as a rule, an Atharva priest (cf. "Yajnavalkya," i. 312), Bloom- 
 field, S.B.E., vol. 42, p. xlvi, also Iviii. 
 
 « R.V., X. 173. 
 
22 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 be complete, may the power be perfect, undecaying, and victorious of 
 those of whom I am the priest (Jiurohita). . . . May all those who 
 fight against our wise and prosperous (prince) sink downward, and be 
 prostrated. With my prayer I destroy his enemies, and raise up his 
 friends. May those of whom I am the priest be sharper than an axe, 
 sharper than fire, sharper than Indra's thunderbolt. I strengthen their 
 weapons ; I prosper their kingdom rich in heroes. . . . Ye with the 
 sharp arrows smite those whose bows are powerless ; ye whose weapons 
 and arms are terrible (smite) the feeble. When discharged, fly forth, 
 O arrow, sped by prayer. Vanquish the foes, assail, slay all the choicest 
 of them ; let not one escape." * 
 
 To their kings the people rendered obedience. The 
 offerings or tribute to the chosen chief were held to be 
 voluntary, though there are verses ^ that liken a king unto a 
 fire that burns up the forest, in the way he sweeps up the 
 goods of the rich. There are also hymns,* which tell how 
 the king sat, decked with gold and jewels, in what is described 
 as a palace, with a thousand pillars and a thousand doors. 
 Headed by their chosen king or chieftain, the tribes 
 advanced to battle, and, as they marched, the proud song of 
 the king's elected "purohita," or poet-priest, rang in their ears. 
 Not by the king's valour nor by his well-known heroic 
 might, not by the impetuous rush of the conquering tribes 
 was the victory to be gained. It was the incantations of 
 the haughty purohita who summoned the gods to hover 
 near and win the day, that cheered on the clansmen and 
 made them sure of victory. The knowledge that the gods 
 fought on their side, added to the war-chant of the chosen 
 poet-laureate, inspired the god-intoxicated enthusiasm of 
 all ranks alike, and held the Aryans united against their 
 darker foe. The weird influence of the magic of the 
 priestly spell, the sound of the blast of the tempest, and the 
 
 iMuir, O.S.T., pp. 283-4; " Atharva-veda," iii, 19, r. 
 
 " R.V., I, 6S. 4- 
 
 s Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," p. 167; R.V., 8, 5, 38; 1, 83, 8; 10, 78, i. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 23 
 
 howl of battle-rage subtly mingled in the inspiring chant of 
 the purohita, who proudly sings the song of war : ^ — 
 
 " Increased is now this prayer {brahmd), the might, the power. In- 
 creased the wan-ior sway of which I am the conquering Purohita. 
 I lengthen out the lordly rule with heaven ascending smoke-incense, 
 I hew asunder the foemen's arms. Let those who rage against our 
 mighty king sink low, with this my prayer {brahmd) I vanquish all 
 who are not friends and raise up those near. Advance and conquer, 
 heroes ! Let now your arms be fierce. Strike down with pointed arrows 
 the weak bowmen, strike with fierce weapons the powerless foe." 
 
 No translation could give the full force of these lines, 
 changing as they do in the original from sound to sound to 
 suit the sense. In the last verse, calling on the tribes to 
 advance and conquer, the fierce passion of battle strife 
 seems to shake the utterances of the inspired poet, as he 
 repeats again and again the harsh sounds which thrill 
 through the last two sounding lines,^ calling on the Aryans 
 to strike down the foe. 
 
 Though there were kings and purohitas and sacrificial 
 priests {brahmans) ; though there were warriors and the 
 great body of the people, cultivators, artisans, or dealers 
 in articles of food, in grain or merchandise, there is no 
 evidence that anywhere were the people tied down to 
 the rigidity of a caste ^ system where a fixed hereditary 
 occupation was allotted to the members. 
 
 The composers of the Vedic Hymns, or Brahmans, as 
 they were called, belonged to no one class or order. He 
 on whom the gift of song had fallen became the poet- 
 priest. One poet * tells how that, although he is a maker 
 
 ' " Atharva-veda," in, 19. 
 
 ^ " Preta jayanta nara ugra vah santu bahavah. 
 
 Tiksnesavo abala dhanvano hata ugra ayudha abalan ugrabahavah." 
 
 * " Caste is a European word, but it has become so completely naturalised in 
 India that the vagueness of its meaning seems to have reacted on the native 
 mind.. The Sanskrit word for caste is vama, literally 'colour' or iati, 
 literally 'breed,' or 'kith.'" — Max Miiller, "Biographies of Words,'' p. 247. 
 
 4 " Rig Veda," ix. 112, 3. 
 
24 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 of the hymn he sings, yet his father was a physician, while 
 his mother ground grain between millstones. Every one, 
 he says, has a different occupation and varied opinions — the 
 carpenter seeks something to mend, the physician some 
 one in distress, the priest one who has an offering to make. 
 All in the world stand waiting for wealth, even as the cow- 
 herd stands watching his cattle. The horse longs for a 
 cart that runs smoothly ; those who love talking long for 
 those who talk ; frogs long for water, and desire roameth 
 wild after that which it desireth. In one well-known hymn,^ 
 of which the language and tenor is modern, compared 
 with the rest of the collection, the people are described 
 as divided into four distinctive classes. 
 
 The hymn tells of the creation of all things from the 
 sacrifice of a fabulous monster-man, or "Purusha," his severed 
 limbs giving birth to the world. As is pointed out by Mr 
 Andrew Lang,^ the same primitive mode of accounting for 
 creation is found in the Norse legend, where the earth, the 
 seas, water, mountains, clouds, and firmament, are formed 
 by dividing up the body of the Giant Ymir. So also in the 
 Chaldaean story a monster woman is divided in twain by 
 Bel, to form the heavens and earth. The same story runs 
 through the myths of the Iroquois in North America, 
 as well as through those of Egypt and Greece. In the 
 Vedic legend the monster Purusha has a thousand heads, 
 a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet. So great was this 
 primeval being, that he spread over the earth and yet ten 
 fingers' breadth beyond. By the gods he was offered up in 
 sacrifice. From him sprang forth all the creatures of the 
 air and all animals, wild or tame, also the three Vedas — the 
 " Rig," " Saman," and " Yajur" — horses, and all creatures 
 having two rows of teeth, goats, and sheep. 
 
 So far the story runs close to those of other folk. The 
 
 1 R.V., X. 90. 
 
 * "Myth. Ritual and Religion," vol. i. p. 243. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 25 
 
 conception points back to a very early phase of thought, 
 almost to the childhood of mankind. The Vedic account, 
 however, goes on to add that from Purusha also sprang 
 four castes or classes of the people. There is no escape 
 from the conclusion that this is an attempt to force an 
 antiquity for a modern social system by connecting it with 
 an undeniably ancient legend. The four castes are held to 
 have existed from before all time. The Brahmans, as a 
 distinct class of priests who recited the brahman, or "prayer," 
 are said to have been created from the mouth of Purusha ; 
 the "Rajanya," or warriors, to have sprung from his arms ; the 
 "Vai^ya," or main body of the Aryan people, agriculturists or 
 tradesmen, were born from his thighs, while last and lowest 
 born were the Sudras, the servile conquered foes, created 
 from the feet of Purusha. The Brahman priesthood were 
 thus held to have been divinely created, according to the 
 revealed evidence of the Vedic text, as supreme above 
 kings, warriors, or servile workers. All alike were made 
 to feel the power thus placed in the hands of the 
 Brahmans. 
 
 In the " Atharva-veda," where much more of the life- 
 throb of the people is felt than in the more dignified 
 and stately "Rig Veda," clear evidence is given of the 
 unrelenting vengeance of the Brahman priests towards 
 those who intrigued against them or sought to take their 
 wealth : — 
 
 " He who thinks the Brahman mild," declares one hymn,i " and slays 
 him, he who reviles the gods, lusts after wealth without thought, in his 
 heart Indra kindles a fire; him both heaven and earth hate while 
 he lives." 
 
 More fierce than this is the invective poured forth 
 
 1 "Atharva-veda," v. 18, S (Bloomfield) ; S.B.E., vol. xlii; Muir, O.S.T., 
 vol. i. p. 285. 
 
26 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 against those unbelieving oppressors of the priest who 
 holds the magic spell : — 
 
 " The Brahman's tongue turns into a bow-string, his voice into the 
 neck of an arrow ; his windpipe, his teeth are bedaubed with holy fire ; 
 with these the Brahman strikes those who revile the gods, by means 
 of bows that have the strength to hurt, discharged by the gods." 
 
 " The Brahmanas have sharp arrows, are armed with missiles, the 
 arrow which they hurl goes not in vain, pursuing him with their holy 
 fire and their wrath, even from afar do they pierce him." * 
 
 The earlier Vedic Hymns show the Aryans free from all 
 caste restraint, priestly aggression or kingly oppression. 
 The poet or maker of the Vedic Hymns merely calls upon 
 the king and people to be liberal in gifts,^ for those who 
 are liberal sink not into sin nor sorrow ; they abide for ever 
 glorious, living long lives and reaping rich rewards here- 
 after. One poet praises the liberality of a chieftain who 
 dwelt on the bank of the Sindhu, or Indus, from whom 
 one hundred horses, sixty thousand kine, eight cows, 
 all good milkers, and one hundred necklaces had been 
 received. 
 
 Between the two famed poet-priests, Vasishta and 
 Visvamitra, of whom every Hindu household in India 
 to-day holds legends, the rivalry was great to secure 
 the favour of the renowned king Sudas, who led the 
 white-robed Tritsu tribe to battle against ten other kings 
 who had raised the standard of revolt.* 
 
 Visvamitra at length was obliged to retire before his rival 
 Vasishta, who remained to sing the praise of his patron, the 
 conquering Sudas. It was Vasishta who, by his mystic 
 prayers, brought the aid of Indra to the king, and hurled 
 
 » S.B.E.,_vol. xUi. p. 170; Mulr, O.S.T. (1890), p. 258, for use of word 
 br^mSn, first as " a sage, a poet," next as an officiating priest, and later as a 
 special description of priest, or even as " a priest by profession," and Brahmana 
 as the son of a brahman, denoting the hereditary transmission of the function. 
 
 2 R. v., X. 107, 2 ; 7, 33, 6 ; 3, 53, 12. 
 
 ' Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," p. 170 ; R.V., vii. 18, 23. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 27 
 
 back Visvamitra and his warlike friends the Bharatas. To 
 Vasishta wealth and honour were poured forth ; two 
 chariots with mares were given him, along with four horses 
 decked with pearls, so that the seven rivers of the Panjab 
 might spread abroad the liberality of Sudas. No greater 
 glory could the devout Aryan win than to bestow his 
 wealth on the tribal laureate.^ Those who gave rich 
 garments lived long ; those who gave gold enjoyed 
 undyingness : ^ liberality was held the best armour for a 
 wise man to wear. The coming of the rich man is awaited 
 with joy by maidens gleaming in fine garments ; the abode 
 of the liberal man is a lake of enjoyment spread with lotus 
 leaves. The brdhman, or maker of the prayer, became, as 
 time rolled on and the sacrifices to the gods more frequent, 
 complicated, and relied on, of greater importance. The 
 " purohita," or domestic chaplain, swayed the policy of the 
 tribe and ruled the king's thoughts. The purohita was 
 elected from among the ranks of the poet-priests ^ or 
 Brahmans, who knew or had composed hymns honoured 
 as of special merit or potency. In course of time, as the 
 ritual developed, other sacrificing priests were appointed to 
 chant the hymns, perform the sacrifice, or assist in various 
 subsidiary duties. 
 
 The Brahmanas or Brahmans, sons or descendants of the 
 early poet-priests, were trained to hold in their family the 
 general supervision over the entire sacrificial system. 
 
 Changes such as these came not until the Aryans had 
 advanced far into India, and found time, leisure, and 
 opportunity to develop the primitive system of worship of 
 their deities by mystic prayers. 
 
 In the early hymns of the " Rig Veda" the Aryans are, 
 
 ' R.V., 10, 107, 2. 
 ^ Amritatwam. 
 
 3 For the plea raised by the Atharvan priest that from amongst them the 
 Brahman should be chosen, see S.B.E., vol. xlii. p. Ixv. 
 
28 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 for the most part, pastoral tribes. These tribes are often 
 referred to as five in number,^ references that, however, can 
 hardly be taken to denote any special division of the 
 people, since the word " five " ^ is often used to express any 
 indefinite number. Although the pastoral habits of the 
 tribes are often described — horses, kine, sheep and ewes * 
 being frequently mentioned — yet agriculture was common. 
 Wheat and barley were sown and reaped, though, strange 
 to say, there is no reference to rice. Watercourses are 
 mentioned, and it seems as though they had been specially 
 constructed for the purpose of irrigation. In course of 
 time the Aryans allowed all direct agricultural operations 
 to lapse, for the greater part, into the hands of the 
 aboriginal darker race, becoming themselves landlords * and 
 co-sharers of the lands where they found a home, the 
 darker races being then, as the Dravidians are to-day, 
 skilled builders of irrigation reservoirs or " tanks," and apt 
 in terracing sloping land for cultivation. In the Veda the 
 plough and ploughshare are addressed as objects of Divine 
 worship. One hymn * is addressed to a deity, vaguely 
 personified as the lord who presides over the fields, he 
 being prayed to direct the plough straight in the furrow, or 
 "stta," to keep the land sweet, so that the husbandman 
 may cheerfully drive the oxen with his goad. 
 
 Trade was carried on by barter, and although the medium 
 of exchange was the cow, gold pieces are referred to, as are 
 also usurers, yet there was no recognised system of coinage. 
 
 ' Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts (3rd ed.), vol. i. p. 177. 
 
 " Hid., p. 179. 
 
 ' R.V., X. 91, 14: — "Horses, bulls, oxen and barren cows offered for sacri- 
 fice," also (x. 89, 14), " a place of slaughter mentioned " (Muir, vol. v. p. 463). 
 
 * Baden-Powell, " Ind. Vill. Com.," p. 89 :— " Whatever customs regarding 
 lajid are of Aryan origin, they are the customs of a conquering race, or at least 
 of a race which took the superior position in everything. The tenures that 
 arose from their State arrangements, and their locations of Chiefe, were all 
 essentially overlord, or at least landlord tenures." 
 
 " R.V., iv. 57. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 29 
 
 Weaving and working in leather were well-known, garments 
 being made from the wool of sheep.^ Women are described 
 as well adorned, as wearing jewels, having their hair braided, 
 and well-oiled. The white-robed tribe of the Tritsus adorn 
 their hair in special coils, as do also the deities, Rudra 
 and Pushan. 
 
 The raging storm-deities ^ are described as having gold 
 breastplates and anklets, and as wearing gold crowns, while 
 their white horses* are depicted as caparisoned with gold 
 chains and trappings. 
 
 Like unto a barber shaving a beard,* so fire is said to 
 clear the stubble from the earth, while the pious pray that 
 they may be sharpened even as a razor, or pair of scissors 
 is sharpened by a barber. 
 
 It is doubtful if the early Aryans ever knew of the ocean. 
 The seas of water they mention may have referred to the 
 wide-stretching Indus. Ships, however, are frequently 
 referred to, and one oft-quoted incident records how 
 Tugra abandoned in the midst of the waters his son 
 Bhujyu, who was rescued by the Aivins in a ship with a 
 hundred oars.® 
 
 From the earliest Vedic Hymns, making all allowances 
 
 for poetic exaggeration, a picture of social life is seen, far 
 
 removed from primitive simplicity. The Aryans, in fact, 
 
 emerge on the horizon of Indian history as entering through 
 
 the North-west Passes, in well-organised tribes, holding 
 
 their popular assemblies, led by renowned chieftains or 
 
 kings, honouring their bards and priests, free from social 
 
 distinction, and possessing many of the arts and refinements 
 
 of civilisation. Even physicians ® are mentioned, who collect 
 
 herbs for the curing of diseases, magic spells being recited 
 
 when the herbs were applied to the patient.'' 
 
 1 See Muir, O.S.T., pp. 462/: < Bid., viii. 4, 16; x. 142, 4. 
 
 =1 R.V., V. 54, II. ^ Muir, vol. v. 245, 465. 
 
 » Ibid., V. 54, II ; iv. 2, 8 ; iv. 37, 4. « R.V., x. 97, 6. 
 ' Ibid., X. 97, 19. 
 
30 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 To the A^vins laud is given, for that when, in the 
 time of battle, a leg was severed like a wild bird's pinion, 
 
 " Straight ye gave Vispala a leg of iron that she might move what 
 time the conflict opened."* 
 
 Stranger still, the ASvins restore the eyesight of one 
 blinded for his evil deeds. 
 
 Other traits, however, both social and religious, are to be 
 found, recalling faint reminiscences from a distant past 
 The aged ^ were left forlorn and deserted, and their property 
 divided, a custom not far removed from that of the ancient 
 Germans, where the useless father, when over sixty, was 
 either killed or turned to menial work by his son, who took 
 possession of his property ; or from that of the Romans 
 who threw the aged into the Tiber.^ The position of woman 
 had in many respects improved from that of the Indo- 
 Germanic period, when she was treated as a chattel, the 
 absolute property of her lord and master. Possibly the 
 many hardships encountered during the long march of the 
 Aryans towards India, the losses and opposition met with 
 from opposing tribes, may have given woman time and 
 opportunity to work out her own individuality, whilst her 
 lessened numbers must have gained fpr her a consideration 
 she would not otherwise have received. The further fact 
 that the conquered were made slaves,* must have given 
 the women of the Aryan tribes a dominant position, 
 independent of household drudgery, the full benefit of 
 which they naturally would not be slow to avail them- 
 selves. 
 
 ' R.V., i. n6, 15. 
 
 ^ Ibid., viii. 51, 2; Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," 327; R.V., L 70, 5 : 
 " Parting as 'twere an aged fether's wealth." 
 
 3 Kaegi (note 50), p. 112 ; Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," pp. 326-32S. 
 
 *For women being made slaves, viii. 46, 33; ix. 67, 10, 11. For whole 
 subject of slavery in India, see Article by W. Lee Warner, "Jour. Soc Arts," 
 February 1897. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 31 
 
 Polygamy was, no doubt, common in Vedic times, 
 yet the general custom seems to have favoured mono- 
 gamy, either from necessity or from the growth of a 
 refined sentiment. 
 
 The woman who was handsome is recorded to have been 
 allowed to choose her own friend or lover ; ^ and the hymn 
 which records the custom, states, with dry humour, that no 
 one would object to a man carrying off the blind daughter 
 of another. 
 
 There is no evidence to show that women were in these 
 early times curtailed of their freedom or confined to the 
 solitude of their own homes, as is the custom now in India 
 among the respectable Hindu families, a custom primarily 
 due to the fear of insult from foreign conquerors. In one 
 Vedic hymn ^ the story is told of the wrath of the wife of 
 Indra, whose path was obstructed by an offending demon. 
 The goddess rails that, great as were her swelling charms, 
 great as her joy in Indra's love, the demon had checked 
 her course, although she urges that it was the custom for 
 women to go openly to the festival, and to the place of 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Again the Dawn is depicted as coming forth, as women 
 throng to a festal meeting, while in many cases it was the 
 custom for husband and wife to perform the necessary 
 sacrifices together. Not only was this so, but one hymn 
 to Agni * is ascribed to a poetess Vi^vavara, in which she 
 prays the deity to maintain the well-knit bonds of wife 
 and husband. 
 
 More suggestive of the true position held by woman in 
 this early period are the verses * recited at the wedding of 
 Soma and Surya, the Moon and Sun, an idealised type of 
 all earthly ones. For the bride and bridegroom fortune, 
 prosperity, and sons are besought; for the bride it is 
 
 1 R.V., X. 27, 12. 2 Ibid., X. 86. 
 
 Ibid. V. 28. */6id,x. 85. 
 
32 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 prayed that she may rule over her household and bear 
 affection to her husband. The assembled people are 
 prayed to bid the bride good fortune, and as the bride- 
 groom takes her by the hand, he declares that the gods 
 have appointed her head of his household, to share his joys, 
 to twine her arms around him, and love him fitly, so that 
 they both may reach old age together. At the threshold 
 of her new home the bride is bidden to enter, and bring 
 down a blessing on all who dwell there, so that the home 
 may grow full of happiness, full of joy and mirth, full of 
 sons and grandsons. 
 
 In some respects the life in these archaic times seems to 
 have been not far different from that to be seen in many 
 parts of India to-day. One hymn^ tells of the vintner's 
 house, and of the wine-skins kept within. The Aryans 
 then ate flesh and drank deep.^ The intoxicating juice 
 of the Soma plant was poured out at the sacrifice until it 
 came to be worshipped as a loved deity. The Indo-Aryans, 
 wandering in search of new homes and gods, may well 
 have cried out in the words of the Persian poet:* — 
 
 " Yesterday this Day's madness did prepare 
 To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair, 
 Drink ! for you know not whence you come, nor why, 
 Drink ! for you know not why you go, nor where." 
 
 Drinking, fighting, and living free, despising the darker 
 skinned aborigines, the Vedic Aryans, except for their 
 belief in their gods and sacrifices, stand out as a race in 
 many points akin to the Greeks of Homeric days. No 
 gloomy speculations are to be found over the mystery 
 of the soul and terrors of an hereafter. To the Aryan, 
 
 ' R.V., i. 191, 10. 
 
 ^ Ibid., viii. 58, 11, refers to all the gods as being intoxicated. "Ait. 
 Brah.," v. ii, states that at the mid-day libation the gods are totally drunk. 
 ' Omar Khayyam. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 33 
 
 Nature was instinct with joy, while love was bold and 
 untamed. 
 
 Gambling in ancient, as in modern, India, was a favourite 
 vice. One despairing gambler pours forth his lament in 
 terms which, in spite of their archaic setting, might well 
 find an echo in many a modern Rajput household. He 
 bemoans^ how, though his wife had never shamed him, 
 had never blamed him, had never turned away from him 
 or from his friends, but had been ever gentle, yet for one 
 throw of the dice he had for ever turned his face from her. 
 He then continues : ^ " My mother-in-law detests me, my 
 wife rejects me, I cannot discover what is the enjoyment of 
 the gambler. Others pay court to the wife of the man 
 whose wealth is coveted by the impetuous dice. Yet as 
 soon as the brown dice when they are thrown make a 
 sound, I hasten to their rendezvous like a woman to her 
 paramour. Hooking, piercing, deceitful, vexatious, delight- 
 ing to torment, the dice dispense transient gifts, and again 
 ruin the winners. They appear to the gambler covered 
 with honey. They roll downward, they bound upward, 
 having no hands, they overcome him who has. The 
 destitute wife of the gambler is distressed, and so, too, is 
 the mother of a son who goes she knows not whither. It 
 vexes the gambler to see his own wife, and then to observe 
 the wives and happy homes of others. In the morning he 
 yokes the brown horses (the dice) ; by the time when 
 the fire goes out he has sunk into a degraded wretch. 
 Never play with dice, practise husbandry ; rejoice in thy 
 property, esteeming it sufficient." 
 
 There is no doubt evidence,^ for those who care to pursue 
 the subject, that women's vows were as frail in ancient 
 
 1 R.V., X. 34. 
 " Muir, V. 426-7. 
 
 ' Pischel and Geldner, " Vedische Studien." (1889-92), for evidence of exist- 
 ence of hetairai. 
 
 C 
 
34 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Vedic times as they are to-day, and that monogamy, the 
 ideal bond of earthly union, carried in its wake some far 
 from submissive swains. Charms against rival wives, 
 charms to hold the flickering love of man or woman, are 
 given in the hymns of the " Atharva-veda," which evidently 
 goes back in its underlying basis as far as do the hymns of 
 the more stately "Rig Veda." Bloomfield, in his recent 
 translation of the Atharvan Hymns, has given a number 
 of these spells, some of which are said in the spells 
 themselves to have travelled from distant places. One of 
 these spells ^ is as follows : — " From folk belonging to all 
 kinds of people, from the Sindhu thou heist been fetched, 
 the very remedy for jealousy. As if a fire is burning him, 
 as if the forest fire bums in various directions, this jealousy 
 of him do thou quench, as a fire is quenched by water.'' 
 
 More pleasing is the love-charm for a bride and bride- 
 groom, as translated by Griffith : ^ — 
 
 " Sweet are the glances of our eyes, our faces are as smooth as balm, 
 Within thy bosom harbour me, one spirit dwell in both of us." 
 
 Another potent charm tells how to bind the love of a 
 reluctant maiden : ' — 
 
 " My tongue hath honey at the tip, and sweetest honey at the root. 
 Thou yieldest to my wish and will, and shalt be mine and only mine. 
 My coming in is honey sweet, and honey sweet my going forth ; 
 My voice and words are sweet : I fain would be like honey in my 
 look. 
 
 Around thee have I girt a zone of sugar-cane to banish hate. 
 That thou may'st be in love with me, my darling, never to depart." 
 
 There are verses of the " Rig Veda " * which allude to the 
 
 > A.V., vii. 45 ; S.B.E., vol. xlii. p. 107. 
 
 * Ibid., vii. 36. 
 ^ Ibid., i. 34. 
 
 * R.V., iv. 19, 9; iv. 30, 16; II, 29, I. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 35 
 
 sons of unwedded women, sometimes to the birth of 
 children in secret shame.^ The union of a widow in 
 "levirate" marriage ^ with her brother-in-law, for the purpose 
 of raising up offspring to the deceased husband, gives 
 evidence in itself of, at least, the non- universality of the 
 ancient Aryan custom of the widow being put to death 
 on the decease of her husband. On death the body 
 of the deceased was burned,* though burial was also in 
 vogue. In one hymn* it is prayed that both those who 
 are burned and those who are not burned may here- 
 after gain the perfect path,' and a body such as they 
 desire. One hymn gives the entire funeral surroundings 
 when the tribe brings forth its deceased kinsman to 
 restore him to mother earth. Round the burial-place the 
 friends and relatives of the deceased assemble aind 
 commence their wail to death. 
 
 From amid the throng the cry of the bard goes forth to 
 Death :— 
 
 " Go thou now far away, I speak to thee who seest not, and hearest 
 not, injure thou not our children nor our fighting men. These all 
 standing here are now divided from the dead. We look to dance and 
 song, we long to lengthen out our days. Let all here live a hundred 
 years. Between those living and him now dead we heap up stones ; let 
 none advance beyond them ; by this stone we now set up, let death be 
 kept away. Let first the women not yet widowed, those with noble 
 husbands go hence, weeping not, strong, adorned with jewels, let them 
 go first towards the house." Now let the wife of the dead man arise. 
 Let her go to the world of the living. Your husband's life is fled, you 
 are now the widow of him who grasps your hand and leads you forth.' 
 Take now the bow from the hand of him who lies dead. Enter, O 
 
 » Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. I^ben.," p. 324. 
 
 2 Deuteronomy, ii. 5, 5 ; R. V., x. 40, 2. 
 
 3 Oldenberg, " Rel. des Vedas," p. 570. 
 
 4 R.V., X. IS, 14. 
 ' AsunitT. 
 
 « " Arohantu janayo yonim agre." 
 
 ' " Du bist die gattin dessen geworden, derjetzt deinc Hand ergreift und dich 
 aufstehen macht."— Oldenberg, "Rel. des Vedas," 575 {note). 
 
36 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 lifeless one, the mother earth, the widespread earth, soft as a maiden ; in 
 her arms rest free from sin. Let now the earth gently close around you, 
 even as a mother gently wraps her infant child in soft robes. Let now 
 the fathers keep safe thy resting-place, and let Yama, the first mortal 
 who passed the portals of death, prepare for thee a new abiding-place." 
 
 It would be rash to affirm from this hymn that widow- 
 burning was totally unknown in Vedic times. The custom 
 was an old one, and survived in India down to very recent 
 days. In the " Atharva-veda,'' ^ it is referred to as an ancient 
 custom, so that it will be safer 2 to accept the conclusion that 
 the custom was not one belonging to the family or tribe of 
 the poet who composed the Vedic Hymn. The fact, too, 
 that the bow was taken from the hand of the deceased and 
 gold substituted, shows an advance on the older custom, 
 where the belonging? of the dead man were burned with 
 him,^ and may tend to support the suggestion that the 
 widow was similarly rescued by a special rite. 
 
 The one great perplexing question for all mankind — ^the 
 question as to what becomes of man after death — still 
 remained to perplex the Indo- Aryan mind, if haply it might 
 find some solution, and then hand on the weary quest as 
 a heritage to occupy the subtle thought and untiring efforts 
 of succeeding generations. Death, so far as can be learned 
 from the Vedic literature, was held to be the going-forth 
 from the living of his breath,* or of the thinking part, the 
 mind, which was held to reside in the heart. Yama was 
 the first mortal to find the after world. 
 
 Those who had done good in this world ; those who had 
 
 'A. v., xviii. 3, I. 
 
 ' " Dharma purana "als uralte sitte.'" — Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," 
 pp. 329-31. 
 
 ' "Nicht anders steht es mit der Wittwe — sie besteigt den Scheiter 
 haufen, und es bedarf eines eignen rituellen Actes vim sie von dort zur Welt 
 der Lebenden zuriickzufiihren, " — Oldenberg, ' ' Rel. des Vedas," p. 587. 
 
 * For this, the asu, or physical breath, see Oldenberg, p. 525 {note 2). For 
 the manas, the subtle body of the Sanhhya, R.V., x. 15, i. See Barth for the 
 ajobhagas, x, 16, 4. 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 37 
 
 performed sacrifices, been liberal, warriors or ascetic saints, 
 gained the happy heaven where dwell Yama, the fathers ^ 
 and the gods who have passed to the land similar to that 
 described in the Odyssey : ^ 
 
 "To the plain Elysian, where light-haired Rhadamanthus doth dwell. 
 Where restful is life and ever with men it goeth full well." 
 
 There they met with Yama, who was guarded by two 
 four-eyed brindled dogs, with broad nostrils, Death's 
 messengers among men, though again the Dove* is men- 
 tioned as Death's envoy. They dwell with Yama as the 
 Fathers who have again gained spirit or breath,* knowing 
 right, and returning to earth to eat the funeral oblations, to 
 which they are periodically summoned. These Fathers are 
 prayed ^ not to injure the living. It is they,^ who, with 
 Soma, have stretched out the heavens and the earth, set 
 the stars in the firmament, and given the great light. 
 
 In this happy after-life the body of the deceased, though 
 not in the form it bore during life, takes part, and pines for 
 raiment and nourishment,^ provided for it by devout sons at 
 the funeral oblation. So when the deceased is cremated the 
 deity of the Fire is besought ^ not to consume him entirely, 
 not to scatter his body or skin, but to give to the 
 fathers, endowed with breath and clothed with a new body, 
 any portion that may have been injured by bird, ant, serpent 
 or beast of prey, fully restored. 
 
 ^ "Ancestor worship and the cult of the dead have no place in the Homeric 
 world, and can have none." — Schrader, p. 424. 
 
 "Avia, "Odyssey," X. 561. 
 
 s R.V., X. I6S, 4- 
 
 « Ibid., X. IS, I : " Asum ye iyuh" (Muir, v. 295). 
 
 6 Ibid., iii. SS, 2. 
 
 6 Ibid., viii. 48, 13. 
 
 ' Oldenberg, "Rel. des Vedas," v. p. 529. For a later idea, see "Sat. 
 Brah.," x. 4, 4, 4, where the deceased has human passions in Heaven. " ^at. 
 Brah.," xi. 2, 7, 33, good and evil deeds are weighed, and recompense given 
 accordingly (" Sat. Brah.," vi. 2, z, 27 ; x. 5, 4, 15). 
 
 8 R.V. X. 16, 1. 
 
38 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The home of the dead is said to lie at the back of the 
 sky : 1 it is, again, a place where there is uncreated light,^ a 
 world wherein the sun is placed ; it is within the skj^s 
 deepest depths. Again, it is in the third firmament,* in the 
 third sky, where there is joy and delight, attainment of all 
 wishes, where one dwells immortal, and the fathers wander 
 as they will. Another verse* tells how those, who have 
 given rich offerings to the priests during life, go to the 
 highest heaven ; those who have given gifts of horses dwell 
 by the sun. Yet again the deceased is addressed in a hymn ^ 
 which tells the good deeds done by those who have won 
 the happy shores, where a mead made from honey, or Soma, 
 awaits those who, by their penance,® have become invincible 
 and gained the light. There dwell warriors who in the 
 fight have given up their bodies, and those who have on 
 earth upheld the right. 
 
 Heaven, a happy hereafter, was all that was looked 
 forward to by these Vedic Aryans. Throughout the 
 hymns there is no weariness of life, no pessimism. The 
 day's work had to be done, a new home won with sword 
 in hand, and there were friendly gods to cheer on the 
 warriors. The time had yet to come, as come it does to 
 all, when the sword is laid aside, and man shudders at 
 the thought that in the fight for advance and progress he 
 must take his weaker brother's life, and blast all the ideals 
 which set peace and goodwill to all men as the prototype 
 of heavenly mercy. 
 
 As to the future of the evil-doer and the sinful, there is 
 
 ' R.V., i. 125, 5. 
 
 ^ Ibid., X. 14, 7. 
 
 ' R.V. , ix. 113,9: "In the third sphere of inmost heaven, where lucid 
 worlds are full of light " (Griffith). 
 
 * Ibid., X. 107, 2. 
 
 " Ibid., XV. 4. 
 
 ' Tapasa, " durch askese " (Oldenberg, 534). "Through religious abstrac- 
 tion " (Muir, O.S.T., vol. v. p. 310). " By fervour " (Griffith). 
 
THE EARLY BARDS 39 
 
 but faint allusion. In one verse ^ Indra and Soma are 
 prayed to cast the wicked into the depths,^ into a darkness 
 profound, from which they emerge not. Again, in another 
 verse, it is said that a deep place * has been made for those 
 maidens without brothers who wander about doing evil; 
 for women who deceive their husbands, who are sinful, 
 unrighteous, and untruthful. 
 
 ' R.V., vii. 104, 3. 
 
 2 "Abyss" (Muir, p. 312); "In den Kerker" (Oldenberg, p. 538). 
 
 3 R.V., iv. S, S- 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE TWILIGHT OF THE OLDER AND THE DAWN OF 
 NEWER DEITIES. 
 
 As the Aryan tribes wandered on through mountain passes, 
 gloomy forests, and scantily cultivated river-valleys towards 
 the lowland plains of India, the sacred duty of each house- 
 holder was to preserve bright within his homestead the 
 once-kindled spark of fire. In Greece, Hestia, the goddess 
 of the domestic hearth, had the sacred fire ever kept lighted 
 in the Delphic Temple. Vesta had her temple at Lavinium, 
 and there the sacred fire brought first from Troy by ^neas 
 was kept burning with pious care. To-day, in India, when 
 the sedate Hindu awakes to feel the cold, grey dawn creep 
 slowly through the early morning mists, he rises, and from 
 amid the ashes, carefully heaped together the night before 
 on the household hearth, unfolds the glowing spark, and 
 ■ with his palm-leaf fan kindles again the friendly fire. No 
 defiling breath from his impure mouth is ever wafted on 
 the sacred friend of man. No Hindu, however low or 
 fallen, would dare to extinguish a burning light by pro- 
 fanely blowing on it as do the foreigners. 
 
 Should once the life go from the gleaming spark, and it 
 lie cold as man lies cold in death, then the kindling sticks of 
 ArunI wood are brought forth, one twirling piece is placed 
 
 40 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 41 
 
 in the bored-out hollow of the other, and twirled round 
 so that the skilled hand of a native soon brings again to 
 life the sacred flame. Here to the primitive mind, untrained 
 in scientific terminology, is an exact type of all birth and 
 re-creation. To-day everywhere may be seen, in households 
 and by the roadside, emblems outwardly phallic in their 
 form, yet symbolic of the wooden implements whereby a 
 new birth takes place, whereby something is produced 
 which is endowed with a vital life. The new-born fire 
 has a will, a potency of its own, as much as has man. It 
 is animated by a soul, it breathes, it goes free, rejoicing, 
 laughing, crackling ; it is a friend in the household, a friend 
 as it rushes through the undergrowth, drives the foe from 
 his hiding-places, and burns down his strongholds. It is 
 a god resembling, more or less, in the thoughts of the 
 perplexed observer, something which must be human, 
 endowed with human powers and attributes, the assistance 
 of which must be courted, the great power of which must 
 be won as an aid to the conquering Aryans. So all the 
 phenomena of Nature become more or less vaguely per- 
 sonified in one form or another, and prayers, charms, and 
 incantations are composed and sung to sway these deities, 
 to make them more propitious and extend their aid to 
 their worshippers. 
 
 In times of danger from increasing foes, in times of 
 victory or public rejoicing, in times of drought, in times 
 when the storms burst forth, the thunder rolls, and the 
 terror-striking lightning gleams along the clouds, bursts 
 through the heavens, and sends its thunderbolts to tear 
 with heavy crash the sobbing earth asunder, then the people 
 turn to their gods, and the tribal sacrifice is made. Those of 
 the tribe on whom the gift of music and of song have fallen 
 are then called forth to carry out the sacrifice, so that the 
 gods may be drawn near. 
 
 In Vedic sacrificial times, an open space, or large thatched 
 
42 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 hall was first prepared. There the sacrificial altar was set 
 up, and the posts, to which the sacrificial victims were 
 bound, adorned. Priests^ move busy to and fro amid 
 the scene. Seven officiating priests ^ are named. The duty 
 of the Brahman, who in later ritual becomes the chief over- 
 seeing priest of the entire sacrifice, is referred to as that of 
 kindling * the fire, and the recital of the hymns to Indra.* 
 Three fires were the number to be prepared within the 
 sacrificial hall. The first represented the household fire, 
 always lighted from fire obtained by drilling one piece of 
 hard Aruni wood into another. It was the fire before 
 which, in the private sacrifices, each householder recited 
 such Vedic Hymns as were held in his family to have 
 special potency to summon the deities, to whom chiefly the 
 intoxicating Soma juice was offered, so that it might please 
 and exhilarate them as it did man. The second, known 
 as the " Southern Fire," stood to the eastward ; it was kindled 
 from the household fire. From the South were held to 
 come unclean spirits, malignant influences, and the spirits 
 of the departed ; these the " Southern Fire " was supposed 
 to ward off from the sacrifice held sacred to the gods alone. 
 The third fire stood yet further to the East It was the 
 chief fire of the ceremony. 
 
 First used and kept ready to destroy all of the offering 
 not consumed by the gods, it came to be the place whence 
 amid the flames and incense, nourishment was wafted 
 towards the heavens and eager deities. Near at hand were 
 placed seats of sacred grass, on which the gods were prayed 
 to be seated, and partake of the offering. One strange 
 relic of bygone days was the offering of human blood. 
 
 ' R.V. i. 162, 5 (Griffith), for sixteen priests. 
 
 = The "Hotir," "Potdr," " Neshtar,""Agntdh," "Pra&star," " Adhvaryu," 
 and "Brahman" {see x. 91, 10; Haug, p. 12 ; "Ait. Brah."). 
 
 3 R.V., X. 52, 2. 
 
 * Oldenberg, p. 396, holds him to be the Brahmanacchamsin. Wise sons 
 of Brahmans are mentioned in eight hymns. 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 43 
 
 Only this year the natives fled from Bombay in thousands, 
 not for fear of the plague, but because the whisper had 
 gone forth ^ that their foreign rulers had prepared a holo- 
 caust of human victims, to appease the divinity of the 
 Queen-Empress, whose statue in Bombay had been insulted. 
 Among the Khonds of the wild hill-tracts of Ganjam, human 
 victims, purchased from the lowland traders, were until 
 lately sacrificed, and their blood and flesh given to the 
 earth to ensure its fertility, and increase the redness of the 
 turmeric by its magical and physical influence.^ 
 
 In the Vedic Hymn the story is told of how the youth 
 Sunashepa was bound as a victim to the sacrificial post, 
 and by his supplications to the gods released from his fate. 
 In another hymn * the order of procession, when a horse 
 is led forward to be sacrificed, is detailed. The horse itself 
 goes first, then follows a cart, then a human being {rnartyd) 
 succeeded by cows and troops of maidens. 
 
 In the more refined Vedic Hymns there are few traces 
 to be found of human sacrifice, the commonest form of all 
 savage rites. In later days, when the details of the fully 
 developed sacrificial system were set forth in the prolix 
 and wearisome prose manuals,* it is declared that in the 
 beginning the sacrifice most acceptable to the gods was 
 man. The text then goes on to tell how, for the man a 
 horse was substituted, then an ox, then a sheep, then a 
 goat, until at length it was found that the gods were most 
 pleased with offerings of rice and barley. Here in the 
 
 ' The evidence for this is founded on indisputable authority, and was referred 
 to by Lord Reay in the course of remarks on Surgeon-Captain Burton Brown's 
 Paper at the Royal Asiatic Society, on the " Ruins of Dimapur " (March 1897). 
 
 " See Fra/;er, J.G., " Golden Bough," vol. i. pp. 384-390. 
 
 3 R.V., i. 163, 8; Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (1895), p. 960. See Oldenberg, 
 " Rel. des Vedas," p. 365 : — " Was sonst fiir die Existenz vedischer Men- 
 schenopfer angefuhrt wird, scheint mir nicht jeden Zweifel auszuschliessen." 
 Barth, "Rel. of India," p. 35, for the offerings of melted butter, curdled 
 milk, rice, soups, and cakes, and Soma mixed with water or milk. 
 
 4"Sat. Brab.,"xii. 3, 5. 
 
44 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 ancient manual, is clearly set forth the gradual passing of 
 mankind through the early stages of primitive culture. 
 
 First, they start as wild and savage hunters, then turn 
 to pasturage, tending horses to be used for food and milk, 
 then to taming the wilder animals, and at last settle down 
 to agriculture, from which laborious mode of life — the most 
 laborious of all save mining — they gained those habits of 
 perseverance and patient industry which led them onwards 
 to the invention of mechanical appliances. 
 
 One other great offering to the deities was the intoxicating 
 Soma juice, squeezed from the succulent stems of a plant 
 now unknown in India. This offering of the Soma juice 
 became in time the type of all true sacrifices.^ 
 
 From the Vedic Hymns may be imagined the hall or 
 open space strewn with grass ; the sacrificial stakes well 
 decorated ; the trembling animals led near ; the altars 
 built and prepared ; the three fires flaming upwards. The 
 Soma plants are standing ready in a cart, to which are 
 harnessed two goats ; the officiating attendants prepare the 
 straining presses and goat-hair strainer, through which the 
 juice drops down like glistening rain ; the sacrificing priest 
 waits ecstatic, he is already in communion with the gods, 
 he is indeed a god himself The Vedic Hymns are being 
 murmured or chanted, every accent, stress, and intonation 
 carefully marked, for the least mistake would vitiate the 
 whole ceremony, and bring danger to all present. 
 
 The gods are invited to take their places, eat of the 
 viands or drink the Soma juice, yet nowhere can the forms 
 of gods be seen. There are no idols present, the time was 
 yet to come when the sacrificial post, well-carved and 
 ornamented, would be brought within a temple as the idol 
 or form of the god, to be honoured, fed with offerings and 
 worshipped. Who then are the gods invoked by these 
 early Aryans at the domestic altar, or before the triple 
 ' Stevenson's " Preface to the ' Sama Veda,' " p. vii. 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 45 
 
 fires ? Each god has his defined rank, each has his allotted 
 ritual. In the mind of the Vedic priest there was no hazi- 
 ness as to the god he adored.^ Yet the gods all move 
 to and fro, so far as the hymns depict them, in nebulous 
 anthropomorphic forms. The singer, as he recites the praise 
 of each god in turn, lauds and exaggerates the attributes 
 of the deity he carries for the moment before him in his 
 imagination. The deity at its highest is some personified 
 phenomenon of Nature. It is addressed as if it were man- 
 like, endowed with human will and potency, yet in the 
 mystic utterances of the poet, it never assumes the objective 
 reality, with which it would have been endowed by a 
 Semitic or Greek dramatic genius. 
 
 So indistinct is the delineation of the gods, as fashioned 
 by the Vedic poet, that Professor Max Miiller,^ with all 
 his vivid imagination, has but been able to trace the 
 shadowy forms of various gods, each rising in turn to be 
 supreme and highest god. 
 
 First of all the gods is Fire, or " Agni." He is the great 
 loved god of the Aryans, to whom the opening hymn of the 
 Vedas is addressed as the deity praised by new poets as 
 well as by old. Yet though Agni is father of all the gods, 
 he is but a younger deity ,^ for originally Fire merely con- 
 sumed the offerings left from the repast of the other gods ; 
 so he is son * to all the other gods, and had no part in the 
 drinking of the Soma juice. Thrice born was Agni. 
 From the heavens he fell to earth as lightning, on earth he 
 is produced by the rubbing of the firesticks, in the water ^ 
 also he finds his birth as lightning in the clouds, or as 
 sprung from the wood which holds water as its essence.^ 
 
 ' Oldenberg, "Rel. des Vedas," p. loi (note i). 
 
 » Max MuUer, " India : What Can it Teach Us," p. 147. 
 
 ' Oldenberg, p. 104. 
 
 * Muir, vol. V. p. 221 ; Oldenberg, p. 44; R.V., vii. i ; iii. 13, 4. 
 " Oldenberg, p. 1 08. 
 
 * Ibid., p. 114. 
 
46 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 He finds his place in the three sacrificial fires,* and at the 
 domestic hearth he is worshipped three times a day by all 
 Hindus. Strong when born^ he never ages, he never 
 sleeps,' he is ever beautiful, he has ruddy limbs, yet he is 
 not to be touched * for his locks are flames.' He is the 
 guest in every dwelling ; * he is the bearer of messages ; his 
 ears are ever listening, he carries the sacrificial food to the 
 gods. He is the charioteer of the worshipper. As he goes 
 on his way, rich in splendour, and adorned with gold and 
 glittering ornaments, he carries his banner of smoke and 
 his flames of war, " like the roaring waves of the Sindhu." "^ 
 His black trail is to be seen in the brushwood ; he is never 
 tired and ever greedy ; when the butter is poured over him 
 his back shines like that of an anointed youth who runs a 
 race.* His jaws are fiery, his strength is as that of a bull, 
 he breaks down the stronghold of the Dasa foe.® To win 
 his aid " wise men fashion forth spells," i" for " he upholds 
 the sky by his efficacious spells." To him " three hundred 
 gods, and three thousand and thirty more did honour." '^ 
 As the poet composes his best song he prays : " May this 
 well-composed prayer, O Agni, be more welcome than a 
 badly composed one." *^ It is Agni who protects the man who 
 speaks the right and the truth.^ To Agni the sinner prays : — 
 
 "Whatever sin, O youngest god, we have committed against thee 
 in thoughtlessness, men as we are make thou us sinless before Aditi ; 
 release us from guilt on all sides, O Agni." " 
 
 1R.V., V. 3, I. •^Ibid.,iv.J,io. » /i5ai , i. 143, 3. 
 
 ♦ R.V., ii. 10, 5. = Ibid., i. 141, 8. 
 
 » Ibid., V. 4, 5. "As dear house friend, guest welcome in the dwelling" 
 (Griffith). 
 
 ' Ibid., V. 44, 12 (tr. Oldenberg, p. 38). 
 
 ' See Pischel, " Vedische Studien.," vol. i. p. 151. 
 
 9 R.V., iii. 12, 6. 
 " Ibid., i. 67, 4. 
 " Ibid., iii. 9, 9; x. 52, 6. 
 ^'- Oldenberg, S.B.E., vol. xlvi. p. 142. 
 " "Rita," S.JB.E., vol. xlvl. p. 316; R.V., iv. 2. 
 " R.V., iv. 12, 4 {,lr. Oldenberg, S.B.E., vol. xlvi.). 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 4; 
 
 Agni is four-eyed ; he watches his worshippers on all 
 sides ;i he accepts the praise of the poor; to him the 
 prayer goes up : — 
 
 " Have mercy upon us ; thou art great." ^ 
 And again — 
 
 " Forgive, O Agni, this our fault, look graciously on the way which 
 we have wandered from afar." ^ 
 
 He is prayed to carry the sacrifice to the gods, " for when- 
 ever we sacrifice constantly to this or to that god, to thee alone 
 the sacrificial food is offered." * He flames forth against all 
 those who are wicked, and against all sorcerers.^ He drives 
 away sickness, and ever stays near his worshippers as a 
 father stays near to a son ; and he is chief of all the 
 clans. 
 
 He is the god, indistinct, and clothed in all the subjec- 
 tive mysticism of his worshippers, who is prayed to come 
 to the sacrifice, and take his place on the sacred grass 
 among the gods as Hotar, Priest and Purohit, and giver of 
 treasure. 
 
 Such are the Vedic gods of whom it may be said, in the 
 chastened language of Andrew Lang : ^ " The lights of 
 ritualistic dogma, and of pantheistic and mystic and poetic 
 emotion, fall in turn like the changeful hues of sunset, on 
 figures as melting and shifting as the clouds of sunset." 
 
 In such forms the gods everywhere crowd through the 
 three regions and hover round the altars. Some, abstract 
 conceptions,^ such as Wrath, Faith, Speed, and Abund- 
 ance ; others, the personifications of active agencies, 
 
 iR.V.,i. 31, 13. 
 
 '^ Oldenberg, i. 36, 12 ; S.B.E., vol. xlv. I. 
 
 » R.V., i. 31, 16; S.B.E., vol. xlvi. 
 
 *• Oldenberg, i. 26, 6 ; S.B.E., vol. xlvi. 
 
 6 R.V., i. 12, 5 ; S.B.E., vol. xlvi. 
 
 * "Myth. Ritual and Religion," vol. i. p. 161. 
 
 ■< Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (1895). P- 948. 
 
48 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 as Tvashtar, the lord ^ who forms all things, who fashions 
 the sun in the heavens and the child in the mother ; Pushan, 
 the Guide, who shows the path of death to the sacrificer ; and 
 Savitar,^ the Quickener or Inspirer, who with his raised arms 
 holds forth his blessing and giveth hope to all. Brihaspati 
 or Brahmanaspati,the lord of the Brahman, or "prayer," takes 
 shape and form as does Prajapati, the lord of all creatures, 
 for " the image of the Creator floats hazily among others in 
 the great, grey, shapeless mist which surrounds the world of 
 creation." * 
 
 As the imagination strives to pierce through the mists, 
 and form out one by one the Vedic gods, a figure glides 
 gently out from amid the rest, rising, clothed in garments 
 of purest light, as the loved maiden-goddess, the gleaming 
 bride, the Dawn. As she draws near, the youth with 
 ruddy limbs and locks of flame, grows pale and fades away, 
 while the dark Night rises to make place for her loved sister, 
 the glowing ever-welcome light, the first-bom daughter of 
 the Sky. Seated on her car she cometh ; ruddy horses 
 speed her over the land of her worshippers. At her 
 coming the birds fly up from their nests, and man rises 
 from sleep to gaze in solemn wonder at the fair goddess 
 who steals forth as a dancer, never resting, her breasts 
 bared, her garments adorned, for he remembereth how — 
 
 " All those who watched for thee of old 
 Are gone, and now 'tis we who gaze 
 On thy approach ; in future days 
 Shall other men thy beams behold." 
 
 With the Dawn rise two horsemen, the A§vins, her twin 
 brothers or husbands,* sons of Dyaus. They are ever 
 inseparable, like to the Dioscuri, sons of Zeus, who in 
 
 ^ Wallis, " Cosmology of the Veda," p. 9. 
 
 2 Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (1895), p. 951 ; R.V., i. 93, 7. 
 
 » Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 22. 
 
 « Hopkins, " Rel. of India," p. 80. 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 49 
 
 Attica freed their sister Helena from Theseus. They yet 
 dwell ever apart ; they are wonder-workers.i of " golden 
 brilliancy." Swift as young falcons, wearing lotus garlands, 
 their chariot is triple-wheeled and threefold in its parts, 
 with golden reins and drawn by swift-flying birds.* The 
 Asvins are the physicians of the gods, bringing health to 
 all : they are the friends of all lovers.* Yet so indistinctly 
 do they loom in their forms and attributes, that they have 
 been held to be the morning and evening star,* and yet 
 again the blending light and darkness of morning dawn, or 
 else the Heaven and Earth, the Sun and Moon, or Day and 
 Night.5 
 
 Before Surya, the Sun-god, who supports the sky even 
 as truth supports or upholds the earth, who springs from 
 Aurora, his mother,^ and speeds forth on his chariot, drawn 
 by seven swift steeds, the Dawn fades away : — 
 
 " But closely by the amorous Sun, 
 Pursued and vanquished in the race, 
 Thou soon art locked in his embrace, 
 And with him blendest into one." ' 
 
 It is as Savitar, the Quickener, the Inspirer,^ that the Sun 
 " stands forth as the golden deity, yellow-haired, surrounded 
 by a golden lustre,' and with upraised arms holds forth 
 blessings and hope to his worshippers." As he arises the 
 chant bursts forth : — 
 
 ' R.V., viii. 5. 
 
 ' Muir, vol. V. p. 241. 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
 * Oldenberg, "Rel. des Vedas," p. 213. 
 
 « Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (1895), p. 953, et seq.; Muir, vol. v, p. 234. 
 
 ' R.V., iii. 61, 4 ; vii. 63, 3 ; Hopkins, " Rel. of India," p. 42. 
 
 ' Muir, vol. v. p. 196. 
 
 8 Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (189S), p. 951. 
 
 » Muir, vol. V. pp. 162, 163. 
 
 D 
 
so LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 " Uprisen is Savitar, this god to quicken, Priest who neglects not 
 
 this most constant duty. 
 To the gods, verily, he gives rich treasure, and blesses him who calls 
 
 them to the banquet. 
 Having gone up on high, the God, broad-handed, spreads his arms 
 
 widely forth that all may mark him. 
 Even the waters bend them to his service ; even this wind rests in the 
 
 circling regions." ' 
 
 In later mythology the solar deity emerges from the 
 brotherhood of all the Vedic gods as Vishnu, the preserv- 
 ing god of the world, who moves in three steps over the 
 universe,^ bearing in his hand as symbol of his origin the 
 solar disc, and having by his side the heavenly bird, 
 Garuda. 
 
 So Rudra, the bearer of the thunderbolt and father of the 
 " Maruts " or Storm-gods, arising clear from the seething flux 
 of changing thought, lives to-day in Indian worship as the 
 dread god, Siva, the " Auspicious," * the potential Destroyer 
 of the Universe. In Vedic times he was the demon bred in 
 forests and in mountains, bearer of his dreaded message of 
 fever and disease.* 
 
 From around the altars of the Vedic Aryans older deities 
 pass away and are forgotten ; for them hymns are no more 
 fashioned. Newer deities inspire the poets' praise as 
 fulfilling new functions in the course of the people's chang- 
 ing life. Dyaus, the Sky, the Father of the Silent Heavens, 
 and Mother Earth herself early vanish from the scene. So 
 also Trita sinks to rest, while the great encompassing Sky, 
 
 » Griffith, R.V., ii. 38 ; i. 2. 
 
 2 Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (1895), pp. 170, et sef. Oldenbeig ("Rel. des 
 Vedas," p. 228) holds Vishnu to be the vast wideness of space, and names 
 him the "Wanderer." Macdonell (J.R.A.S., 1895) holds his three steps to 
 be in air and earth, and the last leading to his dwelling-place in Heaven. 
 
 » Hid., p. 957. 
 
 * Oldenberg, " Rel. des Vedas," p. 223 :— " Auf Berge und Wilder sowie 
 seine schadliche krankheitbringende Macht begiUndet zu sein. " 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 51 
 
 the ancient Varuna/ the Avestan Ahura Mazda, gives place 
 as a popular deity to Indra, as the Sun-god Mitra, the 
 Avestan Mithra, does to Savitar. Even the hymns to the 
 Dawn pale before those to Agni and Soma when fire 
 became the symbol of sacerdotal power, and Soma the 
 personified deity of the intoxicating beverage from whence 
 the seers derived their inspiration. 
 
 Yet Varuna was the deity who rose nearest to the heights 
 of monotheistic greatness as sole ruler of the universe. It 
 was he who by his magic measured out the earth with the 
 sun, and he was the god who saw into the hearts of all, 
 knowing the guilty as they came trembling before him to 
 confess their guilt : — 
 
 " If we have sinned against the man who loves us, have ever wronged 
 
 a brother, friend or comrade, the neighbour ever with us, or 
 
 a stranger 
 O Varuna, remove from us the trespass. If we as gamesters cheat at 
 
 play, have cheated, done wrong unwittingly or sinned of purpose 
 Cast all these sins away like loosened fetters, and Varuna, let us be 
 
 thine own beloved." ^ 
 
 The poet prays to Varuna to forgive man for the laws 
 broken day by day. He seeks to bind the deity with a new 
 song, as he wails sadly in soft, pleading tones, the full sense 
 of which lies only in the sound of the Sanskrit : — 
 
 " Para hi me vimanyavah patanti vasya ishtaye. 
 Vayo no vasantir upa.'' 
 
 No translation can give the full throb which beats 
 throughout the lines. Like all the rest of the Vedic Hymns 
 
 ' Hopkins, "Rel. of India,'' pp. 71, 72. The equation Varuna (Oupavos) 
 is not accepted by Oldenberg; but see Macdonell, J.R.A.S. (1894), p. 528; 
 also Grundriss, d. I. -A. Philologie u. Altertumskunde, "Vedic Mythology," 
 A. A. Macdonell (1897) : — "The equation, though presenting phonetic diffi- 
 culties, seems possible ; " also Earth, " Rel, of India," p. 17. 
 
 2 Griffith, R.V., v. 85, 7, 8. 
 
52 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the meaning alone can be given : — " Yet my wearied mind 
 turns only to thoughts of gaining wealth, even as a bird 
 flies to its resting-place." But the beauty and spirit 
 of the Vedic Hymns can only be known or judged 
 when heard recited in the land of their birth. The 
 poet having in the above lines attuned the sound of his 
 verses to the lament of his soul over its own impotent 
 strivings to reach the ideals he had ever set before him, 
 again bursts forth in a triumphant peal of ringing melody, 
 skilfully designed to echo forth the glory of the god on 
 whom all efforts of man depend : — 
 
 " Kada Kshatra sriyam narrama Varunam Karamahe, 
 Mrillkaya urucakshasam." 
 
 (" When shall we turn him the Lord of Strength, the Hero, 
 the Beholder of All, the god Varuna.") 
 
 Or as the same idea is expressed later on in the trans- 
 lations, so often here chosen for the fidelity with which they 
 express the sense of the original : — 
 
 " Thou, O wise god, art Lord of all, thou art the king of earth 
 and heaven : 
 Hear, as thou goest on thy way." * 
 
 The great heroic deity of the conquering Aryans was not 
 the passive Varuna, the judge of good and evil, the god who, 
 with his gentler attributes toned down by philosophic refine- 
 ments, escaped the vulgar gaze ; it was Indra, the god of 
 battle and of storm, the Soma-drinking boon-companion of 
 rough-and-ready warriors. Indra rose to power when the 
 Dasyu foes had to be driven from their stronghold, when 
 the Aryans settled in the lowland plain, and prayed for the 
 Thunde;rer to sound throughout the heavens, and bring the 
 rain-clouds near. When the lands were parched, and the 
 
 1 Griffith, R.V., i. 25, 20. 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 53 
 
 cattle driven to the forest-clad mountains there to graze — as 
 they are to-day in India in all villages during the long, hot 
 weather, or when famine rages — the people longed to see 
 the coming of the rain, and watch with glad joy the herds- 
 men drive back again their well-fed herds. Indra was the 
 great deity who slew the dreaded Drought Sushma, which 
 held back the light and waters. In heaven and on earth.i 
 the combat raged. The Panis were the robber chieftains, 
 who held the clouds, or cows, deep hidden in the cave, 
 where Vala,^ the Demon of the Cave, had concealed them, 
 and Sarama was the messenger sent by Indra to demand 
 their release. As the combat rages, and the sacrificing 
 priests call on Indra to take his seat before the altar and 
 quaff the invigorating Soma juice, there grows to life no 
 clear figure of this great deity. If Indra be sought amid the 
 assembled throng of Vedic deities, the first clue to his 
 identity is his great thirst. How much more is typical 
 of Indra, as distinguished from the other gods, so that he 
 might be painted as a dramatic figure of life-like interest, 
 would be hard to say. So when Sarama gives her message 
 to the Panis, with doubting laughter they reply : — 
 
 " Who is he ? What does he look like, this Indra, 
 Whose herald you have hastened such a distance, 
 Let him come here, we'll strike a friendship with him, 
 He can become the herdsman of our cattle." ' 
 
 In his hand Indra carries the flaming lightning ; he is 
 seated upon a golden chariot, and by his side the Storm- 
 gods, or " Maruts," H-de through the heavens, with all the 
 rush and fury of tempests. As he advances to slay Sushma 
 the Drought, and Ahi the Snake, and Vritra the Demon, 
 
 1 Oldenberg, " Rel. des Vedas," p. 151. 
 
 2 For connection of Paris with the Panis, etc., see Oscar Meyer, " Qusstiones 
 Homericse" (1867), p. 10, et seq.; also Kaegi, "Veda," p. 137. 
 
 ' Kaegi, p. 42 ir. of x. 108, 3. 
 
54 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 he shines with all the beauty of the dawn, with all the 
 glory of the sun; he "speaks in thunder; "^ he "gleams 
 like the lightning " : — 
 
 " Yet not one form alone he bears, 
 But various shapes of glory wears, 
 His aspect changing at his will, 
 Transmuted, yet resplendent still." " 
 
 By the side of Indra hasten the Maruts, with phantom, 
 anthropomorphic shapes as created in the lyric effusions of 
 the Vedic Soma-inspired bards. 
 
 The cracking of their whips is heard as they advance to 
 the hall of sacrifice. The earth trembles as the roll of their 
 chariot wheels is heard ; they drive spotted deer, with a red 
 one for leader. They are slayers of demons, tall and manly 
 like unto giants.^ They are seven, thrice seven, and again 
 thrice sixty in number.* They are born from the clouds, 
 and Rudra was their father. They are like wild elephants 
 who eat up the forests, yet they are handsome like gazelles, 
 and the golden tyres of their chariot gleam as they glide 
 down to take their seats before the sacrificial altar and 
 drink the Soma juice. They have golden helmets on their 
 heads, golden daggers in their hands, golden chains on 
 their breasts, quivers on their shoulders and glittering 
 garments. To few is their birth known ; it is a secret, 
 possessed, perhaps, only by the wise.^ They are prayed to 
 grant strong sons to their worshippers, and to lead the way 
 across the waters towards new lands, to be won by their 
 conquering aid. The Soma juice they drink was the loved 
 drink of all the deities and of men. As its drops fall to the 
 ground, pressed forth from the straining pans by the gold- 
 
 1 Hopkins, "Rel. of India," p. 92. 
 ^ Muir, " Metrical Sketch of Indra," vol. v. p. 129. 
 » R.V., i. 64, 2. 
 
 * Hopkins, " Rel. of India," p. 98. 
 
 " R.V., vii. 56, 2, 4 : — "Verily no one knoweth whence they sprang : they 
 and they only, know each other's birth " (Griffith). 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 55 
 
 adorned hands of the sacrificial priests, it fell to earth like 
 the glistening rain, and so was held to induce the clouds 
 to shed their moisture by the sympathetic magic of its 
 charm, just as in our later days the frame of man is 
 supposed to fade when his waxen image was placed before 
 a fire and melted away. The mystery of the Soma plant 
 may never be disclosed. No one knows whence it came ; ^ 
 no one knows truly how the intoxicating juice was 
 fermented and prepared, although the great Soma sacri- 
 fices are asserted to be still occasionally performed in 
 India, as are other great fortnightly and four-monthly 
 offerings before the three sacred fires.^ As on earth the 
 Soma juice was poured forth, so was it in the heavens, where 
 the gods themselves were supposed to sacrifice. The yellow 
 moon, the reservoir of the dew, was held to be the source 
 of the heavenly Soma juice, and as such to represent the 
 earthly Soma.^ Yet in the Vedic Hymns this is a secret 
 known only to the wise, so the identification of the Soma 
 with the moon, alluded to in the later hymns,* can hardly be 
 taken to signify that the moon, and not the earthly Soma 
 plant, personified as a deity, was the centre of the Vedic 
 worship.* 
 
 Each poet as he sang the praises of his favoured deity 
 strove in his song to magnify its attributes. To him the 
 main conception of each deity was determined and defined, 
 yet its glory was enhanced byascribing to it universal powers, 
 and giving to it praises, couched in sounding words and 
 sentences, applied equally to it and all the other deities. 
 The entire worship is pervaded by a common and early 
 
 1 Max Muller, "Biographies of Words," p. 234, for a suggestion that "hops 
 and soma" were one and the same thing (Academy, 1885). 
 
 2 See Bhandarkar, "Ind. Ant." (1874), p. 132. 
 
 3 Hillebrandt, " Vedische Mythologie," vol. i. 
 < R.V., *. 8S, 3- 
 
 » Oldenberg, " Rel. des Vedas," pp. 599-612. 
 
56 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 pantheistic phase of thought. Nature in all its phenomena 
 was held to be endowed with soul life. 
 
 With patient strife and long pondering the poets strove to 
 pierce the secret of the Universe, tear from the moaning 
 tempests the message they bore, catch the whispered voices 
 that stole, as the evening fell, through the deepening still- 
 ness of the forest : — 
 
 '' Goddess of wild and forest who seemest to vanish from the sight, 
 How is it thou seekest not the village ? Art thou afraid ? 
 
 Here one is calling to the cows, another there has felled a tree. 
 At eve the dweller in the wood fancies that somebody hath 
 screamed." ' 
 
 This is Nature worship ; the expression of the vague 
 unaided intuitions of the soul as it seeks for some solution 
 of that which lies beneath the reality of things. It is 
 expressed throughout the stately Vedic Hymns, the earliest 
 recorded answer of man, in rhythmic lines, which wail to us 
 still, with all their echoing charm of solemn and majestic 
 resonance. 
 
 To these poet-priests Nature had indeed manifested 
 herself in all her solemnity, in all her glory and beauty, so 
 that their voices burst forth in poetic raptures over their 
 new deities, and such of their old as had come to dwell 
 in the new-found homes, with renewed brightness and 
 vigour. 
 
 Old deities fade away amid the moving times ; the forms 
 of others become more clear, while the faint outlines of 
 gods, such as Rudra and Vishnu, loom but barely recog- 
 nisable as the prototypes of those personifications of 
 Destruction and Preservation, now worshipped everywhere 
 in Hindu India. At times, as the fervour of some singer 
 bursts forth in the vague raptures of his Soma-inspired 
 song, it seems as if the many gods were about to blend into 
 
 > Griffith, R,V., x. 146, 1-4. 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 57 
 
 the conception of one supreme god who for a time stands 
 forth as sole deity. 
 
 Thus one hymn tells how 
 
 " They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is the heavenly 
 winged Garutman. 
 To what is one, the Sages give many a title, they call it Agni, Yama 
 Matarlsvan." * 
 
 And again when the question is asked 
 
 " What pathway leadeth to the gods ? Who knoweth this of a truth, 
 and who will now declare it ? " ^ 
 
 The answer quickly comes back :* — 
 
 " One All is Lord of what is fixed, and moving, that walk, that flies, 
 this multiform creation." 
 
 Yet soon the soul's triumph dies away in the moan of 
 despair, as the Hymns declare that all the gods are unreal, 
 that the Universe must have existed before the gods, or 
 any of the gods arose from out the mundane darkness, that 
 still the weary search remains to find "kasmai devaya 
 havisha vidhema " (" to what god shall we now offer our 
 sacrifices ' ").* 
 
 So in vague and mysterious fancies ^ the thought of the 
 poet wandered. Hymns there are which peal with the 
 sound of fiercest battle-strife ; others which tell in softer 
 strains of the daily life of the people ; others which echo with 
 the triumphant note of some new-born prophet who, in his 
 lofty pride, declares the will of the gods and the secret of 
 this and the after-life. 
 
 ' Griffith, R.V., i. 164, 46. 
 2 Ibid., iii. 54, 5 (Griffith's translation). 
 ' Wallis, " Cosmology of the Veda," p. 51. 
 *Muir, R.V., X. 121, i ; vol. iv. pp. 15, 16. 
 s Earth, " Rel. of India," p. 28. 
 
58 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 From the Vedic Hymns of these Indo-Aiyans, proud 
 in their intellectual power and subduing strength over 
 alien foes, glorying in their conquests, standing on the 
 threshold of creating a philosophy which, in its metaphysical 
 subtleties, has seen as deep, though perhaps not so clear, 
 as any Western philosophies, there arises the sad wail, set 
 to sadder music, of the soul's lament over the defeat of 
 human hopes to pierce the secret of the Omniscient 
 and Omnipotent Cause, which existed from before all 
 time : — 
 
 "Then there was not Being, and Non-Being there was not; there was 
 
 not Air, nor yet beyond that Sky. 
 What covered all ? What held all safe ? 
 Where was the deep abyss of waters ? 
 There was not Death, and Non-Death there was not, and change 
 
 neither of Day nor Night. 
 One alone then breathed, calm and self-contained, naught else beyond 
 
 nor other. 
 Darkness first was hid in darkness, all this was one Universe 
 
 unseen. 
 What lay void and wrapt in darkness, that by fervour grew. 
 Desire then in the beginning arose, the first germ of the mind. 
 The bond 'twixt Non-Being and Being, as knowledge wise men find 
 
 hid in their hearts. 
 The Bond that knit all things, was it below or up above ? 
 First source of life sprang forth, and all was heaving unrest. 
 Who knows this ? Who can here tell whence all this issued forth ? 
 The gods themselves came afterwards. 
 Who then knows whence it all became ? 
 Who knows it all, if it was made or not ? 
 He who rules it all in the highest realms, He indeed knows, or 
 
 perchance He knows it not." 
 
 The gods were but created in mobile anthropomorphic 
 form out of the lyric raptures of the poet's heart None 
 springs to birth instinct with the same dramatic reality 
 with which the genius of a Hebrew prophet, a Homer, an 
 yEschylus or Sophocles would have endowed their fancies. 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 59 
 
 It was the mystic ecstatic song, often poured forth under 
 the influence of the intoxicating Soma juice, just as the 
 Delphic oracles were declared by the priestess " maddened 
 by mephitic vapours," ^ that, for weal or woe, held sway over 
 the imagination of the people, who deemed that the cry 
 went forth with power to influence even the gods themselves. 
 The poet-priest was held to be in actual communion with 
 the deity invoked. The Hymns were considered as prayers, 
 which not only swayed the deities and held them bound, 
 but compelled them, when strengthened and invigorated 
 by the sacrificial food, to hearken to the people's call, and 
 do their bidding. Without the prayer the sacrifice was in 
 vain.^ The prayer, the brahman (neuter) had to be intoned 
 with exact precision by the brahman (masc), or offerer of 
 the prayer ; one word wrongly pronounced or misplaced 
 would vitiate its whole magic influence. The prayer could 
 be offered by any who knew, or who composed the spell, for 
 though sons and descendants (brahmanas) of brahmans are 
 mentioned, it is not until later times that the Brahmans 
 became a hereditary and professional class of overseeing 
 priests. So words, when poured forth, either in the rhap- 
 sodies of a Delphic oracle ; in the wild broken accents of 
 a savage chieftain, who sacrifices all to emotion, that he 
 may raise his tribesmen's untamed instincts ; in the mystic 
 effusions of a Vedic seer ; or in the chastened utterances 
 of an absolute poet, where the forms assimilate more and 
 more to the " concrete and artistic expression of the human 
 mind in emotional and rhythmical language,"^ will ever 
 ensure to him who holds the divine gift of poetry and 
 eloquence, a certain power over the emotions and thoughts 
 of man. 
 
 ' G. L. Dickinson, "The Greek View of Life," p. 29. 
 
 ' Muir, vol. i. (1878), p. 241 ; vol. iii. pp. 128-144; R.V., x. 105, 8. 
 
 ' "Encyclopaedia Britannica" {Poetry), 
 
6o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 In the Vedic Hymns themselves, Speech became 
 personified as the goddess Vac, who declares of her- 
 self: 1— 
 
 " I am the greatest of all deities.' I am the Queen, the first of all 
 those worthy of worship. I am she to whom the gods have 
 given many places, set in many homes, and sent for abroad. He 
 who hears and breathes, who listens to the spoken word, eats 
 food. They know me not, and yet live near. Let the wise man 
 hear. I tell that which is to be believed. 
 
 I sing myself the truth dear to gods and men. 
 
 Whom I love I make mighty, I make him a Brahman, Seer and 
 
 Wise. 
 I for Rudra bend the bow, so that the arrow may pierce the hater of 
 
 the hymn. 
 I make the people join together, I have entered both Heaven and 
 
 Earth. 
 I have revealed the heavens to its inmost depths, I dwell in waters 
 
 and in sea. 
 Over all I stand, reaching by my mystic power to the height beyond. 
 I also breathe out like the wind, I first of all living things. 
 Beyond the heavens and this earth here, I have come to this great 
 
 power." 
 
 One more hymn to Vac, or " Speech," declares that when 
 she was first sent forth, all that was hidden, all that was 
 best and highest, became disclosed through love. Through 
 sacrifice Speech was sought out and found, yet though 
 some looked, they saw her not, and though some listened, 
 they heard her not ; her beauty she keeps closed, as the 
 loving wife shows hers but to her lord alone. He wanders 
 about in vain delusion who knows not the flower and fruit 
 of Speech. 
 
 With the conscious pride and haughty tone of a nation 
 which has won its way to victory, these vague guesses 
 
 1 R.V., X. 125. 
 
 ''In the "6at. Brah.," Vac becomes "the mother of the Vedas'' (iii. 
 8, 8. S)- 
 
THE OLDER AND NEWER DEITIES 6i 
 
 swell in solemn resonance through the stately periods of 
 the Vedic Hymns : yet, under-lying all is no uncertain 
 sound of the sad wail that ever and again murmurs from 
 the seer's soul, declaring that man's proud answers but 
 mock at its yearning cry to know the invisible, the un- 
 bound. The true end of the struggle is found in the one 
 verse handed down from Vedic times, and murmured by all 
 orthodox Hindus of to-day, as they wake to find the reality 
 of the world rise up around them, and still know that 
 beyond the reality is that which they still yearn to know. 
 Like all the best of Vedic Hymns, this hymn, known as the 
 " Gayatrl," has its form in its sound, and therefore remains 
 untranslatable in words, even as does music which rouses, 
 soothes, and satisfies in its passing moods. It still holds its 
 sway over the millions who daily repeat it, as it also held 
 entranced the religious fervour of countless millions in the 
 past. The birthright of the twice-born was to hear 
 whispered in their ear by their spiritual preceptors this 
 sacred prayer of India : — 
 
 " Om.' Tat Savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi 
 dhiyo yo nah pracodayat." ^ 
 
 Once heard in the land of its own birth, once learned 
 from the lips of those whose proudest boast is that they 
 can trace back their descent from the poets who first 
 caught the music which it holds in every syllable, 
 it rings for ever after as India's noblest tribute to the 
 Divine, as an acknowledgment of submissive resigna- 
 tion to the decrees which bid man keep his soul in 
 patience until the day dawns when all things shall be 
 revealed. 
 
 1 The syllable is a syllable of permission, for whenever we permit anything 
 we say, om, " yes." "Taitt. Erah.," ii. p. i. 
 
 2 Let us meditate on the to-be-longed-for light of the Inspirer ; may it 
 incite all our efforts. 
 
62 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 As the life of the nation is traced in its literature, it will be 
 found that, down to the present day, the ceaseless cry, first 
 heard in Vedic times, has ever since sent its echo down 
 through the ages, so that now it sounds as clear as it did 
 when first moaned sadly forth — 
 
 " To what god shall we now offer up our sacrifice?"' 
 
 ^ R.V., jk. 12, I ; Muir, voL iv. pp. ii, i6. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 BRAHMANISM. 
 
 From the arid mountains and the intervening fertile 
 valleys lying to the north-west of India, the Aryans slowly 
 made their way down to the plains of India. Along the 
 rivers and close to the mountains they formed their settle- 
 ments, even as far South as Sind on the lower Indus Valley, 
 sometimes engaging in conflict, sometimes forming alliances 
 with the ruder races. In the Vedic Hymns those who 
 opposed the new-comers are described as demons and 
 goblins. It was the god, Indra, who conquered those 
 slaves, as they are also called, and who gave their land to 
 the Aryan tribes. To the Aryans, these dark, flat-nosed 
 aborigines were without sacrificial rites or gods ; they 
 were revilers and despisers of Indra, haters of brahman, or 
 "prayer"; they were fierce foes and cannibals.^ The colour, 
 or " varna " of the aborigines, their " black skins " ^ became 
 the sign of servitude, and Indra was prayed to drive it far 
 away from the sight of the fair-skinned invaders. There 
 are no valid grounds for holding that the dark-com- 
 plexioned and broad-nosed people,* whom the Aryans 
 
 1 R.V., X. 87, 2ff. 
 
 2 Muir, ii. p. 391 ; R.V., ix. 41, i ; i. 130, 8. 
 
 ' Risley, " Tribes and Castes of Bengal," vol. i. (Preface), p. 32. 
 
64 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 found in possession of the river-valleys, and cultivating the 
 cleared lands on the forest sides, differed in essential 
 characteristics or in the fundamental framework of their 
 social relationships, from the present Dravidian races of 
 India. 
 
 At the present day the process whereby the rude 
 aborigines who inhabit the highlands of Central India, the 
 forest tracks above the eastern and western ghats, and the 
 slopes of the more important mountain ranges, gradually 
 receive the impress of civilisation from settlers who 
 immigrate from the lowland tracts ^ can be clearly traced, 
 and it cannot be far different from that of Vedic times. 
 All traces of social intercourse with the darker races have 
 in the Vedic Hymns been eliminated perhaps by the vanity 
 of the early Aryan immigrants. 
 
 In the later literature evidence is everywhere forth- 
 coming to show how a compromise was made between the 
 more advanced religious notions of the Aryans and the 
 more primitive cults of the earlier inhabitants.^ To 
 discriminate now in how far the religious practices of 
 modern Hinduism have been derived from the elements 
 introduced by the Aryan invaders, and how much is an 
 accretion from the savage rites of the more primitive 
 aborigines, would be a task leading to but slight profitable 
 results, except, perhaps, to the augmentation of the 
 reputation of the enquirer for ingenuity. Even in the 
 simple question as to the social position assumed by the 
 Aryans among the earlier inhabitants, the evidence is 
 equally evasive and delusive. 
 
 In North India of the present day, where the Aryan 
 influence is more strongly marked than in the South, those 
 
 ' Hewitt, " Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times," p. 46. 
 
 2 For phallic worship, the " sisna deva " of R.V., jt. 27, 19 ; x. 99, 3 ; vii. 21, 
 5, see Hewitt, p. 207, and Zimmer, "Alt Ind. Lehen.," p. 116; also Muir, 
 vol. ii. p. 3911. 
 
brAhmanism 65 
 
 races who approach most to the typical Aryan type are 
 found to be in landlord 1 possession of the villages, or to 
 hold the land in joint-partnership, or under a late developed 
 system of joint-family ownership,^ the actual cultivation 
 of the soil being relegated to the dark-skinned folk. In 
 the South of India, where the Aryan infusion is of a 
 relatively late date, the land remains, for the greater part, in 
 the hands of the Dravidian people, who themselves own it 
 and cultivate it, acknowledging no over-right except that 
 of the ruling power, to exact its share of the produce in 
 exchange for its protecting rule. 
 
 There are evidences that even in the Vedic times the 
 aborigines had attained to a considerable degree of material 
 civilisation. 
 
 The Sambara, a race living amid the mountains, against 
 whom the Aryan chieftain, Divodasa, father of the re- 
 nowned Tritsu king, Sudas, waged many a war, are said to 
 have possessed castles of stone, one hundred in number.* 
 Against the cities and castles of these Sambara the Aryans 
 advanced again and again, until Indra came to the aid of 
 his chosen people, and broke in pieces the iron strongholds 
 of the aboriginal foes with his thunderbolts.* The Hymns 
 tell how it was to gain the land and cows * of these foes that 
 the Aryans advanced with their horses and chariots, and 
 more striking evidence still of the wealth of the aborigines 
 
 ^ The whole subject has been treated by Hewitt in Essay 11, pp. 106-131, 
 " Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times," where he brings a store of erudition to 
 evolve his theory that "village communities originated in India, and that 
 this communal system, together with the matriarchate form of government 
 instituted by their founders, was brought by the Indian cultivating races and 
 their allies into Europe." The main outline of this movement is stated as 
 follows : — " It was immigrants from the South, who, during the Neolithic Age, 
 introduced into Europe the agriculture they had learned in these Southern 
 villages, while North-Western Europe was made uninhabitable to tillers of the 
 soil by the rigorous climate of the Palaeolithic period" (Preface, pp. vi., vii.). 
 
 " Baden-Powell, " Ind. Vill. Com.," p. 241 : — " The joint-village is, in fact, 
 coterminous with the range of Aryan and later conquests. " 
 
 ^ R.V., iv. 30, 20. •• Ibid., ii. 20, 8. ^ Muir, vol. ii. p. 384. 
 
 E 
 
66 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 is an account given of how they possessed treasures of gold,^ 
 and of rich jewels. 
 
 Across the Five Rivers of the Panjab the Aryans pressed 
 until they reached the land to the East, . renowned ever 
 afterwards as Brahmavarta, and described as a land 
 " created by the gods, lying between the two divine rivers, 
 the SarasvatI and Drishadvatl."* There the Vedic Hymns 
 were collected together, and the entire sacrificial system 
 elaborated. The land of the Five Rivers was then no longer 
 looked to as a fit abiding-place for the Aryan race. The 
 later literature of the Epic period declared that "in the 
 region where the Five Rivers flow ... let no Aryan dwell 
 there even for two days. . . . There they have no Vedic 
 ceremony nor any sacrifice." * 
 
 The Panjab evidently saw no extensive settlement of the 
 Aryan tribes ; it was in the land further to the East, in 
 Brahmavarta and Kurukshetra, that the rise of the 
 Brahmans to power, and the glorification of their priestly 
 office can be traced. The land left behind became accursed, 
 the abiding-place of impure tribes, such as the Bahlkas, 
 " who are outcasts from righteousness, who are shut out 
 from the Himavat, the Ganga, the SarasvatI, the Yamuna, 
 and Kurukshetra, and who dwell between the Five Rivers." * 
 " The women who dwell there are addicted to incestuous 
 practices, and are without shame ; " ^ they are " drunk and 
 undressed, wearing garlands, and perfumed with unguents, 
 sing and dance in public places, and on the ramparts of 
 the town." ^ 
 
 As the Aryans advanced further into the plain -country the 
 time was forgotten when they were designated, as in the 
 Vedic Hymns, " the five " people,'^ or people of the five tribes. 
 
 1 R.V., iu. 34, 9; Baden-Powell, "Ind. Vill. Com.," 84. 
 
 ^ " Manu," ii. 17, 19. « " Mahabharata," v. 20, 63. 
 
 * " Mahabharata," viii. 202, gff. ^ Muir, vol. ii. p. 4S3. 
 
 * /iui., V. 20, 35 ; Jiid., vol. ii. p. 4S2. 
 ' Pancajandh. 
 
brAhmanism 67 
 
 When they passed beyond the sacred abode lying between 
 the SarasvatI and Drishadvatl, and reached the fertile land 
 along the Jumna, praised^ as the country where wealth in kine 
 and wealth in steed was to be gained, and thence made 
 their way onward to the high banks ^ of the Ganges, they 
 no longer preserved their ancient tribal names. The Tritsus, 
 loved of Vasishta, and the Bharatas to whom Visvamitra 
 turned in his wrath, had united as friends, and with the 
 third great Vedic tribe, the Purus — whose king, Kutsa, had 
 led the Bharatas and' allied ten tribes * in Vedic war against 
 Sudas, king of the Tritsus — fused together to form the great 
 alliance of theKurus,* who dwelt in the plains ofKurukshetra, 
 and who afterwards built their renowned capital at Hastina- 
 pura on the Ganges, sixty-five miles north-east of Delhi. 
 
 South-east of the land claimed by the Kurus,^ a second 
 Aryan tribe, who early in Vedic times dwelt in the valleys 
 of Kashmir, and was there known as the Krivi, took up 
 its abode, and became renowned as the Panchalas, with 
 its capital at Kampilya on the Ganges. Kurukshetra® 
 became the great place of sacrifice for the Aryans, the place 
 where the sacred literature was compiled and elaborated, 
 the place where the Brahmans consolidated their power, 
 established their schools of learning, and thence spread 
 abroad their civilising influence. 
 
 From the Brahmanic families of the 'Kuru Panchalas 
 trained scholars went abroad to the outlying tracts where 
 adventurous Aryans had made their settlements, until 
 gradually the whole of India fell subdued to the sacerdotal 
 
 1 R.V., V. 52, 17. 2 Ibid., vi. 45, 31. 
 
 ' &« Oldenberg, " Buddha," pp. 404-5, for original identity of Tritsus and 
 Bharatas, and Ludwig, "Mantra Literatur," p. 175. 
 
 * For identification of these, see Hewitt, p. 115. For the allies of the 
 Tritsus, see Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," p. 434 ; Hewitt, p. 114. 
 
 » Zimmer, p. 102 ; Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 401 ; "6at. Brah.,"xiii. S, 47 ; 
 Eggeling, p. xli. 
 
 » Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 395. 
 
68 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 ordinances of their priestly guides. The succeeding history of 
 India, as preserved in its literature, is one unending struggle 
 of the Brahmanic power to assert its supremacy, and to 
 promulgate far and wide the ordinances it laid claim to 
 formulate under Divine sanction. Never, since the Kuru 
 Panchalas first settled on the upper reaches of the Ganges 
 and Jumna, has the struggle ceased, and never has the 
 Brahman failed to take from the hands of his opposing foes 
 the weapons they used, and add them to his already 
 skilfully-arranged armoury. Against the priestly ordinances 
 free thought and philosophy revolted ; against the long 
 array of Vedic texts, on which the existence of a soul to 
 man and a Divine Ruler to the Universe was postulated, 
 the agnosticism of Buddhism strove in vain in its efforts 
 to win the allegiance of man, born to live in wonder and die 
 in hope. 
 
 The power of the Brahmans, temporal and spiritual, 
 remained supreme, so that Manu ^ was able to declare that, 
 from a Brahman born in the plain of Kurukshetra, "im- 
 mediately after Brahmavarta," where dwell the Kurus, the 
 Panchalas, the Matsyas, and the Surasenas, all men on 
 earth should learn their duties, for it was the ever-famed 
 abode of the Brahmarshis or Brahmanical sages. 
 , From the collection of hymns known as the " Rig 
 Veda," such hymns as were chanted by the Udgatar 
 priest at the sacrifices, where the clarified juice of the 
 Soma plant was offered to the deities, were collected 
 together into a " Sanhita," or metrical text, known as the 
 " Sama Veda," the verses of which were set to a tune or 
 melody in " Gana," or Song-books. The entire sacrificial 
 system, with varied explanations of the significance of each 
 act, were set forth in a third Veda, named the " Black 
 Yajur Veda," a text-book compiled for the instruction of 
 the Adhvaryu priests, whose duties were connected with the 
 
 ^ "Manu," ii. 17, 19, 20, 21. 
 
BRAHMANISM 69 
 
 performance of the practical details of the great Horse 
 and Soma sacrifices. The "Black Yajur Veda" was later 
 simplified and systematised in a clearer arrangement, 
 called the " White Yajur Veda." 
 
 All this extensive literature was not considered sufficient 
 for the exposition of the religious history of the Aryans, 
 and the elucidation of the mysteries of the sacrificial 
 system. To each of the Vedas were attached, by 
 succeeding generations of priests, long, wearisome dis- 
 courses, often in prose, describing in minute detail the 
 entire Brahmanic ritual, so far as its origin could be traced, 
 or its significance understood, by the sacrificers themselves, 
 whose minds were intent more on its practical import at 
 the time than on its historical purpose or development. 
 
 These treatises are known as the "Brahmanas.'' The centre 
 of the period during which they were composed may be 
 placed at somewhere not far removed from the tenth 
 century before our era.i 
 
 In these " Brahmanas '' it is found that not only had the 
 Aryans spread across the Sarasvati, and reached the banks 
 of the Ganges and Jumna, but that adventuring bands had 
 penetrated as far to the East as Oudh, Benares, and North 
 Behar. The Kasis had gone as an advance guard, and 
 made the land around Benares their own, and the Magadhas 
 had gone even further East. The KoSalas settled in Oudh, 
 and the Videhas established themselves in North Behar, 
 where they were destined to take a prominent position in 
 the history of India, though in the early period, when the 
 Brahmanic system was being developed in the homes of 
 the Kuru Panchalas to the West, they had no part in the 
 Vedic culture or sacrificial rites.^ 
 
 During the Brahmanic period the centre of Vedic culture 
 
 * Oldenberg, " Buddha," p. i8 : — " Somewhere between the ninth and 
 seventh centuries before the Christian era." 
 2 Ibid., p. 391. 
 
70 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 lay from the divine Sarasvati beyond Kurukshetra to the 
 Jumna in the East. It was there that the Kuru Panchalas 
 and allied tribes had their homes : it was there that Vac, or 
 the divine " Speech," was held to be purer than elsewhere; it 
 was the place where the great Vaidik or 6rauta sacrifices 
 were performed before the three sacred fires. The full 
 number of these sacrifices reached to upwards of a thousand, 
 and some of the more important extended to long sessions 
 of from ten to one hundred years in length.^ 
 
 According to the classification of the " Srauta Sutras," the 
 shorter rules formed for the preservation of the Brahmanic 
 teaching, the chief sacrifices fall within three chief groups, 
 each of seven typical sacrifices. The first seven were the 
 great Soma sacrifices,^ performed with three fires, at one of 
 which, the Vajapeya, chariot races and games ^ took place, 
 and the intoxicating "sura" was drunk. The next seven 
 sacrifices consisted of oblations of butter, milk, rice, and 
 meat. These were known as the Havir sacrifices. The 
 first was performed on the setting up of the sacred fires in 
 the home of a new householder. This rite lasted for two 
 days, and required the presence of the four priests, the 
 Brahman, Hotar, Adhvaryu and Agnldh. The other six 
 Havir sacrifices were those of daily oblation ; those on days 
 of full and new moon ; those in times of harvest ; four 
 monthly sacrifices ; animal sacrifice ; and lastly, a special 
 expiation for over-indulgence in drinking the Soma. 
 
 These fourteen were the types of Vaidik ceremony. 
 The third group of seven sacrifices consisted of rites per- 
 formed before the domestic hearth with oblation of cooked 
 food. These seven were called the Paka* sacrifices, 
 
 * "The legendary history of India knows of such sessions, which are said to 
 have lasted for one hundred and even for a thousand years." — Haug, "Ait, 
 Brah." (Introd.), 6. 
 
 ^ The great type was the Agnishtoma sacrifice, which lasted five days. 
 3 Weber, " Ueber den Vajapeya " Sitz. ber. Berlin Acad., 1892. 
 
 * "Sankhayana Grihya Sutra," i. i, 15 ; "Gautama," viii. 15. 
 
BRAHMANISM 71 
 
 performed in winter, on new and full moon days, at times 
 of the Sraddha, or funeral sacrifices, and four falling due 
 in specified months — ^ravana, Agrahayani, Chaitra, and 
 A^vina. 
 
 For all sacrifices there had first to be a sacrificer, and by 
 him were selected the priests to whom gifts and presents 
 were given. The place of sacrifice was usually a room 
 within a Brahman's house. For important sacrifices, such as 
 the Soma sacrifices, a large shed was erected in an open place, 
 the floor in all cases being covered with the sacred Kuia 
 grass, the favourite food of the black antelope. The East, 
 or Ahavanlya fire-place was square ; the South, or Dak- 
 shinagni, was spherico-triangular,i the West, or Garhapatya, 
 was round. The altar itself was a low wall running in a 
 serpentine curve from fire-place to fire-place. One direction ^ 
 for the construction of an altar for a Havir sacrifice stated : 
 " Let the Altar measure a fathom across on the west side ; 
 they say that namely is the size of a man, and the Altar 
 should be of the man's size ... let him make it as long as 
 he thinks fit in his own mind." 
 
 A significant description is given as to the shape of the 
 altar in the same text : * " The altar should be broad on the 
 west side, contracted in the middle, and broad again on the 
 east side ; for thus shaped they praise a woman, broad about 
 the hips, somewhat narrow about the shoulders, and con- 
 tracted in the middle (or about the waist). Thereby he 
 makes it (the altar) pleasing to the gods." 
 
 A further essential feature of the altar follows imme- 
 diately after the above direction. " It should be sloping 
 towards east, for the east is the quarter of the gods ; and 
 also sloping towards north, for the north is the quarter of 
 men. To the south side he sweeps the rubbish (loose soil), 
 for that is the quarter of the deceased ancestors. If it (the 
 
 ' Stevenson, "Sama Veda" (Introd.), viii. 
 " " 6at. Brah.," i. 2, 5, 14. ' Ibid., i. 2, 5, 16. 
 
72 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 altar) were sloping towards south, the sacrificer would 
 speedily go to yonder world." 
 
 In the case of the sacrifice of animals, besides the three 
 fires and altar, a sacrificial pillar, for the tying of the animal, 
 has to be hewn and erected, for it is directed : ^ " There are 
 both an animal and a sacrificial stake, for never do they 
 immolate an animal without a stake. And as to why this 
 is so — well, animals did not at first submit thereto that 
 they should become food, as they are now become food ; 
 for just as man here walks two-footed and erect, so did they 
 walk two-footed and erect." 
 
 The pillar was hewn with an axe, care being taken to 
 utter the incantation : " O axe, hurt it not." ^ 
 
 As a further precaution, a blade of " darbha " grass was 
 placed between the axe and the tree, so that it might 
 receive the first blow. When the tree, out of which the 
 sacrificial part had to be hewn, was cut down, offerings were 
 made upon the stump, " lest evil spirits should arise there- 
 from." * The sacrificial stake was then carved eight-sided, 
 ornamented with a top ring, anointed and dedicated to 
 Vishnu.* The Adhvaryu priest then girds (the stake with 
 a rope of KuSa grass). Now it is to cover its nakedness 
 that he girds it, wherefore he girds it in this place (viz. on 
 a level with the sacrificial navel) for it is thus that this 
 (nether) garment is (slung round). He thereby puts food 
 into him, for it is there that the food settles ; therefore he 
 girds it at that place." ^ One of the chips hewn off the post 
 was then placed beneath the rope. In the description of the 
 ceremonies, as given in the " Aitareya Brahmana,"" the Hotar 
 priests recited the Vedic Hymn, and adored the sacrificial 
 post as a youth ' well robed, fastened by the sacrifice to the 
 
 ' " Sat. Brah.," iii. 7, 3, l. * Ibid., iii. 6, 4, 10. ^ /^^-^^ {jj g_ ^^ , j 
 
 * IbiJ., iii. 7, I, 19. ° Ibid., iii. 7, 19. 
 
 " Haug, "Ait. Brah.," p. 77. 
 
 ' R.V., iii., 8, 4-6; see Oldenberg (^?-. ), S.B.E., vol. xlvi. pp. 252, 253. 
 
BRAHMANISM 73 
 
 earth, fashioned by the axe, as divine, as standing before 
 the worshippers to grant them treasures and offspring. 
 
 To the ancient Brahmanic expounders of the sacrificial 
 system the whole primitive significance of the sacrifice had 
 been lost. The protracted ceremonies are minutely 
 described, and laboured explanations of them are given, but 
 nowhere is there any clue given as to the true history of 
 their primitive origin. The altar itself was clearly but a 
 developed table, or hearth, arising out of the primitive 
 altar, which, as " among the northern Semites as well as 
 among the Arabs, was a great stone or cairn at which the 
 blood of the victim was shed " ^ 
 
 The importance of these details of the early sacrificial 
 system in the history of India is self-evident. The ten- 
 dency would have been for an advance from the worship 
 of the Vedic deities to a grand conception of monotheism, 
 if the Aryan tribes had remained combined into united and 
 compact bodies, with a commonly accepted ideal of one 
 tribal God. The actual result was a lapse into idolatry 
 and unrestrained polytheism after the political forces 
 widened and weakened themselves by compromises with 
 worshippers of strange idols and fetishes. Of peculiar 
 significance are the words in which Jehovah directed Moses 
 to deliver unto the children of Israel His ordinances as to 
 the setting forth of the altar : — 
 
 "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shall sacrifice thereon 
 thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep and thy oxen. . . . 
 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of 
 hewn stone : for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." ^ 
 
 In the Canaanite and Hebrew sanctuaries was the altar, 
 and also near at hand the pillar of stone, such as Jacob set 
 up and anointed, so that it " shall be God's house." The 
 altar was the place on which the sacrificial blood was 
 
 • Robertson Smith, " History of the Semites," p. 185. 
 ^ Exodus XX. 24, 25. 
 
74 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 drained, so that its sanctity should not pass into the earth, 
 and the pillar on which the blood was sprinkled ''was 
 a visible symbol or embodiment of the presence of the 
 deity "^ which, in process of time, came to be fashioned 
 and carved in various ways, until, ultimately, it became " a 
 statue or anthropomorphic idol of stone, just as the sacred 
 tree or post was ultimately developed into an image of 
 wood." ^ It can be traced ^ how the pillar or post became 
 gradually more artistically developed, was placed in a house, 
 or temple, and became the idol. 
 
 According to the Brahmanic theory, the sacrifice on earth 
 took place merely as a counterpart of a divine sacrifice 
 held periodically by the gods. Prajapati, the Lord of all 
 Creatures, was held * to have been the first sacrificer, the 
 reason given for the motive which impelled him to sacrifice 
 being, that he " having created living beings, felt himself, as 
 it were, exhausted." Eleven were the sacrifices he offered, 
 so that " the creatures might then return to me ; the 
 creatures might abide with me, for my food and joy." * 
 
 In imitation of the sacrifice by Prajapati, all sacrificers 
 were directed to offer eleven victims. The first victim was 
 sacrificed to Agni, chief of all the gods, the father of the 
 gods, and by that sacrifice the offerer becomes reunited with 
 Agni. By a second sacrifice to Sarasvati, the goddess Vac, 
 or Speech, the sacrificer " becomes strong by speech, and 
 speech turns unto him, and he makes speech subject unto 
 himself."* By a third sacrifice to Soma, food becomes 
 subject ; by a fourth to Pushan cattle become subject ; by a 
 fifth to Brihaspati, the priesthood becomes subject ; by a 
 sixth to the Vi^ve Devas, or all gods, the sacrificer becomes 
 
 'Jevons, Introd. to " History of Religion," pp. 13, 178. 
 " Robertson Smith, " History of the Semites," p. 187. 
 3 Jevons, p. 135. * " Sat. Biah.," iii. 9, i, i. 
 
 = Ibid., iii. 9, 1, 2. In "Sat. Brah.," xi. 7, i, 3, flesh is called the highest 
 food. Raj. Mitra, " Indo- Aryans," vol. i. pp. 361-374. 
 ' Ibid., iii. 9, I, 7. 
 
BRAHMANISM 75 
 
 "strong by everything; everything turns to him, and he 
 makes everything subject to himself." By a seventh 
 sacrifice to Indra, the God of Warrior Might, the sacrificer 
 gained valour and power. By the eighth sacrifice, that to the 
 Maruts,! who are said to personify the clan and abundance, 
 abundance was made subject; by a ninth to Indra and Agni 
 the double energies of these gods were made subject ; by a 
 tenth to Savitri, the Impeller of the gods, all wishes were 
 made subject to the sacrificer, while by the eleventh and last 
 sacrifice, that to Varuna, the sacrificer freed himself " from 
 every noose of Varuna, from every guilt against Varuna." 
 
 So far, it can be seen that the sacrifice of an animal was 
 supposed to be efficacious in endowing the sacrificer with 
 both natural and supernatural powers, similar to those he 
 sacrificed to obtain. There was but a slight advance on 
 the primitive idea, generally found at some stage in the 
 history of humanity, of the sacrifice of an animal, and the 
 actual drinking of its blood and partaking of its flesh in 
 order that the sacrificer might become endowed with the 
 supernatural powers of the animal he thus sought to 
 become kin with. The phase of thought on which these 
 ideas are based has risen naturally from the primitive 
 construction of society. 
 
 Everywhere primitive man is found to hold together in 
 sibs, or clans, where the bond of blood relationship is the 
 sole security from attack or treachery. Should a stranger 
 seek to join the brotherhood, the blood of the adopted 
 kindred must be made to flow in his veins by actual 
 inoculation.^ This is the blood covenant, and outside its 
 limits there is neither friendship nor kindred. Not only 
 with his brother man does primitive humanity in the early 
 struggle for existence find himself at variance, but he is 
 
 ^ Jevons, p. 242, for Mars as a vegetable deity ; and Haug, p. 92, for the 
 Maruts being the " Vaisyas," or subjects of the gods. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 97. 
 
^6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 confronted with the whole supernatural powers of Nature, 
 with which he would willingly be in alliance. Man finds 
 himself surrounded by strange manifestations of an un- 
 known power, over which his mind knows not how to 
 reason. The very animals have strange cunning, and in 
 all savage folk-tales they speak naturally as human beings. 
 For defence or attack animals unite together ; their kinship 
 within their own species is as that of man within the 
 brotherhood. Should an animal be slain, the enmity of its 
 species is aroused against the slayer ; it can be equally a 
 friend or a foe, though different from man, its powers are 
 outside the reach of primitive intelligence. 
 
 So the savage seeks to be on good terms with, and win 
 the friendship of, such animals as he is most brought into 
 contact with, or regards with special fear and reverence. 
 To do this, there is but one way, and that is to follow the 
 analogy of the human race and claim a blood relationship. 
 The savage, therefore, wears the skin of some animal loved 
 or feared of his sib ; he decorates his head with its horns, 
 and, similarly to its body, he mutilates or paints his own, so 
 that he may become endowed with its virtues or super- 
 natural powers. There is but one step further, and that is 
 to cement a blood covenant with the clan * or species to 
 which the animal belongs. The animal or object whose 
 alliance is thus sought, then becomes the " Totem " ^ of the 
 common brotherhood. A social bond has been made with 
 the species. The animal and the human clan are regarded 
 as having sprung from a common ancestor, the animal, and as 
 being of one kindred. More important is the aspect of the 
 religious bond which binds the human clan in affection to 
 
 1 Frazer, J. G., " Golden Bough," p. 26. 
 
 ^ Ibid., "Totemism," p. I : — " A Totem is a class of natural objects which 
 a savage regards with superstitious respect, believing that there exists between 
 him and any member of the class an intimate and altc^ether special relation." 
 See, however, Frazer, J. G., "Golden Bough," vol. ii. p. 38 : — " It is not yet 
 certain that the Aryans ever had Totemism." 
 
BRAHMANISM -jj 
 
 the animal supposed to be supernaturally endowed. There 
 can be no more fitting way to cement these bonds than for 
 the human clan periodically to assimilate to themselves all 
 the qualities of the animal, by actually partaking of its flesh 
 and blood. 
 
 The animal is of necessity slain for this purpose, yet the 
 act of killing is one arising from affection,^ not from lust or 
 desire for food. The act itself is sacrilegious. The blood 
 as it falls is " taboo " ; it is received on the altar, no part 
 must touch the ground. Everywhere throughout the 
 Brahmanic sacrifice, traces are to be found of the repug- 
 nance to shed the blood of the victim, and scrupulous care 
 is taken to remove all traces of it, the pillar being left as a 
 sign that the ground is to be avoided. One peculiar result 
 is recorded in the " Brahmanas " : — " Now those who made 
 offerings in former times touched the altar and the 
 oblations while they were sacrificing. They became 
 more sinful, and those who sacrifice not become righteous, 
 they said." ^ 
 
 It was the sacrificer who struck the first blow and who 
 partook of the flesh and blood that became endowed 
 with the supernatural qualities of the animal slain. He 
 became reborn with the powers of the animal slain. He 
 emerged from the sacrifice as the god himself, possessed of 
 all the powers which the alliance of the animal had brought. 
 The sacrifice in its primitive signification in no way 
 indicated a gift or payment by the worshippers to their 
 deities. It was a bond, an act of communion® between 
 the worshippers and the animals, or any natural object they 
 held possessed of supernatural powers, whose aid they 
 sought to win for themselves. 
 
 > The cow, though sacred, was slain for sacrifice. 
 
 2 " Sal. Brah.," I, 2, S, 24. 
 
 ' Robertson Smith, " History of the Semites," pp. 365, 442 : — " The sacrifice 
 was in no sense a payment to the god, but simply an act of communion of the 
 worshippers with one another and their god." 
 
78 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The sacrifice had its foundation laid securely in the 
 mental structure of all mankind. It was the highest 
 expression of religious instincts which at all times and in 
 all places impelled the individual to seek close union with 
 the ineffable mystery of the Divine, in which no powers of 
 reason will ever persuade him he has no part With the 
 forces which he sees underlying all Nature — animals, trees, 
 and plants — he hopes at first to form a bond of friendship. 
 As the animals become domesticated, and agriculture is 
 introduced, the sacrifice assumes the form of a gift of 
 an animal, or harvest offerings to the god whose aid it was 
 sought to secure, the primitive idea of the necessity of 
 incorporating it as kin to the clan fading away.^ 
 
 In India, even down to the time of Manu, it was held 
 that the land "where the black antelope naturally roams, 
 one must know to be fit for the performance of sacrifices ; 
 the tract different from that is the country of the " Mlecchas " 
 (barbarians).^ It would be hazardous* at present to 
 assert that the Aryans in India held the black antelope 
 for a Totem, or that it ever was a Totem for them, inasmuch 
 as they had for long passed beyond the early stage of 
 civilisation out of which the primitive ideas of sacrifice 
 arise. Nevertheless, the place taken by the black antelope 
 during the Brahmanic ceremony shows that it had assumed, 
 metaphorically at least, the position which would have been 
 devoted to a tribal Totem. The great sacrifices were, in 
 these Brahmanic times, performed for the benefit and at the 
 
 1 See Jevons, Inlrod. to the "History of Religion," p. 331, et seq., for the 
 introduction into Greece in the sixth century B.C. of the North Semitic 
 tendency to abandon, under stress of national calamity, the gift idea of sacrifice, 
 and to revert to the primitive conception of the sacrificial meal being an 
 actual participation of the essence of the god by the worshippers. 
 
 2 " Manu," ii. 2, 3. 
 
 ' Hewitt, " Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times,'' p. 367 ; Max MiUler, 
 " Mythology," vol. i. pp. 8, 200 : — " Sanskrit scholars would certainly 
 
 hesiiate before seeing in Indra a Totem, because he is called bull." 
 
 Sei Oldenberg, "Rel. des Vedas," pp. 85, 415. 
 
BRAHMANISM 79 
 
 cost of some pious householder, who had first to prepare 
 himself by a ceremony of initiation/ through which he 
 became re-born into a condition in which he was supposed 
 to enter into actual communion with the deity worshipped. 
 The ceremony as described in the "Brahmanas" is conclusive 
 on the subject. The sa.crificer is first sprinkled with water, 
 " for water is seed." ^ He is then anointed with butter, for 
 by such anointing, " they make him thrive." His eyes are 
 then darkened with collryrium by which lustre is imparted, 
 and he becomes a " Dikshita." They then " rub him clean 
 with twenty-one handfuls of darbha grass," they thus make 
 him pure. He then enters a place prepared for him, which 
 represents a place of birth ; he is thus supposed to become 
 an embryo. " In this place, he sits as in a secure abode, 
 and thence he departs. Therefore the embryos are placed 
 in the womb as a secure place, and thence they are brought 
 forth (as fruit). Therefore the sun shoiild neither rise nor 
 set over him, finding him in any other place than the spot 
 assigned to the Dikshita; nor should they speak to him." 
 The succeeding portion of the ceremony is so clear as to 
 the underlying significance of the rite, and points out so 
 unmistakably the origin of the triple thread still worn by 
 all people of India to-day, who call themselves twice-born, 
 that it is quoted in full from Dr Haug's valuable translation, 
 which unfortunately is now out of print. The sacrificer 
 remains in the place chosen for the new birth, while the 
 priests " cover him with a cloth. For this cloth is the cowl 
 of the Dikshita (with which he is to be born like a child). 
 
 ^ Max Miiller, in his " Comp. Mythology," p. 227, contending against 
 Oldenberg's views that this Diksha, or initiatory ceremony, was " to excite an 
 ecstatic state which helps forward an intercourse with gods or spirits," con- 
 cluded by stating his opinion "that this initiatory ceremony was meant as an 
 act of propitiation and sanctification ; or, like the Upanayana, as a symbolical 
 representation of that new birth which distinguishes the three upper classes as 
 fit for sacrifice." 
 
 SHaug, "Ait. Brah.,"p. 8., 
 
So LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Outside (this cloth) there is (put by them) the skin of a 
 black antelope. For outside the cowl there is the placenta. 
 Then they cover him (symbolically by the skin of the 
 antelope) with the placenta. He closes his hands. For 
 with closed hands the child is born. As he closes his 
 hands, he thus holds the sacrifice and all its deities in his 
 two hands closed." i 
 
 The ceremony ends by the sacrificer removing the skin 
 of the black antelope, and then, still wearing the cloth, 
 purifying himself by bathing. 
 
 A similar account of the initiatory ceremony is given 
 in the well-known " Satapatha Brahmana," ^ attached to the 
 " White Yajur Veda." 
 
 Here the place of sacrifice is where the ground is higher 
 than any surrounding ground, "for it was thence that 
 the gods ascended to heaven, and he who is consecrated 
 indeed ascends to the gods." 
 
 An enclosed shed is erected, with its beams running 
 West and East, for the gods come from the East, and the 
 sacrifice is to be performed facing East The sacrificer 
 must be one of the Aryan race, a Brahman, Kshatriya, or 
 Vaisya, for the gods have no commerce with Sudras. 
 
 The sacrificer's hair and beard is shaved,^ the hair being 
 first touched with the sacred grass, both the hair and grass 
 being laid in water ; his nails are cut, and he then bathes, 
 so as to become pure. He then clothes himself in a new 
 linen garment, and is anointed five times, for the five 
 
 ^ The original is — "jajnam ca eva tat s^rvas ca devata mushtyo kurute." 
 
 2 "6.it. Brah.,"ui. i, I. 
 
 ^ The explanation, according to the Biahmana, of the shaven head is as 
 follows : — " Then as to the Sacrificer shaving his head all round. Now yonder 
 sun, indeed, faces every quarter ; it drinks up whatever moisture it dries up 
 here ; hence this Sacrificer thereby faces every quarter, and becomes a con- 
 sumer of food." — "isat. Brah.," ii. 6, 3, 14. An objector to this theory 
 remarks : — "What in the world has it to do with his face, even if he were to 
 shave off all the hair off his head ? . . . let him therefore not trouble himself 
 about shaving his head." — "Sat. Brah.," ii. 6, 3, 17. 
 
BRAHMANISM 8i 
 
 seasons, from head to foot with fresh butter ; his eyes being 
 touched with a reed stalk. When further purified by being 
 stroked with one, seven, or twenty-one stalks of sacred 
 grass, he then enters the hall of sacrifice, and walks about at 
 the back of the Ahavanlya fire, which faces the east door, 
 and in front of the Garhapatya fire, which faces the west 
 door, the altar lying between these two fires. " The reason 
 why this is his passage until the Soma pressing is this : the 
 fire is the womb of the sacrifice, and the consecrated is the 
 embryo ; and the embryo moves about in the womb." i 
 
 Two black antelope skins are then spread on the ground, 
 on which the sacrificer sits down with his hands folded, like 
 unto an embryo. He then places round himself a triple 
 hempen cord, in which is twined a reed ; he covers his head, 
 ties a black deer's horn to his garment, and lays hold of a 
 staff of Udambara wood {JFicus glomeratd) ^ and so remains 
 silent. " Thereupon someone calls out, ' Consecrated is this 
 Brahman, consecrated is this Brahman,' him being thus 
 announced, he thereby announces to the gods : ' Of great 
 vigour is this one who has obtained the sacrifice ; he has 
 become one of yours, protect him.' " ^ 
 
 The sacrificer remains silent until sunset, when he 
 becomes reborn, a god himself, and is fed with milk and 
 barley to which vegetables are sometimes added. The 
 reason why the food must be cooked is because " he who is 
 consecrated draws nigh to the gods and becomes one of 
 the deities. But the sacrificial food of the gods must be 
 cooked, and not uncooked : hence they cook it, and he 
 partakes of that fast-milk and does not offer it in the 
 fire."* 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the speculations of the 
 
 1 " Sat. Brah.," iii. I, 3, 28 ; S.B.E., vol. xxvi. (Eggeling's translation). 
 
 " For the Ficus glomerata as the parent tree of the trading races who 
 introduced the Soma sacrifice, see Hewitt, "Ruling Races of Pre-historic 
 Times," p. 367- 
 
 3 " Sat. Brah.," iii. 2, i, 39. ^Ibid., iii. 2, 2, 10. 
 
 F 
 
82 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 priestly compilers of the " Brahmanas " were earnest and 
 sincere efforts to explain the hidden meaning of the 
 complicated ritual that had in process of time grown up 
 around the sacrifice. Not only are the rules which bear on 
 fhe ceremony set forth, but every effort is made to give 
 rational explanations of every step of the ritual. 
 
 Philosophic disquisitions abound as to the intention of 
 the early sacrificers, and philological reasons are given for 
 special uses of Vedic texts. Stories of ancient sacrificers 
 and legends of former sacrifices are introduced, with an 
 evident intention of expounding, so far as it was understood, 
 the necessity for the due performance of the religious 
 ceremonies in the new-found homes of the Aryans. In the 
 course of ages the true meaning of much of the ritual had 
 been lost to the priesthood, much remained obscure, and on 
 many points in the ceremony there were held varied 
 opinions and practices. 
 
 At times the sacrifice is declared to be man ; it is the 
 representation of the sacrificer himself; i therefore the altar 
 extends as far as a man's outstretched arms on the West 
 side, and it is in human shape. Again the sacrifice is 
 prayer, or speech,^ for it is handed down from priest to 
 priest by speech. It was first taught by the gods to man, 
 who handed it on from father to son.* By the sacrifice the 
 gods gained their place in Heaven, and then fearing that 
 man by the same means might conquer their celestial 
 home, they concealed it until man found it again for 
 himself.* 
 
 The most striking and most important account of the 
 ancient sacrifice is that given in connection with the 
 legend of the Flood, as preserved in the " Satapatha 
 Brahmana." The account differs in so many respects from 
 
 1 "Sat. Brah.," i. 3, 2, I ; Eggeling, S.B.E., vol. xii. 
 
 2 Ibid., i. 5, 2, 7. 3 Ibid., i. 6, 2, 4. 
 * Ibid., iii. 4, i, 17 ; iii. 9, 4, 22. 
 
BRAHMANISM 83 
 
 the Biblical record of the deluge, that at present there is no 
 evidence to connect the Indian with the Semitic tradition. 
 
 In the Brahmanic story, Manu^ takes the part of 
 Noah in the Old Testament, though with striking dissimi- 
 larities. The story commences with a description of how 
 when Manu was one day washing his hands he found 
 that he had seized a small fish. To his surprise the fish 
 spoke, and prayed to be saved from destruction, promising 
 in return that he would in time to come preserve Manu 
 from a great danger. The danger that was to come was 
 foretold by the fish to be a flood, that would sweep away 
 all creatures. So Manu kept the fish and placed it in a jar. 
 When the fish grew large it told Manu the year in which 
 the flood would come. It then counselled Manu to build 
 a great ship, and enter into it when the waters rose, saying, 
 " I will save thee from the flood." Manu accordingly built 
 the ship, and as the fish had grown too big to remain in the 
 jar, he placed it in the sea. As the fish had foretold, the 
 flood came. When Manu entered into his ship the fish 
 swam towards him, and Manu tied the ship to a horn on 
 the fish's head, and was towed to the Northern Mountain 
 where he tied the ship to a tree. Then the waters receded 
 and Manu was left alone. The narrative is simple, natural 
 according to primitive ideas, and, as annual floods are 
 common in all tropical lands, there is at present no 
 necessity for holding that it contains more than the record 
 of a wide-spread catastrophe. The real interest of the 
 story is not in the suggested connection of the words 
 Manu, ship, flood, with Noah, ark, deluge, but in the side 
 light which is thrown on the primitive history of the sacri- 
 ficial cult. This is to be seen in the steps taken by Manu 
 to acquire supernatural power and reproduce creation. 
 At first Manu, "being desirous of offspring, engaged 
 
 1 "^at. Brah.,"i. 8, I, i. 
 
84 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 in worshipping and austerities ; during this time he also 
 performed a 'paka ' sacrifice : he offered up in the waters 
 clarified butter, sour milk, whey, and curds. Thence 
 a woman was produced in a year." The woman then 
 announced to Manu that she was his daughter, that she 
 had been produced through his offerings, declaring to him : 
 " I am the blessing : make use of me ^ at the sacrifice ; thou 
 wilt become rich in offering, and cattle." With the woman 
 " Manu went on worshipping and performing austerities. 
 Through her^ he generated this race, which is the race of 
 Manu ; and whatever blessing he invoked through her, all 
 that was granted to him."* A further important reference 
 to the position of the woman * in the sacrificial ritual is the 
 injunction given that after the rice had been poured from 
 the winnowing basket into a mortar ^ preparatory to its 
 being ground between the two mill-stones * as an offering, 
 the sacrificer should be summoned forward, an injunction 
 followed by the important remark, so full of significance in 
 the history of the development of the ritual, that, " now in 
 former times it was no other than the wife of the sacrificer 
 who rose at this call." 
 
 The ancient custom of the participation of women ^ in 
 harvest offerings, as well as harvest festivals — a custom to 
 be traced in much of the folk-lore of India to-day — is in 
 
 1 "6at. Brah.," i. i, 4, 16-17, for the actual sacriSce of Manu's wife :— 
 " When she had been sacrificed the voice went out of her, and entered into the 
 sacrifice." Also Ibid., i. 8, I, 9. 
 
 2 "Ida. 6at. Brah.,"i. 8, 1, 11. 
 3"6at. Brah.,"i. 8, i, 10. 
 
 * " As a rule, the wife of the sacrificer was present, with hands joined to her 
 husband" ("Taitt. Brah.," iu. 3, 10). "The wife has to confess at the 
 sacrifice" ("Sat. Brah.," ii.' 5, 2, 20). 
 
 ''"^at. Biah.,"i. i, 4,8. 
 
 ^ Ibid., i. I, 4, 13. 
 
 ' " Gobhila Grihya Sutras," i. 3, 15 :_'< if they like, his wife may offer the 
 morning and evening oblations over the domestic fire. For his wife is (as it 
 were) his house, and that fire is the domestic fire." Su also Hillebrandt 
 " Rituel Litteratur," p. 7a ' 
 
brAhmanism 85 
 
 the above texts clearly referred to as being remembered 
 at the time of the Brahmanic sacrifice, although for priestly 
 reasons it was overlooked, or but obscurely hinted at. 
 
 The explanation of this appearance of women on the scene 
 arises from the fact ^ that in primitive times the duties of 
 agriculture lay, for the most part, in the hands of women. 
 
 The historical development of this portion of the sacri- 
 fice is tersely summed up in the words of Mr Jevons : " It 
 is therefore an easy guess that the cultivation of plants 
 was one of women's contributions to the development of 
 civilisation ; and it is in harmony with this conjecture that 
 the cereal deities are usually, both in the Old World and 
 in the New, female." 
 
 Agriculture, however, when its benefits became thoroughly 
 understood, was not allowed amongst civilised races to con- 
 tinue to be the exclusive prerogative of woman, and the 
 Corn Goddess, maiden or mother, had to admit to the circle 
 of her worshippers the men as well as the wives of the 
 tribe. The gradual transition from the early sacrifice of 
 human beings, to the stage in which horses, kept in droves 
 and tended by man during the pastoral stage, were sacri- 
 ficed, thence on to the substitution of various animals as 
 they became domesticated, ending with the offering of the 
 fruits of the earth when agriculture became known, is set 
 forth as a recognised fact in the " Aitareya Brahmana." The 
 account given is that man was the primitive form of sacri- 
 fice, but that in time the sacrificial essence went out of man 
 and passed into the horse.^ From the horse the sacrificial 
 essence went to the ox, which was sacrificed ; in the same 
 manner for the ox, sheep were substituted, for sheep, goats, 
 which remained the best suited for sacrifice. From the 
 goat the sacrificial essence passed into the earth, and so 
 
 1 Jevons, Introd. to "The History of Religion," pp. 240-1. 
 
 2 For the great Horse Sacrifice, see "Taitt. Brah.," iii. 8. For the year 
 the horse was allowed to roam, sacrifices being performed by day. 
 
86 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 finally the sacrificial part turned into rice.^ It is also laid 
 down as an injunction that no one of these animals, out of 
 which the sacrificial essence had gone, should be eaten. 
 This special prohibition evidently indicated that the eating 
 of flesh was a custom in ancient India. In the " Satapatha 
 Brahmana " there is a direction that the flesh of cows or 
 oxen should not be eaten, although Yajnavalkya declared : 
 " I for one eat it, provided that it be tender." 
 
 When the animal was killed for the sacrifice, every limb 
 was preserved, the offal being buried in the earth. 
 According to the later custom, the animal was killed by 
 beating it to death.^ The priest during the slaying averted 
 his eyes ; * any blood that fell was received on the sacred 
 grass, and considered an offering to the Rakshasas, or 
 demons. To the officiating priest, and to the sacrificer, 
 allotted parts of the cooked food were presented. In the 
 " Aitareya Brahmana " * the animal had to be divided into 
 thirty-six portions, for the priests, the sacrificer, and his 
 wife. 
 
 To those who thus divided the offering into thirty-six 
 parts, the animal "becomes the guide to Heaven. But 
 those who make the division otherwise, are like scoundrels 
 and miscreants, who kill an animal merely for gratifying 
 the lust after flesh." 
 
 The origin of human sacrifice may be traced back 
 to early Aryan times,^ when a chieftain's wives and at- 
 tendants were slain, in order that they might accompany 
 him to the after-world. Its introduction into the 
 Brahmanic ritual as an atonement for the guilt of some 
 
 » Haug, "Ait. Biah.," p. 91. 2 Ibid., p. 85. 
 
 s "6at. Brah.,"iii. 8, I, 15: "Then they step back to the altar and sit 
 down — lest they should be eye-witnesses to its being strangled." 
 
 * Haug, "Ait. Brah.," p. 443. 
 
 'Tylor, "Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 464; Jevons, Introd. to "The 
 History of Religion," p. 161. 
 
BRAHMANISM 87 
 
 member of the community^ is indicated in the well- 
 known story of Sunah§epa, as narrated in the "Aitareya 
 Brahmana." 
 
 The story is one always to be recited with an accom- 
 paniment of one hundred Vedic verses before a king, so 
 that his blood-guiltiness as a warrior may be removed. 
 The Hotar who recites it must be rewarded with a gift of 
 a thousand cows and a silver ornamented carriage drawn by 
 mules. To the Adhvaryu priest who, during the recital 
 makes the fitting responses, a hundred must be given, and 
 upon Adhvaryu and Hotar, as an additional reward, a gold- 
 embroidered carpet must be bestowed. To all who hear 
 the story, the gods will allot long days and offspring. 
 The story is as follows : — 
 
 Hari^chandra of the Ikshvaku race, mighty king though 
 he was, had no son. To his household priests he poured 
 forth his sorrow, asking them why it was that every one 
 had so great a desire for male offspring. The answer, 
 ancient though it may be, is one that would be given by 
 all pious Hindus of modern India. " A son is ever to be 
 desired, for a son hands down his father's life ; the wife who 
 bears a son re-creates the father : a son shines as a light 
 in Heaven. He is the greatest of all earthly possessions ; 
 he gains immortality for the father. A daughter is but an 
 object of compassion" The holy advisers of the king told 
 him that the desire was unconquerable, that all wondered 
 at such Brahmans as turn from a family life, and go forth 
 as wanderers over the earth to live as hermits in the forest, 
 or as religious mendicants. 
 
 So the king prayed to Varuna, the god who fulfils all 
 wishes, and swore that were he but permitted to see the 
 face of a son, he would sacrifice the child when born to 
 
 ' "This was probably the origin of the sacrifice of human beings to the 
 gods amongst the Mediterranean peoples. Amongst the Americans it was . . . 
 due to the lack of domesticated animals." — Jevons, p. l6i. 
 
88 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Varuna. The god granted the king's desire, and a child, 
 Rohita, was born. The king put off from day to day the 
 fulfilment of his vow, until Rohita grew to manhood, and 
 became a warrior. When his father's vow was made known 
 to Rohita, he fled into the wilderness, and there hid himself, 
 whereupon Varuna caused a grievous illness to fall upon 
 the king. Rohita remained concealed for the space of six 
 years, at the end of which time he met a Brahman sage, 
 who had three sons, the second of whom was named 
 SunahSepa. For a gift of one hundred cows, the Brahman 
 gave his son Sunah^epa as a ransom sacrifice to Varuna. 
 The good god Varuna on hearing of this, bowed his head 
 and accepted Sunahtepa as a sacrifice in place of the king's 
 son, for he knew that the offspring of a Brahman was of 
 more value than the son of a king. 
 
 At this time the great priest Visvamitra was the Hotar 
 to King Hari^chandra, and the renowned Vasishta was the 
 " purohita," yet no one could be found to bind SunahSepa to 
 the sacrificial post. Then the father of Sunahsepa, on 
 receiving a further gift of one hundred cows, consented to 
 bind his own son to the sacrificial post. The sacrificial fire 
 was prepared, the Vedic texts ordained for such a sacrifice 
 were duly recited, yet no one could be found to slay 
 SunahSepa. For a fourth gift of one hundred cows, the 
 father of Sunahsepa agreed to slay his own son. 
 
 When the sharpened knife was raised, Sunahsepa prayed 
 to Prajapati, to Agni, to Savitri, to Varuna, to the All 
 Gods, to Indra, to the Asvins, and to the Dawn, and as he 
 prayed, the fetters which bound him fell off one by one, 
 and King Harl^chandra was restored to heedth. 
 
 The evidence for the actual existence of human sacrifice ' 
 
 * The "Taitt. Brah.'' gives a list of various men and women fit fur sacrifice 
 to one hundred and seventy-nine gods." — Earth, " Rel. of India," pp. 57, 58. 
 " Der Furushamedha ist eben der Uberrest eines barbarischen Zeitallers des 
 wir fur Indiens so evenig wie fur andere Lander zu leugnen haben." — HjUe- 
 brandt, " Rituel Lilteratur," p. 153. 
 
BRAHMANISM 89 
 
 during the Brahmanic period, rests on accounts such as 
 that of ^unahSepa, where, however, as in the Biblical ac- 
 counts of Abraham and Isaac, the victim is released, show- 
 ing that the rite was one then no longer in use. In the 
 " Satapatha Brahmana " ^ it is stated that the animals used 
 for sacrifice are " a man, a horse, a bull, a ram and a he-goat." 
 
 With regard to these the direction to the sacrificer is : ^ 
 " Let him slaughter those very five victims as far as he 
 may be able to do so ; for it was those Prajapati was the 
 first to slaughter, and Syaparna Sayakayana the last, and 
 in the interval also, people used to slaughter them. But 
 nowadays only these two are slaughtered, the one for 
 Prajapati, and the one for Vayu." The two animals here 
 referred to are he-goats.^ The fact that the compiler of 
 the texts records the name of the last sacrificer who per- 
 formed a human sacrifice, shows that the practice had died 
 out in the home or family of the compiler. 
 
 It would be futile to seek for clear matter-of-fact state- 
 ments or commonplace explanations of the sacrificial system 
 in the early Brahmanic literature. 
 
 The entire ritual was a cult falling more and more into 
 the hands of a hereditary class of priests, determined to 
 hold the power they thus obtained free from outside 
 criticism or attack. The commanding position the priest- 
 hood obtained in the community by their exclusive know- 
 ledge of the complicated details of the sacrificial system, 
 which so closely hemmed in the whole life of every Aryan 
 householder, would naturally incline them to attach to their 
 office and to all its duties not only an esoteric significance, 
 but further in every way to heighten and exaggerate the 
 supernatural basis on which they were primitively founded. 
 Over the whole ceremony the superintending Brahman 
 priest hovered, as a man possessed of divine knowledge and 
 divine power. 
 
 1 "Sat. Etah.," vi. 2; I, 1.5. ^ Ibid., vi. 2; I, 39. ^ Ibid., vi. 2, 2, I. 
 
90 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 He was the central figure, looming mysterious in his care- 
 fully preserved silence, yet held to possess powers potent 
 enough in their overshadowing might never to call for 
 their actual manifestation. For days or for years the rites 
 might drag on their mysterious ways ; it was the Brahman 
 alone who held the knowledge and power to set in motion 
 the whole performance ; his nod or word could break the 
 thread of the ceremony, and bring the direst results to all 
 engaged.! At the morning libation he gave permission 
 that the Vedic Hymns might be chanted by uttering the 
 words, " Bhur ! ye may sing ! " ^ So at the mid-day libation 
 he muttered, " Bhuvah ! ye may sing ! " and at the evening 
 libation he says, "Svar! ye may sing!" He stood over- 
 seeing all as a very god. " Verily there are two kinds of 
 gods, for indeed the gods are the gods, and the Brahmans 
 who have studied and teach sacred lore are the human 
 gods. The sacrifice of these is divided into two kinds; 
 oblations constitute the sacrifice to the gods ; and gifts to 
 the priests that to human gods." 
 
 The Brahman wisely left all the outward signs of power 
 in the hands of his serving priests. At the bidding of the 
 Brahman, the reciting priest, the Hotar, a class from which 
 the Brahmans were chiefly recruited,* commenced the 
 recitation of such Vedic Hymns as were ordained for use. 
 As the stately music of the words, intoned by the Udgatar 
 priest, rose and fell, it cast around its spell of magic power, 
 moving amid the people as though it subtly bound their 
 souls to the gods who thronged around them. Should the 
 Hotar desire to deprive a sacrificer of life, or sense, limb, 
 strength, or speech, he had but to omit a Vedic verse in his 
 
 ' A special remark made by the renowned Aruni, who composed many of 
 the sacrificial formute, is as follows: "Why should he sacrifice who would 
 think himself the worse for a miscarriage of the sacrifice ? I for one am the 
 better for a miscarriage of the sacrifice." — " 6at. Brah.," iv. 5, 7, 9. 
 
 = Haug, "Ait. Brah.," pp. 377, 37S. 
 
 ^S.B.E., vol. xii.; Eggeling (Introd.), xx. 
 
BRAHMANISM 91 
 
 recitation, or pronounce it confusedly, it was held that by 
 his so doing the union of the sacrificer with the gods would 
 at once be broken, and the whole sacrifice rendered futile,^ the 
 wish of the Hotar alone resulting. To deprive a sacrificer 
 of his wealth, or a king of his subjects, the Hotar had but to 
 recite a hymn out of its proper order, and so great was the 
 inherent power of the sacred word that the required result 
 would inevitably follow. Should the priest desire to 
 deprive a sacrificer of the whole fruit of the sacrifice, he had 
 but to pronounce a verse in a different tone from that in 
 which it should be pronounced, and the sacrifice would fall 
 useless. Not only did the priestly power reign supreme 
 over the religious life of the people, but, politically it 
 extended side by side with that of the tribal chieftain or 
 king.2 No king could succeed in deeds that were not 
 founded on priestly advice, and the gods are said to turn 
 away from the food of a king who has no " purohita " or 
 Brahman guide. 
 
 It is said that a king who appoints no family priest or 
 "purohita" is cast out from Heaven,* deprived of his heroism, 
 of his dignity, kingdom, and subjects. To the king who 
 has a " purohita," Agni Vaisvanara gives protection ; he 
 surrounds the king * as the sea surrounds the earth ; such a 
 king dies not before he has lived one hundred years ; he 
 dies not again, for he is not reborn ; his subjects obey 
 him " unanimously and undivided." ^ 
 
 Imprecations almost fiendish in their malignity are called 
 down on one who should curse the Hotar at any part of 
 the ceremony, all being finally summed up : ® For in " like 
 
 ' The various means for rectifying blunders are given in the " Kauskitaki 
 Brahmana," vi. II. One opinion is given : "As far as the blunder extends, so far 
 let him say it again, whether a verse, a half verse, a foot, a word, or a letter." 
 
 2 For union of the two offices, king and priest, as the first sacrificer, see 
 J. G. Frazer, " Golden Bough," vol. i. pp. 8, 223. 
 
 ^ Eggeling, xiv. * Ibid., S.B.E., vol. xii. p. xii. 
 
 5 Haug, p. 530. " " Sat. Brah.," i. 4, 3, 22 ; S.B.E., vol. xii. 
 
92 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 manner, as one undergoes suffering, on approaching the fire 
 that has been kindled by means of the kindling verses, so 
 also does one undergo suffering for cursing a priest 
 (brahmana) who knows and recites the kindling verses." ^ 
 
 With the " purohita " swaying the councils of the king by 
 his sacerdotal power, backed as it was by an assumed 
 knowledge of sorcery and incantation ; with the priesthood 
 enclosing the whole daily life of the people with com- 
 plicated religious rites, the efficacy of which depended on 
 the supposed supernatural influence of the Brahmans over 
 the gods themselves, the national independence of thought 
 and exuberant free-play of imagination, which in earlier 
 times had produced the poetry and visions of the " Rig 
 Veda," passed away for ever, to give place to fatalism and 
 the quiescence of pantheism. 
 
 To their growing powers the priesthood failed not to add 
 that of wealth. For each sacrifice the officiating priests 
 demanded their " dakshina," or reward of gold and kine ; 
 one text ^ mentions the liberality of a worshipper who gave 
 85,000 white horses, 10,000 elephants, and 80,000 slave 
 girls adorned with ornaments, to the Brahman who 
 performed the sacrifice. 
 
 Throughout the early history of India, tradition tells 
 of fierce conflicts between the Brahmans and the warrior 
 class, out from which the Brahmans ever emerged victorious. 
 Prajapati,* the lord of all creatures, was held to have 
 created divine knowledge and the sacrifice for Brahmans, 
 not for warriors. At the inauguration of a king, when he 
 was anointed by the sprinkling of water and admitted to 
 
 ' The ancient mode of destroying an enemy by making an image of wax and 
 placing it before a fire is narrated in the " Samavidhana Brahmana" : — "The 
 image of the person to be destroyed or afiSicted is made of dough, and roasted, 
 so as to cause the moisture to exude, and then cut in pieces and eaten by the 
 sorcerer." — Burnell (Introd.) p. xxvi. 
 
 2 Weber, " Ind. Stud.," x. p. 54. See also " Sat. Brah.," ii. 6, 3, 9 ; iv. 5, 
 I, II ; iv. 3, 4, 6; "Taitt. Brah.," iii. 12, 5, 11-12. 
 
 » Haug, "Ait. Brah.," p. 471 (Ir.). 
 
BRAHMANISM 93 
 
 the drinking of the Soma juice, he had for the time being 
 to lay aside the signs of his warriorhood.^ his horse, his 
 chariot, his armour, his bow and arrow, and take up the 
 signs of the sacerdotal power, the sacrificial implements, 
 and become a Brahman so long as the inauguration lasted. 
 With the natural tendency of a class rising to almost 
 supreme power, the priesthood sought in every way to 
 consolidate its position and enforce its rules and ordinances 
 on those whom it could force to submit. 
 
 The king and his " purohita," originally holders of a joint 
 ofifice,2 stood apart and separate in their functions, both a 
 type of the class or caste division into nobles and priests, 
 of those who held power over the labouring community.* 
 
 The agricultural or trading members of the Aryan clans 
 held themselves proudly aloof from the despised black- 
 skinned and broad-nosed aborigines, with whom for the most 
 part they abstained from intermarriage or social inter- 
 course. 
 
 The road was gradually being prepared for the division 
 of the people into distinctive classes, a system ultimately 
 to develop into a modern' theory of caste, founded on 
 differences of colour, descent, occupation, or livelihood. 
 
 The Aryans by the close of the Brahmanic period had 
 spread far to the East, where those tribes or clans, who were 
 furthest removed from the homes of the Kuru Panchalas 
 and the sacrifice, were to rise in opposition to the whole 
 theory on which Brahmanic supremacy was founded, and 
 inaugurate a revolt which culminated in the formulated 
 doctrines of Buddhism. 
 
 » Haug, "Ait. Brah," p. 472 (tr.). 
 
 2 Frazer, " Golden Bough," vol. i. p. 224. 
 
 ' Senart, " Castes dans I'Inde," p. 149. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM. 
 
 THE"Brahmanas" tell how, from the plains of Kurukshetra, 
 from the abodes of the Kuru Panchalas, Brahman priests 
 went to carry to the homesteads of those adventuring 
 warriors, who had gone further east to seek new fortunes, 
 the knowledge of the sacrificial mysteries, the power they 
 held to sway the gods, and to claim in return some share 
 of the wealth that had fallen to the Aryan race. To the 
 East, as far as to the banks of the Sadanira, or Modem 
 Gandak, which flows into the Ganges near Patna, the 
 Ko^alas had made their homes, while the Videhas had 
 ventured to cross the cold water of the same stream, and 
 take up their abode in the rich land beyond. 
 
 The ancient literature of India still tells how once the 
 land to the east of the Sadanira, " she who is always filled 
 with water," was for long " very uncultivated and very 
 marshy," ^ and how no Brahmans dwelt there. By the 
 advancing Aryans the sacred fire was at length carried 
 across the deep stream, and by it the undergrowth burned 
 away and the forest trees cleared. The story as told in the 
 " Brahmana of One Hundred Paths," is one of the few facts 
 regarding the people and their movements that the times 
 thought it worth while recording. 
 
 1 " 6at. Brah.," i. 4, i, 15. 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 95 
 
 " Nowadays," narrates 1 the chronicler of the advance 
 of the Aryans eastward to Videha, " the land is very culti- 
 vated, for the Brahmans have caused Agni to taste it 
 through sacrifices. Even in winter that river, as it were, 
 rages along : so cold is it, not having been burned over 
 by Agni Vaisvanara." 
 
 " Madhava, the Videgha, then said to Agni, ' Where am 
 I to abide ? ' 'To the east of this river be thy abode,' said 
 he. Even now this river forms the boundary of the 
 Ko^alas and Videhas ; for these are the Mathavas or 
 descendants of Madhava." 
 
 The wandering course of tribes other than the Ko§alas 
 and Videhas can also be traced in early Vedic literature. 
 
 Tribes known as the Kasis found an abiding-place round 
 the modern city of Benares, the sin-destroying Kasi, within 
 sight of whose myriad temples all who die are said to pass 
 straight to the heavens of the Hindu gods. Beyond the 
 Kasis lived the Magadhas and Angas, tribes who wandered 
 far beyond the pale of Aryan civilisation ^ to venture their 
 fortunes amid the fever-smitten tracts,^ where they might 
 live free from the strict rnles of sacerdotal orthodoxy. 
 
 In the history of the times there is no evidence that over 
 any of these tribes — far as they may have gone to the East, 
 or long as they may have settled in the fertile valleys of 
 the Ganges and Jumna — the enervating influence of 
 climate, sloth, or luxury, had cast its fatal spell. The wild 
 untrammelled play of fancy that had inspired the lyric out- 
 burst of early Vedic song gave place, it is true, to the 
 reasoned and more ordered train of thought, seen in the 
 prose, diffuse and artificial though it be, of the "Brahmanas," 
 
 1 S.B.E., vol. xii. ; "Sat. Brah.," i. 4, i, 16-17. 
 
 = See Oldenberg, " Buddha," p. 400. 
 
 3S.B.E., vol. xlii.; " Atharva-veda," p. 2:— "Destroy the fever that 
 returns on each third day, the one that intermits each third day, the one that 
 continues without intermission, and the autumnal one. To the Gandharis, the 
 Mujavantas, the Angas, and the Magadhas, we deUver over the fever, like a 
 servant, like a treasure." 
 
96 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 " Aranyakas," and " Upanishads." Full as the " Brahmanas " 
 are of evidences how the Kuru Panchala Brahmans sought, 
 for the purpose of their own aggrandisement, to gain a 
 temporal and spiritual dominion over the superstitious 
 mass of the people, yet in Magadha, in the far East, the 
 almost sublime figure of Buddha stands forth, not only as 
 a personification of stately self-restraint, but also of heroic 
 protest against the usurpation by men of power over the 
 eternal destinies of their fellow-creatures. In the leading 
 principles of the "Upanishads," which contain the free and 
 earnest speculations of a rising class of philosophers — priestsi 
 kings, and warriors alike — ^who thronged to the courts of 
 the chieftains of KoSala and Videha, there is to be found 
 the bursting forth of an advanced order of thought, and 
 though this may be peculiarly, and exclusively Indian 
 in the deeply religious and intensely subtle mode of its 
 expression, yet as a phase of thought, it was a natural 
 growth from the preceding religious history of the people, 
 and as such shows nothing unworthy ot taking a foremost 
 place in the intellectual history of the world at the period 
 in which it arose. That the Aryans advanced into India 
 in numbers suflScient to oust the aboriginal tribes, and them- 
 selves to colonise the vast area over which their influence 
 can be traced, has never been held as probable, or even 
 possible. The previous inhabitants were numerous, and 
 more or less civilised. At the present day, the only evidence 
 India affords of an invasion of Aryan people in Vedic 
 times, outside the literary record and existence of the 
 great group of northern Aryan languages, derived from 
 Sanskrit, is the presence of an upper stratum of fair-skinned 
 and refined families in the great mass of the dark-skinned, 
 and more illiterate agricultural population.^ The very 
 
 1 The case of South India, where the Aryan influence spread later, is typical. 
 " It has often been asserted, and is now the general belief of ethnologists, that 
 the Brahmans of the South are not pure Aryans, but are of mixed Aryan and 
 Bravidian race." — H. A. Stuart, " Madras Census Report" (1891). Mr Edgar 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 97 
 
 denunciations in the early Sanskrit literature against 
 matrimonial relationship between members of the Aryan 
 community and those of the aboriginal tribes, as well as 
 the relegation of- any offspring to despised or inferior 
 classes of mixed descent, show plainly that the intermingling 
 of the newcomers with the earlier inhabitants was far from 
 uncommon. Even though this may have been so, to a 
 greater extent than at present it would be safe to assert, 
 it is certain that the Aryans, in the course of their 
 migrations from the SarasvatI to the limits of Western 
 Bengal, left the impress of their language and culture over 
 the whole of this extensive area, assuming, as must be 
 done for the present, that Buddhism, in its primary signifi- 
 cance, was a legitimate outcome of Aryan thought. These 
 Aryans, as they spread far and wide, remained, for the most 
 part, united into clans and tribes, each under its own 
 local chieftain. As in the earliest Vedic times so down to 
 the time of Buddha in the sixth century B.C., and even 
 later, these scattered tribes show no inability to push their 
 way amid opposing foes, or even, if opportunity afforded, to 
 take possession of the territories of those of their own race 
 than whom they found themselves more powerful. The 
 
 Thurston, who has taken a series of anthropological measurements (" Madras 
 Government Museum Bulletin," No. 418, 1896), states that the Brahmans of the 
 South "are separated from all the classes or tribes of Southern India which I have 
 as yet investigated, with the exception of the Kongas of Coimbatore, by the relation 
 of the maximum transverse diameter to the maximum antero-posterior diameter 
 of the head (cephalic index). Though the cephalic index of the Kongas is 
 slightly greater, the mean length and breadth of their heads are considerably 
 less than these of the Brahmans, being I7"8 cm. and 137 cm. against 
 l8'6 and I4'2." Again: "The length of the head of Brahmans, Kam- 
 malans, Pallis, and Pariahs show that the average length is the same in 
 all except the ICammalans, in whom it is slightly ('2 cm.) shorter." Also : " In 
 all except the Paniyans the average width of the nose is the same, but the 
 length is slightly greatest in the Brahmans." "I came across many dark- 
 skinned Brahmans with high nasal index." Finally, he sums up his results : 
 " The Brahmans are characterised by the greatest weight, greatest breadth of 
 head, greatest distance from the middle finger to the patella, and the largest 
 hands " (p. 229). 
 
 G 
 
98 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 more the once-united and compact body of Aryans dif- 
 fused themselves over the vast extent of Northern India, 
 separating into groups under chieftains, each desirous of 
 extending his possessions and influence by conquest over, 
 or by alliances with, other rich and powerful chieftains, 
 aboriginal or Aryan, the more their life-history becomes 
 disseminated into devious courses, never again to re-unite 
 into one combined nationality. 
 
 Popular religious movements, such as those of Buddhism 
 and Jainism, which appealed to the understanding and 
 sympathies of the mass, had undoubtedly an influence in 
 infusing the community with a common purpose and 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 These movements had their results in ancient India, 
 as similar popular religious movements have had, and 
 undoubtedly will have in the future, in modern India, 
 and were taken advantage of by chieftains anxious to seize 
 the opportunity of extending their local influence. Yet 
 from their very nature they proved powerless to unite for 
 long the diverse elements which went to make up the 
 community into a combined body, powerful and coherent 
 enough to resist the disintegrating effects of a rude shock 
 from foreign invasions. These movements left their own 
 peculiar literary record, though the history of the phase of 
 thought out of which they arose, preserved as it is in the 
 earlier " Brahmanas " and " Upanishads," is one of the most 
 obscure in the whole range of Indian literature. 
 
 While the Aryan people were bereft of all hope of ever 
 seeing a great national leader arise among them to combine 
 the scattered elements, into which the people were drifting, 
 into one political unity, it would be as vain to seek, in the 
 history of the times, for the growth of any tendency to 
 evolve a clearly-defined conception of a monotheism, as it 
 would be to seek for any great literary outburst in which 
 could be read the national expression of the desire of the 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 99 
 
 race for expansion. At the most, it must be expected that 
 the literary history of the period is one in which all that 
 was left of the past was fostered and elaborated or developed 
 along its own inherent lines by the peculiar genius of a 
 gifted race, able to preserve its intellecual power amid the 
 crumbling ruins of its political career. In the literature 
 we find not the record of an intellectual movement, sinking 
 deeper into despondency and despair from climatic or 
 priestly influences,^ but rather the free discussion among 
 the outlying portions of the community of the whole 
 religious tradition and new-founded claims of the priest- 
 hood, the enunciation of doctrines in many cases sub- 
 versive of such claims, and, unhappily, in many cases 
 showing evidences of the incorporation of beliefs, super- 
 stitions, and debasing cults of alien races, with whom the 
 more orthodox Aryans had entered into social and political 
 relations. 
 
 The evidences for the changing order of things are to 
 be sought in the philosophic disquisitions of the earlier 
 "Upanishads."2 
 
 At the court of the renowned Janaka, the patron of all 
 wise men and chieftain of Videha, there stands forth the 
 figure of a celebrated Brahman priest, Yajnavalkya,^ who 
 was deeply versed in all the ritual of the sacrificial cult as 
 practised in the holy land of the Kuru Panchalas. The 
 fame Yajnavalkya brought to the land of the Videhas* 
 
 * Garbe, "Monist," p. 5° (1892): — "India was governed by priests, and 
 the weal of the nation was sacrificed with reckless indifference." The same 
 learned writer also remarks that "it is no exaggeration to say that priest-rule 
 was the ruin of India." It should not, however, be forgotten that the drifting 
 of the destinies of a nation, or even of a movement, into corrupt or incompetent 
 hands, is but one of the symptoms of decay, not the cause. 
 
 2 P. Regnaud, " Mat^riaux pour servir a I'Histoire de Philosophic dans 
 I'Inde," p. 30. 
 
 s For his instructor, ArunI, see Oldenberg, " Buddha," p. 396 («»/'«) ; "Sat. 
 Brah.," iii. 3, 4, 19. 
 
 " Where he compiled the "White Yajur Veda" and its " Satapatha Brahmana." 
 
100 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 even aroused the anger and jealousy of Ajatasatru, the 
 chieftain of the distant Kasis. 
 
 Janaka, proud of the fame he had won, held a great 
 sacrifice,! and offered a reward of one thousand cows, 
 bearing each ten pieces of gold fastened to their horns, to 
 the wisest of all the assembled Brahmans, who had 
 gathered together at his court from the western lands of 
 the Kuru Panchalas. Then Yajnavalkya directed his 
 pupil to drive away the cows, for he held himself to be 
 the wisest of all wise men. Challenged as to his knowledge, 
 he silenced all enquirers by repeating the whole sacrificial 
 cult. Yet there was one question put to him he would not 
 answer before the assembled warriors, or in the hearing of 
 those who placed their salvation in the hands of the priest- 
 hood and in the efficacy of the duly performed sacrifice. 
 So Yajnavalkya turned to his enquirer with the remark : 
 " Take my hand, O friend, we two alone shall know of 
 this ; let this question of ours not be discussed in public." ^ 
 The question Yajnavalkya would not answer before the 
 assembled crowd was for him a perplexing one, an answer 
 to which it was the mission of Buddha to proclaim openly 
 before all men. It was the question as to what became of 
 man after he departed from this world, and in the heavens 
 had received the reward of all his labours. 
 
 In the hands of the Brahmans the rites of the sacrifice 
 lay. It was solely on the efficacy of the sacrifice that the 
 welfare, here and hereafter, of all depended. The practical 
 result of the disquisition was that the two friends arrived 
 at the conclusion that, from all good deeds, sacrifice 
 included, only good results would flow, and from bad deeds, 
 non-sacrifice included, only bad results would flow. The 
 words of the "Upanishad" state : — " Then these two went out 
 
 ' "Sat. Brah.," i. 4, i, 10; Oldenberg, p. 398; S.B.E., vol. xii. p. xUii.; 
 " Brih.-Aian. Up.," iii. i, 2, i :— " Many presents were offered to the priests of 
 the Aivamedha." 
 
 2 "Brih.-Aran. Up.," iii. 2, 13. 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM loi 
 
 and argued, and what they said was Karman ("work"); what 
 they praised was Karman ; viz. that a man becomes good 
 by good work, and bad by bad work." 
 
 The soul might pass after death into different habitations 
 according to its acts ; but the question referred to the 
 position of those who had gained a knowledge that was to 
 lead to the overthrow of the whole sacrificial system. It 
 opened up the whole question of the knowledge which 
 man possesses of the true nature of the world as it is 
 presented by the senses, including, as it necessarily does, 
 the relationship of man to the changing scene of birth and 
 re-birth, of ever -ceaseless becoming and never-abiding 
 being, in which he finds himself move as a factor in the 
 great scheme of creation. 
 
 The weary cry raised by the Vedic poets that their gods 
 were many, and that, amid them all, they still wondered to 
 what god they should offer their sacrifice, had died away in 
 echoing murmurs that though all the gods are of equal 
 might and majesty, yet no man knew where stood the tree, 
 nor where grew the wood out from which the heavens and 
 earth were fashioned.^ At the close of the early Vedic 
 times, when all the sacerdotal learning of the priestly caste 
 of Kurukshetra had been brought to the Eastern lands, 
 where dwelt the Videhas, Ko^alas, Kasis, and Magadhas, 
 there to be sifted by the ruthless logic of more independent 
 minds, the triumphal answer came that " Brahman " was 
 the tree, that "Brahman" was the wood out from which 
 the world was hewn.^ 
 
 When Yajnavalkya was again questioned at the court of 
 Videha by a proud woman, GargI Vachakanavl : " In what 
 are the worlds of Brahman woven, like warp and woof? " 
 he answered : " O Gargi, do not ask too much lest thy head 
 
 • R.V., X. 8l, 4 :— " Ye thoughtful men enquire within your spirit whereon 
 He stood when He established all things" (Griffith). 
 
 ^ "Taitt. Brah.," ii. 8, 9, 6 ; see Deussen, "Das System des Vedanta," 
 p. SI- 
 
I02 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 should fall off. Thou askest too much about a deity about 
 which we are not to ask too much." ^ When the woman 
 cried out against the learned priest : — " O Yajnavalkya, as 
 the son of a warrior from the Kasis and Videhas might 
 string his loosened bow, take the pointed foe -piercing 
 arrows in his hand, and rise to battle, I have risen to 
 fight thee." ^ He was forced to reply to the question she 
 put to him : " That of which they say that it is above 
 the heavens, beneath the earth, embracing Heaven and 
 earth, past, present, and future, tell me in what it is 
 woven, like warp and woof?" The answer given forms 
 the basis of the whole philosophic thought of the time. 
 The sacrificial system was once for all placed in a sub- 
 sidiary position in relation to a new doctrine of salvation 
 which looked upon the performance of religious practices, 
 and the doing of good deeds, merely as a basis whereon 
 should be founded the true aim of mankind : the attain- 
 ment of a true knowledge of the relationship of the Self 
 to the Self of the Universe. 
 
 Yajnavalkya declared to Gargi, of him who did not 
 possess this true knowledge, that " though he offer oblations 
 in this world, sacrifices, and performs penances for a 
 thousand years, his works will have an end." He " departs 
 this world ; he is miserable, like a slave." 
 
 There remained but two simple concepts for the future 
 of India to brood over with all the fervour and subtlety 
 of its unrivalled powers of insight into the true nature of 
 things. First, the whole reality of the world, as perceived 
 by the senses, had to be pierced through, and that which 
 underlay it, that which gave it being, ascertained and 
 defined. So when Gargi questioned Yajnavalkya as to 
 what underlay all objective reality, what permeated all, 
 what wove all together, like warp and woof, there came 
 the answer that there remained only " Brahman," that which 
 
 1 " Brih.-Aran. Up.," iii. 6, I. 2 Jbid., iu. 8. 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 103 
 
 " is unseen but seeing ; unheard but hearing ; unperceived 
 but perceiving ; unknown but knowing. There is nothing 
 that sees but it ; nothing that hears but it ; nothing that 
 perceives but it ; nothing that knows but it." ^ 
 
 So far there remained, as the result of the earliest 
 phase of philosophic thought in India, nothing but the 
 Unconscious Brahman, yet, as the Indian sage himself 
 asserts, he knew, too, that he himself also exists, for no 
 man says, " I am not." 
 
 It was not given to the East to undertake an analysis of 
 the human thinking faculties, and see how far the external 
 appearances of things were thereby conditioned.. It therefore 
 became necessary to explain in what relationship that which 
 man postulates the existence of — his own Self, his own Soul 
 — stood in regard to the Imperishable, the Brahman. The 
 Indian mind had to seek for knowledge that was of more 
 value than sacrifice or good deeds, the knowledge not only 
 of Brahman, but of that which told all men that even if 
 their perceptions of the objective reality of the world be 
 founded on nescience, there yet remained, calling for some 
 explanation, the subjective evidence man possesses of his 
 own Self, of his own existence. 
 
 Whilst the Indian mind was thus searching for the Cause 
 from which issued the objective form of the world, it was, 
 at the same time, seeking out from the subjective reality 
 the underlying Self or Soul by which man knows he 
 exists. The answer respecting the Cause was clear. 
 
 From " Brahman " proceeded the creation of the world, the 
 form of whose arrangement no mind can grasp, where all 
 becoming has its own time, and place, and cause.^ The 
 word Brahman itself is formed from a root, brih, signifying 
 bursting forth, expanding, spreading, growing.* From brih 
 
 1 " Brih. -Aran. Up.," iii. 8, II ; S.B.E., vol. xv. 
 - " Brahma SStras," i. i, 2. 
 
 3 " Ibid., i. 1, I :— " Root iriA=to be great " ; see Gough, " Philosophy of 
 the Up'inishads," p. 38; Max MuUer, " Vedanta," pp. 21, 148. 
 
I04 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the word Brahman was first formed ; it was the prayer sent 
 forth by the Vedic seer to invoke the near presence of the 
 deities. Brihaspati was the lord of prayer,^ the lord of 
 speech.^ From the prayer, from the creative fervour of the 
 poet's imagination and aspiration, all the gods had sprung 
 to birth, the triple " Vedas," on which all truth is founded, 
 had sprung to life. " Brahman " was that from which all the 
 universe, extended in name and form, was issued forth. 
 It was the tree and the wood from which the heavens and 
 earth were hewn ; it was that in which all things are woven, 
 like warp and woof. In its full definition, as later given,* 
 " Brahman " was held to be that Omniscient and Omnipotent 
 Cause from which came the birth, the stay, and the decay 
 of this Creation, as seen spread out by name and form, 
 wherein abide many actors and enjoyers, wherein arises 
 the fruit of good and evil deeds, all having their own time, 
 and place, and cause ; a Creation, the planning of whose 
 form no mind can grasp. The answer respecting the Soul 
 or Self had further to be formulated. 
 
 From earliest times the wondering powers of the 
 primitive mind were set to fathom sleep and death, and 
 their surrounding mysteries. In sleep are seen visions of 
 well-known faces ; scenes are fancied forth ; joys and fears 
 come and go ; yet, as man moves not, the first solution is 
 that something — the breath, the spirit, or the soul — has gone 
 forth to wander free. From death there is no awakening ; 
 the shade,* the breath, soul, or spirit has gone forth and 
 
 1R.V., ii. 23, I:— "Als Priestlicher Schachtgott" ; Oldenberg, "Rel. des 
 Vedas," p. 67, as "sacerdotal side of Agni's nature"; Macdonell, J.R.A.S. 
 (1895). P- 948- 
 
 = R.V., A. 98, 2, 3; X. 71, I. Vachaspati, see Max Miiller, " Vedanta," p. 149. 
 For Brahman as Logos of Fourth Gospel, see Deussea, p. 51 ; Max Miiller, 
 "Vedanta,"p. 148:— "He created first of all the Brahman ";«/: S.B., vi. i, -., 
 8, which is translated : — " He created first of all the word." 
 
 3 "Brah. Sutras," i. 1,2. 
 
 * Huxley, " Romanes Lecture," p. 40 ; Rhys Davids, " Hibbert Lectures," 
 p. 83. 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM JOS 
 
 returns not. The lifeless body is still loved by friends,^ 
 and feared by those who were foes. Efforts are made by 
 friends to recall the soul, to guide it to the place where 
 it once dwelt, food is placed near, offerings made, and all 
 the means so familiar to students of folk-lore, taken to 
 hasten it on its journey. To these spirits, Pitris, or fathers, 
 who had gone away ^ (" preta ") along the path first trodden 
 by Yama, the Vedic Soma^ was poured forth, and they 
 were summoned to take their place* among the assembled 
 gods, and partake of the sacrifice. In the "Taittiriya 
 Brahmana " the souls of the deceased are said to dwell in 
 the heavens above as stars,^ and again® in the stars are 
 " the lights of those righteous men who go to the celestial 
 world." In the " Satapatha Brahmana " ^ death is the sun 
 whose rays attach to mortals their life breath, yet, as the 
 " Katha Upanishad " ^ declares : " No mortal lives by the 
 breath that goes up and the breath that goes down. We 
 live by another in whom these two repose." 
 
 There was something which went out of man in sleep 
 and death ; something underlying the Ego, the I, the vital 
 breath, more subtle than life. 
 
 In the " Rig Veda," » the sun, though it holds the life 
 breath of mortals, is something more. It is the Self, or the 
 "Atman," of all that moves and moves not, of all that fills 
 the heavens and the earth. So of man there is also the 
 Atman,!" « the Self, smaller than small, greater than great, 
 hidden in the heart of that creature." A man who is free 
 
 ^ Jevons, " History of Religions," pp. 46, 54. 
 
 2 Max Mliller, " India : What Can It Teach Us?" p. 220. 
 
 ' R.V., X. IS, I : — "The fathers who deserve a share of the Soma." 
 
 '■Ibid., X. 15, II :— "Fathers whom Agni's flames have tasted, come ye 
 nigh: in proper order take ye each your proper place. Eat sacrificial food 
 presented on the grass " (Griffith). 
 
 5 " Taitt. Brah.,'- v. 4, 13. « " 6at. Brah.," vi. S, 4, 8. 
 
 ' " Sat. Brah.," x. 3, 3, 7, 8. ^ << Katha Up.," ii. 5, 3 ; S.B.E., vol. xV. 
 
 9 R. v., i. 115, I. , " "Katha Up.," i. 2, 20. 
 
io6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 from desires and free from grief sees the majesty of the 
 Self by the grace of the Creator. ^ 
 
 It is this Atman, or Self, more abstract in its conception 
 than soul, Psyche, or "anima," that becomes also the 
 Universal Self, the Self of the World, " bhumiyah atman," 
 of which the " Veda " ^ speaks : " When that which had no 
 bones bore him who has bones, when that which was 
 formless took shape and form." 
 
 The Indian sage, seeking out the primal cause of 
 creation, had first to sweep away all that which had been 
 produced, even the gods themselves, and to his gaze there 
 remained but the neuter essence. Brahman, from which 
 all things issued forth, and into which all things resolve 
 themselves. There remained also the Self, the Soul, the 
 Atman of man. There was but one step further to be 
 reached by the Indian mind, and that was taken when all 
 duality vanished, and the Brahman became the Great Self, 
 the " Paramatman," the Universal Self, into which was 
 merged the Atman, or Self, of man. 
 
 In the closing scenes of the teachings of the priest, 
 Yajnavalkya, at the court of Videha, this doctrine of the 
 Atman, which was to have so great an influence on the 
 future of India, is set forth in clear and plain language. 
 
 Maitreyi, the wife of Yajnavalkya, appeared and prayed 
 her husband, who was preparing to go forth from his home 
 and end his days, according to the custom of the time, 
 as a hermit in the forest, to expound unto her the secret 
 of death and immortality. Yajnavalkya replied to his wife : 
 " Thou art, indeed, dear to me, therefore I will explain it to 
 you, and mark well what I say." * 
 
 So he told her that to all the world was dear ; that wives 
 and sons were dear ; wealth, the gods, sacrifice, and know- 
 ledge, for the simple reason that they were all held in the 
 
 • "Dhatu piasadat," see Max Muller, " Vedanta,'' p. 50. 
 2 R.V., i. 164, 4. » " Brih.-Aran. Up.," iv. 5, 5. 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 107 
 
 Self, that they were all permeated by the Self, that they 
 were all one in the Self. " Verily, the Self is to be seen, 
 to be heard, to be perceived, to be marked, O Maitreyl ! 
 When the Self has been seen, heard, perceived, and known, 
 then all this is known." ^ 
 
 The futility of the efforts to inculcate these philosophic 
 speculations among the people, so that they might become 
 potential principles of a new religious movement, a con- 
 summation only effected by Buddha with respect to the 
 doctrines he taught, is dramatically set forth and artistically 
 foreshadowed by generally putting forth women such as 
 GargI and Maitreyl to receive instruction. This can be 
 seen in the answer made to Yajnavalkya by his wife. 
 Then Maitreyl said : " Here, sir, thou hast landed me in 
 bewilderment. Indeed, I do not understand."* 
 
 The remark gave Yajnavalkya the opportunity for setting 
 forth, in the simplest language, the doctrine of the unity 
 of the Self of Man and the Self of the Universe, the peculiar 
 Eastern mode of expressing " the Monistic doctrine of the 
 All in One which has had the greatest influence on the 
 intellectual life of modern times."* In the answer of 
 Yajnavalkya there is no exulting cry of one seeking, by 
 the keenness of his intellect, to overthrow rival creeds; 
 there is no vaunting boast that the riddle of existence had 
 been solved ; there is but the sad wail that the mind had 
 pierced as keenly into the nature of things as it was able, 
 and that even then there was room for wonder — room not 
 only for wonder, but room for doubt that any reasoned 
 thought of man would ever satisfy the eager thirst of 
 humanity to seek out a living faith in keeping with the 
 instincts which make its manhood. Nowhere in the 
 history of the world's thought can there be found more 
 earnest efforts to seek out for suffering mankind some 
 
 1 " Bnh.-Aran. Up.," iv. S, 6. = j^f^^^ ■„_ 5^ j^. 
 
 5 Garbe, "The Monist," p. 58 (Oct. 1894). 
 
io8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 solution of the perplexing questions which surround his 
 life than in those sedately and reverently-expressed specu- 
 lations of the awakened thought of India. Yet, strange to 
 say, these speculations never touched the hearts of the 
 people. They worked no such revolution as did the crude 
 agnosticism of Buddha. 
 
 From the sedate and learned priest, prepared as he was 
 to leave wealth and fame, wives and sons, and end his days 
 in subdued submission to the scheme of things which held 
 him powerless, and was soon to claim his life, came the 
 gentle answer to his wife Maitreyl : — 
 
 " O Maitreyl, I say nothing that, is bewildering. Verily, beloved, 
 that Self is imperishable and of an indestructible nature. For when 
 there is, as it were, duality, the one sees the other, one smells the 
 other, one tastes the other, one salutes the other, one hears the 
 other, one perceives the other, one touches the other, one knows 
 the other ; but when the Self alone is all this, how should one see 
 another, how should one smell another, how should one taste an- 
 other, how should one salute another, how should one hear an- 
 other, how should one touch another, how should he know another ? 
 How should he know him by whom he knows all this? That 
 Self is to be described by no, no ! He is incomprehensible for 
 he cannot be comprehended; he is imperishable for he cannot 
 perish ; he is unattached for he does not attach himself; unfettered, 
 he does not suffer, he does not fail. How, O beloved, should he 
 know the knower? Thus, O Maitreyl, thou hast been instructed. 
 Thus far goes immortality. Having said so Yajnavalkya went away 
 into the forest." 
 
 The Indian mind had, however, long to wait before it 
 clearly saw its course to Monism, notwithstanding the 
 answer here given by Yajnavalkya as the last result of his 
 long efforts to rest within the dreamy depths whence the 
 reality of the world fades away into the Universal Self, 
 outside of which there is no duality. 
 
 As yet this Self is but that which pervades and under- 
 lies all things ; it stands apart, yet from out it springs 
 Creation. Close to a pure idealistic conception of the 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 109 
 
 Universe and the unreality of everything, the perception 
 of which by our senses is mere delusion, comes the well- 
 known teaching of Uddalaka to his son ^vetaketu in the 
 "Chandogya Upanishad''^ where it is declared: "In the 
 beginning, my dear, there was that only which is (to oV) 
 one only without a second. Others say, in the beginning 
 there was that only which is not (rb /t^ ov), one only without 
 a second, and from that which is not, that which is, was 
 born." 
 
 " But how could it be thus, my dear ? " the father con- 
 tinued. " How could that which is, be born of that which 
 is not? No, my dear, only that which is, was in the 
 beginning, one only without a second." 
 
 So far it might seem as if there could exist no reality 
 nor duality from which the creation of anything outside the 
 One Universal Self could rise. Yet the teaching goes on 
 to declare that what in the beginning was one only without 
 a second thought, "may I be many, may I grow forth. 
 It sent forth fire." 
 
 It remains still that Self out of which the heavens 
 and earth were made.^ It is still, as the one piece of clay 
 gives its name to the whole piece of clay,* that from which 
 all creation derives its name and form. It still has thought,* 
 and from its thought plurality springs forth, first fire, then 
 water, food, and earth. It is still the Self which Death 
 declares to Nachiketas, who had gone to the realms of Yama 
 to redeem a vow made by his father.^ From Yama 
 Nachiketas claimed a boon, for Death, who had been busy 
 among mortals, had kept him waiting, and the boon he 
 claimed was, that Yama should declare to him what was 
 
 ' " Ch. Up.," vi. z I. 2"Taitt. Brah.,"ii. 8, 96. » « ch. Up.,'" vi. i, 4. 
 
 * Ibid., vi. 2, 3 : — " It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent 
 forth fire." S.B.E., vol. i.; Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 41 :— Therefore "in- 
 volving the duality of the subject and object." 
 
 s " Katha Up.," p. 54, for which Oldenterg claims a pre-Buddhistic origin. 
 
no LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the great secret beyond the grave. In vain Death prayed * 
 not to be asked the question. He offered to Nachiketas fair 
 maidens, and chariots, and song. Yet of them Nachiketas 
 cried : " They last till to-morrow, O Death ; they wear out 
 the vigour of all the senses. Even the whole of life is 
 short. Keep thy horses ; keep dance and song to thyself." 
 'Nachiketas but desired to know the mystery of death. So 
 Death told him all that the mind of man had been able 
 to fathom of the unknown the portals of which had been 
 fashioned out from fantastic dreams of evanescent fancy, 
 still more dear to the mystic mind of the East than the 
 stately portals of Western constructive thought, where each 
 line is laboriously laid down to serve a purpose. So Death 
 weaves a web through which one may seek the infinite, 
 fine-spun and vague as the thread of thought which 
 stretched from Vedic times towards Buddha's feet. 
 
 " Fools and blind leaders of the blind," ^ Death says, " are 
 they who fall into my hands. They are those who deem 
 there is no world but theirs, who know not the truth of 
 Self. The Self is not to be known by the ' Veda,' nor by 
 the teaching. It is not born ; it dies not ; it sprang from 
 nothing ; nothing sprang from it* It is hidden in the heart 
 of every creature. The wise who knows the Self as bodiless 
 within the bodies, as unchanging among changing things,* 
 as great and omnipresent, does never grieve, but he who has 
 not turned away from his wickedness, who is not tranquil 
 and subdued, or whose mind is not at rest, he can never 
 obtain the Self (even) by knowledge." Amid all these 
 strange guesses which the enquiring mind of the Indian 
 philosopher hazarded respecting the nature of Soul and 
 
 ' Max Miillec, "Hibbert Lectures," p. 335. 
 
 " S.B.E., vol. XV. pp. 10-12 ; Oldenberg, " Buddha," pp. 53-7 ; Max 
 MUUer, " Hibbert Lectures," pp. 333-7. 
 »"KathaUp.,"i. 2, 18. 
 * Ibid., i. 2, 23: — "He whom the Self chooses, by him the Self can be 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM iii 
 
 Supreme Being, and their connection, in which all of the 
 old is held fast, for as yet the sage is not satisfied that he has 
 pierced to the truth, there comes one belief stranger to our 
 ears than all others, declared as follows :i "Self cannot be 
 gained by the 'Veda,' nor by understanding, nor by much 
 learning. He whom the Self chooses, by him the Self 
 can be gained. The Self chooses him (his body as his own)." 
 
 So from thought to thought the mind wandered on in its 
 own course, over the anxious questions never to be solved 
 yet never silenced. " Breath to air, and to the immortal," ^ 
 cries the dying soul ; " then this my body ends in ashes. 
 Om ! mind, remember ! Remember thy deeds. Mind, 
 remember ! Remember thy deeds." 
 
 " He who knows at the same time both the cause and the 
 destruction of the perishable body, overcomes death by 
 destruction, and obtains immortality through knowledge of 
 the true cause." 
 
 " When to a man who understands the Self has become 
 all things, what sorrow, what trouble can there be to him 
 who once beheld that unity ? " * " And he who beholds all 
 beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, he never turns 
 away from it." * " All who worship what is not the true 
 cause enter into blind darkness ; those who delight in the 
 true cause enter, as it were, into greater darkness." " 
 
 The full doctrine of the "Brahman" and the "Atman" is 
 set forth in the well-known " ^andilyavidya," ^ or sayings 
 of the sage, Sandilya, so often quoted in succeeding 
 disquisitions : — 
 
 "All this is Brahman (neuter). Let a man meditate on that (visible 
 world) as beginning, ending, and breathing in it (the Brahman). 
 Now man is a creature of will. According to what his will is in this 
 
 1 "Katha Up.," i. 2, 23. " Mandukya Up.," iii. 2, 3, gives the same. 
 » " Isa. Up.," 17 ; S.B.E., vol. i. p. 313. = Ibid., vol. i. p. 312. 
 * " Isa. Up." ; S.B.E., vol. i. p. 312. " Ibid., vol. i. p.312. 
 
 « "Ch. Up.," iii. 14; "Vedanta Sutras," iii. 3, 31. 
 
112 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 world, so will he be when he has departed this life. Let him therefore 
 have this will and belief. 
 
 The intelligent, whose body is spirit, whose form is light, whose 
 thoughts are true, whose nature is like ether (omnipresent and 
 invisible), from whom all works, all desires, all sweet odours 
 and tastes proceed ; he who embraces all this, who never speaks, 
 and is never surprised ; he is my Self within the heart, smaller 
 than a corn of rice, smaller than a com of barley, smaller than 
 a mustard seed, smaller than a canary seed or the kernel of a canary 
 seed. He also is my Self within the heart, greater than the earth, 
 greater than the sky, greater than Heaven, greater than all these worlds. 
 
 He from whom all works, all desires, all sweet odours and tastes 
 proceed, who embraces all this, who never speaks, and who is never 
 surprised — he, my self within the heart, is that Brahman (neuter). When 
 I shall have departed from hence, I shall obtain him (that Self). He 
 who has this faith has no doubt ; thus said ^andilya, yea, thus he 
 said." 
 
 This is the teaching which has ever had the deepest 
 fascination for all succeeding thought in India. It was the 
 teaching in which Ajatasatru, King of the Videhas, 
 instructed the proud Brahman, Gargya Balaki, remarking 
 as he did so : " Verily, it is unnatural that a Brahmana 
 should come to a Kshatriya hoping that he should tell him 
 the Brahman."^ 
 
 It was the knowledge of the Self and its oneness with 
 Brahman that inspired Brahmans to give up all desire for 
 sons, for wealth, and a life amid the gods, to go forth from 
 their homes and wander as mendicants.^ The knowledge 
 was not one to be obtained by argument,^ and " he who has 
 not first turned away from his wickedness, who is not 
 tranquil and subdued, or whose mind is not at rest, he can 
 never obtain the. Self even by knowledge." * The path to 
 the Self is difficult to pass over ; it is sharp as the edge of a 
 razor.* The Self is seated in the body as if in a chariot ; the 
 intellect drives, the mind becomes the reins, yet the senses 
 
 ^ " Brih.-Aran. Up.," ii. I. 15 :— "Then let me come to you as a pupil." 
 2 Ibid., iii. s, I. s '• Katha Up.," i. 2, 9. 
 
 ^ Ibid., i. 2, 24. " Ibid., i. 3, 14. 
 
FROM BRAHMANISM TO BUDDHISM 113 
 
 are as vicious horses which speed it along, over a road 
 strewn with the objects of sense.^ 
 
 The Agnihotra, the new moon, the full moon, the four- 
 monthly, the harvest sacrifices ^ lead to the heaven of the 
 gods. They lead the sacrificer, " as sun rays,* to where the one 
 Lord of the Devas dwells ; they lead him to where there is 
 rejoicing * over his good deeds." But they are ^ " fools who 
 praise this as the highest good ; (they) are subject again and 
 again to old age and death." 
 
 " Fools, dwelling in darkness, wise in their own conceit, 
 and puffed up with vain knowledge, go round and round, 
 staggering to and fro like blind men led by the blind. 
 Considering sacrifice and good works as the best — these fools 
 know no higher — and having enjoyed (their reward) in the 
 height of heaven, gained by good works, they enter again 
 this world or a lower one." 
 
 Yet, before the teaching of the " Vedas" and "Upanishads'' 
 was systematised in the " Brahma Sutras," and commented 
 upon by the greatest of all commentators, Sankaracharya, a 
 strange belief had arisen in India, which for upwards of one 
 thousand years set its impress on the history of the land, 
 and gave to its literature a rich wealth of treasure, the full 
 value of which is but now dawning on the nations of the 
 world. The belief was that known as Buddhism, claiming 
 for its founder the Sakya chief, Siddartha, greater than 
 whom there came but One other among the sons of men to 
 preach the gospel of peace and goodwill unto all. 
 
 1 " Katha Up.," i. 3, 4. " "^andukya Up.," i. 2, 3. ^ Ibid., i. 2, S- 
 * Ibid., i. 2, 6. 5 Ibid., i. 2, 8, 10. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BUDDHISM. 
 
 The sacrificial fires still burned in India. From the three 
 altars still arose to the gods the incense-bearing smoke. 
 The Brahmans still chanted their Vedic Hymns, and pre- 
 served the ancient traditions of their race ; still strove to 
 hold their place amid the councils of the local chieftains, 
 and gain rich lands, kine, and wealth. 
 
 The sacrificial victims were still slain, harvest-offerings 
 made to all the gods. Priestly ordinances hemmed in the 
 life of each Aryan householder to fixed and immovable 
 rites, to customs all bearing a divine sanction. There 
 were Brahmans and laity, men and women alike, who had, 
 however, turned their gaze from the sacred fires, and no 
 longer saw their gods personified as in days of yore. 
 Beyond the heavens, beyond the gods, beneath the throb 
 of life, there lay, not one great personal God, Creator of 
 the World, but the imperishable Brahman, " the Unconscious 
 Self of the Universe," " never contaminated by the misery 
 of the world." ^ Deeper than the transmigratory soul, which 
 reaped the reward of good and evil deeds, lay the Self of 
 man, that moved free, undivided from the Self of the 
 
 i"KathaUp.,"ii. 5, 11. 
 Hi 
 
BUDDHISM 115 
 
 Cosmos, when man rests in dreamless sleep,^ when he no 
 longer distresses himself with the thought : " Why did I 
 do what is good ? Why did I do what is bad ? " By a 
 knowledge of the true nature of Brahman, and Self, all 
 duality vanishes ; 2 the Self of man recognises itself as but 
 temporarily separate from the Self of the Universe. " All 
 the world is animated by the supersensible. This is true ; 
 this is Self. That art thou." ^ 
 
 The mystic charm of idealistic Monism stole over the 
 minds of many with all the soothing rest of a mid-day 
 siesta in a tropical clime, where the heavens, the waters, the 
 earth, and all that it contains, the very air itself, seems to 
 rest profound and calm in the unison of sleep. 
 
 From the earliest Vedic times* there had been ascetic 
 sages who had cut themselves adrift ^ from all the cares 
 of life to wander free from observance of sacrificial rites 
 or priestly ordinances. In the laws* set forth by the 
 Brahmans for all the Aryan community, the position of 
 these ascetic dreamers had to be considered, and their 
 claims to sever themselves from the duties of a house- 
 holder acknowledged. 
 
 So it was held ^ that the ascetic might leave his home, 
 and discontinue the performance of all religious ceremonies, 
 
 1 "Ch. Up.," vi. 8, 4; Huxley, "Romanes Lecture," p. 18 :—" Practical 
 annihilation involved in merging the individual existence in the unconditioned, 
 the Atman in Brahman." 
 
 2 " In zahlreiche Gleichnissen suchen die Upanishads das Wesen des 
 Brahman zu beschreiben, aber diese Betrachtungen gipfeln in dem Satze, dass 
 das innerste Selbst des Individuums eins ist mit jener alles durch dringenden 
 Urkraft (tat tvam asi, das bist du)."— Garbe, " Sankhya Philosophic," p. 109. 
 
 8 "Ch. Up.," vi. IS; Gough, "Phil, of the Upanishads," p. 90. 
 
 * R.V., i. 154, 2 ; i. 69, 2 ; see Earth, " Rel. of India," p. 34. 
 
 » For the existence of women ascetics, s^e Oldenberg, "Buddha," pp. 62, 
 154 ; Fichte, " Die Sociale Gliederung in N.O. India," p. 42, et seq.; Arrian, 
 "Indica,"xii. 8, 9. 
 
 s "There can be no doubt, from the laws laid down respecting them, that 
 they had a recognised position about the eighth century B.C." (Jacobi). 
 
 ' " Vasishta," x. i, 4. 
 
ii6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 " but never let him discontinue the recitation of the ' Veda.' 
 By neglecting the ' Veda ' he becomes a Sudra, therefore he 
 shall not neglect it." 
 
 There were other rules laid down, even before the time 
 of Buddha.i for these wanderers from village to village and 
 hermit-dwellers in the forest. Those who chose to wander 
 free from all bondage or restraint, from all Vedic observ- 
 ances, had first to take five great vows. The first great 
 vow was not to injure any living thing. The other four 
 vows were to be truthful, to abstain from the property of 
 others, to be content and liberal. Besides these five chief 
 vows there were five lesser for all these saddened sages 
 who withdrew themselves from the busy ways of men, and 
 turned their backs for ever on the blind struggle to live as 
 others lived, preferring to go to the forest and dream out 
 their own lives apart, or wander from land to land seeing if 
 any knew or had heard the truth of the Brahman and the 
 Self. Many of these wandering folk were, no doubt, corrupt 
 and vicious, given to the practice of unholy rites, hoping 
 to obtain insight into the unknown and gain supernatural 
 powers by self-imposed tortures, by mesmeric trances, and 
 by all the varied means so common in later India. For 
 the guidance of these strict rules were necessary, so it was 
 held that a true ascetic should take the vows to be free 
 from all anger, to be obedient,^ not rash, cleanly, and pure 
 in eating. 
 
 The ground had been well prepared for the growth of 
 new beliefs* and new doctrines outside the orthodox 
 bulwarks of Brahmanism. 
 
 ^ " He who has finished his studentship may become an ascetic im- 
 mediately." — " Baudhayana," ii. lo, 17. 
 
 " To his guru. 
 
 > See BUhler, "Ind. Ant." (1894), p. 248:— For the worship of Narayana, as 
 taught by the Bhagavatas or Pancaratras, had taken root, a cult afterwards to 
 develop into the deification of the heroic Krishna. For reference to Krishna 
 and dramatic representations of scenes in his life by Patanjali (take as second 
 century B.C.), see Bhandarkar, "Ind. Ant." (1874), p. 14. 
 
BUDDHISM 117 
 
 It was amid this changing flux of thought that Buddha 
 moved, and wove out for himself the solution of the riddle 
 of the Cosmos, which placed man's fate, for weal or woe, 
 here and hereafter, in man's own hands, and taught him to 
 look not beyond himself for hope or aid. 
 
 The birthplace of Buddha has lately been sought and 
 found in the now forest-grown and fever-laden tract of 
 country lying along the southern slopes of the Himalayas, 
 almost 200 miles to the northward of Benares.^ Burial 
 topes and mounds, inscriptions carved on stones, all still 
 lie buried beyond the dense jungle that, during the last 
 fifteen hundred years," has crept over the rich land where 
 once the Buddha lived happily. 
 
 According to the account of the Chinese traveller, 
 Hiouen Tsang who left his own country in 629 A.D., to 
 learn in India the tenets of Buddhism, the country of 
 the Sakya people, among whom Buddha was born, "is 
 about 4000 li (sixty-four miles) in circuit. There are 
 some ten deserted cities in this country, wholly desolate 
 and ruined. The capital, Kapilavastu, is overthrown and 
 in ruins. The foundation walls are still strong and high. 
 It has been long deserted. The people and villages are 
 few and waste. . . . The ground is rich and fertile, 
 and is cultivated according to the regular season. The 
 climate is uniform, the manners of the people soft and 
 obliging." ^ 
 
 Different from the account of the Chinese traveller is 
 that recorded in the Pali Scriptures by a Brahman, 
 
 ^ Biihler, Athenaum (March 6, 1897) : — Where Nigllva is placed 13 miles 
 from Paderia, the site of Buddha's birth, 8 miles from Kapilavastu. 
 Earth {Jour, des Savants, Feb. 1897) places Nigliva "a 37 miles au nord- 
 ouest de la station Ushka du North Bengal Railway, par 83° E. of Greenwich." 
 
 " " In Fa Hian's time, about a.d. 400, the country was already a wilderness, 
 with very few inhabitants, and full of ancient mounds and ruins." — Biihler, 
 Atkeneeum (March 6, 1897). 
 
 = Beal, " Budd. Rec. of West. World," vol. ii. p. 14. 
 
ii8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Ambattha,! who visited Kapilavastu, and there found 
 that the rude warrior clan had no respect for the lofty 
 claims advanced by the haughty priest. "The Sakyan 
 race," the young Brahman angrily complained, "is fierce, 
 violent, hasty, and long-tongued. Though they are naught 
 but men of substance, yet they pay no respect, honour, or 
 reverence to Brahmans." 
 
 More full of interest is the Buddha's recorded reply to 
 the Brahman, pointing out that there was no occasion for 
 wrath, for it was well known that the Sakyas, as Kshatriyas, 
 held themselves aloof from the Brahmans ; that they refused 
 to acknowledge the offspring of one of their class and a 
 Brahman as a true Sakyan, while the Brahmans accepted 
 such as pure Brahmans. In the important article by Mr 
 Chalmers here quoted, it is further pointed out that " the 
 young Brahman is forced to admit that, if a Kshatriya is 
 expelled by his fellows, the Brahmans will welcome him as 
 one of themselves, and he will rank ^ as a full Brahman ; 
 whereas, an expelled Brahman is never received by the 
 Kshatriyas." The position of Brahmanism in relation to 
 Buddhism is clearly indicated in the words of the " Sutta," ^ 
 where it is declared that "it is mere empty words to 
 give it out among the people that the Brahmans are the 
 best caste, and every other caste is inferior; that the 
 Brahmans are the white caste, every other caste is black ; 
 that only the Brahmans are pure, not the non-Brahmans ; 
 that the Brahmans are the legitimate sons of Brahma, born 
 from his mouth, Brahma born, Brahma made, heirs of 
 Brahma." 
 
 The land of the Sakyas lies within the Nepalese Terai, 
 north of the district of Gorakhpur. To the south of it lay, 
 
 > Chalmers, "Madhura Sutta," J.R.A.S. (April, 1894):— Where he quotes 
 above from the " Ambattha Sutta of the Digha Nikaya." 
 
 ^ See Rhys Davids, " Hibbert Lectures" (1881), p. 24; "In Valley of 
 Ganges": — "No Kshatriya could any longer become a Brahman." 
 
 » Chalmers, J.R.A.S. (1894), p. 360. 
 
BUDDHISM 119 
 
 in the time of Buddha, the land of the Ko^alas, before whose 
 power it was soon to fall subject. The Sakyas themselves 
 were a warrior clan, and if of Aryan descent, had, in their 
 distant retreat, mingled their blood with non-Aryan folk, 
 and accepted many of their habits. They refrained from 
 intermarriage with other Aryan families, being forced from 
 their isolation "to develop the un-Aryan and un-Indian 
 custom of endogamy." ^ The tradition, however, still 
 remains that they claimed descent from Ikshvaku,^ the 
 fabled first king of Oudh, the son of Manu, and progenitor 
 of Purukutsa, the king of the Purus. With the Vedic sage, 
 Gotama, they also claimed alliance, so that the great glory 
 of their race was known not only as Buddha, " The 
 Enlightened," and Siddartha, "one whose aim has been 
 accomplished," but as the ascetic Gautama, the descendant 
 of Gotama, the reputed founder of his family. 
 
 In the land of the Sakyas, the father of Buddha owned 
 some part of the fertile lands that now lie waste, and there 
 he became renowned as Suddhodhana, " the possessor of 
 pure rice." These are but dull facts. Better tradition with 
 its imagination, its romance, and poetry, that tells how the 
 Buddha's father was a king, and how the queen, Mayadevi, 
 conceived miraculously. Facts seem now to support 
 tradition so far that in the middle of the sixth century 
 B.C. the Buddha was born to Mayadevi in the garden 
 Lumbini. The route to this spot was marked out towards 
 the close of the second century by a row of pillars stretching 
 north from Patna, the capital of Asoka, the Constantine of 
 Buddhism, who journeyed to Kapilavastu, there to see for 
 himself the place where the Sakya prince was born. 
 
 It was to the West, with all its stern love for realism, 
 that the honour fell of discovering the long-fabled garden 
 
 1 Buhler, Athenaum (March 6, 1S97). 
 
 ^Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," p. 130; Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 403; 
 "Sat. Brah.," xiii. S, 45- 
 
I20 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 where MayadevI housed on her journey to her father's 
 home, and where the Buddha was born. The news came 
 to England in a brief telegram of the Times of December 
 28, 1896, and there it passed unnoticed and unremarked. 
 From the time when Hiouen Tsang and Fa Hian visited 
 the spot, the miasma of the forest had warded off all 
 stray travellers, and left the deserted ruins a grazing-place 
 for cattle until, in the strange vicissitudes of time, the 
 mystery was unravelled that had so long hung round the 
 birthplace of the sage, whose teaching held India spellbound 
 for one thousand years, and is now accepted, in more or 
 less perverted forms, by so large a proportion of the human 
 race in Ceylon, Siam, Burma, Nepal, Tibet, China, and 
 Japan.^ 
 
 Asoka, who visited the spot in his own day, erected a 
 pillar there, engraved with an inscription. This pillar was 
 seen and described by Hiouen Tsang during his travels. 
 Since then all memory of the pillar and its inscription faded 
 away from memory until it was found by Dr Fiihrer, and 
 the inscription thereon interpreted by Hofrath Professor 
 Biihler as follows : " King Piyadasi (or Asoka), beloved 
 of the gods, having been anointed twenty years, himself 
 came and worshipped, saying : ' Here Buddha Sakyamuni 
 was born,' . . . and he caused a stone pillar to be 
 erected, which declares, ' Here the worshipful one was 
 born.' "2 
 
 In his father's home the future Buddha must, like all 
 other Kshatriyas, have been trained to take his part in 
 defence of his home and homestead. All had to join in 
 the tribal fights against surrounding clans or encroaching 
 principalities. Hiouen Tsang states that when he visited 
 the ruins of Kapilavastu, " within the eastern gate of the 
 city, on the left of the road, is a stupa (burial mound); 
 
 ' Set Max MfUler, " Chips from a German Workshop," p. 214. 
 ' BUbler, Athenaum (March 6, 1897) 
 
BUDDHISM 
 
 121 
 
 this is where the Prince Siddartha practised athletic sports 
 and competitive arts." ^ The tribe, not able to hold its own, 
 was soon subdued by another more powerful, and the 
 tradition tells how the Kshatriyas murmured because 
 Siddartha neglected to train himself as a warrior and 
 prepare himself to fight in case of war. Thus challenged, 
 Siddartha came forth and "contended with Sakyas in 
 athletic sports, and pierced with his arrows the iron 
 targets." 
 
 Round all the early life of the Buddha, tradition loves 
 to set a halo of mystery and miracle. Hiouen Tsang 
 states that he himself had seen a fountain, the clear waters 
 of which had miraculous powers of healing the sick, for, 
 as he says, " there it was, during the athletic contest, that 
 the arrow of the prince, after penetrating the targets, fell 
 and buried itself up to the feather in the ground, causing a 
 clear spring of water to spring forth." ^ So succeeding 
 ages have woven into the early life of Buddha a fantastic 
 web of legends, which find their source in the poetic and 
 pious imagination of those who saw in all the deeds of the 
 ascetic sage something more than human. 
 
 From all this legend may be sifted out the fact that, at 
 the age of sixteen, the Buddha was married to his cousin, 
 Yasodhara, daughter of the Koliyan chief, and ten years 
 later a child, Rahula, was born. The story has been 
 framed in poetic fancy of how, to Buddha, the woes 
 of life were borne home by visions of decrepitude, of 
 old age, of palsied sickness, and of death. Buddha 
 at length saw a means to escape these haunting terrors 
 in the vision of an ascetic sage who had wandered 
 forth from his home, resolved that never more should 
 his eyes behold the unaided sufferings of those to whom 
 he had knit his soul. So Buddha rose and in the 
 
 ' Beal, " Hiouen Tsang," vol. ii. p. 23. 
 " Ibid., vol. ii. p. 211. 
 
122 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 night-time passed forth from his wife and child, from his 
 home and homestead, to find if, amid the fair villages 
 and peaceful groves of India, where sedate and learned 
 Brahmans, ascetic hermits, and strange recluses dwelt, 
 there were any who knew the secret of the mystery of life 
 and death, of sorrow and suffering. 
 
 The time was one when strange unrest and strange fore- 
 bodings had everywhere been borne to the soul of man. 
 Near at hand in Persia, Zoroaster had proclaimed, as some 
 solution of the bitter wail of mankind, the existence of 
 the two ever-conflicting principles of good and evil. In 
 Palestine, Jeremiah poured forth his lament "that all his 
 days are sorrow, and his travail grief That which befalleth 
 the sons of men befalleth beasts." At Ephesus, Thales 
 had struck the first note of independent thought and un- 
 orthodox belief by declaring that water was the primal 
 germ of all things, to be followed by Heraclitus, who saw 
 everywhere evidences of unresting change, the mere glow 
 and fading away, like unto fire, of all things, an eternal 
 becoming, and a never-existing Being, as of flowing water, 
 wherein no firm resting-place remained for man but in 
 some negation of change,^ some cessation of the entire 
 scheme of Creation. 
 
 So to the soul of Buddha crept the sad murmur of the 
 bitter wail that " the millions slept, but a hushed and weary 
 sound told that the wheel of life still revolved."^ There 
 was a question Buddha had perforce to face — a question 
 to which if there came no answer, to the soul of man all 
 joys and pleasures fade as transient dreams. What to 
 Buddha, what to all men, are the rewards of life, the love 
 of wife, of parents, offspring, the fond memory of those 
 who have passed the chilling gates of death ; what the 
 hopes and aspirations that hover round life if they are all 
 
 ' Huxley, "Romanes Lecture," p. 39 (note 2). 
 2 E. Garnett, "An Imaged World," p. 91. 
 
BUDDHISM 123 
 
 but mockeries of man's vain efforts to raise himself 
 above the brute beasts? All had better be relinquished 
 than be retained at the relentless nod of a jeering 
 destiny, than grow bright only to be severed by the 
 decrees of an impotent Cosmos, that answers back the 
 moan of suffering with the cold stare of nescience, wherein 
 can be read no gleam of purpose working to an omniscient 
 end. Better for Buddha that he should have cast from him 
 all ties which daily grew closer round him, and made life 
 more dear, than that they should clasp him tighter and 
 drag him down to a darkness profound amid his unavailing 
 cries for help, when neither from Brahmans nor from burned- 
 offerings could he find the aid for which his soul cried out. 
 
 For Buddha, and for all men in whom reasoned thought 
 had risen, the religious systems of the time held forth no 
 hope. The Vedic gods were gods for a conquering folk 
 whose future had but dawned. They were friendly gods 
 who led the way to victory, and so long as victory was 
 assured, a united people sang their praise. 
 
 The Sakyan land was far removed from homes where 
 the Aryan brotherhood held its traditions firm amid alien 
 foes. The echoes of an Aryan past that came to its 
 borders were vague and uncertain ere they fell on Buddha's 
 ears. He may have heard of the doctrines of the early 
 " Upanishads," ^ how rest was to be sought by knowledge of 
 the Brahman and Self. His efforts, after he had left his 
 wife, and child, and fatherland, seem to have been to gain, 
 by asceticism, morbid fancies, and religious austerities, 
 some supernatural or mystic power whereby his soul might 
 rise free from all the trammels of the desires of the body, 
 and be no longer subject to the domain of death. If 
 Buddha was versed in Brahmanic lore,^ as many have 
 
 * Rhys Davids, "American Lectures," p. 29. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 102, states that Buddha, iti his early probation at Rajagriha, 
 received a teaching on the problems "discussed by such /«<«;- schools as the 
 ^ankhya and Vedanta." He continues : " It is certainly evident that Gotama, 
 
124 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 sought to prove, he must have been appalled not only by the 
 visions of a hereafter, which confronted himself and those 
 he held dear, but by the drear future which lay before all 
 mankind. Long before his days the weird doctrine of the 
 transmigration of the soul through endless births and re- 
 births had crept its way into the beliefs of the people. 
 
 In the early Vedic times there seems to have been no. 
 gloom or despair surrounding the idea of death or the 
 hereafter. 
 
 Agni ^ was besought to bear those who died to the abode 
 of the Fathers, where there was joy and happiness. Later ^ 
 Agni was declared to be the bond, the bridge leading to 
 the gods, with whom the dead dwell in friendship. The 
 man who sacrifices goes * after death to abide with the gods. 
 The more he sacrificed, the greater was his piety, the 
 closer he became in his nature to that of the gods.* As 
 the thought grew, it was with his own true body^ that 
 man gained immortality, and great became the care* in 
 Indian life that none of the bones of the deceased were 
 missing when his funeral rites were performed. 
 
 There were some who sacrificed, and some who neglected 
 the sacred duty, some who gave rich rewards to the priests, 
 some who were niggardly, against whom the sacred texts 
 are vehement in their denunciations. So for the Aryan 
 
 either during or before this period, must have gone through a very systematic 
 and continued course of study in all the deepest philosophy of the time." I 
 agree with the learned Professor, with the exception that I do not see that any 
 evidence is forthcoming that Buddha had any such knowledge when he left 
 Kapilavastu ; he obtained it in Magadha. Even if the ^ankhya, as a philosophy, 
 existed before the time of Buddha, there is no evidence that it was known to, 
 or influenced, Buddha. See Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 64; Rhys Davids, 
 "American Lectures," p. 29;* and for opposite view, Garbe, "SanlAya 
 Philosophie " ; and Huxley, "Romanes Lectures," p. 17. 
 
 1 R.V., ix. 133, 66. " "Taitt. Brah.," iii. 10, ii. i. 
 
 » "6at. Brah.," ii. 6, 4, 8. < Rid., x, i, 5, 4. 
 
 ^ Ibid., iv. 6, ti, xi. 1,8, 6, xii. 8, 3, 31 ; Weber, Z.D.M.G., ix. 237^; 
 quoted in Muir, " Sans. Texts," vol. v. 314-15. 
 
 " " 6at Brah.," xi. 6, 3, 11, xiv. 6, 9, 28. 
 
BUDDHISM 125 
 
 householder there grew to be the rewards and punishments 
 in the next world according to how he performed his 
 duties in this world, according as he completed the full 
 course of the stated sacrifices. The idea was that in the next 
 world his deeds were weighed in a balance,^ and according 
 to the result his award was meted out, for he " is born into 
 the world which he has made." ^ 
 
 So the thought wanders hazily along. The whole world, 
 to the primitive mind, is animated with soul life. The trees, 
 animals, the running brook and solitary mountain, the 
 petrified fossil over which man wonders, the dreaded snake 
 and abhorred reptile, are all endowed equally with souls 
 or spirits ; there is no broad line drawn between man and 
 the rest of that into which the Divine has breathed life. So 
 the bewildering idea is set forth — bewildering only to the 
 learned, not to those who love to watch the flowers in the 
 changing warmth and cold of Spring-time, who conjure up 
 the eager contest between St George and the dragon, and 
 who dread to see in May the "Three Great Ice Kings." 
 "Now the Spring assuredly comes into life again out of 
 the Winter, for out of the one the other is bom again ; 
 therefore, he who knows this is, indeed, born again in this 
 world." 3 
 
 Not in modes of formal thought, but in the dreamy fancy 
 of one who loves to walk in the fallacious paths of specious 
 analogy, comes the reasoning over the soul of him who has 
 not won by his acts release from the common course of 
 Nature's working. " Whoever goes to yonder world not 
 having escaped Death, him he causes to die again and 
 again in yonder world." * Of all good acts that man could 
 do, the performance of the sacrifice was highest, and of all 
 sacrifices the Agnihotra sacrifice was best. So " verily he 
 
 ' "^at. Brah.," xi. 2, 7, 33, xi. 7, 2, 23. 
 
 2 IMd., vi. 2, 2, 27 : — " Man is bom into the world made by him." 
 
 » Ibid., i. 5, 3, 14. 
 
 * i^^also Ibid,, ii. 3, 3, i. 
 
126 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 that knows that release from death is the Agnihotra, is 
 freed from death again and again." ^ 
 
 The full tragedy of this phase of thought, of this des- 
 tiny of mankind — a destiny to which the direst of Greek 
 tragedies, pursuing to its relentless end the result of act or 
 omission, presents but a pale and colourless contrast — ^is 
 summed up in the appalling words of the " Chandogya 
 Upanishad," ^ believed not only in Buddha's time, but also 
 in India to-day : " Those whose conduct here has been 
 good will quickly attain some good birth — the birth of a 
 Brahman, or of a Kshatriya, or a VaiiSya. But those whose 
 conduct here has been evil will quickly attain an evil birth 
 — the birth of a dog, or a hog, or a chandala" * Another 
 " Upanishad," having allotted the place of the Soul to the 
 Moon, sets forth the same idea of transmigration, in more 
 laboured fashion : " According to his deeds he is born 
 again here as a worm, or as an insect, or as a fish, or as a 
 bird, or as a lion, or as a boar, or as a serpent, or as a 
 tiger, or as a man, or as a something else in different 
 places." 
 
 Probably no scholar has shown more dogged deter- 
 mination to view Buddhism from a purely historical and 
 philosophic standpoint than Professor Rhys Davids, yet, 
 when he approaches the realms of metempsychosis, he 
 seems almost to shudder at the monstrous aberrations of 
 thought which beset man in his cherished beliefs over the 
 soul theory : " Thus is the soul tossed about from life to 
 life, from billow to billow, in the great ocean of trans- 
 migration. And there is no escape save for the very few 
 who, during their birth as men, obtain to a right knowledge 
 of the Great Spirit and then enter into immortality, or as 
 
 * " Sat. Biah.," ii. 3, 3, 9 ; see also u. 3, 3, 8 :— " Whoever goes to yonder 
 world not having escaped Death, him he causes to die again and again in 
 yonder world." 
 
 " « Ch. Up.," V. lo, 7 ; S.B.E., vol. i. 
 
 ' O&pring of a Sudra and a Brahman woman. 
 
BUDDHISM 127 
 
 the later philosophies taught, are absorbed into the Divine 
 Essence." ^ 
 
 Some such doctrines the Buddha must have learned 
 during his early probation near Rajagriha, the capital of 
 Magadha. It was his mission to view with his own master- 
 mind all the current phases of thought that were struggling 
 forth among the scattered people, as the expression of what 
 the ages had produced, and combine them into the 
 structure known as Buddhism. This master-work of 
 Buddha stands out colossal in awe-inspiring loneliness as 
 a memorial that the Eastern world had, for the time, closed 
 itself in from all hope of knowledge of the Divine. It is well 
 typified by the dome-shaped mounds of Sanchi, Bharhut, 
 and Amravati, wherein were shut all that was left for 
 the Buddhist to reverence, the relics of the Sakya prince. 
 These mounds remain the outward form of Buddhist 
 thought, just as the Parthenon and the memory of Pallas 
 Athene remain the memorials of Grecian ideals of beauty 
 and of reasoned thought ; just as Shah Jahan's Taj Mahal 
 and Akbar's tomb shadow forth the hopes that were burst- 
 ing forth in India in Mughal times, only to fade away in 
 dreams, as soft and pleasing as those of the sister Taj 
 Mahal and stately bridge that was designed to span the 
 waters of the far-stretching Jumna. 
 
 So the dome-shaped mounds in India, left as memorials 
 of the artistic conception of Buddha's mission, tell their own 
 story — the story of how man turned his gaze from the 
 heavens above and entombed his soul, so that never more 
 might his aspiring hopes be roused to fancied dreams by 
 stately minarets or soaring spires. 
 
 The new reformer had been bom into the world to view, 
 from a lonely standpoint, and weave into an artistic whole, 
 the thoughts the age had brought forth. From the earliest 
 
 1 Rhys Davids, " Hibbert Lectures," p. 86. 
 
128 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Vedic times there were those who had denied the existence 
 of even the Vedic deities.^ 
 
 The Vedas themselves had been denounced, reviled, and 
 held as unworthy the consideration of wise men.^ Atheists 
 (fidstikas = na asti, i.e. non est) flourished and spread 
 abroad their unbelief. A worldly sect known as the 
 Lokayatas had freely declared : ^ — 
 
 " There is no heaven, no final liberation, nor any soul in another 
 world. 
 Nor do the actions of the four castes, or orders, produce any real 
 effect. 
 
 While life remains let man live happily, let him feed on ghee even 
 
 though he runs in debt. 
 When once the body becomes ashes, how can it ever return again ? 
 If he who departs from the body goes to another world. 
 How is it that he comes not back again, restless for love of his 
 
 kindred ? 
 Hence it is only as a means of livelihood the Brahmans have 
 
 established here 
 All these ceremonies for the dead — there is no other fruit anywhere. 
 The three authors of the ' Vedas ' were buffoons, knaves and demons.'' 
 
 There is yet another phase of thought which must be 
 considered in connection with the underlying factors out of 
 which grew Buddhism. 
 
 In the sixth century B.C., a great reforming preacher, 
 Mahavira, had spread abroad the doctrines of Parsva, the 
 founder of the Jaina sect, who had lived in the eighth 
 century B.C.* He, like Buddha, was a Kshatriya. His 
 father is said to have been named Siddartha, a chieftain of 
 the Kundagrama village, his mother being a sister of the 
 chieftain of Vaisali, the chief town of the Licchavis, and 
 also related to Bimbisara, King of Magadha. At the age of 
 
 1 R.V., ii. 12, 5 :— " They ask, Where is He ? Or verily they say of Him, 
 He is not " (Griffith). 
 
 2 Monier-Williams, "Buddhism," p. 8. 
 
 ' Cowell and Gough, " Sarva Darsana Sangraha," p. lo. 
 < " Ind. Ant," p. 248 (Sept. 1894). 
 
BUDDHISM 129 
 
 twenty-eight he set forth on his mission, and became 
 known as the Jina, "The Conqueror," and his teaching as 
 Jainism, just as Buddha is l<nown as " The Enlightened," ' 
 and his teaching properly as Bauddhism. 
 
 By the Jains the world is held to be eternal, and made 
 up of atoms. Time revolves in two ever-recurring cycles 
 of fabulous age, in the first of which goodness increases only 
 to decrease in the next. Twenty-four Jinas appeared in 
 the past cycle ; they are now reigning as gods ; twenty- 
 four have appeared in the present cycle — a cycle in which 
 goodness is ever decreasing — and twenty-four are yet to 
 appear in a future cycle. 
 
 The great object of the Jain is to attain victory over all 
 worldly desires ; to free his soul and so become divine like 
 unto the Jinas. These were known as Nirgranthas.i " those 
 who have no bonds,'' and in the middle of the fourth century 
 B.C. they parted into two great sects, those known as the 
 Svetambaras, " who are attired in white raiment," and those 
 known as the Digambaras, or "sky-clad," who show how they 
 have cast off from themselves everything of the world by 
 wandering about unclothed. The Jains are still numerous in 
 India,^ the faith being followed by the wealthj' Seths, the 
 great banking families. The costly Jaina temples, where 
 the images of the Jinas live in lonely isolation on the 
 summit of Mount Abu, still preserve the highest ideals of 
 pure Hindu architecture. In many points the history of 
 Jainism closely resembles that of Buddhism, a system from 
 which it was for long considered an offshoot. The Jains, like 
 the Buddhists, have lay members," Sravakas," who are in and 
 of the world, and also ascetic monks, " Yatis," who live apart 
 in monasteries. For the Jaina generally there were three 
 " gems " by which the soul obtained liberation, or " Moksha." 
 
 ' Jacobi, Z.D.M.G., xxxviii. 17 ; Hopkins, " Rel. of India," p. 284. 
 ^ " Census of India," (1891) : — "Jains now number 409,715 ; Buddhists only 
 243.677-" 
 
 I 
 
I30 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 These three were, right insight {darSana), right knowledge, 
 and right conduct. In the observance of the last injunction 
 the monastic Jaina monks were vowed never to tell lies ; 
 never to steal ; never to be immoderate in thought, word or 
 deed; never to desire too much; but above all, never to kill 
 or injure any living thing. So the Jaina monk to-day up- 
 holds hospitals for the care of all animals, even for the 
 nurture of foul insects. The water they drink they first 
 strain in hopes of removing all life ; they sweep the ground 
 before them as they walk, so that their feet may not fall 
 on any living thing ; they even wear veils over their mouths 
 that nothing with life may be drawn in by their breath. 
 
 Even if Buddha had not heard in his own home of any 
 of these doctrines of the Vedantic or Sankhyan philosophies, 
 of Jainism, of agnosticism, or of the Brahman and Atman, 
 nevertheless, the spirit of the times was moving towards 
 them, and the practical success of his mission shows that 
 he had, with true insight, set forth an ideal which in the 
 East received assent from wondering myriads of men and 
 women who lived and died in simple and devout reverence 
 of his teaching and his Order. The force he sent forth 
 was sufficient for a time to overshadow that on which the 
 rising power of Brahmanism was based. 
 
 Inasmuch as Buddhism found its truest abiding home 
 in Scythian or Turanian lands, it might be held that it was 
 not the true outcome of Aryan thought, yet a parallel is to 
 be seen in the spread of Christianity among Teutonic races. 
 
 When Buddha, at the age of twenty-nine, departed from 
 the northern home of the Sakyas, he made his way towards 
 Rajagriha, where ruled Bimbisara, the chieftain of the 
 Magadhas, over a district extending over one hundred miles 
 south of the Ganges, and one hundred miles east of the 
 Son. To the north of the Ganges were the Licchavis, 
 whose chieftain, Kataka, ruling at his capital, Vaisali, was 
 brother to Trisala, the mother of the Jaina saint, Mahavlra. 
 
BUDDHISM 131 
 
 Still further to the east of Magadha was the land of the 
 Angas, with their capital at Chompa, while away to the 
 north-west lay the Kosalas, whose king, Prasenajit, ruled 
 at Sravasti, whither the ancient capital had been removed 
 from Ayodhya. At Rajagriha Buddha met two Brahmans,' 
 Udraka and Alara, and from them he learned the means 
 whereby they sought to vanquish all that held them bound 
 to take their part in life — a part which at its best, many of 
 to-day would say, is not worth taking unless some firm 
 faith or trust in its Divine purpose be the guiding light. 
 
 From the two Brahmans Buddha could have obtained 
 no such light. They could but point to their wasted frames, 
 to their own sunken eyes. They could but have told him of 
 their austerities, of their hopes that light might some day 
 come, when the mystery which shrouded their lives would 
 pass away, and they become as gods with insight more 
 than human. 
 
 From the two Brahmans Buddha parted. His quest 
 still lay before him, for still he knew and felt 
 
 " I am as all these men 
 Who cry upon their gods and are not heard, 
 Or are not heeded. — Yet there must be aid ! 
 For them, and me, and all, there must be help ! " * 
 
 From Rajagriha he wandered on to the lonely forests of 
 Uruvela, near to the present temple of Buddha Gaya, south 
 of Patna, where pilgrims now bring from far lands their 
 votive gifts to lay, in lowly reverence, on the spot where the 
 feet of their master and teacher once pressed. 
 
 For five weary years Buddha strove to seek out his own 
 salvation. Penances, austerities, fastings and contemplation 
 brought neither superhuman knowledge nor power. Five 
 ascetic sages sat by and watched the lengthened struggle, 
 
 1 Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 106; Hopkins, "Rel. of India," pp. 303-4 
 Rhys Davids, "American Lectures," p. 102. 
 
 2 Edwin Arnold, " Light of Asia." 
 
132 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 wondering if at last one mortal might pierce the Infinite, 
 and grasp eternal knowledge of the Divine. 
 
 From the lips, thin and bereft of colour, there came no 
 murmur; from the eyes, sunk deep beneath the arching 
 brows, there came no gleam to show that the soul of the 
 sage had been quickened by a knowledge more sustaining 
 than earthly food. The Buddha remained silent and suffer- 
 ing. At length in despair he turned from his asceticism, 
 and his five companions left him. 
 
 One night — the sacred night of Buddhism — while Buddha 
 dreamed on alone beneath the sacred Bo-tree,i whose shade 
 yet falls on Buddhist pilgrims, he clearly grasped in his 
 own mind the whole cause of the world's sorrow, and the 
 means whereby the soul might free itself for ever from the 
 continued course of birth and re-birth. The attainment of 
 enlightenment by Gotama, who by it became the Buddha, 
 " The Enlightened," has been surrounded by later tradition ^ 
 with miraculous events and supernatural portents. When 
 the powers of darkness struggled to hide the light from 
 Sakya Muni, the mountains trembled, the earth shook, the 
 storms broke loose, the sun hid itself away, and the stars 
 moved from their spheres. The truth, however, slowly 
 worked its way to Buddha's soul. Then Mara, " the Evil 
 One,"crept close and sought, with soothing words and visions 
 of delight, to stay The Enlightened from proclaiming abroad 
 the knowledge he had attained. Muchalindra, " the King of 
 the Snakes," folded itself as a safeguard round the Buddha's 
 body. Brahma Sahampati descended from his heaven 
 and bade the Muni go forth and free all mankind from the 
 bondage of birth, old age, and death. While Buddha 
 wondered to whom he should first proclaim his doctrine, 
 he learned that his two former teachers, Alara and Udraka, 
 were dead, so he turned towards Benares to seek out the 
 
 * Ficus religiosa. 
 
 ' Rhvs Davids, "American Lectures," p. 104. 
 
BUDDHISM 133 
 
 five ascetics who had watched his early struggles. He 
 found them seated in the Deer Park, three miles north of 
 Benares, then known as Varanasi. But as he approached 
 they said one to another : ^ " Friends, yonder comes the 
 ascetic, Gotama, who lives in self-indulgence, who has given 
 up his quest and returned to self-indulgence. We shall 
 show him no respect, nor rise up before him, nor take 
 his alms-bowl and his cloak from him ; but we shall give 
 him a seat, and he can sit down if he likes." Their sub- 
 sequent conduct, however, shows how it was Buddha's own 
 personal influence, an influence founded on an absolute 
 belief in himself and in his own mission, supported and 
 extended by his overpowering eloquence, and the mesmeric 
 charm a powerful and determined mind has over others, 
 that won for him success as a teacher and propagator of 
 his doctrines. When all this had departed, Buddhism lived 
 in its purity only so long as those who remembered his 
 personality exercised their influence to preserve the faith 
 simple and uncorrupted. 
 
 He was the first to show that the races of India were 
 capable of being infused by a firm master-mind with a 
 common purpose, and of being held together by a common 
 bond of union. It was through the work commenced by 
 Buddha that Asoka,^ the first temporal Chakravarti, or 
 emperor, was able to unite the scattered Aryan tribes and 
 alien races beneath his sceptre. 
 
 Once Buddha's personality faded away, his religion found 
 its chief rallying-point in the cohesion of a mendicant 
 order of monks, who transformed their Buddha into a 
 god,' and mingled legend, miracles, idolatrous practices 
 
 1 Oldenberg, "Buddha," p. 125 (quoted from "Mahavagga," i. 6-10). 
 
 * Neither Chandragupta nor Bimbisara were Buddhists, nor Asoka until the 
 twentieth year of his reign. 
 
 3 Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," pp. 200-1, for the rise of the worship of the 
 Buddhist trinity, Maitreya Buddha, Manju Sri, and Avalokitesvara ; also 
 p. 128: — " Gautama was very early regarded as omniscient, and absolutely 
 sinless" ; p. 189 : — "After his death the miracles and exaggeration increase." 
 
134 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 and debasing beliefs with the moral teachings of the 
 founder which they had forgotten to follow. 
 
 When Buddha approached nearer to the five ascetics, 
 who watched his approach in the Deer Park near Benares, 
 they could no longer abide by their resolution to show him 
 no respect. They rose and prostrated themselves before 
 him, and as they listened to his burning words, poured 
 forth in the soft and pleading Pali, each of the ascetics felt 
 as though the Master addressed him alone. These five 
 were his first disciples, so that, " at that time there were 
 six Arahats (persons who had reached absolute holiness) 
 in the world." ^ 
 
 To the five ascetics the Master first declared that he 
 had at length found the great truth which all had sought 
 — a truth giving freedom from bondage and from re-birth, 
 leading to enlightenment, to Nirvana in this life, and then 
 to Parinirvana, when the body falls to decay bereft of all 
 Karma. He then told them how the truth could not be 
 found in wordly pleasures nor yet in morbid asceticism. 
 There was but one path whereby it could be reached. 
 This was the Middle Path, journeyed through by the 
 following of the Eightfold Precepts, whereby he had 
 obtained emancipation of the mind which "cannot be 
 lost ; this is my last birth ; hence I shall not be born 
 again." 2 This Eightfold Path consisted of Right Views,^ 
 Right Aspirations,* Right Speech,^ Right Conduct,* Right 
 Living,^ Right Effort.^ Right Thought,^ and Right Self- 
 Concentration.i* Such was the simple Middle Path for 
 
 * " Mahavagga," i. 7, 3 ; S.B.E., vol. xi. (Rhys Davids' translation). 
 
 ^ S.B.E., " Mahavagga," i. 6, 29. ' Free from superstition and delusion. 
 
 * High and vf orthy of the intelligent, earnest man. 
 
 ° Kindly, open, and truthful. « Peaceful, honest, pure. 
 
 ' Bring hurt or danger to no living thing. 
 
 * In self-training and self-control. ' The active, watchful mind. 
 
 '» In deep meditation on the realities of life. — Rhys Davids, " American 
 Lectures," pp. 137-38. 
 
BUDDHISM 135 
 
 those to follow who desired to obtain peace, enlighten- 
 ment, and freedom from re-birth. 
 
 The centre point of Buddha's faith, round which all his 
 teaching revolves, was the doctrine of Karma, one of the 
 most important and far-reaching philosophic theories ever 
 reached by the intuitive reasoning powers of man. It was 
 a new and enormous contribution to the sum of human 
 speculation. Its importance in the history of Indian social 
 and political life cannot be over-estimated. No other 
 theory at all similar to it was ever enunciated by any of 
 the philosophic schools of India with the same clearness, 
 the same breadth and depth of view regarding its bearings, 
 and absolute certainty regarding its transcendent import- 
 ance, as was this master-stroke of one who " saw deeper 
 than the greatest of modern idealists." 1 
 
 Two of the most important philosophic theories which 
 the thought of India has produced — important not only in 
 their practical influence in the past, but in being the two 
 theories forming the whole basis on which the orthodox 
 classes in India at present confront the advances of 
 Christianity — are theories which rest on assumptions in- 
 capable of substantiation or proof. They have to be 
 taken on faith, and therein consists the strength of their 
 position. The first is the doctrine of Karma. 
 
 The ancient doctrine of transmigration of the soul 
 had taught the Indian sage that : " Every sentient being 
 is reaping as it has sown, if not in this life, then 
 in one or other of the infinite series of antecedent 
 existences of which it is the latest term."^ It was the 
 act, or character, of individuals "which passed from life 
 to life and linked them in the chain of transmigrations; 
 and they held that it is modified in each life, not merely 
 by confluence of parentage, but by its own acts. They 
 
 1 Huxley, " Romanes Lecture," p. 19. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 14. 
 
136 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 were, in fact, strong believers in the theory, so much 
 disputed at present, of the hereditary transmission of 
 acquired character."^ 
 
 Inasmuch as Buddha denied the existence of a Soul, 
 for which his scheme had no place,^ he had, by some 
 other theory, to account for that which was continually 
 taking place, the ever-becoming, the never-being. 
 
 Buddha had to show a cause for the condition of sorrow 
 into which man is born ; he had to give some reason for the 
 necessity of following his Eightfold Path, which had four 
 stages leading from acceptance of his doctrines on to 
 greater and greater freedom from re-birth to absolute 
 Arahatship. If there were no soul, and all enquiry 
 respecting the existence of God were but vain labour, as 
 Buddhism asserted, then there must be some cause 
 to condition the becoming, the re-birth, which Buddha 
 admitted. This re-birth was that of a sentient being in 
 no way connected by bonds of blood with the previous 
 being ; it had no bond with the past except through 
 the one mystery of Karma, or act. It must, however, 
 
 * "That the manifestation of the tendencies of a character may be greatly 
 facilitated or impeded by conditions of which self-discipline, or the absence of 
 it, are among the most important, is indubitable ; but that the character itself 
 is modified in this way is by no means so certain. It is not so sure that the 
 transmitted character of an evil liver is worse, or that of a righteous man 
 better, than that which he received. Indian philosophy, however, did not 
 admit of any doubt on this subject; the belief in the influence of conditions, 
 notably of self-discipline, on the Karma, was not merely a necessary postulate 
 of its theory of retribution, but it presented the only way of escape from the 
 endless round of transmigrations." — Huxley, " Romanes Lecture," p. 15. 
 
 ' "Granting the premises, I am not aware of any escape from Berkeley's 
 conclusion, that the ' substance ' of matter is a metaphysical, unknown quantity, 
 of the existence of which there is no proof. What Berkeley does not seem to 
 have so clearly perceived is that the non-existence of a substance of mind is equally 
 arguable, and that the result of the impattial application of his reasonings 
 is the reduction of the AH to co-existences and sequences of phenomena, 
 beneath and beyond which there is nothing cognoscible. It is a remarkable 
 indication of the subtlety of Indian speculation that Gautama should have 
 seen deeper than the greatest of modern idealists." — Huxley, "Romanes 
 Lecture," p. 19. 
 
BUDDHISM 137 
 
 be clearly borne in mind how this theory differs from 
 the modern theory of evolution and the disputed theory 
 of transmission of character from parent to offspring. 
 
 When a man died, when the elements which Buddha 
 held to constitute man passed away — and in these elements 
 there was no abiding soul — all that remained, according to 
 Buddha, was his Karma — his doing, the result of his good 
 and evil actions, of his words, and of his thoughts. This 
 Karma had to work out its potentiality ; it had to receive 
 punishment or reward ; so a new conscious existence, un- 
 connected with the old, was produced as a habitation for 
 its working. 
 
 The assumption was an ingenious hypothesis to account 
 for transmigration without the necessity of assuming the 
 existence of a soul, or of any underlying substance of 
 matter or of mind. 
 
 It is but seldom that the weakness of the entire system 
 of Buddhism is recognised. Professor Rhys Davids, who 
 has so clearly recognised the historical importance of 
 Buddhism, has pointed out^ the factors which inspired 
 the faith of its followers : " On one side of the key- 
 stone is the necessity of justice, on the other the law 
 of causality." At the same time he clearly recognises 
 how they "have failed to see that the very keystone 
 itself, the link between one life and another, is a mere 
 word." 2 
 
 According to Buddha, man is made up of aggregates, or 
 Skandas, of " material qualities, sensations, abstract ideas, 
 tendencies of mind, and mental powers" * 
 
 Nowhere amid these Skandas, nor in their sub-divisions, 
 is there any such thing as Soul. The Skandas exist alone, 
 ever passing from change to change, leaving no abiding 
 
 1 Rhys Davids, " Buddhism,'" p. 105. ^ Ibid., p. 106. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. go; or Oldenberg, " Buddha" p. 128 (note) : — " Corporeal form, 
 sensations, perceptions, conformations (or aspirations), and consciousness." 
 
138 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 principle whatsoever. When a sage attains Nirvana, when 
 there is no result of his Karma calling for new existence 
 to work out its effects, the body truly remains, and " while 
 his body shall remain, he will be seen by gods and men 
 but after the termination of life, upon the dissolution of 
 the body, neither gods nor men will ever see him." 
 
 The first of the "Four Noble Truths" laid down by 
 Buddha shows that sorrow is inseparable from birth, old 
 age, disease, and death ; from union with those not loved, 
 and separation from those loved ; from non-attainment of 
 what one desires — in fact, a clinging to all that springs from 
 the five Skandas. 
 
 The second "Truth"' was, that the thirst {Trisknd) for 
 existence led to new becomings " accompanied by pleasure 
 and lust, finding its delight here and there." i 
 
 The third " Truth " was, that sorrow comes only from 
 " the destruction in which no craving remains over, of this 
 very thirst ; the laying-aside of, the getting-rid of, the being- 
 free from, the harbouring no longer of, this thirst." * 
 
 The fourth " Truth " was, that if the Eightfold Path of 
 Right Discipline be followed, suffering will be extinguished. 
 By following the Eightfold Path, the Buddhist first frees 
 himself from all delusion of Self, from doubt as to the 
 teachings of Buddha, from trust in rites and ceremonies, 
 and reaches a stage, " better than universal empire in this 
 world, better than going to heaven, better than lordship 
 over all worlds." ^ By further progress in the Right Path 
 the Buddhist becomes almost freed from all bodily passion, 
 from ill-feelings towards others, from desire to live on 
 earth ; his Karma will but act to produce one new birth. 
 So the course goes on, until all remnant of longing for life 
 on earth or in heaven, all pride, ill-feeling, bodily passion, 
 
 1 S.B.E., " Mahavagga," i. 6, 20. 
 
 ^ Rhys Davids, " American Lectures," p. 137. 
 
 ' Ibid., " Buddhism," p. 108. 
 
BUDDHISM 139 
 
 self-righteousness, and ignorance vanish, the man becoming 
 a perfect Arahat having attained Nirvana.^ 
 
 The Nirvana gained, there ensues the one great sinless 
 and actionless state of mind, in which the Karma is deprived 
 of " potential." The " wheel of life " ^ stands poised, there 
 being no longer a motive force, springing out from igno- 
 rance and leading on to despair, to speed it on its saddened 
 round of desire, attachment, birth, death, and re-birth. 
 
 It was strength, and daring strength, that sent Buddha 
 forth to seek out for his times some solution of the 
 question of how the Creator 
 
 " Would make a world and keep it miserable, 
 Since, if, all powerful, he leaves it so. 
 He is not good, and if not powerful. 
 He is not God?"3 
 
 It was genius unequalled among the sons of men that 
 inspired the Buddha's teaching. It was genius, command- 
 ing in its dictatorial strength, that held together his Order. 
 It was genius, the first and last that India saw, that, in its 
 lofty aims and universality, foreshadowed the possibility 
 of uniting the people into one great nationality, if such had 
 ever been possible. 
 
 It cast no shadow over Indian thought. It gave it in the 
 doctrine of Karma the best and surest motive it could ever 
 reach unaided for the deepening of a sense of individual 
 responsibility,* for act, thought, deed, or speech. 
 
 * It is neither annihilation nor everlasting bliss, it is "but an epithet of a 
 state of mind to be reached and enjoyed only in the present life." — ^J.R.A.S. 
 (1S97), p. 407. 
 
 ^ Rhys Davids, "American Lectures," pp. 120-21. 
 3 Arnold, Sir E., " Light of Asia." 
 
 * See an important article (J.R.A.S. 1897, p. 410) by Mrs Rhys Davids, 
 pointing out the danger of introducing " ill-fitting Western terminology " into 
 questions dealing with Eastern modes of thought. It may be generally said 
 that all the plausible similarities pointing to connection between Eastern and 
 Western modes of thought, are either fallacious or unhistorical. Their dis- 
 cussion would entail a considerable space, and the result, in nearly all cases, 
 would be so problematic that they have been unnoticed to a great extent in 
 
I40 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 In viewing Buddhism in its historical significance, in its 
 being the culminating point to which the wave of Indian 
 thought had reached, the wreckage of the past that still 
 clung around it, and was carried on with it, must not be 
 confused with the wave itself. Amid this wreckage much 
 can be found to delight the prurient mind, much from which 
 a system could be framed for morbid mysticism, and much 
 to encourage those who seek for themselves a reputation 
 for the possession of prophetic and supernatural powers, 
 such as were undoubtedly ascribed by the common mind 
 to Buddha, if not in his own days, at least shortly after 
 his decease. To those who study the past of India down 
 through the ages, and look for the future which is yet to 
 dawn, when all her latent intellectual and spiritual forces will 
 once again awaken to add their strength to the history of 
 the world's progress, the chief point of interest in Buddhism 
 is to ascertain how high the wave of thought reached in 
 Buddha's time, not to probe how low to the earth the 
 instincts and superstitions of the mass could creep. 
 
 Buddha, in his own life-time, could defend his teaching 
 and maintain his Order by his own power of eloquence 
 and by the force of his own character and personal 
 influence. Of these the Order was deprived on his death. 
 The stately structure that the architectonic genius of 
 Buddha had raised to impress and fascinate the Eastern 
 world had to be sustained by means other than those which 
 the master-builder could alone employ. So long as he 
 lived he claimed no Divine birth, no miraculous power, 
 no supernatural insight 
 
 From the literature as we now possess it — for we possess 
 
 the body of this manual. The author is not prepared to admit any classical 
 influence on the Indian drama, and can only see very special and exceptional 
 evidences of Greek or Roman art having affected Indian architecture. The 
 whole of Indian thought and art is impressed indelibly with an individual 
 stamp of its own, and for the present the evidences of this must remain more 
 a matter of feeling than one for profitable discussion. 
 
BUDDHISM 141 
 
 no work of which even the author or date is known before 
 the middle of the third century B.C.,* and books in manu- 
 script* are not known until long afterwards — it is almost 
 impossible to extricate the real teachings of Buddha as he 
 formulated them, yet the earliest burial mounds erected to 
 his memory, and temples wherein his sayings were recited, 
 show plainly that the whole system is free from superstition, 
 idolatry, or the worship of Buddha as a divine being to 
 whom miraculous or supernatural powers were ascribed. 
 
 For forty- four years Buddha wandered to and fro, 
 enrolling Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vai§yas, low-caste men, 
 and even women within his Order. There was no dis- 
 tinction made on account of caste ; the Buddhist monks 
 had but to declare that they desired to take refuge in 
 Buddha, his Law, and his Order. Once they donned the 
 orange - coloured robes of Buddhism and assumed the 
 Eastern form of tonsure, they abandoned their families, went 
 forth as mendicants to live a life of seclusion, meditation, 
 chastity, and moderation in all things. Far and wide the 
 monks were sent, yet never in twos, to preach the fame of 
 Buddha, and proclaim the knowledge that had dawned 
 from out the Sakyan race. Buddha himself journeyed all 
 through the Aryan homes inculcating everywhere his 
 Four Great Truths, his Eightfold Path, and Four Stages 
 leading to Nirvana. To those who sought his help and 
 counsel he told the stories of the good deeds done in 
 former births by good or evil livers, the Karma of which 
 was but working out its results in the joys and sorrows the 
 people suffered. From Magadha to Kapilavastu, from 
 Koi^ala to Videha, his fame went forth : it was soon evident 
 
 1 "The Katha Vatthu : or, Account of Opinion," " written by Tissa, son of 
 Mogali, about the year 250 B.C." — Rhys Davids, "American Lectures," p. 64. 
 
 '^ Professor Bendall, whose search for Sanskrit MSS. in Nepal have yielded such 
 valuable results, informs me that an MS. of the third century a.d., in Kliarosthi 
 character,"^as been found recently by a Russian Consul in Kashgaria. See 
 also J.R.A.S. (April, 1897). 
 
142 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 that a new power had arisen among the Aryan people, 
 and that strange changes would arise from out the new 
 awakened life. At Magadha, the chieftain, Bimbisara, 
 listened to the words of Buddha, and gave him a grove ^ 
 close to his capital. At Kosala the chieftain, Prasenajit, 
 received him at his capital Sravastl,^ and there a wealthy 
 merchant, Anathapindika, purchased land for golden pieces 
 sufficient to cover its extent, and gave it to Buddha, and 
 there the monastery, Jetavana, arose. 
 
 At Kapilavastu he enrolled his son, Rahula, in the Order, 
 but conceded to the request of his father, Suddodhana, that 
 no more would sons be admitted to the Order without the 
 consent of their parents. At first the people cried out 
 against Buddha and his Order, for the system meant the 
 destruction of family life. This Buddha could not help. 
 The Buddhist had to remain celibate, for a woman was, 
 above all things, to be avoided ; she was as " a burning pit 
 of live coals." * At length the Buddha gave way so far as 
 to allow women to enter the Order, and his widowed wife, 
 Yasodhara, was admitted in the fifth year of his travels, 
 and in the following year, Kshema, the wife of Bimbisara. 
 
 In temporal affairs Buddha's influence was- soon felt. 
 In a dispute between the Sakyans and Koliyans respecting 
 their claims to the waters of their boundary river, Kohana, 
 he had to adjudicate. When Ajatasatru* ascended the 
 throne of Magadha — it is said by the murder of his father, 
 Bimbisara — ^he consulted Buddha as to the success of an 
 expedition he was about to undertake against the advanc- 
 ing tribe of Wajjian Turanians, north of the Ganges, and 
 Buddha's answer was that those who remained united, 
 and held to their ancient customs, would retain their 
 independence. 
 
 ^ Veluvana, identified in Cunningham's "Ancient Geography of India," 
 p. 451. 
 " Ibid., p. 407. » " CuUavagga." < 485 to 453 B.C. 
 
BUDDHISM 143 
 
 Towards the end of his career, in the forty-fourth season 
 of his itinerary, Buddha crossed the Ganges at the site of 
 the modern city of Patna. There he found the ministers 
 of Ajatasatru laying the foundations of Pataliputra, the 
 modern Patna, a city destined to become the capital of 
 the rising kingdom of Magadha, and the centre of Indian 
 life for almost one thousand years, a greatness foretold by 
 Buddha. Thence he passed on to Vaisali, the chief town 
 of the Licchavis, whose proud nobles he insulted by 
 receiving, in preference to theirs, the hospitality of the 
 dancing-girl, Ambapall, who refused to give up to her 
 rivals her right to feed the Buddha : " My lords, were you 
 to offer all Vaisali, with its subject territory, I would not 
 give up so honourable a feast." 
 
 From Vaisali he journeyed on to Belugamaka, and 
 thence to Kusinagara, a town eighty miles east of 
 Kapilavastu, and one hundred and twenty north-east of 
 Benares. 
 
 To his favourite disciple, Ananda, he poured forth his 
 last injunctions : " I, too, Ananda, am now grown old and 
 full of years ; my journey is drawing to its close. I have 
 reached my sum of days ; I am turning eighty years of age. 
 Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be 
 ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no 
 external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as to a lamp. 
 Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge 
 to any one besides yourselves." 
 
 To Ananda he also declared : " I have preached the 
 truth, Ananda, without making any distinction of exoteric 
 or esoteric doctrine ; for, in respect of the truths, the 
 Tathagata has no such thing as the clenched fist of a 
 teacher who keeps some things back." ^ 
 
 To his disciples Buddha left no other guide save the 
 Law and Rules of his Order. They were to work out their 
 
 ' Rhys Davids. 
 
144 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 own salvation, ever following the Eightfold Path. His last 
 words for the Mendicant Brotherhood were an exhortation 
 that they should remember how " everything that cometh 
 into existence is ever passing on ; permanency abideth 
 nowhere ; and so strive without ceasing." ^ 
 
 The clearer the simplicity of Buddha's teaching stands 
 out, the more sublime rises the figure of the Eastern sage 
 with saddened face and folded hands, a man born of 
 woman, not divine nor arrogating to himself any divinity, 
 sending forth his plaintive wail that man is for ever shut 
 out from piercing the mysteries of creation so long as he 
 hopes to find the clue through his own limited intuitions of 
 time, space, and cause. 
 
 It was not long after the death of Buddha that strange 
 changes crept over the land as well as over the spirit of his 
 religion. The year before Buddha's death, Ajatasatru, the 
 King of Magadha, conquered Sravasti, the chief town of 
 the Ko^alas and centre of Buddhism, and razed to the 
 ground Kapilavastu. 
 
 Not much more than one hundred and fifty years 
 from the date of the death of Buddha, Chandragupta,^ 
 with whom the successor of Alexander the Great in 
 the East was forced to make a treaty, became King of 
 Magadha, and Emperor of all North India, an empire 
 consolidated by the greatest native ruler India has seen, 
 the famed Asoka, the Constantine of Buddhism, whose 
 \ Ijfe ^ and dee d s have, stra nge to say , foun cl^ no place in 
 th e " Rulers of In di a " Seri es^ Though Asoka adopted the 
 'Buddhist faith, many changes had taken place in it since 
 it had lost the guiding hand of its founder. 
 
 On the death of Buddha, five hundred of his disciples 
 gathered together in a cave, known as the Satapanni Cave, 
 near Rajagriha, where all the teachings, the rules, and 
 
 " Oldenberg, " Buddha," p. 202 ; see also Rhys Davids, " Buddhism," p. 83. 
 ' 315 to 291 B.C. 
 
BUDDHISM 145 
 
 precepts, as remembered by those who had listened to 
 Buddha's words, were collected together, learned, and 
 recited by the whole Council, so that they should ever be 
 remembered. The stricter Buddhists of Ceylon hold that 
 in these Pali books of the three Pitakas, they possess the 
 full doctrines of Buddha as chanted at the first Council. 
 
 One hundred years rolled on during which time but little 
 more is known of the Buddhists. India was on the verge 
 of revolution. The Empire of the Magadhas had not only 
 broken in pieces the separate power of the outlying 
 chieftains, and brought them under its own sway, but low- 
 caste usurpers 1 were to seize the empire for themselves, 
 while the time was approaching when Alexander the 
 Great was to break through the isolation which separated 
 India from communion with the thought and beliefs of the 
 Western world. 
 
 The second great Buddhist Council met at Vaisali, the 
 ancient capital of the Wajjians, in 377 B.C., and signs of 
 coming changes were apparent. The edifice raised by 
 Buddha was to receive the first rude shock which ultimately 
 shattered it to pieces in India, and left its crumbling ruins 
 to form a relic of the past in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam, and 
 an ignoble and debasing refuge for the myriad peoples 
 classed as Buddhists in China and Tibet. The Wajjians 
 of Vaisali, at the Council, strove to formulate ten indulgences, 
 including the right of the Buddhists to receive gold and 
 silver, and over these ten indulgences the Council divided. 
 With the Wajjians the Buddhists of Malwa joined, while 
 the representatives of the more remote outlying Southern 
 and Western countries clung to the older and more 
 orthodox teaching of Buddha. But of the orthodox and un- 
 orthodox parties, eighteen sects arose, all belonging to the 
 
 1 The Sisunaga dynasty of Magadha lasted from 600 B.C. to 370 B.C., and 
 then the Sudra dynasty of the Nandas held possession for fifty years, till the 
 time of Chandragupta, 32 B.C. 
 
 K 
 
146 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Little Vehicle, or Southern school,i and not to the Northern, 
 or Turanian school, which followed what came to be known 
 as the Great Vehicle, a debased form of Buddhism. The 
 unorthodox party subsequently formed a council of their 
 own, known as the Great Council, and by the Southern 
 school their proceedings were denounced as heretical : — 
 
 " They broke up the old scriptures and made a new recension. 
 A discourse put in one place they put in another. 
 
 These monks, who knew not what had been spoken at leng^th. 
 And what had been spoken concisely. 
 What was the obvious, and what the higher meaning. 
 Attached new meaning to new words as if spoken by the Buddha, 
 And destroyed much of the spirit by holding to the shadow of 
 the letter." 2 
 
 Henceforth the history of Buddhism in India no longer 
 touches the life-history of the thought of the people. It 
 merges itself into the political history of the time, being 
 used as a state religion to support the authority and 
 position of emperors whose existence it had made 
 possible. 
 
 In the early burial mounds, such as that of Bharhut, 
 where the freest and most artistic indigenous work in 
 sculpture that India has ever produced is to be found, 
 the bas-reliefs merely depict the good deeds done by 
 Buddha in previous births ; and in the early temples, such 
 as those of the Lomas Rishi, and those at Bhaja, and 
 Karli, between Bombay and Poona, there is no trace of 
 idolatrous worship of Buddha or infusion of debasing 
 superstition or primitive native cults. All is severe and 
 simple, such as Buddha himself might have designed. In 
 
 1 Rhys Davids, J.R.A.S. (1892-3) ; Dutt, " Ancient India," vol. ii. p. 295, 
 where he states that the " Eastern opinions were subsequently upheld by the 
 Buddhists of the Northern (Turanian) school." 
 
 ^ Rhys Davids, "Buddhism," p. 217 (quoting the " Dipavamsa "). 
 
hUDDHISM t47 
 
 the later burial mounds, such as those at Sanchi, some- 
 where about 250 B.C. to the first century A.D., and Amravati, 
 perhaps one hundred years later — domes adorned with all 
 the art which India could furnish forth or bring to her aid 
 from foreign lands — Buddha is fashioned as a god, not 
 man, crowned with a nimbus, guarded by snakes, while 
 near at hand are sculptured trees and snakes all equally 
 entitled to worship. In time the old forms of spirit-worship 
 grew again and claimed the people's superstitious awe. The 
 Soul of man assumed its old place. Buddha became the 
 immaculate offspring of his mother, Maya ; he was enthroned 
 a god in the highest heaven, there to be adored in an out- 
 ward form of worship, more simple in its forms, and more 
 congenial to the monks and laity than the tedious 
 following of his precepts. Bodhisatvas — those enlightened 
 saints who have deemed it best not to follow Buddha's 
 path and gain Nirvana, but allowed their Karma to work 
 so that their good deeds might benefit humanity — were 
 placed side by side with Buddha, and claimed the rever- 
 ence once paid solely to the founder of the Buddhist 
 doctrines. The whole future history of Buddhism in 
 India is the history of the receding of the wave of thought 
 that in the sixth century B.C. had reached its culminating 
 point. The surging force that sent it onward was 
 Brahmanism, and that was a force with strength enough 
 to sweep Buddhism from before its path, and drive it to 
 its natural resting-place amid the Scythian race. The 
 final wave of Brahmanism covered in its course all India, 
 and there it still rests, so that the dove may wing its way 
 to and fro and never find a resting-place from which it can 
 discern any sign that the flood may pass away, and leave the 
 land and people free from its depths of brooding waters. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS. 
 
 While Buddha held aloft the standard of revolt against 
 priestly hierarchy, endeavouring to establish among the 
 people of the land through which he passed a religious 
 order, whose rallying point was a disregard of all dis- 
 tinction founded on race, class, or caste, the Brahman 
 pojver was carrying on the ancient tradition of its 
 own past. 
 
 The Brahmans had been for long, the sole custodians 
 of the treasured wealth of Aryan lore. They had grown 
 to power side by side with kings and chieftains. They 
 held the sacred guardianship of the mysteries of the 
 sacrificial cult, the necessity of which was, from an 
 unknown past, implanted in the very mental fibre of 
 those who gathered round the smoke-ascending incense 
 The power which Buddha strove to eradicate had its roots 
 implanted in the religious, social, and racial instincts of 
 the Aryan folk. So long as this was so, and so long as 
 Brahmanism allowed not its strength to be wholly sapped 
 by the ever - increasing foreign elements with which it 
 was surrounded, its vitality remained unimpaired. 
 
 Down to the present day Brahmanism preserves its 
 power through all the wreck of ages — possibly as a 
 
 148 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 149 
 
 mere . phantom shadow of its past — because those it 
 admits within its ranks acknowledge not only the high 
 claims of the Aryan priesthood to be the custodians of 
 Divine ordinances, but also bow before the laws and 
 customs of caste, which ever tend to preserve them from 
 change in creed, thought, or mode of life. 
 
 Buddhism, viewed from its political aspect, strove to 
 break through those mighty barriers which separated 
 race from race and caste from caste. It was a con- 
 summation which even centuries of advanced thought 
 have been unable to accomplish in the West, even 
 between the neighbouring Celts and Teutons, where 
 none but a Celt feels how deep the separation lies. 
 
 India saw the fatuity of Buddha's efforts, not in the 
 thrusting out of his religion by the Brahmanic power, but 
 in the impossibility for an Asoka, a Sivaji, or Ranjit 
 Singh,! to combine the varied peoples of India into one 
 united whole, capable of sending forth the message that, 
 as their land holds one-fifth of the human race, they can 
 demand a recognition of their right to stand forth as more 
 than a subject people. 
 
 From the extreme north-west, in early days, the Aryans 
 had spread their influence from the sacred Sarasvati to far 
 beyond Magadha in the east, so that the land where they 
 settled became renowned as Aryavarta, " the land of the 
 Aryans," where " the rule of conduct which prevails is 
 authoritative."^ From the Himalayan mountains south 
 to the Vindhya range, over the rich land where the black 
 antelope wanders,* the Brahmans established their sway, 
 
 ' The failure of Akbar is not a case in point. 
 
 2 " Baudhayana," i. I, 2, 9 ; " Vasishta," i. lo. 
 
 ^ Ibid., i. 13; "Baudhayana," i. i, 2, 12. "The Oryx cervicapra selects 
 for its home the well-cultivated rich plains of India only, and is entirely 
 wanting in the sandy, mountainous, or forest districts, which are now, just as 
 in ancient times, the portion of the aboriginal tribes." — Biihier, S.B.E,, vol. 
 xiv. p. 3 [note). 
 
ISO LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 holding that where they dwelt could alone be found 
 " spiritual pre-eminence." ^ Down the valley of the Indus 
 other tribes, such as the Yadava, went and made their 
 settlement in Sind ; others took up their abode in the 
 Panjab, the Land of the Five Rivers. For long the 
 Vindhya range shut out the south from the Aryan advance. 
 As time went on,^ even this geographical barrier to all 
 incursion from the north gave way before the fair-skinned 
 race that spread along the Narbada and Tapti, across the 
 Deccan, so that even before the Christian era a great 
 kingdom — that of the Andhra * — was established between 
 the Krishna and Godavari, with its capital at Amravati, 
 not fifty miles from the eastern sea. As the Aryan people 
 spread to the further east and to the south, the Brahmans 
 followed in the wake of the conquering chiefs, gaining 
 reward in land and wealth for their learning, sacred 
 knowledge, and the right they held to dictate the laws 
 and ordinances of the people. Writing must have been 
 known in those days,* but the Brahmans preferred to hold 
 their sacred texts preserved in their own memories, so that 
 
 ^ " Baudhayana," i. i, 2, 12 ; " Vasishta," i. 13. 
 
 ^ Even earlier than the sixth century B.C. Earth, " Ind. Ant." (1894), 
 p. 246 ; see Bumell quoted, p. 91 ; Nelson, " View of Hindu Law " ; Biihler, 
 S.B.E., vol. ii. p. xxxvi. i " There can be no doubt that the South of India 
 has been conquered by the Aryans, and has been brought within the pale of 
 Brahmanical civilisation . . . long before the authentic history of India begins, at 
 the end of the fourth century B.C." Baden-Powell, J.R.A.S. (1897), p. 247 ; 
 ' ' Study of the Dakhan Villages " : — " At the western extremity the ' Vindhy an ' 
 barrier ceases, some way before the coast is reached, and thus the interesting 
 country of Gujarat is open . . . and once in Gujarat, it would not be difficult 
 to dominate the Narbada valley, and to extend to the Tapti valley, to Berar, 
 and to the Dakhan." 
 
 ' S.B.E., vol. ii. p. xxxvi. 
 
 ^ For the Northern alphabet, known as Kharosthi, used in Asoka's inscrip- 
 tions, and on the Graeco-Indian coins, and derived from the Aramaic alphabet, 
 used by the Achaemenlan dynasty, ruUng N.W. of India from 550 B.C. to the 
 time of Alexander the Great, 327 B.C., as well as for the Brahmi alphabets, 
 derived from Phoenician traders, see BUhler, " Indische Palseographie," p. 19, 
 (t siq. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 151 
 
 as far as possible — for Aryans other than the Brahmans 
 claimed a right to be taught the texts — their power and 
 influence should remain in their own hands. 
 
 Trained as the memories of the Brahmans were — and 
 even yet there are Brahmans able to repeat the Vedic text 
 of their own school by heart, and others who learn the 
 whole grammar of Panini, with all the "Vartikhas," or 
 explanation of Katyayana, and the interpolations of the 
 "Mahabhashya" of Patanjali — it would have been impos- 
 sible thus to preserve, free from corruption, the long prose 
 ramblings of the Brahmans, and the later sacred literature. 
 At every centre of Brahmanism there were schools for 
 imparting instructions in the sacred texts, and from these 
 schools trained Brahmans went forth to act as priests, 
 advisers, and counsellors of kings and chieftains, or to 
 become teachers of their particular recension of the " Veda," 
 and subsidiary treatises founded thereon. The rules for 
 the Vedic sacrifices, for the domestic rites, for the con- 
 struction of the altars, and for the duties and customs of 
 the Aryans, were therefore reduced to the most concise 
 and condensed form possible, and strung together in 
 leading aphorisms, or " Sutras," so that they might be easily 
 carried in the memory. These " Sutras " were not held, like 
 the previous literature, to be of Divine revelation. They were 
 professedly compiled by human authors for the convenience 
 of teaching the essential elements of the subjects they 
 expound. So there grew to be different " Sutras " ascribed 
 to different authors, who followed in their teaching one or 
 other of the recensions of the four " Vedas " preserved in 
 their family.^ 
 
 1 See Max Muller, letter to Prof. Henry Morley, S.B.E., vol. ii. (Preface) 
 pp. ix., X. The "Sutras" relating to the Vedic sacrifices were known as the 
 "Srauta Siitras"; those of the domestic rites, the "Grihya Sutras"; those 
 relating to laws, the " Dharma Sutras " ; and those relating to the building of 
 the altars, which dealt with geometry, the "Sulva Sutras." The whole four 
 being known as the " Kalpa Siitras.'' 
 
152 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 It may be safe to take the whole of this Sutra period as 
 extending from the fifth to the first century B.c.i 
 
 One Brahmanic family, known as the Manavas, followed 
 their own recension of the "Black Yajur Veda," and though 
 the Sutra Aphorisms of their laws are now lost, they are often 
 quoted, and from them the later metrical law book, popu- 
 larly known as the " Laws of Manu," was compiled. The 
 earliest work in which an account of the laws and customs of 
 the Aryans is to be found, is that known as the " Aphorisms 
 of Gautama," a Brahman law-giver, who followed the 
 recension of the " Sama Veda " of his own school. Gautama 
 was succeeded by Baudhayana, whose teaching is accepted 
 in India, south of the Vindhyan range ^ of mountains, after 
 whom came Apastamba in the fifth century, B.C.,* who, 
 like Baudhayana, followed the " Black Yajur Veda," and 
 is of authority in the south.* The school of the fourth 
 great law compiler, Vasishta,^ who followed the ^'Rig 
 Veda," was probably that in vogue in a school of North 
 India.^ From the Brahmanic codes of law, it can be 
 clearly seen that, wherever the Brahmans spread over India, 
 north of the Vindhya, and south to the Godavari, the ideal 
 aimed at, whatever the practice may have been, was to 
 preserve the sharp distinction between the Aryan race and 
 the aboriginal inhabitants ; to stereotype for ever the 
 traditions that had set the priestly clans as custodians of 
 
 ^ Max Miiller fixes the date of the Sutra period between 600 and 200 B.C. 
 Biihler places the origin of the Apastambiya school probably "in the last five 
 centuries before the banning of the Christian era." — S.B.E., vol. ii. p. xviii. 
 See "Jaina Sutras," p. 30; "Encyclopaedia Britannica," p. 279; "Ind. Ant." 
 (1894), p. 247 ; Jolly, " Recht und Sitte," pp. 3, 6. 
 
 ""There are also some faint indications that the Andhra country is the 
 particular district to which Baudhayana belonged." — Biihler, S.B.E., vol. xiv. 
 p. xliii. 
 
 ' Ibid., vol. ii. p. 43. * Ibid. 
 
 * For connection with the Vasishta of the "Rig Veda," see S.B.E., vol. xiv. 
 p. 12. 
 
 " Ibid., vol. xiv. p. 22. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 153 
 
 the Divine decrees and expounders of the laws and customs 
 of the people. 
 
 The dark-skinned Sudras,^ the aboriginal settlers, were 
 outside the Aryan pale. If the Sudra " assumes a position 
 equal to that of a twice-born man in sitting, in lying 
 down, in conversation, or on the road, he shall undergo 
 corporal punishment." ^ 
 
 No pride of conquering race, or pride of white-skinned 
 birth could run higher than it did in India over two 
 thousand years ago. Should a Sudra dare raise his eyes 
 to an Aryan woman, the law declared that he should be 
 slain or mutilated. If he listened to a recitation of the 
 Vedic texts his ears were to be filled with molten lac or 
 tin ; if he repeated the sacred words his tongue was to be 
 cut out ; if he remembered them, " his body shall be slit 
 in twain." ^ The penalty for the slaughter of a Sudra was 
 the same as that for killing " a flamingo, a crow, an owl, a 
 frog, or a dog." * Elsewhere a higher price was placed on 
 the dark man's skin, the penalty for slaying a Sudra being 
 placed at ten cows.^ The sole object for which the Sudra 
 was created was servitude ; yet contact with him was so 
 abhorred that " a Brahman who dies with the food of a 
 Siidra in his stomach will become a village pig in his next 
 birth, or be born in the family of that Sudra." ^ Food 
 touched by a Sudra becomes unfit for eating.^ Should an 
 Aryan, when eating, even be touched by a Siidra, he had 
 to abandon his food.^ 
 
 ' " Nous ne saurions discerner si la population comprise sous la denomination 
 de Sudras ^tait uniquement compos^e de ces ^I^ments aborigtees qui rencon- 
 trerent les Aryens en immigrant du nord - ouest dans I'Inde, ou si elles 
 englobaient des ^I^ments melangfe. La point est secondaire. D'Aryens a 
 Sudras il y a certainement a I'origine une opposition de race, qu'elle soil plus 
 ou moins absolue." — Senart, "Les Castes dans I'Inde," p. 146. 
 
 2 " Gautama," xii. 7 ; " Apastamba," S.B.E., vol. ii. 10, 27, 16 ; " Manu," 
 viii. 281. 
 
 ' " Gautama," xii. 6. * " Baudhayana," i. 10, 19, 6. 
 
 ' "Baudhayana," i. 10, 19, 2. ' " Vasishta," vi. 27. 
 
 ' "Apastamba," i. 5, 16, 22. ' li/id., i. 5, 17, i ; ii. 2, 3, 4. 
 
IS4 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Apastamba,^ however, also declares that a Sudra may 
 prepare the food of a householder if he is under the 
 superintendence of men of the three higher castes. 
 Gautama,^ while laying down that the duty of a Sudra 
 is to serve the three higher castes, to wear their cast-off 
 shoes and garments, to eat the remnants of their food, 
 shows that the rules of class differences had not in his time 
 crystallised themselves into the strict laws of the pro- 
 fessional and trade castes of later times. His laws state 
 that the Sudra may live by mechanical arts. The laws of 
 Manu, some three hundred years later, declare that a 
 Sudra could only support himself by handicraft when he 
 was unable to find service under a twice-born Aryan, or 
 when he was in danger of dying from hunger. 
 
 From intermarriage, and from all fellowship and contact 
 with the Sudras, the three Aryan classes of Brahmans, and 
 Kshatriyas, and Vai^yas were, above all things, exhorted 
 to abstain. The Sudra race was a burial-ground,' there- 
 fore "let one not give advice to a Sudra, nor eat what 
 remains from his table, nor let him explain the holy law to 
 such a man, nor order him (to perform) a penance." * The 
 twice-born Aryan who " declares the law to such a man, 
 and he who instructs him in (the mode of) expiating (sin), 
 sinks together with that very man into the dreadful hell." 
 
 The practical tendency of such rules was to exclude the 
 great mass of the population from entering into combination, 
 or alliance, with the Aryan race to form a new nationality.* 
 
 1 " Apastamba,'' x. SS-67. 
 
 " See also Ibid., x. 40, where a Sudra of eighty years of age was to be 
 honoured. 
 
 2 Ibid., i. 3, 9, 9 ; " Vasishta,'' xviii. II. 
 
 * "Vasishta," xviii. 14, 15 ; " Manu," iv. 80-81. 
 
 ' " The Indian caste system is a highly developed expression of the primitive 
 principle of taboo, which came into play when the Aiyans first came into peace- 
 ful contact with the platyrhine race, which we may provisionally call Dravidian. 
 This principle derived its initial force from the sense of difference of race as 
 indicated by difference of colour, and its great subsequent development has 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 155 
 
 The division between race and race, thus stereotyped by 
 the Brahmanic laws, was to penetrate even further as the 
 tendency became stronger for each separate group to 
 formulate for itself its own peculiar laws and customs, and 
 to engage only in such occupations as were hereditary. 
 Intercommunication, eating or drinking with members of 
 outside groups was surrounded with the same Divine 
 sanction as the Brahmans fulminated against those of the 
 Aryan race who mingled, ate, or drank with the darker- 
 skinned Sudras. 
 
 The offspring of a Sudra with a Brahman woman became 
 a Chandala,! whom " it is sinful to touch ... to speak to, 
 or to look at." 2 The son of a Brahman and a Sudra 
 woman is as " that of one who, though living, is as impure 
 as a corpse." * By the Brahmanic law the varied peoples 
 and races of India sprang from the forbidden union between 
 those of a different class. The offspring, for instance, of 
 a Sudra and Vai^ya became a Magadha,* with whom the 
 Yavanas, the lonians, or Bactrian Greeks were classed 
 likewise as descendants of a Sudra woman. 
 
 been due to a series of fictions by which differences of occupations, differences 
 of religion, changes of habitat, trifling divergences from the established standard 
 of custom, have been assumed to denote corresponding differences of blood, and 
 have thus given rise to the formation of an endless variety of endogamous 
 groups." — Risley, ' ' Study of Ethnology in India" {Anthropological Journal, \%<)i, 
 p. 260). Mr J. Kennedy, in a peculiarly instructive review of " The Tribes and 
 Castes of the North- Western Provinces and Oudh," by W. Crooke, has sum- 
 marised the results of Mr Crooke's laborious work by his conclusion : — " The 
 cephalic index proves that the whole population has a large intermixture of 
 Dravidian blood ; the nasal index shows, with equal clearness, that the higher 
 castes are of purer blood than the lower. " The question of caste and nationality 
 therefore reduces itself, according to Mr Kennedy, to this position : — " We know 
 on historic and linguistic grounds that the Dravidian population which covered 
 Northern India were invaded at various times by Aryan and Turanian tribes. 
 These invaders were exogamous, and intermarried freely with the aborigines ; 
 they subsequently formed themselves into endogamous groups, and the whole 
 social hierarchy now professes to be based on a superiority of descent." — 
 J.R.A.S., July 1897. 
 
 1 " Vasishta," xviii. I. = " Apastamba," ii. I, 2, S. 
 
 8 "Vasishta," xviii. 10. ■* " Eaudhayana," i,^9, 7. 
 
156 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 To Baudhayana,! the inhabitants of Malwa, Behar, 
 Guzarat, the Deccan, Sind, and the South Panjab were all 
 of mixed origin and not pure Aryans. For an Aryan 
 who visited the people of the Panjab, those of South India, 
 or those of Bengal, a penance had to be performed ; 
 while " he commits sin through his feet who travels to the 
 country of the Kalingas.^ This prohibition against visiting 
 tribes held to be degraded, such as the Kalingas, the people 
 dwelling south of Orissa to the mouths of the Krishna, 
 shows clearly how the Aryan law-givers strove, with 
 what at first sight seems an infatuation almost suicidal, to 
 curb any tendency towards cohesion of the varied people, 
 or intrusion of outside influence which might have infused 
 the old with new life. The power of these Brahmanic laws 
 in their own sphere was no mere phantom. Down to to-day, 
 no Brahman can dwell among the nations of the West 
 without risk of forfeiting his social rank, or without being 
 obliged to perform costly and irksome penances on his 
 return home. The history of this subject is dismal, and 
 would be trivial were it not that it forms the turning-point 
 for the future of India. It shows how the Aryans spread 
 among inferior races in numbers insufficient to exterminate 
 them, or drive them from before their path, as was done 
 by the Aryans in America or Australia. They dared not 
 chance the risk of intermingling with them, and depend on 
 their own physique and constant recruitment from new 
 arrivals to preserve their own racial characteristics pre- 
 dominant. As a consequence, the Brahmans followed the 
 only course open to them if they were to preserve their 
 own national characteristics, and impress their language 
 and culture, such as it was, over the lands where they 
 spread. They had to hold themselves, as far as possible, 
 free from any contaminating influence which might pro- 
 bably have undermined their very existence as a more 
 
 ' " Baudhayana," i. I, 2. ^ Ibid., i. i, 2, 15. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 157 
 
 gifted, more refined race, with higher developed mental 
 tendencies than the dark-skinned people with whom they 
 found themselves in contact. As the Brahmans spread in 
 ever-diminishing numbers to the extreme south, into Bengal 
 and Orissa, the disaster followed which the race foresaw, 
 and in their own wisdom sought to provide against, for in 
 these lands it would often be impossible to discern how 
 those dark-skinned Brahmans, who claim Aryan ancestry, 
 have preserved any of the typical Aryan characteristics ; 
 they have, in fact, been swamped by intermarriage with 
 other peoples.! 
 
 One very important statement of Baudhayana^ shows 
 how confusion had already sprung up in his time, and how 
 carefully it had to be guarded against. He states that in 
 the south the custom was for Brahmans to eat in the 
 company of one uninitiated,* " to eat with one's own wife, 
 to eat stale food, or marry the daughter of a maternal 
 uncle or of a paternal aunt." He also states that in the 
 north, Brahmans, as they do now in Kashmir,* were wont 
 to deal in wool. There were also those who drank 
 spirituous liquors — an evil which is becoming all too 
 prevalent in India — and of which Apastamba declared, " A 
 drinker of spirituous liquor shall drink exceedingly hot 
 liquor so that he dies." ^ 
 
 Another custom of the northern Brahmans was to go to 
 
 ' Senart refers to Mr Nesfield in the following words : — " La communaut^ de 
 profession est, ^ ses yeux, le fondement de la caste — il exclut d^lib&^raent 
 toute influence de race, de religion. C'est pour lui illusion puie que de dis- 
 tinguer dans I'lnde des courants de populations diverses, aryens et aborigines, 
 etc."—" Les Castes dans I'lnde," p. 1 86. 
 
 '^ " Baudhayana," i. i, ii, 3. 
 
 ' " A Rome il suffit de la presence d'un Stranger une sacrifice de la gens 
 pour oflfenser les dieux. La Sudra est une ^trangere elle n'appartenent pas a 
 la race qui par I'investiture du cordon sacre, nait a la plenitude de la vie 
 religieuse." — Senart, "Castes dans I'lnde," p. 212. 
 
 * Biihler, "Baudhayana," note to i. i, 2, 4. 
 
 6 "Apastamba," i. 9, 25, 3. 
 
1 58 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 sea.^ Another was " to follow the trade of arms," a custom 
 which at the time of the Mutiny led to fatal results. With 
 respect to this northern custom of Brahmans becoming 
 warriors, Gautama held that a Brahman might only use 
 arms if his life were threatened, while Apastamba declared 
 that a Brahman shall not take a weapon into his hand 
 though he be only desirous of examining it.^ The follow- 
 ing of any other practices in any country except where 
 they prevail is, according to Baudhayana,* a sin. The 
 standard rule of conduct was that which obtained in 
 Aryavarta.* Gautama, on the other hand, held that the 
 laws of countries, castes, or families, are of authority if 
 they are not opposed to the teachings of the " Vedas," and 
 subsidiary sacred books ; while, at the same time, " culti- 
 vators, traders, herdsmen, money-lenders, and artisans have 
 authority to lay down rules for their respective classes. * 
 
 From the time of Warren Hastings the Brahmanic law 
 books consulted — or such of them as were known to the 
 Brahmans — have been held to set forth the laws and 
 customs of the people of India. As a matter of fact, the 
 great mass of the population has never heard of the 
 sacred law books of the Aryans.® These law treatises 
 were separately compiled as the received tradition of a 
 school or class of Brahmanical families, who strove, by 
 all means at their command, to inculcate their teaching 
 among the community, and impress the importance of 
 their observances at the courts of the kings or chieftains 
 with whom they had gained influence. As for the mass 
 of the people, the dark-skinned aborigines, they could 
 
 ' " Apastamba," ii. I, 2, l. A custom which he afterwards declares entails 
 loss of caste. 
 
 " Ibid., i. lo, 29, 6. ' " Baudhayana," i. I, 2, 5. 
 
 * " Baudhayana," i. I, 2, II, 12. ' " Gautama," xi. 21. 
 
 8 " That any class of Hindus, sive perhaps the Manavas, at any time re- 
 garded the " Manava Dharma Sastra " as a law book of paramount authority, 
 no person who has the most elementary knowledge of thingsHindu can for a 
 moment suppose. "- -Nelson, "View of Hindu life," p. 13. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 159 
 
 preserve their own habits and customs so long as they 
 remained in a servile condition. When these non-Aryan 
 folk became of social importance, or wealthy enough to 
 demand recognition of their position, they themselves 
 tended to rise to an Aryan status and amalgamate their 
 customs, cults, and superstitions, on such terms as the 
 Brahmans were inclined, from prudence, to offer, with the 
 laws and religions of the ruling class.^ 
 
 On the Brahman, as well as on the king, the whole moral 
 welfare of the world was held to depend.^ So the king 
 chose as a " purohita " a Brahman austere and righteous, and 
 of a noble family.® The man who raised his hand against 
 a Brahman was declared to be shut out from Heaven for 
 one hundred years.* If he struck a Brahman he lost 
 Heaven for one thousand years. The shedder of a 
 Brahman's blood was debarred from entering Heaven for 
 the number of years to be counted by the particles of 
 dust held together by the shed blood.^ 
 
 According to Baudhayana,^ " the murderer of a Brahman 
 shall practise the following vow during twelve years : 
 " Carrying a skull and the foot of a bedstead (instead of a 
 staff) ; dressed in the hide of an ass ; staying in the forest ; 
 making a dead man's skull his flag ; he shall cause a hut to 
 be built in a burial - ground and reside there ; going to 
 seven houses in order to beg food ; while proclaiming his 
 deed, he shall support life with what he gets there, and 
 shall fast if he obtains nothing." Vasishta '^ held that the 
 expiation for Brahman murder was the burning by the 
 murderer of his own body piecemeal. A milder penance ^ 
 
 1 See Nesfield, "Caste Systems," pp. 171-2. 
 
 ''■ "Gautama," viii. I : — They "uphold the moral order in the world." 
 
 s Ibid., xi. 12. ^ Ibid., xxi. 20-21. 
 
 5 " Baudhayana," iii. i, 2, 3. ' Ibid., ii. i, i, 3. 
 
 ' "Vasishta," xx. 25-26. 
 
 8 " Les r^dacteurs des livres ont simplement soude en ce systeme des faits 
 isoles, plus ou moins exceptionnels qu'un ideal de perfection rarement r^alis&," 
 — Senart, " Castes dans I'Inde." p. 126. 
 
i6o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 set forth by the same law-giver for the murderer was: "Let 
 him fight for the sake of the king or for the sake of the 
 Brahmans, and let him die in battle with his face turned to 
 the foe." 1 
 
 There are clear evidences, however, that between the 
 four ideal classes no insurmountable barriers had grown 
 up at the time of the earliest law-giver, Gautama,^ who 
 fnay be ascribed to before the sixth century. His laws 
 lay down the rule that a Brahman, in time of distress, 
 might assume the occupation of a Kshatriya, Vai^ya,^ or 
 Sudra,* though in no case should he mix with, or eat with, 
 a Sudra. The ordinary duties of a Brahman were, how- 
 ever, held to be sacrificing for others, accepting gifts, and 
 teaching.5 Apastamba^ similarly allowed a Brahman to 
 trade, although, ordinarily, trade was not lawful for a 
 Brahman. Vasishta held, that those who were unable to 
 live by their own occupations might adopt those of the 
 lower classes, but never those of a higher class. 
 
 The one great permanent division between the Brahmans, 
 Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras was the rite of initiation 
 into the Aryan brotherhood. This was the consecration, 
 in accordance with the texts of the " Veda," of a male who 
 " is desirous of, and can make use of, sacred knowledge." ^ 
 It was this initiation which made the three higher classes 
 twice-born. It excluded Sudras and women from ever 
 taking part in the religious life of the Aryans ; the 
 knowledge sufficient for them was dancing, singing, and 
 such arts. 
 
 The initiation for a Br hman took place from the age 
 
 1 "Vasishta," XX. 27. 
 
 ""Apastamba" is placed by Buhler (S.B.E., vol. ii.p. 43) two hundred 
 years before the third century B.C. 
 3 " Gautama," vii. 6-7. 
 
 * Ibid., vii. 22-23 ; " Manu," x. Si ; " Yajn.," iii. 35. 
 5 "Vasishta," ii. 14. 
 
 * "Apastamba," i. 7, 20, 10. 
 ' Ibid. i. I, I, 8. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS i6i 
 
 of eight to sixteen. He was then invested with the girdle 
 of sacred grass and taught the holy verse to Savitri. The 
 age of initiation for a Kshatriya was from eleven to twenty, 
 when he received a girdle made from a bow-string. The 
 age for a Vai^ya was from twelve to twenty-two ; his girdle 
 was of wool. Before the initiation took place the neophyte 
 was viewed as a SQdra, and as such was presumed to act, 
 speak, and eat as he felt inclined.^ After the initiation the 
 twice-born Aryan passed from the care of his father to the 
 care of a teacher, or"" guru," with whom he dwelt for the 
 purpose of being instructed in his sacred duties, for as 
 Apastamba held : " Virtue and sin do not go about and 
 say, ' Here we are ; ' nor do gods, Gandharvas, or Manes 
 say, • This is virtue, that is sin.' But that is virtue, the 
 practice of which wise men of the three twice-born castes 
 praise ; what they blame is sin." ^ 
 
 Twelve years was the time fixed ^ for a student to remain 
 under tutelage. This was the time required for learning 
 by rote one of the " Vedas," so that if the four " Vedas " had 
 to be learned, the time had to be extended to forty-eight 
 years.* This rule was, no doubt, an injunction which it 
 would be meritorious to obey. It was no doubt followed in 
 many 'cases, yet, like nearly all the laws of the Brahmanic 
 order, it was an ideal counsel of perfection, to be modified 
 according to circumstances ; one law-giver declaring that 
 studentship might last only so long as it was necessary 
 to impart the sacred instruction. During his training the 
 pupil should remain restrained in all his acts, be chaste, 
 refrain from all spirituous liquor,^ and live only on food 
 obtained by begging. 
 
 The student, during his pupilage, was under the absolute 
 
 1 " Gautama," ii. I. » " Apastamba," i. 7, 20, 6, 8. 
 
 3 "Gautama," ii. 45. 
 
 ^ "Apastamba," i. I, 2, 12; " Manu," iii. I ; "Gautama," ii. 46. 
 5 "A Brahman always, a Kshatriya and Vaisya during studentship." — 
 Ibid., ii. 20 {note). 
 
 L 
 
i62 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 control of his Guru, who was to be revered and reverenced 
 as holy. Apastamba, while explaining that a Brahman 
 could alone be chosen as a teacher, clearly shows that no 
 great rigidity of class distinction had taken place up to his 
 time, for he allows that, in a matter of such great import- 
 ance as that of choosing a spiritual preceptor, a Brahman 
 might, in times of distress, study under a Kshatriya or 
 Vaisya.^ More striking still is the injunction that the 
 Brahman, " during his pupilship must walk behind such a 
 teacher. Afterwards the Brahman shall take precedence 
 of his Kshatriya or Vai^ya teacher." 
 
 The course of study ended, the Guru received a fee, and 
 the pupil underwent a new rite, that of ceremonial bathing, 
 a ceremony that set him free to face the world. He then 
 became a householder, and took to himself a wife. Three 
 wives 2 were allowed for a Brahman,* two for a Kshatriya, 
 one for a Vaisya. 
 
 By all Aryan householders there were forty great sacri- 
 fices to be performed, including the nineteen domestic 
 ceremonies, the seven Paka sacrifices, the seven Havir 
 sacrifices, and the seven Soma sacrifices. Once the sacred 
 fire was lighted in the householder's home,* his chief daily 
 duty was to worship the gods, the manes, the goblins and 
 sages of old, to daily recite such portions of the " Veda " as 
 
 ^ "Apastamba," ii. 2^ 4, 25-26. 
 
 * The wife should not belong to the same Gotra, nor be a Sapinda relative 
 of his mother." — Gobhila, "Grihya Sutras," iii. 4, 4, 5. "Gautama," 
 xiv. 13; "Manu," v. 60, ii. 4, 5 ; Jolly, " Recht und Sitte," p. 62:— "Da 
 diese exogamische Princip schon in den Grihyasutras auftiitt so besteht kein 
 Grund an den hohen Alter desselben zu zweifeln wenn die Fotderung hinsieht 
 sich und erst allmahlig gesteigert haben." The term "caste," as used in 
 the "Census Report," p. 182, is defined as "the perpetuation of status or 
 function by inheritance and endogamy." 
 
 3 "The Census of India" (1891), p. 254, states of polygamy that "the 
 extent to which it exists among the Brahmanic section of the people must be 
 very slight." 
 
 « " Gautama," v. 7. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAhMANS 163 
 
 he had learned from his Guru, and as far as possible perform 
 the sacrifices. Yet, although he performed these duties, it 
 was declared that, " all the four ' Vedas ' together with the 
 six Angas and sacrifices, bring no blessing to him who is 
 deficient in good conduct." ^ 
 
 The whole forty sacrifices were vain if the Aryan house- 
 holder was not endowed with the eight good qualities of the 
 soul. These eight good qualities comparable to the Eightfold 
 Path of Buddha are: Compassion on all creatures, for- 
 bearance, freedom from anger, purity, quietism, auspicious- 
 ness, freedom from avarice, and freedom from covetousness.* 
 The path for the Aryan was made easy ; he had but to take 
 the place allotted to him by the Brahmans and all would 
 go well with him. " He, forsooth, who is sanctified by a few 
 only of these forty sacraments, and whose soul is endowed 
 with the eight excellent qualities, will be united with 
 Brahma, and will dwell in his Heaven." * 
 
 The guest was ever to be welcomed in the Aryan home- 
 stead, honour being first paid to old age, then to learning, 
 after which followed in due order, birth, occupation, rela- 
 tions, and lastly, wealth. When life was drawing to its 
 close* the householder passed out from amid his people 
 to take upon himself the fourth stage of life, and prepare 
 his soul for its final doom. He then became either a 
 hermit {yaikhanas), living in the forest on roots and fruits, 
 practising austerities,^ yet still keeping up the sacred fire, 
 and worshipping the gods, the Brahmans, the forefathers, 
 men and goblins, or else he passed at once into the last 
 stage of all, that of the ascetic sage {bhikshu). The ascetic 
 
 ' " Vasishta," vi. 4. 
 
 ^ See " Apastamba," i. 8, 23, 6. 
 
 ' See Hopkins, ' ' Rel. of India,'' p. 255. 
 
 * "Gautama," iii. I ; "Vasishta," vii. 3; " Baudhayana," ii. 10, 17, 2, for 
 the student after his studentship directly assuming the life of a hermit or 
 ascetic. 
 
 5 " Baudhayana," ii 10, 17. 
 
i64 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 sage^ was to be dead to all around him. He entered 
 the haunts of men but to beg for food, and then only 
 when all others had finished eating. He was merely to 
 wear a rag to cover his nakedness, and to have no 
 regard to either his temporal or spiritual welfare. For 
 him the scene was ended and was fading into the dimness 
 of the past. 
 
 So every man's lot in life was mapped out by the 
 Brahmans. Those enfolded within the twice-born Aryan 
 ranks were stamped for all eternity as separated from the 
 Sudra^ and far-removed alien races. Rules forbidding 
 intermarriage, eating and drinking, or habits of social 
 intercourse between the ever-increasing divisions among 
 the people were, under Brahmanic guidance, given the 
 sanctity of Divine ordinances. As with the sacrificial rites, 
 customs that had sprung from principles underlying all 
 primitive social life became stereotyped and preserved for 
 ever, as sacred and inviolable laws of caste. 
 
 The Aryans of Vedic times were divided into their tribes, 
 and clans, and groups of families.^ The great binding tie 
 of the family was descent from some common ancestor. 
 The sacrifice was alone for the benefit of the group that 
 held together in the very closest bonds of descent from the 
 same blood. No one outside of these bonds could partake 
 of the sacrificial feast* The feast became a sign of relation- 
 ship, and the very act of eating — among primitive people 
 restricted to the family for whom the food is laboriously 
 
 ' "Gautama," iii. 
 
 ''Zimmer, "Alt. Ind. Leben.," p. 204; Caldwell, "Gram, of Dravidian 
 Languages," p. 112: — "Whatever may have been the origin of the word 
 ' Sudra,' it cannot be doubted that it was extended in course of time to all who 
 occupied or were reduced to a dependent condition ; whilst the name ' Dasyu ' 
 or ' Mleccha ' came to be the appellation of the unsubdued non-Aryanised 
 tribes." 
 
 = Baden-Powell, " Ind. VUl. Com.," 194, 206. 
 
 * " A Rome il sufEt de la presence d'un Stranger au sacrifice de la gens pour 
 offenser les dieux." — Senart, " Castes dans I'Inde," p. 214. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 165 
 
 acquired, and carried on with a reserve and secrecy which 
 civilisation but slowly breaks down — became surrounded 
 with greater importance and significance. It grew to be 
 a sign of blood-fellowship. The drinking of water together 
 typified a family union ; the accepting of salt made the 
 accepter, for the time, one with the sib of him from whom 
 it was accepted. The prohibitions and restrictions that 
 hemmed round intermarriage were founded on primitive 
 customs. In savage life, in many cases, female infanticide 
 is a common, if not a necessary, custom, when food 
 is hard to obtain. From this cause it is difficult, if not 
 impossible to find a wife within the clan or family ; ^ one 
 has to be stolen or bought from an outside group more 
 favourably circumstanced. The group possessing female 
 children naturally looked upon them as valuable articles of 
 merchandise. 
 
 The tendency was to place strong restrictions on these 
 females being acquired or married by young men of their 
 own group. Robbery of a bride can only take place from 
 a hostile tribe, the purchase of a bride in primitive society 
 only by barter with a friendly tribe. The principle would 
 thus be soon established that a marriage could only take 
 place outside a specified group,^ and within the limits of 
 a .nore extended group. 
 
 These primitive restrictions as to communality and 
 connubuism are at the very foundation of the divisions 
 which separate the different castes in India from one 
 another at the present day. They grew deeper as the 
 racial and class divisions became of greater import in the 
 
 ^ " Au temoignage de Plutarque les Romains dans la p&iode ancienne n'^pou- 
 saient jamais de femmes deleur Sang." — Senart, "Castes dans I'lnde," p. 209. 
 
 ^ " Vielleicht ist die Exogamie uberhaupt zuerst bei den Rajputen (Kshat- 
 triyas) aufgekommen, bei denen sie sich, wie dies Sir A. Lyall anziehend 
 schildert ('Asiatic Studies,' pp. 219-21) in Rajputana in verbindung mit den 
 noch jetzt ubiichen Schein raub und dem ehemaligen Frauenraub und der 
 Geschlechter verfassung noch in ihren urspriinglichsten Form studieren lasst," 
 —Jolly, " Recht und Sitte," p. 63. 
 
i66 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 social life of the people under the fostering care of the 
 Brahmanic hierarchy. In the books of law and domestic 
 custom,! the limits within which the twice-born may marry 
 within their own groups are restricted^ more and more 
 between those where no traces of common descent from 
 accepted ancestors, saintly or heroic, can be recognised ; just 
 as among the lower races intermarriage is forbidden 
 between those who trace their genealogy from the same 
 animal, or totem.' 
 
 So in the present day, although marriage is forbidden 
 between members of the varied groups into which the 
 people of India have been subdivided under the persistent 
 pressure of the hierarchial pretensions, yet, within these 
 groups, marriage has its exogamous limits.* 
 
 In the metrical law book, ascribed to the fabled Manu, 
 "First-born of the Creator," composed at a late date, probably 
 about the commencement of the Christian era, the law of 
 marriage within the caste is stated to be in the northern 
 
 ^ "Manu," iii. 5; "Apastamba," ii. 5, ii, 15; "Gobhila,'' iii. 4, 3-5; 
 "Vishnu," xxiv. 9 ; " Baudhayana," i. I, 2, 3. In " Recht und Sitte," Jolly 
 gives the full reference to the literature of the subject. Grierson, " Bihar 
 Peasant Life," § 1354. 
 
 2 Hopkins, " Rel. of India," p. 270. 
 
 ' Risley ("Caste Systems of N.W. Provinces and Oudh"), in discussing 
 Nesfield's statement that "function, and function alone, has determined the 
 formation of the endogamous groups which in India are called castes," pro- 
 pounds his theory, that "community of race, and not, as has been frequently 
 argued, community of function, is the real determining principle, the true 
 causa causarum, of the ' caste system ' " (p. 254). " In Bengal proper, castes 
 with a platyrhine index have totemistic exogamous divisions " (p. 253). " The 
 Brahmanical system which absolutely prohibits marri^e within the gotra" 
 (p- 245)- 
 
 * " Differences of religious practice, within the limits of Hinduism, do not 
 necessarily affect thenar connubii." — Risley, p. 241, he. cit. "In Southern 
 India differences of religion (Vaishnavism, Saivism, etc.), and even narrower 
 divisions, are a bar to marriage between members of what is strictly called the 
 same caste." — Burnell, note to "Manu," iii. 12-13. -S^e Grierson, " Bihar 
 Peasant Life," § 1354, for the custom of the Soti Brahmans of East Tirhut 
 keeping registers of genealogical descent, and giving certificates of lawful 
 marriage to show that "the patres are not within prohibited degrees of affinity." 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 167 
 
 country where the rules were in vogue as follows : " A 
 damsel who is neither a Sapinda on the mother's side, nor 
 belongs to the same family {gotrd) on the father's side, is 
 recommended to twice-born men for wedlock and conjugal 
 union." 1 According to the two great commentators of 
 Manu, Medhatithi and Kulluka, the bride must be one 
 " between whose father's and the bridegroom's family no 
 blood relationship is traceable." 2 Buhler further expands 
 the meaning by stating that it is very probable that the full 
 meaning of the text is, " that in the case of Brahmanas, 
 intermarriage between families descended from the same 
 Rishi, and in case of other Aryans, between families bearing 
 the same name or known to be connected, are forbidden." 
 It is sufficiently clear that the people were subdividing up 
 into groups, separated from each other by restrictions in- 
 evitably tending to prevent the creation of any national 
 life or spirit, whereby social, sectarian, and racial distinctions 
 might become obliterated or give place to higher ideals. 
 From violation of the laws of marriage, from intermarriage 
 or illicit union of members of the original four theoretical 
 groups, that of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vai^yas, and Sudras, 
 it was held that the confusion of castes had arisen as the 
 offspring had to be relegated to inferior positions, there to 
 intermarry and form new sub-groups. The law book of 
 Manu,* having described the baser castes which had been 
 created from the abhorred irregular union between members 
 of the four castes, proceeds to point out how to each caste 
 there were specific functions. " These races," he declares, 
 "which originate in a confusion of the castes, and have 
 been described according to their fathers and mothers, may 
 be known by their occupations, whether they conceal or 
 
 1 "Manu," iii. 5 (S.B.E., vol. xxv.). See, as mentioned in the note to 
 "Apastamba," ii. S, II, 15-16 ; "Gautama," iv. 2-5 ; " Vasishta," viii. 1-2 ; 
 "Baudhayana," ii. 11, 37 ; " Yajn.," i. 53. 
 
 2 Note to " Manu," iii. S (S.B.E., vol. xxv.). 
 ^ Ibid., X. 40. 
 
i68 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 openly show themselves." "Those who have been men- 
 tioned as the base-born offspring of Aryans, or as produced 
 in consequence of a violation of the law, shall subsist by 
 occupations reprehended by the twice-born." 
 
 It is, in fact, the life-history of a struggling group of 
 foreigners shut out from aid, vainly fighting that their 
 life's strength should not be slowly sucked from out them 
 by parasitic growths. 
 
 The world is strewn with monuments of the past, and the 
 saddest tomb the world has ever reared is the tomb of 
 despairing Aryanism in India. Stone by stone, as the tomb 
 is built, it tells its own story, and down through the pages 
 of history the same story runs that, in conquering, the 
 Aryan always succumbs.^ 
 
 In India the Aryan threw round himself the bulwark 
 which his genius told him could alone ward off final decay 
 — the bulwark of caste. Down to the present day the 
 Aryan has preserved much of his heritage from being 
 entombed in the structure he has raised, and the great 
 problem for England to face is whether she has brought 
 aid to the beleaguered camp in time to infuse it with new 
 life. If England has not succeeded in warming into 
 vitality the latent spirit of Aryanism, in spreading new 
 hope amid the cultured classes of India, that they may 
 come out from their caste restrictions to aid her without 
 fear of defeat in the crusade against superstition and 
 ignorance, her mission is a failure and her past in the East 
 must inevitably be entombed in the same grave as that over 
 which she found Aryanism hovering on her advent into 
 India. For this reason alone it is necessary to note the 
 faintest light that breaks through the mists shrouding so 
 much of the past history of India from our ken. So much 
 remains steeped in the doubt that a Brahmanic genius, keen 
 enough to rise and respond to the beating mark of time 
 
 1 Kendall, "Cradle of the Aryans." 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 169 
 
 would not have been equally subtle to screen its deeper 
 movements from vulgar gaze. The suspicion of wilful 
 reticence, of predesigned purpose, stays the mind as it 
 ventures to trace the lines of Brahman ic thought in the 
 pages of its own literature. 
 
 A vague gleam of light from Western sources flickers for 
 a moment over the social and political life of India during 
 the few centuries preceding the Christian era. From the 
 time when the Aryans first sang their victorious songs of 
 praise, as they marched in their manhood and tribal 
 strength, down to the days when the Brahman theocracy 
 strove to isolate the scattered fragments of the I'ace from 
 the contaminating influence of more uncivilised people, the 
 unhappy remnant of the great Indo-European family 
 remained closed off from all share in the heritage that had 
 fallen to its brethren in the West. The fables that are told 
 by Diodorus of the expeditions of Sesostris or Semiramis 
 to the far East may serve to adorn a tale told in hopes of 
 rousing the youthful interest in the past history of India, 
 but nowhere can the sober historian, as he views the 
 teak found in the city of Ur, the indigo or porcelain found 
 in ancient Egypt, discern evidences that the east and west 
 Aryan-speaking people had joined hands in these early 
 days.^ Herodotus shows that India was not unknown by 
 repute to the West. He narrates^ how Dareios, son of 
 Hystaspes sent Skylax of Karyanda on an expedition 
 of discovery down the Indus, and how Skylax reached 
 the ocean and returned home by way of the Red Sea. 
 Herodotus, in enumerating the possessions of Dareios, who 
 had advanced his conquests as far as the Panjab, states 
 that India formed the twentieth satrapy of the Persian 
 monarch whence he drew a tribute of three hundred and 
 
 i.SseM'Crindle, "Homeric Use of ICassiteros and Elephos," p. 3; Birdwood, 
 Athenceum; Griinwedel, "Buddh. Kunst," p. 8; M'Crindle, " Ancient India 
 as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian," p. 5. 
 
 2 "Herodotus," book iii. 98. 
 
I70 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 sixty talents of gold dust, a tribute exceeding that paid by 
 all other people.^ Indian soldiers^ marched with the 
 Persian troops of Xerxes into Thessaly and fought under 
 Mardonius * at Plataea* 
 
 Ktesias of Knidos, a physician who remained in Persia 
 for seventeen years, from 416 B.C. to 398 B.C., learned there 
 something of India, and the fragments of his "Indika," 
 preserved by later historians,* give marvellous tales of the 
 mysterious home of fables. They tell of a fountain from 
 which could be drawn pitchers full of gold, fluid when 
 drawn but soon solidifying. The sun appeared ten times 
 larger in India than in other lands, and the sea, for four 
 fingers in depth, was so hot that fish never came to the 
 surface. 
 
 His fragments of history also give a graphic account of 
 a man-eating monster living in India, with a face like a 
 man, with double rows of teeth, with a tail like a scorpion's, 
 a cubit long, from which it discharged darts capable of 
 killing every animal save the elephant. 
 
 They are full of stories of burning mountains, miraculous 
 lakes, and healing fountains, four-headed birds which 
 guarded the gold of the desert, slaying all who came in 
 quest of the precious metal that had to be sought for in 
 the night-time by bands of men, one and two thousand 
 strong. They also describe a race of pygmies less than 
 two cubits high, and a tribe one hundred and twenty 
 thousand in number, who are men, and yet have heads, 
 teeth, and claws like those of dogs, their speech being 
 carried on by barking and signs, yet they are, " like all the 
 other Indians, extremely just men." The stories of Ktesias 
 are not unlike many which delight a credulous, wonder- 
 loving public, who still believe that Yogis remain buried 
 
 > " Herodotus," iii. 94 ; M'Crindle, " Ancient India as Described by Ktesias, 
 the Knidian." 
 « /Wr/., vii. 65. ^ Ibid., s\\\. \\i. * /iid., in. 31. = /i«f., iii. 94. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 171 
 
 beneath the earth for long spaces of time, without food or 
 nourishment ; who believe that Mahatmas can rival the 
 feats of Maskelyne and Cooke ; that magicians can remain 
 suspended in the air without support and make mango trees 
 grow from out a juggler's bag ; that scorpions sting them- 
 selves to death with their own poison ; and that the 
 mongoose when smitten by a cobra knows of a plant to 
 free itself from death. 
 
 The remark of Strabo ^ that, " generally speaking, the men 
 who have hitherto written on the affairs of India, were a 
 set of liars," was harsh, for there was much of truth in the 
 accounts he had before him. These accounts were derived 
 from the description of the country by the trained historians 
 who accompanied Alexander the Great in the first effort 
 of the West to pierce through the mysteries that had so 
 long separated it from the East. Alexander the Great, son 
 of Philip of Macedon, found himself in 336 B.C., at the 
 early age of twenty. King of Macedonia, with the fortunes 
 of Greece at his disposal. Within one year he had curbed 
 the Northern barbarians, put Attalos to death, reduced 
 Thebes to submission, and stood prepared to set forth as 
 the conqueror of the world, and fulfil the mission of his 
 father as humbler of the proud Persian. 
 
 The Persian Empire, founded by Cyrus, stretched from 
 the shores of the Aegsean and Levant to the far east 
 Jaxartes and Indus. Its king, Dareios Kodomameos, how- 
 ever, lacked the power to hold beneath his sway the satraps 
 who longed to have for themselves the provinces into which 
 the kingdom had been divided, and over which they held 
 a more or less independent rule. On the plains of Issgis, 
 the King Dareios fled in his chariot from before the new- 
 risen Conqueror of the World, and left his treasures, his 
 wife, children, and mother, at the mercy of the Macedonian 
 king. Alexander turned aside for a season to reduce 
 
 1 M'Crindle, p. i8. 
 
172 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Phoenicia, and crowned himself with glory by capturing the 
 island fortress of Tyre, though he tarnished his fame by 
 slaying and selling into captivity its inhabitants and 
 merchant princes. In Egypt he founded Alexandria so 
 that the commerce of the world should follow the path which 
 he saw, with commanding genius, was marked out for it, 
 and then turned again to follow his relentless purpose. On 
 the field of battle known as Arbela,i Dareios fled in dismay 
 to perish by the treachery of his own kinsman, the Satrap 
 of Bactria. Into Babylon Alexander entered in triumph, 
 gave back to the people their own gods, and restored to the 
 priesthood the wealth they had enjoyed under their Assyrian 
 kings.2 At Susa^ he found wealth greater than he had 
 left behind him in Babylon, and as he passed on toward the 
 far East, he left naught to tell of the wealth and power of 
 the Persian nation save the burned ruins of Persepolis, and 
 the rifled tomb of Cyrus.* A new Alexandria was built by 
 him at the gateway of India, now known as Herat, whence 
 he over-ran Bactria and Samarkhand, piercing to the 
 Jaxartes, along the banks of which he established his own 
 soldiers in fortified positions, in order to shut out from his 
 possessions the Northern Scythian hordes. 
 
 Early in the year 327 B.C. his troops marched down on 
 the plains of India. Crossing the river Indus near Attock, 
 on a bridge of boats, he passed unopposed through the land 
 of a Turanian people called the Taxilas, there being no one 
 between the Indus and the Jhelum (Hydaspes) to com- 
 bine the petty chieftains and tribes against the invading 
 force. Beyond the modern battle-field of Chilianwala, 
 Alexander the Great crossed the Jhelum, and was there 
 
 iM'Crindle, p. 31. ^ Ibid. 
 
 3 "The sums contained in the treasury amounted to 40,000 talents of 
 uncoined gold and silver, and 9000 talents of coined gold, and there was 
 other booty besides of immense value, including the spoils which Xerxes had 
 carried off from Greece." — M'Crindle, p. 32. 
 
 ' See CuTzon, " Persia,'' vol. ii. p. 76. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 173 
 
 met by Poms, a Paurava chieftain of the Lunar race, the 
 first Indian prince to come forward and defend his 
 dominions. In the battle that ensued Porus was wounded, 
 his son slain, and his troops trampled down by his own 
 elephants. With Alexander, the Indian chieftain made 
 an alliance, and received back his territories. Near the 
 battle-field Alexander founded a new city, and called it 
 Bucephala, after his famed charger, Bucephalus, slain during 
 the fight. He thence marched through the land of the 
 Arashtra, made alliance with the king of the Sophytes, 
 pierced as far as Amritsar, and then razed the city of the 
 Kathians, who, in the history of Diodorus the Sicilian, are 
 recorded to have possessed the custom that widows should 
 be burned with their husbands, so that the men might 
 not go in fear of being poisoned by their wives during their 
 lifetime. Strange rumours soon reached the Macedonian 
 camp of the desert lands and fierce tribes to the far East. 
 Outcast adventurers, however, told Alexander the truth, that 
 there was no chieftain powerful enough to stay his conquer- 
 ing the land as far as the Ganges. The Macedonian soldiers 
 were laden with wealth and weary from travel ; they longed 
 to see their homes once again. On the banks of the Beas 
 (Hyphasis), Alexander saw the visions he had dreamed — of 
 piercing to the eastern seas, and enrolling the whole world 
 under one sceptre — fade away as his troops refused to 
 follow him further past the Sutlej, towards the broad Jumna 
 and river- valleys of the Ganges. 
 
 The Conqueror of the World turned from the rich prize, 
 and led his troops down the banks of the Indus towards 
 the unknown ocean. In an impetuous assault at Multan, 
 on the fortress of the fierce tribe of the Malloi, Alexander 
 was wounded almost to death by an arrow, yet he founded 
 another Alexandria at the modern Ucch, before he left 
 India to commence his perilous journey across the sandy 
 deserts of Gedrosia towards Babylon, where he died at the 
 
174 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 early age of thirty-two from fever and drink. The records 
 of the historians and scientific men who accompanied the 
 Macedonian king on his expedition into India have 
 perished, and the accounts given of them by later writers, 
 such as Arrian, Strabo, and Pliny, remain the only light 
 that comes from the West regarding the social life of 
 the people of India during the period. 
 
 While Alexander remained in the Panjab, a base-born 
 adventurer, one Chandragupta, destined to become the 
 first Emperor of North India, is said ^ to have told the 
 monarch how he might advance down the Ganges and 
 spread his conquests over all the divided tribes and people. 
 Chandragupta, finding his advice not taken, left the Mace- 
 donians and sought refuge in Magadha. There he offended 
 the reigning Nanda king, and again returned to the 
 Panjab, where he found that the Greek governor, Eudemos, 
 left by Alexander, had foully murdered Porus, and that 
 the greater part of the Greek garrison had been withdrawn 
 from the cities of the Panjab to join in the dissensions 
 that had broken out in the West on the death of Alexander. 
 Chandragupta at once headed an uprising of the native 
 tribes, and soon found himself in power as sole ruler over 
 the Panjab and lands of the lower Indus. 
 
 Remembering the weakness of the kingdoms in the 
 valley of the Ganges, he returned to Magadha, and there 
 by his intrigues secured for himself the throne by the 
 assassination^ of the last of the Nanda dyucisty. India, 
 for the first time, saw, in the low-caste Chandragupta,* a 
 ruler whose empire extended from the Indus to the lower 
 Ganges. 
 
 In the meantime, Seleukos Nikator, the successor to 
 
 ' " Sandrakottos (Chandragupta) was of obscure birth, and from the remark 
 of Plutarch that in his early years he had seen Alexander, we may infer that he 
 was a native of the Panjab." — M'Crindle, p. 405. 
 
 ^ The story is told in the " Mudrarakshasa," by Visakadatta, see p. 294 (post). 
 
 ' His accession dates from 315 b.c, or 312 b.c. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 175 
 
 the eastern dominions of Alexander, marched from Syria 
 and Asia Minor to re-establish his power in Bactria and 
 Western India. With the new Maurya Emperor of 
 Northern India, Seleukos Nikator found it prudent to 
 make an alliance. The Syrian king gave his daughter in 
 marriage to Chandragupta, and sent his ambassador, 
 Megasthenes, to reside at Pataliputra, the city whose 
 foundations Buddha had seen laid by the generals of 
 Bimbisara as a fortress to check the raids of the Wajjians. 
 At Pataliputra, Megasthenes resided for eight years, from 
 306 to 298 B.C. In what remains, in the writings ^ of later 
 Greek and Roman writers, of the " Indika of Megasthenes," 
 the Western world has preserved its only literary record 
 of the condition of India, at a period of time when the 
 Aryan race was approaching a doom from which it was, 
 for a time, saved by the dread of the Macedonian soldiery 
 to penetrate further into the East and raise the veil which 
 the priestly chronicles have drawn over the political life 
 of the times. 
 
 From Strabo ^ it is learned that Megasthenes held that no 
 reliance could be placed on any previous Western account 
 of India, for " its people he says never sent an expedition 
 abroad, nor was their country ever invaded or conquered 
 except by Herakles and Dionysus in old times, and by 
 the Macedonians in our times." 
 
 The belief held by the Indians themselves evidently 
 was that they were autochthonous, and for some reason, 
 perhaps to gratify the pride of Megasthenes, they also 
 asserted that their gods, myths, and philosophies were 
 similar to those of Greece. 
 
 The history of Megasthenes was evidently founded on 
 
 ^"/Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian,' being a 
 translation of the fragments of the 'Indika of Megasthenes,' collected by Dr 
 Schwarbach, and of the first part of the 'Indika of Arrian'" (M'Crindle). 
 
 2 Strabo, xv. I, 6-8; M'Crindle, p. 107. See Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," vi., 
 x.\i. 4-5- 
 
176 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 facts he had himself observed, or on the evidence of witnesses 
 he deemed credible. The more it is examined the more 
 it is found to be trustworthy, while the whole account of 
 Indian social and political life falls in with what might 
 have been imagined forth from the vague references of the 
 sacred literature of India. Pataliputra, the capital of 
 Chandragupta, the walls of which have recently been 
 unearthed 12 to 15 feet beneath the modern city of Patna, 
 is described as the greatest city in all India, stretching 
 80 stadia along the river to a breadth of 15 stadia. The 
 ditch surrounding its wooden palisades— for all cities near 
 rivers were of wood, those on eminences alone being 
 constructed of mud and brick — was 600 feet broad, 
 and 30 cubits in depth, the walls of the city having sixty- 
 four gates and five hundred and seventy towers. To the 
 king there were six hundred thousand foot soldiers, thirty 
 thousand cavalry, and nine thousand elephants. It would 
 be difficult to enumerate all the different tribes scattered 
 over India who were mentioned by the ambassador of 
 Seleukos Nikator and of whom many cannot now be identi- 
 fied. It is evident that over the vast continent separate 
 stable governments existed, many holding vast resources 
 at their command. The King of Kalinga, although he 
 was subject to Chandragupta, held independent possession 
 of his own dominions along the eastern coast, while a 
 branch of the race he ruled over seems ^ to have been 
 the people of Lower Bengal, near the mouth of the 
 Ganges. The capital of this great eastern viceroy was 
 at Parthalis, and the army consisted of sixty thousand 
 foot soldiers, one thousand horsemen, and seven hundred 
 elephants. 
 
 The great Andhra kingdom between the Godavari and 
 the Krishna, where the law books of Baudhayana and 
 Apastamba were revered, stretched far and wide, having 
 
 " M'Crindle, "Alexander," p. 364; " Megasthenes," p. 155. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 177 
 
 numerous villages,^ thirty walled and defended towns, and 
 a king having an army of one hundred thousand foot men, 
 two thousand cavalry, and a thousand elephants. 
 
 On the west coast were varied tribes, now more or less 
 identified, while in the basin of the Chambal were the 
 Pandae, a branch of the famed Pandus,^ " the only race in 
 India ruled by women. They say that Herakles having 
 but one daughter, who was, on that account, all the more 
 beloved, endowed her with a noble kingdom. Her 
 descendants ruled over three hundred cities,^ and com- 
 manded an army of one hundred and fifty thousand foot, 
 and five hundred elephants." 
 
 Many of the stories told by Megasthenes seem incredible, 
 but then it would be unwise to stigmatise the historian as 
 wilfully setting forth false statements. Some of the stories 
 he relates were furnished by credulous narrators, and when 
 these are eliminated there is generally a solid substratum of 
 historic facts in the remaining portions of his writings. The 
 danger into which a too incredulous reader might fall in 
 rejecting everything as false, the evidence for which lies 
 not on the surface, may be seen from a single example. 
 Pliny narrates * that, according to Megasthenes, there lived 
 a race in India whose feet were turned backwards. This 
 palpably cannot be accepted as a true statement of fact. 
 Nevertheless, the historian merely recorded statements he 
 had heard from what he deemed reliable sources, and the 
 very fact that he mentions this strange race shows that his 
 sources of information must have been numerous and 
 varied. 
 
 1 M'Crindle, " Megasthenes," p. 138. 
 
 ^2 See Ibid., p. 147 {note). 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 147: — "They further assert that Herakles was also bom among 
 them. They assign to him, like the Greeks, the club and the lion's skin. . . . 
 Marrying many wives he left many sons, but one daughter only." See also 
 p. 39 {note), "apparently Siva is meant." 
 
 * Pliny, "Hist. Nat.," tii. 11, 14, 22. 
 
 M 
 
178 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 This belief in the existence of spirits and witches who 
 wander about with their feet turned backward is common 
 not only in India but elsewhere.^ The following account 
 of one of this race of Churels, as they are called, is told by 
 Mr Crooke, who has done much to probe the depths of 
 primitive belief in India, and no doubt the Greek historian 
 had heard somewhat similar stories on which he based his 
 record. One of the race of Churels generally " assumes 
 the form of a beautiful young woman and seduces youths 
 at night, particularly those who are good-looking. She 
 carries them off to some kingdom of her own, keeps 
 them there till they lose their manly beauty, and 
 then sends them back to the world grey-haired old men, 
 who, like Rip Van Winkle, find all their friends dead 
 long ago. I had a smart young butler at Etah, who 
 once described to me vividly the narrow escape he had 
 from the fascinations of a Churel who lived in a pipal tree 
 near the cemetery. He saw her sitting on a wall in the 
 dusk and entered into conversation with her, but he 
 fortunately observed her tell-tale feet and escaped. He 
 would never again go by that road at night without an 
 escort." 
 
 The sources of information at the disposal of Megas- 
 thenes, and the accordance, for the greater part, of the facts 
 narrated by him with what is known to have been the 
 state of affairs at the period during which he visited India, 
 make his statements of peculiar value for the purposes 
 of adding reality to the hazy outline of the Brahmanic 
 texts. 
 
 The population of India is by him divided into seven 
 main classes. At the head of all in dignity and importance 
 were those whom he called the philosophers, easily recog- 
 nised as the Brahmans. They, according to Megasthenes, 
 
 ' Crooke, " Popular Religion and Folk-lore in Northern India," p. 169 ; 
 Tylor, " Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 307. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 179 
 
 are of great benefit to the people, for, "when gathered 
 together at the beginning of the year, they forewarn the 
 assembled multitudes about droughts and wet weather, and 
 also about propitious winds, and diseases, and other topics 
 capable of profiting the hearers." ^ 
 
 Should a philosopher make any error in his prognostica- 
 tions, he incurs " no other penalty than obloquy, and he 
 then observes silence for the rest of his life." These 
 philosophers not only confer great benefits on the people, 
 they also " are believed to be next door to the gods, and to 
 be most conversant with matters pertaining to Hades." 
 They perform all sacrifices due by the people ; they 
 perform the funeral rites, and, in " requital of such services, 
 they receive valuable gifts and privileges." 
 
 The philosophers, according to Megasthenes, were 
 divided into two orders. First, the Brahmans proper, who 
 live as students for thirty-six years,^ and then become 
 householders, when " they eat flesh, but not that of animals 
 employed in labour." " The Brahmans keep their wives 
 — and they had many wives — ignorant of all philosophy, for 
 if women learned to look on pleasure and pain, life and 
 death, philosophically, they would become depraved, or 
 else no longer remain in subjection." ^ This statement is 
 in accord with the teaching of the "Vedanta," which ex- 
 cludes all women from its scheme of salvation. The basis 
 of much of Indian thought is contained in his summing-up 
 of the Brahmanic speculations of his time : " They consider 
 nothing," he records, " that befalls man to be either good 
 or bad ; to suppose otherwise being a dream-like illusion." * 
 Their views regarding the soul and creation were declared 
 to be the same as the Greek, and "they wrap up their 
 doctrines about immortality, and future judgment, and 
 kindred topics, in allegories, after the manner of Plato." 
 
 1 M'Crindle, "Megasthenes," p. 41. = "Manu," iii. I. 
 
 s See M'Crindle, " Megasthenes," p. 100, * Ibid., p. lOO. 
 
i8o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The second order of the Brahmans was the Sarmanes, or 
 " ascetics," of whom the most honoured were the Hylobioi,^ 
 who "live in the woods, where they subsist on leaves of 
 trees and wild fruits, and wear garments made from the 
 bark of trees." ^ Besides the orthodox Brahmans,* there 
 were numerous diviners and sorcerers living on the super- 
 stitions of the people, begging their way from village to 
 village, and even women were said in some cases to 
 "pursue philosophy." 
 
 The second class into which Megasthenes divided the 
 population was that of husbandmen. They, as they do 
 to-day, formed the gross mass of the population living in 
 scattered villages. 
 
 The land, according to the Greek account, was the 
 property of the king, to whom a land tribute was paid, 
 as well as a fourth part of the produce raised by each 
 cultivator. The husbandmen are depicted as remaining 
 supremely indifferent to the change of their rulers, to the 
 coming and going of new invaders : even in those days they 
 were as they are to-day, when, " the Mogul, the Afghan, the 
 Pindari, the Briton, and the mutinous Sepoy, with others, 
 have swept to and fro, as the dust storm sweeps the land, 
 but the corn must be grown, and the folk and cattle must 
 be fed, and the cultivator waits with inflexible patience till 
 the will of Heaven be accomplished, and he may turn again 
 to the toil to which he is appointed." * 
 
 The picture of the agricultural labourer was much the 
 same over two thousand years ago. The Greek historian 
 
 1 Haradatta, in his tiote to " Gautama," iii. 2, says : — " The Vanaprastha 
 is called the Vaikhanasa, because he lives according to the rule promulgated by 
 Vikhanas ; " and adds, ' ' for that sage chiefly taught that order. " See Buhler, 
 " Manu," p. xxviii.; S.B.E., vol. xxv. 
 
 ^M'Crindle, " Megasthenes," p. 102. 
 
 5 " Among the Indians are those philosophers also who follow the precepts 
 of Boutta, whom they honour as a god on account of his extraordinary 
 sanctity."— M'Crindle, p. 105. 
 
 ^ lyockwood Kipling, " Man and Beast in India," p. 154. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS i8i 
 
 narrates how, when soldiers fought their way to over- 
 lordship of the soil the cultivators remained silent 
 spectators. "While the former are fighting and killing 
 each other as they can, the latter may be seen close at 
 hand tranquilly pursuing their work, perhaps ploughing 
 or gathering in their crops, pruning the trees, or reaping 
 the harvest."^ 
 
 The shepherds, artisans, soldiers,^ and overseers formed 
 the next four classes into which the people were divided ; 
 the seventh and last being that of the councillors, or 
 assessors, to whom belonged " the highest posts of govern- 
 ment, the tribunals of justice, and the general administra- 
 tion of public affairs." * 
 
 The salient features of the system of caste division of 
 the people into distinct groups, ranging from the Brahman 
 downwards,* is described in an extract from Megasthenes 
 preserved by Arrian : " No one is allowed to marry out of 
 his own caste, or to exchange one profession or trade for 
 another, or to follow more than one business. An ex- 
 ception is made in favour of the philosopher, who, for his 
 virtue, is allowed this privilege." ^ 
 
 The Indians, as a nation, are depicted as frugal and 
 abstemious in their habits. Wine was only drunk at sacri- 
 fices. They seldom went to law. Theft was rare ; houses 
 and property were left unguarded. The women were 
 purchased as wives for a yoke of oxen.^ The care of 
 
 ' M'Crindle, " Indika of Arrian,'' p. 210. 
 
 ^ "The fifth class consists of fighting men, who, when not engaged in active 
 service, pass their time in idleness and drinking. They are maintained at the 
 king's expense, and hence they are always ready, when occasion calls, to take 
 the field, for they carry nothing of their own with them but their own bodies." 
 —M'Crindle, p. 85. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 85. 
 
 * See also Ibid., p. 213: — "It is permitted that the sophist only be 
 from any caste ; for the life of the sophist is not an easy one but the hardest 
 of all." 
 
 '■> Ibid., p. 86. 8 Ibid., p. 70. 
 
i82 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the king's person, in his palace and when hunting, was 
 entrusted to female guards. Famine is affirmed never to 
 have visited India. "The greater part of the soil, more- 
 over, is under irrigation, and consequently bears two 
 crops in the course of the year." ^ 
 
 Arrian, in his history, gives a realistic, matter-of-fact 
 account of the form of marriage, so often poetically and 
 prettily alluded to in the epics and drama as that of the 
 Svayamvara, or " choice by the bride of a bridegroom " : 
 " The women, as soon as they are marriageable, are brought 
 forward by their fathers and exposed in public, to be 
 selected by the victor in wrestling or boxing or running, 
 or by some one who excels in any other manly exercise." ^ 
 Differing from Strabo, who fixed the ordinary price of a 
 bride at a yoke of oxen, Arrian says that there was no 
 dowry given or taken. 
 
 The worship of the god 6iva, or his counterpart — a deity 
 finding its birthplace among the fiercer Scythian tribes, 
 and then accepted into Brahmanism as a form of the Vedic 
 Rudra — as well as the worship of Krishna, born amid 
 shepherd folk, are both described by Megasthenes as having 
 been fully incorporated into Brahmanism. 
 
 Writing of the philosophers, Megasthenes records, that 
 "such of them as live on the mountains are worshippers 
 of Dionysos, showing, as proofs that he had come among 
 them, the wild vine which grows in their country only, and 
 the ivy, and the laurel, and the myrtle, and the box-tree, and 
 other evergreens. . , , They observe also certain customs 
 which are Bacchanalian. Thus they dress in muslin, wear 
 the turban, use perfumes, array themselves in garments dyed 
 of bright colours ; and their kings, when they appear in 
 public, are preceded by the music of drums and gongs. But 
 the philosophers who live in the plains worship Herakles." ' 
 
 ' Diodorus, " Epitome of Megasthenes," ii. 36 ; M'Crindle, " Megasthenes,'' 
 P-3'- 
 
 2 /ii/., p. 222. '/«M'.,p. 97. 
 
THE POWtm. OF THE BRAHMANS 183 
 
 While these and other strange changes had crept into 
 Brahmanic orthodoxy, there was one task remaining for it 
 to accomplish before it had to withdraw within the defences 
 it had reared, and there await the attacks soon to be made 
 against it, the last of which has come from all the forces 
 at the command of a Western civilisation. 
 
 The enormous mass of sacred literature of the varied 
 schools, the knowledge of which led towards Heaven, made 
 it almost impossible that it could be all remembered, or 
 serve as a guide through life.^ 
 
 The special rules of the early " Sutras " were more guiding 
 principles of life than practical expositions of the civil and 
 criminal law. Some authoritative statement of the practical 
 relationship of the varied classes, and of the civic duties of 
 each member of the Aryan community, had to be set forth 
 with a prestige sufficient to inspire the allegiance of all. 
 Father Manu was a name wherewith to conjure. It was 
 a name held sacred throughout the pages of literature. 
 From him all men had sprung. At the time of the Flood 
 he had preserved in his own self the human race for re- 
 creation. He was ruler of all law and order, father and 
 revealer of the sacrifice, the author of Vedic Hymns, and the 
 great legendary forefather and guide of all Aryan people. 
 
 Among the varied Brahmanic schools for the preservation 
 and teaching of Vedic texts, the ritual, and subsidiary 
 branches of learning, there was one great school of the 
 Manavas — a branch of the Maitrayanlya Black Yajur Veda 
 school — whose founder became, in time, identified with the 
 primeval Manu. 
 
 The ancient Sutra law book of the school is lost. 
 
 ' See the exhaustive and learned treatise on the whole subject prefixed by 
 Buhler to his translation of " Manu " (S. B.E., vol. xxv. p. xlv.), under the four 
 heads : — (l) What circumstances led to the substitution of a universally binding 
 " Manava Dharma ^astr.--. " for the manual of the Vedic school? (2) Why 
 was so prominent a position assigned to the remodelled " Smriti " ? (3) How 
 was the conversion effected ? (4) When did it probably take place 
 
i84 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 This was the text seized on by the Brahmans, out of 
 which they composed a systematic treatise^ on law and 
 order, free from sectarian strife, so that it might stand 
 forth as a code of civil and criminal jurisdiction for all 
 Aryan people. The well-known law book of Manu has thus 
 obtained the sanction of an antiquity held to date back to 
 primeval days, when the Divine decrees were revealed by 
 Manu, the offspring of the Self-Existent,^ the mythical 
 progenitor of the human race. The date of the composition 
 of the work can now be confidently placed somewhere near 
 the commencement, of the Christian era.^ 
 
 Tradition, however, holds that the Creator, having created 
 the universe, composed the law, and taught it to Manu, 
 who taught it to the ancient seers. The work itself was for 
 the Aryan community, for the use of those Brahmans * who 
 assisted kings and princes to administer the law. The 
 peculiar customs of countries, peoples, and families lying 
 outside the sphere of Brahmanism were always acknow- 
 ledged to have retained their own validity.* Not until 
 much later did the idea grow up that local laws ^ should 
 give place to Brahmanic ideals, and not until English 
 lawyers fell into the error of seeing in the law books of 
 Manu the sacred and common source from which the 
 habits and customs of the entire people of India had sprung, 
 did it become the text by which disputes between people, 
 who had never heard of its existence, were decided. 
 
 ^ In the easy metre of the late epic " Anushtubh Sloka." — Biihler, p. mx. 
 
 2 "Yaska, Nirukta," iii. 4; Buhler, p. Ixi.; "Manu," i, 102. 
 
 ' Buhler, p. cxvii. : — " It certainly existed in the second century a.d., and 
 seems to have been composed between that date and the second century B.C." 
 Burnell, "Ordinances of Manu," p. xxiv.: — "Between about i A D. and 500 
 
 A.D." 
 
 ^ "Manu,"' viii. 1. 
 
 ^ Ibid., i. 118; Burnell, p. xxxvi. ; " Baudhayana," i. i, 2, 1-7; "Apas- 
 tamba," ii. 6, 15, I ; "Gautama," xi. 20-21. 
 
 « Burnell, p. xxwi!. .S^ee Lee Warner, W., "Jour. Soc. Arts" (February 
 1897), p. 170. 
 
THE POWER OF THE BRAHMANS 185 
 
 In the words of the late profound scholar and jurist, 
 Dr Burnell, the result is that "we shall soon see 'Jack 
 the Giant Killer ' cited as an authority on the law of 
 homicide." 1 The laws of Manu grew out of a natural 
 development in the political and social life of Brahmanic 
 India. The ruder races, as they rose in the social scale, 
 naturally fell under the influence of the system formulated 
 by the learned and priestly classes, and modified their own 
 usages and customs so that, as far as possible, they might 
 conform to the ideals of the higher castes. It was the 
 Brahmans ^ alone who could expound the laws of Manu, 
 and it was to the three higher castes alone that the right 
 of studying them was given.* 
 
 All women, Sudras, and tribes outside the Aryan pale, 
 were excluded from " these Institutes " by the very words 
 of the text* The pretensions of the Brahmans were rising 
 higher, and signs of change are evident in the laws them- 
 selves. In one verse the ancient custom of the sale of 
 women in marriage is condemned, for "no father who 
 knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for 
 his daughter."* 
 
 The Greek historian narrated how brides were sold for 
 a yoke of oxen, and Manu bears witness to the fact that 
 the sale was in vogue, for "some call the cow and bull 
 given at an Arsha wedding a ' gratuity,' but that is wrong, 
 since the acceptance of a fee, be it small or great, is a sale 
 of the daughter." « 
 
 Again the same want of consistency, showing how varied 
 the local customs were, is seen from the fact that in the 
 law book it is declared that not even a Sudra ^ should sell 
 his daughter, that such a custom had never been heard of 
 in any creation. And again, in a different chapter, ^ treating 
 
 ' Burnell, "Manu,"' p. xxxviii. - Ibid., i. 103. ' Ibid., ii. 16. 
 
 * Ibid., A. 126. " Ibid., iii. 51. « Ibid., iii. 53. 
 
 ''Ibid., ix. 98. ^ Ibiil., viii. 204. 
 
i86 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 of the sale of chattels, the text lays down : " If after one 
 damsel has been shown, another be given to the bride- 
 groom, he may marry them both for the same price ; that 
 Manu ordained." 
 
 The confusion arose from the fact that the laws and 
 customs of the people were changing in the course of time, 
 and were varied among the different sections of the people. 
 The Brahmans, however, hoped to stereotype the conditions 
 of life and society to which they owed their position, wealth, 
 and power ; and so far they have succeeded, for, from the 
 time Warren Hastings drew from the Brahmans their 
 "Gentoo Code," down to the time when the Queen 
 issued her proclamation after the Mutiny, declaring that 
 the " ancient rights, usages, and customs of India " should 
 be duly regarded, it has been held that " Manu " and later 
 law books were codes wherein to find a sure and safe 
 guide for the administration of civil law to all Hindus. 
 There were Sudras and Sudra kings in India at the time 
 of the compilation of the laws of Manu, who, according to 
 its tenets, would have been excluded from its purpose, while 
 the Kshatriyas and Vaisyas, for whom it was compiled, 
 find few or no representatives in India of to-day.i The 
 Brahmans sought but to frame laws for the preservation 
 of the usages and customs of the people with whom they 
 were concerned, and whom they recognised as within the 
 sphere of Aryanism.^ 
 
 These efforts of Brahmanism have received a finality and 
 sanction which not even Brahmanism itself now would 
 claim, or if it did, be powerful enough to sustain. The 
 law but follows and recognises the changing course of 
 social life. In accepting the Brahmanic law books as final, 
 
 ' Nelson, " Scientific Study of the Hindu Law," p. 5. 
 
 ^ ' ' The authority of the inferior castes to make their own laws was early 
 admitted "("Baudhayana,"i. I, ;:, 1-7 ; "Gautama,"xi. 20, 21 ; "Apastamba," 
 ii. 6, iSi l). "Neither were the Sanskrit Brahman laws forced on them, nor 
 were their own customs ignored, as is now the case. " — Burnell ( Pref. ), p. xxxvi. 
 
THE POWER OP THE BRAHMANS 187 
 
 the whole transition of the society from its ancient con- 
 dition to that of an advancing civil community has been 
 retarded, if not frustrated, while much of its progress has 
 been reduced to a chaos, out of which few can see any 
 possibility of restoring law and order. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE OF ARYAN THOUGHT. 
 
 The Brahmans had, with all the care and pains granted 
 only to high genius, with all the insight bred of long 
 hereditary training, striven manfully in the fight they had 
 to fight — the fight for the consolidation and preservation of 
 their own race, class, and power. 
 
 They were to abide immutably the intellectual guides of 
 the people, for so Divine ordinance had decreed. Kings 
 and warriors had their appointed places as upholders of 
 the State, and favoured allies of the Brahmanic might. 
 The varied classes of those who were Aryan by descent, 
 or had been admitted within the ranks of Aryanism, were 
 one and all allotted their appointed place in life, and bid 
 look for their spiritual welfare in obedience to the priestly 
 dictates. 
 
 The very gods had come on earth to dwell personified 
 as the Brahmans. The Creator of the Universe had 
 resigned his earthly sceptre to the high keeping of those 
 whose hands and feet still show that their ancestors, for 
 generations past, have never sullied themselves by sub- 
 mission to vulgar toil and labour, and whose features bear 
 the stamp of conscious knowledge of their high calling. 
 All alien races and tribes were the polluted offspring of 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 189 
 
 those who had confounded the divinely-decreed divisions 
 between class and class. 
 
 The Brahmans based their claim to rule supreme solely 
 on their traditional lineage from Vedic bards, on their 
 high intellectual power and sacred calling. It was thought, 
 not action, mind alone, not mind working out its ideals 
 in dramatic, sculptured, or artistic forms, that enslaved 
 the nation. The architect, the builder, or sculptor, were 
 relegated to the lower classes, in common with all those 
 who worked with their hands. No great architectural 
 buildings, no temples, no works of sculpture, whose origin 
 can be traced back to Brahmanic genius, remain in 
 India. The Aryan had set before him but one ideal, 
 and that was to unravel the secret that set strife on earth 
 as the stepping-stone to law and order, to solve the 
 mystery of the seeming endless struggle wherein the evil 
 and the strong men often prosper while the good and 
 weak are swept away. It is a problem yet unsolved, a 
 problem Nietsche has newly set forth with the all too- 
 overpowering earnestness of one born into a world out 
 of joint to set it right. 
 
 Even the weak, diseased, and contaminated are nurtured 
 and left free to send their taint to future generations by 
 civilisations which hold forth, as their highest ideals, sym- 
 pathy towards the suffering, and protection towards the 
 feeble. Yet these same civilisations take heed to stand 
 armed at every point, straining every nerve to add to their 
 strength, knowing well that speedy decay and dissolution 
 await the nation not stern enough to fling its boasted 
 shibboleths of peace and goodwill to the winds when 
 assailed by stronger foes. India, subdued to her own 
 ideals, fell, and so remains fallen. Before she fell, all 
 that she held of intellect or genius had prepared her course 
 down to a soothing resting-place. If she ever rises it 
 will be because those before whom she fell will wake 
 
i90 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 her from a peaceful sleep and send her forth to find new 
 leaders, who no longer seek to see their fitting end in 
 striving to reconcile man's ethical notions of right and 
 wrong, justice and injustice, with the struggle and strife 
 of life, but simply rest assured that, while they take their 
 part in the battle of the world's strife, the lofty ideals they 
 held aloft when Europe was plunged in barbarism will, in 
 the appointed time, be fully realised, and until then can 
 but be held as guiding hopes. 
 
 While Brahmanism was cradling its wasted strength in 
 the summit of the many-storeyed wicker-work edifice of 
 caste, into which all outsiders might creep from below, and 
 work their way upward from storey to storey, it sent 
 abroad throughout the land those bright rays of thought 
 which are the sole guiding stars to those who still in India 
 love to tread the paths of old. 
 
 The cry, the incessant cry sent forth by Aryan India, 
 was that life was pain — pain from the body, pain from the 
 world, pain from the heavens, and the gods.* 
 
 The cry went up from Brahmanism. The first answer 
 philosophy had to give is ascribed to Kapila, said to be the 
 founder of the Sankhya philosophy. By him the Aryan 
 people were directed to fix their gaze on two facts — the 
 world as they saw it spread out before them, and their own 
 souls. So far they knew and no more. The phenomenal 
 world was self-evident. Kapila undertook to prove the 
 existence of soul in five ways. Firstly, he held the soul to 
 exist from an inverted doctrine of design.^ If one beholds 
 a bed, he naturally concludes there must be a sleeper ; so, 
 when one sees the world, he must conclude that there is 
 soul to enjoy it. Secondly, soul is shown to exist because 
 every one is conscious of something inside himself distinct 
 from ma,tter. Thirdly, soul must exist as a superintending 
 
 '' - See Garbe, "Sankhya Philosophie," p. 133. 
 " Davies, " Hindu Philosophy," p. 46. 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 191 
 
 power. Fourthly, it must exist to enjoy ; and fifthly, and 
 lastly, because all men feel within themselves that the soul 
 exists, yearning, striving to free itself from the contamina- 
 tion of matter. So far the existence of soul, soul transmi- 
 grating from birth to re-birth, having been proved, the 
 connection between it and the world had to be traced, for 
 in this connection lay pain and sorrow. Freed from 
 matter the soul would remain isolated, inactive, and 
 uncreative, unconsciously self-existent and self-contained. 
 It would remain quiescent, placid as a lake on whose 
 surface no ripples break. The Indian sage loves to brood, 
 in a dreamy semi-hypnotic trance, over that calm resting- 
 place to which the soul might take wing, having shaken 
 off from itself all bonds that keep it fettered. The soul, 
 however, is constrained to rouse itself from painless isola- 
 tion. The allurements of the flesh and the evidences of the 
 senses constrain it to lend its reluctant consent to join 
 in the drama sent forth by matter. Primordial matter, 
 unmanifested, is, according to Kapila, that which originally 
 existed outside, and independent of, soul.^ This matter, 
 the primordial germ substance, eternal, indivisible, self- 
 developed, ever invisible, had potentially to send forth 
 real existence.^ This primal matter has, as its nature, the 
 three modes ^ of goodness, passion, and darkness. The 
 system knows no idealistic monism ; germ matter and 
 soul remain distinct — the soul, when separated from 
 matter, being self-existent, with no object of thought. 
 
 So far Kapila held forth before the astonished gaze the 
 Prakriti, into which he had resolved all objective reality, 
 and the inward light, the soul, having an existence of its 
 
 ' The Prakriti or Pradhana. 
 
 2 "After all, what do we know of this terrible ' matter,' except as a name 
 for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness." — 
 Huxley, " Lay Sermons," p. 142, quoted Davies {note), p. 19. 
 
 ' These three modes, or gunas, are not to be taken as qualities of Prakriti ; the 
 clear distinction between substance and its qualities had not been marked out 
 at this period. The three gunas are the very constituents of Prakriti. 
 
192 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 own. From Prakriti he had to create a rival world 
 wherein the soul would find its sorrow. With all the 
 limitation of man's knowledge of time, and space, and cause, 
 the Eastern Frankenstein had to set to work and evolve the 
 spectral vision of a world, and then, haunted by the terror 
 of the scene of woe and desolation, point out a means to 
 mankind how they might escape from their brooding fears. 
 A change had to take place in primordial matter, so that 
 the different forms of matter might become manifest. 
 Prakriti had, as its essential nature, but the three equipoised 
 qualities of goodness, passion, and darkness. From the 
 proximity of soul to matter a disturbance takes place in 
 matter. The quality of passion is roused, matter no longer 
 remains quiescent. She manifests herself to soul i so that 
 soul may contemplate creation, and learn for itself the bliss 
 of its primeval condition of isolated self-existence. In this 
 action of Prakriti there is no intelligent design. The 
 system knows of no Creator, matter is unintelligent. The 
 favourite simile is that matter manifests itself unconsciously, 
 without intelligence, just as milk is secreted without any 
 design on the part of a cow.^ Prakriti is blind, it cannot 
 see ; the soul is lame, it cannot act. So " it is that the soul 
 may be able to contemplate Nature, and to become entirely 
 separated from it, that the union of both is made, as of the 
 halt and the blind, and through that (union) the universe 
 is formed." 8 
 
 In the tragedy evolved by unconscious Nature for the 
 soul's training, the soul remains inactive, receiving as a 
 sovereign all that is presented to it, yet preserving its 
 freedom from contact with matter. Prakriti first sends 
 forth intellect {buddhi) for the benefit of soul. From 
 intellect, consciousness, or egoism, is evolved, and from 
 
 ' " As the loadstone is attracted by iron merely by proximity, without re- 
 solving (either to act or to be acted upon), so by the mere juxtaposition of the 
 soul, Nature {Prakriti) is changed." — Davies (note), p. 37 ; see Garbe, p. 222. 
 
 " See Davies, p. 93. ^ Ibid., p. 51. 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 193 
 
 consciousness the mind (manas)} The mind-matter receives 
 from the senses such sensations as are to be passed on to 
 consciousness, thence to the intellect, for presentation to 
 the soul, so that the pulsating and heaving life may be 
 viewed by Soul, as though all passed before it like objects 
 seen in a mirror. From consciousness are evolved five subtle 
 elements — sound, touch, odour, form, and taste.^ From 
 these five subtle principles proceed the five gross elements 
 — ether, air, earth, light, and water. From consciousness 
 also proceed the five organs of sense and the five organs 
 of action. Intellect, consciousness, and mind, with the 
 five subtle elenjents^ form a subtle body,^ which covers in 
 the soul, and remains connected with it,from transmigration 
 to transmigration, passing in its course to celestial abodes, 
 ranged in order of rewards for virtue or vice.* The soul 
 is thus held in bondage, subject to imperfections, disease, 
 decay, and transmigration. Until it sees the sadness of 
 life spread out before it, in all its hopeless gloom, it is 
 unconscious, with no object of thought, knowing nothing 
 of the unfruitfulness of desire. To reach again this self- 
 existent, unborn, and undying stage, it has but to gain 
 knowledge of itself, of Prakriti, of intellect, consciousness, 
 mind, the five subtle elements, the five gross elements, the 
 five senses, and the five organs of action. The soul then 
 becomes freed from pain, freed from the subtle body which 
 sinks back into Prakriti ; for " as a dancer, having ex- 
 hibited herself on the stage, ceases to dance, so does 
 Nature (Prakriti) cease (to produce) when she has made 
 herself manifest to Soul." ^ 
 
 Such was the new-found solution held forth for man who, 
 looking within himself, found there the problem raised 
 which is the mission of all higher art, philosophies, and 
 religion to present in one form or another. 
 
 1 iea Davies, p. io8. ''Ibid., -p. 19. ^ The linga sdrh a. 
 
 * See Davies, p. 82. " Ibid., p. 94. 
 
 N 
 
194 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The great aim for the Eastern sage was to obtain rest 
 from transmigration, from re-birth, wherein the higher castes 
 might descend to lower ranks, and thence into bestial and 
 degraded forms. The problem was set forth, worked, and 
 solved, in methods peculiarly Eastern, and therefore evasive 
 in their subtle mysticism. Nature, or Prakriti, abstract and 
 self-existent, was beyond the ken of the Sankhyan sage. 
 It could but be connoted by its triple gunas ^ of goodness, 
 passion or energy, and darkness — the threefold essence 
 afterwards personified in the triple gods, Vishnu, " The Pre- 
 server," Brahma, " The Creator," and 6iva, " The Destroyer." 
 The Eastern mind, trained from Vedic times to trace all 
 creation from human analogy, could not escape the fatal 
 step, and so Soul had to approach close to Nature, with the 
 result that passion was aroused and creation ensued — a hazy 
 generalisation that could only find its fitting place, not in 
 a philosophy to be couched in occidental phraseology, but 
 in the half-man, half-woman symbolic form in which the 
 god Siva came to be represented. The Eastern sage 
 wandered on in a priori guesses, here and there betraying 
 his trend of thought when he likens Nature to a female 
 dancer who exposes her charms ^ that Soul may satiate 
 itself, and then send forth the wail that its yearnings for 
 the Infinite, the Ideal, the Absolute, have been mocked, with 
 the result that Nature retires abashed, leaving Soul to its 
 own loneliness. 
 
 The mystic charm is everywhere, gently persuading the 
 mind to accept the analogy by which Nature is represented, 
 retreating from the gaze of wearied Soul "as a modest 
 maiden who may be surprised in deshabille by a strange 
 man, but takes good heed that another shall not behold 
 her off her guard." * 
 
 ^ These gunas, or qualities, are taken as the actual substance of Prakriti. 
 See note to p. 208. 
 a " Sankya Kar.," p. 59. » VVUson, " Tattwa Kaumudi," p. 173. 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 195 
 
 The descent from the high idealistic beauty of the poet's 
 dream is apparent in the setting of ^ankhyan fine-spun 
 thought in terms of formal philosophy, as well as in the 
 hazy speculations of the Eastern dreamer, who, in his hopes 
 to cast a halo of reality about his visions, sends them 
 forth as a guide towards the unknown, with the declaration : 
 " He who knows the twenty-five principles, whatever order 
 of life he may enter, and whether he wears braided hair, 
 or a top knot only, or be shaven, he is free ; of this there 
 is no doubt." ^ 
 
 This doctrine was one too far removed from the yearn- 
 ing hopes of humanity to find acceptance outside the 
 schools of esoteric thought. Its theological completion, 
 however, found expression in a system by Patanjali, who 
 in the second century B.C. compiled his " Yoga Sutras," in 
 which the idea of a Supreme Being is introduced. This 
 Supreme Being, or Lord, is an Omniscient Soul, addressed 
 as the mystic syllable " Om," infinite, directing and presiding 
 over Nature, yet living far away, untouched by good or 
 evil and their results. With this Divine Essence the indi- 
 vidual soul hopes to gain union (yoga), and in it find 
 absorption. By self-restraint, religious observances, by 
 sitting in strange postures, by suppression of the breath, 
 subduing the senses, fixing the mind by contemplation and 
 meditation, the senses become stayed, the will falls into a 
 mesmeric trance in which the soul is supposed to wander 
 free with occult powers, finding nearness and ultimate 
 union (joga) with the Supreme Soul. The far-famed 
 Yogis 2 of India identify this Supreme Spirit with the 
 dread god 6iva, and in their austerities and self-inflicted 
 tortures give ample evidence of how slight the partition 
 is 'twixt sanity and reason. 
 
 ' Davies, p. $$. 
 
 ^ For Yogis, astral bodies, Mahatmas, etc., see the interesting account in 
 " Indian Life," by Professor Oman. 
 
196 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The great crown and glory of Indian thought is to be 
 found in the tenets of the system known as the " Vedanta," 
 or the summing-up of all the revealed knowledge of the 
 Vedic literature. 
 
 Believers in, and expounders of, the "Vedanta" are to be 
 found in every Hindu village. Of all philosophies of the 
 East it is the only one which presents a seemingly unassail- 
 able front to metaphysic doubt, and at the same time extends 
 its principles far enough to win the adherence of those who 
 would seek some simple explanation of the lonely cravings 
 of their soul for peace and rest in the moving changes of 
 life. So the most learned admirer of the " Vedanta " in the 
 West has recently declared, in the course of an address to 
 the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, that " the 
 ' Vedanta,' in its unfalsified form, is the strongest support of 
 pure morality, is the greatest consolation in the sufferings of 
 life and death. Indians, keep to it." * 
 
 The full " Vedanta " doctrines were systematised and re- 
 duced to terse leading phrases in the " Brahma Sutras " of 
 Badarayana, which probably date from the fourth century 
 B.C. ^ The full meaning of the " Sutras " was commented on 
 by various commentators, the greatest of whom was the re- 
 nowned reformer of the eighth century, 6ankara Acharya.* 
 The iirst "Sutra" of Badarayana gives the keynote to 
 the system in the short rule : " Then, therefore, a desire to 
 know Brahman." This rule as well as the remaining rules 
 
 ' Deussen, " Elements of Metaphysics,'' p. 337. 
 
 2 See Telang, " Bhagavad Gita," p. 52 ; Max MttUer (" Vedanta Philosophy," 
 note, p. 29) assigns Badarayana to 400 a.d. 
 
 ' It would be out of place to enter here upon the question as to whether 
 Sankara Acharya's interpretation of the " Siitras" b most consistent with the 
 framework of the system. His commentary sets forth the accepted view of 
 at least 75 per cent, of Vedantists in India, and though the system of 
 Ramanuja may be more in accordance with the letter of the "Sutras," it is more 
 to the purport of this history to accept the more advanced and typical rendering 
 of 6ankara. The four schools of Vedantic teaching are known as Advaita, 
 Visishthadvaita, Dvaita, and Suddhadwaita, having as tiieir representatives 
 Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhava, and Vallabha, 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 197 
 
 are to be carried in the memory ; tlieir full meaning must 
 be expounded and explained by a competent teacher. 
 Each word had to be commented on, and in course of time 
 new commentaries and explanations arose. The word 
 "then " denotes that something is antecedent to all enquiry 
 into the " Vedanta." The person who desires to obtain the 
 full benefit of the salvation promised by the system must, 
 before he commences the enquiry, be in the frame of mind 
 which the word " then " presupposes him to have acquired. 
 This antecedent qualification draws the line closely round 
 those select few who are competent to enter on the enquiry. 
 It limits all enquiry, and resulting salvation, to those whose 
 minds have been chastened by long training, to those 
 who can claim the same heritage of refined thought and 
 religious instincts that has fallen to the lot of the twice- 
 born Aryans of India. The essential requisites are that 
 the enquirer should discriminate between eternal and non- 
 eternal ; that he should be free from all desire for the reward 
 of his acts here or hereafter ; that he should be tranquil and 
 self-restrained ; that he should renounce the performance of 
 all religious rites and ceremonies, and have patience in 
 suffering, concentration of mind, and lastly, faith. These 
 essentials are all the products of Eastern modes of life and 
 thought ; they strike at the basis on which are founded most 
 of the great religious systems of the world. This much 
 springs from the first word " then " of the " Brahma Sutras." 
 The word following is " therefore," on which depend equally 
 important results. The whole of the teaching of the 
 "Vedanta" is professedly founded on the sacred and revealed 
 character of the Vedic literature in which were recorded all 
 the past hopes and aspirations of the Aryan race, now 
 called upon to venture on a hope of a higher salvation 
 than that to be obtained from good deeds or burned offer- 
 ings of the priesthood. The word "therefore" indicates 
 that, as the revealed texts themselves declare, "as here 
 
198 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 on earth whatever has been acquired by action perishes, so 
 perishes in the next world whatever is acquired by acts of 
 religious duty." ^ There must be some higher aim for man- 
 kind. This highest aim is itself declared in one Upanishad 
 to be the knowledge of Brahman, for " he who knows the 
 Brahman attains the highest." ^ From this it " therefore " 
 naturally follows that one has " a desire to know Brahman," 
 and the object of the whole system is to show that the 
 nature of Brahman is revealed in the sacred literature 
 of India; and that he who knows the true nature of 
 Brahman obtains release from the weary transmigration of 
 Soul. 
 
 From the use of the word " Brahman " in the " Sutra," it 
 is intended that the derivation of the term from its 
 verbal root brih, which indicates its chief attributes of per- 
 vading and eternal purity, will be brought to mind. It is 
 further stated that there is " a desire " for a knowledge of 
 Brahman. This implies that the desire will not be 
 frustrated ; that the nature of Brahman will be fully ex- 
 plained, and an exhaustive analysis made of all subjects 
 necessary for its comprehension, so that ignorance may be 
 removed and the soul be prepared to reach freedom from 
 the causes leading on to transmigration. The second 
 aphorism of the " Vedanta" is, shortly : " From which the 
 origin, etc. of this." The expanded meaning is that Brahman 
 is that from which the origin, stay, and decay of this world 
 proceed. From out this aphorism springs the starting- 
 point of cleavage between the varied schools holding 
 diverse opinions as to the true interpretation of the 
 Vedantic teaching. In the system of Sankara Acharya — a 
 system of uncompromising monistic Advaita, or "non- 
 duality " — Brahman is held to be sole entity, defined as » 
 
 iThibaut, S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. p. 12; also "Ch. Up.," viii. i, 6. 
 
 ="'Taitt. Up.,"ii. I. 
 
 * S.B.E., "Vedanta," vol. xxxiv. p. 16. 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 199 
 
 "that omniscient, omnipotent cause from which proceeds 
 the origin, subsistence, and dissolution of this world — 
 which world is differentiated by names and forms, contains 
 many agents and enjoyers, is the abode of the fruits of 
 actions, these fruits having their definite places, times, and 
 causes, and the nature of whose arrangement cannot even 
 be conceived by the mind — that cause we say is Brahman." 
 Still the question remains unanswered as to what is the 
 nature of Brahman before the production of the world takes 
 place, and what caused it to produce. According to 
 Sankara, the above definition of Brahman applies to a 
 Universal Being, of the nature of pure thought or in- 
 telligence as its sole constitution, beyond which nothing 
 exists save an illusive principle called Maya.^ With this 
 Maya, Brahman is associated, and through it sends forth an 
 imaged world, just as a magician produces illusive effects, or 
 a man in sleep fashions forth appearances of animate and 
 inanimate beings.^ 
 
 Brahman, the Supreme Soul, which alone existed in- 
 divisible, in the beginning, as pure thought without any 
 object of thought, had no desire nor purpose to create 
 until Maya produced the illusive appearance of divisibility, 
 through which individual souls {Jlvas) seem separated 
 from the Supreme Soul. In its ignorance Soul knows not 
 its true nature, which is veiled from its knowledge by Maya, 
 and the web of seeming reality which Maya has woven. Not 
 only is the creation unreal and delusive, but, moreover, it is a 
 
 ^ Avidya, or "ignorance." The subject has been ably handled in the "Doctrine 
 of Maya : its Existence in the Vedantic Siitra, and Development in the Later 
 Vedanta," by Raghunath N. Apte (Bombay, 1896). His conclusions are, that 
 the doctrine of Maya, although it had its germ in the " Upanishads," does not 
 exist in the "Siitras," and that it arose from the fourth century A. D. on a 
 revival of Brahmanism and vigorous speculation of Gaudapada and Sankara. 
 " Gaudapada explained and formulated the doctrine, and Acharya worked out 
 its details." 
 
 ■■i Thibaut, S.B.E., xxxiv. p. xxv. 
 
200 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 profound error consequent on the action of Maya. Once 
 the individual soul holds for true its surrounding environ- 
 ment of mind, body, and organs of sense, it becomes a 
 partaker in their merits and demerits, unable to shake itself 
 clear from the necessity of birth and re-birth as the result 
 of its acts. At the end of each period, or "kalpa," of 
 creation, the Supreme Soul rests free from the power of 
 Maya, and all individual souls merge back into the pure 
 Brahman. The great object of the " Vedanta" therefore is to 
 teach the individual souls the true knowledge of Brahman 
 and the delusive working of Maya. From knowledge the 
 individual soul recognises itself truly as Brahman — a know- 
 ledge which nullifies the delusion of Maya and obtains for 
 the soul immediate release and freedom, or union and 
 identity with Brahman. The great cry of Vedantic release 
 from transmigration is : " Tattwam asi" (" Thou art That") ; 
 or in Western phraseology. Thy soul is not merely Divine 
 or God-like, it is Divine, it is God ; and there is no real exist- 
 ence anywhere save God and Soul which are identical. 
 The world is a dream, presenting passing visions of sin 
 and sorrow amid which the soul moves in lonely separation 
 until it finds its safe abiding-place in eternal union with 
 Brahman. The " Vedanta " further, according to Sankara, 
 teaches a twofold knowledge. It teaches that there is a 
 Lord, or "I^vara,"a lower Brahman, conditioned by attributes 
 and related to the world so long as the delusive action of 
 Maya subsists. By following the practices of meditation 
 and devotion, as laid down in the Vedic texts, which declare 
 the nature of, and the conduct to be pursued in relation 
 to, the lower Brahman, the individual gains his reward here 
 and hereafter, and rises to higher and higher spheres of 
 activity and enjoyment. Yet these are but preparations for 
 the knowledge of the higher Brahman ; pure consciousness 
 without any object to be conscious of; pure joy without 
 anything to rejoice over ; pure being without anyvsecond, 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 201 
 
 which is taught also in Vedic texts, the expounding of 
 which is the purport of the " Vedanta." ^ 
 
 Kant, followed by Schopenhauer, showed how the 
 phenomenal world, as existing in space, and time, and 
 moved throughout ^ by causality, is but a representation of 
 these three innate perceptive forms of our intellect. So 
 Sankara Acharya held that the highest Brahman, being 
 devoid of all these three innate perceptive forms of time, 
 space, and cause, can only be defined by negation. The 
 one loved answer to all enquiries as to the qualities of 
 Brahman is, " No, no," for there is no power of mind that 
 can fathom its true nature. Sankara simply held that the 
 human intellect had not arrived at that stage of develop- 
 ment in which it could postulate that its innate perceptive 
 form of time, space, and causality were applicable in 
 dealing with the nature of a Brahman and its mani- 
 festations, transcending, as these do, all finite limitations.' 
 The world seen is but the shadowed-forth form of the sub- 
 jective forms of intellect, and therefore but realised so far 
 as the imperfectly-developed condition of the intellect 
 permits it to be conceived. The man who dreams, and an 
 organism imagined as moving in space of two dimensions, 
 or even of one dimension, have as limited a knowledge of 
 the true mysteries of life and existence as the man whom 
 the Vedantist holds to be bound by the spell of Maya. 
 
 The " Sutras " * themselves declare that, in the pursuit of 
 knowledge, reasoning which disregards revelation is of no 
 value. Sankara, in his interpretation of the "Sutra," 
 declares that arguments, ingenious in themselves, are but 
 
 ^ Sad-cid-dnanda, the triple constitution of Brahman, just as saiwas, raja, 
 ■ tamas was the triple constitution of the ^ankyan Prakriti. 
 
 2 Deussen, "Metaphysics," p. 331. 
 
 3 S.B.E., vol. xxxviii.; " Sutras," iii. 2, 3 :— " But the dream-world is mere 
 illusion— Maya, on account of its nature not manifesting itself with the totality 
 of the attributes of reality." 
 
 * S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. 2, I, II. 
 
202 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 advanced by clever men to be afterwards found fallacious 
 by others more clever. He holds that " the true nature of the 
 cause of the world, on which final emancipation depends, 
 cannot, on account of its excessive abstruseness, even be 
 thought of without the help of the holy texts." ^ 
 
 As sources of knowledge, the " Upanishads " ^ are held by 
 Sankara to be the chief works, and as confirmation for their 
 import, the " Smriti." The lower Brahman, as limited by 
 attributes, and as seen by ignorance, is but an object of 
 worship. "According as a man worships him that he 
 becomes." ^ The highest Brahman, as free and pure, can be 
 only an object of revealed knowledge. Yet remains the 
 question as to why Brahman, through this association with 
 Maya, should be under any necessity to create the world, 
 for it acts just as a " person when in a state of frenzy 
 proceeds, owing to his mental aberration, to action without 
 a motive." * The answer is that " Brahman's creative 
 activity is mere sport, such as we see in ordinary life." * 
 Even then comes in the question why the Creator has 
 cruelly awarded merit and demerit indifferently. Eastern 
 pessimism holds that the gods are happy, men less happy, 
 and animals eminently unhappy ; yet the Scriptures declare 
 the Lord to be of essential goodness. The answer given 
 is similar to that given by Hamlet, unable to explain to 
 himself why he should be thrust into a world out of joint 
 to set it right : " For if the sun bred maggots in a dead 
 dog" — is that to be argued as against the purity of the 
 sun ? Sankara answers : « " The position of the Lord is to 
 be looked upon as analogous to that of Parjanya, ' The Giver 
 of Rain.' For as Parjanya is the common cause of the 
 production of rice, barley, and other plants, while the 
 
 ' See S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. p. 316. 
 
 - Not only the older " Upanishads," but also the later, as well as the 
 " Mahabharata " and " JBhagavad Gita.'' 
 »S.B.E., vol. xxxiv; "Sutra," i. i, 11. 
 * Ibid., ii. I, 32. 6 Ibid., ii. I, 33. 6 jbi^_^ p 358_ 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 203 
 
 difference between the various species is due to the various 
 potentialities lying hid in the respective seeds, so the Lord 
 is the common cause of the creation of gods, man, etc., 
 while the differences between these classes of beings are due 
 to the different merit belonging to the individual souls." 
 If the enquirer ask further how the Lord came to be 
 bound in His creation by a regard for past merit and 
 demerit, the answer is, that it is known from the revelation 
 of Vedic texts, that " a man becomes good by good work, bad 
 by bad work." 1 And the " Gita" declares in confirmation : 
 " I serve men in the way in which they approved me." ^ 
 The answer is, in fact, that the emanation of the trans- 
 migratory world is without a beginning, and that merit and 
 demerit arise like seed and sprout, without which no one 
 could come into existence.* 
 
 If the Brahman alone exists "'without parts, without 
 actions, tranquil, without fault, without taint,"* and his 
 nature is only to be described by silence, or by the ever- 
 repeated formula, " No, no," ^ it may be asked how it. One 
 only without a Second, can cause the creation of the world, 
 which existed from before all time. The only answer is, that 
 it is by a " peculiar constitution of its causal substance, as 
 in the case of milk " which turns into curds,^ or analogous 
 to the manner in which the " female crane conceives with- 
 out a male, and as the lotus wanders from one pool to 
 another without any means of conveyance."^ It is, in short, 
 impossible, without the aid of Scripture, to conceive " the 
 true nature of Brahman, with its powers unfathomable by 
 thought." 
 
 If the objector answers that he cannot, from holy texts, 
 
 » "BiTh.-Aran. Up.," iii. 2, 13 ; S.B.E., vol. xv. 
 2 " Bhagavad Gita," S.B.E., viii. iv. p. 59. 
 
 * S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. p. 360. * " Svetas. Up.," vi. 19. 
 
 5 " Brih.-Aran. Up.," vi. 6, 15 : — " That Self is to be described by No, no ! " 
 
 * Ibid., ii. I, 24; "Vedanta Sutras," S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. p. 346. 
 
 ' "Brih.-Aran. Up.,"ii. i, 25; "Vedanta Sutras," S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. p. 347. 
 
204. LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 understand what is apparently contradictory, the reply is 
 that the apparent inconsistency is due to the fact that all 
 these questions are mere matter of names and forms, for 
 Brahman itself is raised above the world and the " element 
 of plurality which is the fiction of nescience." 
 
 The individual soul remains, according to Sankara, 
 ever eternal. Its essence is intelligence or knowledge. It 
 is identical with Brahman, from which it is separated at the 
 time of creation by its illusive connection with its adjuncts. 
 " It is not born ; it dies not ; it is immortal. It is, indeed. 
 Brahman." * 
 
 So long as the soul gains not freedom by knowledge 
 of its true nature, it passes ^ to reap its reward for good 
 deeds to the moon, and then descends to earth again.' 
 
 By meditation on Brahman, and by Divine knowledge, 
 the soul " shakes off all evil as a horse shakes his hair, and 
 shaking off the body as the moon frees herself from the 
 mouth of Rahu, obtains, self-made and satisfied, the 
 uncreated world of Brahman." * 
 
 The wise man who sees through the unreality of pain 
 and sorrow, and recognises that this whole fabric of a 
 vision will vanish as a dream, will find that " the fetter of 
 the heart is all broken, doubts are solved, extinguished 
 are all his works." ® And yet again, " as water does not 
 cling to a lotus leaf, so no evil deed clings to him who 
 knows this."® The full sublimity of this freedom from 
 the results of even past acts on the attainment of know- 
 ledge is shortly summed up as follows : " Brahman am I, 
 hence I neither was an agent nor an enjoyer at any 
 previous time, nor am I such at the present time, nor 
 
 1 " Vedanta Sutras," ii. iii. 17. 
 
 ^ Surrounded by subtle elements {bhuta sukshma), the abode of the eleven 
 pranas (bitddhindriyas, Karmedriyas, and the manas). 
 3 " Brihad. Up.," iii. I, 8-10. < " Ch. Up.," viu. 13. 
 
 ' "Mandukya. Up.," ii. 28. « "Ch. Up.," iv. 143. 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 205 
 
 shall I be such at any future time."i More definitely 
 and tersely is summed up freedom from all results of good 
 or evil deeds in the verse : ^ "If one should recognise 
 the Soul saying, I am Brahman, desiring what, or for the 
 love of whom should he trouble himself." As enunciated 
 by ^ankara, the crown and glory of his system is, that once 
 Brahman is comprehended all duties come to an end, all 
 work is over. 
 
 It is not meant here that the Vedantic system is non- 
 moral in its essence ;* it simply means that when the soul 
 becomes free from the delusion of belief in a world as set 
 forth by Maya, it is one with Brahman. It rests in sovereign 
 isolation, untouched by the sin or sorrow of the world, 
 "watching over all works, dwelling in all beings, the 
 witness, the perceiver, the only one, free from all 
 qualities." 
 
 The system of ^ankara stands supreme as the loftiest 
 height to which Eastern intuitive thought has reached. 
 It has more influence in India than all other phases of 
 thought. It is part of the life-blood of the nation. It is 
 as natural to the land as the miasmic vapours which rise 
 and permeate, with their heavy taint, the brain-matter of 
 
 1 "^ankara Com.," p. 355 ; S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. 
 
 2"Brihad. Up.," iv. 4, 12. 
 
 ' See Deussen, p. 433 : — " Die Erlosung durch keine Art von Werk, auch 
 nicht durch moralische Besserung, sondern allein durch die Erkenntniss — 
 vollbracht wird." An objection to the teaching is given by Prof. R. K. 
 Bhandarkar in his " Visit to the Vienna Congress" (J.R.A.S., Bombay, vol. 
 xvii. p. 76), where he narrates a conversation he had on the subject with Prof. 
 Max Miiller : — "As I am not an admirer of the doctrine in the form in which 
 it is taught by Sankara Acharya, and which is now the prevalent form in India, 
 I observed that though, according to his system, a man must rise to the know- 
 ledge, ' I am Brahma,' previous to his entering on the state of deliverance or of 
 eternal bliss, still it is essential that the feeling of me or egoism should be destroyed 
 as a necessary condition of entrance into that state. The me is the first fruit of 
 ignorance, and it must be destroyed in the liberated condition. A soul has no 
 individual consciousness when he is delivered, and in that state he cannot have 
 the knowledge, ' I am Brahma.' " 
 
2o6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the dwellefs in the land where man has thought much that 
 at times astounds for its deep and clear insight, and much 
 that astounds for its lack of freedom from the trammels 
 of a time-worn past. In the Vedantic philosophy there 
 lies one assumption — that of Maya — which pervades and 
 vitiates the whole philosophic purport of the teaching. 
 Once accepted as a working hypothesis it solves the 
 problem that Kant and Kapila had to take for granted 
 — the objective reality of the perceptions of the senses. 
 With this doctrine the school of Ramanuja, who follows 
 the more exoteric teaching of qualified non-duality, will 
 have naught to do. Brahman, according to his rendering, is 
 truly the deity Vishnu, or Narayana, who is endowed with 
 all good qualities, intelligence being but its chief attribute. 
 He is all-knowing, all-merciful, all-pervading, and all- 
 powerful, matter and soul being the very essential elements 
 of his nature, though in but a germinal state till creation 
 occurs.i At the beginning of great " kalpas," or periods of 
 creation, this Lord, by his own volition, acts on unevolved 
 matter and non-manifest soul, so that the former becomes 
 manifest, and souls acquire material bodies corresponding 
 to their good or bad deeds in previous existences. Ac- 
 cording to this doctrine of modified non-duality, Vishnu, 
 Brahma, or the Lord, is, by nature, a personal deity, evolv- 
 ing the world and individual soul out from himself. The 
 soul remains personally existent, and on its release from 
 migration, passes into an undisturbed bliss in Heaven. 
 
 The systems of the "6ankhya," "Yoga," " Vedanta," and 
 that of the " Bhagavad Gita," stand naturally together as 
 seeking to free the soul from its ceaseless transmigration. 
 Starting from the ^ankhya assumption that matter — 
 Pradhana, or Prakriti — is roused to action by the near 
 proximity of Soul, just as a magnet, by its inherent nature, 
 acts on the keeper brought close to it, the constant yearning 
 
 ' Thibaut, S.B.E., vol. xxxiv. p. xxix. 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 207 
 
 of the Indian mind is to seek some means whereby the act 
 of creation may be nullified, and the soul once more set free 
 from the force which condemned it to conscious existences, 
 compelling it to proceed from birth to birth, through long 
 periods, or " kalpas," during which the initial force, set in 
 action at the commencement of creation, continues its 
 potentiality. 
 
 All these systems, down to that of the "Bhagavad Gita," 
 which takes a more strictly theological than philosophical 
 view of the question, are allied as consecutive phases of 
 investigation by the same order of mind, tied down by its 
 environment, physical and climatic, to a mode of viewing 
 life and reasoning thereon in a manner essentially Eastern. 
 
 Everywhere there is an exuberant play of fancy, as 
 though the soul was but dreaming dim visions of a 
 mirrored life, and the mind was not sternly laying down cold 
 and logical facts concerning the injustice of God, and the 
 deeps of despair into which His act has hurled the pleading 
 soul. The whole treatment of the subject is mystic, 
 unemotional, except in so far as the theoriser is concerned. 
 The mind has reached, by the deepest intuitive stretch of 
 thought that the history of the world's philosophy knows of, 
 to an a priori solution of some of the profoundest problems 
 before science of to-day. Nevertheless, when the mind 
 turns back to trace the course by which it arrived at these 
 conclusions, it is constrained to linger ever}rwhere along 
 the path, and lose itself in dreamy ponderings over some 
 idea conjured up by the fancy or lose itself in play over 
 its own marvellous guess-work. 
 
 Even when the whole subject has been reduced to dry 
 and formal aphorism, it is the ingenuity, and the craft, and 
 delicate manipulation and cunning whereby everything is 
 so set, as in mosaic that no flaw is left to found thereon a 
 hostile criticism, that remains as the chief charm, and 
 constrains the admiration rather than the dignity of the 
 
2o8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 subject-matter or importance of the facts set forth. 
 Though a deeper ring of earnestness runs through the 
 cogitations of the Indian philosopher than through the 
 corresponding schools of Greek philosophy, yet this is 
 purely subjective and not objective. Never could it pass 
 beyond the observer, and become actively interested in the 
 practical application of his methods. To the Vedantist 
 all nature is GOD ; nothing truly exists except God. 
 Man is God if man but chooses to recognise himself as 
 such ; yet all Sudras, all women, all not twice-born, were 
 absolutely shut out, after careful consideration, from 
 participation in the knowledge of the "Vedanta," and from 
 any hope of arriving at that knowledge. 
 
 Two schools of philosophy — those known as the Nyaya 
 and Vai^eshika — stand apart from the more orthodox schools 
 as individual in themselves, and are more allied to the 
 purely scientific order of thought that produced such works 
 as the "Grammatical Aphorisms of Panini,"and those dealing 
 with the subjects of medicine, geometry, or astronomy. 
 
 The " Nyaya of Gautama " deals not only with the general 
 subjects of human knowledge, but also gives an analytical 
 exposition of the laws of thought and reasoning. 
 
 The Vaiteshika system of Kanada^ obtains its name 
 from the doctrine that the world is supposed to be formed 
 from the aggregation of atoms, each atom having an 
 eternal essence, Vi^esha, of its own ; the atoms, which are 
 eternal and existing without a cause, uniting, form the 
 
 ' Jacobiintracing(S.B.E., vol. xlv. p. xxxiv.) the relative position of Jainism 
 with reference to other systems, points out the unscientific phraseology of the 
 "Vedanta"and"Sankhya,"arisingfirom the confusion of the category of substance 
 with that of the category of quality : " Things which we recognise as qualities 
 are constantly mistaken for and mixed up with substance." Alluding to the 
 more scientific and philosophic arrangement of the " Nyaya- Vai^eshika," he 
 further remarks that " the categories of substance and qualities had been 
 already clearly distinguished for one another, and had been recognised as 
 correlative terms ... in the Vaiseshika philosophy which defines substance as 
 the substratum of quality, and quality as that which is inherent in substance." 
 
THE FINAL RESTING-PLACE 209 
 
 world. Colebrooke describes the process of creation as 
 follows : ^ — " Two earthly atoms concurring by an unseen 
 peculiar virtue (adrishtd) or by the will of God, or by 
 time, or by other competent cause, constitute a double 
 atom of earth ; and by concourse of these binary atoms a 
 tertiary atom is produced, and by concourse of four triple 
 atoms a quaternary atom, and so on to a gross, grosser, or 
 grossest man of earth, the great earth is produced." 
 
 By the side of this atomic theory is the theory of 
 existence of eternal souls, and a Supreme Soul of the 
 Universe. " The seat of knowledge is the Soul. It is two- 
 fold — the living and the Supreme Soul. The Supreme 
 Soul is Lord, omniscient, one only, subject to neither 
 pleasure nor pain, infinite and eternal." 
 
 • Monier- Williams, " Indian Wisdom," p. 83. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE EPICS. 
 
 One great task remained in India for Brahmanism to set 
 its hand to. If in that task Brahmanism may be said to 
 have failed, the failure cannot be ascribed to lack of genius. 
 In all spheres of higher art, genius is ever confined to work- 
 ing on the lines along which it is impelled by its own 
 instincts. Outside these limits it may venture and attain 
 to results that astound and compel admiration, but in those 
 results there will be ever found wanting the true touch of 
 that inspiration which demands the universal and abiding 
 recognition of humanity that something has been pro- 
 duced that the world would not willingly let die. 
 
 India has sent forth work stamped with all the peculiar 
 impress of its own genius — works such as the lyric outbursts 
 of the " Vedas," the mystic ponderings of the " Upanishads " 
 and " Vedanta," as well as the highly dramatic productions 
 of Sur Das and Tulsi Das in the later days of Akbar — 
 which will ever demand a place in the very first ranks of the 
 world's literature, but this place could never be claimed for 
 the two great Herculean labours of Brahmanism — ^the con- 
 struction of the two Indian so-called epics, the " Maha- 
 bharata," and " Ramayana." These two vast poems were 
 
THE EPICS 211 
 
 compiled by Brahmans for the purpose of giving sacerdotal 
 recognition to the floating folk-lore and epic traditions of 
 the people, which have thus been preserved in the only 
 form that Aryan genius could have preserved them, and 
 that is a form curtailed of nearly all that was realistically 
 and dramatically essential to the true epic. 
 
 Side by side with the Vedic literature ^ there existed in 
 India, from times that may stretch back to the mists of 
 Indo-Germanic antiquity, the legends of tribal warriors 
 and their heroic deeds. These were held among the people 
 as their national folk-songs, and were sung from court to 
 court, from homestead to homestead, by travelling bards. 
 Even to-day the professional bard, with his store of songs, 
 is known everywhere in India, from north to south, from 
 east to west. Not only are the tales of Rajput chivalry 
 and Maratha daring recited in the homes where those of 
 Rajput or Maratha descent dwell, but even the wars, 
 victories, and defeats of the French and English, in their 
 conquests over the petty chieftains and great feudatories, 
 are sung from village to village. All of these ruggedly- 
 versed stories are instinct with dramatic power. With 
 true epic genius they are more concerned in the characters 
 than in the historic setting. It is impossible to generalise 
 for a vast continent such as India, especially when there 
 are no written records dealing with the subject, so it can 
 only here be asserted that, so far as South India is con- 
 cerned, where the author has listened to, and copied the 
 songs, of many travelling bards, these narratives are of 
 absorbing dramatic reality. So deeply do the bards enter 
 into the moving scenes they so vividly picture forth, and, 
 strange to say, their imagination seems to dwell more, so 
 far as the West is concerned, on the exploits of French 
 generals, such as Dupleix, Bussy, and' Labourdonnais, than 
 on the deeds of the English, that the emotions of the 
 
 1 Holtzmann, " Mahabharata " :— „ Epos und Veda sind gleich alt," 
 
212 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 reciters follow in quick, changing moods each scene and 
 incident. So intensely are the feelings of these impulsive 
 Eastern bards aroused, that as their tears fall, and their 
 feelings rise at the most pathetic lines — such as those 
 describing how the women of Bobbili sought death in the 
 flames to escape from the French conquest, and their fight- 
 ing men rushed forth to die, arms in hand — they, to conceal 
 the deep hold the narrative has taken over them, often 
 burst forth for a moment into a jingling verse of meaning- 
 less import, or even of ribald nonsense. 
 
 Throughout the two great compositions known as the 
 " Mahabharata " and " Ramayana," there lies a substratum 
 of this old, true, epic narrative. 
 
 In the West, in the lands of the Kuru Panchalas, and in 
 the East, in the land of the Ko^alas, the local bards, from 
 time unknown, had sung the heroic deeds of the tribal 
 heroes and deities, mingling fact and fiction, natural and 
 supernatural, into short and disconnected dramatic pictures, 
 wherein the characters move free and life-like.^ All these 
 folk-songs and supernatural legends of local aboriginal 
 deities were outside the stately purposes for which early 
 Brahmanism had set itself, in sovereign isolation, apart 
 from the mass of the people. The time, however, came 
 when it had to recognise the existence of traditions, 
 thoughts, and aspirations, other than its own. Some 
 compromise had to be made ; a bond of friendship and 
 alliance had to be entered into with the mass of local 
 history, superstition, and religion, so that they might be 
 assimilated into Brahmanic literature, and pass as part of 
 the armoury of priestcraft. The compromise was one of 
 
 1 Professor Ker, in his " Epic and Romance,'' says that " to require of the 
 poetry of an heroic age that it shall recognise the historical incoming and 
 importance of the events in which it originates, and the persons whose names 
 it uses, is entirely to mistake the nature of it. Its nature is to End or make 
 some drama played by kings and heroes, and to let the historical framework 
 take care of itself." 
 
THE EPICS 213 
 
 bondage ill-suited to the Aryan genius, and as a conse- 
 quence, the traces of it are patent everywhere. ^ 
 
 The cultured and learned Brahmans — the "Mahabharata " 
 is ascribed to one Vyasa — accordingly wove into two 
 colossal verse poems, one for the West of India, one for 
 the East, all the floating mass of epic tradition, demonology,! 
 and local hero-worship, essaying, in the effort, to unite the! 
 whole into connected stories. So far as the epic portion 
 was concerned, its movements were foreign to Brahmanic 
 instincts and genius. The Brahmans were subtle dreamers 
 and thinkers. They had drawn themselves apart from the 
 warrior class and warrior ways, yet they now found them- 
 selves called upon to glorify and dramatise the acts of 
 heroes, and to depict the stirring scenes of strife and 
 bloodshed. So far as demonology and hero-worship were 
 concerned, the Brahmans had long since ceased to build 
 up for themselves even the indistinct outlines of the Vedic 
 gods, and yet they essayed to clothe the local heroes, 
 demons, goblins, and fierce deities, with the cast-off 
 armoury and attributes of their Indra, Surya, Rudra, and 
 following train of Devas. The task^ has been accom- 
 plished ; the " Mahabharata '' runs to 20,000 lines in eighteen 
 sections, and the " Ramayana" to no less than 48,000 lines. 
 
 In the " Ramayana " the legends of the hero Rama, as 
 sung by the Eastern bards in their vernaculars, were strung 
 together in the classical Sanskrit verse by the Brahman 
 poet, Valmiki. Rama, a local conquering warrior and deified 
 
 1 Here I part altogether from Mr Dahlmann's theory that the union of epic 
 and law is a chemical union and not a mechanical union. J. Dahlmann, " Das 
 Mahabharata als Epos und Rechtsbuch" (Berlin, 1895-98); see BShler and 
 Kirste, "Ind. Stud." (1892). 
 
 2 "Not re-edited or re-published in the polished Sanskrit language till the 
 adaptation of Sanskrit to profane literature somewhere about thirteenth century 
 of our era." — Grierson, " Ind. Ant." (December 1894), p. 55. "It has been 
 conclusively shown" (Buhler and Kirste, "Contribution to Study of Maha- 
 bharata") "that the poem was recognised in 300 A.D., and by 500 A.D. was 
 essentially the same as it now exists." 
 
214 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 hero, rises in the " Ramayana " to be exemplar of all morality 
 and duty, a descent on earth or incarnation of the god 
 Vishnu for the repression of wrong and the inculcation of 
 virtue. This didactic element is the Brahmanic infusion 
 which in the " Ramayana," as well as in the " Mahabharata," 
 strings the detached epic elements and disconnected 
 episodes together, to the unavoidable weakening of the 
 dramatic force and epic character of the narrative. 
 
 In the " Ramayana " the deeds of Rama, the descendant 
 of the Solar race of Ikshvaku, form the epic background. 
 Rama, the eldest son of Da.saratha, the fabled king of 
 Ayodhya, or Oudh, was banished from his father's kingdom 
 in consequence of Da^aratha's submission to Kaikeyl, the 
 wicked mother of Rama's younger brother Bharata, for 
 whom she longed to procure the crown. Rama and his 
 gentle wife, Sita, departed from Ayodhya to spend their 
 term of fourteen years' banishment in the southern 
 forests. The unity of the narrative centres round the 
 adventures in the forest and heroic deeds of Rama to 
 regain his wife, Sita, who was forcibly borne away by a 
 fierce ten-headed monster, Ravana, King of Lanka, an 
 island which some, forgetting the unhistorical motive of the 
 early preservers of epic tradition, have identified with 
 Ceylon. In the hands of Tulsi Das, the Shakespeare of 
 Akbar's time, the characters rise from out their didactiffl 
 surroundings and live not in their lost original epic 
 reality, but with a dramatic vividness that has raised them 
 into romantic ideals. Whatever of interest for a study of 
 the history of the Indian people is preserved in the ancient 
 Sanskrit so-called epic, " Ramayana," will therefore be found 
 in the much more popular vernacular rendering of Tulsi 
 Das, where it can be best considered.^ 
 
 The"Mahabharata" remains unaltered from its chaotic and 
 early Sanskrit redaction. Whatever historic value it may 
 * See p. 367 (post). 
 
THE EPICS 215 
 
 have lies not in its scattered and subdued epic fragments,^ 
 loosely strung together by didactic teachings, irrelevant 
 episodes, artificial battle scenes, and classic descriptions of 
 scenery, but in the evidences it affords of the existence of 
 beliefs and creeds that were aspiring to the patronage of 
 Brahmanism, with which they were to unite to form the 
 popular religion, known as Hinduism, of the mass of Aryan 
 and non-Aryan people classed as Hindus. 
 
 The central story of the epic revolves round the rivalries 
 between the Kurus, the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra, 
 descendant of Bharata of the Lunar dynasty, the fabled 
 conqueror of all India north of Delhi, and the five Pandava 
 princes, said to be sons of Dhritarashtra's ^ elder brother, 
 the pale -skinned Pandu. The " Mahabharata " is thus 
 made to represent a great contest between the descendants 
 of Bharata for the possession of North India, ever known 
 as the land of Bharata, or Bharata Varsha. 
 
 The rivalries of the warrior heroes end in eighteen battles 
 fought on the plain of Kurukshetra, in which the Kurus are 
 exterminated and the Pandavas gain the kingdom, perform 
 the great horse sacrifice, denoting their universal sway, and 
 finally, after a glorious reign, take their long and lonely 
 journey towards Mount Meru, there to enter the Heaven of 
 Indra. Asinthe"Ramayana"and" Iliad," thewrongs suffered / 
 by a woman supply the motive force to rouse the heroism ; 
 of the warriors, for the true epic ever rises free above all the/ 
 
 ' " I believe that the Hindu epic is ancient, as ancient in its origin as the 
 earliest traditions of the nation."— Barth, " Ind. Ant." (1895), p. 71. 
 
 2 Holtzmann ("Das Mahabharata,"!. 156; ii. 174) has advanced weighty 
 reasons for concluding that Bhishma, the uncle of the Pandavas, was the real 
 father of the five princes, having been appointed to marry his brother's wife. 
 The Niyoga, similar to the Levirate, allowed the sonless widow to bear a child 
 to her brother-in-law on her husband's death, so as to continue the femily. In 
 the early law books the custom was restricted by very definite directions. It 
 was not until the time of the revised epic that the Brahmans made efforts to 
 become the chosen partners of sonless wives or widows. The meaning is quite 
 obvious, and totally opposed to Mr Dahlmann's theory of the epic as a law book. 
 
2i6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 restraining facts of prosaic history. Draupadi, the common 
 f wife of the five Pandava brothers is, in the "Mahabharata," 
 the cause of the great slaughter on the plain of Kuruk- 
 shetra, where, as the narrator of the poem tells, " in that 
 great battle of the Kurus came hundreds and thousands 
 of monarchs for fighting against each other. The names 
 of that innumerable host I am unable to recount even in 
 ten thousand years." Kurukshetra, the scene of slaughter, 
 where the ancient race of Kurus was defeated by a 
 confederacy of hostile tribes, headed by a band of non- 
 Aryan warriors, to whom Brahmanic power was obliged 
 to submit and assign a fictitious relationship with Aryan 
 folk, became one of the holiest places of pilgrimage 
 for all Hindus. This holy place of sacrifice, the plain 
 on which Aryanism and Brahmanism^ suffered their first 
 crushing defeat at the hands of the despised non-Aryan, 
 probably Dravidian, races, was the very spot over which 
 Brahmanism sang its loudest songs of triumph, so that 
 all record of the defeat might be passed over in the 
 pages of history. The battle-field was lauded as so sacred 
 that " he is freed from all sins who constantly sayeth, ' I 
 will live in Kurukshetra.' The very dust of Kurukshetra, 
 conveyed by the wind, leadeth a sinful man to a blessed 
 course in after life. They that dwell in Kurukshetra, 
 which lieth to the south of the SarasvatI and the north of 
 the Drishadvatl, are said to dwell in Heaven. O hero, one 
 should reside there, O thou foremost of warriors, for a 
 
 ' Even if this defeat be held not to be conclusively shown to have happened 
 at the hands of an un-Aiyan foe (see Jolly, " Recht und Sitte,"p. 48), and even 
 if it be contested that there is not sufficient evidence, though I do not see that 
 the weight of the evidence does not establish it, that a custom such as polyandry 
 may be no more than a family custom, still this does not affect the main point 
 which it is here the object to lead up to, the intrusion of Krishna and 6iva 
 worship into Brahmanic circles. The whole history is doubtful and obscure. 
 The view that presents itself as most plausible and readily understood is here 
 accepted, though I am perfectly aware of the insecurity of the position. In the 
 " Lalita Vistara " the Pandavas are a rude tribe. See Weber, " Indian Litera- 
 ture," pp. 136-35. 
 
THE EPICS 217 
 
 month. Thou, O Lord of the earth, the gods with Brahma 
 at their head, the Rishis, the Siddhas, the Charanas, the 
 Gandharvas, the Apsaras, the Yakshas, the Nagas, often 
 repair, O Bharata, to the highly sacred Kurukshetra. O 
 foremost of warriors, the sins of one that desireth to 
 repair to Kurukshetra, even mentally, are all destroyed, 
 and he finally goeth into the region of Brahma." The 
 " Mahabharata " is steeped in exordiums such as this, in- 
 culcating sacred duties and expounding moral principles, 
 all necessary for a Brahmanic purpose ej^er desirous of 
 extending its influence over established systems and 
 supporting de facto principalities. 
 
 The Pandavas are stated in the poem to have been in- 
 structed, at Hastinapur, in the use of arms and in warrior 
 feats, along with their fictitious cousins, the Kuru princes, 
 by Drona, a Brahman preceptor. When the time came for 
 Yuddhisthira, the leader ever firm in war, the eldest of the 
 Pandava brothers, to be crowned King of Hastinapur, he 
 and his brothers were persuaded by the intrigues of the 
 one hundred Kuru princes, to depart from the city on a 
 visit to a town eight days' distance. The Pandavas were 
 thus removed from Hastinapur, where it was necessary, for 
 the purpose of the poem — to give them a relationship with 
 the Kurus — that they should spend their childhood. It 
 was further necessary to account for the mode whereby 
 they afterwards appeared as leaders of a great national 
 movement against the exclusive system built up by 
 Aryanism. The Pandavas, as ultimately the winning side, 
 are glorified as models of all virtue, law and justice. It has 
 even been held that the whole poem is an allegory sym- 
 bolising the ever-recurring strife between the might of 
 righteousness and the evil of passion, between justice and 
 injustice, between right and wrong,^ justice being personi- 
 
 ^ Dahlmann, ' ' Das Mahabharata als Epos und Rechtsbuch " (Berlin, 1895-98). 
 Although the theory of Dahlmann is ingeniously worked out, I am unable to 
 accept it as in any sense setting forth the purport of the poem. 
 
2i8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 fied in Yuddhisthira, the leader of the Pandavas, injustice 
 being personified in Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kurus. 
 It could not, however, have been until long after these events 
 — until the Pandavas, in fact, had won their cause, and estab- 
 lished their position — that they wereglorified by the Brahmans 
 as incarnations of divinity, and all evidence of their rude 
 habits and alien descent obliterated as far as possible. The 
 Pandavas, with their mother, are represented as leaving 
 Hastinapur for their pleasure-trip to the eight-days'-away 
 town, amid the weeping and wailing of all the inhabitants. 
 The Kurus, in the meantime, prepared for their reception 
 a house, into the walls of which had been skilfully built 
 "hemp, resin, heath, straw, and bamboo, all soaked in 
 clarified butter." The Pandavas found out the details of 
 the plot laid against their lives and at once prepared to 
 escape. They dug an underground passage from the house 
 to the outside forest, and then enacted a part more fitting 
 to rude savages than to incarnations of justice. They pre- 
 pared a feast, " and desirous of obtaining food, there 
 came, as if impelled by the fates, to that feast, in course 
 of her wandering, a Nishada woman, the mother of five 
 children, accompanied by all her sons. And, O king, she 
 and her children, intoxicated with the wine they drank, 
 became incapable." The cunning of the Pandavcis had 
 succeeded. They set the house on fire, and disappeared 
 through the underground passage. The low-caste woman 
 and her five children, whom Brahmanic justice sees no 
 moral wrong in slaying, were burned to death, and when 
 their charred bodies were recovered, the rumour was spread 
 abroad that the Pandavas had vanished off the scene. 
 The trick is one of stage melodrama. The Pandavas were 
 cut adrift from Hastinapur, and free to commence their 
 true career. The entrance of the brethren on the new scene 
 has a true epic touch, although it be in the uncertain 
 realms of the supernatural. The figure of Bhlma, the fierce 
 
THE EPICS 219 
 
 and savage warrior, the smasher, in the last great fight, of 
 the thigh of Duryodhana, emerges from the underground 
 passage, with all the avenging might of a demon foe let loose 
 to pursue his relentless course. He was the fierce Vrikodara, 
 the "Wolf Stomached," who hovered near his brethren 
 endowed with more than human powers, and armed with 
 magic missiles. The supernatural shrouds him round, but 
 from it he rises clear and distinct, the life-like creation of 
 true epic genius. The wooden hut is burning fiercely ; the 
 first links uniting Aryanism with its new fetters are being 
 forged ; while from out the darkness of the cavern arises 
 Bhima, " taking his mother on his shoulders, the twin- 
 brothers, Nakula and Sahadeva, on both his arms, Vriko- 
 dara, of great energy and strength, and endowed with the 
 velocity of the wind, commenced his march, breaking the 
 trees with his breast, and pressing deep the earth with his 
 steps." 
 
 The s£erLe_£rov^s darker _anjd .Roomier. Brahmanism 
 has to watch the coming struggle, note its course, and side 
 with the winning force. New ways and customs have to 
 be temporised with, new gods accepted, and new super- 
 stitions made room for. The storm the Pandavas and 
 their allies were to raise was coming fast. The epic fades 
 away as the Brahmans set the story to a purpose. BhIma 
 hastens on, bearing his mother and his brothers, to seek 
 the deep recesses of the forest, whence he and the Pandavas 
 emerge on their true career. " The twilight deepened, the 
 cries of birds and beasts became fiercer; darkness sur- 
 rounded everything from view, and an untimely wind 
 began to blow that broke and laid low many a tree, large 
 and small, and many a creeper with dry leaves and fruit." ^ 
 
 Brahmanism had for long remained in sovereign isolation. 
 As Bhima cried out in his wrath against the Kurus : " He 
 who hath no jealous and evil-minded relatives, liveth in 
 
 1 "AdiParva,"§iS3. 
 
220 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 happiness in this world, like a single tree in a village. The 
 tree that standeth single in a village with its leaves and 
 fruits, from absence of others of the same species, becometh 
 sacred and is worshipped and venerated by all." ^ 
 
 The first great friendship made in the forest by the 
 Pandavas, was with the sister of a demon Rakshasa. This 
 Rakshasa was a cannibal, an eater of raw flesh, such as the 
 early Aryans described their Das)^! foes to have been. 
 This fierce dweller in the forest recesses, where dwelt the 
 rude aboriginal races, " was now hungry and longing for 
 human food."* 
 
 A long fight ensued between Bhlma and the fierce 
 Rakshasa, until at length "the Rakshasa sent forth a 
 terrible yell that filled the whole forest, and deep as the 
 sound of a wet drum. Then the mighty Bhlma, holding 
 the body with his hands, bent it double, and breaking it 
 in the middle, greatly gratified his brothers." * 
 
 The sister of the demon stood by watching the fight, 
 for, at the bidding of her brother, she had assumed the form 
 of a fair woman to entice the Pandavas into her brother's 
 power, but had relented of her purpose on beholding the 
 beauty of the fierce Bhlma. For one year she remained 
 with Bhlma, and then her son was born, and named 
 Ghatotkacha, or "pot-headed," for his head was bald. 
 Ghatotkacha became the famed warrior, an incarnation 
 of Indra, who fought in the foremost rank against the 
 Kurus, only to be slain by Kama.* 
 
 The further allies of the Pandavas had now to be 
 accounted for. News came to them that DraupadI, the 
 daughter of the King of the Panchalas, was about to hold 
 her Svayamvara. DraupadI is described as having "eyes 
 like lotus leaves, and features that are faultless ; endued 
 with youth and intelligence, she is extremely beautiful." 
 
 1 "Adi Parva," § 153. = Ibid., p. 446. ' Hid., p. 454. 
 
 * Son of KunU — the son miraculously conceived before her marriage with 
 Fandu. 
 
THE EPICS 221 
 
 She is "the slender-waisted DraupadI, of every feature per- 
 fectly faultless, and whose body emitteth a fragrance like 
 unto that of a blue lotus full two miles round." ^ 
 
 To her Svayamvara came monarchs and princes from 
 various lands, and "from various countries, actors, and 
 bards, singing the panegyrics of kings and dancers, and 
 reciters of ' Puranas,' and heralds, and powerful athletes." ^ 
 
 All failed to bend a wondrous bow, the test of the skill and 
 strength of the competing suitors. The five Pandu princes 
 advanced, disguised as Brahmans, and Arjuna, the ideal 
 type of manly heroism and knightly courtesy, drew the 
 bow and pierced the mark, so that DraupadI became his 
 prize, and the Pandus won the alliance of the Panchalas. 
 So far the poem is free from taint, but, unfortunately for 
 Brahmanic purposes, the early epic preserved the unfettered 
 truth that the Pandavas were of a polyandrous race, like 
 many of the present aboriginal races of India. DraupadI, 
 in the original epic, was the common wife of the five Pan- 
 dava brethren. This was a custom opposed to all Aryan 
 habits, for, as the present poem itself contends, "it hath 
 ever been directed that one man may have many wives, 
 but it never hath been heard that one woman may have 
 many husbands. O son of KuntI, pure as thou art, and 
 acquainted with the rules of morality, it behoveth thee 
 not to commit an act that is sinful, and opposed to usage 
 and the ' Vedas.' " This is the Brahmanic objection urged 
 by the father of DraupadI to Yuddhisthira, the eldest of the 
 Pandu brothers. The Pandus and their polyandry, and 
 all the aboriginal customs, superstitions, and tribal deities, 
 had, nevertheless, to be brought within the fold of Brah- 
 manism. The marriage of DraupadI to the five brothers 
 is explained away by the Brahmanic apology that it arose 
 out of a mistake. The Pandus, when they brought DraupadI 
 home to their mother, who resided in a potter's house, a 
 
 ' " Adi Parva," p. 525. » Ibid., p. 528. 
 
222 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 house in which a Brahman may still take up his residence, 
 are represented in the poem to have cried out that they had 
 obtained alms that day. The mother, not understanding 
 that her five sons referred to Draupadi, directed them to 
 share together,^ and as the command of a mother could not 
 be recalled or broken, Draupadi had to consent to wed the 
 five Pandus. With their new-won allies the Pandavas 
 appeared again in Hastinapur and demanded their share 
 in the kingdom. Their claim was compromised, and they 
 received the land lying along the Jumna, where they laid 
 the foundations of the ancient Delhi, known from of old 
 as Indra-prastha. 
 
 At Indra-prastha the five princes measured out the 
 limits of their new abode. There they cleared the forest, 
 reclaimed the land, and raised the walls of India's great 
 capital, " and surrounded it by a trench wide as the sea, 
 and by walls reaching high into Heaven, and awhile, as the 
 fleecy clouds or the rays of the moon, that foremost of 
 cities rose adorned like the capital of the nether kingdom, 
 encircled by the Nagas. And it stood adorned with 
 palatial mansions and numerous gates, each furnished with 
 a couple of panels resembling the outstretched wings of 
 Garuda. And the gateways that protected the town were 
 l^igh as the Mandara mountain, and massy as the clouds. 
 And furnished with numerous weapons of attack, the 
 
 * " Adi Parva," IT 193. The whole accounts in the poem are disjointed and 
 disconnected. Three solutions are set forth to explain the action of the five 
 brothers, all equally evasive of the main issue. I fail to follow the fantastic 
 theory of Dahlmann, that the united marriage of the five brothers symbolised 
 the undivided unity of a joint family. The subject of the joint family, as well 
 as of the Niyoga, have been so far carefully avoided. The whole evidence on 
 the subject is fully in the hands of scholars, and as yet no historical treatise on 
 the subject is forthcoming. The law books (" Gautama," xxvii. 4) show that 
 division was favoured by the Brahmans, as encour^ing an increase of responsi- 
 bility and rites. The undivided family exists in India down to the present day 
 (j«^ Jolly, "Tagore Law Lectures" (1883), p. 90). It is the one dividing line 
 between Aryans and non- Aryans in India (su Baden- Powell, "Ind. Vill. 
 Com." (1896). 
 
THE EPICS 223 
 
 missiles of the foe could not make the slightest impression 
 on them. And the turrets along the walls were filled 
 with armed men in course of training. And the walls 
 were lined with numerous warriors along their whole length. 
 And there were thousands of sharp hooks and machines 
 slaying a century of warriors, and numerous other machines 
 on the battlements. And there were also large iron wheels 
 planted on them. And with all these was that foremost 
 of cities adorned. And the streets were all wide, and 
 laid out excellently. And there was no fear in them of 
 accidents. And, decked with innumerable white mansions, 
 the city became like unto Amaravati, and came to be 
 called Indra-prastha ('like unto Indra's city'). And in a 
 delightful and auspicious part of the city rose the palace 
 of the Pandavas filled with every kind of wealth. And 
 when the city was builti there came, O King, numerous 
 Brahmans well acquainted with all the ' Vedas ' and con- 
 versant with every language, wishing to dwell there." 1 
 
 As the Pandavas reared their city, the gods whose aid 
 they sought were not the Aryan gods of old, though they 
 were to become the gods of the people, and the gods before 
 whom Brahmanism had to bow down. To fuse these new 
 deified heroes and fierce deities into Brahmanism, Arjuna 
 is represented as going forth from Indra-prastha to seek 
 their aid for the Pandava brethren. The Brahmanic poem 
 tells its own tale. 
 
 " Then Arjuna, of immeasurable prowess, saw, one after 
 another, all the regions of sacred waters and other holy 
 places that were on the shores of the Western ocean, and 
 then reached the sacred spot called Prabhasa."^ Here 
 Arjuna meets Krishna, the deified hero destined to become 
 the loved deity whose name is heard in every village, at 
 ' every festival, at every place of pilgrimage, throughout all 
 India. "And Krishna and Arjuna met together, and, 
 
 1 " Adi Parva," pp. 577-78. ^ Ibid., p. 602. 
 
224 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 embracing each other, enquired after each other's welfare. 
 And those dear friends, who were none else than the Rishi 
 Nara, and Narayana of old, sat down."^ The meeting 
 ends with the establishment of a great fellowship between 
 Krishna and Arjuna, the Pandu prince ultimately falling 
 in love with Krishna's sister. Arjuna told Krishna of his 
 love, and the Western chieftain, whose love-adventures are 
 the favourite themes of all Indian women, placed his 
 experience at the disposal of his friend. " O thou bull 
 amongst men, the Svayamvara hath her ordained for the 
 marriage of the Kshatriyas. But that is doubtful, as we 
 do not know this girl's temper and disposition. In the case 
 of Kshatriyas that are brave, a forcible abduction for 
 purposes of marriage is applauded, as the learned have 
 said. Therefore, carry away this, my beautiful sister, by 
 force, for who knows what she may do in a Svayamvara ? " ^ 
 This translation of the poem, by the pious and charitable 
 Protap Chandra Roy, clearly shows how impossible it 
 would be for a Western to attempt to understand the true 
 spirit of the Brahmanic redaction. It requires a simplicity, a 
 directness, a firm faith in the perfect unison of the whole, 
 to avoid the fatal error of so manj' Western adaptations 
 in endeavouring to improve on the tone of the original. 
 There is no attempt here to trifle with the loved personality 
 of Krishna, the deity glorified as a very incarnation of 
 the Vedic Vishnu, who strode through the three spaces, 
 placing his last footstep over the heavens. In the poem 
 itself Krishna takes his place as highest among the gods. 
 When Yuddhisthira was finally established as sovereign 
 over all known India, and had performed the great horse 
 sacrifice, symbolic of his universal sway, he bowed down 
 before Krishna as chief of all the gods. Krishna was then 
 declared to be the first of all warriors, the regent of the 
 universe, therefore " do we worship Krishna amongst the 
 
 - " Adi Parva," § ?20. = Bid., p. 605. 
 
THE EPICS 225 
 
 best and the oldest and not others." 1 Krishna is he who 
 "is the origin of the universe, and that in which the 
 universe is to dissolve. Indeed, this universe of mobile and 
 immobile creatures hath sprung into existence from Krishna 
 alone. He is the unmanifest primal matter (avyakta 
 prakriti), the Creator, the eternal, and beyond the ken of 
 all creatures. Therefore doth he of unfailing glory deserve 
 the highest worship." * 
 
 The legends and character of Krishna ^ stand out clear 
 in the underlying epic. He was the son of DevakI, and 
 was saved by his father, Vasu-deva, of the Lunar race, from 
 the wrath of the King of Mathura, whose death had been 
 foretold would take place at the hands of a descendant of 
 Vasu-deva. In his youth he was sent to be nursed by 
 Yaioda, the wife of a cowherd of the Yadava race, in whose 
 home he lived first at Gokula or Vraja, then at Vrinda- 
 vana, now the holy places of pilgrimage for all worshippers 
 of Krishna.* There he loved the "gopis," or milkmaids, de- 
 stroyed a great serpent,and held upthe mountain Govardhana 
 on his finger to save the " gopis " from the anger of Indra. 
 There he also lived happy with Radha,^ his favoured and 
 often forsaken loved one, and it was from there that he took 
 the inhabitants of Mathura to his holy city of Dvaraka* 
 
 ' "Sabha Parva," p. lo8. ^ Ibid., p. 109. 
 
 ' ' ' The earlier legends represent Indra as created from a cow. . . . Krishna 
 was probably the clan deity of some powerful confederacy of Rajput tribes. 
 Cow-worship is thus closely connected with Indra and with Krishna in his 
 forms as the 'herdman god' . . . and it is at least plausible to conjecture 
 that the worship of the cow may have been due to the absorption of the animal 
 as a tribal totem of the two races." — Crooke, "Religions and Folk-Lore of 
 N. India," vol. ii. p. 229. 
 
 ^ Monier- Williams, " Ind. Wisdom," p. 334. 
 
 ' See Hewitt, ist Series, p. 450 : — " Radha means the maker {dhd) of Ra, 
 the darkness or chaotic void from which the sun-god of light was bom, and is 
 thus another form of Rama, the darkness, the mother of Ra." 
 
 ^ " This story telling of the removal of the Yadavas to the sea-shore is the 
 mythical form assumed by national history, when it told how the inland race of 
 the sons of the tortoise had settled on the sea-shore and become a race of 
 mariners." — Hewitt, 1st Series, p. 469. 
 
 P 
 
226 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 in Guzarat. Krishna had to win his way slowly to Brah- 
 manic recognition and favour. Even in the "Maha- 
 bharata," Sisupala, King of Chedi, reviled him, asking 
 how is it that they i " who are ripe in knowledge are eager 
 to eulogize the cowherd who ought to be vilified even by 
 the silliest of men. If in his childhood he slew Sakuni, or 
 the horse and the bull who had no skill in fighting, what 
 is the wonder? ... If the mountain Govardhana, a mere 
 anthill, was held up by him for seven days, I do not 
 regard that as anything remarkable. . . . And it is no 
 great miracle that he slew Kansa, King of Mathura, the 
 powerful king whose food he had eaten." For this speech 
 the King of Chedi had his head smitten off by Krishna 
 with a discus, so that he "fell like a mountain smitten 
 by a thunderbolt." To Krishna the place of honour at 
 the Rajasuya, or " coronation ceremony," performed by 
 Yuddhisthira, had been given, and before Krishna the 
 Pandava chief bowed down and claimed him as the one 
 great deity of the people. " Owing to thy grace, O Govinda, 
 have I accomplished the great sacrifice ; and it is owing to 
 thy grace that the whole Kshatriya world, having accepted 
 my sway, have come hither with valuable tribute. O hero, 
 without thee, my heart never feeleth any delight" ^ So 
 the black, deified, hero of a shepherd clan, fabled king of 
 Dvaraka, and chief of the Yadavas, became the adored 
 incarnation of Vishnu, who came on earth to aid the 
 Pandavas and allied alien tribes in their struggle for 
 supremacy, and in their demand for recognition of their 
 cults and customs at Brahmanic hands. The Pandavas 
 had to pass through sore tribulation and trial before they 
 gained their ends. Yuddhisthira, the eldest brother among 
 the Pandavas, the righteous guide and apotheosis of all 
 virtue, fell before the guile of the Kurus. A challenge to 
 war or gambling was a challenge no warrior could with 
 > Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," vol. iv. p. 210. * " Sabha Parva," p. iz6. 
 
THE EPICS 227 
 
 honour refuse, so Duryodhana, chief of the Kurus, 
 challenged Yuddhisthira, chief of the Pandavas, to show 
 his skill with dice. The Kurus, over whom Brahmanism 
 had to pour forth its condemnation in its praises of 
 the Pandavas, are said to have played unfairly. At each 
 fall of the dice Yuddhisthira lost to Duryodhana his 
 wealth, his kingdom, his brothers one by one, and then 
 himself There remained but one more stake — the fair 
 figure, trailing hair, beauty and love of Draupadi. The 
 stroke was made, the dice rolled and fell, and Draupadi 
 became the prize of the exulting Duryodhana. The 
 scene, in its underlying pathos, is the finest picture of the 
 poem. One can imagine the vivid reality of what must 
 have been the original epic as sung in the vernacular by 
 the rude and impulsive wandering bard. There the deep 
 pathos of the reciter, as he told the shame and sorrow of 
 the noblest type of womanhood that Indian literature knows, 
 found its relief — in a manner seen constantly in Western 
 drama — in rude and ribald jeers and gibes even against 
 Draupadi herself In the Brahmanic poem, as we now 
 possess it, pathos and obscenity all have been mingled 
 together by the Brahmanic redactor into the most repulsive, 
 cold, and unrealistic description of suffering womanhood that 
 the literature- of any country has preserved. The scene 
 has been described in English adaptations over and over 
 again as typifying the Indian ideal of womanhood, 
 and as showing from the manner in which her sufferings 
 were respected, the high place she had acquired. This 
 ideal probably did underlie the original epic story. The 
 " Mahabharata " version is untranslatable, unreadable, with- 
 out feelings of horror. Draupadi has been degraded, accord- 
 ing to all sane thought, by her Brahmanic redactors to depths 
 from which she never again can rise. She has become the 
 centre figure of a scene, once realised from the Sanskrit, 
 that could only be willingly forgotten for ever. If she is to 
 
228 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 be remembered it must be by striving to recreate her as she 
 lived in the lost epic of the rough and ready minstrels, who 
 first sung her moving story to crowds of simple folk. The 
 god Krishna, in the preserved version, is drawn into the 
 scene to clothe the outraged woman with numerous 
 celestial robes, as her single raiment was torn repeatedly off 
 her suffering body in the gambling room before the 
 humbled Pandavas and one hundred rejoicing sons of 
 Kuru. There is some excuse for the horrors which follow. 
 The fierce and raging Bhima swore to hew the head of 
 DuhSasana — ^who dragged DraupadI, a woman who had 
 never seen the sun, from her private apartments to the 
 assembly — from off his body and drink his heart's blood, a 
 vow he fulfilled on the plains of Kurukshetra. He also 
 vowed that he would smash Duryodhana's thigh, and this 
 he did by a foul stroke in the final fight, and left the vile 
 Kuru to die amid his brethren on the avenging battle- 
 field. 
 
 The Pandavas had to wait long for their revenge. In 
 the gambling hall, Dhritarashtra, the aged and blind father 
 of the Kurus, stayed the rising wrath of the assembled 
 heroes. The Pandavas were judged to have lost all, yet 
 they were not to be treated as slaves. DraupadI they 
 received back, but only on their promising that they would 
 go with her for twelve years into exile, and then remain 
 concealed for one year longer, when, if they were undis- 
 covered, they should receive back their kingdom. The story 
 of the exile is the crowning glory of the " Mahabharata." 
 Here, in the classic beauty of its language, in its depth of 
 thought, and in its incident, and to an Eastern in its descrip- 
 tion of scenery and didactic teaching, the poem is unrivalled 
 in the history of India's literature. All the beauty of the 
 poem, however, pertains to the form of the literature itself 
 and not to epic narrative, dramatic reality, or even the 
 prosaic history told by that literature. Outside its form 
 
THE EPICS 229 
 
 the " Mahabharata " is only valuable ^ as showing the change 
 from Vedic Brahmanism towards the tangled growth of 
 modern Hinduism. The older Vedic deities — Agni, and 
 Surya, Vayu, Varuna, and Indra — truly remain, but shorn 
 of their ancient power and brilliancy. Indra still has his 
 Heaven, the. Valhalla of the warriors. Yama is no longer 
 Death, but grows more akin to Justice.^ The great Vedic 
 sacrifices, and the occasional sacrifices, are performed, but 
 by their side, equally sacred, are pilgrimages to hoiy places, 
 sacred rivers and bathing in streams, the worship of snakes 
 and trees, idolatry and bowing down before painted images.^ 
 The great deities of modern Hinduism rise distinct and 
 clear as the sole personal objects of worship, in whom all- the 
 subsidiary deities of India merge, and are held to have their 
 source. The Supreme Spirit * assumes the triple form of 
 the personal Creator, Brahma, the personal protector, Vishnu 
 or Krishna, and the fierce Siva, the potential destroyer. 
 
 6iva, to the Brahmanic mind, is the Rudra of the Vedas.^ 
 In the underlying epic of the " Mahabharata," he was even 
 greater than Krishna ; he was the wild, fierce deity of an 
 aboriginal folk, and the chief aid of the Pandavas. When 
 the five brethren stayed with their restored wife, DraupadI, 
 in the forest, Arjuna was directed by Indra to go to the 
 Himalayas and seek the aid of the fierce deity, Siva. The 
 abode of 6iva was in the Heaven, Kailasa, where he was 
 waited on by the Yakshas, once gods among men, and had 
 as his consort, the goddess. Kali, or, as she is otherwise 
 known, Uma, the gracious, Devi, Durga, Gauri, Bhairava, 
 the various names, along with her many others, that still echo 
 
 ' " Let the reader attach no value to the names which are mostly myths, or 
 to the incidents which are mostly imaginary." — Dutt, "Ancient India," vol. i. 
 
 p. 189- 
 
 2 Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 380 (note 2). 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 374- 
 
 « See Holtzuiann, Z.D.M.G., xxxviii. p. 204; Hopkins, p. 412. 
 = >Tuir, "Sanskrit Texts," iv. p. 283. 
 
230 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 from the weary bands of pilgrims who travel to her many 
 shrines all over India. It was not until Arjuna saw and 
 submitted to the might of 6iva that he obtained the 
 divine missiles which were to scatter the Kuru force. The 
 promise held out by Indra to Arjuna declared the rising 
 sway of ^iva. "When thou art able to behold the three- 
 eyed, trident-bearing 6iva, the lord of all creatures, it is 
 then, O child, then I will give thee all the celestial weapons. 
 Therefore, strive thou to obtain the sight of the highest of 
 the gods, for it is only after thou hast seen him, O son of 
 KuntI, that thou wilt attain all thy wishes." 
 
 Arjuna set forth to seek the deity, and, being defeated 
 in a fierce fight, acknowledged the power of Siva, fell 
 down before him, and sang the Brahmanic song of re- 
 cognition of the fierce god of his race.i " I am unable to 
 declare the attributes of the wise Mahadeva, who is an all- 
 prevailing god, yet is nowhere seen, who is the creator and 
 the lord of Brahma, Vishnu, and Indra, whom the gods from 
 Brahma to the demons worship, who transcends material 
 natures as well as spirits, who is meditated upon by sages 
 versed in contemplation i,yoga) and possessing an insight 
 into truth, who is the supreme, imperishable Brahman, that 
 which is both non-existent, and at once existent and non- 
 existent. He is the deity who has a girdle of serpents, and 
 a sacrificial cord of serpents, in his hand he carries a 
 discus, a trident, a club, a sword, and axe — the god whom 
 even Krishna lauds as the supreme deity." 
 
 Deep as the worship of Siva is steeped in the underlying 
 epic, it fades away before the worship of Krishna, the 
 incarnation of Vishnu, who led the Pandavas to victory, 
 and whose adoration is inculcated more than that of Siva 
 by the Brahmanic framers of the " Mahabharata." 
 
 The dark figure of Krishna hovers mysteriously in the 
 background of early Indian history. In the " Mahabharata " 
 
 1 Muir, "Sanskrit Texts," vol. v. p. 187. 
 
THE EPICS 231 
 
 Krishna rises to such prominence, that it has been held that 
 the whole poem must have been written to extend his wor- 
 ship, and establish it for ever as the true faith for all India. 
 The entire conception of a religion, founded on a faith in 
 the saving grace of Krishna, is declared by some^ to be 
 merely the Hindu mode of inculcating the doctrines of 
 Christianity, which first reached India in the second and 
 third centuries of our era. 
 
 It has been asserted that in the " Mahabharata " itself, a 
 clear reference is made to Christian doctrines and Christian 
 worship in an account of a pilgrimage made to the White 
 Country, or Svetadwipa.^ In the White Country the 
 pilgrims are said to have " beheld glistening men, white, 
 appearing like the moon, adorned with all auspicious 
 marks, with their palms ever joined in supplication, 
 praying with their faces turned to the East. The prayer 
 which is offered up by these great-hearted men is called 
 the ' mental prayer.' " 
 
 The pilgrims further heard those who in the White 
 Country offered oblations to the god, singing their song of 
 praise. " Thou art victorious, O lotus-eyed one. Hail to 
 thee, O Creator of the Universe ! Hail to thee, thou first- 
 born Supreme Being ! " * 
 
 There is nothing to show that the worship of Krishna 
 had not arisen in India as the natural outcome of the life 
 and thought of the period immediately preceding, or 
 
 ' Lorinser (1869) ; Weber, " Krishna Gebilrts Fest.," p. 316; see Hopkins, 
 ' ' Religions of India, " p. 429. The whole subject is luminously treated in J. M. 
 Robertson's " Christ and Krishna " (Freethought Publishing Company, 1890). 
 
 '^ "The ancient Bhagavata, Satvata, or Pancharatra sect, devoted to tha 
 worship of Narayana and its deified teacher, Krishna Devakiputra, dates from 
 a period long anterior to the rise of the Jains in the eighth century B.C." 
 — Earth, "Ind. Ant.," p. 248 (September 1894). Krishna Devakiputra is 
 referred to in "Ch. Up.,"iii. 17, 6, though no effort is made afterwards to 
 connect him with Krishna, the son of Vasu-deva. See "^andilya Satras" 
 (ed. Ballantyne, tr. Cowell), p. 51 ; S.B.E,, vol. i. p. 52 {note). 
 
 8 See Hopkins, " Religions of India," p. 432. 
 
232 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 subsequent to, the Christian era. Throughout all early 
 thought in India there runs an individuality of its own, 
 removing it far from all lines of thought with which it is 
 so frequently compared. Fresh inspirations have, un- 
 doubtedly, for a time, acted in the past from outside, and 
 influenced certain phases of Indian literature and art, but 
 the Indian mind soon sinks back to its own accustomed 
 mode of thought and expression, so that, when the first 
 motive force of the new influences fades and dies away, 
 little is left in the essential form that the keenest eye of 
 the scholar or artist can detect as not truly native in its 
 execution, genesis, or tendency. Resemblances between 
 phases of Indian philosophic thought and those of the 
 West, from the time of Xenophanes^ down to that of 
 Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, have been sought, and 
 though there are coincidences everywhere, none has been 
 shown not to have been evolved by independent, though 
 similar, orders of thought. The whole case, on the side 
 of those who claim an Eastern source for certain Western 
 forms, has been recently examined in connection with 
 certain practices referred to in the Buddhist Canon, as 
 settled in the Council at Pataliputra, or Patna, in 259 
 B.C., by order of Asoka. Yet even here^ failure has to 
 be confessed : " If the celibacy of the clergy, if con- 
 fessions, fasting, nay, even rosaries, were all enjoined in the 
 Hinayana Canon,^ it followed, of course, that they could 
 not have been borrowed from Christian missionaries. On 
 the contrary, if they were borrowed at all, the conclusion 
 
 ' Garbe, "Sankhya Philosophie " ; Davies, "Hindu Philosophy," p. 143. 
 Huxley {" Romanes Lecture," p. 19) comparing Buddha and Berkeley. Better 
 would be a comparison with Hume. 
 
 2 Max MUUer, "Coincidences" {Trans. R.S.L.), vol. xviii. part 2, 
 p. 16. 
 
 ' " To avoid all controversy, we may be satisfied with the date of VattagSmani, 
 88 to 76 B.C., during whose reign the Buddhist Canon was first reduced to 
 writing." — Max Miiller, Ibid., p. 14. 
 
THE EPICS 233 
 
 would rather be that they were taken over by Christianity 
 from Buddhism. I have always held that the possibility 
 of such borrowing cannot be denied, though, at the same 
 time, I have strongly insisted on the fact that the historical 
 reality of such borrowing has never been established." 
 
 The form in which the worship of Krishna is set forth 
 and inculcated in the " Mahabharata" precludes any possi- 
 bility of its historical connection with the West ever being 
 established, if, indeed, there are any grounds why it should 
 be suspected. The same doubts, the same efforts to seek 
 for the soul a secret hiding-place from the injustices of the 
 world, the same black pall of despairing pessimism that 
 can only be rent by belief or faith in the teachings of 
 revealed truths by a qualified preceptor, all are woven into 
 the very texture of the " Mahabharata," even more than 
 they are throughout the fuller exposition of Indian 
 thought as seen in the " Vedanta." In India of the past, 
 humanity had to tread the path that leads through life to 
 death, and mark, as it marched, how the road was narrow, 
 and the pitfalls many, how those who wandered from 
 the track sank deep and were for ever lost to human 
 aid or help. The whole of the best of Indian thought was 
 one ceaseless effort to mark each snare and pitfall, to map 
 the line out clear and plain, so that the age might pass 
 from off the scene with something of hope and certainty. 
 The beacon lights that were set ablaze to direct the 
 quivering soul in its flight through time may appear 
 dim and uncertain to us of to-day, who stand listening 
 wearily to thfe muffled sound that comes from the 
 chambers of science, in vain expectation that it may 
 break forth into a cry that the secret of the Universe 
 has been disclosed and matter reigns supreme. Never- 
 theless, those beacon lights, that in India guided those 
 now passed away, and still guide many, were all the 
 outcome of the deep and earnest brooding thought of 
 
234 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 generations of devout and holy men, who placed on 
 record in their literature the efforts they had made 
 to direct all things for the best, although those efforts 
 often bear the taint, as all human efforts must, of selfish 
 interest. 
 
 The underlying current of Indian thought, leading 
 naturally, as it does, through faith in the teachings of the 
 " Vedas," " Upanishads," and " Vedanta," or in a spiritual pre- 
 ceptor, on to faith in the teachings of the divine Krishna, 
 has its keynote fully set forth in the song of despair 
 sung by DraupadI to Yuddhisthira when the Pandava 
 brethren lived in the forest, bereft of all hope or aid. 
 Here Draupadi bewailed to her husband how he, the chief 
 of the Pandava brothers, the very incarnation of virtue, 
 uprightness, and fair-dealing, was powerless against the will 
 of the Creator, who had ordained all things, and in whose 
 hands all are as playthings. All men, urged the despairing 
 queen, are subject to the will of God, and not to their own 
 desires.i " The humble and forgiving person is disregarded, 
 while those that are fierce, persecute others. It seemeth 
 that man can never attain prosperity in this world 
 by virtue, gentleness, forgiveness, and straightforwardness. 
 Like the shadow pursuing a man, thy heart, O tiger 
 among men, with singleness of purpose, ever seeketh virtue. 
 Yet virtue protecteth thee not. The Supreme Lord and 
 Ordainer of all, ordaineth everything in respect of the weal 
 and woe of all creatures, even prior to their births. O 
 hero amongst men, as a wooden doll is made to move its 
 limbs by the wire-puller, so are creatures' made to work 
 by the Lord of all. Like a bird tied with a string every 
 creature is dependent on God. Like a pearl on its string, 
 or a bull held fast by the cord passing through its nose, or 
 a tree fallen from the bank into the middle of the stream, 
 every creature followeth the command of the Creator. 
 » "VanaParva,"§28, 30. 
 
THE EPICS 235 
 
 They go to Heaven or hell urged by God Himself. Like 
 light straws dependent on strong winds, all creatures, O 
 King, are dependent on God. The Supreme Lord, accord- 
 ing to His pleasure, sporteth with His creatures, creating and 
 destroying them like a child with his toy. Beholding 
 superior, and well-behaved, and modest persons persecuted 
 while the sinful are happy, I am sorely troubled. If the 
 act done pursueth the doer and no one else, then, certainly, 
 it is God Himself who is stained with the sin of every act." 
 
 The wail of condemnation of the Cosmos was here again 
 raised. The Brahmanic mind was framing, in its own 
 mode, the expression of the people's thought. It remained 
 for an answer to be given which all classes might recognise 
 as consonant with their own religious conceptions, and 
 yet one that blended in with the prevailing philosophic 
 notions of the age. This answer is fully set forth in the 
 divine song, the " Bhagavad Gita," set, as a mosaic, in the 
 "Bhishma Parva " of the "Mahabharata." It is here declared 
 that those who worship whatever god they choose, or 
 perform whatever rites they will, are all sure to gain 
 the Heaven they long for. It is Krishna himself who 
 makes their faith firm. It is Krishna alone who grants 
 the desires of all, though the foolish, in their ignorance, 
 worship other deities, and fail to recognise him as 
 the Supreme Spirit, and understand not his saving help.^ 
 Krishna is the sole Lord, Divine, without a belief in whom 
 all sacrifices are in vain.^ 
 
 In the "Bhagavad Gita," this doctrine of belief or faith 
 in Krishna is distinctly declared to contain the whole 
 sum of man's duty on earth. When the Pandavas, with 
 their allies from all quarters, crowded round the Kurus to 
 claim back their kingdom, they sought the active aid of 
 Krishna, as greater than all human aid, an aid sought 
 also by Duryodhana, chief of the Kurus. To both Krishna 
 
 ' Davies, " Bhagavad Gita," vii. 20-5. - Ibid., vii. 28. 
 
236 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 gave the same answer. He would take no part in the 
 coming fight ; they could choose between him, as passive 
 spectator, and a hundred million warriors he threw into 
 the other scale. Arjuna chose Krishna, Duryodhana chose 
 the warriors. On the plains of Kurukshetra, the great 
 battle-field of India, the old and new met for the first 
 time. 
 
 Krishna, though he would not fight, appeared as charioteer 
 to Arjuna. When Arjuna saw the vast host of warriors 
 drawn up in hostile array his heart failed. The cry once 
 raised by DraupadT unnerved his arm. He prayed to 
 Krishna to instruct him as to the meaning of the strange 
 conflict between his innate conceptions of justice and the 
 deeds of blood towards which fate had now drawn him 
 near. Between Arjuna and Krishna question and answer 
 followed, as told in the " Bhagavad Gita." 
 
 The object of the poem might be shortly summed up, 
 according to Western notions, as inculcating that it is best 
 for man to do the duty that lies nearest to his hand, and 
 to leave the rest in God's keeping. There the poem might 
 be left, were it not that the whole guidance of India's future 
 has been assumed by the English nation, and that this is 
 a task doomed to failure unless the leading principles are 
 understood which still holds India tied to its own past. 
 Above all, the wide-spread faith in Krishna, the mystic 
 broodings of the soul over a longed-for union with the 
 Supreme Spirit, are factors that missionary enterprise in 
 India must first probe down to their roots before it can 
 be said that the ground, which it is sought to clear and 
 prepare for the sowing of new seed, has even been surveyed. 
 Were the task an easy one it would have been long ago 
 accomplished. There is no more illusive phase of thought 
 than that of Eastern mysticism. To the Western mind it 
 is evanescent, and only perceived in the peculiar stage in 
 which it passes from the ideal to the real and becomes 
 
THE EPICS 237 
 
 impossible of recognition. In the " Bhagavad Glta," where 
 it finds its chief source, it is bound up with some of the 
 most perplexing problems in the whole course of the 
 history of Indian thought.^ 
 
 To some it would appear that the " Bhagavad Gita " pre- 
 ceded any formal system of Sankhyan or Vedantic philo- 
 sophic thought,^ while to others, with what appears a surer 
 view, it presents an unscientific exposition of existing 
 philosophies, simplified in order to make them readily in- 
 telligible to the mass of the people. 
 
 All these critical points fade away into insignificance 
 when the true purport, and subsequent influence, of the 
 teachings which the poem promulgates are fully realised. 
 It is sufficient for all practical purposes to direct the 
 attention to the words of the poem itself, and the doctrines 
 therein laid down. The poem dates from some time before 
 the Christian era, and holds its place in the imagination of 
 the people down through the ages to the present day. 
 
 Not by knowledge of the true nature of matter and soul, 
 as in the Sankhyan system, not by piercing through the 
 misty film of delusion which separates the individual soul 
 
 ^ "This much is certain, that the student of the 'Bhagavad Glta' must, for 
 the present, go without that reliable historical information touching the author 
 of the work, the time at which it was composed, and even the place it occupies 
 in literature, which one naturally desires when entering upon the study of any 
 work." — Telang, S.B.E., vol. viii. p. I. 
 
 ^ See Hopkins, " Rehgions of India," p. 400. The question of the date 
 of the "Bhagavad Glta," and the opinions of Dr Thibaut, Dr Bhandarkar, 
 and Telang, are learnedly discussed in a small pamphlet of Prof. T. R. 
 Amalnerkar's (Bombay Education Society's Press, 1895). With his opinion 
 that the song is Post-Buddhistic, and after the time of the " Vedanta Sutras," 
 I agree. "The decay of philosophy, to which the 'Gita' bears testimony, 
 may be roughly estimated as having taken place in the second century B.C., 
 which brings us to the end of the Siitra period" (p. 7). See Davies, 
 "Bhagavad Gita," p. 194, fixing date "not earlier than third century B.C." 
 See Telang, S.B.E., vol. viii. p. 34, for the opinion that "the latest date at 
 which the ' Glta ' can have been composed must be earlier than the third 
 century B.C." Weber and Lassen are of opinion that the song was not written 
 before the third centuiy B.C. 
 
238 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 from its own true essence, the Supreme Soul, as taught by 
 the Vedantists, nor yet by pious meditation, as in the "Yoga, ' 
 is deliverance from the bonds of transmigration to be found. 
 The way is declared by Krishna, the charioteer to the 
 warrior, Arjuna : ^ — 
 
 " Hear now once more my deep words, most hidden in their meaning. 
 Firmly you are desired of Me, therefore I will declare that 
 which is for your welfare. 
 
 " Fix your mind on Me, praise Me, sacrifice to Me, reverence Me. 
 
 " To Me only you shall come, truly to thee I promise, for dear you 
 are to Me. All duties ^ having forsaken, to Me only for pro- 
 tection come. 
 
 " I will release you from all sins, do not sorrow." 
 
 \This doctrine of salvation, by devotion to, and faith in, 
 rishna, finds its conclusion in the instruction : ^ — 
 
 " This doctrine is not to be declared to him who practises not austere 
 
 rites, or who never worships, or who wishes not to hear, nor 
 
 to one who reviles Me. 
 " He who shall teach this supreme mystery to those who worship Me, 
 
 he, offering to Me this highest act of worship, shall doubtless 
 
 come to Me. 
 " Nor is there any one among mankind who can do Me better service 
 
 than he, nor shall any other on earth be more dear to Me 
 
 than he. 
 " .And by him who shall read this holy converse held by us, I may 
 
 be sought through this sacrifice of knowledge. This is my 
 
 decree. And the man who may hear it in faith, without reviling, 
 
 shall attain, when freed from the body, to the happy region 
 
 of the just." 
 
 ' " Bhagavad Gita," xviii. 64-6. 
 
 ^Telang, S.B.E., vol, viii. p. 129 {fiote 3): — "Of caste or order such as 
 Agnihotra, and so forth." Davies, p. 176 : — " All religious duties." 
 
 ' The Eastern form of the poem is given in the translation by the late 
 Kasinath Trimbak Telang in S.B.E., vol. viii. p. 129, and shows how 
 a very different impression is left in the mind as to the relationship of 
 the song to the New Testament: — "This (the 'Gita') you should never 
 declare to one who performs no penance, who is not a devotee, nor to one 
 who does not wait on (some preceptor), nor yet to one who calumniates 
 Me. He who, with the highest devotion to Me, will proclaim this supreme 
 mystery among my devotees, will come to Me fi-eed from all doubts. No one 
 
THE EPICS 239 
 
 Krishna further declares that, surrounded as he is by 
 the delusion of his mystic power.^ he is not manifest to all. 
 "This deluded world knows me not, unborn and inex- 
 haustible. I know, O Arjuna ! the things which have been, 
 those which are, and those which are to be. But Me nobody 
 knows. All beings, O terror of your foes, are deluded at 
 the time of birth by the delusion." ^ Krishna is represented 
 as the Supreme Spirit, as Brahman, the indestructible 
 spiritual essence, the origin and cause of men and gods. 
 He is the indivisible energy pervading all life and the 
 divisible forms of men and things, so that " he who leaves 
 this body and departs from this world, remembering Me 
 in his last moments,- comes into my essence." ^ 
 
 The supreme object of mankind therefore should be de- 
 votion, and not action, just as meditation was the supreme 
 state for the Yogin. The " Bhagavad Gita " accordingly 
 holds a strange casuistical doctrine respecting action. 
 Krishna declares, "the truth regarding action is abstruse. 
 The wise call him learned whose acts are all free from 
 desires and fancies." Arjuna, as a warrior, was directed by 
 Krishna to perform his duty as a soldier and fight, although 
 by devotion alone was he to gain salvation. All acts must 
 therefore be done without attachment to them. " He who, 
 casting off all attachment, performs actions dedicating them 
 to Brahman, is not tainted by sin, as the lotus leaf is not 
 tainted by water." * The man is saved, according to the 
 words of Krishna, " who sees Me in everything, and every- 
 
 among men is superior to him in doing what is dear to Me. And there will 
 never be another on earth dearer to Me than he. And he who will study this 
 holy dialogue of ours will, such is my opinion, have offered to Me the sacrifice 
 of knowledge." 
 
 ' "Yoga maya samavritah,'' vii. 28. 
 
 ^S.B.E., vol. viii. p. 78. 
 
 ' " Even if you are the most sinful of all sinful men, you will cross over all 
 trespasses by means of the boat of knowledge alone." — Ibid., p. 62. 
 
 '^ Ibid., p. 64. 
 
240 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 thing in me, I am never lost, and he is not lost in me." 
 The reply of Arjuna pursues the question still further. " O 
 Krishna, the mind is fickle, boisterous, strong, and obstinate, 
 and I think that to restrain it is as difficult as to restrain the 
 wind." 1 So Krishna continues his teaching regarding re- 
 nunciation of attachment to works, at length weighing 
 down all objection by the cry : — 
 
 " I am death, the destroyer of the worlds, fully developed, and I now 
 am active about the overthrow of the worlds. Even without 
 you the warriors, standing in the adverse hosts, shall all cease 
 to be. Therefore, be up, enjoy glory, and, vanquishing your 
 foes, obtain a prosperous kingdom. All these have been 
 already killed by Me. Be only the instrument, O shooter, with 
 the left as with the right hand." ^ 
 
 All action is, in short, tainted with evil, yet, by doing 
 one's duty without attachment, one does not incur sin, 
 so Krishna holds that one, " even performing all actions, 
 always depending on Me, he, through my favour, obtains 
 the imperishable and eternal seat" Arjuna, therefore, has 
 to do his duty and fight. For the four castes the duties 
 to be done are laid down in the following words : * — " Tran- 
 quillity, restraint of the senses, penance, purity, forgiveness, 
 straightforwardness, also knowledge, experience, and belief 
 in a future world, this is the natural duty of Brahmans. 
 Valour, glory, courage, dexterity, not slinking away from 
 battle, gifts, exercise of lordly power, this is the natural 
 duty of Kshatriyas. Agriculture, tending cattle, trade, this 
 is the natural duty of Vai^yas. And the natural duty of 
 Sudras consists in service. Every man intent on his own 
 respective duties obtains perfection." The wise man, how- 
 ever, looks upon "a Brahman possessing learning and 
 humility, on a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a low-caste man 
 as alike." Such are the teachings of the " Bhagavad Gita," 
 
 1 S.B.E,, vol. viii. p. 71. ^ y^^_^ p gj_ 3 /i,y_^ p_ 
 
 126, 
 
THE EPICS 241 
 
 as set forth by Krishna, who promises salvation to all who 
 believe in his saving grace. 
 
 " Devote thy heart to Me ; worship Me, sacrifice to Me, bow down 
 before Me ; so shalt thou come to Me. I promise thee truly 
 for thou art dear to me. 
 
 " Forsaking all religious duties, come to Me as the only refuge. I will 
 release thee from all thy sins ; grieve not." * 
 
 ^ Da vies, p. 176 (trans.). 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ATTACK. 
 
 India was fast marching towards its doom. The monarch 
 who claimed universal sovereignty performed the horse 
 sacrifice as symbolic of his sovereignty. For one year a 
 horse was let loose to wander where it would ; he who 
 stayed its course was presumed to show he did not 
 recognise the ruling right of the sovereign over the lands 
 where the horse had strayed. Should the wanderings of 
 the horse not be opposed, it was sacrificed with due rites. 
 The Pandava brethren were fabled in the epic to have 
 performed a horse sacrifice, a custom in its origin essentially 
 Turanian or Scythian. 
 
 With the Pandavas, and all their surrounding fierce and 
 heroic gods, superstitions, and aboriginal beliefs, Brahmanism 
 had to compromise ; it could no longer stay their course. 
 It had to recognise that the great mass of the people of 
 India would never accept the abstract teachings of the 
 " Upanishads'' or " Vedanta " philosophies ; they would ever 
 follow their own ways and gods. Asoka, sprung as he was 
 from the outcast Chandra Gupta, found it wise to embrace 
 the Buddhist faith, so that his renown and sway might 
 increase among the people by his standing forth as the 
 supporter of a religious syste^m recognising no distinction 
 of caste or family name. 
 
 Brahmanism had marked its descent from its lofty ideals 
 
 212 
 
THE ATTACK 243 
 
 when it compromised with behefs alien to its own true 
 spirit. Asoka showed the signs of his empire's decay when 
 he set forth as principles on which sovereignty should rest 
 those inculcated by the Buddha, instead of those principles, 
 symbolised by the rough and ready defiance of horse 
 sacrifice, on which his rule could alone abide amid the 
 dark days it had soon to face. 
 
 Although Asoka succeeded his father, Bimbisara, son of 
 Chandra Gupta, about 259 B.C., yet it was not until the 
 twenty-ninth year ^ of his reign that he stood forth as the 
 champion of Buddhism. From Kabul and Kandahar to 
 Kalinga on the east coast, which he conquered in the ninth 
 year of his reign,^ from Kapilavastu in the north, to Mysore 
 in the south, he had established his fame and sovereignty. 
 All over this vast tract he gave orders that his edicts 
 should be engraven on stone pillars, on the rocky sides of 
 mountains, and in caves,^ so that his ordinances should 
 abide for ever. The inscriptions in the north, such as that 
 at Kupardagiri, or Shahbazgahri on the Afghan frontier, are 
 all written from right to left in a character derived from a 
 Phoenician source, known for long as Northern Asoka, or 
 Arian, sometimes as Arian Pali, Bactro Pali, or Gandharian, 
 and now called Kharosthi. Those to the south, such as 
 that at Girnar in Kathiawar on the west coast of India, run 
 from left to right, and were in what is known as the 
 Southern Asoka, Indo Pali, Mauriya writing, to which the 
 name of Brahml is now applied. 
 
 The thirteenth edict states that Asoka sent missionaries 
 to Antiochus II. of Syria, Ptolemy II. of Egypt, Antigonos 
 
 ' " Epigraphia Indica," vol. ii. p. 246 : — "His conversion to Buddhism fell 
 ... in the twenty-ninth year of his reign." Rhys Davids ("Buddhism," 
 p. 222, 1894) says : — " After his conversion, which took place in the tenth year of 
 his reigp, he became a very zealous supporter of the new religion." 
 
 2 Edict XIII. 
 
 ' Hunter ("Indian Empire,'' p. 190) gives the sites of the fourteen rock and 
 seventeen cave inscriptions as described by Cunningham. 
 
244 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene, and Alexander 
 II. of Epirus. 
 
 On the historic ridge, near Delhi, a pillar, broken in four 
 pieces by an earthquake, is inscribed with the most interest- 
 ing of these inscriptions of Asoka. 
 
 The edicts 1 tell their own story of the king's efforts to 
 frame rules of ideal governance for his kingdom. 
 
 Edict I. — King Piyadasi, beloved of the gods, speaks thus : — " After 
 I had been anointed twenty-six years I ordered this rehgious edict 
 to be written. Happiness in this world and in the next is difficult 
 to gain except by the greatest love of the sacred law, the greatest 
 circumspection, the greatest obedience, the greatest fear, the 
 greatest energy. . . . And my servants, the great ones, the 
 lowly ones, and those of middle rank, being able to lead sinners 
 back to their duty, obey and carry out (my orders) likewise also 
 the wardens of the marches. Now the order is to protect 
 according to the sacred law, to govern according to the sacred 
 law, to give happiness in accordance with the sacred law, to 
 guard according to the sacred law." 
 
 Edict II. — King Piyadasi, beloved of the gods, speaks thus : — "(To 
 fulfil) the law is meritorious. But what does (the fulfilment) 
 of the law include ? (It includes) sinlessness, many good 
 works, compassion, liberality, truthfulness, purity. The gift of 
 spiritual insight I have given (to men) in various ways ; 
 on two-footed and four-footed beings, on birds, and aquatic 
 animals I have conferred benefits of many kinds, even the boon 
 of life, and in other ways I have done much good. It is for 
 this purpose that I have caused this religious edict to be written 
 (z/z>.) that men may thus act accordingly, and that it may endure 
 for a long time. And he who will act thus will perform a deed 
 of merit." 
 
 Edict III. — King Piyadasi, beloved of the gods, speaks thus : — " Man 
 only sees his good deeds {and says unto himself), ' This good 
 deed I have done.' But he sees in no wise his evil deeds {and 
 does not say unto himself), ' This evil deed I have done ; this is 
 what is called sin.' But difficult, indeed, is this self-examination. 
 Nevertheless, man ought to pay regard to the following {and 
 
 ^ Buhler, "Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 248254. 
 
THE ATTACK 245 
 
 say unto himself), ' Such {passions) as rage, cruelty, anger, 
 pride, jealousy {are those) called sinful ; even through these I 
 shall bring about my fall.' But man ought to mark most the 
 following {and say unto himself), 'This conduces to my welfare 
 in this world, that, at least, to my welfare in the next world.' " 
 
 Edict IV. — King Piyadasi, beloved of the gods, speaks thus : — "After 
 I had been anointed twenty-six years I ordered this religious 
 edict to be written. My Lajiikas are established {as rulers) 
 among the people, among many hundred thousand souls ; I 
 have made them independent in {awarding) both honours and 
 punishments. Why? In order that the Za;V//5aj may do their 
 work tranquilly and fearlessly, that they may give welfare and 
 happiness to the people of the provinces, and may confer 
 benefits {on them). They will know what gives happiness and 
 what inflicts pain, and they will exhort the provincials in 
 accordance with the principles of the sacred law. How ? That 
 they may gain for themselves happiness in this world and in 
 the next. But the Lajukas are eager to serve me. My (other) 
 servants also, who know my will, will serve {me), and they, too, 
 will exhort some {men) in order that the Lajukas may strive to 
 gain my favour. For as {a man) feels tranquil after making 
 over his child to a clever nurse, saying unto himself, 'The 
 clever nurse strives to bring up my^child well,' even so I have 
 acted with my Lajukas for the welfare and happiness of the 
 provincials, intending that, being fearless and feeling tranquil, 
 they may do their work without perplexity. For this reason I 
 have made the Lajukas independent in {awarding) both honours 
 and punishments. For the following is desirable. What? 
 That there may be equity in official business, and equity in the 
 award of punishments. And even so far goes my order, I 
 have granted a respite of three days to prisoners on whom 
 judgment has been passed, and who have been condemned to 
 death. Their relatives will make some {of them) meditate 
 deeply (and), in order to save the lives of those (men), or in 
 order to make (the condemned) who is to be executed meditate 
 deeply, they will give gifts with a view to the next world or will 
 perform fasts ! For my wish is that they {the condemned), even 
 during their imprisonment, may thus gain bliss in the next 
 world; and various religious practices, self-restraint, and 
 liberality, will grow among the people." 
 
 In the year 246 B.C., the eleventh 1 year of Asoka's 
 
 '^ See Monier- Williams, "Buddhism,"' p. 59: — "Sixteenth or seventeenth 
 year." Oldenberg, "Vinaya Pitakaiii" (Inlrod.), xxxi.; S.B.E., a., xxvi.-xxxix. 
 
246 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 reign, the whole Buddhist Canon was fully recited at a 
 Council of one thousand Buddhist monks, who assembled 
 together at Pataliputra. Missionaries were then sent 
 to far - off lands to propagate the Buddhist faith.^ 
 Mahendra, the son of Asoka, carried the three " Pitakas," 
 or "books of law," in the Pali language to Ceylon, and 
 was soon after followed by his sister, Sanghamitta, who 
 brought a branch of the sacred bo - tree, under which 
 Buddha had attained enlightenment, a branch planted 
 at Anuradhapura, from which grew the famous tree, for 
 long held to be the oldest historical tree in the world.* 
 
 The alliance made by Asoka with Buddhism brought 
 to him no peace, nor to his empire security. His end 
 was full of trouble and sorrow. He lived to see his own 
 son's eyes put out by the woman he loved, and himself 
 restrained in his pious gifts to the so-called Buddhist 
 mendicants. 
 
 Buddhism, though it might tend to break down the 
 racial and class distinctions of an enslaved people, and 
 unite them into one nation, yet rose above all the 
 practical considerations of real life. And so it remains 
 in its ideals a dream for the philosopher, in its degraded 
 form a refuge for the indolent, in its results a warning 
 to the man of action. Those who truly joined the Order 
 became celibate monks, recluses, men of thought, not 
 action. When they were slain or driven from their 
 monasteries by the later Muhammadan invaders, and 
 possibly by the reforming Brahmans, the religion died 
 out in India, for the lay professors of the faith had no 
 guides nor preceptors, no mendicant monks to feed, 
 clothe, or endow with wealth. The more a temporal 
 
 1 " Dipavamsa,'' chap, viii.; "Mahavamsa," chap. Jtii. 
 
 2 Tennent, " Ceylon," vol. ii. p. 613. In the reign of Vattagamini (88-76 
 B.C.) the Buddhist Canon was reduced to writing, and in 450 A.D. the faith 
 spread to Burma through the great Buddhist commentator, Buddha Ghosha, 
 .Jcc Rhj-s Davids, " Buddhi.sm," pp 234, 237. 
 
THE ATTACK 247 
 
 sovereign and his subjects drifted towards the ideals 
 inculcated by Buddha, the more unfitted they became 
 for the war and strife on which alone an empire could be 
 founded and maintained, so long as alien foes pressed 
 round, prepared and eager to carve out a kingdom and 
 heritage for themselves and their own race. Asoka had 
 framed an ideal state.^ A minister of religion had been 
 appointed, in the fourteenth year of his reign, to supervise 
 morals ; wells were dug, resting - groves and wayside 
 avenues planted, medical aid provided for man and beast. 
 All, Aryans and aborigines alike, were to be constrained 
 to the ideals set forth by Buddha with gentleness and 
 kindness, not by force. The picture is the most pathetic 
 in the whole vista of the struggles of humanity to reach 
 and realise the ethical ideal, regardless of the stern dictates 
 that decree the victory to the best fitted, physically and 
 mentally, to maintain his place in the strife of life. The 
 ideal must remain for the real to strive towards and 
 never attain. 
 
 Asoka strove to realise the ideals personified in the 
 passive figure of the Buddha, just as many of to-day 
 would urge England to do, and stay her stern career 
 wherein she sets before herself no other ideal than that 
 of justice, unswayed by sentiment or emotion. 
 
 In the days of Asoka there were rough and ready 
 Northern hosts, even as there are to-day, should England 
 fall back from her high mission, ready to break down 
 from their Northern homes and win a heritage for them- 
 selves amid a people unprepared, and too disunited, to 
 defend their own birthright. 
 
 On the death of Asoka, the great Empire of Magadha 
 drifted to decay. Of his grandson and successor, 
 Dasaratha, history knows but little except what is 
 contained in a few inscriptions, of interest alone to 
 
 ' Hunter, " Indian Empire,'' pp. 190-91. 
 
248 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 archaeologists.^ New dynasties* arose, among which one 
 monarch figured as the hero in Kalidasa's well-known 
 play Malavikagnimitra.^ By the middle of the fifth 
 century Pataliputra,* the ancient capital of India, lost 
 its importance, and was described by the Chinese 
 pilgrim, Hiouen Tsang,^ as "an old city, about 70 li 
 round. Although it has been long deserted, its founda- 
 tion walls still survive." 
 
 The history of India, from Asoka's time down to the 
 dark days of Muhammadan raids, is, in fact, a history of 
 a disunited people, ruled over by local chieftains, among 
 whom one here and there rose to a more or less extended 
 sovereignty, and of invasions from Northern foes. 
 
 When first the rapid, moving, hardy horsemen, known 
 as Turanians, commenced their raids across the Jaxartes, 
 nothing loth to leave their arid grazing-ground of Central 
 Asia for the richer Southern lands, is a question still out- 
 side the limits of historic evidence. It has been held, and 
 excavations at Kapilavastu may prove the surmise true, 
 that the Sakya race, among whom Buddha was born, was an 
 early incursive band of these Northern warrior tribes, whom 
 history loosely classes together as Scythian. Alexander 
 the Great, before he ventured to invade India, had estab- 
 lished posts along the Jaxartes to hold these Northern 
 barbarians in check. Two hundred years later, a Tartar 
 tribe drove out the Greeks from Bactria, and by the first 
 century B.C. a yellow race, described as of pink and white 
 complexion, and known to the Chinese chroniclers as the 
 
 * "Mahavam^a," cxx.; Miss Manning, "Ancient India," 316. 
 
 ^ Pushpamitra overthrew the Maurya dynasty, and established Sunga 
 dynasty (178 B.C.). See Burgess, " Cave Temples of India," p. 25. 
 
 ^ Agnimitra, son of Pushpamitra, who fought against the Bactrian Greeks. 
 See Shankar P. Pandit, " Malavikagnimitra " (Preface). 
 
 * V. A. Smith (J.R.A.S., p. 24, 1897) holds that Pataliputra was the early 
 capital of Samudra Gupta (345-380 A.D.). Fleet, "Gupta Inscrip.," p. 5; 
 Biihler, "Origin of the Gupta and Valabhi Era," p. 13. 
 
 " Visited India 629-645 a.d. 
 
THE ATTACK 249 
 
 Yueh-Chi,^ came riding down into the Panjab to take their 
 place in the annals of Indian history. 
 
 In Kashmir these Scythians established their rule. Of 
 the Scythian monarchs little is known from the time they 
 poured their fierce bowmen across the north-west mountain 
 passes until they disappear at the close of the sixth 
 century A.D. Vikramaditya, the enemy of the Scythians, 
 stands out as the sole national hero of North India at 
 this period, and round him is centred all that was glorious 
 of the times which commenced with the new Indian era of 
 56 B.C.2 
 
 The greatest of all the Scythian conquerors was Kanishka,^ 
 who extended his rule beyond Kashmir, as far south as 
 Guzarat, and east to Agra, founding for himself and his 
 race an era known as the Saka era, which dates from 
 78 A.D. Kanishka, in his new home, accepted Buddhism as 
 his state religion. It is known that he summoned a great 
 council of five hundred monks to a monastery at Jalandra 
 in Kashmir, and there formulated, in Sanskrit, the doctrines 
 of Northern Buddhism, designated as those of the Mahayana, 
 or " Great Vehicle," accepted by all Scythian races. The 
 full record of this Council now lies buried beneath some 
 vast mound of earth. The only guide left to direct the 
 searcher after these lost treasures was given thirteen 
 hundred years ago by the Chinese pilgrim, Hiouen Tsang 
 as follows : * — 
 
 " Kanishka-raja forthwith ordered these discourses to be 
 engraven on sheets of red copper. He enclosed them in a 
 
 ^ For connection of the Yueh-Chi with the Goths, as well as with the Jats of 
 India, and the Rajputs, see Max Miiller, "India : What Can It Teach Us?" 
 p. 86. Also Hunter, "Indian Empire," chap, vii., where the whole intricate 
 history is summed up. J.R.A.S., N.S., xiv. p. 47. 
 
 ' See J. F. Fleet, ' ' Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum," vol. iii. p. 37. 
 
 ^ The " Raja-Tarangini " gives as predecessors Hushka and Jushka. See 
 Albiruni, "Sachau,"ii. II. 
 
 * Eeal, " Buddhist Rec. of Western World," vol. i. p. 156. 
 
2SO LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 stone receptacle, and having sealed them he raised over it 
 a stupa with the Scriptures in the middle." 
 
 The sheets of copper probably still remain beneath the 
 mound where Kanishka deposited them, and fame and 
 wealth awaits him who searches out the Scriptures, and 
 reveals to the world the long-lost Canon of the Mahayana 
 of the Northern Buddhists. On the death of Kanishka 
 his kingdom fell to pieces. Inscriptions and coins are all 
 that tell of the fluctuating fortunes of various dynasties 
 that rose to power and extended their sway during the 
 succeeding centuries through which India passed, before 
 it fell a prey to foreign conquest. 
 
 At Surashtra, or Guzarat, the Sena kings are traced by 
 their coinage from 70 B.C to 235 A.D., while in the east 
 the Andhras of the Deccan ruled over Magadha from 
 26 B.C. to 430 A.D. A long line of Gupta monarchs ^ is 
 known to have held imperial sway all over North India 
 and Kathiawar, from the middle of the fourth century A.D. 
 until 530-33, when the empire passed to Yasodharman^ of 
 West Malwa, who held the whole north until it fell to 
 a Varman dynasty, that ruled down to 585 A.D., from 
 whom it passed to the Vardhana kings of Thaneswar and 
 Kanauj. 
 
 Among the Vardhana chieftains, one monarch rose to 
 supreme power, the great Harsha Vardhana, known as 
 Siladitya II., ruler of Kanauj from 606 to 648 A.D.* Down 
 to the time of the Arab raid into Sind, in the eighth century, 
 the Vallabhis held rule in Guzarat (480-722 A.D.) among 
 
 "Gupta, 320 A.D.; Ghatotkacha, 340; Candra Gupta I., 360; Samudra 
 I Gupta, 380 (345-380).— Vincent Smith, J.R.A.S. (1897), part i, 19. Candra 
 Gupta II., 400-414; Kumara Gupta I., 415-454; Skanda Gupta, 455-468; 
 Pura Gupta, 470; Narasimka Gupta, 485; Kumara Gupta II., 530.— 
 Hoemle, "Inscribed Seal of Kumara Gupta," vol. Iviii.; J.R.A.S. (Bengal) 
 p. 88. 
 
 ' Hoernle, Ibid., 96, for connection with Hunas. 
 
 ^ Cowell and Thomas, "Harsha Charita," p. x.; Bendall, "Catalogue 
 Buddhist Sanskrit MSS.," xli. 
 
THE ATTACK 251 
 
 whom a new supreme emperor, Slladitya III. held the 
 imperial rule in 670 A.D. 
 
 How far these later Indian rulers consolidated their 
 conquests, and held under their own sway the territories 
 over which their sovereignty is recorded to have spread, 
 would now be impossible to ascertain. So long as tribute 
 was paid, local principalities and chieftains might hold 
 and administer their own territories, though the suzerain 
 counted them as subject states. 
 
 Samudra Gupta, who ruled first at Pataliputra,^ and then 
 changed his capital westward, until it finally rested at 
 Kanauj, is referred to in an inscription as " the restorer of 
 the Aivamedha sacrifice " ^ — the great horse sacrifice. In 
 one inscription, still preserved on a pillar at Allahabad, 
 the praises of Samudra Gupta are recited, and all his 
 conquests set forth in order.* 
 
 Nine kings of Aryavarta were " violently exterminated ; " 
 kings of forest countries became his slaves. Twelve 
 kings, whose names are given in the inscription, were 
 subdued and then set free. These included the King of 
 KanchI, or Conjeveram, near Madras, the King of all the 
 Western Malabar coast, the King of Central India and 
 Orissa, the King of Kottara in Coimbatore, in South India, 
 as well as kings over lands in the present Godavari district, 
 and south of the Krishna. From the kings of Lower 
 Bengal, Nepal, and Assam, he is recorded to have exacted 
 homage and tribute, as he also did from frontier tribes, 
 while from foreign nations, and from Ceylon, he received 
 services and presents. More astounding than this record 
 of the Empire of Samudra Gupta, in the middle of the 
 fourth century of our era, is the record of the conquests of 
 his son and successor, Chandra Gupta II., who extended 
 the Gupta Empire to its furthest limits. The pillar on 
 
 1 V. A. Smith, J.R.A.S. (1897), p. 27 Innate I). 
 ' m^i., p. 22 («o.V 2). " Tbid., p. 27, 
 
252 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 which the fame of Chandra Gupta is set forth, has re- 
 mained for long one of the many strange marvels of 
 the East. The pillar stands in the courtyard of a great 
 mosque, built by Katb-ud-din, about 9 miles south of 
 modern Delhi. The pillar rises 22 feet above the ground, 
 there being i foot 8 inches below ground. The whole 
 pillar is solid, of malleable iron, wrought and welded into a 
 mass of over six tons' weight The pillar was erected in or 
 about the year 415 A.D., by order of Kumara Gupta I., son 
 and successor of Chandra Gupta II. The construction of 
 such a pillar of wrought-iron at so early a date seems, 
 even to the Western world, a feat almost beyond belief. 
 " It is not many years since the production of such a 
 pillar would have been an impossibility in the largest 
 foundries of the world, and even now there are com- 
 paratively few where a similar mass of metal could be 
 turned out." ^ 
 
 The inscription on the pillar has been translated by Mr 
 Vincent Smith, in his valuable article on the " Ancient 
 History of India from the Monuments " : — 
 
 "This lofty standard of the divine Vishnu was erected on Mount 
 Vishnupada by King Candra, whose thoughts were devoted in 
 I faith to Vishnu. The beauty of that king's countenance was as 
 that of the full moon {candra) ;— by him, with his own arm, 
 sole worldwide dominion was acquired and long held ; — and 
 although, as if wearied, he has in bodily form quitted this earth, 
 and passed to the other-world country won by his merit, yet, 
 like the embers of a quenched fire in a great forest, the glow of 
 his foe-destroying energy quits not the earth ; — by the breezes 
 of his prowess the southern ocean is still perfumed ; — by him, 
 having crossed the seven mouths of the Indus, were the 
 Vahlikas^vanquished in battle ; — and when, warring in the Vanga 
 countries,^ he breasted and destroyed the enemies confederate 
 against him, fame was inscribed on (their) arm by his sword." 
 
 ^ Valentine Ball, " Economic Geology of India," p. 338. 
 
 ^ Balkh or Baliichistan. 
 
 * Bengal Lower generally. Vincent Smith, J.R.A.S. (1897), p. 8. 
 
THE ATTACK .353 
 
 These details of the reigns and deeds of the kings of the 
 varied dynasties, who, in the first seven centuries of the 
 Christian era strove, with a success never lasting long, to 
 bend the various chieftains, races, and people of India into 
 recognition of one central power, capable of swaying the 
 destinies of an empire, are preserved in the evidence 
 recorded on coins and inscriptions. The evidences are 
 not such as to enable any vivid picture to be drawn that 
 would present a life-like history of the period. Such 
 results as may be obtained are of interest to the antiquarian 
 and archaeologist ; they can never throw a clear light on the 
 causes whereby India was advancing to her doom, as an 
 easy prey to foreign conquerors. 
 
 The self-control of Buddhism, the intellectual supremacy 
 demanded by Brahmanism, the gross ignorance of super- 
 stitious Hinduism, were all but products of the life of the 
 times. The centre fact that the historian longs to arrive 
 at, is the clue to the subjection of the East to the West. 
 The enervating iniluence of climate may afford a solution 
 when a Southern race is debarred from recruiting its more 
 active and ruder instincts by hardier immigrants from colder 
 climes, as Mughal and Portuguese rule found to their cost, 
 and the Aryan has ever found in his migrations south. This 
 may explain the present condition of the people of India ; 
 and if it be so, then the prospect in the future, both for 
 Bengal Sikh, border Pathan, and Southern Pariah, is one 
 of submission, to the dictates of Nature. In the early ages 
 there is no evidence that in the north, at least, the barriers 
 of India had ever been closed to new-comers. 
 
 Persian, Greek, and Scythian alike swarmed in and 
 made their own settlements, without great show of 
 opposition. The Scythian element has been traced far to 
 the east, among the Jats.i in Central India, and among 
 
 ' Now four and a half millions in number. See Hunter, " Indian Empire," 
 p. 226. 
 
254 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the Rajputs — a race that rose with all its chivalry and man- 
 hood to oppose Muhammadan fanaticism, at a time when 
 in the land there were no other signs of any tendency 
 towards national life and spirit. North of the Vindhya, 
 each chieftain and petty king strove to secure his own 
 position, increase his forces, raid the territories of his 
 neighbours, and win for himself the favour and support of 
 Brahmanism or Buddhism as the times inclined him. 
 South of the Vindhya, great and ancient dynasties 
 — Rashtrakuta, Chalukyan, Pallava, Chera, Chola, or 
 Pandyan — preserved and increased, as they could, the limits 
 of their own kingdoms. 
 
 A welcome light is thrown across the history of this 
 early period by the account of the Chinese Buddhist 
 traveller, Hiouen Tsang. The great ruler of North India 
 was then Sri Harsha, or Harsha Vardhana, the King of 
 Thaneswar and Kanauj. He is described by the Chinese 
 traveller as wavering between Buddhism and Brahmanism, 
 one day setting high a statue of Buddha, the next that of 
 the sun, or the great god, 6iva. The " believers in Buddha 
 and the heretics"^ were described as about equal in 
 number, there being some hundred of monasteries, with 
 ten thousand priests, studying both the Great and Little 
 Vehicle, and two hundred Hindu temples. The king, in six 
 years, according to Hiouen Tsang, conquered all the Five 
 Indies, subdued all who were not obedient, and his army 
 reached the number of one hundred thousand cavalry and 
 sixty thousand war elephants.^ 
 
 In one great assembly held by the king at Kanauj, or 
 Kanya Kubja, as it was then called, kings of twenty 
 countries are described as forming part of the king's escort, 
 as he marched in procession with a golden statue of 
 Buddha, high as himself, carried in front. Not only does 
 
 • Beal, " Buddhist Rec. of Western World," vol. i. p. 207. 
 ' For his defeat by PuUkesin, see Ibid., p. 213 {twte 21). 
 
THE ATTACK 255 
 
 the presence of the twenty kings indicate the divided 
 authority of Harsha Vardhana, but a more serious element 
 of disunion is apparent from the recorded fact that the 
 Brahmans, jealous of the wealth showered on the Buddhists, 
 laid plots to take the king s life, so that " the king punished 
 the chief of them and pardoned the rest. He banished 
 the five hundred Brahmans to the frontiers of India." * 
 
 This account of Hiouen Tsangis fortunately supplemented 
 by a realistic description of the court and camp of Harsha 
 Vardhana, by the contemporary poet, Bana, whose work is 
 the only romance of any historical importance in the 
 literature of the period. The work, so far as it goes — for it 
 is unfinished in the original — has happily recently appeared 
 in an English translation, most skilfully rendered from the 
 difficult Sanskrit of the original.^ There is but one other 
 book comparable to it, in the manner in which it lays bare 
 the very facts that are of peculiar interest and value for 
 realising the exact chances of success any of the early so- 
 called monarchs of North India had of uniting the scattered 
 principalities and races into a political entity, containing 
 permanent elements of stability. The position of affairs 
 is strikingly similar to the account left in the " Letters 
 from a Maratha Camp," during the year 1809, by Colonel 
 Broughton, who travelled with the predatory and irre- 
 sponsible forces of Maharaja Scindia, in the raids, or, as a 
 native chronicler would describe them, victorious progress 
 of a universal monarch, into the semi-feudatory state of 
 Rajputana. 
 
 The impression left by the two accounts — that by Bana, 
 contemporary in the seventh century with Harsha 
 Vardhana, and that by the English resident at the court of 
 Scindia, at the beginning of the nineteenth century — may be 
 
 ' Beal, "Buddhist Rec. of Western World," vol. i. p. 221. 
 2 "The Harsha Charita of Bana," translated by Prof. Cowell and F. W. 
 Thomas (Oriental Translation Fund, 1897). 
 
256 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 summed up in the words of Sir M. E. Grant Duff, in his 
 preface to the letters of Colonel Broughton : — 
 
 " First, how far away seem the scenes which they describe . . . and 
 secondly, how soon they would come back if the power which 
 saved, and saves India from tearing her own vitals, were to be 
 withdrawn for a single lustrum. . . . Who can doubt that all 
 the jealousies, all the passions, all the superstitions, which are set 
 forUi ... are still there ready to break forth at any moment ? " 
 
 It seems almost sacrilege to tear from out their setting, 
 in a work of beauty such as the " Harsha Charita" of Bana, 
 such few references as may serve to furnish facts for 
 history. 
 
 Bana wrote for a purely artistic purpose, his only effort 
 being to combine in his narrative " a new subject, a diction 
 not too homely, unlaboured double meaning, the sentiment 
 easily understood, the language rich in sonorous words." ^ 
 The motives that incited him to recount the deeds of his 
 lord are plainly indicated, and were purely artistic. He 
 tells how one dramatist ^ " gained as much splendour by 
 his plays, with an introduction spoken by the manager, full 
 of various characters, and furnished with startling episodes, 
 as he would have done by the erection of temples, created 
 by architects, adorned with several storeys, and decorated 
 with banners " ; and how all are delighted at "the beautiful 
 expressions uttered by Kalidasa, as at sprays of flowers 
 wet with honey sweetness.'' Accordingly his narrative is 
 merely to be viewed as " like a bed, which is to wake up its 
 occupant happily refreshed," and how it has been " set off 
 by its well-chosen words, like feet, luminous with the clever 
 joinings of harmonious letters." It would be well if the 
 narrative could be left in the beauty of its own repose, for 
 " a return of the mind to itself from seeking fact after fact, 
 
 ^ Introductory verse, p. 2 (Cowell's Translation). 
 
 ' Bhasa. See Weber, " History of Indian Liteiature,'' p. 205 {note 213). 
 
THE ATTACK 257 
 
 and law after law, in the objective world ; a recognition 
 that the mind itself is an end to itself, and its own law."^ 
 
 This is the proper realm of all Sanskrit literature, indeed, 
 of all Indian life and thought — a realm far more seductive 
 in its pleasant paths than that furnished by unending 
 research in the objective reality of the world's phenomena. 
 The whole of Bana's narrative must therefore be taken in 
 its own setting, if the true spirit of its composition is to 
 be properly judged. Bana commenced his stoty by pointing 
 out, to those whom he addressed, his limitation : "What man 
 could possibly, even in a hundred of men's lives, depict his 
 story in full ? If, however, you care for a part, I am ready." 
 
 The descent of Harsha Vardhana is first traced down to 
 that of his father, Prabhakara Vardhana, King of Thanes- 
 war, who was " famed far and wide under a second name, 
 Pratapaclla, a lion to the Huna deer, a burning fever to the 
 King of Indus land, a troubler to the sleep of Guzarat, a 
 bilious plague to that scent elephant, the lord of Gandhara, 
 a looter to the lawlessness of the Jats, an axe to the 
 creeper of Malwa's glory." ^ To YasovatI, wife of this 
 monarch, two sons were born, Rajyavardhana and Harsha, 
 the hero of the story. There was also one daughter, 
 Rajya 6ri, who married Grahavarman, son of a Mukhara 
 King of Kanya Kubja, or Kanauj.* 
 
 Prabhakara Vardhana is described as being a sun- 
 worshipper. " Day by day at sunrise he bathed, arrayed 
 himself in white silk, wrapped his head in a white cloth, and 
 kneeling eastwards upon the ground, in a circle measured 
 with saffron paste, presented for an offering a bunch of red 
 lotuses, set in a pure vessel of ruby, and tinged, like his own 
 heart, with the sun's hue." * 
 
 On the birth of the king's second son, Harsha, the 
 
 1 W. P. Ker, "Essays in Philosophical Criticism," p. 173 ; quoted in "The 
 Philosophy of the Beautifiil," by William Knight (1891). 
 
 2 " Harsha Charita," p. loi. = See Ibid. (Introd.), p. xii. 
 ^ Ibid., p. 104. 
 
 R 
 
258 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 capital held high revel. A weird light is thrown on the 
 scene, where the populace are depicted as having lost their 
 sense with joy : — 
 
 " Entrance to the harem in no wise criminal ; master and servants 
 reduced to a level ; young and old confounded j learned and 
 unlearned on one footing ; drunk and sober not to be dis- 
 tinguished ; noble maidens and harlots equally merry. The 
 whole population of the capital set a-dancing."* 
 
 As the young princes grew up, the king appointed, as 
 their companion, Kumara Gupta and Madhava Gupta, sons of 
 the king of Malwa. When Rajya ^ri, the king's daughter, 
 came of age, it was determined that she should be married 
 to Grahavarman, the son of the Mukhara King of 
 Kanya Kubja, for, " now at the head of all royal houses 
 stands the Mukharas, worshipped, like diva's footprint, by 
 all the world." ^ 
 
 The political struggles of the time now commenced. 
 When Rajyavardhana, the king's eldest son, grew old 
 enough to wear armour, he was sent " at the head of an 
 immense force, attended by ancient advisers and devoted 
 feudatories, towards the north to attack the Hunas."* 
 
 During the prince's absence, the king, Prabhakara, 
 was seized with illness, resulting in his death. Harsha, 
 who had accompanied his brother towards the Himalayas 
 to encounter the Hunas, hastened back to the capital 
 where the people were plunged in grief. Rarely has a 
 more fearful description of Hindu superstition been 
 summed up in a few lines than in the words describing the 
 appearance of the grief-smitten city. "There young 
 nobles were burning themselves with lamps to propitiate 
 the mothers. In one place a Dravidian was ready to 
 solicit the Vampire with the offering of a skull. In 
 another an Andhra man was holding up his arms like a 
 rampart to conciliate Chandi. Elsewhere distressed young 
 
 ^ "Harsha Charita," p. m. ^ 3ul., p. 122. • Tiid., p. 132. 
 
THE ATTACK 259 
 
 servants were pacifying Mahakala by holding melting 
 gum on their heads. In another place a group of 
 relatives was intent on an oblation of their own flesh, 
 which they severed with keen knives. Elsewhere again 
 young courtiers were openly resorting to the sale of human 
 flesh." 1 
 
 The panorama referred to in the drama of the " Mudra 
 Rakshasa" is also described as being displayed. The 
 showman displays his painted canvas, whereon is depicted 
 Yama, " the Lord of Death," seated on his dreaded buffalo, 
 while he recites his verses to the assembled crowd : * 
 "Mothers and fathers in thousands, in hundreds children 
 and wives, age after age have passed away, whose are 
 they, and whose art thou ? " ^ 
 
 The whole narrative, in fact the whole romance, in its 
 perfect translation by Professor Cowell and Mr Thomas, 
 gives more real information respecting the inner life of the 
 people than any other work relating to India. From 
 every page new life dawns, and in every sentence some 
 unexpected beauty lies half-concealed. 
 
 On the king's death, Harsha Vardhana's grief was 
 assuaged by " Brahmans versed in ' 6ruti,' ' Smriti,' and 
 ' Itihasas,' anointed counsellors of royal rank, endowed with 
 learning, birth, and character; approved ascetics, well- 
 trained in the doctrine of the Self; sages indifferent to 
 pain and pleasure ; Vedantists skilled in expounding the 
 nothingness of the fleeting world ; mythologists expert in 
 allaying sorrow."* 
 
 In the midst of the city's grief, news arrived that 
 Grahavarman had been slain by the King of Malwa, and 
 Rajya Sri cast into fetters. Rajyavardhana, the elder 
 brother, who had returned to the capital after driving 
 
 1 " Harsha Charita," p. 136. See also p. 222 : — "Yet a seller of human flesh." 
 * Kipling, Lockwood, "Man and Beast in India," p. 123: — "God looks 
 out of the window of Heaven and keeps account." 
 5 " Harsha Charita," p. 136 {frans.). * flid.^ p. 16?, 
 
26o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 back the Scythian Hunas from the north-west, set forth with 
 a mighty army, and defeated the King of Malwa only to 
 fall a victim to the intrigues of the King of Gauda. Harsha 
 Vardhana now steps forth, as the true hero of the romance, 
 to avenge the ill fate of his race. Before starting on his 
 avenging expedition he vowed that he would establish his 
 supremacy as sole monarch. "By the dust of my honoured 
 lord's feet I swear that, unless in a limited number of days 
 I clear this earth of Gaudas, and make it resound with 
 fetters on the feet of all kings who are excited to insolence 
 by the elasticity of their bows, then will I hurl my sinful 
 self, like a moth, into an oil-fed flame." ^ 
 
 Harsha Vardhana started on his conquering career 
 amid the beat of drums, the bray of trumpets, the bustle 
 of an Eastern camp, and general lack of all system or 
 controlling authority over the semi-independent chieftains 
 who joined in the foray. "Elephant keepers, assaulted 
 with clods by people starting from hovels which had been 
 crushed by the animals' feet, called the bystanders to 
 witness the assaults. Wretched families fled from grass 
 cabins ruined by collisions. Despairing merchants saw 
 the oxen, bearing their wealth, flee before the onset of the 
 tumult A troop of seraglio elephants advanced where 
 the press of people gave way before the glare of their 
 runners' torches." ^ Looting of the standing crop goes on 
 at all sides. The cries of the rabble are heard : " Quick, 
 slave, with a knife, cut a mouthful of fodder from this 
 bean field. Who can tell the fate of his crop when we are 
 gone ? " The picture is dramatically true to life. " There 
 poor unattended nobles, overwhelmed with the toil and 
 worry of conveying their provisions upon fainting oxen, 
 provided by wretched village householders, and obtained 
 with difficulty, themselves grasped their domestic appur- 
 tenances, grumbling as follows : — ' Only let this one 
 1 "Harsha Charita," p. 187. 2 yj^^ p_ 2o,_ 
 
THE ATTACK 261 
 
 expedition be gone and done with.' ' Let it go to the 
 bottom of hell.' ' An end to this world of thirst.' " ^ 
 
 On all sides the peaceful villagers fled, "others, despondent 
 at the plunder of their ripe grain, had come forth, wives 
 and all, to bemoan their estates, and to the imminent risk 
 of their lives, grief dismissing fear, had begun to censure 
 their sovereign, crying : ' Where's the king ? ' ' What right 
 has he to be king?' ' What a king ! '" 2 
 
 The king on his march turned aside to save his sister, 
 Rajya Sri, from burning herself to death, and vowed that he 
 and she would both join the Buddhist order when all his 
 designs had been accomplished. 
 
 The narrative ends before Harsha Vardhana finally 
 overthrew all his opponents, and established himself as 
 one of the few monarchs who essayed to build up an 
 empire from out the shifting interests of rival creeds and 
 divided principalities. 
 
 The extent of India was, however, too vast ; the incon- 
 gruous race-elements it held too diverse and scattered ; 
 the caste restrictions too firmly planted ; the religious 
 divisions too deeply founded in the life-history of the 
 people, to give hope in those early ages that India from 
 the Himalayas to the Vindhyas, much less to Cape 
 Comorin, from Dvaraka to Kalighat, would ever throb 
 with the one great racial feeling and purpose that makes 
 a Fatherland. It remains for the future to watch and 
 mark how the dividing lines of old are breaking down, 
 and how, where race and caste and creed no longer hold 
 the people asunder, they may combine to demand the 
 ruling of their own national life. 
 
 In the midst of the changing scene Aryanism and 
 
 Brahmanism remained unmoved, watching all and noting all 
 
 from their own safe retreat, heedless of kings and warriors, 
 
 battles and contests, greed for empire and the coming 
 
 1 " Harsha Charita," p. 207. ' Ibid., p. 209. 
 
262 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 storm, the tramp of passing bands of fighting men, the 
 flames of burning towns, the wreck of principalities, the 
 aggrandisement of new conquerors, and the submission of 
 the people, all of which were but the crude factors where- 
 with poets and dreamers might fashion their drama of the 
 world's history. 
 
 The classic beauties of the early drama, the romances 
 and lyrics are all that later Aryanism has left us, from 
 which may be shadowed out something of the " very age 
 and body of the time." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DRAMA. 
 
 To understand the full significance of the influence 
 Aryanism had on the language and literature of India as 
 a whole, somewhat must be realised of the actual results 
 attained, and the elements on which these influences had 
 to work. 
 
 From the last Census returns^ the population of India, 
 excluding Burma, was numbered at nearly 295,000,000 
 of people ; Indo- Aryan vernaculars were spoken by 
 210,000,000; the Dra vidian languages by only 53,000,000, 
 the rest of the populace speaking other languages. 
 
 While in the literature of India the Vedic Sanskrit 
 became modified into the later classical language, more 
 or less artificial in its structure, it further, from about 
 some five hundred years before Christ, broke down into a 
 vernacular known as " Prakrit," ^ which existed up to about 
 1000 A.D. 
 
 , The Eastern branch of this Prakrit was the Magadhi, 
 spoken in Magadha, or South Behar, while the Western 
 branch was the Sauraseni, spoken in the lands lying between 
 the Ganges and Jumna. Intermediate between these two 
 distinctive homes of the Aryan culture lay the land, the 
 vernacular of whose people showed traces of connection 
 
 '■ Census of 1891. 
 
 " Grierson, " Indo-Aryan Vernaculars," Calcutta Review (October 1895). 
 
 263 
 
264 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 with both the Magadhi and the Sauraseni, so that it was 
 called the Ardha Magadhi, or Half Magadhi. 
 
 Outside these three distinctive branches of the Aryan 
 vernacular, the spoken language of the North- Western dis- 
 trict was known as the " Apabramfia," or decayed language. 
 From these four vernaculars all the modern Aryan 
 vernaculars of India have descended, as shown in the 
 following table taken from Mr Grierson's article in the 
 Calcutta Review, to which reference heis been already 
 made. 
 
 Vbdic Sanskrit 
 Old Prakrit Vernacular 
 
 i i 
 
 Wkstern Prakrit Kastbrn Prakrit 
 
 ,-^ i I 
 
 Apabram^a Sauraseni Prakrit ArsmamagadhI Prakrit Magadhi Praksit 
 
 I 
 
 I I I I 
 Magadhi GaudI UtkalI VaidarbhI 
 I 
 MarathI 
 
 SiNDHl Kashmir! Sauraseni GaurjarI AvantI MahaeashtrI 
 
 FanjabI Hindi 
 
 Dialects 
 
 1. Braj 
 
 2. KananjI 
 
 3. Urdii 
 
 4. Hindustani 
 
 5. High Hindi 
 
 The term Hindi is here used by Mr Grierson, not as 
 including the dialects of Rajputana, the Baiswari of Oudh, 
 and the distinct dialect of Behar, but more scientifically 
 to connote all the dialects of the North- West Provinces 
 from Cawnpur westwards.^ The Braj dialect is that of 
 the Gangetic Doab, south to Agra, northward to Multan 
 and Delhi, thence beyond the Sivalik Hills. Kanauji 
 runs down the lower Doab to the south-east of Cawnpur 
 towards Allahabad, where it merges into Baiswari. 
 
 Urdu is the mixed language that grew up in the camp 
 
 ' Grierson, " Indo-Aiyan Vernaculars,'" p. 264. 
 
THE DRAMA 265 
 
 of the Mughal invaders of India who used the local 
 grammar, chiefly that of Braj, to cement together a 
 vocabulary mainly composed of Indian and foreign words. 
 When used for literary purposes by the Mussalmans, the 
 vocabulary employed was mainly Persian or Arabic. 
 When used as a lingua franca for the people speaking 
 the varied dialects of Hindustan, the vocabulary is mainly 
 composed of the common words of the market-place, and 
 the language itself called Hindustani is readily intelligible 
 to Hindus and Muhammadans alike. High Hindi is 
 purely a book language evolved under the influence of 
 the English, who induced native writers to compose works 
 for general use in a form of Hindustani, in which all the 
 words of Arabic or Persian origin were omitted, Sanskrit 
 words being employed in their place. 
 
 Great as has been the spread of languages finding their 
 source in Aryan Sanskrit, still greater has been the classic 
 influence of the Aryan literature itself on the whole 
 thought and mode of expression of the great mass of the 
 population with which Aryanism has come in contact. 
 Everywhere, even to the remotest South, the Aryan 
 literature of India spread, and became the model for all 
 classic composition, and the means for the education and 
 advancement of the people towards trained and ordered 
 thought. The drama here exercised its own influence. 
 
 There is a vast difference between the stately repose 
 of the cultured though somewhat artificial early Sanskrit 
 dramas, and the primitive revel of dance and song, to be 
 seen in every Indian village, when the temple deity is led 
 forth on its high and costly decorated car, and the dancing- 
 girls,^ with measured step and mystic gestures, march in 
 front, singing the deeds the god has done, and the joys of 
 which its worshippers partake. In every step, and every 
 motion, in every sign of the upheld hands and movement 
 1 " Rig Veda," i. lo, i, 1,924; "Alharva-veda," xii. 1,41. 
 
266 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 of the dancing-girl's swaying body, the dramatic gestures 
 and rhythmic movements all denote an advance in reasoned 
 thought far beyond the fierce dances of the wild untamed 
 tribesmen, who still live in the hill tracks in their barbaric 
 freedom. 
 
 In their remote mountainous and fever-smitten homes 
 the savage folk in their tribal war dances love to rehearse 
 their fierce fights and the slaying of their enemies, or 
 sometimes in their gentler moods to imitate the dancing 
 and cooing of birds, peacocks, or jungle-fpwl. Even in 
 these forest tracks, it may be seen how the play instincts 
 of the rude untutored races are even to-day being 
 trained to higher purposes. 
 
 To the chance traveller in these tracks, perhaps nothing 
 may be visible but these imitative dances of the savage 
 folk. In the half-frenzied dance the warriors still revel in 
 their mimic combats ; every now and then some aged chief 
 falls into an ecstatic trance, and his gesticulations show 
 that he believes himself possessed by some evil spirit or 
 some god whose commands or decrees he pours forth in 
 wild cries that rush incoherently from his foaming lips. 
 The savage expresses in his own way the instincts and 
 superstitious fears his reason has not yet restrained. 
 Animism rules the people who fancy that each burning 
 hill, haunted grove, and fever-laden rill is endowed with 
 spirit life. 
 
 These are the factors Brahmanism has to work on and 
 mould to its own purpose. 
 
 As the forests are cleared from the mountain's side, and 
 the land prepared for permanent cultivation, Brahmans 
 and lowland traders take up their abode among the 
 ruder indigenous races, and Hinduism slowly works its 
 way towards its own advancement. The Brahmems 
 to be found in such districts may be schoolmasters, 
 village merchants, land-owners, or agents for some over- 
 
THE DRAMA 267 
 
 lord, to outward appearance coldly indifferent to the 
 ways and beliefs of the rude hill folk from whom they 
 hold aloof in their pride of learning and pride of birth. 
 The influence of the Brahman, and the spell of Hinduism, 
 is, nevertheless, ever at work in its tendency to turn the 
 people from their more savage rites, and bring them 
 within the fold of Hinduism, with all its gods and class 
 restrictions. 
 
 The stranger may move among the villages and mark 
 somewhat of outward change. The elder people are 
 becoming more settled ; their axes may perhaps be losing 
 their ancient form, and changing gradually to forms suited 
 for agricultural purposes. The belt of cultivated land is 
 extending deeper into the surrounding forest, and a school 
 perhaps has been established. Should the stranger desire 
 to see how the Brahman schoolmaster trains the village 
 children, he can note how these children sit for hours 
 learning to make letters and figures, by using their fingers 
 to write in the dust, and to read, reckon, and recite by 
 repeating all together sentence after sentence their simple 
 lessons. There is, however, the legendary history of the 
 god honoured by the preceptor to be learned, and so 
 much as is necessary of the myths and fables, on which 
 popular Hinduism is based. 
 
 Here the drama plays its part. In Vedic literature, in 
 the temple dances, and in the wild, savage war dances and 
 uncouth revels of the aboriginal folk, its past origin can be 
 traced, but nowhere can its course of development into the 
 form in which it first appears, full grown in the masterpieces 
 of classic Sanskrit times, be followed. The form in which 
 it is found among the people themselves can be best seen 
 by asking the Brahman preceptor to bid his pupils perform 
 an act or two of some drama he has taught them. No 
 preparations are necessary. The play will take place in 
 the centre of the village or near the traveller's tents. There 
 
268 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 in the evening time the villagers will assemble, seat them- 
 selves in rows, all sedate and grave, unnoticing the clear 
 starlit canopy of Heaven above, and ring of fire that, 
 running along the distant mountain side, clears the fevered 
 jungles. 
 
 In the centre of the front rank will be seated the 
 stranger; at his side, sitting on a rug, will be the few 
 Brahmans the village contains — it may be only the 
 Brahman preceptor — the village traders, and officials. 
 Behind, the ruder folk and aboriginal tribesmen stand 
 or sit on their heels in native fashion. 
 
 There is no scenery. Two torch-bearers stand to right 
 and left, their flaring torches dripping burning oil on to 
 the ground. To one side sit the musicians, both in- 
 cessantly and untiringly beating with their fingers a 
 hide-covered drum. The actors stand at first behind 
 one of the torch - bearers. Many are the disputes as 
 to the setting of the piece and arraying of the boy 
 actors. All, audience, actors, and torch-bearers, talk in 
 high tones, yet all goes pleasantly. 
 
 Slowly from among the actors one boy moves forward, 
 with feet shuffling along the ground in unison with the 
 beat of the drum. He wears a high head-dress covered 
 with tinsel and coloured glass, which sparkle now and then 
 as the torches flare up ; his face is fixed in an immoveable 
 stare; his hands are held still, the palms turned towards 
 the audience. His part he recites in prose and verse, his 
 voice ever in rhythm with the music. The spectators are 
 wrapped in dreamy bliss ; they glance furtively at the 
 foreigner to see if he is pleased, yet they no more than 
 the foreigner understand one word of what is said, for 
 the opening lines are in Sanskrit verse, composed by 
 the preceptor. The audience merely knows the purport 
 of the story represented. 
 
 As the chief actor plays his part the others move to and 
 
THE DRAMA 269 
 
 fro as they will. Until the time arrives for them to take 
 part in the action they hold a white or coloured shawl in 
 front of them, to let the audience understand that they 
 are not supposed to be seen. 
 
 They now drop their screen and commence their part. 
 They are five in number, all dressed as girls. In the 
 meantime, the first actor, with his shawl concealing him, is 
 hoisted by some attendants, with much talking, on to the 
 top of a post, and held there, seated on a cross-piece of 
 wood. A light at last dawns on the spectators. The first 
 actor is the god Krishna in his youth, the five others are 
 the five milkmaids who have come to bathe in the river 
 Jumna, not knowing that the god is watching them. The 
 play goes on ; the five milkmaids lay their outer white robes 
 on the ground and pretend to bathe, singing songs in the 
 local vernacular, mingled with praise of Krishna, all now 
 more or less intelligible to the audience. Krishna descends 
 from the tree, creeps near where the girls are supposed to 
 be talking, steals their clothes, and then is hoisted back to 
 the cross-piece on the top of the pole. The milkmaids 
 discover their loss and come wailing to Krishna, declare 
 their love and devotion, and beg the return of their 
 garments. 
 
 For hours the play continues. The people never weary 
 of the monotonous cadence of the actors' voices, relieved 
 now and then by the local jokes and coarse allusions of 
 the buffoon, generally represented as a Brahman. 
 
 Beneath the whole performance can be seen the effort 
 to represent, as it were, in the guise of a mystery play, the 
 deeds of Krishna and the joy of those who worship him, 
 for though "some knew him and sought him as a son, 
 some as a friend, some as an enemy, some as a lover; 
 in the end all obtained the blessing of deliverance and 
 emancipation." ^ 
 
 •Wilkins, "Hindu Mythology, "p. 176. 
 
2;o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 It is impossible to trace any connection between repre- 
 sentations such as these or other dramatic forms found 
 among the people, and the artificial drama of classic 
 Sanskrit. This classic drama appears in India perfected 
 and formed, affording no conclusive evidence as to whether 
 it arose indigenously, or derived its classic impress from 
 outside sources. The derivation of the terms " natya " and 
 " nataka," applied to dramatic representations,^ from a root 
 " nat," a corruption of " nrit," " to dance," brings no fresh 
 light to bear on the subject The no doubt striking 
 resemblances between the best known Sanskrit plays and 
 those of Terence and Plautus have been held to justify the 
 assumption that the Indian classic drama borrowed its form 
 from Grecian and Roman sources.^ The question, so far, 
 has received no final answer.* 
 
 The drama that may be taken as most typical of the 
 
 earliest form of the classic school, and as giving a picture 
 
 , of Indian life about the commencement of the Christian 
 
 J era, more life-like and less artificial than any other known 
 
 Indian drama, is the play of the " Mud Cart," the 
 
 " Mricchakatlka," of unknown date and author.* 
 
 The play itself has movement enough and is sufficiently 
 realistic to be easily adapted to ensure a favourable 
 
 ' Wilson, " Theatre of the Hindus," p. xix. 
 ' Lassen, " Indische Altertumskunde," ii. 507. 
 
 * See Levi, "Theatrelndien,"for the connection between (l) the "vidusaka" 
 and "servus currens" (p. 358) ; (2) the "vita" and "parasitus edax" (p. 360) ; 
 (3) the "sakara" and "miles gloriosus" (p. 360) ; (4) the Indian curtain, or 
 "yavanika" as derived from "yavana"; the recognition ring, prologue, 
 division into acts, etc. (p. 348). As the subject relates to literature, it is not 
 further referred to here. It still remains for those who assert foreign influence 
 to prove it more conclusively than up to the present has been done. See 
 especially, " Graeco-Roman Influence on the Civilisation of Ancient India" 
 {J.R.A.S., Bengal, No. III. 1889). 
 
 * Ascribed to Dandin of the sixth century A.D., by PischeL See Col. Jacob 
 "Notes on Alankara Literature," J.R.A.S. (1897), P- 284. From internal 
 evidence I should, if discussing the work ficom a literary standpoint, place it 
 before the time of Kalidasa. 
 
THE DRAMA 271 
 
 reception in an English theatre. It was played only a 
 few years ago at the Royal Court Theatre in Berlin, as 
 well as at the Court Theatre at Munich, where it roused 
 enthusiasm sufficient to recall the actors eight times before 
 the curtain. The play as there acted was adapted for the 
 stage from the well-known and accurate German translation 
 of Bohtlingk. For the English student of literature, or for 
 the lover of the drama, there is a translation by Horace 
 Hayman Wilson, which, meritorious and skilful though it 
 be, fails to preserve the form of the original. 
 
 The play is in Sanskrit, mingled with the Prakrits, eleven 
 of the characters speaking Sauraseni, two AvantI, one 
 Praciya, six Magadhi, the king's brother-in-law, the keeper 
 of the gambling - house, the low caste Chandalas and 
 acolytes speaking ApabramSa. The play opens with a 
 benediction to 6iva, the dread god, whose blue neck, 
 when encircled with the clinging arm of his wife, 
 ParvatI, gleams like a dark cloud crossed by a running 
 line of lightning. 
 
 The " Sutradhara," ^ or stage-manager, first enters, and 
 speaks in praise of the play and its author. The play, he 
 states, is to treat of love and real life. The name of the 
 author is declared to be Sudraka, "first of warriors," with the 
 walk of a noble elephant, the eye of a chakora bird, the face 
 of a full moon, who, though a king, became a poet of 
 unfathomable learning. He knew well the " Rig and Sama 
 Vedas," mathematics, the art of singing, dancing, and 
 wanton dalliance, and the management of elephants. The 
 stage-manager then narrates how this kingly author lost 
 his eyesight, had it restored to him by the favour of Siva, 
 then placed his son on the throne, performed the great 
 horse sacrificej and, at the age of one hundred years and 
 ten days, ended his life by entering the fire. By this 
 Sudraka the play was written to tell how, in the town of 
 1 Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. i. p. xxxv. 
 
272 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Avanti, a young but poor Brahman, Charudatta, was loved 
 by Vasantasena, a wanton like unto the goddess of Spring, 
 and how from that pleasant love-feast arose in the course 
 of fate the triumph of right conduct over the wickedness of 
 judicial enquiry and the behaviour of the bad. The place 
 of action of the drama is in the wealthy city of Avanti, or 
 Ujjain. The time of opening is a day of festival. The 
 streets are decorated ; girls grind paint to adorn the house 
 fronts ; flowers are being strung to form festoons ; from the 
 houses comes the scent of savoury cooking. The giver of 
 the feast but waits for a worthy Brahman to partake iirst 
 of the viands so that the feast may commence. This gives 
 opportunity for the mention of Charudatta's name, for no 
 actor may appear until his name is introduced. Charudatta 
 then at length appears, dejected and downcast, sighing 
 deeply as he presents an offering before the threshold of 
 his house to the household gods. As he scatters the scanty 
 store he sighs, and looking upward recites in Sanskrit verse 
 his lament :— 
 
 "The ample offering to this, the threshold of my home, was quickl>, 
 in former days, borne away by swans and cranes ; now it falls 
 but a mere handful on the half-grown grass to be sought out 
 by worms." 
 
 [His friend Maitreya, a Brahman, the " Vidushaka," or familiar 
 companion of the hero, then enters and presents Charudatta 
 with a jasmine-scented robe, sent by the giver of the feast. 
 As Charudatta receives the robe, he remains plunged in 
 thought.] 
 
 " Bho ! " cries Maitreya, "why should you now ponder?" 
 "Alas, my friend," answers Charudatta, "happiness to one plunged in 
 sorrows gleams but as the glimmer of a lamp amid deep dark- 
 ness. The man who sinks from wealth to poverty is dead 
 indeed ; he lives but bound to the body." 
 Maitreya \asks\.—" Is then death to be preferred to poverty?" And 
 quickly comes the answer : 
 " Death is by me preferred to poverty. Death is but fleeting pain, 
 poverty is unending sorrow." 
 
THE DRAMA 273 
 
 Maitreya. — Nay, in you, your wealth all bestowed on loved friends, 
 your poverty is to be admired, just as is the glory of the waning 
 moon when its full brightness is snatched away by the immortal 
 gods. 
 
 Charudatta. — Friend ! Truly I take no heed of my lost wealth. By 
 the course of fate riches come and go. One thought burns me, 
 and that is how the world falls off from friendship with one 
 whose wealth has fled. Then from poverty flows shame ; 
 wrapped round by shame one's fame is lost ; devoid of fame 
 one is despised ; then come deep despondency and grief. The 
 mind then sunk in sorrow grows weak, the man sinks low. 
 Wealth once gone, all other losses follow. 
 
 Maitreya. — Cease lamenting, friend. Wealth is but a trivial thing. 
 
 Charudatta. — Friend ! Poverty overwhelms one with thought. 
 Sneered at by strangers and the true strength of our enemies, 
 it is the jest of friends and cause of scorn of one's own relations. 
 It makes one long for the solitude of the forest, there to be 
 free from the reproach of one's own wife. The fire of sorrow 
 lingers in the heart, it burns not out. Friend, go, the offerings 
 to the household deities have now been made ; go, offer them 
 to the Mothers at the cross-roads. 
 
 Maitreya.— I go not. 
 
 Charudatta. — Why ? 
 
 Maitreya. — Why should one honour the gods ? By you they have 
 been long honoured, yet they are not favourable. 
 
 Charudatta. — Friend ! Not so, not so. Where the gods are wor- 
 shipped by holy men with offering, penance, mind and words, 
 they are ever pleased. Consider, bear the offerings to the 
 Mothers. 
 
 Maitreya. — Bho ! I shall not go. Send some one else. For me 
 everything appears turned the wrong way round ; right is left, 
 and left right, just like an image seen in a mirror. Besides this, 
 at this time of night on the high road dancing-girls, lewd men, 
 servants and relations of the king wander about, and I might 
 be seized just as the mouse was by the black serpent on the 
 look-out for a frog. What shall you do seated here ? 
 
 Charudatta. — So be it. Stay then, and I shall engage myself in 
 religious meditation. 
 Woice is heard behind the screen]. — Stay, Vasantasena, stay. 
 
 [Then enters Vasantasena, followed by the king^s brother-in-law, 
 his companion a lewd parasite and a servant.] 
 
 The Companion. — Vasantasena ! stay, stay ! Why, from fear, your 
 
 8 
 
274 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 gentle grace abandoned, your feet ever gleaming in the dance, 
 thrown here and there, your eyes throwing out side glances, 
 anxious and trembling, do you fly like a deer startled by the 
 pursuing hunter. 
 
 King's Brother-in-law, the Prince. — Stay, dear Vasantasena, stay. 
 Why are you going ? Why do you run? Why fly stumbling? 
 Gentle one, be quieted, you shall not die, therefore stay. 
 My heart with love is burning like flesh fallen on the burning 
 coal. 
 
 Attendant. — Stay, honoured lady, stay. Frightened, you go, sister 
 mine, like a hot weather pea-hen with spread-out tail, while 
 my respected master quickly follows like a young hound in 
 the forest. 
 
 Attendant. — Vasantasena ! stay, stay. Why do you go shaking 
 like the young plantain tree, the edge of your red robe fluttering 
 in the wind, scattering forth the opening buds from the masses 
 of red lotuses, just like a cave of red ochre burst in pieces by 
 an axe. 
 
 Prince. — Stay, Vasantasena. stay ! Inflaming my love, bom of the 
 bodiless god of love, cn;ielly driving sleep from my couch by 
 night, you fly, stricken wdth fear, stumMing and slipping, you 
 have fallen into my possesgion, as Kunti into that of Ravana. 
 
 Attendant. — Vasantasena ! Why do you with your steps exceed 
 mine? Like a snake dreading the king of birds you speed 
 away. But I outstrip the rushing wind. In seizing you, O 
 best of limbed, there is to me no effort. 
 
 Prince. — Sir, Sir ! I have called her the scourge of money-stealers, 
 the fish-eater, the wanton, no-nosed, destroyer of families, 
 unowned, the treasure-casket of Cupid, a keeper of lewd houses, 
 an adorned post, a parrot, a harlot ; by me these ten names 
 have been made for her, yet she loves me not. 
 
 Attendant. — Why do you fly disturbed by fear ? With your cheeks 
 beaten by your swaying earrings, just as the Vina struck by a 
 Vita with the finger-nails. 
 
 Prince.— Why do you fly, like Draupadii from Rama, all your 
 ornaments jingling as you go ? 
 
 Attendant. — Take now the king's brother-in-law, and you shall 
 eat fish and flesh. Dogs wait not in a dead man's house in 
 search of these. Honoured Vasantasena, why do you fly 
 overcome with fear, bearing on your hip your garland of many 
 folds, gleaming with speckled stars like pearls, with your face 
 deep dyed with red paint, like the city goddess ? 
 
 ' The speaker here, as elsewhere, malces humorous blunders. 
 
THE DRAMA 275 
 
 Prince. — You are now being closely followed by us, as in tlie forest 
 the fox by dogs ; you fly quickly, hurrying with speed, bearing 
 my heart with its covering. 
 
 [ Vasantasena cries for }ielfi\. 
 
 Prince \infear\. — Sir, Sir ! There are men. 
 
 Attendant. — Fear not, fear not. 
 
 Vasantasena. — Madanika ! Madanika ! 
 
 Attendant \laughing\. — Fool, she summons her attendants. 
 
 Prince. — Sir, Sir ! She seeks women. 
 
 Attendant.— Then what ? 
 
 Prince. — I am a hero. I can kill a hundred women. 
 
 Vasantasena \seeing no one]. — Alas, alas ! Even my attendants 
 have disappeared. I must indeed protect myself. 
 
 Attendant.— Search ! search ! 
 
 Prince. — Dear Vasantasena ! Cry, cry out for aid. Who can help 
 you, followed by me ? I, myself, having seized you by the hair 
 of the head. Now see, now see, the sword is sharp and the 
 head ready. We ciit off the head or we slay. There is enough 
 of your running away. One who is about to die does not truly 
 live. 
 
 Vasantasena.^ — Sir, I am but a woman. 
 
 Attendant. — For that alone you will be preserved. 
 
 Prince. — For that alone you will not die. 
 
 Vasantasena [asicie']. — How even his very courtesy engenders fear. 
 Let it be so then [a/oud] — Then you desire some jewels. 
 
 Attendant. — Forfend us, Lady Vasantasena. The gardener desires 
 not to steal flowers. Therefore there is no fear for your jewels. 
 
 Vasantasena. — Then what indeed now ? 
 
 Prince. — That I, a god-like hero, a man, an incarnation of wealth, 
 am to be loved. 
 
 Vasantasena [wiih anger]. — Shame ! Shame ! you speak unworthily. 
 
 Prince \clapping his hands and laughing gently, mistaking the ex- 
 clamation Shame! (Santa) for "sranta" {weary)]. — Noble sir,see 
 now, how courteous is this young dancing-girl, since she asks 
 me. Are you weary, are you tired. I have gone to no other 
 village nor town. Lady, I swear by your head, and by my 
 feet, that by following close on you I have become weary 
 and tired. 
 
 Attendant. — The fool imagines the girl says " be rested," when she 
 cries "forfend us!" Vasantasena, your house is that of a 
 dancing-girl, open to all. You, a wanton, are like the wayside 
 creeper swayed equally by peacock and crow. 
 
 Vasantasena. — Merit and not power is truly the only cause of love. 
 
276 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Prince. — She is a dancing-girl from her birth. From the day she 
 first saw Charudatta in the temple of the God of Love, she has 
 become enamoured of him, and will not bend to my will. Take 
 care, his house is near, see that she escape not from our hands. 
 
 Attendant on Prince \aside\. —What ! the fool blurts out what he 
 should hide. Vasantasena in love with Charudatta ! then truly 
 pearls match pearls. Let the fool go. I shall aid Vasantasena. 
 [Aloud] Hullo ! all in deep darkness. The house of Charudatta 
 is to the left [In a whisper] Vasantasena, conceal yourself in 
 the evening darkness like lightning shut in by heavy clouds ; 
 let not the perfiime from your garlands nor sound of your jewels 
 betray you. 
 
 [Vasantasena removes her garlands and jewels, and feels her way 
 by the side wall of Charudatta's house. Charudatta is seen 
 inside his house with Maitreya and a female servant.] 
 
 Charudatta. — My prayers are now ended. Go, present the offerings 
 
 to the Mothers. 
 Maitreya. — I go not 
 Charudatta. — Alas ! From poverty of a man, even his friends heed 
 
 not his words. His power is laughed at ; none desires his 
 
 acquaintance, nor speaks to him with respect Truly poverty 
 
 is the sixth great sin. 
 Maitreya. — O friend, if I must go, then let the servant go with me 
 
 as a companion. 
 Charudatta. — Be it so. 
 
 [As the servant takes a light, W'aitreya opens the side door, near 
 which stands Vasantasena, who, as the servant approaches, 
 blows out the light with the end of her garment] 
 
 Maitreya [exclaims], — Ah ! by the opening of the door the light has 
 been extinguished. Pass out, servant, while I go again inside to 
 relight the lamp. 
 
 [The servant goes into the street, where she is seized by the prince 
 and his attendant. She cries out] 
 
 The Prince.— See, see, I have seized Vasantasena. Recognising her 
 flying by the perfume of her gariand I have seized her by the 
 hair of her head. Now let her cry, weep, and rage on all 
 the gods. 
 
 [ITie servant cries out, and Maitreya returns with an upraised 
 stick.] 
 
 Maitreya.— Shame ! a dog in his own house would be outraged by 
 this violence. How much more I, a Brahman ? With this 
 
THE DRAMA 277 
 
 knotted stick, rough as our fate, I shall grind like dried-up 
 reeds your heads with blows. {Seeing the prince'\ Are, Are, bad 
 man, this is not fit. If the honoured Charudatta be poor, what 
 then ? Has he not made all Ujjayin renowned by his merits. 
 Why, then, is there this disgrace of strangers entering his 
 house ? 
 
 Attendant on Prince.— Great Brahman, stay, stay, we came not 
 through insolence ; one loved by us was sought. 
 
 Maitreya.— Who ? This servant ? 
 
 Attendant. — Avert the sin. No, one who is as fire. She is now 
 lost. By our mistake this insolence has occurred. Take now 
 this sword, and let all be yours \offering sword and falling at 
 Maitreyds feet^ 
 
 The Prince. — Of whom are you afraid ? Who is this Charudatta who 
 has no food in his house ? Who is he ? slave from his birth> 
 and son of a slave from her birth. Is he a renowned warrior 
 or one of the heroes of old ? 
 
 Attendant \rising\.—Yoo\ ! he is the noble Charudatta. The tree of 
 plenty to the poor, bowed down by its own good fruits. He is 
 the support of all good people, the model of all training, the 
 touchstone of good behaviour, the boundary shore of decorum, 
 the doer of good, the despiser of none, a mine of manly merit, 
 courteous, gentle, and strong. He alone is worthy of praise. 
 He alone lives, others merely breathe. Let us go. 
 
 Prince. — What ! without Vasantasena ? I shall not go until I 
 get her. ^ 
 
 Attendant. — An elephant may be held by a rope, a horse by a 
 bridle, but have you not heard that a woman can only be held 
 by her heart ? Let us go [departs by himself^ 
 
 Prince [turning to Maitreyd\. — Hold ! you crow-foot headed fool. 
 Tell that beggar, Charudatta, that since the day Vasantasena 
 saw him in the temple of the God of Love she has become 
 enamoured of him. As I sought to seize her by force she has 
 now entered his house. If now he deliver her into my hands 
 he wins my firm affection, if not, my deadly hatred. Go in and 
 tell him this, else I shall chaw your head like a nut crunched 
 beneath a door [departs^ 
 [Maitreya commands the servant to say nothing of the affray to 
 
 Charudatta, so as not to increase the distress of his ill-fate. 
 Charudatta in his house mistakes Vasantasena, who has entered in 
 the darkness, for his servant, and holds out to her the jasmine 
 robe, directing her to take it to his child, Rohasena, as the 
 night is cold.] 
 
27-8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Vasantasena \astde\. — He conceives that I am one of his servants 
 
 [taking the roie.] Strange, the robe is scented with the perfume 
 
 of jasmine flowers. Then he is not yet indifferent to everything. 
 
 [Charudatta, on discovering his mistake, apologises. Vasantasena 
 
 asks permission to leave her casket of jewels at his house ; 
 
 Charudatta consents, and the first act ends by her being 
 
 escorted home by Charudatta and Maitreya.] 
 
 The second act introduces the home of Vasantasena, 
 both the inside of the house being seen and also a street 
 with a small, empty temple. 
 
 A servant plys Vasantasena with questions concerning 
 Charudatta. A cry is heard from the street, announcing that 
 a gambler has fled from a gaming-house without having 
 paid ten gold pieces which he had lost. The keeper of 
 the gaming-house and other gamblers are pursuing him to 
 make him pay his debts. The gambler appears, bemoan- 
 ing his bad luck and passion for gambling. Seeing the 
 temple empty he enters, and stands there as if he were the 
 image of the god. The pursuers sit down before the temple 
 and proceed to play. The first gambler, unable to listen to 
 the rattle of the dice, rushes from his place in the temple 
 to join in the game. He is seized and beaten ; a riot 
 occurs, during which he escapes and flies for safety into 
 the house of Vasantasena, who, on hearing that he had 
 been in the service of Charudatta, sends out to the keeper 
 of the gambling-house and his associates a bracelet in 
 payment of the debt. The gambler, overcome by his 
 disgrace, departs, declaring his intention of becoming a 
 Buddhist mendicant. 
 
 In the third act a dissipated Brahman, in love with an 
 attendant of Vasantasena, steals the jewel casket confided by 
 Vasantasena to the care of Charudatta. The midnight scene, 
 depicting the cutting through of the wall of Charudatta's 
 house, the entry and seizure of the casket, is a most subtle 
 picture of Hindu ingenuity. It is too long and minute in 
 its descriptions for Western ideas, but in the East, where 
 
THE DRAMA 279 
 
 every restless want is soon satiated, an audience gladly 
 luxuriates in these subdued effects. 
 
 When Charudatta's wife hears of the loss, she sends all 
 that remains of her wealth — a wondrous string of pearls — 
 to her husband, telling him to save his honour by forward- 
 ing them to Vasantasena in exchange for the lost casket. 
 
 The fourth act shows Vasantasena's house. The burglar 
 of the night before brings the casket of jewels to his 
 mistress, the attendant of Vasantasena, by whom the 
 casket is restored to Vasantasena, who rewards her 
 servant by giving her in marriage to the now reformed 
 Brahman robber. 
 
 So far the imagery throws a vivid light on the people, 
 their thoughts and mode of life. The unity of action is 
 now broken by introducing into the main plot a second 
 plot, in which is well depicted the petty intrigues surround- 
 ing the downfall of a local chieftain and uprising of a new 
 dynasty. 
 
 As the Brahman robber and his wife depart from the 
 house of Vasantasena a herald's cry is heard : — 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! there, Bho ! The king's brother-in-law hereby proclaims. 
 
 It has been prophesied that one Aryaka, a cow-herd, shall yet 
 
 become king. Now let each one hear and remain content in 
 
 his own place, for the King Palaka has taken the cow-herd 
 
 Aryaka and placed him in a deep dungeon." 
 
 The Brahman Robber. — Alas ! the King Palaka has bound my dear 
 
 friend Aryaka, and I am about to marry. Ah, fate ! In this 
 
 world two things are very dear to a man, a friend, and a wife. 
 
 Better, however, than even one hundred fair girls is one dear 
 
 friend. I go not home. 
 
 [The Brahman at once sends his new wife to his home, and 
 
 hastens himself to raise a band to release Aryaka from the 
 
 violence of the reigning king, Palaka. Maitreya next enters 
 
 Vasantasena's house, and tells her of the loss of the casket. 
 
 He presents to her the string of pearls in exchange, and she 
 
 smilingly announces her intention of visiting Charudatta.] 
 
 The fifth act ushers in the tempestuous suddenness of a 
 
28o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 tropical storm preluding the love of Charudatta and 
 Vasantasena. Charudatta is seated in his pleasure-garden, 
 awaiting the visit of Vasantasena, who hastens to his side, 
 defying all the evil omens that hover round. 
 
 " Let the clouds fall in torrents, thunder roar, 
 And Heaven's red bolt dart fiery to the ground. 
 The dauntless damsel faithful love inspires 
 Treads boldly on nor dreads the maddening storm." • 
 
 [Charudatta receives her gently, and prays her not to revile the 
 cloud : ] 
 
 " Reprove it not, for let the rain descend, 
 The heavens still lour and wide the lightnings launch 
 A hundred flames ; they have befriended me, 
 And given me her for whom I sighed in vain." ^ 
 
 In the sixth act Vasantasena awakens in the house of 
 Charudatta to find that he has gone to a neighbouring 
 pleasure-garden, having left a message that she is to follow. 
 Her carriage awaits her. Before she enters, the driver 
 discovers that he has forgotten the cushions, and drives off 
 to fetch them. In his absence, the carriage of the king's 
 brother-in-law passes down the street. In the press of the 
 traffic its driver stays it at the door of Charudatta's house, 
 and descends to clear the road. Vasantasena, taking it for 
 her own, ascends, and is driven away. 
 
 The rebel Aryaka now appears on the stage. He is 
 fettered, having escaped from the king's dungeon. He 
 bewails his lot, and, seeing Vasantasena's empty carriage, 
 ascends it, and is driven to the pleasure-garden, where he is 
 met by Charudatta, who, pitying his condition, removes his 
 fetters, gives him a sword, and directs him to escape from 
 the town. 
 
 The seventh act takes place in the same pleasure-garden. 
 The gainbler, who has turned a Buddhist mendicant, 
 
 ' Wilson, "Theatr? of the Hindus," vol, i. p. 97. ^ ji,i^_^ p. 280, 
 
THE DRAMA 281 
 
 appears, and is met by the king's brother-in-law. In fear 
 he cries out : — 
 
 " Alas ! here comes the king's brother-in-law. We know that he was 
 once insulted by a mendicant, and now he slits the nose of every 
 Buddhist beggar he sees, and drives him forth. Where shall I 
 unprotected fly ? The lord Buddha is now my only refuge." 
 
 [As the Buddhist conceals himself, Vasantasena arrives, and as she 
 alights the king's brother-in-law falls at her feet and pleads 
 his false love] : 
 
 " Mother, sister, hear my prayer. Here, O large-eyed one, at your feet 
 I fall. With upraised hands I pray you, O fair-limbed one, to 
 forgive the fault that in my passion I may have committed." 
 
 [Vasantasena spurns him with her foot, and upbraids him for his 
 ignoble behaviour. In his rage he drags her by the hair of 
 her head from the carriage, and calls on the driver of the 
 carriage by threats and bribes to slay her. The driver cries 
 in horror that Vasantasena has done no wrong; she is young, 
 the ornament of the whole town. Should she be slain, the four 
 quarters would bear witness to the deed, as would the sylvan 
 gods, the Moon, the Sun with its bright rays. Justice and the 
 Wind, the Inward Self, the Earth, the true witnesses of Right 
 and Wrong. 
 [The king's brother-in-law beats the driver, who flies from the 
 garden. An attendant alone remains concealed close at 
 hand. The prince again pleads his suit, and Vasantasena 
 answers] : ^ 
 
 " I spurn you ; 
 
 Nor can you tempt me, abject wretch with gold. 
 
 Though soiled the leaves, the bees fly not the lotus, 
 
 Nor shall my heart prove traitor to the homage 
 
 It pays to merit though its lord be poor." 
 
 [The enraged Prince taunts her for still remembering Charudatta, 
 and she replies] : 
 " Why should I not remember that which is planted in my heart." 
 
 Prince.— Then that which is planted in your heart, and you also, 
 lover of a mean, wealth-forsaken Brahman, I shall slay. Stay, 
 stay. 
 
 Vasantasena. — Speak again those words, for they flatter me. 
 
 1 Wilson, " Theatre of the Hindus," vol. i. p. 135. 
 
282 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Prince.— Let then that Charudatta, son of a dancing-girl, now protect 
 
 you. 
 Vasantasena. — He would protect me if he could but see me. 
 
 [Prince seizes herJ\ 
 Vasantasena — Ho ! mother, where are you ! Ha, noble Charudatta ! 
 The vile wretch slays me even before my wish has been 
 accomplished. Yet I shall not cry out. No, that were shame 
 should Vasantasena's cry be heard. Let there be only this : 
 salutation to the noble Charudatta ! 
 Prince. — Again, the slave from her birth, uses the name of Charudatta 
 [seizes her by the throai]. Remember, slave from your birth, 
 remember. 
 Vasantasena. — Salutation to the noble Charudatta [falls senseless"]. 
 Prince. — Now, at last, this bamboo box of wickedness, this abiding 
 place of incivility, who came to meet her lover Charudatta, has 
 met her death. 
 [The prince covers Vasantasena with leaves, and then departs. 
 The Buddhist mendicant appears, and discovers Vasantasena. 
 He pours water over her, and she revives. Fearing to touch 
 a woman, he bends down a branch of a neighbouring tree, 
 so that Vasantasena may seize it, and rise. They depart for 
 a neighbouring convent, where dwells a holy sister, the 
 Buddhist mendicant reciting his lay that the man whose acts, 
 and thoughts, and senses are subdued, has naught to do with 
 affairs of the world, for he holds in his grasp the next world 
 firm.] 
 
 The ninth act gives the only picture of a Court of 
 Justice in Indian literature. There the prince carries all 
 before him. Charudatta is accused of the crime, condemned, 
 and led forth to execution sorrowfully lamenting : — 
 "Alas, my poor friend ! 
 Had due investigation been allowed me, 
 Or any test proposed, water or poison. 
 The scales or scorching fire, and I had failed 
 The proof, then might the law have been fulfilled 
 And I deservedly received my doom. 
 But this will be avenged, and for the sentence 
 That dooms a Brahman's death, on the mere charge 
 Of a malicious foe, the bitter portion 
 That waits for thee, and all thy line, O king, 
 Is Hell — proceed — I am prepared."' 
 
 ' Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. i. p. 159. 
 
THE DRAMA 283 
 
 The tenth act occurs at the place of execution. At the 
 last moment the truth is made known, and Charudatta is 
 released. The news is then announced that the king 
 Palaka has been slain, and Aryaka placed on the throne. 
 Charudatta is raised to high office, and signalises his 
 accession to power by ordering the immediate release of 
 the prince, whom the mob would have torn to pieces. The 
 Buddhist mendicant is made chief of all the Buddhist 
 monasteries in the land. Charudatta is restored to his wife, 
 and the last words of the play are uttered : — 
 
 " Fate views the world, 
 A scene of mutual and perpetual struggle 
 For some are raised to affluence, some depressed 
 In want, while some are borne awhile aloft. 
 And some hurled down to wretchedness and woe."' 
 
 The play differs essentially from all other plays of the 
 classic period. In its dramatic interest, in its realistic view 
 of life, in its humour and raciness, it is unique in the whole 
 literary history of India. Many of the scenes are un- 
 doubtedly filled in with all the exuberance and artificiality 
 of an Eastern poet's imagination, which makes it rash to 
 assert that the whole play is the work of one hand. 
 Nevertheless, to any one acquainted with the inner life of 
 India, especially that phase of it dealt with in the " Mud 
 Cart," the position of the dancing-girl, the surroundings and 
 associates of a debauched Indian prince, the life of the 
 merchant Brahman, Charudatta, the behaviour of the officers 
 of the household guard,- of whom two are depicted in the 
 play as falling to fisticuffs over the escape of Aryaka, the 
 condition of affairs, and appearance of effeminate men, in the 
 pleasure-garden of Vasantasena, are all life-like, and founded 
 on what must have been facts at the period treated of. The 
 great value of the play is contained in the side-light it 
 throws on the history of the people, revealing them, not as 
 1 WUson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. i. p. iSo. 
 
284 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 seen in the ideal descriptions of the law books and more 
 recondite literature, but as types well known to the audience 
 for whom the play was prepared. Although the simplicity 
 of the style and structure of the language afford no 
 conclusive evidence respecting the age of the play, still 
 it may, in the absence of any reliable evidence to the 
 contrary, be accepted as giving a poetic description, 
 drawn from life, of the manners of the country where it 
 was produced, at or about the commencement of the 
 Christian era. 
 
 / The difficulties in the way of ascertaining the dates of 
 any of the earlier Sanskrit dramas seem to be almost as 
 insurmountable as those for arriving at any unanimous 
 opinion regarding the genesis of their form. While 
 Kalidasa is universally accepted as the Shakespeare of the 
 Indian drama, it must be remembered that this is merely 
 meant to indicate that his plays represent the purest and — 
 according to Eastern ideals — highest artistic form of the 
 classic drama. 
 
 '^ Any natural tendency of the classic drama to recognise 
 and assimilate to itself the common life-history of the 
 people, and their modes of thought and expression, was 
 unfortunately checked by foreign conquest Kalidasa,^ 
 
 1 Peterson, J. R. A. S. (Bombay), vol. xviii. p. I lo : — "For it is certain now that 
 Kalidasa must be put earlier than has lately been very generally supposed. 
 He stands near the beginning of our era, if indeed he does not overtop it, and 
 dates from the year one of Vikrama's era." See more particularly G. R. 
 Nandargikar, " Meghaduta of Kalidasa " (Bombay, 1894), p. 84 : — "And it is 
 also probable, nay almost certain, that Kalidasa, the Virgil of the Hindus, may 
 have lived some forty years before the beginning of the Christian era, and may 
 also have been a poet in the imperial court of Vikramaditya, who began to 
 reign from 57 B.C." 
 
 To Miss Duff I am indebted for the following note: — "The Jaina poet 
 Ravikirti flourished 610 A.D., being contemporary with Pulikesin II., 'Early 
 Chalukya.' He was the composer of Pulikesin's Aihole Meguti inscription, 
 in which he claims equality with the poets Kalidasa and Bharavi, thus inci- 
 dentally proved to-have flourished before this time. No definite date can, as 
 yet, be fixed for Kalidasa, but, according to Kielhorn, he cannot be placed later 
 than 472 A.D., the date of Kumara Gupta's Mandasor inscriptions, a verse of 
 
THE DRAMA 285 
 
 therefore, remains the sole, unrivalled exponent of the pure, 
 classic mode of representing life and thought in the 
 early ages. 
 
 While with Wilson it may be said that " it is impossible 
 to conceive language so beautifully musical and so mag- 
 nificently grand as that of many of the verses o f Bhavabhuti 
 and Kalidasa," the two great dramatists of classical India, 
 it must be remembered that these dramas are studied 
 compositions, the Sanskrit portions being intended ex- 
 clusively as an intellectual feast for the learned. So much 
 of the life of the period as is shadowed forth in the 
 dramas of Kalidasa can only be fully understood in the 
 form in which the poet's mind conceived it in the original 
 Sanskrit. Bereft of this, the vision is blurred and indistinct, 
 lifeless facts alone remaining in any translation, however 
 perfect. In the Sanskrit alone can the lines be traced on 
 which the poet's fancy modelled a form such as grew to 
 life in " Sakuntala," who spoke in a music, each note of which 
 was skilfully attuned to her own gentle grace. 
 
 The play itself is a true Nataka, considered the highest 
 form of Indian dramatic art, having for its object the 
 representation of heroic or god-like characters, and the 
 presentation of good deeds. The play does not profess to 
 give a realistic picture of the life of the people. It is 
 idealistic in its conception, full of lofty sentiment, artificial 
 and wilfully elaborate in its diction, the Sanskrit portions 
 being unintelligible to the greater part of the audience which 
 heard the play. 
 
 The play opens with the appearance of the legendary 
 king, Dushyanta, of the Lunar Race, descendant of Puru. 
 
 which so closely resembles Kalidasa's ' Ritusanhaia ' as to justify ^ the inference 
 that this work was in existence when the inscription was incised. Similarly 
 the Buddha Gaya inscription of Mahavarnam contains a passage closely re- 
 sembling one in the 'Raghuvansa.'" — B.D., 59, vol. iii. 121 ff; "Ind. Ant.," 
 xix. 285; XX. 190; J.B.R.A.S., xix. 35. 
 
 ^ 1 fail to see that there are any grounds for the conclusion 
 
286 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 He is seated in his chariot and is armed with bow and 
 arrow. The absence of stage properties gives opportunity 
 for the description of the scenery. The king's horses are 
 being urged in pursuit of a flying deer. As Dushyanta 
 gains on the deer he prepares to shoot an arrow, when a 
 voice is heard, declaring that he is trespassing on a sacred 
 hermitage, south of Hastinapur, the dwelling of the sage 
 Kanva and his disciples. 
 
 Sakuntala, the daughter of a heavenly nymph sent from 
 Heaven by Indra to allure the ascetic sage Visvamitra 
 from his penances, dwells in the hermitage under the care 
 of her foster-father Kanva. Her lips gleam with the gleam 
 of the young bud, her arms are twining like the tender 
 creeper, while over all her limbs youth glows as in the 
 blossom of a flower. The king stands in the midst of the 
 hermitage, the peace of which he has so rudely broken. 
 The hermits move quietly to and fro ; the smoke of sacrifice 
 rises here and there in the sacred grove, lingering amid 
 the foliage of the variegated forest trees ; fawns graze fearless 
 on the sacred griiss ; water led in channels flows through- 
 out the grove ; parrots flit from out the hollow trunks of 
 trees ; the garments made of bark for the sage's pupils hang 
 here and there. Kanva, the sage, is absent from the 
 hermitage, having gone on a pilgrimage to the sea-coast 
 near Gujarat 
 
 As Sakuntala appears on the scene the king stands 
 watching her, wondering if he, a warrior, can ever hope to 
 win one whom he takes to be the daughter of a Brahman. 
 
 Though the king knows that among hermits, whose only 
 treasure is their store of forbearance, there lies deep hidden 
 a burning and passionate wrath which may blaze forth 
 against those who oppose their sacred calling, still he knows 
 that though the maiden is in the charge of the ascetic sage, 
 his heart cannot turn back from her, no more than water 
 can from the low land. The same is true of Sakuntala. 
 
THE DRAMA 287 
 
 Gentler, more winning in her grace, more youthful than 
 Gretchen or Juliet, she has a deeper note, a more human 
 charm than either. Eastern, subtle, evasive, throbbing 
 with love, veiled with reserve, there yet grows within her a 
 passionate and seething love for the king, which she tries 
 to stifle, but from which she can find no peace. The king 
 learns the secret of her descent from the warrior sage 
 Visvamitra, and so all impediment to their union is; 
 removed. No adaptation, however skilful, no wealth of^ 
 scenery, however gorgeous, could ever prevent the play 
 from being laughed off an English stage. The languor of 
 the movement as the love scenes subtly blend the 
 whole ascetic grove into throbbing sympathy with the 
 drama of life woven out by the poet is too essentially 
 Eastern to stay the quick eagerness of Western thought. 
 
 The king and Sakuntala twine their lives together, 
 according to the Gandharva^ form of marriage, a simple 
 plighted troth, by which, as Dushyanta urges, other 
 daughters of great sages have been led away, unblamed by 
 their fathers. Dushyanta has soon to leave Sakuntala, 
 on an urgent summons to return to his kingdom. To 
 Sakuntala he leaves as sign of future recognition his token 
 ring. She, dreaming of her departed husband, neglects to 
 receive with due rites of hospitality a great sage, whose 
 anger and imprecations were so feared that even the gods 
 went in dread of him. This fierce sage, enraged by the 
 neglect, cursed Sakuntala, declaring that the king would 
 never more recollect her face. He afterwards relented in 
 so far as to declare that the king's memory would be 
 restored on sight of the token ring. 
 
 The remainder of the play is the working out of the 
 result of the sage's curse. Sakuntala lost the ring when 
 bathing, and it was swallowed by a fish. The king dis- 
 owned her when she arrived at the court with her child, 
 
 1 "Manu," iii. 32. 
 
288 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the famed Bharata. The plays ends with the recovery of 
 the ring by two fishermen, the restoration of the king's 
 memory, and the recognition of Sakuntala as queen, and 
 of her son Bharata as heir to the kingdom. 
 
 The second great drama of Kalidasa, the " VikramorvasI," 
 or " Urvasi, Won by Valour," depicts in five short acts the 
 adventures of a heavenly nymph, Urvasi, who was rescued 
 
 Jrom a demon by her lover, the heroic king, Pururavas. 
 The third play deals with history. It is the story of 
 
 'Agnimitra, the son of Pushpamitra, who having put to 
 death the last of the Maurya monarchs, founded the 
 Sunga dynasty of Magadha. In spite of the opposition of 
 his two queens, Agnimitra falls in love with a girl of his 
 court, Malavika, and ultimately succeeds in marrying her, 
 and in having her recognised by her rivals. 
 
 The second great romantic dramatist of India was 
 Bhavabhuti, who flourished at the end of the seventh 
 century of our era. To him three plays are ascribed, the 
 "MalatI Madhava," the " Maha-vira-Charitra," and the 
 " Uttara-Rama-Charitra." 
 
 The over-elaborated and fantastic style of Bhavabhuti, 
 especially in the "Malati Madhava," has produced a result 
 so artificial and purely literary, that Mr Grierson declares : 
 " I do not believe that there ever was even a pandit in 
 India who could have understood, say, the more difficult 
 passages of Bhavabhuti at first hearing, without previous 
 study." 
 
 The poet in his opening prologue shows that he 
 wrote his play with no attempt to appeal to any but 
 scholars and learned pandits. " How little do they know," 
 he wrote, " who speak of us with censure. The entertain- 
 ment is not for them. Possibly some one exists, or will 
 exist, of similar tastes with myself, for time is boundless, 
 and the world is wide." 
 
 Notwithstanding the extreme artificiality of much of the 
 
THE DRAMA 289 
 
 style of the " MalatI Madhava," it is invaluable for the strong 
 light it throws on certain phases of the more obscure 
 superstitious rites of Hinduism. In order to produce his 
 effects, the dramatist conjures up scenes that seize the 
 imagination, with a reality more vivid and a spell more 
 weird and uncanny than even the witch's scene in Macbeth, 
 or the Walpurgis Night in Faust. In the play, MalatI is 
 the daughter of the minister of Ujjayin, and Madhava, the 
 son of the chief minister of the state of Viderbha or Berar. 
 Malati is nursed by a Buddhist nun at Ujjayin. There 
 Madhava is also sent, for, as the drama declares, it was 
 customary in these days for students to crowd to the 
 schools of the Buddhists to learn logic. The King of 
 Ujjayin demands Malati in marriage for a favourite of his 
 own. The chief value of the story, as a revelation of 
 Indian thought, consists not only in the evidence it affords 
 as to the position of Buddhism at the period, but also in 
 the light it throws on later Hindu beliefs and practices. /" 
 
 In the more important eighteen "Puranas" a full 
 account is given of Hinduism, so far as it is concerned 
 with the worship of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, while 
 in the numerous "Tantras," the tenets of the 6aktas, or 
 worshippers of the Sakti, the active, creative side of each 
 deity, personified as a female energy, bearing the Sankhya 
 relationship of the Prakriti to Purusha, are detailed in all 
 their forbidding reality. 
 
 In the drama of Bhavabhuti, these Tan trie practices are 
 pictured forth in scenes which never could have been 
 imagined unless they were based on a substratum of fact. 
 Though these practices are reprobated in the text, and set 
 forth in their more unholy aspect as fit only for outcasts 
 and heretics, yet there is ample evidence that they were 
 not uncommon. 
 
 The goddess whose worship is described in the " Malati 
 Madhava," is Chamunda, a form of Durga, the consort of 
 
 T 
 
290 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Siva.' Her high priest has vowed to present to the dread 
 goddess a chaste virgin as a sacrifice, and the choice falls 
 on Malati. The maiden is led by sorcery to the temple 
 of the goddess, there to be slain. Kapala Kundala,i the 
 serving priestess, sings the praise of the goddess, the 
 personification of divine energy. The scene takes place 
 in a burning ground, near which stands the temple of the 
 dread deity. Inside the temple Malati lies bound. In 
 the midst of the horrible scene, the most horrible that 
 genius has ever made sublime, Madhava enters. Deter- 
 mined to call in the aid of foul demons and sorcery to win 
 Malati for his bride, he has come to put the unholy Tantric 
 rites into practice on the very ground where stands the 
 temple of Chamunda. He is unaware of the fact that 
 Malati has been entrapped, and lies bound near at hand. 
 The darkest aspect of Indian superstition is now revealed in 
 the play : — 
 
 " Now wake the terrors of the place, beset 
 With crowding and malignant fiends ; the flames 
 From fmieral pyres scarce lend their sullen light 
 Clogged with their fleshy prey to dissipate 
 The fearful gloom that hems them in. Pale ghosts 
 Spirit with foul goblins, and their dissonant mirth 
 In shrill respondent shrieks is echoed round." ^ 
 
 Madhava enters bearing the flesh of man, " untouched 
 by trenchant steel," to present to the fell demons and 
 unholy spirits, and so gain their aid. 
 
 The priestess enters, " in a heavenly car, and in a hideous 
 garb" to disclose the means whereby, some have imagined, 
 the Yogis of India acquire mystic powers : — 
 
 " Glory to Saktinath, upon whose steps, 
 The mighty goddesses attend, whom seek 
 Successfiilly alone the firm of thought 
 He crowns the lofty aims of tho^e who know 
 And hold his form, as the pervading spirit, 
 
 ' The title chosen for one of Sankim Chandra Chatteiji's novels, 
 ' Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. p. 55. 
 
THE DRAMA 291 
 
 That, one with their own essence, makes his seat 
 
 The heart, the lotus centre of the sphere 
 
 Sixfold by ten nerves circled. Such am I. 
 
 Freed from all perishable bonds, I view 
 
 The eternal soul embodied as the God, 
 
 Forced by my spells to tread the mystic labyrinth, 
 
 And rise in splendour throned upon my heart. 
 
 Hence through the many channelled veins I draw 
 
 The grosser elements of this mortal body, 
 
 And soar unwearied through the air, dividing 
 
 The water- shedding clouds. Upon my flight, 
 
 Horrific honours wait ; — the hollow skulls. 
 
 That low descending from my neck depend. 
 
 Emit fierce music as they clash together. 
 
 Or strike the trembling plates that gird my loins." * 
 
 The scene that follows is horribly revolting. To those 
 before whom it will bring up memories of the true records 
 of the Aghoris, or human flesh-eating religious maniacs of 
 recent days in India, it is a scene of extreme interest, as 
 well as to all students of Indian thought, who cannot 
 neglect anything that tends to throw light on a subject 
 which is ever fascinating — the strange diversity of the 
 wanderings of Eastern beliefs. Madhava shakes off the 
 demon host and unclean spirits : — 
 
 " Race dastardly as hideous. All is plunged 
 In utter gloom. The river flows before me. 
 The boundary of the funeral ground that winds 
 Through mouldering bones its interrupted way. 
 Wild raves the torrent as it rushes past, 
 And rends its crumbling banks, the wailing owl 
 Hoots through its skirting groves, and to the sounds 
 The loud, long moaning jackal yells reply." ^ 
 
 Within the temple the human-sacrificing priest dances his 
 Tantric dance around his victims, invoking the goddess : — 
 
 " Hail ! hail ! Chamunda, mighty goddess, hail 1 
 I glorify thy sport, when in the dance 
 That fills the court of ^iv^ with delight, 
 Thy foot descending spurns the earthly globe-. 
 
 1 Wilson, " Theatre of the Hindus,'' vol. ii. p. 53. " Ibid., p. 56. 
 
292 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 " The elephant hide that robes thee, to thy steps 
 Swings to and fro : the whirling talons rend 
 The crescent on thy brow ; from the torn orb 
 The trickling nectar falls, and every skull 
 That gems thy necklace laughs with horrid life."* 
 
 Madhava breaks in upon the scene. He slays the priest 
 and rescues MalatI, happily ending one of the most awe- 
 inspiring pictures that the history of the literature of any 
 nation could fashion from real life, and clothe in the 
 brilliant colours so typical of all the work of Bhavabhuti. 
 The play moves on through many more incidents, the 
 most interesting being the appearance of a Buddhist 
 priestess towards the end of the drama, who, by practising 
 all the principles laid down in the " Yoga," has arrived at a 
 command over sorcery even greater than that reached by a 
 Bodhisattva. 
 
 ' The second great play of Bhavabhuti, the "Mahavira- 
 Charitra," dramatises the first six books of the " Ramayana,'' 
 detailing the story of Rama, who rescues from the grasp of 
 the ten - headed monster, Ravana, the King of Lanka 
 (Ceylon), his wife, Sita, the loved of all Indian women. 
 
 In the " Uttara-Rama-Charitra," the third play of Bhava- 
 bhuti, the seventh book of the " Ramayana " is dramatised, in 
 which the chastity of Sita is questioned, and she is for 
 a time divorced from Rama, to be reunited after many 
 trials : — 
 
 "'Tis Sita: mark. 
 How lovely through her tresses dark 
 And floating loose, her face appears 
 Though pale and wan and wet with tears. 
 She moves along like Tenderness 
 Invested with a mortal dress." ° 
 
 In the " Uttara-Rama-Charitra " is introduced the strange 
 
 1 Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. p. 58. 
 * Ibid., vol. i. p. 327. 
 
THE DRAMA 
 
 293 
 
 story of Sambuka, a Sudra, who was slain by Rama for 
 that he, being a Sudra, dared to engage in pious penances. 
 To Rama — 
 
 "... There came a voice from Heaven 
 Commanding him go forth and seek Sambuka, 
 One of an outcast origin, engaged 
 In pious penance : he must fall by Rama.'' 
 
 In Manu ^ the duty of a Sudra is distinctly laid down as 
 meekly serving the three higher castes. In the " Raghu- 
 vamsa"* of Kalidasa the same story of Sambuka is repeated. 
 Here Rama finds the Sudra practising penance by hanging, 
 head downwards, from a tree, his eyes full of smoke. On 
 Rama questioning the Sudra, the " drinker of smoke," as he 
 is called, replied that he desired to attain the position of a 
 god, whereon Rama cut off his head as a punishment for 
 overstepping the duties of his caste and engaging in 
 penance. In both these cases the Sudra obtained the 
 heavenly reward,* not because of his penance, but because 
 he had been slain' by the deified hero, Rama. 
 
 By some the legend of this punishment of the Sudra 
 Sambuka is held to contain a reference to Christian 
 influences on the west coast of India.* 
 
 The " Nagananda " is remarkable as being the only 
 Buddhist drama known. It is often ascribed to the king, 
 Siladitya II., whom Hiouen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, 
 found as King of Kanauj in the seventh century when he 
 visited India, but it was more probably the work of a poet 
 Dhavaka.^ The two last acts of the play are laid in the 
 western Ghats, where the Garuda, the king of birds, is 
 engaged in daily devouring a Naga, a man-like snake. 
 
 The hero of the drama, Jimutavahana, gives his own 
 
 1 " Manu," i. 91. ^ " Raghuvamsa," 15, 50. 
 
 s "Satamgatim, 15, S3; "Raghuvamsa." 
 
 *SeeV. A. Smith, "Civilisation of Ancient India," J. B.R. A. S., vol. Ixi. 
 part I, p. 76. 
 • See Cowell's Introduction to Boyd's translation. 
 
294 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 body to be devoured, so as to save the Naga race from 
 desecration. The Garuda, recognising him as a Bodhisattva, 
 exclaims : — 
 
 " What a terrible sin have I committed ! In a word, this is a 
 Bodhisattva whom I have slain." 
 
 Jimiitavahana revives and expounds to the Garuda the 
 Buddhist doctrine of respect for all life. 
 
 " Cease for ever from destroying life ; repent of thy former deeds ; 
 labour to gather together an unbroken chain of good actions 
 by inspiring confidence in all living beings." 
 
 The " Mudra Rakshasa,'' ascribed to one Visakadatta, a 
 play of the twelfth century, is based on the revolution that 
 placed Chandra Gupta, the Sandrakottos of Megasthenes, on 
 the throne of Pataliputra, in the commencement of the 
 fourth century B.C., by the aid of the crafty Brahman 
 minister, Chanakya, who slew the reigning Nanda king.^ 
 
 The plot is, for the most part, the winning over of 
 Rakshasa, the minister of the deposed monarch, to the 
 party of the new king, Chandra Gupta I., of the Maurya 
 dynasty. The play opens with Chanakya devising means 
 to secure the kingdom he had won for Chandra Gupta against 
 all future intrigues. 
 
 '"Tis known to all the world, 
 I vowed the death of Nanda and I slew him. 
 The current of a vow will work its way 
 And cannot be resisted. What is done 
 Is spread abroad, and I no more have power 
 To stop the tale. Why should I ? Be it known, 
 The fires of my wrath alone expire 
 Like the fierce conflagration of a forest 
 From lack of fuel, not from weariness." ^ 
 
 The rumour has been spread throughout the city 
 that the murder of Nanda had been perpetrated by 
 
 ^ The story of Nanda, as given in the "Brihad Katha " of Vararuchi, is 
 detailed in Wilson's " Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. pp. 138-41. 
 ^Wilson's translation, vol. ii. p. 157. 
 
THE DRAMA 295 
 
 Rakshasa, the late minister, and the cunning craft of 
 Chanakya has now to work to gain Rakshasa to the 
 winning side. So Chanakya soliloquises how to effect his 
 purpose : — 
 
 " I have my spies abroad — they roam the realm 
 In various garb disguised, in various tongues 
 And manners skilled, and prompt to wear the show 
 Of zeal to either party, as needs serve." ' 
 
 One of the spies is depicted as wandering through the 
 country with a panorama,^ describing the terrors of hell, 
 and the tortures there suffered by the wicked. The same 
 travelling show* is common in India to-day, and is also 
 alluded to in the " Harsha Charita " of Bana, showing how 
 slowly changes take place in habits and customs. 
 
 This showman in his travels, while displaying his 
 panorama and singing his ballads, enters the house of 
 one, Chandana Das, where the wife of Rakshasa is concealed. 
 The spy observes her, manages to secure the signet ring 
 she wears, and bring it to Chanakya, who recognises it as 
 that of Rakshasa. The wily minister has obtained the 
 clue he sought, and lays his plans accordingly. Chandana 
 Das is cast into prison, there to await his death for 
 refusing to declare where he has hidden the wife of 
 Rakshasa. The news of his friend's danger is brought to 
 Rakshasa by a spy of his own, a snake-charmer, who 
 obtains entrance into the houses he wishes to inspect by 
 his cry : " Tame snakes, your honour, by which I get my 
 living. Would you wish to see them? Those who are 
 skilled in charms and potent signs, may handle fearlessly 
 the fiercest snakes." In the conference between the snake- 
 charmer and Rakshasa, the former refers to the late revolt, 
 
 1 Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. p. 159. 
 
 ^ Wilson, in his footnote, p. 160, confesses his ignorance of the meaning of 
 the text. "The person and his accompaniments is now unknown," is his 
 remark. 
 
 ' The panorama is described in the " Harsha Charita." 
 
296 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 in which Chandra Gupta advanced against the city, accom- 
 panied by a wild multitude 
 
 " Of Sakas, Yavanas, and mountaineers ; 
 The fierce Kambogas, with the tribes who dwell 
 Beyond the western streams, and Persia's hosts, 
 Poured on us like a deluge." 
 
 Rakshasa still longs to revive the hopes of the ancient 
 dynasty, but against his plans the subtle brain of Chanakya 
 has devised counter-plans. These plans Chanakya works 
 out himself. The opponents of Chandra Gupta are driven 
 to quit the city, so that inside no intrigues may be fomented, 
 and Rakshasa remains alone and unsupported. Even the 
 king Chandra Gupta is ignorant of his minister's intrigues, 
 and when he ventures to question the haughty Chanakya,. 
 the answer given shows the proud consciousness of intel- 
 lectual superiority of the Brahman : — 
 
 " What I have done. 
 Is done by virtue of the state 1 hold ; 
 And to enquire of me why I did it, 
 Is but to call my judgment or authority 
 In question, and designedly offend me." 
 
 The moral to be drawn is clear ; without Brahmanic aid 
 the warrior-might, even of a monarch such as Chandra 
 Gupta, could be of no avail. Chandra Gupta attempts to 
 rule unaided. He defies the Brahmanic power, and in his 
 anger at feeling himself a puppet in the hands of the 
 minister, dismisses Chanakya. He does so, however, in fear 
 and trembling for the result. As he watches the angry 
 face of the Brahman, he wonders in doubt : — 
 
 I" Is he indeed incensed ? methinks the earth 
 
 \ Shakes apprehensive of his tread, recalling 
 
 ■ The trampling dance of Rudra, from his eye. 
 
 Embrowned with lowering wrath, the angry drops 
 
 Bedew the trembling lashes, and the brows 
 
 Above are curved into a withering frown." ' 
 
 * Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. p. 203. 
 
THE DRAMA 
 
 297 
 
 He has, however, made his choice, and the third act closes 
 in with his dejected forebodings : — 
 
 " My mind is ill at ease 
 Oh, how can those who have indeed provoked 
 The awful anger of their sacred guide, 
 Survive the terrors of such dread displeasure." 
 
 The king's fears are soon to be realised. The son of the 
 late king approaches Pataliputra, with a hostile force to 
 avenge his father's death. The intrigues of Chanakya work 
 out their purpose. Dissension and distrust are sown in 
 the camp of the advancing prince. Spies spread the 
 falsehood that Rakshasa, not Chanakya, had murdered the 
 late king, and insinuate that Rakshasa was now luring the 
 last of the Nanda race to his doom. 
 
 Rakshasa, in disgrace, is driven from the cause of the 
 Nanda dynasty he has so long and faithfully supported, 
 and no course remains open to him except that prepared 
 by Chanakya, the saving of his friend, Chandana Das, who 
 is condemned to death for sheltering his wife and family. 
 A scene similar to the execution scene in the " Mud Cart," 
 opens the seventh act. As Chandana Das is led forth, 
 followed by his wife and children, to be impaled, Rakshasa 
 rushes forward, demanding that the penalty should fall on 
 him alone. He is brought before Chanakya, and there 
 acknowledges how he and the Nanda cause have fallen 
 before the subtler brain and power of Chanakysu 
 
 " Mine ancient faith 
 And grief for Nanda's race, still closely cling, 
 And freshly, to my heart ; and yet perforce 
 I must become the servant of their foes ! " 
 
 Chanakya declares to Rakshasa and to Chandra Gupta the 
 intrigues whereby the designs of the discontented within 
 
298 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the city were frustrated, and the advancing host from 
 outside broken to pieces by a cunningly devised stratagem. 
 Chandra Gupta bows before the Brahmanic keenness of 
 Chanakya's intellect : — 
 
 " And yet what need of prowess, whilst alert, 
 My holy patron's genius is alone 
 Able to bend the world to my dominion ? 
 Tutor and guide, accept my lowly reverence." * 
 
 The whole drama ends with the strangest and most 
 impressive strokes of genius that Brahmanism could ever 
 have evolved. Chanakya had firmly established the rule of 
 the new monarch Chandra Gupta, won the allegiance of 
 Rakshasa, the hereditary minister of the ancient dynasty, 
 but the crowning master-touch still was wanting. Above 
 all personal considerations, Chandra Gupta, as fount of all 
 honour and support of the Brahmanic power, has to be 
 planted firm. Chanakya accordingly resigns to his rival, 
 Rakshasa, the right to remain sole minister, so that all 
 friends and upholders of old and new might be reconciled, 
 and the State dwell in unison. 
 
 From Vedic times down to the dark days of the Mutiny, 
 the Brahman power never failed to work its way, and 
 never lost its cunning. To-day it moves on in subtle 
 paths, for the Brahman is still prepared, before all his hopes 
 fade away, to watch unmoved — 
 
 " From numerous pyres, and undisturbed, the smoke 
 Spread a long veil of clouds beneath the sky. 
 And blurr the light of day, expectant flights 
 Of vultures hover o'er the darkness, and clap 
 Their wings with hope." 
 
 ' Wilson, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. p. ?48. 
 
THE DRAMA 299 
 
 So the Brahman will yet remain as determined, proud, 
 and cunning as the crafty Chanakya. 
 
 " Rather let me own, 
 The wise Chanakya ; an exhaustless mine 
 Of learning — a deep ocean stored with gems 
 Of richest excellence. Let not my envy 
 Deny his merits."^ 
 
 ^ Wikon, "Theatre of the Hindus," vol. ii. p. 247. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOUTH INDIA. 
 
 The land claimed by the Aryans had for its extreme 
 northern boundary the Himalayan range of mountains 
 stretching from extreme East to West as far as from the 
 mouth of the Thames to the Caspian Sea. In the centre 
 of this vast tract were the districts now known as the 
 North-West Provinces and Oudh, with an area equal to 
 that of Italy, and a present population nearly as large as 
 that of the German Empire. Bengal to the east has now 
 a population almost equal to that of the United States and 
 Mexico, while its extent rivals that of the whole United 
 Kingdom. Aryanism had, however, to extend its conquests 
 still further until they spread down to Cape Comorin, and 
 embraced the whole of India, a continent equal in area to 
 all Europe, leaving out Russia, and with a present popula- 
 tion of about one-fifth of the human race. As a result of 
 Aryan influence in the North, almost i two hundred millions 
 of people in India to-day speak languages based on Sanskrit, 
 while even raore^ designate themselves as Brahmanic by 
 religion. Besides Aryanism, powerful though its influence 
 has been, there are other factors to be considered in deal- 
 ing with the problem of the history of the Indian people. 
 
 ^195.463.807- '307.731.727. 
 
 800 
 
SOUTH INDIA 301 
 
 One -fifth of the entire population class themselves as 
 Muhammadan, and look back to Mecca and Muhammad as 
 their guiding lights. 
 
 Again, over seven millions of the people speak languages 
 known as Tibeto-Burman. These Tibeto-Burman-speaking 
 races are the descendants of early invaders, who pressed 
 in through the North-East passes and found abiding-places 
 in the higher slopes of the Himalayas, along the upper 
 reaches of the Brahmaputra, or in Burma. Nearly^ three 
 millions of the population speak languages classed as 
 Kolarian. The ancestors of these so-called Kolarians 
 are held to have entered India through the North-East, 
 at some unknown period, and to have fallen back from 
 the plain country and river-valleys before more vigorous 
 and civilised invaders. At present they dwell in isolated 
 and detached groups, in the more inaccessible hill-tracts, 
 preserving traces of a common origin in speaking dialects 
 which, from linguistic similarities, must be classed as having 
 originally sprung from one parent stock. Of these the 
 Santals dwell along the Eastern edges of the central plateau, 
 where it slopes down to the Ganges, while allied tribes, such 
 as the Kurku,^ Mundas, Kharrias, and Bhunjias, carry the 
 Kolarian speech across India, until it almost reaches the 
 sea-coast on the West, where it is spoken by the Bhils. Far 
 away from their own Kolarian kinsmen are found, in the 
 hill-tracts of Orissa and Ganjam on the East coast, the still 
 almost uncivilised Juangs, Savaras, and Gadabas. 
 
 All these rude races, as well as the great mass of the 
 labouring population of Indir., find the natural expression 
 of their thoughts and feelings more in the local folk-songs 
 and folk-lore than in any formulated writings or records 
 that can be classed as literature. There is thus a whole 
 life-history of a large proportion of the people which must 
 remain untold. For the greater part, the literary history 
 1 2,959,CX36. "" Census Report," p. 147. 
 
302 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 of the people of India must be an effort to note and mark 
 the culminating waves of thought that rise on the great 
 stream of Aryan literature that flows from Vedic times 
 down to our own days. 
 
 There still remains to be noted the wave of thought that 
 swept across the central range of mountains to rouse the 
 Dravidian people of South India to new ideals and lead 
 them to claim the gods of the Hindu Pantheon as their own. 
 
 From Vedic times, down to late Brahmanic days, the 
 South was shut off from the Aryans of the North by the 
 lofty range of mountains known as the Vindhycis. This 
 range is the second great barrier to all invaders from the 
 Northward, a barrier that up to the advent of the English 
 had effectually prevented even an Aurangzib from con- 
 solidating his rule from the South to " Far-off Delhi." 
 
 To the Aryans, all beyond the Vindhyas was for long an 
 impenetrable forest It was held to have been the abode 
 of Rakshasas, fierce demons and ape-like men. It was 
 the Dakshina, or " southern " part, a Sanskrit word that in 
 the Prakrit, or broken vernaculars, became corrupted into 
 " Dakkhina," thence into the modern Dekkan or Deccan, 
 now used to designate the centre table-land lying between 
 the Eastern and Western mountain ranges. By the people 
 of South India the tradition still is held that the sage 
 Agastya was the first to cross the Vindhyas and bring the 
 Northern language, grammar, and religions, to Dravidian 
 homes. At Agastya's bidding the mountains, once loftier 
 than the Himalayan peaks, are said to have bowed down, 
 so that the sage might cross them. As Agastya passed on, 
 he bade the range remain bowed down until his returning, 
 but as he remained in the South, the Vindhyas still have 
 their heads lower than the Northern range. 
 
 The Dravidians, however, probably once had possession 
 of the whole of Indi^ long before the arrival of the fair- 
 skinned Aryans, and still retain their own languages and 
 
SOUTH INDIA 303 
 
 civilisation in the South. North of the Vindhyas almost 
 all traces of their former existence have faded away before 
 the stronger forces of Aryan speech and culture. The 
 long pause given to the fair-skinned invaders, who found 
 their course and progress stayed by the forest and central 
 mountain ranges, preserved the indigenous languages, 
 customs, and forms of land tenure of the South, free 
 from the dominating force of the Northern influence. 
 So the Aryans, when at length they reached the South, 
 found the Dravidian speech too well established and 
 the literature too formed to accomplish more than to enrich 
 them with words from the new vocabulary, and mould 
 them to Sanskrit forms of thought, rules of prosody and 
 metre.^ 
 
 Down to the present day the Dravidian languages, 
 such as Telugu, Tamil, Canarese, and Malayalam, have 
 accordingly preserved a rich literature of their own. 
 Long before Aryan influences commenced to work, the 
 Southern people sang their own songs of love and war, 
 had their own sacrificial rites and cults, and worshipped 
 their own tribal gods, akin to the deities the Aryans 
 had in the North accepted from the aborigines and 
 included in the Hindu Pantheon as forms of Vishnu, 
 Krishna, or Siva. Like the Dravidians of to-day, they 
 were, as can be ascertained from linguistic evidences, 
 skilled potters, weavers, and dyers. They were builders 
 of ships, and traded far and wide from their coast villages, 
 known then as now, as " patnams" or " pattanams" (villages), 
 seen in the native termination of so many towns, such as 
 Cennapatnam^ (Madras), and Masulipatam, Fish Village. 
 
 ^ The Sentamil or classic Tamil has, however, preserved its own structure 
 and alliterative form of metre free from any foreign mixture. See especially 
 SenathI Raja, " Pre-Sanskrit Element in Ancient Tamil Literature," J. R. A. S., 
 vol. xix. p. SS^- 
 
 " For suggestion that it may mean Chinatown, see Burnell and Yule, 
 " Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words." 
 
304 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The great mass of the people were skilled agriculturists, 
 cultivators of rice, and builders of the Vcist tanks and 
 works of irrigation, still used and preserved under British 
 rule. Each cultivator held and cultivated his own clearing, 
 as is done to-day under the form of tenure known as the 
 "Raiatwari," or individual holding, of the Madras Presidency. 
 The agricultural population crowded together in well- 
 watered tracts, where their town bore the common 
 Dravidian termination "ur," or village, a term often seen 
 still in some places as Nellore, Tanjore, Coimbatore, and 
 Mangalore. The most noted town in the South was 
 Madura, or Mudur, the old town. The same form may, 
 perhaps, be traced in the Northern Mathura,^ the home 
 of Krishna, the dark deity, who finds his counterpart 
 and probable prototype in the Dravidian deity still 
 worshipped by the simpler folk of the South, as Karuppan, 
 or "dark one."* 
 
 The management of the external policy and internal 
 economy of such villages fell naturally into the hands of 
 the oldest or most renowned member of the community, 
 who became known as the " Kiravan," or " Pandiyan," * 
 both terms having the common meaning of "elder," or 
 "old man." 
 
 When robber bands came sweeping down on the rich 
 villages the sturdy retainers of the land-owners beat their 
 rude drums, or " parrais," to summon the villagers forth to 
 man the mud-walls that enclosed the settlement Down to 
 our own days the servile classes of South India are known 
 as the Parriyars, or " beaters of drums," though their Ceiste 
 name has become a term of abuse to Western ears long 
 
 ^ See Madura, "Glossary of Anglo-Indian Words," where Mathura of 
 North is said to have its name " modified after Tamil pronimciation." 
 ^ SenathI Raja, J.R.A,S., vol. xix. p. 578, note 3. 
 
 " For connection with the Northern Pandavas, see Caldwell, " Gram. 
 Dravidian Languages," p. 16; and "Senathi Raja," p. 577. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 30s 
 
 accustomed to hear the pariahs, or " servile workers with 
 their hands," reviled by those who live on their labours. As 
 time rolled on the forests around the parent villages were 
 cleared, and new lands were brought into cultivation. 
 Hamlets and new villages (JPerur) were established, which 
 all looked back to the old village (Mudilr) and its Pandiyan 
 as their ancient home and chieftain. So from earliest times 
 history holds record of a Pandiyan or Pandya chieftain ruling 
 the far South from his capital at Madura. Other chieftains 
 claimed for themselves the open land along the eastern and 
 western sea-coast. The Cheras, or Keralas, held the power 
 in Malabar and South Mysore. Another dynasty — that of 
 the Cholas — had, from the second century, their capital at 
 the ancient town of Uraiyur, changed in the seventh cen- 
 tury for Combaconam, and then in the tenth century for 
 Tanjore.^ The Cholas held the land to the north and east 
 of the Pandiyans, leaving the land north of Conjeveram to 
 fall to the dynasty known as that of the Pallavas. 
 
 It was long before the Aryans of North India penetrated 
 to these Southern villages, there to work their way to 
 power and spread abroad their civilising influence. The 
 " Ramayana," according to tradition, is the allegorical story 
 of the Aryan conquest of South India. Sita, the loved 
 wife of the hero Rama, is, according to this view, the " field 
 furrow " sung of In the Vedic Hymns. As she advanced 
 South, Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu, followed and 
 established the worship of the Hindu gods. The monkey 
 army, who aided him against the fierce demon Ravana, 
 represented the wild races of the South, while Lanka, the 
 island home where Sita was kept bound, has, without any 
 support from the epic, been held to represent Ceylon. The 
 " Mahabharata," however, shows a greater knowledge of 
 the Southern region than even the " Ramayana." ^ 
 
 1 Sewell, " Lists of Antiquities in Madras," vol. ii. p. 154. 
 " Bhandarkar, "History of the Dekkan" (1895), p. 10. 
 U 
 
3o6 LITERARY HISTORY OP INDIA 
 
 The latter epic, although it mentions the Cholas and 
 Keralas, and refers to the golden gates, adorned with 
 jewels, of the Pandya city,^ only knows the whole country 
 south of the Vindhyas as the Great Southern Forest, or 
 " Dandakaranya," where Rama lived in his hermitage, 
 Pancavati, on the banks of the Godavari. 
 
 The " Mahabharata," on the other hand, mentions many 
 places in the Deccan as then well known.^ To both poems 
 the land of the King of Vidarbha, or modern Berar, wjis 
 known, as it had been early entered by Aryans who 
 advanced along the eastern coast. 
 
 In the " Aitareya Brahmana," the Andhras, or Telugu- 
 speaking Dravidians of the Northern Circars, probably 
 then dwelling near the mouths of the Godavari, are 
 referred to as the people to whom the fifty sons of 
 Visvamitra were banished, so that " the Andhras, Pundras, 
 Sabaras, Pulindas, and Mutibas, and the descendants of 
 Visvamitra, formed a large portion of the Dasyus." * It is 
 clear that in the seventh century B.C., this country of the 
 Andhras and the east coast, or Kalinga, were known in 
 North India. They are mentioned by the grammarian, 
 Panini, who makes no reference to the existence of the 
 Southern kingdoms of the Pandyans, Cheras, and Cholas, 
 although, in the sixth century B.C., these kingdoms were so 
 famed for their importance and wealth that a king, Vijaya, 
 is recorded * to have been sent from Magadha m the north 
 to Ceylon, and to have married a daughter of a Pandya 
 monarch. 
 
 ^ "Ramayana," iij. 13, 13. 
 
 * Foulkes, "Civilisation of the Dekkan." 
 
 » "Ait. Brah.," vii. 18; Bhandarkar, "History of Dekkan," p. 6. 
 
 * Caldwell, p. 15, quoting Mahavamsa; Tumour, pp. 55-57. Vijaya of 
 Magadha is supposed, on authority of Dipavamsa and Mahavam&, to 
 have conquered Ceylon in 543 B.C. See "Ind. Ant." (October 1872) for 
 Bumell's view that the Dravidian people held aloof fiom Aryan influence, 
 until at least the advent of Kumarila, who reached the South on his mission of 
 Brahmanic reform in the eighth century of our era. 
 
SOUTH INDIA , 307 
 
 The first clear literary references to the kingdoms of South 
 India occur in the first half of the fourth century B.C., in the 
 " Vartikas," ^ or explanation to the rules of Panini by the 
 commentator, Katyayana, who adds to the examples given 
 by the earlier grammarians, for the formation of the names 
 of tribes and kings, the two instances of the Pandyas and 
 Cholas, showing that he knew the Southern kingdoms then 
 extending from the modern district of Tanjore to Madura. 
 
 By the middle of the third century B.C., Asoka, in his 
 second and thirteenth edicts, mentions the Andhras, Cheras, 
 Cholas, and Pandyas, as well as Maharashtra along the 
 Godavari, then governed by the Rattas and Bhojas. One 
 hundred years later, in 1 50 B.C., the grammarian, Patanjali, 
 shows his knowledge of Behar, Conjeveram, and Kerala or 
 Malabar. From this time forth the political history of 
 South India has to be pieced together from inscriptions 
 on rocks, temples, and in caves, from copper-plate grants, 
 local traditions, and the uncertain evidence afforded by 
 later Puranic accounts of kings and principalities. South 
 of the Vindhyas, in the northern Deccan, a dynasty, known 
 as that of the Buddhist Andhrabrityas, ruled for a period 
 extending from 73 A.D. to 218 A.D., during which the 
 Buddhist mound at Amravati was built.^ 
 
 Local chieftains succeeded until, in the sixth century, 
 a new dynasty, known as that of the Chalukyas, 
 arrived from Ayodhya, or Oudh, and held sway up to 
 the middle of the eighth century (747 A.D.). Under the 
 rule of this new-formed dynasty Buddhism gave way to 
 Jainism, and a revival of the Brahmanic sacrificial system, 
 along with a worship of the Hindu deities, chief among 
 whom was ^iva. The greatest of all the early Chalukyan 
 monarchs was " He with the Lion Locks," or Pulikesin II., 
 whose rule, from 61 1 to 634 A.D., forms a landmark in the 
 elarly political and literary history of India. Some idea of 
 
 • " Panini," iv. I, 168. See Bbandarkar, p. 7. 
 ' ' .?'« bewell, "Lists of Antiquities of Madras," vol. ii. p. 141. 
 
3o8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the divided rule of the various dynasties and principalities 
 of India, at the period when this Chalukyan monarch rose 
 to paramount power, and Jainism and Brahmanism gained 
 new life and influence, can be obtained from the inscriptions 
 setting forth the conquests of this great Southern monarch, 
 Pulikefiin II. He is recorded to have subdued the prince 
 of the Ganga family, who ruled over the Chera kingdom, 
 then extending over the modem province of Mysore, as 
 well as the chieftain who held the Malabar coast " With 
 a fleet of hundreds of ships he attacked Purl, which was 
 the mistress of the western sea, and reduced it" The 
 kings of Lata, Malava, and Gurjara were conquered, and 
 became his dependents. 
 
 Harshavardhana, King of Kanauj, then endeavoured to 
 extend his power to the south of the Narmada, but was 
 opposed by Pulikesin, who killed many of his elephants 
 and defeated his army. Thenceforward, Pulikesin received, 
 or assumed, the title of " Paramesvara," or lord paramount 
 This achievement was considered so important by the later 
 kings of the dynasty, that it alone is mentioned in such of 
 their copper-plate grants as record the deeds of Pulikesin II. 
 
 " Pulikesin appears to have kept a strong force on the 
 banks of the Narmada to guard the frontiers. Thus, by his 
 policy as well as valour, he became the supreme lord of the 
 three countries called Maharashtrakas, containing ninety- 
 nine thousand villages. The kings of Kosala and Kalinga 
 trembled at his approach and surrendered. After some 
 time he marched with a large army against the King of 
 Kanchipura, or Conjeveram, and laid siege to the town. 
 He then crossed the Kaverl and invaded the country of the 
 Cholas, the Pandyas, and the Keralas. But these appear 
 to have become his allies. After having, in this manner, 
 established his supremacy throughout the South, he entered 
 his capital and reigned in peace." ^ 
 
 * From Bhandarkai, " History of the Dekkan," p. 51. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 309 
 
 The newly-founded kingdom of the Chalukyas fell to 
 pieces in 747 A.D. Local Kshatriya warriors, the Rash- 
 trakutas, then held sway for some two hundred and fifty 
 years.i 
 
 A new and later Chalukyan line again rose to power, 
 and kept a divided rule down to the end of the twelfth 
 century, during which Buddhism and Jainism disappeared 
 before Brahmanism and the rise of the sect of Lingayatas.^ 
 
 The Hoy^ala Ballalas, Yadavas of Halibid in Mysore, 
 succeeded and ruled the whole Deccan, contending with 
 the remaining dynasties of the South, the Pandiyas and 
 Cholas,* down to the year 1318, when the Muhammadans 
 invaded the country from Delhi, captured Devagiri, the 
 Southern capital, and flayed alive the last Hindu monarch, 
 Harapala. A Vijayanagar chieftain at length succeeded 
 in driving out the Muhammadans, and his successors main- 
 tained native independence down to the time when it fell, 
 to rise no more, on the fatal field of Talikota in 1565. 
 
 So far history traces the fluctuating fortunes of the rulers 
 who in the early ages held the sovereign power south of the 
 Vindhyas. The literature of the South, like that of the North, 
 takes but little note of the political history of the times. 
 
 Before Brahmanism, Jainism, and Buddhism came from 
 Aryan homes to Dravidian villages, there exist no evidences 
 in literature from which the previous religious notions of 
 the people can be ascertained. The Dravidian languages 
 show that there was a word for a god, and a word for a 
 temple, still, all the great temples of South India are later 
 than the days of Aryan influence, and are dedicated to the 
 Hindu gods, Vishnu, and 6iva. From folk-lore, from a 
 study of the primitive beliefs of the more uncivilised Dra- 
 vidian people of to-day, as well as from noting the sacri- 
 ficial customs, the gbds, demons, or godlings worshipped 
 
 ' Kielhom in " Epigraphia Indica," vol. iii. p. 268, gives nineteen Rashtrakuta 
 kings. '■* Bhandarkar, " Dekkan," p. 96. 
 
 ' Sewell, "Antiquities of Madras," vol. ii. p. 143. 
 
3IO LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 by the wild hill races, some clue may be gained as to the 
 religious ideas of the Dravidian people in pre-Aryan days. 
 From such sources, however, little more can be culled than 
 is to be found in all primitive life, that is, superstition, 
 animism, demon-worship and devil-dancing, human sacri- 
 fices and offerings to local deities. Amid the numerous 
 deities worshipped in pre-Aryan times by the Dravidians 
 there may have been prototypes of such gods as Siva, and 
 his son Skanda, and Krishna or the Black One, introduced 
 in the " Mahabharata " by the Pandus into Brahmanism. 
 
 Brahman priests, Buddhist monks, and Jaina ascetics must 
 have reached the land before the Christian era, and estab- 
 lished themselves at the court of ruling princes, where 
 they founded schools of learning, and exercised their in- 
 fluence on the thought of the times. The local gods, 
 national deified heroes, and sacrificial cults of the people 
 became in time absorbed into Brahmanism. At the same 
 time the local literature and poetry were assimilated to 
 Sanskrit models and forms, so that the new ideas might 
 be disseminated among the Dravidian races. The oldest 
 Tamil grammars ^ cite treatises evidently compiled on the 
 Sanskrit system of Vyakarana, or Grammar. The ancient 
 classic Tamil poetry, in which the epics and folk-songs of 
 the people were composed, had, however, sufficient vitality 
 of its own to resist the foreign influence, and so it retains 
 down to the present day, alone of the Dravidian languages, 
 its own peculiar forms of alliterative metre and rhythm. 
 
 The infusion of Aryan thought and learning among the 
 Southern people soon produced its effect in the awakening 
 of Dravidian literature to proclaim the new message it 
 had received from Northern lands. It was through the 
 fostering care of the Jainas,* that the South first seems to 
 
 1 For the "Tolkappiyan," «e J.R.A.S., vol. xix. p. 550. 
 
 ^ Rice (" Early History of Kannada Literature," J.R. A.S., vol. xxii. p. 249) 
 holds that in the first half of the second century the Jaina poet, Samantabhadra, 
 preached from Kanchi in the south to Pataliputra, Benares, Ujjayini, Malwa, 
 
SOUTH INDIA 311 
 
 have been inspired with new ideals, and its literature 
 enriched with new forms of expression. 
 
 In the words of the veteran Dravidian scholar, Dr Pope, 
 the " Jain compositions were clever, pointed, elegant, full of 
 satire, of worldly wisdom, epigrammatic, but not religious." 
 
 Jainism has faded away in South India of to-day, and 
 the worship of Siva remains the prevailing faith of all 
 Tamil-speaking people. This worship of Siva is also pre- 
 valent, in a bigoted form, among the Canarese-speaking 
 Vira ^aivas, or Lingayatas, and recognised by the Smarta 
 sect of Brahmans ; ^ in the West, however, it is popularly 
 considered as degrading in its outward forms, and revolting 
 in its rites and practices. 
 
 The phase of thought which inculcates a devout faith in 
 the saving grace of this deity, 6iva, contains much that is 
 worthy of study, not only by the student of humanity and 
 by the missionary, but also by the administrator. 
 
 India can never be severed from its own past or be 
 drilled into entirely new modes of thought. Her past 
 must be studied and understood before a commencement 
 can be made in training her genius into directions in 
 which its tendencies can alone attain results beneficial 
 to the world at large. Mills and factories, science and 
 matter-of-fact realities are products of the West To 
 hope to transplant them into the enervating plains of South 
 India, with the prospect of attaining the advancement they 
 should court amongst races to whom they are more con- 
 genial, would be a hope as visionary as to expect that the 
 oak could thrive in the East, overgrow and dwarf the 
 
 and Panjab in the north. Fleet, J. F. , in his exhaustive " Dynasties of the 
 Kanarese Districts " (Bombay, 1896), p. 320, places the authenticated evidences 
 for the earliest Western Gangas after about 750 A.D.; vol. xv. pp. 3-4. See 
 Pope, Introd. to " Naladiy ar, " p. ^., also xiii. 
 ^ "History of Manikka Vasagar" (paper read at Victorian Institute, May 
 
 17. 1897). 
 " Sundaram Pillai, " Some Milestones in Tamil Literature," p. j, 
 
312 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 drooping grace of the palm-tree. If Christianity can be 
 said to have failed in awakening the mass of the people 
 of India, it is because Christianity has been, for the greater 
 part, presented to them by those who had not grasped the 
 secret of their thoughts and feelings, which can alone be 
 read in the literature they have handed down to the ages 
 as a record of their deepest aspirations. 
 
 In the West there are patent evidences that the thoughts 
 of many are swinging back from realism, and the hastily- 
 raised hopes that the misunderstood aims of science were 
 to solve the ultimate truth of all things, to old-world dreams 
 of spiritualism and supematuralism, mysticism, idealism, 
 and their ancient faiths. In this movement the thought 
 of India has had no small influence. Eastern Buddhism, 
 mysticism, spiritualism, and Vedantism have all played 
 their part in America, India, and France, affecting their art, 
 literature, and emotions. Strong as this influence is, and 
 will continue to be, the movements in India itself have 
 drifted between an Eastern mode of idealisation and 
 assimilation of Christianity and a reaction towards Vedism, 
 Vedantism, and supematuralism. 
 
 To the missionary who is unacquainted with the 
 "Vedanta," with the spirit of the true mysticism under- 
 lying the worship of Krishna, with the "Ramayana" of 
 Tulsi Das, with the quatrains of the " Naladiyar," the task 
 set before him is one that must always lack somewhat of 
 its full promise of success. He cannot throw aside litera- 
 ture such as the Indian people love and cherish as though 
 it were nothing but folly and superstition. Of the best 
 of the Dravidian, as well as the Aryan, literature it 
 can be said, in the words of the learned scholar and 
 missionary, who has assimilated the language and the 
 thought of the people of the South as though they were 
 his own, that " there seems to be a strong sense of moral 
 obligation.an earnest aspiration after righteousness, a fervent 
 
SOUTH INDIA 313 
 
 and unselfish charity, and generally, a loftiness of aim, that 
 are very impressive." ^ 
 
 These words refer specially to the "Naladiyar," still 
 taught in every vernacular Tamil school. It consists of 
 four hundred quatrains of moral and didactic sayings, each 
 one composed, according to tradition, by a Jaina ascetic. 
 The story goes ^ that eight thousand Jains came in time of 
 famine to a monarch of the Pandiya kingdom, who strove 
 to retain them when the famine had departed, so that he 
 might add an additional lustre by their presence to his 
 kingdom. They, however, departed in secret, leaving each 
 a verse behind. The indignant king threw all the verses 
 into the river, when, to his surprise, four hundred of them 
 floated against the current, and, in consequence of this 
 miraculous event, were preserved and formed into the 
 present collection, dating, according to native belief, from 
 some two thousand years before our era. The whole of 
 the verses, however, treat of topics familiar to a student of 
 Sanskrit literature, the misery of transmigration, the effects 
 of Karma, and the joy of release from bondage and re-birth.* 
 The unconnected four hundred verses of the " Naladiyar " 
 present no definite philosophic or religious teaching, although 
 generally they have a didactic tendency. Each aphorism 
 is lighted up with a brilliant play of fancy and revels in 
 an Eastern love for soothing sounds, apt and startling 
 similes, quaint conceits, and sensuous imagery. The poem 
 deals with the three great objects of life — virtue, wealth, 
 and pleasure ; each subject being treated in typical Eastern 
 modes of thought so skilfully rendered in Dr Pope's 
 
 ' Pope, "Naladiyar," p. xii. 
 
 2 See Rev. G. U. Pope, Introd. to "The Naladiyar," p. x. See also Rice, 
 "Early Kannada Authors," J.R.A.S., vol. xv. p. 295 :— "That an extensive 
 old literature exists in the Kannada (or so-called Canarese) language is ad- 
 mitted by more than one eminent writer on Oriental subjects, but of the nature 
 and history of that literature little or nothing is known, beyond the fact that 
 it was of Jaina origin." 
 
 ' See Introd. to " Naladiyar," p. xi. 
 
3i4 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 translation here quoted. Before all things, the poet de- 
 clares, let virtue be practised by man, even as if Death 
 had already seized him by the hairs of the head : — 
 
 " Like a cloud that wanders over the hills, the body here appears, and 
 abides not ; it departs and leaves no trace behind." 
 
 Youth fades away, love dies, beauty sinks to decrepitude, 
 and losses crowd round as man prepares to leave the scene 
 wherein his part was played : — 
 
 " Then look within and say what profit is there in this joyous life of 
 thine ? The cry comes up as from a sinking ship." 
 
 The fancy plays round the same pessimistic wail of the 
 soul's unsatisfied longings. 
 
 "Youth decays. Desire not her whose eyes gleam bright as darts. 
 Full soon, she too will walk bent down with a staff to aid 
 her dim sight."' 
 
 " Considering that all things are transient as the dewdrop on the tip 
 of a blade of grass, now, now at once, do virtuous deeds. 
 'Even now he stood, he sat, he fell, while his kindred cried 
 aloud he died.' Such is man's history." ^ 
 
 "Though worthless men untaught should fret my soul, and rave of 
 teeth like jasmine buds and pearls, shall I forego my fixed 
 resolve, who have seen in the burning ground those bones — the 
 fallen teeth strewn round for all to see." ' 
 
 " Lord of the sea's cool shore, where amid the wave swans sport, tearing 
 to shreds the Adamba flowers. When those whose hearts are 
 sore with urgent need stand begging, and wander through the 
 long street in sight of all, this is the fruit of former deeds."* 
 
 " They went to bathe in the great sea, but cried, ' We will wait till all 
 its roar is hushed, then bathe.' Such is their worth who say, 
 ' We will get rid of all our household toils and cares, and then 
 we will practise virtue and be wise.' " ' 
 
 1 Pope, " Naladiyar," 17. 2 Ibid., 29. » Ibid., 45. 
 
 ^ Ibid., 107. ^ Ibid., 333. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 31 5 
 
 The following verse brings up a vision worthy to form 
 the subject of an artist's picture : — 
 
 " She of enticing beauty, adorned with choice jewels, said forsooth, 
 ' I will leap with you down the steep precipice ; ' but on the 
 very brow of the precipice, because I had no money, she, 
 weeping, and pointing to her aching feet, withdrew and left me 
 alone." ^ 
 
 The same three subjects of virtue, wealth, and pleasure, 
 are further exhaustively dealt with in the two thousand six 
 hundred and sixty short couplets of the " Kurral," the 
 universally acknowledged masterpiece of South Indian 
 genius. These verses were composed for the Tamil people 
 by Tiruvalluvar, a pariah weaver, who lived on the sea-coast 
 in a suburb of Madras named St Thom4 in memory of the 
 doubting Apostle, St Thomas, who, for very long, was 
 supposed to have suffered death at the hands of a fowler, 
 who, legend and tradition hold, accidentally shot the 
 Apostle when he was engaged in prayer. As told in the 
 " Acts of Thomas," the Apostle declared to the Saviour, 
 who appeared before him in the night-time : " Wheresoever 
 Thou wishest to send me, send me elsewhere, for to the 
 Indies I am not going." There can be no doubt that St 
 Thomas never did go to India.^ 
 
 That the weaver pariah, who lived within sound of the 
 ceaseless swell and break of the waves along the sandy 
 shore near Mayilapur, or St Thom6, may have heard of the 
 teachings of Christianity is not impossible, though there 
 is no evidence of any Christian influence or doctrines in his 
 verses.^ Every Hindu sect, including the Jains, claims that 
 the poet designed to set forth in his work, the dogmas of 
 their special creeds. The teaching of Tiruvalluvar is, 
 
 1 Pope, "Naladiyar," 372. 
 
 2 See Geo. Milne Rae, "The Syrian Church in India" (1892), p. 24 :— " In 
 short, we look in vain among the writings and monuments of the first five 
 centuries for any attestation of the existence of the ' South Indian Church.' " 
 
 3 See Pope, "The Sared Kurral," p. iv. 
 
3i6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 however, purely eclectic, and inculcates such principles 
 as are common to all systems of morality. The first 
 couplet of the " Kurral " gives the poet's eclectic view of 
 the deity called Bhagavan, the Lord who stands first in 
 all the world, just as the letter " A " stands first in all speech. 
 As in the " Bhagavad Glta," they who have faith in this 
 deity, " they who dwell in the true praise of this Lord," 
 
 "Affects not then the fruit of deeds done ill or well" 
 
 The poet, having thus first enunciated the cardinal dogma 
 of faith in a primal deity, proceeds to build up an entire 
 system of an ideal state, treating of Virtue under its different 
 aspects — in domestic life, in ascetic renunciation, and in the 
 effects of fate or former deeds. Wealth, or property, is 
 viewed as it relates to royalty, to ministers of the king, 
 to the State itself, and the individual. The third object 
 of enquiry. Love, is subdivided into two chapters — the first 
 treating of concealed love, the second of wedded love. 
 Domestic virtue is inculcated in a string of short epi- 
 grammatic verses, rivalling, in their crisp and cutting 
 vigour, the soft languid grace of the aphorisms of the 
 "Naladiyar:"— 
 
 " In Nature's way who spends his calm domestic days, 
 'Mid all that strive for virtue's crown hath foremost place." * 
 
 The patient Griselda of the household stands out in all 
 her plaintiveness, finding, in adoration of her husband, her 
 sole faith : — 
 
 " No god adoring, low she bends before her lord ; 
 Then rising serves : the rain falls instant at her word."* 
 
 In describing, under the division Wealth, the qualities of 
 a great king, a plea is set forward for what now would be 
 called the unrestricted liberty of the Press : — 
 
 1 Pope, " Kurral," 47. a Ibid. , 55. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 317 
 
 "The king of worth, who can words bitter to his ear endure, 
 Beneath the shadow of his power the world abides secure." ^ 
 
 The minister of state is provided with some salutary 
 advice, which might be accepted with advantage by not 
 a few modern politicians : — 
 
 " Though knowing all that books can teach, 'tis truest tact, 
 To follow common-sense of men in act." ^ 
 
 The following hint, if judiciously acted on, might serve 
 to establish the reputation of a man as wise in council : — 
 
 " Speak out your speech, when once 'tis past dispute 
 That none can utter speech that shall your speech refute."' 
 
 Although it is full one thousand years since Tiruvalluvar 
 composed the following aphorism, it has a strange homely 
 truth for us of to-day : — 
 
 " Who have not skill ten faultless words to utter plain. 
 Their tongues will itch with thousand words men's ears to pain." * 
 
 The full power of Tiruvalluvar to compress into the 
 intricate setting of the Vempa, the most difficult metre in 
 his language, some of the most perfect combinations of 
 sound, set to the most delicate play of fancy, is to be best 
 seen in his verses on love. The intimate and perfect 
 acquaintance of Dr Pope with the people and their 
 language, has enabled him to preserve, in an unrivalled 
 manner, the form of the Eastern setting. Every verse is 
 perfect in the original : — 
 
 " A sea of love, 'tis true, I see stretched out before. 
 But not the trusty barque that wafts to yonder shore." ' 
 
 " The pangs that evening brings I never knew. 
 Till he, my wedded spouse, from me withdrew."' 
 
 " My grief at morn a bud, all day an opening flower. 
 Full-blown expands in evening hour." ' 
 
 » Pope, "Kurral," 389. ^ Ibid., 637. ^ /^^v;,^ 645. * Ibid., (iA,<3. 
 'Ibid., 11^^. ^ Ibid., 122(>. ^ Ibid., iziy. 
 
3i8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 " Or bid thy love, or bid thy shame depart ; 
 For me, I cannot bear them both, my worthy heart."* 
 
 The short sayings of the "Kurral" end with what may have 
 been the poet's own experience of the subject he treats so 
 gracefully : — 
 
 " Though free from fault, from loved one's tender arms 
 To be estranged awhile hath its own special charms." ^ 
 
 " In lover quarrels, 'tis the one that first gives way 
 That in reunion's joy is seen to win the day." ' 
 
 • ■■•••■a 
 
 " Let her whose jewels brightly shine, aversion feign. 
 That I may still plead on, O night, prolong thy reigrn." * 
 
 Unfortunately, no certain date can be ascribed to these 
 early outbursts of song, the first sign of the awaken- 
 ing of the Dravidian genius after contact with Aryan 
 civilisation. They are fabled to have been issued from the 
 Sangan, or College of Madura, where the Pandiyan 
 monarch assembled learned Jaina and Buddhist monks. 
 Tradition holds that this famed seminary of learning at 
 -Madura ceased to exist when its chief members drowned 
 themselves in despair, on the miraculous preservation of the 
 despised " Kurral " of the low-caste Tiruvalluvar.* 
 
 However that may be, the early Brahmanic influence 
 soon reasserted itself, and led to the downfall of both 
 Jainism and Buddhism, which virtually disappeared from 
 the Tamil country by the eleventh century of our era. 
 The first great sign of the coming change was seen in the 
 revival of the worship of 6iva, the deity early accepted by 
 the South as the Brahmanic representation of the ancient 
 
 1 Pope, "Kurral," 1247. 2 y^^,^ ^^^S. ' Ibid., 1327. « Ibid., 1329. 
 
 • See Caldwell, " Gram, of Dravidian languages," p. 130 : — " We should not 
 be warranted in placing the date of the ' Kurral ' later than the tenth century 
 A.D." See also p. 122 : — " There is no proof of Dravidian literature, such as 
 we now have it, having originated much before Kum^rila's time (700 A.D.}, 
 and its earliest cultivators appear to have been Jainas." 
 
SOUTH INDIA 319 
 
 Dravidian god,^ or gods. This revolt, from the dominating 
 agnosticism of the times, found its earliest literary expres- 
 sion in the "Tiru VaSakam," or " Holy Word," composed by 
 Manikka Va^agar,^ who turned the thoughts of the people 
 once more to the weary quest of the suffering soul for rest 
 in a union with a personal deity. 
 
 This fierce opponent of the heretical Jains and Buddhists 
 was born near Madura, where his father was a Brahman at 
 the court of the Pandya monarch, Arimarttanar, "The 
 Crusher of Foes." The poet is said to have acquired all the 
 Sanskrit learning by the age of sixteen, when he was made 
 prime minister at Madura. The dread god, Siva, with rosary 
 round his neck, his body smeared with ashes, with a third 
 eye in his forehead, is said to have appeared before the 
 sage, while on a journey, and revealed his true nature, as 
 the Divine Essence, in knowledge of which there is alone 
 enlightenment and salvation. The poet at once bowed 
 down before the deity, whose worship was to spread all 
 over South India, and in whose honour the great 6aivite 
 temples were built, and in many cases covered over with 
 plates of gold. 
 
 The longings of the poet's soul had found no answer in 
 the agnosticism of Buddhism or Jainism. The answer had 
 come to the henceforth bitter opponent of the dominant 
 Jains, and to 6iva he poured forth his prayer :^ "Henceforth 
 I renounce all desires of worldly wealth and splendour. 
 To me, thy servant, viler than a dog, who worships at thy 
 
 ^ Probably the earlier form was Skanda. See SenathI Raja, " Pre-Sanskrit 
 El. in Ancient Tamil Lit.," J.R.A.S., vol. xix. p. 376 («ofe i). 
 
 2 See Pope, " History of Manikka Vasagar," p. 3 (wofe) : — " The date here 
 given for the poet is 1030 a.d., reckoning two hundred years before Sundara 
 Pandiyan's time and Sambhanda's time. If the date of Sambhanda be, how- 
 ever, taken as the middle of the sixth century, then Tiru Vasagar must be placed 
 in the fourth century, along with the Saivite revival. As these dates depends 
 largely on the ' Tiru Vilaiyadal Purana ' and ' Periya Purana,' no certainty can 
 be claimed for them." See, however, P. Sundaram Pillai's article quoted later. 
 
 3 See Pope, Ibid., p. 7. 
 
320 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 feet, grant emancipation from corporeal bonds. Take me 
 as thy slave, O King of my Soul ! " 
 
 No finer picture could be given of an Eastern enthusiast, 
 stirred by emotions that are sis deep in India to-day as 
 they were when the soul of Manikka Va^agar was roused to 
 preach a salvation through a faith in Siva, than that sketched 
 forth of the converted sage in the earnest words of Dr 
 Pope;!— 
 
 " From his head depends the braided lock of the ^iva devotee, one 
 hand grasps the staflF, and the other the mendicant's bowl : he 
 has for ever renounced the world — all the worlds, save Sivan's 
 self. And he is faithful henceforward, even to the end. In the 
 whole legendary history of this sage, whatever we may think 
 of the accuracy of many of its details, and whatever deductions 
 we are compelled to make for the exaggerations that have 
 grown up around the obscurity of the original facts, there 
 stands out a character which seems to be a mixture of that of 
 St Paul and of St Francis of Assisi. Under other circum- 
 stances what an apostle of the East might he have become ! 
 This is his conversion as South India believes it ; and in almost 
 every poem he alludes to it, pouring forth his gratitude in 
 ecstasies of thanksgiving, and again and again repeating the 
 words, ' I am Thine, save me ! ' His poetry lives in all Tamil 
 hearts, and, in the main and true essence of it, deserves so 
 to live ! " 
 
 Persecutors of the new reformer now succeeded, and, as 
 is usual in all Eastern biographies, miracles, more or less 
 absurd and meaningless, are recorded to have been worked. 
 The news of the revived faith in Siva was preached by the 
 reformer in the land of the Cholas, and in Cithambaram, 
 where he is still held as the patron saint To Cithambaram 
 the King of Ceylon is said to have come, and there with 
 all his court, to have been converted from Buddhism to 
 Saivism, by the sage's argument which showed that, 
 according to the heretic monks, there can be "neither 
 god, nor soul, nor salvation." * 
 
 The poems of Manikka VaSagar are held to have been 
 > Su Pope, " Manikka Vasagar," p. 7. 2 Ibid., p. 16. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 321 
 
 transcribed in one thousand verses by the god 6iva himself. 
 They still " are sung throughout the whole Tamil country 
 with tears of rapture, and committed to memory in every 
 temple by the people, amongst whom it is a traditional 
 saying that ' he whose heart is not melted by the " Tiru 
 VaSagam " must have a heart of stone.' " ^ 
 
 To learned and unlearned alike, these mystic raptures, in 
 perfect verse, over the soul's faith in the deity are sacred 
 treasures, and have a deep importance to all who would 
 seek to read the spirit of the best of Indian religious 
 thought. Happily these are soon to be published in an 
 English translation by the Oxford Professor of Tamil. 
 They are all but unknown to the West, yet a careful and 
 wide-read scholar, in whose native language the poems 
 are written, states : ^ " There are, indeed, but few poems in 
 any language that can surpass ' Tiru Vaiagam,' or the ' Holy 
 Word ' of Manikka VaSagar, in profundity of thought and 
 earnestness of feeling, or in that simple, child-like trust 
 in which the struggling human soul, with its burdens of 
 intellectual and moral puzzles, finally finds shelter." 
 
 The whole essence of the teachings of the new reformer, 
 who did so much to rouse an active opposition to the 
 debased Buddhism then in vogue, and whose followers 
 inaugurated the temple-building era in South India, has been 
 summed up as follows : ' — 
 
 " He taught the people that there was one supreme personal God, no 
 mere metaphysical abstraction, but the Lord of Gods and men. 
 He also taught that it was the gracious will of Siva to assume 
 humanity, to come to earth as a guru, and to make disciples 
 of those who sought him with adequate preparation. He an- 
 nounced that this way of salvation was open to all classes of the 
 
 ' Pope, "History of Manikka Vasagar," p. 17. 
 
 2 P. Sundaram Pillai, M.A., M.R.A.S., Fellow of the Madras University, 
 and Professor of Philosophy, "Some Milestones in the History of Tamil 
 Literature," p. 3. (The news of the early death of this able scholar was 
 received after the above was written. ) 
 
 3 Pope, "Manikka Va&igar," p. 18. 
 
 X 
 
322 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 community. He also taught very emphatically the immortality 
 of the released soul — its conscious immortality — as he said 
 that the virtual death of the soul which Buddhism teaches 
 is not its release. It will be seen how very near in some 
 not unimportant respects the ^aiva system approximates to 
 Christianity ; and yet, in some of the corruptions to which it 
 has led, by what almost seems a necessity, are amongfst the 
 most deplorable superstitions anywhere to be found." 
 
 How popular are these lyric raptures of a soul tossed in 
 doubt, yet still seeking some answer to its wail of loneliness, 
 may be judged from the fact that a whole series of them 
 is still sung as a rhythmic accompaniment to a game, 
 played by six girls sitting in a circle, who toss balls or 
 pebbles from one to the other. The forthcoming transla- 
 tion of the poem will, it is hoped, give these verses ; at 
 present it must suffice to quote one verse as sung by the 
 six girls in chorus as they play their game, known as 
 " Ammanay " : — 
 
 " While bracelets tinkling sound, while earrings wave, while jetty 
 locks 
 Dishevelled fall, while honey flows and beetles hum. 
 The Ruddy One, who wears the ashes white, whose home 
 None reach or know, Who dwells in every place, to loving ones 
 The true. The Sage Whom hearts untrue still deem untrue. 
 Who in Ai Arru' dwells, sing and praise, Ammanay see ! "' 
 
 Many personal details of the poet's own life are scattered 
 through his poems. The allurements of earthly love, which 
 drag the soul from its calm repose, are fought against in 
 verses that tell of the bitter grief of a lapse from high 
 ideals : — 
 
 " Flames in forest glade, Sense-fires bum fierce with smoky glare. 
 I bum ! Lo, thou'st forsaken me ! O Conquering King of Heaven, 
 The garlands on Whose braided locks drip honey, while the bees 
 Hum softly 'mid Mandaram buds, whence fragrant sweetness 
 breathes.'' 
 
 ' A shrine near Tanjore, lit. " The Mve Rivers." 
 
 ' For this and the following verses I am indebted to the great kindness of 
 the Rev. Di Pope. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 323 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " Sole help, whilst thou wert near I wandered, wanton deeds my help. 
 Thou hast forsaken me, Thou Helper of my guilty soul ; 
 The source of all my being's bliss j Treasure that never fails. 
 I can't one instant bear this grievous body's mighty net." 
 
 The same theme is sung again, ending with the prayer 
 for faith : — 
 
 " Choice gems they wore, those softly-smiling maids ; I failed, I fell. 
 Lo, thou'st forsaken me. Thou gav'st me place 'midst Saints who 
 
 wept, 
 Their beings fiU'd with rapturous joys ; in grace did'st make me 
 
 Thine ! 
 Show me thy feet, even yet to sense revealed, O Spotless One." 
 
 The monistic essence of the deity, Siva, is summed up 
 in one verse : — 
 
 " O King, my joy, mean as I am, who know not any path ! 
 O Light, Thou hast forsaken me, 
 Thou the true Vedic Lord, 
 Thou art the First, the Last ! 
 Thou art this universal Whole.'' 
 
 These poems of the earliest exponent of pure Vedantic 
 teachings were included in a renowned collection of 
 Hymns which forms the " Vedas," " Upanishads," and 
 " Puranas " for the great mass of Saivas of South India. 
 The first three books of this Saiva Bible contain the three 
 hundred and eighty-four hymns of a virulent opponent 
 of all heretic Buddhist and Jaina monks — the renowned 
 patron saint and impromptu lyric poet of the Tamil people, 
 the sage, Tiru Nana Sambandha,^ whose fame in the South 
 is so renowned that there is scarcely a Siva temple in the 
 
 ' An interesting contribution towards the elucidation of the literary history 
 of South India has been recently made by P. Sundaram Pillai in his Essay, 
 "Some Milestones in the History of Tamil Literature," in which he has 
 advanced very strong proof that Sambandha must have lived before ^ankara 
 Achaiya, i.e. in the seventh century a.d. 
 
324 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Tamil country where his image is not daily worshipped. 
 In most of them special annual feasts are held in his 
 name, when the leading events of his life are dramati- 
 cally represented for the instruction of the masses.^ As 
 is usual in the case of poets, the life of Sambandha begins 
 with miraculous events and ends in mystery. Born, as 
 there is no reason to doubt, of Brahman parents in the 
 Chola country, a few miles south of Chidambaram, he is 
 said to have composed, when a child, his earliest lyric hymns 
 of praise to Siva which were set to a music, now lost, 
 and played on an instrument, the form of which is now 
 no longer remembered. To account for his unrivalled 
 mastery over form and verse, tradition holds that, when as 
 a child Sambandha was left alone, the local goddess 
 appeared and nourished him herself, whereon the child 
 recited the first of his inspired hymns and received the 
 name of Tiru Nana Sambandha, or " He who is united to 
 the deity through wisdom." In all, three hundred and 
 eighty-four hymns were composed by this poet, who, with 
 his disciples,^ strove vehemently to uproot the Jaina faith 
 and establish the worship of Siva. The reigning Pandiyan 
 king was led by Sambandha to renounce Jainism, and soon 
 the people of the Tamil land forsook Buddhism, or at least 
 the debased form of it then existing, though the cult did 
 not finally become extinct until the eleventh century. 
 The tenth verse of each hymn of Sambandha was launched 
 against Buddhists and Jains alike, though there is no 
 certainty as to why these heretics had aroused the hate of 
 
 1 See also " Epigraphia Indica," vol. iii. pp. 277-78 :— " The two great 6aiva 
 devotees, Tirunavukkarayar (or Appai), 573 A.D., and Tinmana Sambandha 
 . . . were contemporaiies of the two Pallava kings, Mahendravarman I. 
 and Narasimhavarman I." " Tirunana Sambandhar was a contemporary of » 
 general of the Pallava king, Narasimhavarman I., whose enemy was the 
 Western Chalukya ki:^, Pulikesin II." 
 
 2 ;5'e« Caldwell, "Dravidian Grammar," p. 138. See P. Sundaram Pillai, 
 "Milestones in Tamil Literature," p. 7 (note 1), for the six companions of 
 Sambandha, who accompanied his impromptu lyric songs with music. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 32s 
 
 the Saivite sage. With the passing-away of Sambandha 
 and his disciples, a new era dawned in South India. 
 Temples to Siva and Vishnu took the place of Buddhist 
 monasteries, while a series of Acharyas, or theological 
 teachers, spread far and wide in one form or another 
 the philosophic doctrines of the " Vedanta " until the close 
 of the twelfth century, when darkness settled down over 
 the whole literary history of the people with the advent 
 of the Muhammadans. 
 
 It would have been strange if the extension and revival of 
 Brahmanism and downfall of Jainism and Buddhism had 
 not inspired those who stood forward as victors with a new- 
 awakened fire of enthusiasm for the cause they championed. 
 
 So it came that Sankara Acharya, the greatest revivalist 
 of Aryanism, and the greatest commentator that India has 
 known, arose in the South, and that at a period when he 
 might have been expected — the period round which centres 
 the " Kurral " and Brahmanic revival, towards the eighth 
 century of our era.^ 
 
 This greatest of all great ascetic sages ^ bears a name 
 revered by every learned Hindu, all over the land where 
 he preached and taught from his monastery of Badrinath 
 in the south to that of Sringiri in the north, from Dvaraka, 
 the city of Krishna, in the west, to Jagannath, once the 
 Buddhist place of worship, now the common ground of 
 assembly for all Hindus, on the coast of Orissa in the 
 east. All sects claim him* as their own patron saint 
 
 ^ "It is certainly inadvisable to assail Sankaia's date {i.e. 788-820 a.d.), 
 which is given most circumstantially by his own followers." — Yajiiesvar Sastri, 
 "Aryavidya Sudhakara," p. 226, etc. etc.; Biihler, "Ind. Ant.," xiv. 64. 
 Othei: references are : — "Ind. Ant.," xiv. 185 {note 13); xi. 174; xiii. <)<,ff.; 
 xvi. 42, 160; J.B.R.A.S., xviii. 88^., 218, 233; W.L., 51; Bhandarkar, 
 Report, 1882-3, 15. See Pathak, J.R.A.S. (Bombay, 1891), xviii. p. 88 ; also 
 Barth, "Ind. Ant." (1895), p. 35. 
 
 " For Kumarila Bhatta, see Hunter, " Indian Empire " 240, 259, 388 ; 
 Cowell and Gough, " Sarva Darsana Sangraha." 
 
 3 Monier-Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism,'' p. 58; Wilson, "Rel. of 
 Hindus," vol. i. p. 28. 
 
326 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 All scholars, Eastern and Western, honour his learning 
 and scholarship. He seems to have risen as an inspired 
 genius to throw a quick, bright light, like to the momentary 
 after-glow of an Indian sunset before darkness descends 
 over the land, on the fading glories of Aryanism before 
 they sink into the dimness of the drear days of Hinduism. 
 Of his life almost nothing is known. In legendary lore 
 he appears everywhere in India ; now persecuting the 
 Buddhists, now vehemently denouncing the sectarian 
 differences whereby Hinduism was being divided against 
 itself, so that it could not abide. Again he appears cis 
 the miraculously - born son of a Brahman woman, his 
 father being the dread god, 6iva, and as finally departing 
 from the world no one knows how. 
 
 The " Great Conquest," ^ or life of ^ankara Acharya, was 
 told in a work supposed to have been composed in the 
 ninth or tenth century, while the sage's " Great Conquest 
 of the Quarters"^ was written by the second great 
 commentator of South India, Madhava Acharya, in the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 From these accounts and others, no safe historical facts 
 can be deduced. At most, it may be held that Sankara 
 was born in Malabar in the eighth century of our era, and 
 that he died at Kedernath, in the Himalayas, at the early 
 age of thirty-two, after having enriched, in the short course 
 of his life, the literature of India by commentaries on most 
 of its later sacred texts. He is popularly held to have 
 been an incarnation of Siva. The Smarta sect of Brahmans, 
 recognisable by wearing on their foreheads one or three 
 horizontal lines of sandal paste, with a red or black spot in 
 the middle, hold him to have been the founder of their 
 Order. These Smartas look upon Siva as the Unconscious 
 
 ^ "This spurious work." — See Earth, " Ind. Ant.," vol. xxiv. (February 1895). 
 " See Telang, " Ind. Ant.," vol. v. p. 287, who places it before the fourteenth 
 century. 
 
SOUTH INDIA 327 
 
 Spirit of the Universe, with which the soul unites to realise 
 its ideals. 
 
 According to the teachings of Sankara, the entire system 
 of Vedantic thought finds its natural culmination in an un- 
 compromising declaration that the sole object of the sacred 
 literature of India was to reveal the delusive appearance 
 of what appeals to the senses as reality and the doctrine of 
 non-duality. 
 
 The evidences of the senses are wiped away as merely 
 delusive. The question of metaphysic is solved, not as 
 Kant resolved it, by referring all objective reality to 
 perceptions of the intellect where he sought a solution, 
 but in endeavouring to pierce, in the manner of Plato, and 
 Parmenides, beyond the reality itself. This objective 
 form was held by Sankara to be but the mode in which 
 the delusion of life was mirrored forth. This phase of 
 idealistic monism which is ably expounded in 6ankara's 
 commentary on the "Vedanta Sutras," finds a popular 
 exposition in a song that can be obtained from any 
 travelling pedlar of books in South India for about one 
 twelfth of a farthing. 
 
 The song itself contains but twelve verses, said to have 
 been addressed by Sankara to a learned Brahman, whom 
 he found studying the rules of Sanskrit grammar outside 
 a Hindu temple. One or other of these verses is con- 
 stantly recited with a smile or a sigh by educated Hindus 
 of the South. The refrain all through is, " Bhaja Govinda ! " 
 or " Praise the Lord ! " It means to a Hindu what " Praise 
 God" means to a Salvationist. There is a yawning 
 gulf of thought and feeling, bred of race and climate, 
 between the two modes of expression of the aspirations of 
 those who in East and West use the words. 
 
 The verses of Sankara are so terse, hold so much the 
 sense in the sound, that it is impossible to give their 
 meaning in a translation. As they are unknown in the 
 
328 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 West, and so often quoted in the East, their meaning is 
 here given as true to the original as possible. 
 
 The sage stands before the Brahman, who has paused 
 in his studies, and declares the truth of the emptiness of 
 the vain dream of life, and its struggles after wealth and 
 fame. 
 
 " Give up this greed," is the sad reproof, " for storing 
 wealth, O Fool ! place in your mind the thirst for know- 
 ledge of the Existent, satisfied with what each day brings 
 forth." 
 
 " As the water drop lies trembling on the lotus leaf, so 
 rests our fleeting life. The world is full of sorrow, seized 
 by pain and pride of self. Gain wealth, and then your 
 friends cling near ; sink low, and then no one seeks news. 
 When well in health, they ask your welfare in the house ; 
 when the breath of life goes forth, then the loving wife 
 shrinks from that body. Gain leads but to loss ; in wealth 
 there is no lasting happiness ; in childhood we are attached 
 to play; in youth we turn to love ; in old age care fills the 
 mind. Towards (para Brahman) God alone no one is 
 inclined. As the soul moves from birth to birth, who re- 
 mains the wife, the son, the daughter, who you, or whence ? 
 Think truly, this life is but an unreal dream." 
 
 " With mind fixed on truth, one becomes free from attach- 
 ment. To one freed from attachment, there is no delusion • 
 undeluded, the soul springs clear to light freed from all 
 bondage. When youth goes, who is moved by love ? When 
 wealth goes, who then follows ? When the great truth, that 
 the Soul and Brahman are One is known, what then is this 
 passing show? Day and night, morning and evening, 
 Spring and Winter come and go, time plays and age goes, 
 yet desire for life passeth not. Take no pride in youth, 
 friends, or riches, they all pass away in the twinkling of an 
 eye. Give up all this made of Maya, gain true knowledge, 
 and enter on the path to Brahman." 
 
SOUTH INDIA 329 
 
 Such has ever been the incessant cry of cultured 
 Brahmanic thought, and of much of Western pessimism. 
 It was the cry with which was to be met the fierce 
 fanaticism of Muhammadanism, soon to burst forth in 
 relentless warfare against all idolaters and unbelievers in 
 God and Muhammad as His sole Prophet. 
 
 Though the darkness of desolation, unrest, rapine, and 
 war was to settle over the land, the Brahmans of the 
 South could hold on to the even tenor of their ways, and 
 proclaim that the moans of the suffering, the gleam of the 
 sword, the lust of conquerors, and the rule of the foreigner, 
 were but the unreal visions of a passing dream, woven out 
 by the fictitious power of Maya. 
 
 The strict Advaita doctrines of Sankara Acharya were no 
 doubt useful in their own way, as opposing the heretic 
 agnosticism of Buddhism. In their inculcation of ideal- 
 istic non -duality, and of non-reality of the intuition 
 of perception, they had also their own charm for the 
 dreamer and religious mystic who turns away from a crude 
 materialism. 
 
 An intermediate resting-place had, however, to be found 
 for the mass of the people who placed their faith in the 
 saving grace of a personal deity. In the system of 
 Sankara, this was supplied by the sectarian schools, which 
 hold that the god Siva was a personal manifestation of the 
 Unconscious Spirit of the Universe, and claim that, by 
 a worship of this deity, the soul finds its salvation. 
 
 The true revolt from the teachings of Sankara, and the 
 drifting of the thought of India back to its more orthodox 
 beliefs, came in the reformation led by the second great 
 commentator of South India, the Brahman Ramanuja, born 
 at the beginning of the eleventh century.^ Ramanuja held 
 the doctrine of qualified non-duality, according to which the 
 
 1 Monier-Williams, "Brahmanism and Hinduism,'' p. 119: — "Born 1017 
 A.D. at Parambattur." 
 
330 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Supreme Spirit is both the cause of the visible world and 
 the material from which it is created. He further proclaimed 
 the adoration of the god Vishnu, as representative of the 
 Supreme Spirit, so that the Heaven of the god might be 
 ultimately gained, and freedom from re-birth obtained. 
 Until this consummation was arrived at, when the separate 
 spirits are reunited with the Supreme Spirit, re-birth occurs 
 in its incessant round, there being a plurality of form 
 continued in respect of that which is Soul, and that which 
 is non-Soul.^ 
 
 The final step was taken by Madhava, the last of the 
 Southern Teachers, a renowned Brahman of the Kanarese 
 country in South India, who died towards the close of the 
 twelfth century.^ By him the worship of Vishnu, or Hari, 
 was preached as the worship of one Supreme God, eter- 
 nally existent, the world subsisting as his form, on Whom 
 the souls of men are dependent, though abiding themselves 
 distinct So the thought of India, North and South, 
 remained divided between a salvation, from transmigration, 
 by a faith in Krishna, or by a worship of Vishnu, or Siva ; 
 the aspiration of the soul ever being to find a closer union 
 with, or knowledge of, the Supreme Cause that manifested 
 itself in the works of Creation. 
 
 Vedism, and the gods of the Vedas, had passed away 
 from the memories of the people ; the South had found the 
 exponents of its intellectual life in the persons of the great 
 scholars, ^ankara, Ramanuja, and Madhava. The deep 
 moral tendencies of the age were preserved in the 
 " Naladiyar," and " Kurral " of Tiruvalluvar, and the Devaran 
 Hymns of Sambandha and his disciples. The crude super- 
 stitions, lusts, and ignorance of the mass of the people 
 who passed from the scene, leaving no literary record 
 
 ' "Sarva Darsana Sangiaha," p. 75. 
 
 ^ Died 1198 A.D. P. Sundaram Pillai, "Some Milestones in Tamil Litera- 
 ture," p. 27 {note 1). 
 
SOUTH INDIA 331 
 
 behind them, were satisfied with worship of the village 
 godlings, ghosts, and demons, with foul and obscene 
 carnivals of Tantric orgies, and with stray and furtive 
 visits and offerings to the great temples of the Hindu 
 deities. New conquerors had come to guide the destinies 
 of the land and leave the people to work out their own 
 ideas. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND. 
 
 When in 631 of our era Muhammad proclaimed war 
 against the civilised world, he had first given to all 
 idolaters the choice between the Koran and the sword. 
 All Jews and Christians who would not accept a belief 
 in the unity of God, and in Muhammad as the Prophet 
 of that God, were to be subdued and made to pay tribute. 
 The creed of the Prophet known as Islam, or "submission to 
 the will of God," was outwardly simple — simple enough to 
 ensure for it an early and speedy success. The creed is 
 shortly: "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His 
 Prophet." 
 
 There are further five daily prayers, fastings in due 
 season, giving of alms, and a pilgrimage to Mecca, the 
 birthplace of the Prophet 
 
 The fanatics of the Arabian desert, inspired by the wild 
 rhetoric of the new Prophet who denounced idolatry, 
 licentiousness, infanticide, drunkenness, and gambling, 
 came swarming from their tents, drunk with zeal, to 
 propagate the creed and to revel in the slaughter and 
 plunder of their opposing foes.^ 
 
 ^ See an article by Sir Roland K. Wilson in the Indian Magazine and Review 
 (December 1896), p. 634, criticising Mr Arnold's statement in ' ' The Preaching 
 of Islam," that " it is due to the Muhammadan legists and commentators that 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 333 
 
 Against the Western frontier of India, from Sind to 
 Peshawar, the Muhammadan wave of conquest ilowed and 
 ebbed for four hundred years.^ In Sind the Rajput 
 garrisons, unable to hold their strongholds against the 
 fierce Arabs, placed their women and children on the 
 funeral pyre there to find in death safety from dishonour, 
 and fell themselves in one last despairing and avenging 
 onslaught on their enemies. From Lahore the Hindu 
 chieftains chased back, through the passes of Afghanistan, 
 the raiding Turks of Ghazni only to court their own 
 avenging fate. 
 
 The full wave of desolation spread over the north-west 
 when, in 1002 A.D., Muhammad of Ghazni, born of a TurkI 
 father and a Persian mother, burst down on Lahore, 
 that ancient meeting-place of many races. Its wealth was 
 carried back to Ghazni, and its chieftain, the twice-defeated 
 Jaipal, mounted the funeral pyre, according to the stern 
 dictates of his Hindu subjects. For twenty-five years 
 Muhammad of Ghazni continued, year by year, his raids. 
 From the holy city of Thaneswar, not far from Delhi, he 
 carried off to his Afghan home the riches of its great 
 temples, and two hundred thousand of its inhabitants he 
 made slaves to his soldiery. At Kanauj, north of Cawnpur, 
 
 jihad comes to be interpreted as a religious war against unbelievers, who might 
 be attacked even though they were not the aggressors. . . . But though some 
 Muhammadan legists have maintained the righteousness of unprovoked war 
 against unbelievers, none (as far as I am aware) have ventured to justify com- 
 pulsory conversion, but have always vindicated, for the conquered, the right of 
 retaining their own faith on payment oi jizyah." He writes: " What Mr 
 Arnold will find it difficult to disprove is, that the intimate companions and 
 immediate successors of Mohamet considered, without a shadow of doubt, that they 
 had ample warrant in the Koran, and in the example of their master, for 
 extirpating idolatry and enforcing the whole law of Islam throughout Arabia at 
 the cost of a most sanguinary struggle, and for pushing hostilities against the 
 two neighbouring empires feir beyond any possible requirements of self-defence 
 
 in fact, without any other limit than the enemy's power of resistance." Sir 
 
 Roland Wilson, however, continues : "We are willing to allow that mediseval 
 Islam was, by one degree, less tolerant than mediaeval Christendom." 
 ^ From 647 to 1030, the death of Muhammad of Ghazni, 
 
334 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 he received the submission of its garrison, said to have 
 consisted of eighty thousand men in armour, fifty thousand 
 cavalry, and five hundred thousand foot men. With the 
 weahh of Muttra — the rubies, sapphires, and pearls of its 
 idols — he raised Ghaznl from a hovel of mud huts to a 
 city of marble palaces, mosques, domes, and pillared halls. 
 From the ocean-beaten temple of Somnath in Guzarat, 
 with its vast array of Brahman priests and dancing-girls, he 
 carried away the massive gates, twelve phallic emblems,^ 
 and a vast store of treasure, and left nothing behind him 
 but the slain garrison and dejected priesthood. 
 
 Aryanism in India was about to realise what, happily in 
 the West, remained but the shadow of a passing danger. 
 The fate that overtook the East was one visioned forth for 
 the West in the words of Freeman : " If Constantinople 
 had been taken by the Muhammadans before the nations 
 of Western Europe had at all grown up, it would seem as if 
 the Christian religion and European civilisation must have 
 been swept away from the earth." 
 
 Spared from Muhammadan dominion, a Sivaji, or a 
 Ranjit Singh might have arisen in India and founded a 
 more lasting native rule than even that of Chandra Gupta, 
 Asoka, or Harsha Vardhana. Even had that been so, it 
 seems impossible that Maratha could ever have coalesced 
 with Sikh or Rajput to bend the distant Easterns and far- 
 off Southerns to yield obedience to the supremacy of any 
 one indigenous dynasty. Even had a Hindu Akbar, or 
 Aurangzlb sprung up and extended his rule over Maratha, 
 Rajput, Sikh, Bengali, and the clansmen of South India, 
 the sceptre would soon have passed from the hands of one 
 or other of his degenerate descendants, and the land been 
 plunged in anarchy such cis that from which the Mughal 
 
 * R. P. Kaikaria, Calcutta Reuiew (October 1895), p. 411 : — "It is clear 
 from Albiruni that the idol of Somnath was merely a solid piece of stone, 
 having no hollow in which jewels and precious stones could be concealed to 
 reward the pious zeal of an iconoclast." 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 335 
 
 Aurangzib, with his army of three hundred thousand horse 
 and four hundred thousand men, could not for long preserve 
 it. As it was, the rivalries between the Rajput Prithivi 
 Raja,^ the last great Chauhan king of Delhi and Ajmere, 
 and the Rahtor prince of Kanauj led, before the close of 
 the twelfth century, to the defeat and overthrow of both by 
 the Afghans of Ghor. The new Muhammadan Emperor 
 raided the country as far as Benares and Gwalior, while his 
 generals drove out (1203) the distant Sen king of Bengal 
 from the ancient capital at Nadiya.^ 
 
 This very lack of unity and central authority, however, 
 saved Brahmanism from disappearing before the attacks of 
 a rival creed or foreign rulers. The whole fabric of 
 Buddhism disappeared, for when once its mendicant and 
 celibate monks were slain, and their monasteries burned, 
 it fell to decay. The idols and temples of the Hindus were 
 shattered to pieces, and their wealth carried off to Ghaznl 
 and Ghor ; the Brahmans were slain in Kanauj, Muttra, 
 Benares, and at distant Somnath. Nevertheless, the roots 
 of Brahmanism remained firmly fixed in the very structure 
 of Indian life, social observances, and in its undecaying 
 literature. For three hundred years the Muhammadan rule 
 in India strove in vain to hold the outlying nationalities 
 subject to its sway. The early Muhammadan invaders of 
 India swarmed into the land in the double rdle of religious 
 enthusiasts with a mission to root out unbelief in the 
 teachings of the Koran, and of roving bands of adventurers 
 eager to seize the wealth of the Hindu temples. Disunited 
 
 1 PrithiRaja-Rayasaof Chand. Todinhis " Rajasthan"(vol. i. p. 254, note) 
 states he had translated thirty thousand stanzas. Grierson ("Literature of 
 Hindustan ," p. 3) gives an account of the work done on this history ; but 
 in the "Padumawati Bib. Ind." (Calcutta, 1894, Introd.), he states that the 
 genuineness of this work is doubtful. See also J.B.R.A.S. (1868), vol. 
 xxxvii. p. 119; vol. xxxviii. p. i. 
 
 2 The Rajput clans of North India departed to the desert east of the Indus, 
 where they established their chieftainship over their new homes, still known 
 as Rajputana. 
 
336 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 among themselves as these raiders were, they were for long 
 unable to gain a resting-place east of the Indus, and when 
 at length they came in numbers sufficient to force their way 
 to Delhi, and there establish a permanent centre for revenue 
 exactions, they were ever menaced with the swarming-down 
 of new robber bands from central Asia; while the basis on 
 which Muhammadanism was founded precluded their com- 
 promising with, or conciliating of, the Hindu people in order 
 to gain their aid or support in repelling new invaders. The 
 Rajputs might be driven to the deserts of Rajputana, their 
 proud reserve survived not only to defy the august power of 
 Akbar,but for the best of their chivalry and manhood to come 
 forth and parade the London streets and grace the triumph 
 of their sovereign lady, the Queen-Empress of India. 
 
 Though the unwarlike people of Bengal were obliged 
 to submit, in 1203, to Bkhtiyar Khiljl, the general of 
 Muhammad of Ghor, the lower province soon became 
 independent of the distant authority of the Delhi emperor, 
 and in 1340 set up an independent ruler of its own, in the 
 person of the local governor, Fakir-ud-din, who was suc- 
 ceeded by a line of twenty sovereigns until Akbar, in 1 576, 
 reconquered the revolted province. 
 
 Muhammad of Ghor, who may be classed as the first 
 Muhammadan ruler of India, fell before a fierce attack of a 
 body of hill Gakkars, from the Sewalik hills, who crept into 
 the monarch's tent and, as he lay sleeping, stabbed him to 
 death with no less than twenty-two wounds, before the 
 gaze of his petrified attendants.^ On his death, Katb-ud- 
 dln, a Turki slave — whose name is remembered by the great 
 mosque he built at Delhi, and the majestic minar, rivalling 
 in finish and moulding, though not in height, the Campanile 
 at Florence — proclaimed himself, at Delhi, monarch of all 
 India. His d3masty, which lasted until 1290, continued 
 the ceaseless contest against Rajput princes, fierce hill 
 
 * See Syed Mahomed Latif, " History of the Panjab," p. 94. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 337 
 
 tribes, revolting Hindu principalities, and incursive bands 
 of warlike Mughals, who rode down to pillage the plain- 
 country east of the Indus. The Khiljl and Tughlak 
 dynasties followed, until at length, in 1 393, the lame Timur, 
 or Tamerlane, named by Ferishta " The Firebrand of the 
 Universe," collected together his wild horsemen, swept 
 down through the north-west passes of Afghanistan, and 
 marched towards Delhi. " My principal object in coming 
 to Hindustan," says Timur, " and in undergoing all this toil 
 and hardship, was to accomplish two things. The first was 
 to war with infidels, the enemies of the Muhammadan 
 religion, and by this religious warfare to acquire some 
 claim to reward in the life to come. The other was a 
 worldly object, that the army of Islam might gain some- 
 thing by plundering the wealth of the infidels : plunder in 
 war is as lawful as their mother's milk to Mussulmans 
 who fight for their faith, and the consuming of that which 
 is lawful is a means of grace." ^ 
 
 The famed city of Delhi was captured by a ruse, and for 
 five days the newly-proclaimed emperor sat in the mosque, 
 constructed by Firoz Tughlak, giving praise to God that 
 the idolaters had submitted like " sheep to the slaughter," 
 and that the Hindus lay dead in heaps so that the streets 
 were impassable. The fabulous wealth of Delhi was borne 
 away; a hundred thousand Hindu prisoners were slain "with 
 the sword of holy war " ; the women were dragged into 
 slavery, and the stone masons and workers in marble were 
 driven across the wasted land of the Panjab, and beyond 
 the bleak passes of Afghanistan, to build, for the new 
 conqueror of the world — from Delhi in the south to Siberia 
 in the north, from Syria in the west to China in the east — 
 a mosque at Samarkhand. His descendants were to found 
 the great Mughal Empire of India, and point the lesson 
 which Timur had learned before he ventured on his rapid 
 1 Ilolden, E., " Mughal Emperors," p. 52. 
 
 y 
 
338 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 raids into the country. The lesson was plainly taught to 
 Timur in the answer given by those of his court whom he 
 consulted on the enterprise : " If we tarry in that land our 
 posterity will be lost, and our children and our grand- 
 children will degenerate from the vigour of their forefathers 
 and become speakers of the language of Hind." ^ 
 
 For over a century after the passing-away of Timur, 
 weak dynasties, Sayyid and Lodi, held a feeble rule around 
 Delhi and Agra until the so-called Mughal invasion of Babar. 
 During the early centuries of Muhammadan raids and 
 rule, the intellectual life of Northern India seems to have 
 been seized with a paralysis that crept even as far to the 
 east as Mithila or North Behar, which had remained the 
 great centre of philosophic thought since the days of 
 Janaka, King of the Videhas. It was a palsy under which 
 Mithila sank to decrepitude. 
 
 In the eighteenth century the great logician of India, 
 Raghunath, had to turn to where vitality alone re- 
 mained — to the land where the torch of learning has 
 been kept burning down to the present day — to Bengal, 
 where he established, at Navadvip, the most renowned 
 school of logic in all India. It was Bengal that saw 
 almost a second Buddha appear in the ecstatic dreamer 
 and revivalist, Chaitanya, in the fifteenth century, and not, 
 as might have been expected, in Magadha or South Behar. 
 Here Kullaka Bhatta wrote his famous commentary on 
 "Manu" in the fourteenth century, almost five centuries 
 after Mithila had had learning enough to send forth 
 Medatithi, the second great commentator of the same 
 sacred law book of the Hindus. It was in Bengal also 
 that Jimutavahana wrote, in the fourteenth century, the 
 "Dayabhaga," a work which has become there the re- 
 cognised law book on Hindu succession and inheritance, 
 
 ^ "Institutes, Politicalaiid Military, writtenoriginallyintheMogulLanguageby 
 tJie Great Timour," published. Clarendon Press (1783), by J. White, B.D.,p. 131. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 339 
 
 a task that Vijnanesvara had done in his " Mitakshara," 
 or " Commentary on the Law Book of Yajnavalkya," in the 
 eleventh century for Behar and the West. 
 
 Bengal had, however, produced for itself a poet as early 
 as the twelfth century. Set to the sweetest music of sound 
 and of moving rhythm of which the Sanskrit language has 
 been found capable, Jaya Deva had sung the theme that 
 became, in one form or another, universal in subsequent 
 Indian literature. It was the mystic theme of the longing of 
 the soul to find union with, or absorption into, the Divine 
 Essence, personified in one or other of the Hindu deities, 
 Rama or Krishna. There is no direct evidence that the 
 poem itself was written with any religious purport. It 
 simply tells of the longings and laments of Radha, the 
 favourite of Krishna, for her lord and lover. Still, all 
 Vaishnavites take the poem as the mystic rendering of the 
 longing of the soul for the Divine.^ Jaya Deva ^ was born 
 in the Birbhum district of Bengal, in the twelfth century. 
 
 The poem opens with the customary reverence to 
 GaneSa, the opposing deity of all good efforts. The 
 praises of Vishnu are then sung, and the deeds recited 
 done during his descent on earth in various forms, in which 
 he still retained his Divine Essence. His first descent 
 was as the Fish that bore to a resting-place, on the northern 
 mountains, the ship in which Manu escaped from the 
 Flood. The second form in which Vishnu appeared was as 
 a Tortoise, on whose back was suspended the mountain 
 Mandara, round which was wound the huge serpent Sesha, 
 to form a rope that the gods and demons might churn the 
 waters of the flood, and bring to the surface the fourteen 
 precious treasures lost during the deluge. The last of 
 
 ^ Webf r, " History of Indian Literature," p. 210. 
 
 ^ Monier- Williams, " Hinduism," p. 139. The Nimbarkas, a Vaishnavite 
 sect, without a literature, who worship Krishna and Radha, claim Jaya Deva 
 as a follower of their founder, Nimbarka, or Nimbaditya, of the twelfth 
 century. 
 
340 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 these lost treasures was the poison which would have 
 destroyed humanity had it not been drunk by Siva, whose 
 neck it burned so badly that he still bears the mark — the 
 symbol of the sufferings he bore for man — and is therefore 
 called " The Blue-throated God." 
 
 Again Vishnu descended in the form of a Boar, to raise 
 the earth from below the waters and hold it firm. As the 
 Man-Lion, Vishnu came on earth to tear to pieces the 
 monster, Hiranya Kasipa, whom the god Brahma had 
 given security from mortal injury. The fifth incarnation 
 the poet reverences is that of the Dwarf, the form in 
 which Vishnu appeared before the demon, Bali, who had 
 usurped dominion over the three worlds. Bali, in jest, 
 offered the Dwarf so much of the worlds cis he could stride 
 over in three steps, whereon, in three strides, the deity re- 
 annexed the three worlds. The sixth incarnation is that 
 of Parasu Rama, or " Rama with the Axe," who came to 
 extirpate the warrior caste, and re-establish Brahmanical 
 might. The seventh was that of Rama Chandra, "The 
 Moon-like Rama," whose victory over Ravana is told in 
 the " Ramayana." The eighth form was that of Krishna, 
 " The Dark God," the chief of the Yadus, the charioteer to 
 Arjuna when the Pandavas fought against the Kurus. The 
 ninth incarnation was that of Buddha, who came to free 
 the land from Vedic sacrifices of animals. The last in- 
 carnation, one yet to come, is that of Kalki, who will 
 appear seated on a white horse, bearing a sword to slay 
 all those who in the Kali, or " depraved age," do wrong and 
 work unrighteousness. The Kali, or "present age," is 
 that described in the " Vishnu Purana" :^ — 
 
 "The observance of caste, order, and institutes will not prevail in the 
 Kali Age, nor will that of the ceremonial enjoined by the ' Sama,' 
 'Rik,' and 'Yajur Vedas.' Marriages, in this Age, will not be 
 conformable to the ritual, nor will the rules that connect the 
 
 1 Wilson, H. H., "Vishnu Purana," pp. 622-23. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 341 
 
 spiritual preceptor and his disciple be in force. The laws that 
 regulate the conduct of husband and wife will be disregarded, 
 and oblations to the gods with fire no longer be offered. In 
 whatever family he may be born, a powerful and rich man will 
 be held entitled to espouse maidens of every tribe. A regenerate 
 man will be initiated in any way whatever, and such acts of 
 penance as may be performed will be unattended by any results. 
 Every text will be Scripture that people choose to think so : 
 all gods will be gods to them that worship them, and all orders 
 of life will be common alike to all persons. In the Kali Age, 
 fasting, austerity, liberality, practised according to the pleasure 
 of those by whom they are observed, will constitute righteous- 
 ness. Pride of wealth will be inspired by very insignificant 
 possessions. Pride of beauty will be prompted by (no other 
 personal charm than fine) hair. Gold, jewels, diamonds, 
 clothes, will all have perished, and then hair will be the only 
 ornament with which women can decorate themselves. Wives 
 will desert their husbands when they lose their property ; and 
 they only who are wealthy will be considered by women as 
 their lords. He who gives away much money will be the 
 master of men, and family descent will no longer be a title 
 of supremacy. Accumulated treasures will be expended on 
 (ostentatious) dwellings. The minds of men will be wholly 
 occupied in acquiring wealth, and wealth will be Spent solely 
 on selfish gratifications. Women will follow their inclinations, 
 and be ever fond of pleasure. Men will fix their desires upon 
 riches even though dishonestly acquired. No man will part 
 with the smallest fraction of the smallest coin, though entreated 
 by a friend. Men of all degrees will conceit themselves to be 
 equal with Brahmans. Cows will be held in esteem only as 
 they supply milk. The people will be almost always in dread 
 of dearth, and apprehensive of scarcity, and will hence ever 
 be watching the appearances of the sky ; they will all live, 
 like anchorets, upon leaves, and roots, and fruit, and put a 
 period to their lives through fear of famine and want. In truth, 
 there will never be abundance in the Kali Age, and men will 
 never enjoy pleasure and happiness. They will take their food 
 without previous ablution, and without worshipping fire, gods, 
 or guests, or offering obsequial libations to their progenitors. 
 The women will be fickle, short of stature, gluttonous ; they 
 will have many children and little means. Scratching their 
 heads with both hands, they will pay no attention to the 
 commands of their husbands or parents. Tney will be selfish, 
 abject, and slatternly ; they will be scolds and liars ; they will 
 
342 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 be indecent and immoral in their conduct, and will ever attach 
 themselves to dissolute men. Youths, although disregarding 
 the rules of studentship, will study the ' Vedas.' Householders 
 will neither sacrifice nor practise becoming liberality. Anchorets 
 will subsist upon food accepted firom rustics, and mendicants 
 will be influenced by regard for fiiends and associates. Princes, 
 instead of protecting, will plunder their subjects, and under 
 the pretext of levying customs, will rob merchants of their 
 property.'' 
 
 The poet, having duly honoured Vishnu, commences the 
 special subject of the poem, the love of Radha for the dark 
 god Krishna. 
 
 With all the sensuous languor of an Eastern mind, the 
 loves of the gopis, or shepherd girls, who woo the god, are set 
 to the gentle music and soft sound to which the Bengali 
 poet has moulded the sounding Sanskrit. As the love-sick 
 shepherdesses flit round the god, Radha, the favourite of 
 Krishna, remains apart pouring forth her longings for the 
 near presence of her lover. She conjures up to herself 
 memories of his might and majesty, his once-whispered 
 words of love, when she alone was his loved bride. 
 
 The love of Radha is also remembered by Krishna when 
 he has freed himself from the allurements of the five 
 shepherdesses — perhaps allegorical of the five senses. The 
 form of Radha rises up before him ; he prays her to return, 
 to fear no more, for he no longer bears the form of the 
 fierce god who roams with ash-besmeared and matted 
 locks. He has covered himself with the dust of the sweet 
 sandal-wood, and wears a dark lotus leaf to conceal the 
 blue stain his throat bears. The words of Radha are then 
 borne to Krishna. The messenger tells how she sits 
 beneath the moonbeams weeping over her deep sorrow, 
 and the separation of her soul from that of her beloved. 
 The soft south wind, as it steals round her limbs, soothes 
 her no longer ; it is as though it had crept through sandal 
 trees where it had received the taint of the poisoned breath 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 343 
 
 of serpents. She is languid and weary ; she pants to be 
 once more near to her beloved in whom alone her hopes 
 are centred. Krishna cries for her to come, but as she 
 approaches, adorned with all her ornaments, her steps 
 falter. She weeps, she cries on Hari, her lord, to come and 
 support her failing feet ; she sinks to the ground, to embrace, 
 to kiss the shadow of the passing dark blue cloud, imagin- 
 ing that it is Krishna who approaches near. Her strength 
 fails to bear her further. She weeps, she wails, for in her 
 fancy she sees the lips of a rival touching those of her 
 lord, the rival's long black hair trailing over the dark god's 
 face, like to evening clouds sweeping past the clear moon ; 
 the rival twines white flowers in his dark locks. Radha's 
 companion prays her to tarry not, to hasten to the god, 
 for she has teeth with the gleam of the moon ; she has but 
 to fall at her lord's feet and claim his love with gentle words 
 of faith. 
 
 Let the lyric raptures of the poem be taken as they fliay, 
 either as an allegory of the soul striving to pierce through 
 the bondage of the sense and find rest, or else as a love 
 song, too sensuous and unrestrained for Western ideas, 
 it is a poem that found its way to the hearts of the myriads 
 of pilgrims who have, for centuries past, journeyed to the 
 birthplace of Jaya Deva, crying out the praises of Vishnu, 
 Krishna, Hari, Lord of the Braided Locks, Lord of the World. 
 Although portions of the poem are untranslatable from 
 the poet's unrestraint, yet his artistic reserve saved him 
 from the gross lewdness which is too often, especially in 
 Bengalj the besetting sin of so many of his imitators and 
 successors. The poem of Jaya Deva marks the gradual 
 development in the twelfth century of the doctrine of faith 
 iphakti), of devotion, and personal love towards a deity in 
 human form. The Krishna of the " Gita Govinda " is now 
 usually taken by all the Vaishnavites as an incarnation of 
 the Divine Essence. In the poem itself there is no direct 
 
344 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 indication that its object was to found any phase of religion 
 based on the saving grace of a faith in Krishna. One 
 verse is often quoted in proof of the poem's mystic and 
 religious significance. Krishna, in despair at the anger of 
 Radha, is represented as kneeling down, and praying her to 
 place her feet on his head. Later tradition holds that the 
 poet could never have so far forgotten the divine nature of 
 Krishna as to represent him thus addressing Radha, and 
 asserts that Krishna himself wrote these words. The story 
 is that, in the absence of Jaya Deva, the god entered his 
 house and inserted these words in a half-finished line. 
 The poet had commenced the line with the words : " On my 
 head as an ornament," and then, pausing, had gone out to 
 consider how he could possibly represent the god as having 
 a foot placed on his head. In his absence, Krishna, in the 
 form of Jaya Deva, appeared and finished the line, so that 
 it now reads : " On my head as an ornament place thy 
 beauteous feet." 
 
 This doctrine of " bhakti," or faith, so often ascribed to 
 Christian influence, became from its inculcation in the 
 " Bhagavad Gita," and fuller exposition in the " Bhagavad 
 Purana," and " Bhakti Sutra " of Sandilya in the twelfth 
 century, the almost pervading theme of Indian literature. 
 It passed from the system of Yoga, or attainment of 
 absorption of the Soul into the essence of the deity in 
 whom faith is placed, to its final development in the hope 
 of salvation, following from a faith or absolute belief in 
 the words and doctrines of the great teachers, such as 
 ^ankara Acharya, Ramanuja, Ramanand, Bassava, Vallabha 
 Acharya and the Sikh gurus.i 
 
 From the commencement of the fourteenth century, 
 
 almost coincident with the disappearance of Tamerlane, 
 
 with his blood-stained horsemen across the passes to the 
 
 • For erotic literature, MfiBeames, J., "Ind. Ant.,"i. 215 ; "Vishnu Purana," 
 xiv. (Preface) ; Wilson, " Select Works," vol. i. 161. Muir, " Metrical Trans.'' 
 (Introd.), gives full account of connection between Christianity and Hinduism. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 345 
 
 north-west, when the Muhammadan Sayyid^ and Lodi^ 
 dynasties ruled from Delhi with what feeble power they 
 possessed until the arrival of the Mughal Babar, the 
 Gangetic valley and the East saw a great literary revival 
 centring itself around the doctrines of Vaishnavism. 
 Ramanand* early heralded in the worship of Vishnu, as 
 incarnated in Rama, the hero of the " Ramayana," and 
 in the lands where he sang his songs, especially near 
 Agra, his sects, the Ramavats, or Ramanandls,* still form 
 a large community. 
 
 The most famous of all Ramanand's early disciples 
 was one Kablr,^ a weaver of Benares, reputed* to have 
 been the son of a virgin Brahman woman. His writings, 
 especially the "Sukh Nidhan," are quoted widely at the 
 present day, and mark the tendency of the time, under 
 the stress of contact with Muhammadanism, to break 
 free from the exclusive bondage to Hindu sacred litera- 
 ture, and rise above the restrictions of caste, sect, and the 
 bowing-down to idols. In place of these there was 
 inculcated faith in one Vedantic^ conception of a deity 
 addressed as "Ali" by the Muhammadans, and "Rama" by 
 Hindus. To this was added a belief in the guidance of 
 a guru, or spiritual preceptor, the principle that in time 
 welded the religious sect of Sikhs, or disciples of Nanak, 
 into a political power under the tenth Panjab guru, Govind 
 Singh. 
 
 In the " SabdabalT," or " One Thousand Sayings of Kablr," 
 the Vedantic doctrine of Maya, the Jaina, Buddhistic, and 
 Brahmanic doctrines of compassion towards all life were 
 
 1 1414-50. ° 1450-1526. 
 
 3 Grierson, " Modem Literature of Hindustan,'' p. 7: — " I have collected 
 hymns written by, or purporting to have been written by him, as far east as 
 Mithila." 
 
 * Wilson, H. H., " Religious Sects," p. 67. 
 
 ' Hunter, "Indian Empire," p. 269 (1380-1420). 
 
 « In the " Bhakta Mala." ' Earth, "Rel. of India," 239. 
 
346 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 brought side by side with the monotheistic conception of 
 Vishnu : ^ — 
 
 " To Ali and Rama we owe our existence, and should therefore show 
 similar tenderness to all that live. Of what avail is it to shave 
 your head, prostrate yourself on the ground, or immerse your 
 body in the stream, whilst you shed blood you call yourself 
 pure and boast of virtues that you never display. Of what 
 benefit is cleaning your mouth, counting your beads, performing 
 ablution, and bowing yourself in temples, when, whilst you 
 mutter your prayers, or journey to Mecca and Medina, deceit- 
 fiilness is in your heart ? The Hindu fasts every eleventh day, 
 the Mussulman during the Ramazan. Who formed the remain- 
 ing months and days that you should venerate but one ? If the 
 Creator dwells in Tabernacles, whose residence is the universe ? 
 Wlio has beheld Rama seated amongst images, or foimd him 
 at the shrine to which the Pilgrim has directed his steps ? . . . 
 Behold but one in all things, it is the second that leads you 
 astray. Every man and woman that has ever been bom is of 
 the same nature with yourself." 
 
 On the death of Kabir, the Hindus and Muhammadans 
 are represented by tradition as disputing over their re- 
 spective rights to claim the body of the teacher. The 
 Muhammadans, according to their custom, desired to 
 bury it, the Hindus to burn it. Kabir, it is said, 
 appeared in the midst of the disputants and directed 
 both Hindus and Muhammadans to raise the cloth 
 covering his supposed remains. Beneath the cloth they 
 found nothing but a heap of flowers. In the holy city 
 of Benares half of the flowers were burnt by the Hindus, 
 and there the ashes were kept as sacred relics ; half 
 were claimed by the Muhammadans, who buried them 
 beneath a tomb near Gorakhpur.^ 
 
 All over the land the loves of Sita for Rama, of 
 Radha for Krishna, were sung in more or less realistic 
 or mystic significance. As all hopes of a national 
 
 1 Wilson, H. H., " Religious Sects," "Sabda,"lvi. p. 8i. 
 ^ Flourished in 1400 a.d. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 347 
 
 existence were further fading away, the people seemed 
 in their loneliness to be wailing forth their despairing cry 
 for the sympathy of a human or Divine love or aid. 
 
 To the East, in Behar, Bidyapati Thakur told in his 
 passionate and never - imitated sonnets, in the Maithili 
 dialect, the longings of the Soul for God, in the 
 allegorical form of the love of Radha for Krishna. In 
 the songs of Chandldas, the imitator of Bidyapati in 
 Bengal, a deeper note, though not so sweet, is given of 
 the same phase of thought which sent the intellectual 
 life of the time in on itself to brood over a love of God 
 for humanity, and humanity for God, in times when 
 Mughal raids had, for their rallying cry, the Prophet's 
 declaration of a Divine revelation : " Slay the unbeliever 
 and infidel where he may be found." ^ 
 
 Chandidas sang the same wail of love in which the 
 Soul, personified as Radha, pours forth her love for the 
 Divine, as incarnate in Krishna. 
 
 This surrender of the Soul and the Self, as dreamed of 
 in all the true mystic symbolism of Jaya Deva, reached its 
 tenderest, though perhaps not its truest, depths in the 
 vision of Mira Bai,^ of Mewar, in the West of Hindustan, 
 in the fifteenth century, as it did in the sixteenth century 
 in Spain in the ecstasies of Santa Theresa.^ Mira Bai's 
 commentary on the " Gita Govinda " shows her passionate 
 devotion to the form of Krishna she worshipped, while 
 songs of her own composition* are sung far and wide, 
 from Dvaraka to Mithila. Tradition loves to tell how, 
 as she worshipped the image of Krishna, pouring forth 
 her impassioned appeal for its love, the image opened and 
 
 ^ Timur, " Designs and Enterprises," p. 2. 
 
 2 Wilson, H. H., " Sects of the Hindus," p. 138 ; Grierson, " Modern 
 Literature of Hindustan," p. 12. 
 
 =* G. C. Cunningham, " Santa Theresa : Her Life and Times," Edinburgh 
 Review (October 1896). 
 
 ^ Tod, J., " Rajasthan," vol. i. p. 289. 
 
348 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 closed around her so that she for ever disappeared from 
 earth.^ The piety of Mira Bai, the devoted follower of 
 Krishna, and founder of the Mira Bai sect, did not save 
 her from scandal and from persecution by her family. 
 The theme she sang had its own fascinations and dangers. 
 The mystic brooding over the longings of the Soul which 
 found expression in the burning terms of human love used 
 by Jaya Deva in the twelfth century in India, and by San 
 Juan de la Cruz ^ in the West, tottered on the verge of a 
 steep precipice. 
 
 In the soft, relaxing lowlands of Bengal the step was 
 early taken that sped mysticism down to realism. The 
 safeguard of spiritualism once abandoned, all was lost on 
 which the theme could preserve itself free from the con- 
 taminating taint of the earth and earthly. The tendency 
 of the whole literature was to sink lower and lower into 
 the abyss of lewd imaginings and sensuous fancies. The 
 outward and popular expression of the same realistic 
 tendency took the form of foul Tantric orgies, until at 
 length literature and religion dragged down in their fall 
 all the best on which they were founded. 
 
 Both phases of thought, the realistic and spiritualistic, 
 found their fullest expression and glorification in the 
 writings, teachings, and influence of two great founders 
 of distinct Vaishnava sects — the one, Vallabha Achatya, still 
 having numerous followers in Central India, Bombay, and 
 Gujarat, the other, Chaitanya, a name familiar in every 
 household of Bengal. 
 
 Vallabha Acharya, the founder of the Swami Vallabha 
 sect, is held to have been an embodiment of a portion of the 
 Divine Essence of Krishna, and numerous are the stories 
 current of his superhuman intelligence and power. His 
 great work was a commentary on the " Bhagavata Purana." 
 
 1 Tod, J., " Rajasthan," vol. ii. p. 760. 
 
 ^ Lewis, D., " St John of the Cross : Life and Works." 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 349 
 
 According to his teachings, the human soul, though 
 separated from the Divine Essence of Krishna, is identical 
 with it, and, as such, is as though it were a divine spark of 
 the Supreme Spirit itself The body, as the abode of this 
 portion of the Divine Essence of Krishna, should be 
 honoured and revered, not subjected to asceticism, but 
 nourished with every luxury in the way of eating, drinking, 
 and enjoyment. The doctrine was one destined to attract 
 a numerous following. The personality and undoubted 
 genius of Vallabha secured for it the recognition of the 
 wealthy and influential members of the community who 
 were shut out from all national life or political power. 
 These Epicureans of India might be passed over in silence, 
 along with all the worshippers of Sakti, or " force personified 
 as a goddess," and followers of Tantric rites, inasmuch as 
 they show no strife against the more debasing factors of 
 human nature, were it not that the most remarkable libel 
 case that could ever have arisen in a Court of Justice 
 respecting the privileges of a priesthood was heard in 1862 
 before the Supreme Court of Bombay, when a charge was 
 brought against the Maharajas, or modern successors of 
 Vallabha, that they claimed, as actual manifestations of 
 Krishna, to be entitled to receive from their disciples not 
 only adoration, expressed by submission of mind and 
 outpourings of wealth, but also by dedication of the bodies 
 of their female worshippers to probably the most eccentric 
 whims the depraved imaginings of a sect, working out 
 perverted ideals, could evolve. 
 
 Chaitanya, held to have been an absolute incarnation of 
 Krishna, and a worker of many miracles, represents to the 
 mystic-loving East what Luther represents to the West. 
 
 Born at Nadiya (Navadvip) in 1485 A.D., this enthusiastic 
 reformer and preacher, Chaitanya, gave expression in Bengal 
 to the peculiar mode in which its life and thought had 
 become modelled under climatic and political pressure, just 
 
3SO LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 as Kabir before him had proclaimed the form the religious 
 thought of the people was taking in North India. 
 
 Of all the varied phases of Indian thought arising within 
 the lull that preceded the final conquests of the Mughals, 
 that phase which it was the mission of Chaitanya to proclaim, 
 with all the power of his eloquence and mesmeric influence 
 of his presence, shows most clearly how deeply the time 
 was moved by a faith or devotion in a deity, with whom, 
 as a consummation, complete union is sought Chaitanya, 
 first inspired at Buddha Gaya by the universal sympathy 
 of the Buddhist sage, and then roused to enthusiasm by 
 the memories of the thought of past ages as they swept 
 round the temple of Jagannath, went forth from his wife 
 and child as an enthusiast, to proclaim the love for, and of, 
 Krishna, at a time when Luther was preparing to rouse 
 Europe by his preaching. Five hundred years have passed 
 away since the time Chaitanya spread a faith in the saving 
 grace of Krishna throughout the land, nevertheless, down 
 to the present day, the same spirit that inspired Chaitanya 
 continues still to dwell among his followers. 
 
 In an interesting account of the life and precepts of 
 Chaitanya,^ lately^ published by his devout and aged 
 follower, Sri Kedar Nath Dutt, Bhakti Vinod, it can be 
 read how this spirit preserves its vitality undiminished 
 amid the changes that are sweeping over the land. This 
 exponent of the hopes of the present followers of the 
 teachings of Chaitanya declares his firm faith that, from a 
 devoted love to Krishna, a love like that of a girl for a 
 loved one, shown by constant repetition of his name, by 
 ecstatic raptures, singing, calm contemplation and fervour, 
 a movement will yet take place to draw to the future 
 church of the world "all classes of men, without distinction 
 of caste or clan to the highest cultivation of the spirit 
 This church, it appears, will extend all over the world, and 
 * The standard life is that of Krishna Das Kavi Raj. ^ ,ggj_ 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 351 
 
 take the place of all sectarian churches, which exclude out- 
 siders from the precincts of the mosque, church, or temple."^ 
 
 The spirit that is to animate this new church is to be 
 founded on the principle that " spiritual cultivation is the 
 main object of life. Do everything that keeps it, and 
 abstain from doing anything which thwarts the cultivation 
 of the spirit." A devoted love to Krishna is to be the 
 guiding light, as preached by Chaitanya : " Have a strong 
 faith that Krishna alone protects you, and none else. 
 Admit him as your only guardian. Do everything which 
 you know Krishna wishes you to do, and never think that 
 you do a thing independent of the holy wish of Krishna. 
 Do all you do with humility. Always remember that you 
 are a sojourner in the world, and you must be prepared 
 for your own home." ^ 
 
 The simple piety of this latest preacher of the teachings 
 of Chaitanya holds that Chaitanya " showed in his character, 
 and preached to the world, the purest morality as an 
 accompaniment of spiritual improvement. Morality, as a 
 matter of course, will grace the character of a bhakta (one 
 who has faith)." ^ 
 
 The perplexing question of idolatry receives its usual 
 explanation in the following manner : " Those who say 
 that God has no form, either material or spiritual, and 
 again imagine a false form for worship, are certainly 
 idolatrous. But those who see the spiritual form of the 
 deity in their soul's eye, carry that impression as far as 
 possible to the mind, and then frame an emblem for the 
 satisfaction of the material eye, for continual study of the 
 higher feelings are by no means idolatrous." * 
 
 The words seem as if they pointed to the images Chaitanya 
 in his trances used to vision up before him of the deity and 
 the shepherdesses. In one of these trances, Chaitanya is 
 
 1 Dutt, K. N., "Chaitanya: His Life and Precepts," p. 60. 
 2/i5«<^., p. 57. » /(SjV., p. 58. ^/izV^., p. 47. 
 
352 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 held by tradition to have seen a vision of Krishna and the 
 shepherdesses, sporting in the glistening waters of the sea 
 near Puri, in Orissa, and, as he walked out towards them, 
 passed away forever from the world, having gained the 
 heaven of Vaikuntha in 1527 A.D., at the age of forty-two. 
 
 While Chaitanya in Bengal, moved by the same spirit 
 that had inspired the sonnets of Bidyapati in Behar, the 
 ecstatic trances of Mira Bai in Mewar, and the languid and 
 enervated sensualism of Vallabha Acharya in Benares, was . 
 pouring forth his mystic raptures over the loves of Radha 
 and Krishna, a new line of conquerors, whose song was 
 the " Song of the Sword," and whose love was a love for 
 plunder and the firebrand, was biding its time until all 
 things were prepared for the raid on Hindustan, and capture 
 of Agra, where all of the army were to gain presents in 
 silver and gold, in cloth, in jewels, and in captive slaves.^ 
 
 In 1526, Babar, "The Lion," fifth in descent from Timur, or 
 Tamerlane who had conquered Kabul in 1 504, received an 
 invitation from the contending rulers of the north-west to 
 enter India with his TurkI hordes, and proclaim himself 
 Emperor of Hindustan. 
 
 Babar and his hardy troops soon swarmed down through 
 the Khaibar Pass, and on the fatal field of Panipat broke 
 in pieces the forces of the last king of the Lodi dynasty. 
 The new emperor, in his " Memoirs," narrates how this, his 
 fifth invasion, was crowned with success : — 
 
 " In consideration of my confidence in Divine Aid, the most High God 
 did not suffer the distress and hardships I had undergone to be 
 thrown away, but defeated my formidable enemy and made me 
 the conqueror of the noble country of Hindustan. This success 
 I do not ascribe to my own strength, nor did this good fortune 
 flow from my own efforts, but from the fountain of the favour and 
 mercy of God." '' 
 
 Though the rule of Babar and his descendants is known 
 
 ^ Holden, E., " Mughal Emperors," p. 87. 
 ' Leyden, John, " Memoirs of Babar," p. 310. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 353 
 
 as that of the Mughals, Babar himself, as descended from 
 Tamerlane, was a Turk, and, although his mother was a 
 Mughal, he speaks of that race with disdain and contempt, 
 as composed of wretches who plundered foes and allies 
 alike : — 
 
 " If the Mughal race were a race of angels, it is a bad race. 
 And were the name Mughal written in gold, it would be odious. 
 Take care not to pluck one ear of corn from a Mughal's harvest. 
 The Mughal seed is such that whatever is sown with it is execrable." ' 
 
 Babar, having overthrown the power of the Lodi king, 
 found that, beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Delhi, 
 Hindu princes and Afghan governors and garrisons held 
 independent rule over such lands as yielded revenue, while 
 the outlying tracts were left at the mercy of marauding 
 bands, and of such petty chieftains as were capable of 
 raising themselves to power. Thus, when in 1526 Babar 
 reached the Chenab, he recorded how 
 
 " Every time that I have entered Hindustan, the Jats (of the Panjab) 
 and the Gujyars have regularly poured down in prodigious 
 numbers from their hills and wilds in order to carry off oxen and 
 buffaloes. These were the wretches that really inflicted the 
 chief hardships, and were guilty of the severest oppression on 
 the country. These districts, in former times, had been in a state 
 of revolt and yielded very little revenue that could be come 
 at. On the present occasion, when I had reduced the whole of 
 the neighbouring districts to subjection, they began to repeat 
 their practices. As my poor people were on their way from 
 Sialkot to the camp, hungry and naked, indigent and in distress, 
 they were fallen upon by the road, with loud shouts, and 
 plundered." ^ 
 
 Babar's own views of the country, its religions and people, 
 show how he and his race came to the land as much 
 foreigners as the succeeding European adventurers. His 
 
 ^ Leyden, J. " Memoirs of Babar," p. 93. 
 " Ibid., p. 294. 
 
 2 
 
354 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 accounts read almost as though they were the superficial 
 observations of some stray traveller of to-day : ^ — 
 
 " Most of the natives of Hindustan are Pagans. They call the 
 Pagan inhabitants of Hindustan, Hindus. Most of the Hindus 
 hold the doctrine of transmigration. The ofticers of revenue, 
 merchants, and work-people, are all Hindus. In our native 
 countries, the tribes that inhabit the plains and deserts have 
 all names, according to their respective families ; but here 
 everybody, whether they live in the country or in villages, have 
 names according to their families. Again, every tradesman 
 has received his trade from his forefathers, who for generations 
 have all practised the same trade. Hindustan is acfeuntry 
 that has few pleasures to recommend it. The people are not 
 handsome. They have no idea of the charms of friendly 
 society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. 
 They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, no polite- 
 ness of manner, no kindness or fellow-feeling, no ingenuity or 
 mechanical invention in planning or executing their handicraft 
 works, no skill or knowledge in design or architecture ; they 
 have no good horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk-melons, 
 no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in 
 their bazars, no baths or colleges, no candles, no torches, not 
 a candlestick." 
 
 His " Memoirs " give a vivid picture of the times in his 
 famed siege of Chanderi, one hundred and thirty-five miles 
 south of Agra. He describes the despairing valour of the 
 garrison in words which recall the incident so proudly 
 sung of in the Rajput ballads : — 
 
 The troops likewise scaled the walls in two or three places. In a 
 short time the Pagans, in a state of complete nudity, rushed 
 out to attack us, put numbers of my people to flight, and 
 leaped over the ramparts. Some of our people were attacked 
 furiously and put to the sword. The reason of this desperate 
 sally from their works was, that on giving up the place for lost, 
 they had put to death the whole of their wives and women, and 
 having resolved to perish, had stripped themselves naked, in 
 which condition they had rushed out to the fight, and engaging 
 with ungovernable desperation, drove our people along the 
 ramparts. Two or three hundred Pagans . . . slew each other 
 
 ' Leyden, J., "Memoirs of Babar," pp. 332-33. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 355 
 
 in the following manner : One person took his stand with a 
 sword in his hand, while the others, one by one, crowded in 
 and stretched out their necks, eager to die. In this way many 
 went to hell ; and by the favour of God, in the space of two 
 or three hours, I gained this celebrated fort.' * 
 
 One short couplet of Babar sums up the sentiments that 
 inspired the fierce valour of the new-come, hardy Northern 
 warriors, in their contests with the gentler and less physically 
 capable Hindus of the East and South. 
 
 " Let the sword of the world be brandished as it may. 
 It cannot cut one vein without the permission of God." ^ 
 
 His remark to his son on the subject of style in letter- 
 writing, shows how much sympathy Babar himself would 
 have had for the sensuous languor, the musical cadence of 
 word and rhythm, the use of brilliant metaphor and startling 
 allegory so loved by all Hindu poets. In writing to his 
 son, Humayiin, Babar records with all the frankness and 
 unpleasing truth of a Cobbett : " You certainly do not excel 
 in letter-writing, and fail chiefly because you have too great a 
 desire to show your acquirements. For the future you should 
 write unaffectedly, with clearness, using plain words which 
 would cost less trouble, both to the writer and reader."^ 
 
 Babar had but short time to do more than extend his 
 rule from Multan to Behar. He died in 1530, leaving 
 an empire which extended from " the River Amu in Central 
 Asia, to the borders of the Gangetic delta in Lower Bengal." * 
 His son Humayiin, after a troubled reign, from 1530 to 1556, 
 during which he was driven from India by the previous 
 Afghan settlers under Sher Shah, the Governor of Bengal, 
 left the task of founding and consolidating the Mughal 
 rule to his son and successor, Akbar. 
 
 During the long and glorious reign of Akbar (1556- 
 1605), coinciding almost with that of Elizabeth in England, 
 India, for the first time, saw hopes that her varied peoples, 
 
 ^ Leyden, J., "Memoirs of Babar," p. 377. ^ I6id., p. 415. 
 ' /bid., p. 392. * Hunter, " Indian Empire," p. 344. 
 
356 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 divided as they were one from the other by race, language, 
 creed, and customs, might, under one sole ruler, tolerant of 
 all beliefs, and setting forth as his ideal the principle that 
 " every class of the community enjoys prosperity," ^ lay aside 
 their differences, unite and acknowledge "the suzerainty 
 of one prince who would protect and not persecute." ^ 
 
 From first to last the endeavour of Akbar, with the aid 
 of his friend and biographer, Abul Fazl, was to reconcile 
 the contending claims of rival creeds and of varied races 
 that clamoured for recognition in the body politic. Hindus 
 and Muhammadans were employed alike. To win the 
 allegiance of the Rajput princes he intermarried with their 
 daughters. No one was persecuted for conscience sake, 
 and India obtained what it had never before possessed, 
 some hope that union, peace, and prosperity might be 
 secured within its borders. Akbar, in the words of one 
 of the most brilliant historians of India, "had convinced 
 his own mind that the old methods were obsolete ; that to 
 hold India by maintaining standing armies in the several 
 provinces, and to take no account of the feelings, the 
 traditions, the longings, the aspirations of the children of 
 the soil — of all the races in the world the most inclined 
 to poetry and sentiment, and attracted by the strongest 
 ties that can appeal to mankind to the traditions of their 
 forefathers — would be impossible." * 
 
 He early abolished the poll tax imposed by former 
 Muhammadan rulers on those of their subjects who did 
 not follow the faith of Muhammad. In the same year he 
 put an end to the inland tolls which each semi-independent 
 local governor had levied on the confines of the separate 
 provinces. He further relinquished a lucrative source of 
 revenue by refusing to continue the imposition of the 
 pilgrim tax on Hindus whose religion necessitated the 
 
 ^ " Ain-i-Akbari," quoted in Holden's "Mogul Emperors.'' 
 
 ^- Malleson, "Akbar" (Ruler of India Series), p. 98. ' Ibid.^ p, 154. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LANXl 35; 
 
 performance of pilgrimages to holy shrines, temples, and 
 sacred bathing-places. 
 
 There were, however, Hindu customs and ancient rites 
 which Akbar, tolerant as he was, refused to recognise. 
 These he strove vehemently to suppress, and by his efforts 
 and laws forestalled the British Government in some of 
 the most important enactments by which its administration 
 has been signalised. He put an end to the time-honoured 
 custom of making slaves of those captured during war. 
 He made the re-marriage of widows legal, forbade infant 
 marriage, and prohibited, unless the act was voluntary on 
 the woman's part, the practice of SatI, or the burning of a 
 widow on her husband's death. 
 
 In his efforts to form a state religion, wide enough to be 
 acceptable to all his subjects, he was actuated by the spirit 
 that had already given rise to the teaching of Kabir, and 
 was to infuse the army of the Khalsa with a bond of Sikh 
 unionism. 
 
 He directed his " king of poets," and friend Faizi,^ the 
 brother of Abul Fazl, to prepare a translation of the New 
 Testament into Persian, and his historian, Abul Kadir 
 BadaunI, the author of the " Tarikh-i-BadaunI," to translate 
 the " Ramayana," and part of the " Mahabharata." 
 
 To strict Muhammadans Akbar was an apostate from 
 the true dictates of his own religion. In his efforts to 
 frame a religion eclectic enough for both Muhammadans 
 and Hindus, he went so far as to erase the name of 
 Muhammad from the creed, " There is but one God, and 
 Muhammad is His Prophet." He himself was to be the 
 declarer of the more merciful decrees of the one God, and 
 he was to be the sole arbitrator in religious matters and 
 the source of all legislation. 
 
 1 Raja Birbal was the Hindu Poet Laureate, and Faizi, the Persian 
 Laureate.— Blochmann, " Ain-i-Akbari," p. 404 {fiott l). "Faizi also 
 translated the 'Lilawati,' and Abul Fail the 'Kalilah Damnah.'"— /iJzi, 
 p. xvii. 
 
358 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The full meaning and result of this design of Akbar is 
 set forth in the introduction to Blochmann's translation of 
 the "Ain-i-Akbari, or Account of the Religion, Politics, 
 and Administration of the Times," by. Abul Fazl: — 
 
 " If Akbar felt the necessity of this new lav/, Abul Fazl enunciated it 
 and fought for it with his pen ; and if the Khan Khanans gained 
 the victories, the new policy reconciled the people to the foreign 
 rule ; and whilst Akbar's apostasy from Islam is all but forgotten, 
 no emperor of the Mughal dynasty has come nearer to the ideal 
 of a father of his people than he. The reversion, on the other 
 hand, in later times to the policy of religious intoleration, whilst 
 it has surrounded, in the eyes of the Moslems, the memory of 
 Aurangzib with the halo of sanctity, and still inclines the pious 
 to utter a ' May God have mercy on him,' when his name is 
 mentioned, was also the beginning of the breaking-up of the 
 empire."' 
 
 Although Akbar encouraged Brahmans, Mussalmans, 
 Jews, Parsis, and Christians, to proclaim freely before 
 him their creeds, beliefs, and faiths, and although tradition 
 tells, though perhaps on no strong evidence, that one of 
 his wives was a Christian, still the task to which he had 
 set his hand was one impossible to accomplish. His 
 desire to see good in every religion and good in every 
 man, his very tolerance and efforts to extract the best 
 from every faith, left him indifferent to the carping dis- 
 tinctions of dogmas and creeds. 
 
 For himself he fashioned forth an eclectic creed of his 
 own. Not only did he bow down before the Sun, as the 
 representative and ruler of the Universe, but he claimed 
 for himself the homage and adoration of his subjects — a 
 worship which strict Muhammadans held to be due to God 
 alone. As a result, the bigotry of Muhammadanism led to 
 the assassination of Abul Fazl, and, on the death of Akbar, 
 the contending interests of rival religions and races broke 
 forth afresh with' a vigour and animosity renewed from 
 their long slumber. 
 
 ' Blochmann, "Ain-i-Akbari," p. xxix. (Introd.). 
 
THE PORBtGNER IN THE LAND 359 
 
 Akbar's own Poet Laureate Birbal, was a Brahman Bhat, 
 or minstrel of KalpI, whose wise sayings and bon-mots are 
 still remembered in North India.^ In 1583 Birbal was sent 
 to fight against the Yusufzais, and there, to the grief of 
 his devoted friend, Akbar, met his death. The poet gained 
 the lasting hate of all orthodox Muhammadans for the 
 part he was supposed to have taken in influencing the 
 emperor to forsake Islam. 
 
 Badauni, the historian, in recording the defeat of the 
 army, the severest defeat suffered by Akbar, grimly says : — 
 
 " Nearly eight thousand men, perhaps even more, were killed. Birbal 
 also, who had fled from fear of his life, was slain, and entered 
 the row of the dogs in hell, and thus got something for the 
 abominable deeds he had done during his life-time."^ 
 
 The same historian, while narrating the events of the 
 year 1588, mentions : — 
 
 " Among the silly lies — they border on absurdities — which, during this 
 year, were spread over the country, was the rumour that Birbal, 
 the accursed, was still alive, though in reality he had then for 
 some time been burning in the seventh hell. The Hindus, by 
 whom His Majesty is surrounded, saw how sad and sorry he was 
 for Birbal's loss, and invented the story that Birbal had been 
 seen in the hills of Nagarkot, walking about with Jogls and 
 Sannasis. His Majesty believed the rumour, thinking that 
 Birbal was ashamed to come to court on account of the defeat 
 which he had suffered at the hands of the Yusiifzals ; and it was, 
 besides, quite probable that he should have been seen with 
 Jogls, inasmuch as he had never cared for the world." ' 
 
 What shape the course of Indian history might have 
 taken had the Mughal dynasty produced a successor 
 worthy of Akbar is now impossible to foresee. He 
 himself, it is said, had designed his tomb to be crowned 
 with a dome.* Perhaps he foresaw in the early death of 
 
 ^ Blochmann, ' ' Ain-i- Akbari "p. 404 ; Grierson, ' ' Literature of Hindustan," 
 
 P- 35- 
 
 '■^ Ibid., p. 204. ' Ibid., p. 404. 
 
 ^ Purchas, "His Pilgrims," vol. i. p. 440, quoted by Fergusson, p. 587. 
 
36o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 his sons, and the debaucheries of the heir-apparent, Prince 
 Salim, who had instigated the assassination of Abul Fazl, 
 the speedy decay of the empire, and left his design un- 
 completed, dreaming, as he is pictured by the late Poet 
 Laureate : — 
 
 " I watch'd my son 
 And those that follow'd, loosen stone from stone 
 All my fair work ; and from the ruin arose 
 The shriek and curse of trampled millions, even 
 As in times before ; but while I groan'd 
 From out the sunset poured an alien race 
 Who fitted stone to stone again, and Truth, 
 Peace, Love, and Justice came and dwelt therein." 
 
 There is no evidence that the hopes of Akbar would 
 have been realised even if his work had been continued by 
 successors gifted with a genius equal to his own. The 
 rule of the earlier Muhammadan emperors had shown how 
 impossible it was to keep the land from being turned into 
 a battle-field whereon the rival claims of divided chieftciins, 
 princes, and robber bands should be for ever contested and 
 never finally placed at rest. 
 
 Guzarat, in the West, had thrown off the authority of the 
 Delhi Sultan, and remained an independent kingdom, from 
 1371 to 1573, gaining strength to include, in 1531, within 
 its dominions the territories of the adjoining ruler of 
 Malwa. Even the independent Muhammadan state of 
 Jaunpur, which included Benares, the sacred city of the 
 Hindus, continued independent from 1393 to 1478. 
 In the South the kingdom of Vijayanagar, until over- 
 thrown at the battle of Talikot, in the middle of the 
 sixteenth century by the Muhammadan rulers of the 
 Deccan, held independent rule from its ancient capital, 
 whose ruins now lie scattered along the banks of the 
 Tangabhadra, and the last of its kings had authority 
 enough to grant the site of Madras to the English in 1639. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 361 
 
 More convincing still of the impossibilityof a native central 
 authority being able to preserve touch with all the outlying 
 states of India, and to conquer and compel the allegiance 
 of, or to conciliate, the varied races and nationalities, is the 
 fact that, on the break up of the great Bahmani dynasty, 
 which exercised independent rule over the Deccan from the 
 middle of the fourteenth century to the end of the six- 
 teenth century, the five great Muhammadan governor- 
 ships, with their capitals at Bijapur, Golconda, Bidar, 
 Ahmadnagar, and Ellichpur, founded dynasties known as 
 those of the Adil Shahi, Katb Shahl, Barid Shahl, Nizam 
 Shahl, and Imad Shahl, and preserved sovereign indepen- 
 dence until overthrown, the first four by Aurangzib, and 
 the last two, which had united in 1572, by Shah Jahan in 
 1636. 
 
 The whole of the difficulties of the situation are indicated 
 in the summing-up, by Sir W. Wilson Hunter,^ of the 
 results attained by the early Muhammadan rulers at Delhi, 
 where he shows how "they completely failed to conquer 
 many of the great Hindu kingdoms, or even to weld the 
 Indian Muhammadan state into a united Muhammadan 
 empire." ^ 
 
 By the time of the death of Babar, Muhammadan rule 
 had shown no sign of obtaining a permanent abiding-place 
 in India. In 1541, Humayun was a fugitive in Sind, and 
 returned not to Delhi until 1554, and then only for a few 
 months' reign. 
 
 Four years later, when Akbar came to the throne, 
 Benares, Behar, and Bengal were independent, and India, 
 South and West, was beyond the^ limits of his empire. It 
 was not until he had reigned almost twenty years, that all 
 
 ' "Indian Empire," p. 343. 
 
 ^ In the fourteenth century Muhammad Tughlak had conquered the Deccan, 
 but at his death the Afghan dynasty of the Bahmani kings, whose possessions, 
 at the close of the fifteenth century, were divided into the five kingdoms 
 of the Deccan, assumed possession. 
 
362 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 India north of the Vindhyas, and Orissa, acknowledged 
 his sway. After subduing Berar and capturing Ahmad- 
 nagar in the Deccan, he had to be content with tribute 
 and vows of friendship from the kings of Bijapur 
 and Golconda. 
 
 The spirit of Akbar's time and genius has its memorial 
 written imperishably in stone, in the tomb built for him at 
 Sikandra. In itself, it typifies the limit reached by 
 Muhammadan and Hindu compromise.^ 
 
 The tomb, like Akbar's eclectic religion, represents the 
 conception his master-mind had worked out, of a recon- 
 ciliation of all racial and religious difference, so that the 
 best that India held of valour and genius might unite to 
 rule the land for the benefit of all, and evolve in peace and 
 rest new ideals of law and order. 
 
 The early Muhammadan architecture, like its rule, was 
 essentially foreign to the people, and to the soil of India. 
 The dynasty of Ghor built its mosques with high front 
 walls, overlapping courses and ogee-pointed arches. The 
 dynasty of Khiljl lapsed into horse-shoe arches and elaborate 
 decoration, while the house of Tughlak stamped the impress 
 of its heavy hand on its great sloping walls, plastered 
 dome, and pointed stucco arches. The commencement of 
 the rule of the Mughals was marked by their own peculiar 
 style, as seen in the tall Persian domes and glazed tiles of 
 the tomb of Humayun. During the long reign of Akbar, 
 the compromise with the Hindu architecture ran parallel 
 with the development of Akbar's eclectic religion and 
 philosophic systems, the Hindu bracket and horizontal 
 style of building leading gradually to the disappearance of 
 the arch. The great fort and palace at Agra, and the 
 
 ' "A design borrowed, as I believe, from a Hindu or, more correctly, 
 Buddhist model. "—Fergiisson, "Ind. Architecture," p. 583. "The consequence 
 is a mixture throughout all his works of two styles, often more picturesque than 
 correct, which might, in the course of another half century, have been blended 
 into a completely new style if persevered in. " — Fergusson, p. 574. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 363 
 
 magnificent ruins at Fatehpur Sikri tell the spirit of Akbar's 
 reign as distinctly as do the " Ain-i-Akbari" of Abul Fazl, 
 the history of Badauni, or the " Tabakat-i-Akbari" of Nizam- 
 ud-dln- Ahmad. 
 
 The buildei-s of the Mosque of Katb-ud-dln at Delhi had 
 razed the Hindu temples to the ground, hewn the idolatrous 
 decorations from the stately pillars, and then used them as 
 supports for their own arched colonnades. The tombs of 
 the Ghori Altamsh and his son, the great majestic south 
 gateway of the Katb Mosque, the Tughlak Mosque of 
 Khan Jahan at Delhi, and the later Afghan Kila Kona 
 Mosque at Indrapat, as well as the tall, domed tomb of 
 Humayun, all stand forth uncompromising, in their stern 
 severity and strict adhesion to their own ideals and 
 purposes. The palaces of Akbar, the ruins of his build- 
 ings at Fatehpur Slkri, and his own tomb, show, step by 
 step, the weakening of the vigour, and simplicity of the 
 foreign influence, the drooping of the fanaticism and 
 intolerant spirit of Muhammadanism, until, finally, the 
 palaces and tombs, with their pictured mosaics and lavish 
 decorations, of the luxurious and pleasure-loving sensualist. 
 Shah Jahan, tell not of a tolerance, but of an indifference 
 and submission to the bondage of climatic influence, which 
 all the bigotry and fanatic Muhammadanism of Aurangzlb 
 could not strive against. There were elements of danger 
 and decay underlying the whole of this spirit of toleration. 
 The climate was quickly producing its enervating effect on 
 the rude and rough soldiers who had won Babar his 
 empire. From beyond the frontiers no new recruits were 
 coming to preserve the pristine vigour of the ancestors of 
 Aurangzlb. Bijapur and Golconda had yet to be 
 conquered. The Marathas, in their mountain homes, were 
 a race waiting to rise to power, defy the whole army of 
 Aurangzlb, and sorely try the valour of British troops. The 
 proud Rajputs would support an Akbar who respected 
 
364 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 their chivalry and honour, yet their aid could easily be 
 turned into defiance. The great general of Akbar, 
 Bhagavaa Das, the Raja of Jaipur, gave his daughter 
 to the Mughal Emperor, and bears a name among the 
 Rajputs which is still " held in execration, as the first who 
 sullied Rajput purity by matrimonial alliance with the 
 Islamite."^ The successor of Akbar, born the son of a 
 Rajput princess, continued more from indifference than 
 toleration the policy of his father, a policy followed by 
 Shah Jahan, also the son of a Rajput princess, daughter of 
 the Raja of Manvar. The intolerance and bigotry of 
 Aurangzlb, however, roused the Rajputs to rebellion, and 
 Hinduism showed its power and strength when the stiff- 
 necked Aurangzlb imposed again the odious poll tax, and 
 gave orders " to all governors of provinces to destroy, with 
 a willing hand, the schools and temples of the infidels, and 
 ... to put an entire stop to the teaching and practising of 
 idolatrous forms of worship."* The effete Mughals were 
 left to continue their work of the conquest of the South, 
 with new forces rising around them on all sides, threatening 
 to sweep away the structure already undermined and sapped 
 of its strength. 
 
 Brahmanism remained with its undying vitality of 
 intellectual life to continue its own course unmoved. 
 The glorious reign of Akbar had seen an outbreak of 
 native genius that, in its own lines, rivals that seen in 
 England in Elizabethan times. In his days, his great 
 finance minister, Todar Mai, a Kshatriya of Oudh, not 
 only wrote vernacular poems himself on morals {nlti)} 
 but translated the " Bhagavata Purana " into Persian, to 
 induce the Hindus to learn that language, in which he 
 ordered that all government accounts should be kept, a 
 
 ^ Malleson, "Akbar," p. 182, quoting Tod's " Rajasthan." 
 ^ Quoted in S. Lane-Poole's " Aurangzlb," p. 135. 
 ' Grierson, " Vemac. Lit. of Hindustan," p. 35. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 365 
 
 determination that soon gave rise to the new Urdu 
 dialect. 
 
 Typical of the time is the story of Hari Nath, a poet who, 
 having received one lakh of rupees from Man Singh for 
 one verse, and two lakhs from another prince for two 
 verses, met, on his way home, " a mendicant of the Naga 
 sect, who recited a Sloka to him, at which he was so pleased 
 that he gave the beggar all the presents he had collected 
 and returned home empty-handed."^ 
 
 The two poets who stand forth as shining stars of the 
 period were the blind bard, Sur Das, and the greater poet, 
 Tulsi Das, whose life and work extended into the reign of 
 Jahangir. Mr Grierson, whose every word in criticism is 
 weighed and uttered after a thorough and unique mastery 
 of his subject in all its bearings, classes the master-pieces 
 of Sur Das and Tulsi Das as not far behind the work of 
 Spenser and Shakespeare. These two names in them- 
 selves would have made the reign of Akbar the most 
 renowned in the history of Indian literature since the 
 days of Kalidasa. Sur Das, the blind bard of Agra, sang 
 of the faith in Krishna, in his " Sur Sagar," — said to contain 
 sixty thousand verses ^ — as the deity to whom he was de- 
 voted, and who, according to popular tradition, appeared and 
 wrote down the verses as the blind poet spoke them. The 
 story goes that the poet, finding that his amanuensis wrote 
 faster than his own thoughts flew, seized the deity by the 
 hand and was thrust away, on which the poet wrote a verse 
 declaring that none but the deity himself could tear the 
 love of Krishna from his heart : — 
 
 " Thou thrustest away my hand and departest, knowing that I am 
 weak, pretending that thou art but a man, 
 But not till thou depart from my heart will I confess thee to be a 
 mortal."' 
 
 ' Grjfirson, " Literature of Hindustan," p. 39. ^ Hid., p. 24 {note j). 
 
 ^ Jbid., p. 24 (note 4). 
 
366 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Referring to verses^ of the later poet, Biharl Lai, who 
 sang, in his incomparable seven hundred lyric couplets in 
 the Braj Basha, near Mathura, the same mystic raptures 
 over the loves of Radha and Krishna as did Sur Das, 
 Mr Grierson^ has happily expressed himself, with no 
 uncertain meaning, as to the importance of a correct 
 appreciation of Eastern mysticism within its proper 
 limitations. Dealing first with the Christian expression 
 of love to God, and the answering love of God for his 
 creatures, the Eastern mode of thought is then fearlessly 
 put forward in words that must be weighed by all who 
 would read the native mind : — 
 
 " Hence the soul's devotion to the deity is pictured by Radha's self- 
 abandonment to her beloved Krishna, and all the hot blood of 
 Oriental passion is encouraged to pour forth one mighty flood 
 of praise and prayer to the Infinite Creator, who waits with 
 loving, outstretched arms to receive the worshipper into his 
 bosom, and to convey him safely to eternal rest across the seem- 
 ingly shoreless Ocean of Existence. . . . Yet I am persuaded that 
 no indecent thought entered their minds when they wrote these 
 burning words ; and to those who would protest, as I have oflen 
 heard the protest made, against using the images of the lupunar 
 in dealing with the most sacred mysteries of the soul, I can 
 only answer : — 
 
 ' War den Dichter will verstehen 
 Muss in Dichters Lande gehen.' "' 
 
 A deeper, though less mystic, expression of the deep 
 religious broodings of the people was given by Tulsi Das 
 in his rendering of Valmikl's " Ramayana," a work in which 
 he showed the latent powers of Eastern dramatic genius. 
 
 The drifting of the soul and self into a mystic dream of 
 ecstatic union with the throbbing life that beats throughout 
 the universe had found in India a congenial resting-place 
 
 1 For 1617-1667. For the "Sapta Satika" of Hala, see Von Schrader, 
 " Ind. Literature," 575. 
 
 ® The remarks of Mr Grierson in his Introduction to the edition of the 
 "SatsaiyaofBihari,"bySriLalluLalKavi(Calcutta, 1896), were unfortunately 
 received too late for more than reference here. 
 
 ' Grierson, " Satsaiya" (Introd.), p. 8. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 367 
 
 in the spiritualising by Jaya Deva of the pastoral loves of 
 Radha and Krishna. This phase of thought rose to its 
 culminating point in the raptures of such great mystics of 
 the Middle Ages as Vallabha, Mira Bai, and Bidyapati, and 
 the greater poets of Akbar's days such as Krishna Das and 
 the blind bard, Sur Das. A love and faith in Rama, a 
 more human and heroic figure than that of Krishna, and 
 the love of Sita, a more perfect and womanly love than 
 that of Radha, were the themes that inspired Ramanand, 
 Kabir, and the great master poet of North India, Tulsi Das. 
 
 The Western mode of estimating the value and influence 
 of the work is given in the words of Mr Grierson : — 
 " Pandits may talk of ' Vedas ' and of the ' Upanishads,' and 
 a few may even study them ; others may say they pin their 
 faith on the 'Puranas,' but to the vast majority of the 
 people of Hindustan, learned and unlearned alike, their sole 
 norm of conduct is the so-called ' Tulsi krit-Ramayan.' " ^ 
 
 The real title of the famed work is the "Rama 
 Charit Manas," or " Sea of Wanderings of Rama." It was 
 commenced in 1574, but the date of its completion is un- 
 known. Tulsi Das, however, died in 1624 A.D. Rama 
 represents the Supreme Being, through faith in whom all 
 intuition of Self fades away, leaving the soul in a trance- 
 like ecstasy to sink into placid oneness with the deity's 
 own true nature, the Universal Essence from which pro- 
 ceeded all Creation. 
 
 The poem of Tulsi Das was founded on the story of 
 Rama and Sita, as told in the second great epic of India, 
 the " Ramayana " of Valmlki. In the well-known " Bhakta 
 Mala," or " Legends of the Saints," by Nabha Das, giving, 
 in a hundred and eight verses, a short account of the 
 Vaishnavite poets who flourished in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries in Hindustan, one verse being given 
 to each poet, it is declared that the pronunciation of a 
 * Crieison, " Literature of Hindustan,'' p. 43. 
 
368 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 single letter of the " Ramayana " of Valmiki, written as it 
 was in the Treta Age for the salvation of mankind, would 
 suffice to save from all sin, even that of Brahman murder. 
 In the same " Legends of the Saints," Valmiki is said to 
 have appeared again on earth, in this the vile Kali Age, in 
 the person of Tulsi Das, so that a new " Ramayana " might 
 be constructed to lead mankind, as if in a boat, across the 
 ocean of endless births and re-births. 
 
 In the " Ramayana " of Valmiki, Rama was the son of 
 Da^aratha, King of Ayodhya of the Solar dynasty. As the 
 king for long had no son, a great horse sacrifice was 
 performed, and the gods thus propitiated. Rama was bom 
 to the king's first wife, Kau^alya, Bharata to the second 
 wife, Kaikeyl, and Lakshmana and Satrughna to the third 
 wife, Sumitra. 
 
 Rama, who possessed in the epic half the essence of 
 Vishnu, while still a youth, bent the wondrous bow of Siva, 
 kept by Janaka, King of Videha, and, by doing so, won as 
 his reward the king's daughter, Sita, the type of ideal love 
 and womanly grace. Through the intrigues of Kaikeyl, 
 who desired the kingdom for her son, Bharata, Rama was 
 banished by his father. King Dasaratha, from Ayodhya. 
 During the sojourn of Rama and Sita in the forest retreat, 
 Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, bore off Sita to his 
 island home where he in vain sought to win her love. 
 The recovery of Sita by Rama and his ally, Sug^Iva, King 
 of the Monkeys, who built the bridge of Rama and burned 
 down the stronghold of the demon, Ravana, has been held 
 as the metaphorical rendering of the Aryan conquest of 
 South India and Ceylon, the monkeys representing the 
 aboriginal inhabitants. The epic finds its fitting close in 
 the return of Rama and Sita to Ayodhya, and their corona- 
 tion as king and queen. 
 
 The story, however, is continued in a seventh book, 
 dramatised by Bhavabhuti in his " Qttara-Rama-Charitra," 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 369 
 
 where Rama hears of the lying rumour spread among his 
 subjects of Sita's submission to the love of Ravana. Rama, 
 though he knew the falseness of the rumour, held that a 
 king's first duty was the care of his subjects, so he banished 
 Sita from his kingdom, loth to have her share his throne 
 until all suspicion had been set at rest. In the end he 
 and Sita found once more reunion and passed to final 
 rest. 
 
 The rendering of the epic story in the " Sea of Wander- 
 ings of Rama," by Tulsi Das, stands as an abiding land- 
 mark in the literary history of North India, for not only 
 did it spread far and wide the doctrines of Ramanand, 
 and of a faith in Vishnu, but saved the people by the 
 influence of its chastened style and purity of sentiment 
 and thought from falling into the depths of that lewdness 
 and obscenity towards which the realistic rendering of the 
 mystic and spiritual loves of Radha and Krishna was ever 
 tending, and reached in Tantric and ^aivite orgies. 
 
 The mission of Tulsi Das was simply to set before the 
 people of North India, in their own vernacular, the figure 
 of Rama as a personification of the underlying Essence of 
 the Universe, as a revelation beyond the senses and reason, 
 to be received with faith, and cherished with love and 
 piety. In the commencement of his poem, Tulsi Das 
 deplores, in the orthodox manner, his own want of ability, 
 genius, or even capacity, for the theme he has undertaken. 
 He, however, proceeds with the task from the belief that 
 even an enemy would turn from censure if so exalted a 
 theme be told in clear style.^ 
 
 In terms of mysticism he then calls on the reader to 
 repeat and ponder over the name of Rama, as symbolising 
 more than mere form, as connoting all that shadows 
 forth the path along which the soul must be led before 
 every semblance of the material is spiritualised. By thus 
 
 ' Growse, K. S., " Ramayana," p. lO. 
 2 A 
 
370 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 fixing the thoughts, the soul "enjoys the incomparable 
 felicity of God, who is unspeakable, unblemished, without 
 either name or form." ^ In the first age of the world the 
 poet declared that salvation was to be found in contem- 
 plation; in the second age, in sacrifices; in the third, 
 Dvapara Age, in worship in temples, " but in this vile and 
 impure Iron Age, where the soul of man floats like a fish 
 in an ocean of sin, in these fearful times, the name is the 
 only tree of life, and by meditating on it, all commotion 
 is stilled. In these evil days neither good deeds, nor piety, 
 nor spiritual wisdom is of any avail, but only the name of 
 Rama." 2 
 
 The deep sincerity of Tulsi Das, the purest of all the 
 poets of his day, in seeking this refuge for the longings 
 of his soul, breaks forth in the words of Janaka, King of 
 Videha, whose daughter, Sita, is won by the warrior Rama : — 
 
 " O Rama how can I tell thy praise, swan of the Manas lake of the 
 Saints and Mahadeva's soul, for whose sake ascetics practise 
 their asceticism, devoid of anger, infatuation, selfishness, and 
 pride ; the all-pervading Brahman, the invisible, the immortal, 
 the Supreme Spirit, at once the sum and negation of all qualities, 
 whom neither words nor fancy can portray, whom all philosophy 
 fails to expound, whose greatness the divine oracles declare 
 unutterable, and who remainest the self-same in all times, past, 
 present, or fiiture. Source of every joy, thou hast revealed 
 thyself to my material vision ; for nothing in the world is 
 beyond the reach of him to whom God is propitious." ^ 
 
 The true power of Tulsi Das as a descriptive poet is 
 shown in his treatment of the intriguing and crafty hunch- 
 back maid of Kaikeyl, the mother of Bharata, who is led to 
 demand, on the day when Rama was to be installed as heir 
 to his father's kingdom, the fulfilment of a vow made to 
 her by the king, that her own son, Bharata, should receive 
 the inheritance, and that Rama should be banished from 
 
 1 Growse, F. S., " Ramayana," p. 15. " Ibid., p. 18. ' Ibid., p. 167. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 371 
 
 the kingdom for fourteen years. The whole poem must 
 be read if any conception is to be obtained of its artistic 
 unity and dramatic power — a power unequalled in the 
 whole history of Indian literature. 
 
 The translation of Mr Growse happily preserves the 
 spirit and the form of this almost new Indian mode of 
 thought 
 
 The handmaid of the queen Kaikey! thus prepares the 
 motive for the poem : ^ — 
 
 " Taking Kaikeyi as a victim for the slaughter, the Humpback whetted 
 the knife of treachery on her heart of stone, and the queen, 
 like a sacrificial beast that nibbles the green sward, saw not 
 the approaching danger. Pleasant to hear, but disastrous in 
 their results, her words were like honey mingled with deadly 
 poison. Says the handmaid : ' Do you or do you not, my lady, 
 remember the story you once told me of the two boons pro- 
 mised you by the king ? Ask for them now, and relieve your 
 soul : the kingdom for your son, banishment to the woods for 
 Rama. Thus shall you triumph over all your rivals. But ask 
 not till the king has sworn by Rama, so that he may not go 
 back from his word. If you let this night pass it will be too 
 late ; give heed to my words with all your heart.' . . . The 
 queen thought Humpback her best friend, and again and again 
 extolled her cleverness, saying : ' I have no such friend as you 
 in the whole world ; I had been swept away by the Flood but 
 for your support. To-morrow, if God will fulfil my desire, I 
 will cherish you, my dear, as the apple of mine eye.' Thus 
 lavishing every term of endearment on her handmaid, Kaikeyi 
 went to the dark room. Her evil temper being the soil in 
 which the servant-girl, like the rains, had sown the seed of 
 calamity which, watered by treachery, took root and sprouted 
 with the two boons as its leaves, and in the end ruin for its 
 fruit. Gathering about her every token of resentment, she 
 undid her reign by her evil counsel. But meanwhile, the palace 
 and city were given over to rejoicing, for no one knew of these 
 wicked practices." 
 
 Rama, with his wife Sita, and his brother Lakshmana, 
 ' Growse, F. S., " Ramayana," p. 191. 
 
372 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 go for fourteen years as hermits to abide in the forests, 
 where Rama is represented as a mere man, yet, by his 
 wisdom and heroic virtues, pointing out the path of duty 
 and virtue by which such of his devotees, as might realise 
 him as truly Divine, should pass over the sea of trans- 
 migration as if by a bridge. Lakshmana, as he watches 
 Rama and Sita sleeping in the forest on their bed of 
 leaves, declares the lesson to illustrate which the poem has 
 been composed. The doctrine of the delusive unreality of 
 all external form and appearance is first expounded, and 
 then Lakshmana continues : — 
 
 " Reasoning thus, be not angry with any one, nor vainly attribute blame 
 to any. All are sleepers in a night of delusion, and see many 
 kinds of dreams. In this world of darkness they only are awake 
 who detach themselves from the material, and are absorbed in 
 contemplation of the Supreme, nor can any soul be regarded 
 as aroused from slumber tiU it has renounced every sensual 
 enjoyment Then ensues spiritual enlightenment and escape 
 from the errors of delusion, and finally, devotion to Rama. 
 This ... is man's highest good — to be devoted to Rama in 
 thought, word, and deed. Rama is God, the totality of good, 
 imperishable, invisible, uncreated, incomparable, void of all 
 change, indivisible, whom the 'Veda' declares it cannot define. 
 In his mercy he has taken the form of a man, and performs 
 human actions out of the love he bears to his faithful people, 
 and to earth, and the Brahmans, and cows, and gods." ^ 
 
 Again, when the pilgrims visit Valmiki 2 in his retreat in 
 the forest, the ascetic sage declares that Rama alone is 
 lord over all gods ; that man is but a puppet, playing the 
 part allotted to him in the dream of life, not knowing the 
 eternal truth until Rama, by his grace, bestows knowledge 
 so that all may become united with the deity, with Rama 
 himself, pure joy and bliss. This grace is only vouchsafed 
 to those who simply love Rama, and not to those who beg 
 for favours. The love for Rama is summed up in the 
 
 1 Growse, F. S., " Ramayana," p. 223. "- Ibid., p. 238. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 373 
 
 words : " Perish property, house, fortune, friends, parents 
 
 kinsmen, and all that does not help to bring one to 
 
 Rama."i 
 
 The universal salvation held out by faith in Rama to all 
 
 classes of the people, irrespective of caste, is set forth in the 
 
 words : — 
 
 " Even a dog-keeper, the savage hill people, a stupid foreigner, an 
 outcast, by repeating the name of Rama becomes holy and 
 renowned throughout the world ^ . . . for he is omniscient, 
 full of meekness, tenderness, and compassion." ' 
 
 The best of all that Hinduism holds is sublimely rendered 
 in one grand hymn to Rama : * — 
 
 " I reverence thee, the lover of the devout, the merciful, the tender- 
 hearted ; I worship thy lotus feet which bestow upon the un- 
 sensual thine own abode in heaven. I adore thee, the 
 wondrously dark and beautiful ; the Mount Mandar to churn 
 the ocean of existence ; with eyes like the full-blown lotus ; the 
 dispeller of pride and every other vice ; the long-armed hero of 
 immeasurable power and glory, the mighty Lord of the three 
 spheres, equipped with quiver, and bow, and arrows ; the 
 ornament of the Solar race ; the breaker of Siva's bow ; the 
 delight of the greatest sages and saints ; the destroyer of all the 
 enemies of the gods ; the adored of Kamadeva's foe {i.e. of 
 Siva) ; the reverenced of Brahma and the other divinities ; the 
 home of enhghtened intelligence ; the dispeller of all error ; 
 Lakshmi's lord ; the mine of felicity ; the salvation of the saints. 
 I worship thee with thy spouse and thy brother, thyself the 
 younger brother of Sachi's lord. Men who unselfishly worship 
 thy holy feet sink not in the ocean of existence, tost with the 
 billows of controversy. They who, in the hope of salvation, with 
 subdued passions, ever delightedly worship thee, having dis- 
 carded every object of sense, are advanced to thy own sphere 
 in Heaven. I worship thee, the one, the mysterious Lord, the 
 unchangeable and omnipresent power, the eternal governor of 
 the world, the one absolute and universal spirit ; the joy of all 
 men day after day. I reverently adore thee, the king of incom- 
 parable beauty, the lord of the earth-born Sita ; be gracious to 
 me and grant me devotion to thy lotus feet." 
 
 ' Growje, F. S., "Ramayana," 264. "^ Ibid., 268. 
 
 ' Ibid., 271. * Ibid., 335. 
 
374 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Under the indifferent tolerance of Jahangir, the able, 
 though drunken and debauched, son and successor of 
 Akbar, this faith in the saving aid of Rama was taught 
 by Tulsi Das in North India, by the disciples of Dadu,^ 
 a cotton cleaner of Ahmadabad, throughout Ajmere and 
 Rajputana. 
 
 The long and peaceful thirty years' reign of Shah Jahan 
 left to the country prosperity, and to the emperor, in his 
 later days, wealth and leisure to build, at Delhi, his great 
 fort and palace, and the stately Juma Musjid, or " Great 
 Mosque." At Agra, the chastened beauties of the Gem 
 and Pearl Mosques, the magnificence, pomp, and splendour 
 of the palaces, long the wonder of the world for their 
 mosaics set in precious stones, depicting flowers, and 
 fruits, and birds, even human faces and figures, some 
 the work of Italian or Florentine artists, the stories 
 left by travellers of the Peacock Throne and its inlaid 
 sapphires, rubies, pearls, and emeralds, all give evidence 
 of the easy luxury of the times. The Taj built by Shah 
 Jahan to his devoted wife, Muntaj Mahal, the mother of 
 his fourteen children, remains, for the Mughals, the great 
 memorial of how their fierce wrath and lust for war and 
 plunder fell on gentle sleep in the soothing plains of India. 
 On the death of Shah Jahan, his vast treasures and empire 
 fell to his third son, Aurangzib, the ascetic saint and 
 bigoted adherent of Islam. The new emperor, in his 
 fanatic zeal for the Sunni faith, changed the Deccan from 
 a Dar-al-Hab to a Dar-al-Islam, and by his poll tax on all 
 Hindus, whose idolatry he hated, turned the Rajputs from 
 supporters of his throne to sullen foes. The Sikhs he 
 changed from caste followers of the meek and humble pre- 
 cepts of the " Adi Granth " of their first Guru, Nanak, to a 
 race of fiercest fighting men, who gave up all claim to caste, 
 
 ' Founder of the Dadu Panthi sect, who worship Rama from a Vedantic 
 standpoint. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 375 
 
 so that, under their tenth Guru, Govind Singh, they might 
 unite " to wreak bloody revenge on the murderers of his 
 father, to subvert totally the Muhammadan power and to 
 found a new empire upon its ruins." ^ By his cold contempt 
 for Sivajl, " the Mountain Rat," he allowed the wily chieftain 
 — the protector of all " Brahmans and cows " — to weld the 
 Maratha peasantry into roving bands of predatory soldiers 
 with a burning religious zeal and hatred of Muhamma- 
 danism, until they grew into a power capable of exacting 
 a tribute of one-fourth of all the revenue up to the limits 
 of the English factory at Surat,^ away to the " Maratha 
 ditch," which had to be dug around Calcutta as a defence 
 against their raids. 
 
 While Aurangzlb wasted his strength and resources in 
 futile efforts to reduce the last two strongholds of in- 
 dependent rule in South India, hejd by the representatives 
 of the Katb Shahi dynasty at Golconda, and the Adil 
 Shahi dynasty at Bijapur, the people of the Panjab had 
 welded themselves into a bond of the fiercest warriors 
 the English ever met in India, while the Marathas were 
 laughing at the feeble efforts of the emperor to follow 
 their quick course. 
 
 Nanak, the founder of the religious faith of the Sikhs, 
 was born of Hindu peasant parents in the year 1469, at a 
 village named Talvandl, on the banks of the Ravi, not 
 far from Lahore. Following close on the lines of his 
 predecessor Kablr, a large number of whose verses are 
 included in the "Adi Granth," the first utterances of 
 Nanak which stirred the fanatic fury of both Hindu and 
 Muhammadans against him were: "There is no Hindu 
 and no Musalman." * Of his real life but little is known. 
 He is said to have visited Ceylon, thence returned home 
 
 ' Trumpp, Ernest, "Adi Granth," p. xc. 
 
 * Burned as far as the English factory by Sivaji in 1664. 
 
 ' Trumpp, Ernest, "Adi Granth," p. iv. 
 
376 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 performed miracles, and to have been captured by the 
 troops of Babar, on the conquest of the Panjab in 1524, 
 and then to have been released.^ Before his death, in 
 1538 A.D., he appointed his servant and disciple, Lahana, 
 to succeed him as Guru in his teachings, though it was not 
 until the time of the fifth Guru, Arjuna, that the writings of 
 Nanak and his successors were collected into the " Sikh Adi 
 Granth," or Scriptures, held to be of Divine revelation. The 
 system inculcated by Nanak, the first Sikh, was, in its 
 essentials, that taught by the "Bhagavad Gita," by Kabir, 
 and by Vedantism. 
 
 It was the worship of One Supreme Being, manifesting 
 itself in a plurality of forms, under the power of Maya, or 
 delusion, which produces the fallacious appearance of duality. 
 To the Sikh, this Supreme Being was known as " Brahm, 
 the Supreme Brahm, Paramesur, ' the Supreme Lord,' and 
 especially Hari, Ram, Govind."^ 
 
 " All is Govind, all is G5vind ; without Govind there is no other. 
 As in one string there are seven thousand beads (so), is that Lord 
 
 lengthwise and crosswise. 
 A wave of water, froth, and bubble, do not become separate from the 
 
 water. 
 This world is the sport of the Supreme Brahm, playing about he does 
 
 not become another."' 
 
 Like all Vedantic and Eastern Pantheistic teaching the 
 system of Nanak had no quarrel with Hindu idolatry 
 and the gods of the Hindu Pantheon. The various forms 
 in which the Supreme Being manifests itself as sport, 
 through the delusion of Maya, were, however, not to be 
 mistaken for the real, uncreated, invisible, incomprehensible, 
 and indescribable Essence : — 
 
 ' Trumpp, "Adi Granth," p. v. 
 ^ Ibid., p. icviii. 
 ^ Jbid., p. xcix. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 377 
 
 " Kablr says : A stone is made the Lord, the whole world worships 
 
 it. 
 
 Who remains in reliance on this, is drowned in the black 
 stream." ^ 
 
 The position has been clearly put by Ernest Trumpp, 
 the late learned translator of the " Adi Granth " — a work 
 no Sikh Guru could read until he had first prepared a 
 grammar and dictionary of the old Hindu dialect, for, 
 as he records, " the Sikhs, in consequence of their former 
 warlike manner of life, and the troublous times, had lost all 
 learning." ^ According to his view 
 
 " It is a mistake if Nanak is represented as having endeavoured to 
 unite the Hindu and Muhammadan idea about God. Nanak 
 remained a thorough Hindu, according to all his views, and 
 if he had communionship with Musalmans, and many of these 
 even became his disciples, it was owing to the fact that Sufism, 
 which all these Muhammadans were professing, was, in reality, 
 nothing but a Pantheism, derived directly from Hindu sources, 
 and only outwardly adapted to the forms of the Islam. Hindu 
 and Muslim Pantheists could well unite together as they enter- 
 tained essentially the same ideas about the Supreme ; the Hindu 
 mythology was not pressed on the Musalmans, as the Hindu 
 philosophers themselves laid no particular stress upon it. On 
 these grounds tolerance between Hindus and Turks is often 
 advocated in the ' Granth,' and intolerance on the part of the 
 Turks rebuked."^ 
 
 The Nirvana, or absorption of the Soul into the Supreme 
 Essence, was to be obtained by meditation on, and repeat- 
 ing of, the name and qualities of the Supreme Being, Hari, 
 which must be taught by the Sikh Guru : — 
 
 "After the true Guru is found, no wandering (in transmigration) 
 takes place, the pain of birth and death ceases. 
 From the perfect word all knowledge is obtained, he (the disciple) 
 remains absorbed in the name of Hari." * 
 
 ^ Trumpp, "Adi Granth," p. ci. 
 '•* Ibid. (Prejace), p. vi. 
 ' Ibid. . D. ci. 
 
 ' Ibid. , p. ci. 
 * Ibid., p. 95. 
 
378 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Devotion to the Guru and faith in his teachings, lead to 
 the true knowledge of Brahman and the power of Maya, 
 whence flows freedom from all delusion of duality : — 
 
 " In whose heart there is faith in the Guru : 
 Into that man's mind comes Hari, the Lord. 
 That devotee is heard of in the three worlds, ' 
 In whose heart the One is. 
 True is his work, true his conduct, 
 In whose heart the True One is, who utters the True One 
 
 with his mouth. 
 True is his look, true his impression. 
 That the True One exists, that his expansion is true. 
 Who considers the Supreme Brahm as true : 
 That man is absorbed in the True One, says Nanak." ^ 
 
 Though Nanak received all men without respect of 
 caste, and claimed for himself no divinity, no sanctity of 
 learning, the power placed in the hands of the Gurus soon 
 led to their very deification as the form of the Supreme 
 Being itself 
 
 In the days (1581-1606) of the fifth Guru, Arjuna, the 
 verses of Nanak, and the later saints and Gurus, were 
 collected in the " Adi Granth," as the guide to the people, 
 whose hitherto voluntary contributions to the Guru were 
 reduced to a form of regulated taxation. Arjuna himself 
 grew in wealth ; the Sikh faith spread fast throughout the 
 Jat population of the Panjab, until at length the fears of 
 Jahanglr were roused. The Guru was arrested, imprisoned 
 at Lahore, and there, it is said, he died from torture 
 and ill-treatment. Guru Har Govind (1606-1638), the son 
 of Arjuna, roused the Sikh disciples to arms against the 
 murderers of his father, and sent them forth to blackmail 
 the local governors of the Mughal emperor. Shah Jahan, and 
 retaliate for the insults levied on the Sikh Gurus. The 
 ninth Guru, Teg Bahadur (1664-1675), was seized by the 
 fanatic, Aurangzlb, at Delhi, cast into prison, and there 
 1 "Adi Granth," p. 407. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 379 
 
 cruelly tortured along with some Brahmans, in hopes that 
 they might consent to embrace the Muhammadan faith. 
 The Guru in despair, and wearied of his tortures, bowed 
 his head before the keen sword of a Sikh disciple, his 
 companion in misfortune, sending word to his son, GSvind 
 Singh, the tenth and last Guru, to avenge his death : — 
 
 " My strength is exhausted, fetters have fallen upon me, there is no 
 means of escape left ; 
 Nanak says : Now Hari is my refuge, like an elephant he will become 
 my helper." ^ 
 
 Guru Govind Singh first summoned from Benares some 
 Brahmans to prepare him for the course he had set be- 
 fore him — a religious war against Muhammadanism and 
 Aurangzlb. The aid of Durga, the blood-loving wife of 
 Siva, the favourite deity worshipped by Govind Singh, had 
 first to be gained. One of his disciples offered himself as a 
 sacrifice to Durga, and on his head being presented to the 
 goddess, it is fabled that she appeared and promised 
 success to the sect of the Sikhs. Five more disciples 
 offered themselves as further sacrifices. Sherbet, stirred 
 by a two-edged dagger, was given them to drink. The 
 Guru drank himself, his disciples followed, and all were thus 
 initiated as the first members of the Khalsa, or "special 
 property of the Guru." To every disciple the name of 
 Singh, or " Lion," was given. Their vows were : Not to cut 
 their hair, to carry a comb, a knife, and sword, and to wear 
 breeches reaching to the knee. To gather in all the 
 people into one united body opposed to Muhammadans, 
 Govind Singh abolished caste, and wrote for his followers 
 a " Granth " of his own to " rouse their military valour and 
 inflame them to deeds of courage." ^ 
 
 Sivajl, the welder of the Marathas of the Deccan and 
 
 ^ A couplet in the " Granth," written by Teg Bahadur, quoted by Thornton 
 m J.R.A.S., vol. xvii. p. 393. 
 2 " Adi Granth," p. xci. 
 
38o LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 West Coast into a band of robbers and fierce fighting men, 
 was wise enough to use the same power of religious en- 
 thusiasm for his own purposes. Crafty, fierce, and deter- 
 mined, he had early taken as his Guru the Brahman 
 Ramadas, so that he might be the acknowledged champion 
 of Brahmanism against Islam. 
 
 For long the Marathas had slumbered in peace, tilled 
 their fields, and worshipped their idol, Vithoba,* whose praises 
 the great emotional poet of the Marathas, Tuka Rama,^ 
 a Sudra of Poona, sang in his five thousand hymns : — 
 
 " Sing the song with earnestness, making pure the heart ; 
 If you would attain God, then this is an easy way. 
 Make your heart lowly, touch the feet of saints, 
 Of others do not hear the good or bad quality, nor think of them. 
 Tuka says : Be it much or little, do good to others." ' 
 
 The policy of Sivaji was not wholly the outcome of 
 his cunning. Like all Hindus, he had his own strong 
 religious convictions, and these inspired many of his 
 actions. His power he professedly held as the gift of 
 his Guru, Ramadas. All his wealth and kingdom he 
 placed at the feet of the Brahman, and would only receive 
 it back as a gift, holding himself as the disciple and 
 servant of his Guru, a position indicated by the flag his 
 horsemen carried, the "red ochre-coloured cloth worn by 
 Sanyasis." * To Tuka Rama, the Sudra poet of the Maratha 
 nation, he sent a message, accompanied by a retinue of 
 servants, elephants, horses, and the state umbrella, begging 
 the favour of a visit, only to receive back the answer from 
 
 ^ Dr Murray Mitchell, "Hinduism,"' p. 170, for an account of the deity 
 who derives his name from standing on a brick, and described by Tuka as 
 " beautiful is that object, upright on the brick, resting his hand on his loin." 
 
 * "Poems of Tuka Rama," edited by Vishnu Parashuram Shastri Pandit 
 (Bombay, 1869). 
 
 ' Quoted from Sir A. Grant's translation in Fortnightly Review (1867). 
 
 * "Poems of Tuka Rama," p. 16. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 381 
 
 the preacher of a salvation to the Maratha nation, through 
 a faith in Krishna, worshipped under the form of Vithoba : — 
 
 "Brahma has created this Universe, making it the scene of his 
 
 diversion and skill. 
 I observe an amiableness in thy letter which proves thee 
 A child of skilfulness, devout in faith and wise, with a heart 
 
 devotedly loving thy spiritual guide. 
 The holy name 'Siva' was rightly given thee, since thou art the 
 
 throned monarch of the people, the holder of the strings of 
 
 their destiny. 
 
 What pleasure is there in paying a visit? The days of life are 
 
 fleeting past. 
 Having known one or two duties which are the real Essence, I shall 
 
 now live in my own delusion. 
 The meaning of the whole which will do thee good is this — God is 
 
 the all-pervading soul in every created object. 
 Live with thy mind unforgetful of the all-pervading soul, and witness 
 
 thyself in Ramadasa. 
 Blessed is thy existence on earth, O king, thy fame and praise 
 
 extend over the three worlds." 
 
 Like all great reformers Tuka Rama had to suffer bitter 
 persecution : — 
 
 " It was well, O God, that I became bankrupt ; it was well that famine 
 
 afSicted me. 
 The deep sorrow which they produced kept in me the recollection 
 
 of thee, and made worldly pursuits nauseating to me. 
 It was well, O God, that my wife was a vixen ; it was well that I 
 
 came to such a miserable plight among the people. 
 It was well that I was dishonoured in the world ; it was well that 
 
 I lost my money and cattle. 
 It was well that I did not feel worldly shame ; it was well that I 
 
 surrendered myself to thee, O God. 
 It was well that I made thy temple my abode, neglecting children 
 
 and wife." 
 
 Being a Sudra, Tuka Rama had to win his way against 
 Brahmanic opposition, and by his preaching, singing, and 
 simple life rouse the slumbering spirit of the Maratha 
 nation. The potential force of such a movement is too 
 
382 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 often lost sight of by those who judge Indian life from a 
 Western standpoint. 
 
 In the life of the poet ^ by a native scholar accustomed 
 to Western modes of thought, and trained to a Western 
 respect for historic accuracy, the living power of a force 
 exercised by such a character as Tuka Rama is clearly 
 indicated by the estimation given of his influence on the 
 movements of the time : — 
 
 " By that inherent force of truth to triumph, and to outlive, and by 
 that unforeseen and unexpected succour which the truly faithful 
 and sincere receive from quarters unknown, call it miracle or 
 anything else, Tuka Rama and his poemsoutlived his persecutors 
 and inculcated in the Maratha nation the great doctrine of 
 ' Salvation by Faith.'" 
 
 It was Maratha daring, Rajput chivalry, and the stubborn 
 heroism of Sikh soldiery that England had to meet before 
 it conquered India, and the West may rest assured that the 
 awakening of a spirit of revolt in India will be first 
 presaged by a wide-spread religious movement, broad 
 enough in its basis, and popular enough in its forms, to 
 enrol the sympathies of the mass of the people. All other 
 movements must fall to pieces for want of strength, unity, 
 or cohesion, or motive power.^ 
 
 When the unloved and worn-out king crept back to 
 Ahmadnagar to die in 1707, after twenty-six years' weary 
 efforts to hold the Deccan free from Maratha raids, he 
 wailed forth, in a letter to his son, Azim,* the sad downfall 
 of all his hopes and the wreck of his empire : — 
 
 " I am grown very old and weak, and my limbs are feeble. Many 
 were around me when I was bom, but now I am going alone. 
 
 * By Janardan Sakharam Gadgil, B.A., prefixed to the "Poems of Tuka 
 Rama" (1869), p. 12. 
 
 "^ This was written before the Maratha outrages of Poona, towards the end 
 of June. Much uneasiness might have been assuaged, and much hasty counsel 
 ignored, if a wider insight into Indian life and history was more prevalent than 
 it seems to be at present. 
 
 ' Quoted in S. Lane-Poole's " Aurangzib," p. 203. 
 
THE FOREIGNER IN THE LAND 383 
 
 1 know not why I am, or wherefore I came into the world. I 
 bewail the moments which I have spent forgetful of God's 
 worship. I have not done well by the country or its people. 
 My years have gone by profitless. God has been in my heart, 
 yet my darkened eyes have not recognised His light. The army 
 is confounded, and without heart or help even as I am. . . . 
 Come what will, I have launched my bark upon the waters. 
 Farewell ! " 
 
 Not one hundred years later the EngHsh took from out 
 the keeping of his Maratha captors, the blind Shah Alam, 
 " King of the World," and the feeble remnant of Mughal 
 supremacy passed under British power. The tragedy was 
 well played out. The relentless sword of Babar was 
 sheathed by Akbar, its handle set with precious gems, and 
 the scabbard cased in velvet by Shah Jahan. When 
 AurangzTb once more drew the blade to proclaim a Jihad, 
 or " Holy War," against all infidels, he found that the 
 fanatic faith that fired his soul would call on God in vain 
 to brighten up the blade and steel the edge, for the might 
 that clove a way for Babar's Mughal hosts was not the 
 arm of God, but the fierce Northern strength of race and 
 clime that had long since passed away from the debauched 
 and effeminate nobles and followers of Aurangzib, who 
 were left in their vain crusade without hope or help. 
 India fell not from Mughal sway to the divided rule and 
 contending claims of Rajput, Maratha, or Sikh ; it fell to 
 a power able to hold all North India, from Calcutta to 
 Bombay, and all south of the Vindhya range, secure from 
 inward strife of race, religion, caste, or sect ; powerful 
 enough to protect it from all foreign invasion, and wise 
 enough never to allow its manhood to decay by long 
 residence or settlement in a clime where race after race 
 of Northern conquerors, Aryan, Pathan, Mughal, Turk, 
 and Portuguese have sunk to soothing rest in the sun- 
 steeped plains. 
 
CHAPTER XV, 
 
 THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW, 
 
 Every ten years the Government of India presents to the 
 House of Commons a statement of the " Moral and Material 
 Progress and Condition of India " during the nine preceding 
 years. A similar statement, presented annually, shows the 
 progress and change made during the year under review. 
 
 These statements give a graphic description of the 
 frontiers and protected states. They contain a detailed 
 account of the administration, of the laws, legislation, 
 litigation, and crime. They give full information regarding 
 the sources of revenue, trade, commerce, and manufactures, 
 the outlay on, and income from, public works, vital 
 statistics, and sanitation, and include tables of net revenue 
 and expenditure, as well as a short account of public 
 instruction, literature, and the Press. The statements set 
 forth the salient features of the administrative machinery 
 working for the advancement of the material improvement 
 of the community. It, however, remains a task outside the 
 scope and limits of a Blue Book to discern and chronicle in 
 how far a Western civilisation has wrought changes of a 
 permanent character in the religious or moral feeling of the 
 
 384 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 385 
 
 people, or infused a new intellectual life into the 
 traditional modes of thought that had satisfied the 
 brooding spirit of Brahmanical and indigenous genius, 
 so long overwhelmed by the sea of Muhammadan 
 conquest 
 
 In how far, it might be asked, would the people of India, 
 if left to govern themselves, undisturbed by foreign invasion 
 or internal anarchy, carry out the ideals of a progressive 
 civilisation, working for the amelioration of the lot of 
 mankind ? Would commerce thrive, or would it drift into a 
 condition where none of the agricultural produce would be 
 forthcoming for exportation, in exchange for the manu- 
 factures, metals, hardware, etc., of the West ? Would India 
 submit to religious intolerance, and a corrupt administra- 
 tion, after having been accustomed to the impartiality and 
 justice of a British rule? Would the great works of irriga- 
 tion be neglected and allowed to fall into decay? Would 
 railways, and all efforts for sanitary improvement be 
 abandoned if bereft of Western control ? Would famine be 
 allowed to devastate the land, and no efforts be made for 
 a widespread organised relief, or medical skill be no 
 more forthcoming to combat the ravages of pestilence and 
 disease? Would caste once again forge its bonds, and 
 enslave the people? Would superstition regain its old 
 sway, and customs, abhorrent to humanity, be honoured 
 as in days of old ? Would India, in fact, drift back into 
 a stationary condition of society as the final outcome of 
 three hundred years of Western effort for its moral and 
 material progress, or has she had implanted in her any- 
 thing of the vital principles of energetic strife for advance in 
 the history of the nations of the world ? It may be laid 
 down as a truism, that nothing of permanent good that has 
 once been brought into contact with the East will be wholly 
 thrown away or rejected. The subtle brain of the Eastern 
 will patiently, all too slowly for unimaginative and hasty 
 
 2 B 
 
386 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Westerns, sift everything, assimilate what it finally discerns 
 to be best suited for its own purposes, ultimately accreting 
 nothing to itself, which with its own unfailing instinct it 
 feels to be antagonistic to the conditions whereby it has its 
 own existence. 
 
 Difficult as the task must always be, even if for the greater 
 part it be not altogether impossible, to ascertain in how far 
 the literature, architecture, science, and religions of India 
 have been moulded or impressed by foreign influences — 
 Accadian, Macedonian, Scythian, Muhammadan, Mughal, 
 or Portuguese — still more difficult is it to discriminate in 
 how far British rule in India has worked towards im- 
 planting new ideals destined to advance the moral and 
 intellectual condition of the people. At the present 
 day the evidence is so evasive and slight, so localised and 
 difficult to discern, that it must remain more a matter of 
 opinion ^ and feeling, than of proof, as to how far the people 
 of India have been influenced by the new world of thought 
 opened up to the educated natives through the medium of 
 English education. The surest evidence is to be found in 
 the literature which the thought of the time has produced. 
 If the best of that literature indicates that new modes of 
 thought and expression have been created, it may with 
 confidence be expected that such a literature is yet destined, 
 not only to remain an inalienable possession of the people, 
 but also to abide as an influence for furthering the in- 
 tellectual and moral advancement of the community. The 
 means taken by the British Government to advance the 
 intellectual life of the people, and what has been recorded 
 as a result in the literature of the country, can only be 
 summarised and indicated. It must remain for the future 
 
 ' Sir Alfred Lyall has recently held that : " To no foreign observer, therefore, 
 are sufBcient materials available for making any sure and comprehensive esti- 
 mate of the general movement or direction of ideas during the last forty years." 
 — Nineteenth Century (June 1897). 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 387 
 
 to disclose whether, as claimed by the natives them- 
 selves, 
 
 " We are just accommodating ourselves to environment that has hither- 
 to been so unfavourable to the development of creative power. 
 Within a quarter of a century more we shall be quite at home 
 in our surroundings. Our future is a glorious one. Let nil 
 desperandutn be our motto, and we shall yet show to the 
 civilised world that we are not only apt zxA facile imitators, but 
 that we have genius for original intellectual work, and that we 
 can produce results that will even excel the past splendours of 
 Hindu literature and art." ' 
 
 or whether, as has been urged, the Indian genius is 
 effete, and no signs have as yet come to show that an 
 infusion of new life and thought has had any power to 
 rouse it to creative purposes. 
 
 The world presents no problem more interesting or more 
 momentous. On its solution depends in history the final 
 judgment on the success of England's mission in the East. 
 The entire industrial resources of modern scientific days, 
 the best of the intellectual heritage handed down from 
 Semitic, Grecian, and Roman genius, are borne to India 
 from the West, and yet the result of all these forces 
 seems to remain within the realm of doubt and con- 
 troversy. The forces are those on which the future hopes 
 of the world are founded, and India can no more refuse 
 to bend before them, than the West can refuse to recognise 
 and accept the returning gift of her long record of how 
 humanity, in its rest and quiet, has wearily turned from all 
 that Nature can bestow, and probably all that she can 
 disclose of her deepest mysteries to the intelligence of man, 
 for some solution of the problem that lies nearest and 
 dearest to him — that of himself, and of his aspirations 
 towards some ideal completeness of life. 
 
 As yet the long past that has culminated in a Western 
 
 1 S. Satthianadhan, M.A., LL.D. (Cantab.), "What has English Education 
 done for India ? " Indian Magazine and Review (November 1896). 
 
388 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 civilisation, still on its rapid progress towards strange 
 changes, has but clashed with the dead inertia of an 
 Eastern civilisation that drags its heavy weight of tradition, 
 time-worn philosophies, creeds, and customs behind it, 
 restraining all its best endeavours for progress and advance. 
 
 Only one hundred years ago, in 1797, Charles Grant 
 presented to the Court of Directors a treatise, written in 
 1792, in which he laid down the truth that "although in 
 theory it never can have been denied that the welfare of 
 our Asiatic subjects ought to be the object of our solicitude, 
 yet, in practice, this acknowledged truth has been but slowly 
 followed up."^ He further states that "we have been 
 satisfied with the apparent submissiveness of the people, 
 and have attended chiefly to the maintenance of our 
 authority over the country, and the augmentation of our 
 commerce and revenues, but have never, with a view to 
 the promotion of their happiness, looked thoroughly into 
 their internal state." He proposed a scheme for future 
 guidance which included the gradual instruction of the 
 people in English and their education,"let not the idea hastily 
 excite derision, progressively with the simple elements of 
 our arts, our philosophy, and religions." By the intro- 
 duction of English into the business of Government, 
 " wherein Persian is now used," it was hoped that the use 
 of the language would by degrees become general; that 
 habits of correct reasoning on natural phenomena would 
 be inculcated, natural philosophy diffused, the art of 
 invention promoted, and finally, Christianity would triumph 
 over superstition, idolatry, and the universal depravity of 
 the native population. 
 
 In 1781 Warren Hastings had given evidence of his 
 statesmanship by founding the Calcutta Madrissa, or 
 Muhammadan College, for the purpose of promoting the 
 
 ' Syed Mahmoud, " Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic 
 Subjects of Great Britain, etc.," p. 11. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 389 
 
 study of Arabic and Persian and the Muhammadan law, 
 so as to educate natives for the Courts of Justice.^ 
 
 Three years later Sir William Jones gave the inaugural 
 discourse at a meeting of thirty gentlemen, called in 
 Calcutta for the purpose of instituting a society for 
 enquiring into the history, civil and natural, the antiquities, 
 arts, sciences, and literature of Asia — a society established 
 under the name of the " Asiatic Society." Warren Hastings 
 was invited to be the first president, an honour he declined, 
 whereon the office fell to Sir William Jones, who remained 
 president down to his death, in 1794. In 1791, Mr Jonathan 
 Duncan, Resident at Benares, endowed the Sanskrit College 
 at Benares for the teaching of Hindu law, as well as Hindu 
 literature. 
 
 The two Lithuanian and Danish Lutheran missionaries, 
 Ziegenbalg and Plutschau, both sent out from the University 
 of Halle in 1706 to the Danish Settlement at Tranquebar, 
 had translated the Gospel of St Matthew into the dialect of 
 Malabar as early as 1714.^ The efforts of these missions were 
 largely supported by the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge, under whom Schwartz worked in Tanjore, 
 founding the Tinnevelly Mission, from his arrival in 1750. 
 
 More important in its effects were the efforts made by 
 the Baptists, whose first missionary, William Carey, landed 
 in Bengal in 1794,* to be followed in 1799 by the two 
 famed Baptist missionaries, Marshman and Ward, who 
 
 1 " Previous to the enunciation of this view, Warren Hastings had, in 1773, 
 summoned eleven Brahmans to Calcutta, and directed them to compile a text 
 comprising all the customs of the Hindus, so that it might be translated into 
 Persian for the use of the Court, and he appointed Hindu and Muhammadan 
 advisers to the European judges to expound the laws and customs of the people, 
 the first movement for an intellectual understanding of the literature of India 
 by the Company. " — " Papers relating to the affairs of India " (General Appendix 
 I.: Public, 1832). 
 
 ^ The translation of the Bible into Tamil was completed in 1725 by Schultze, 
 the successor of Ziegenbalg. 
 
 8 Hunter, "Indian Empire," p. 313. 
 
390 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 found a safe refuge from the East India Company at the 
 Danish Settlement at Serampur, fifteen miles from Calcutta,i 
 There their endeavours for the conversion and education 
 of the natives in the vernaculars of the country continued 
 in spite of the Despatch of the Court of Directors in 1808 
 (7th December), declaring their policy of strict neutrality 
 in all matters religious, and in spite of the contempt thrown 
 on their efforts at home. 
 
 In England ^ it was feared that any efforts at conversion 
 would lead to insurrection and a risk to the Empire. It 
 was also urged that if once the Hindu faith was undermined, 
 no fresh principles of faith would be engrafted on the 
 converted natives, who would become merely nominal 
 Christians. In spite of all these discouragements Carey 
 and Marshman cast their own type, and, in 1822, started 
 the first vernacular newspaper in India, the Samdchdr 
 Barpan, the first* English newspaper, Ricky's Gazetteer 
 having appeared in 1780. 
 
 The Bible was soon printed in twenty-six vernaculars, 
 including Bengali, Marathi, and Tamil, and in 1801 Carey 
 was appointed, by Lord Wellesley, Professor of Bengali, 
 Marathi, and Sanskrit at the new college of Fort St 
 William. There he continued his work, issuing numerous 
 books from the press, including an edition of the 
 " Ramayana " in three volumes, the " Mahabharata," and a 
 Bengali newspaper, while at the same time he established 
 upwards of twenty schools for the education of native 
 children.* 
 
 ' It was at this time also that H. J. Colebrooke, who had landed in 1782 as 
 a writer in the Company's service in Bengal, commenced his series of contribu- 
 tions to the "Researches" of the Asiatic Society towards Oriental learning. 
 In 1794 he produced his treatise on the duties of a "Faithful Hindu Widow," 
 in connection with the controversy on SatI, followed in 1798 by his " Digest 
 of Hindu Law," and in 1805 by his " Grammar," founded on the rules of 
 Panini. 
 
 ^ Edinburgh Review, 1808. ' Contemporary Review, vol. xxxvii. 458. 
 
 ^ R. C. Dutt, " History of the Literature of Bengal," p. 136. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 391 
 
 The clear and patent evidence that a new spirit was 
 working among the people was the appearance of the first 
 great reformer and apostle of modern India. Ram Mohun 
 Roy, who lived and died a Brahman, was born in 1774 at 
 Radhanagar, in the district of Hughli. In his own village 
 he read Persian, proceeded to Patna to learn Arabic, 
 and thence to Benares to study, in Sanskrit, the 
 " Upanishads," and " Vedanta." In 1790, at the age of six- 
 teen, he produced — probably as much under Muhammadan 
 influence as any other — a treatise antagonistic to the 
 idolatrous religion of the Hindus,^ in which he laid the 
 first foundations of a prose literature in his own vernacular, 
 that of Bengali. As Ram Mohun Roy wrote himself : — 
 
 "After my father's death I opposed the advocates of idolatry with 
 still greater boldness. Availing myself of the art of printing, 
 now established in India, I published various works and 
 pamphlets against their (the advocates of idolatry) errors, in 
 the native and foreign languages. ... I endeavoured to show 
 that the idolatry of the Brahmans was contrary to the practice 
 of their ancestors, and the principles of their ancient books." ^ 
 
 After three years spent in Thibet to study Buddhism, he 
 returned home and commenced the study of English, a 
 language he afterwards wrote with a grace, ease, and 
 precision that led Jeremy Bentham to declare that he 
 wished that the style of James Mill had been equal to it.* 
 
 In other phases of thought the unrest, the waking-up to 
 face the increasing pressure of the West, was equally 
 apparent and no less real. The literature of India at the 
 commencement of the nineteenth century was, for the most 
 part, religious, devoted to mystic raptures over Rama and 
 Krishna. What may be called a new impulse was given 
 
 1 Max Miiller, in "Biographical Essays," p. IJ, doubts the authenticity of 
 the book [see note l). 
 
 2 Carpenter, M., " Last Days in England of Ram Mohun Roy," p. 19. 
 ■ s Putt, R. C., " History of the Literature of Bengal," p. 149. 
 
392 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 by the introduction of printing into India, about the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 
 In 1803, Lallu Ji Lai, by the advice of Dr John Gilchrist, 
 wrote his "Prem Sagar," printed in 1809, in a new language, 
 Hindi, in which the Urdu of the camp^ was taken as the 
 model, with all its Persian and Arabic words omitted, their 
 place being supplied by Sanskrit words, so that it could be 
 used for prose of a literary character but not for poetry. 
 
 In Bengal, Ram Mohun Roy used the vernacular Bengali 
 for his prose writings, commencing in 1790 with his early 
 essay against idolatry, but neither in this nor in his later 
 writings on the "Vedanta," translations of the "Upanishads," 
 in r8i6 and 1817, and subsequent polemics on the subject 
 of widow-burning, did the language show any adaptability 
 for becoming a medium to express his views so clearly and 
 gracefully as he was enabled to express them in his 
 Sanskrit and English writings. He but showed that the 
 vernaculars were capable of being used for literary prose 
 purposes, for, before his time, they had been used merely 
 for poetic effusions. 
 
 When Ram Mohun Roy commenced to write, few 
 Europeans, and probably fewer natives in Bengal outside 
 the Brahman caste, knew anything of the ancient Vedic 
 texts. Ram Mohun Roy wrote, in 18 16, regarding the 
 universal system of idolatry : — 
 
 " Hindus of the present age, with very few exceptions, have not the 
 least idea that it is to the attributes of the Supreme Being, as 
 figuratively represented by shapes corresponding to the nature 
 
 ^ Urdu itself is the camp language, with its structure and grammar framed 
 on that of the North Indian dialects ; most of the substantiTes are foreign 
 words, which were mostly Persian or Arabic when the language was used by 
 the Muhammadans for literary purposes. When this Urdu is deleted of most 
 of its foreign words, and words of common use from the local vernaculars are 
 inserted, the lingua franca of all India, the Hindustani is arrived at, a language 
 of common use for speaking all over North India, and also largely in the 
 South. — See Gri?rson, Calcutta Review (October 1895), p. 265. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NE W 393 
 
 of these attributes, they offer adoration and worship under the 
 denomination of god and goddess." ' 
 
 His mission was a wide one and ably he filled it. He 
 had first to create a new prose literature, to raise his own 
 vernacular to the dignity of a medium for inculcating 
 among the uninstructed mass of the people not only what 
 he found suited to his own national instincts in the 
 learning of the West, but what he deemed worthy of 
 preservation in the sacred writings of his own race. 
 
 The work of perfecting the use of Bengali for literary 
 purposes was carried on by Isvara Chandra Gupta, who 
 started the monthly Sambad Prabhakar in 1830, a journal 
 in which his own poetry, not of a very high order, as well 
 as his prose translations from the Sanskrit, and lives of 
 Bengali poets, appeared from time to time, along with the 
 writings of a class of rising authors. In a Minute of 181 1 
 Lord Minto had drawn public attention to the deplorable 
 decay of literature in India, due to a want of patronage 
 from either the princes, chieftains, rich natives, or the 
 Government itself, and advised the establishment of 
 colleges in various places for the restoration of Hindu 
 science, and literature, and Muhammadan learning. At 
 the renewal of the Company's Charter in 1814, for a further 
 period of twenty years, it was enacted by Act 53, Geo. III. 
 c. 15s, that a sum of ;^io,ooo should be allotted for "the 
 revival and improvement of literature, and the encourage- 
 ment of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction 
 and promotion of the knowledge of the sciences among the 
 inhabitants of the British territories in India." 
 
 ' " That the early growth of the native Press was but slow, can be judged 
 from the fact that, in 1850, after twenty-eight years of existence, there were hut 
 twenty-eight vernacular papers in existence in all North India, with an annual 
 circulation of about sixty copies, while in 1878 there were ninety-seven vernacular 
 papers in active circulation, and in 1880 there were two hundred and thirty, 
 with a circulation of 150,000. The first vernacular newspaper was printed in 
 1818, at Serampur. In 1890-91 there were four hundred and sixty-three 
 vernacular papers." — Contemforary Review, vol, xxxvii. p. 461, 
 
394 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 In 1815 Ram Mohun Roy published a work on Vedanta 
 philosophy in Bengali, and a treatise on it in English, and 
 in the following year his translation of several "Upani- 
 shads." The first decided step taken to further English 
 education was initiated, strange to say, by a watch- 
 maker in Calcutta, Mr David Hare, who, in conjunction 
 with Ram Mohun Roy, inaugurated, in 18 16, the Hindu 
 College of Calcutta, with its famed teachers, Richardson 
 and Derozia, which gradually, in spite of many dishearten- 
 ing failures, increased its number of pupils from twenty, in 
 18 17, its first opening, to four hundred and thirty-six in 
 1820,^ when the subjects taught were Natural Science, 
 History, Geography, with Milton and Shakespeare. 
 
 The name of Jognarain Ghosal of Benares deserves also 
 to be remembered, for having founded a school at Benares 
 for the teaching of English, Persian, Hindustani, and 
 Bengali. The management of this school was entrusted 
 to the Rev. D. Corrie of the Calcutta Church Missionary 
 Society, and it was endowed with a sum of 20,000 Rs., 
 and the revenues of certain lands. Another institution 
 started for the moral and intellectual improvement of the 
 natives was the Calcutta School Book Society, founded 
 in 1 8 17, which received an annual grant of 6000 Rs. from 
 the Government in 1821, after it had published 126,446 
 copies of useful works. 
 
 The full force of these influences was soon apparent 
 In 1816, Ram Mohun Roy had, with his friend Dvaraka 
 Nath Tagore, founded a society for spiritual improvement 
 called the Atmlya Sabha. In 1820, he published, in Bengal, 
 his " Precepts of Jesus : a Guide to Peace and Happiness," 
 and raised a storm of controversy over, what his chief 
 opponent, Dr Marshman, termed, his " heathen " adaptation 
 of Christian doctrines to Eastern modes of thought* 
 
 * Syed Mahmoud, " History of English Education in India," p. 26. 
 
 2 Ram Mohun Roy replied with a first and second Appeal, but the Baptist 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 395 
 
 In his preface Ram Mohun Roy declares : — 
 
 "This simple code of religion and morality is so admirably calculated 
 to elevate man's ideas to high and liberal notions of One God, 
 who has equally subjected all living creatures, without dis- 
 tinction of caste, rank, or wealth, to change, disappointment, 
 pain, and death, and has equally admitted all to be partakers of 
 the bountiful mercies which He has lavished over Nature ; and is 
 also so well fitted to regulate the conduct of the human race in 
 the discharge of their various duties to God, to themselves, and 
 society, that I cannot but hope the best effects from its promul- 
 gation in the present form." ^ 
 
 The new religion has been called Unitarianism. Its 
 monotheism, however, was not that of the West. The 
 Brahman, Ram Mohun Roy, went back to the Unconscious 
 Essence, to the Brahman of the " Vedanta " for his Supreme 
 Deity. It was to found an eclectic system of practical 
 and universal morality that the apostle of the new re- 
 ligion published his " Precepts of Jesus," from which were 
 eliminated all abstruse doctrines and miraculous relations 
 of the New Testament. 
 
 Ram Mohun Roy indeed acknowledged : " that I have 
 
 found the doctrines of Christ more conducive to moral 
 
 principles, and better adapted for the use of rational beings 
 
 than any other which have come to my knowledge." ^ Yet 
 
 the tendency of the school of thought, out of which arose 
 
 his new religion, was his statement in his final Appeal,* 
 
 that "whatever arguments can be adduced against a 
 
 plurality of Gods, strike with equal force against the 
 
 doctrine of a plurality of persons of the Godhead ; and on 
 
 the other hand, whatever excuse may be pleaded in 
 
 favour of a plurality of persons of the Deity can be 
 
 offered with equal propriety in defence of polytheism." 
 
 Press refused to publish his last Appeal, the third, so he had to start a press of 
 his own and print his own works, which, however, the Unitarian Society 
 republished in 1824. 
 
 1 Max Miiller, "Biographical Essays," p. 22. 
 
 2 Monier- Williams, " Brahmanism and Hinduism," p. 483. 
 s Ibid., p. 484. 
 
396 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 The real commencement of the struggle, to decide the 
 general lines on which the future of the moral and in- 
 tellectual development of the natives of India was to be 
 carried out, commenced from the year 1823, when the 
 General Committee of Public Instruction received the 
 lac of rupees allotted by the Act of Geo. III. of 1813 for 
 education. As a matter of fact, the average expenditure 
 during the twenty years, from 181 3 to 1830, exceeded two 
 lacs of rupees. The keynote to the situation was struck 
 in the year 1823, when Ram Mohun Roy addressed a 
 letter to Lord Amherst expressing his lively hopes that 
 the amount which Parliament had directed should be 
 applied to the instruction of the natives, might be " laid out 
 in employing English gentlemen of talents and education 
 to instruct the natives of India in mathematics, natural 
 philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, and other useful sciences,"* 
 for "the Sanskrit system of education would be the best 
 calculated to keep this country in darkness." In a few 
 sentences, extolled by Bishop Heber for their good 
 English, good sense, force, and thought, he drew a dismal 
 picture of the waste of time spent over what he described 
 as "the puerilities of Sanskrit grammar, the viciousness 
 of the doctrines of Maya and Ignorance, as expounded 
 by the Vedantic philosophy, the inherent uselessness of 
 the ' Mlmam^a,' and the lack of all improvement to the 
 mind in the study of the ' Nyaya.' " 
 
 The Court of Directors had, however, made up their own 
 minds on the subject. In their Despatch of 1824, they 
 informed the Committee of Public Education that, "in 
 professing to establish seminaries for the purpose of teach- 
 ing mere Hindu or mere Muhammadan literature, you 
 bound yourself to teach a good deal of what was frivolous, 
 not a little of what was purely mischievous, and a small 
 remainder, indeed, in which utility was not in any way 
 ' Trevelyan, " Education of the People of India," pp. 55-71. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 39; 
 
 concerned." In their opinion, if there were any documents 
 of historical importance to be found in Oriental languages, 
 they could be best translated by Europeans. The great 
 objects to be aimed at were the teaching of useful learning, 
 and the introduction of reforms in the course of study, 
 anything being retained that might be found of use in native 
 literature. 
 
 To this the Committee pointed out that, with the ex- 
 ception of those natives who studied English for the 
 purpose of obtaining a livelihood, the people, both learned 
 and unlearned, held "European literature and science in 
 very slight estimation," and that, in the Committee's 
 opinion, "metaphysical science was as well worthy of 
 being studied in Arabic and Sanskrit as in any other 
 language, as were also arithmetic, algebra, Euclid, law, 
 and literature." Western education and European ideas 
 had, however, permeated deeper than even the Committee 
 seem to have noted. The Brahma^ Samaj, or "The 
 Society of the Believers in Brahman, the Supreme Spirit," 
 or, as it is called, the Hindu Unitarian Church, was 
 inaugurated, in 1828, by Ram Mohun Roy, and finally 
 established at a house in Chitpore Road, Calcutta, in 
 1830. 
 
 This was the first outward sign of the change brought 
 about through the influence and spread of Western 
 literature among the educated natives of India. Not 
 only had Ram Mohun Roy studied the " Veda " in Sanskrit, 
 the " Tripitaka " in Pali, but he had acquired Hebrew to 
 master the Old Testament, and Greek to read the New. 
 At the weekly meetings, held in the new church, or temple, 
 monotheistic hymns from Vedic literature were chanted, 
 and moral maxims from the same source explained. A 
 new religion was being evolved to fill up the void 
 produced by the destruction of old beliefs, under the 
 
 ' Adjective form from Brahmi. 
 
398 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 disintegrating influence of European teaching, and before 
 some new system was developed to take its place. 
 
 In the same year, 1830, the Directors, in a further 
 Despatch expressed their satisfaction that it was evidently 
 becoming clear, both from the reports they received, and 
 from the success of the Anglo-Indian College at Calcutta, 
 that the higher ranks of the natives were prepared to 
 welcome a further extension of the means of cultivating 
 the English language and literature, and of acquiring a 
 knowledge of European ideas and science. It was, in 
 their opinion, of primary importance that English should 
 be taught, both because of the higher tone and better 
 spirit of European literature, and further, because it was 
 " calculated to raise up a class of persons qualified, by their 
 intelligence and morality, for high employment in the 
 Civil Administration of India." 
 
 In the Report of the following year, 1831, the Committee 
 of Public Education stated that, although measures for 
 the diffusion of English were only in their infancy, the 
 results obtained at the Vidyalaya, or College of Calcutta, 
 surpassed all their expectations : " A command of the 
 English language, and a familiarity with its literature and 
 science has been acquired to an extent rarely equalled by 
 any schools in Europe." They pointed out, in conclusion, 
 that, " the moral effect has been equally remarkable, and 
 an impatience of the restrictions of Hinduism, and a dis- 
 regard of its ceremonies are equally avowed by many 
 young men of respectable birth and talents, and enter- 
 tained by many more who outwardly conform to the 
 practices of their countrymen." 
 
 When the Company's Charter was renewed by Parlia- 
 ment in 1833, it was definitely laid down, in a resolution 
 proposed by Mr Charles Grant, that the government of 
 British India was entrusted to the Company for "the 
 purpose of extending the commerce of the country, and of 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 399 
 
 securing the good government, and promoting the religious 
 and moral improvement of the people of India." 
 
 Lord Macaulay, who was appointed President of the Com- 
 mittee of Education on his arrival in India as Member of the 
 Supreme Council, produced his celebrated "Minute" in 1835, 
 which forever decided the question so momentous for the 
 whole future intellectual history of the land. According to 
 his view, the action of the Committee of Public Education, 
 in confining their attention to the study of the classical 
 languages of India, to the neglect of English, could only 
 be paralleled by supposing that our own ancestors, in 
 the fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth centuries, had 
 been infatuated enough to neglect all classical literature, 
 and continue the study of Anglo-Saxon chronicles and 
 Norman-French romances. To the people of India, the 
 language of England was to be their classic language. It 
 was to do for them what the study of Greek and Latin 
 had done for the West. To him the demand for the 
 teaching of English was imperative.^ Not only did it give 
 access to the vast intellectual treasures of the past, not only 
 was it likely to become the language of commerce in the 
 Eastern seas, as it was in South Africa and Australasia, 
 but further, " a single shelf of a good European library was 
 worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." ^ 
 
 The result was inevitable. Lord William Bentinck and 
 
 ' " Lord Macaulay's celebrated ' Minute,' which, in 1835, determined 
 the Anglicising of all the higher education, is not quite so triumphantly un- 
 answerable as it is usually assumed to be ; for we have to reckon, on the other 
 side, the disappearance of the indigenous systems, and the decay of the study of 
 the Oriental Classics in their own language." — Sir A. Lyall, "India Under 
 Queen Victoria," Nineteenth Century (June 1897), p. 881. 
 
 '^ At this time, be it remembered, although H. H. Wilson had published his 
 translation of the "Megha Diita" in i5i3, his "Sanskrit Dictionary" in 1819, 
 his " History of Kashmir, from the Raja Tarangini," and his four dramas in 
 the "Theatre of the Hindus" in 1834, the essay of H. J. Colebrooke on the 
 "Vedas"inthe " Asiatic Researches " did not appear until 1837, and even then 
 was the only information possessed on the subject of the ancient language and 
 religion of the Hindus. 
 
400 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 his Council finally decided, in 1835, that the educational 
 policy of the Government should be confined to the pro- 
 motion of European literature and science, and that for the 
 future all funds set apart for education should be devoted 
 to that purpose, and no portion of them be expended on 
 the printing of Oriental works. 
 
 One other view of the situation has been ably given by 
 Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay, in a Minute of 
 1828, where he advocated, as the wisest policy, the education 
 of a certain proportion of natives in the English language 
 and science, for the object of enabling them to diffuse their 
 knowledge through their own vernacular dialect to tiieir 
 own countrymen. 
 
 Although it was finally decided that the higher education 
 of the native population should be through the medium of 
 the English language, it was always acknowledged and 
 understood that it was but a small class of the most 
 advanced and educated natives who could be so instructed.^ 
 The hope and expectation was that those natives who had 
 received a liberal education, from a Western standpoint, 
 would by degrees communicate their knowledge to the 
 mass of the people through the local vernaculars. It does 
 not appear to have been foreseen at the time that natives 
 educated on English lines might compose original works in 
 the vernaculars, through which ideals and forms of thought, 
 assimilated under Western influences, would disseminate 
 themselves among the mass of the population. Whether 
 the immediate object of the encouragement of the study of 
 English was to raise a class of natives fitted for carrying 
 on the duties of the public service, so that in time the 
 language of public business might be English, is not of 
 immediate importance. Be the motives what they may, 
 from the point of view of the Directors, to obtain a class of 
 
 ' "Printed Parliamentary Papers : Second Report of Select Committee of 
 House of Lords " (Appendix I., p. 481, 1852-53) ; Syed Mahmoud, p. 57. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 401 
 
 servants to carry on economically the duties of public servants, 
 and to have ready means of obtaining accurate information 
 of details of revenue affairs, or from the point of view of 
 the missionaries, the hope that a liberal education would 
 further the advance of Christianity, and prove the most 
 effectual weapon for attack against what was palpably 
 vicious, false, and erroneous in the popular beliefs, the 
 result was that the study of English was almost exclusively 
 encouraged. Lord Auckland, in 1839, somewhat modified 
 Lord William Bentinck's resolution by upholding the 
 Sanskrit and native colleges, and by setting aside funds for 
 their encouragement. Further, by the Despatch of 1854, 
 known as that of Sir Charles Wood, it was fully acknow- 
 ledged that vernacular schools for elementary education 
 should be encouraged, and that funds should be raised for 
 the purpose by a special levy imposed on the land. 
 
 The object expressly desired by the Court of Directors 
 was declared to be "the diffusion of the Improvements, 
 Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Europe — in short, of 
 European knowledge," and this was to be accomplished by 
 the establishment, throughout India, of a graduated series 
 of schools and colleges, with a central university for each 
 of the Presidencies. 
 
 Universities, on the model of the University of London, 
 were founded at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay during 
 the dark days of the Mutiny in 1857, and were followed 
 by one for the Panjab at Lahore in 1882, and one for the 
 North- West Provinces at Allahabad in 1887. 
 
 As a result of an exhaustive investigation into the 
 subject of education made by a Commission in 1882, the 
 Government finally decided to retire, in all cases where it 
 was possible, from competition with the private manage- 
 ment and control of secondary education. The Govern- 
 ment steadily pursued this policy, with a result that, 
 although there was a vast increase during the succeeding 
 
 2 c 
 
402 
 
 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 ten years in secondary education, the cost to Government 
 decreased, the expense being met from the fees charged. 
 The ten years' result can be judged from the following 
 table giving the number of colleges, schools, and pupils 
 under education : — 
 
 
 1881-82. 
 
 1891-92. 
 
 
 No. 
 
 Pupils. 
 
 No. 
 
 Pupils. 
 
 University {AjtJ^33;„^^; 
 
 Secondary . 
 Primary 
 Normal 
 Technical . 
 
 8 
 
 24 
 
 4>432 
 
 90,700 
 
 135 
 189 
 
 8,127 
 
 2,411 
 
 418,412 
 
 2,537,502 
 
 4,949 
 8,503 
 
 104 
 
 4,872 
 
 97,109 
 152 
 402 
 
 12,985 
 
 3,292 
 
 473.294 
 
 2,837,607 
 
 5,146 
 
 16,586 
 
 Total . 
 
 95,566 
 
 2,979,904 
 
 102,676 
 
 3,348,910 
 
 So far as the higher education is concerned, the following 
 statement, by Sir Raymond West, in the course of an 
 address on " Higher Education in India " to the Oriental 
 Congress of 1892, speaks for itself: — 
 
 "The youths receiving secondary education amoimt, after all, to only 
 some five per cent, of the whole number recorded as under 
 instruction in India. The students in colleges amount to no 
 more than one per cent. In England the proportion is twice as 
 great ; in a German State four or five times as great, of youths 
 under secondary instruction. In a German town, indeed, fi-om 
 a third to a half of the children are in the higher schools ; but 
 in Germany it is everywhere recognised, in direct opposition to 
 the principle announced by the Government of India, that the 
 State is more especially interested in the higher education, the 
 town or locality in the lower. The contributions of Government 
 are regulated accordingly. 
 
 According to the last Census Returns, prepared by Mr 
 Baines, the annual average of candidates, during the previous 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 403 
 
 five years, presenting themselves for matriculation at the 
 Presidency colleges was 18,150, of whom 5,875 pass. The 
 intermediate examination is reached by 2,213 students, the 
 Bachelor of Arts degree is attained by 761 members, and 
 the Master of Arts by only 54. 
 
 At the lower end of the scale there are only 109 males 
 and 6 females in every lobo of the population able to read 
 and write, the corresponding numbers for the coloured 
 population of the United States being 254 males and 217 
 females, and for Ireland 554 males and 501 females. 
 
 The formation of the Brahma Samaj was the first uneasy 
 movement made in slumbering Brahmanism, as the clear- 
 cut thought of the earliest recipients of English education 
 pierced through the whole of Indian religious and philosophic 
 speculations, and saw their strength and weakness when . 
 brought face to face with new ideals and new modes of 
 reasoning. 
 
 Ram Mohun Roy, the first apostle of this new gospel, in 
 which the old and new were strangely fused — the worship 
 of Brahman of the " Vedanta," with much of Christianity — 
 however lived and died a Brahman, tended by his own 
 Brahman servant, and wearing his Brahmanic thread. He 
 was buried at Bristol in 1853 without any religious service. 
 
 He was succeeded by Debendra Nath Tagore who, born 
 in 18 1 8, and educated at the Hindu College at Calcutta, 
 joined the Brahma Samaj in 1843.^ By him a monthly 
 periodical, the Tattva-bodhinl-patrikd, was started in 1843, 
 and under the editorship of Akhay Kumar Datta, com- 
 menced the publication of Vedantic literature. By 1847, 
 upwards of seven hundred and sixty-seven Brahmans had 
 joined the society, and agreed to the essential Seven Articles 
 of Faith, including the worship of a God, One without a 
 
 1 Max MuUer, " Biographical Essays," p. 37 {.note i) :— " In 1838 or 1841." 
 Monier-Williams, "Indian Theistic Reformers," J.R.A.S. (January i88i), 
 gives 1841. In 1839 he had formed his own society, the " Tattva-bodhim- 
 Sabha." 
 
404 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Second, the Cause of the Emanation {srishti), Stay, and 
 Decay {pralayd) of the World, and the Cause of emancipa- 
 tion {mukti karand). The Seven Articles of Faith were as 
 follows : — 
 
 First Vow. — "By loving God and by performing the works which He 
 loves, I will worship God, the Creator, the Preserver, and the 
 Destroyer, the Giver of Salvation, the Omniscient, the Omni- 
 present, the Blissful, the Good, the Formless, the One only 
 without a Second." 
 Second Vow. — " I will worship no created object as the Creator." 
 Third Vow. — " Except the day of sickness or tribulation, every day, 
 the mind being undisturbed, I will engage in love and veneration 
 of God." 
 Fourth Vow. — " I will exert myself to perform righteous deeds." 
 Fifth Vow. — " I will be careful to keep myself from vicious deeds." 
 Sixth Vow. — " If, through the influence of passion, I have committed 
 any vice, I will, wishing redemption from it, be careful not to 
 do it again." 
 Seventh Vow. — "Every year, and as the occasion of every happy 
 domestic event, I will bestow gifts upon the Brahma Samaj. 
 Grant me, O God, power to observe the duties of this great 
 faith." 
 
 The essential point to note is, that the god worshipped, 
 as clearly shown in the four essential principles set forth by 
 Debendra Nath, is the neuter essence, Brahma (nom. of 
 Brahman). The faith begins with the declaration that 
 " before this universe existed, Brahma (the Supreme Being) 
 was, nothing else whatever was," and then goes on to 
 declare that " He created the Universe " (tad idam sarvam 
 asrijai). The movement could not rest; it had yet left 
 within it a respect for caste, the use of the sacred thread, 
 a leaning towards the old, and ancestral rites. All these 
 had to be swept away, as were already the belief in 
 transmigration and the Vedantic doctrine of Absorption 
 of the Soul.i 
 
 ' The first change came in 184S, when Debendra Nath Tagore, and the 
 Brahma Samaj, decided that the "Vedas" could no longer be held as of 
 Divine origin. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NE W 405 
 
 The leaven of English education had yet to sink deeper. 
 In 1838 Keshab Chandar Sen was born, a Vaidya by caste, 
 of orthodox Hindu family. He was educated at the 
 Presidency College, Calcutta, and joined the Brahma Samaj 
 in the days of the Mutiny. 
 
 It may be safely prognosticated that the future great 
 reformer of Hinduism, the reformer who will spread his 
 influence and disturbing power all over India, and arouse the 
 enthusiasm of Bengali, Sikh, Maratha, and Tamil, will not 
 be a Bengali. The reformer — and it seems probable that 
 one will appear — will arise without known parentage or 
 nationality, and it may also safely be believed that he 
 will be considered to be infused with the same spirit which 
 Keshab Chandar Sen is said to have been infused with, 
 when it is recorded that on his marriage, in 1856, he 
 declared : " I entered the world with ascetic ideas, and my 
 honeymoon was spent amid austerities in the house of the 
 Lord."i 
 
 Under the guidance of Keshab Chandar Sen the Brahma 
 Samaj gradually cut itself adrift from Hindu rites and 
 customs. In 1861, Debendra Nath Tagore allowed his own 
 daughter to be married by a simple Brahmic ceremony, 
 without the orthodox Hindu festivities, expenses, and rites. 
 In 1864, a marriage was performed between members of 
 different castes by Keshab Chandar Sen, who further insisted 
 on the leaving-off of the sacred thread, the ancient birthright 
 of all twice-born Aryans. These reforms were opposed to 
 the conservative instincts of Debendra Nath Tagore and 
 those of the more orthodox Hindus who soon repudiated 
 their new leader. Keshab Chandar Sen, with his cousin, 
 Protab Chandar Mozoondar, accordingly, in 1866, founded 
 a new and advanced Brahma Samaj, with the Indian 
 Mirror as its organ, leaving the old society the name of 
 
 ^ "Biographical Essays," p. 53. 
 
4o6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the '■ Adi Brahma Samaj," which had as its leader, Debendra 
 Nath Tagore, and as its secretary, Raj Narain Bose. 
 
 Between the two societies there were but few doctrinal 
 differences. The old leaven of Vaishnava bhakti, or faith, 
 still permeated Keshab Chandar Sen, and brought him close 
 to Christianity — a faith which his pride in his own heritage 
 from the past forbade him to accept. Brahmanism might 
 be outwardly discarded, nevertheless, the new progressive 
 Samaj held that 
 
 " God Himself never becomes man by putting on a human body. His 
 divinity dwells in every man, and is displayed more vividly in 
 some ; as in Moses, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Nanak, Chaitanya, 
 and other great Teachers who appeared at special times, and 
 conferred vast benefits on the world. They are entitled to 
 universal gratitude and love. . . . Every sinner must suffer the 
 consequences of his own sins sooner or later, in this world or 
 the next. Man must labour after holiness by the worship of 
 God, by subjugation of the passions, by repentance, by the . 
 study of Nature and of good books, by good company, and by 
 I solitary contemplation. These will lead, through the action of 
 God's grace, to salvation." ' 
 
 In England he set forth his own views as to the Christ 
 the West had offered to the East : — 
 
 " Methinks I have come into a vast market. Every sect is like a 
 small shop where a peculiar kind of Christianity is offered for 
 sale. As I go from door to door, from shop to shop, each 
 sect steps forward and offers, for my acceptance, its own 
 interpretations of the Bible, and its own peculiar Christian 
 beliefs. I cannot but feel perplexed, and even amused, amidst 
 countless and quarrelling sects. It appears to me, and has 
 always appeared to me, that no Christian nation on earth 
 represents fully and thoroughly Christ's idea of the kingdom 
 of God. I do believe, and I must candidly say, that no Christian 
 sect puts forth the genuine and full Christ as He was and as 
 He is, but, in some cases, a mutilated, disfigured Christ, and 
 what is more shameful, in many cases, a counterfeit Christ. 
 
 ^ Monicr-Williams, " Indian Theistic Reformers," J.R.A.S. (January 1881), 
 p. 25. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 407 
 
 Now, I wish to say that I have not come to England as one 
 who has yet to find Christ. When the Roman Catholic, the 
 Protestant, the Unitarian, the Trinitarian, the Broad Church, 
 the Low Church, the High Church all come round me, and 
 offer me their respective Christs, I desire to say to one and all : 
 ' Think you that I have no Christ within me ? Though an 
 Indian, I can still humbly say, Thank God that I have my 
 Christ.'" 
 
 The first important reform inaugurated by the new 
 society was the passing of the Native Marriage Act of 
 1872, introducing, for the first time, a form of civil 
 marriage for persons who did not profess the Christian, 
 Jewish, Hindu, Muhammadan, Parsi, Buddhist, Sikh, or 
 Jaina religions. 
 
 Into the religious struggles of Keshab Chandar Sen's life 
 it would be unprofitable to enter, as they show no solid 
 advance, drifting, as they did, between Christianity, Yoglism, 
 Bhakti, and Asceticism, mingled with a practical propa- 
 ganda for social reformation. 
 
 The times were not ripe for the missionary work of 
 reformation he had set before him, although he possessed 
 much to sway the mass : " A fine countenance, a majestic 
 presence, and that soft look which of itself exerts an almost 
 irresistible fascination over impressionable minds, lent won- 
 derful force to a swift, kindling, and practical oratory, 
 which married itself to his highly spiritual teaching as 
 perfect music unto noble minds." ^ 
 
 In spite of all the efforts made by Keshab Chandar Sen 
 for the abolition of early marriages, he lost ground in 1878 
 by permitting his own daughter, aged fourteen, to be married 
 to the young Maharaja of Kuch Behar, the result being 
 that, in 1878, a new society called the "Sadharana" (or 
 general) " Brahma Samaj " was formed. With all the brilliant 
 eloquence of his fervid imagination, though with a waning 
 of his undoubted intellectual powers, Keshab Chandar Sen 
 ^ Indian Daily News, Quoted in Max Miiller's " Biographical Essays," p. 72. 
 
408 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 continued his preaching, declaring himself to be the 
 apostle of what he called the " New Dispensation Church," 
 in which there was to be an amalgamation of all creeds in 
 a belief in the Unity of the Godhead, the acceptance of 
 Christ as an ideal Yogi, Oriental in His character and 
 mission, Hindu in faith, whose Godhead he still denied. 
 In his " Manifesto " of 1883, he poured forth, in the spirit of 
 Walt Whitman, his rhapsody : — 
 
 " Keshab Chandar Sen, a servant of God, called to be an apostle of 
 the Church of the New Dispensation, which is in the holy city 
 of Calcutta, the metropolis of Aryavarta. 
 
 " To all the great nations of the world, and to the chief religious sects 
 in the East and the West ; to the followers of Moses, of 
 Jesus, of Buddha, of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Mahomet, of 
 Nanak, and the various branches of the Hindu Church, grace 
 be to you and peace everlasting. Gather ye the wisdom of 
 the East and the West, and assimilate the examples of the 
 saints of all ages. 
 
 " Above all, love one another, and merge all differences in universal 
 brotherhood. 
 
 "Let Asia, Europe, Africa, and America, with diverse instruments, 
 praise the New Dispensation, and sing the Fatherhood of God 
 and the Brotherhood of Man." ^ 
 
 More extraordinary was his " Proclamation,'' issued, in 
 1879, in the columns of the Indian Mirror, which has 
 been abridged by Sir Monier Monier-Williams in his 
 article on " Indian Theistic Reformers " : — 
 
 " To all my soldiers in India my affectionate greeting. Believe that 
 this Proclamation goeth forth from Heaven in the name and 
 with the love of your Mother. Carry out its behests like loyal 
 soldiers. The British Government is my Government. The 
 Brahma Samaj is my Church. My daughter Queen Victoria 
 have I ordained. Come direct to me, without a mediator as 
 your Mother. The influence of the earthly Mother at home, 
 of the Queen-Mother at the head of the Government will raise 
 the head of my Indian children to their Supreme Mother. 
 I will give them peace and salvation. Soldiers, fight bravely 
 and establish my dominion." 
 
 ' Monier- Williatr.s, " Hinduism," p. 573. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 409 
 
 To all who understand the Eastern mode of thought, 
 the following words spoken by Keshab Chandar Sen in a 
 sermon, a masterpiece of eloquence, delivered in 1879 
 before the Bishop of Calcutta, other Europeans, and a 
 thousand listeners, only represent what might have been 
 expected as the furthest the new reformer would proceed 
 in his fusing of Hinduism and Christianity : — 
 
 " It is Christ who rules British India, and not the British Govern- 
 ment. England has sent out a tremendous moral force in the 
 life and character of that mighty prophet to conquer and hold 
 this vast empire. None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none but 
 Jesus ever deserved this bright, this precious diadem, India, 
 and Jesus shall have it. Christ comes to us as an Asiatic in 
 race, as a Hindu in faith, as a kinsman, and as a brother. . . . 
 Christ is a true Yogi, and will surely help us to realise our 
 n^ional ideal of a Yogi. ... In accepting Him, therefore, 
 you accept the fulfilment of your national Scriptures and 
 prophets." 
 
 Though the work of Keshab Chandar Sen was carried on 
 by his brother, Krishna Behari Sen, Gaur Govind Roy, and 
 others, and received the enthusiastic support of the Maha- 
 raja and Maharani of Kuch Behar, its importance waned 
 before the Sadharana Samaj, which numbered amongst 
 its leaders the Hon. Ananda Mohan Bose, the only native 
 Cambridge wrangler, its able secretary, Rajani Nath Roy, 
 and its minister. Pandit Sivanath Sastri. 
 
 The full conservative Hindu reaction was marked by an 
 effort to fall back on Vedic authority for a pure Theism, 
 where there was to be but one formless abstract God 
 worshipped by prayer and devotion, with the four " Vedas " 
 as primary, and later Vedic writings as secondary, authorities 
 in all matters of moral conduct. 
 
 During the last Census of 1S91 there were 3,051 who 
 t eturned themselves as followers of the faith of Brahman- 
 ism, of whom 2,596 were in Bengal, while the followers 
 
4IO LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 of Dayananda Saraswati, who, in 1877, founded a Theism 
 based purely on Vedic authority, numbered 40,000, mostly 
 writers or traders. 
 
 The recoil of orthodox Hindu thought back to the old 
 was led by Dayananda Saraswati, a Brahman of Katthiawar, 
 who formed a new society called the " Arya Samaj." He 
 himself was from his youth brought up in the strictest 
 school of Hindu orthodoxy. As he wrote, in the strange 
 records of his life : ^ — 
 
 "I was but eight when I was invested with the sacred Brahmanic 
 thread and taught the Gayatri hymn, the Sandhya (morning 
 and evening) ceremony, and the 'Yajur Veda.' As my father 
 belonged to the §iva sect, I was early taught to worship 
 the uncouth piece of clay representing Siva, known as the 
 ' Parthiva Linga.' " 
 
 Dayananda Saraswati early abandoned idol-worship, 
 but he remained firm in his belief in Vedic revelation, 
 the doctrine of metempsychosis, and the worship of One 
 God, held to be the deity addressed by Vedic Aryans as 
 Agni, Indra, and Surya. 
 
 Whatever form these strange minglings of "Veda," 
 " Upanishad," " Kuran," " Tripitakas," " Zend Avesta," and 
 Christian Bible, may assume in the future, they all denote 
 an upheaval of thought among the educated classes of 
 India, the result of the meeting of the new and old. To 
 claim that movement as indicating a future triumph for 
 Christianity would first necessitate a survey of the whole 
 course of Christianity in India, the marking out of its 
 success and the causes for its undoubted failures. It is 
 hoped that time and opportunity may be found for under- 
 taking such a task, for no work yet published has viewed 
 the subject from an Indian standpoint; at present it 
 must suffice to take refuge under the words of the learned 
 
 ' Max Miiller, " Biographical Essays,'' p. 172. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 411 
 
 Sir Monier Monier- Williams, who has given deep thought 
 to the subject : — ■ 
 
 " We may be quite sure that men like Debendra Nath Tagore, Keshab 
 Chandar Sen, and Ananda Mohan Bose, are doing good work 
 in a Christian self-sacrificing spirit, though they may fall into 
 many errors, and may not have adopted every single dogma 
 of the Athanasian Creed. 
 
 " Let us hold out the right hand of fellowship to these noble-minded 
 patriots — men who, notwithstanding their undoubted courage, 
 need every encouragement in their almost hopeless struggle 
 with their country's worst enemies — Ignorance, Prejudice, and 
 Superstition. Intense darkness still broods over the land — 
 in some places a veritable Egyptian darkness thick enough to 
 be felt. Let Christianity thankfully welcome, and wisely make 
 use of, every gleam and glimmer of true light, from whatever 
 quarter it may shine." 
 
 All these movements, denoting as they do the dis- 
 integrating force of Western education, had their own 
 influence in moulding the whole literature of the people 
 to new forms and uses. 
 
 The strength of the barriers that the sacerdotal class 
 had ranged round the sacred literature, so as to keep its 
 secrets from vulgar gaze or scrutiny, can be judged from 
 the fact that Romesh Chandra Dutt's translation of the " Rig 
 Veda " into Bengali was looked upon as a sacrilege, and 
 vehemently opposed by his own countrymen. Amongst 
 the few^ who dared to support the undertaking were 
 the wise and enlightened Isvara Chandra Vidyasagar and 
 Akhay Kumar Datta, the two great writers who must 
 be placed in the first rank of those who ably seconded 
 the work of the Brahma Samaj in perfecting Bengali as a 
 prose medium for a new school of writers who, trained in 
 Western modes of thought, handed on their impressions 
 and ideas to the mass of the people in the local vernaculars. 
 
 Akhay Kumar Datta, at the age of sixteen, commenced 
 his education in English at the Oriental Seminary at 
 1 R. C. Dutt, "The Literature of Bengal," p. 178. 
 
412 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 Calcutta. He afterwards acquired a knowledge of Sanskrit, 
 a language he ably used, for the purpose of enriching 
 Bengali as a prose literature, in his work in the Tattva- 
 bodhinl-patrika, a monthly journal started in 1873 by 
 Debendra Nath Tagore. Isvara Chandra Vidyasagar, on 
 the other hand, applied himself to the study of Sanskrit 
 in the Sanskrit College at Calcutta, which he entered at 
 the age of nine for the orthodox course of study. For 
 three years he studied grammar, and by the age of twelve 
 had read the greater portion of the best works of the 
 classic period of Sanskrit verse. Sanskrit he afterwards 
 read and wrote as well as his own vernacular. Being 
 appointed, in 1841, head pandit of the Fort William College, 
 he commenced his study of English and Hindi. By 1847 
 he published, in Bengali, the " Betal Panchavimsati," trans- 
 lated from the Hindi, a work instinct with poetic feeling. 
 This work raised him, in spite of much that was artificial 
 and over-elaborated in it, to the position of an acknowledged 
 master of a pure and classical prose style in the vernacular. 
 In 1862, the publication of his "Exile of Slta,""^ based on 
 Bhavabhuti's " Uttararama Charitra," showed how Bengali 
 had become a classic prose language, with all the flexibility, 
 dignity, and grace requisite for the purpose of interpreting 
 to the mass of the people the old life-history of the nation, 
 and the new phase of thought introduced from the West. 
 Isvara Chandra Vidyasagar brought down on his head the 
 bitter curses and ribald abuse, sung throughout the streets 
 of Calcutta, of his more bigoted Brahman brethren by his 
 writings, in 1855, against the system of enforced widowhood, 
 which his deep learning in Sanskrit lore enabled him to 
 prove beyond question was no part of the decrees of the 
 Vedic Scriptures. By his subsequent writings and efforts, he 
 aided towards the first step in the course he had marked 
 
 ^ Sricharan Chakravarti, ".Life of Pandit Isvara Chandra Vidyasagar" 
 (Calcutta, i8g6). 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 413 
 
 out, the passing of the Act of 1856, which enacted that 
 the sons of re-married Hindu widows should be held as 
 legitimate heirs. 
 
 The dangers feared were neither imaginary nor trifling. 
 The ancient traditions of Brahmanism were being scattered 
 to the winds, and the system itself called upon to justify 
 the inherent strength of its position before the newly-arisen 
 scepticism. Ancient customs, habits, and beliefs, all finding 
 their authority and sanction in the will of the Creator of the 
 world, as revealed in the sacred literature of India, were 
 being questioned. The hereditary custodians of the sacred 
 lore, claiming as they did to be the specially created 
 partakers of the confidence of the deity, were being forced 
 to come forth and defend their birthright. 
 
 Ram Mohun Roy had shaken to its foundations the 
 whole established fabric of Brahmanic power by his fierce 
 denunciations of, and irrefutable arguments against, 
 idolatry and widow-burning. One task Vidyasagar had 
 set his hand to he had to leave unaccomplished. He 
 endeavoured in vain to put an end to the system whereby 
 the class known as the Kulin Brahmans of Bengal entered 
 into marriages, sometimes formal, sometimes real, with 
 daughters of those of their own class who, unable to obtain 
 husbands, were glad to pay a Kulin Brahman large sums of 
 money for forming a matrimonial alliance which left them 
 free to abandon the numerous women they had thus 
 married. In 1871, his famous work, " Whether Polygamy 
 Should be Done Away With," not only gave a list of these 
 Kulin Brahmans, showing the number of wives each of 
 them had, but also proved that the custom could not 
 possibly find any support from ancient law or history. 
 
 Akhay Kumar Datta at the same time continued to 
 pour forth, in earnest and forcible prose, a series of articles 
 scientific, biographical, and moral, printed in the Tattva- 
 bodhinl-patrikd, uncompromising in their sincerity and love 
 
414 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 for truth until he at last saw, as the crowning reward of 
 his labours, the Brahma Samaj reject the belief in the 
 infallibility and revealed authority of the " Vedanta." * 
 
 The work begun by Akhay Kumar Datta and Isvara 
 Chandra Vidyasagar was followed by the efforts of a series 
 of able writers who carried every widening current of 
 reform further into the social life of the people by 
 publishing works on history and biography, and by writing 
 tales satirising social habits and customs.^ 
 
 The spirit of the times may be judged from the fact that 
 the first Bengali play, the " Kulina Kula Sarvasa," composed 
 in 1854 by Ram Narayan Tarkaratna, and acted in 1856 
 at the Oriental Seminary, was a satire on the Kulin 
 custom of polygamy. The play was followed by the " Nala 
 Natak," in which the same author satirised the custom of 
 child-marriage. Happily, the early efforts of the rising 
 school to express their thoughts in English proved un- 
 successful and unprofitable. Madhu Sudan Datta was the 
 first to recognise the difficulty. He was educated in the 
 Hindu College, founded in 18 17, and at the age of nineteen 
 forsook his own caste and religion and was baptised a 
 Christian, adopting the name Michael. At seventeen he 
 had already published some indifferent verse, in imitation 
 of those of Byron. The influence of Western ideas had so 
 permeated him that, after becoming a Christian, he married 
 an English wife, daughter of an indigo planter in Madras, 
 from whom, however, he soon separated, when he married 
 a second English wife, the daughter of the Principal of 
 the Madras Presidency College. His "Captive Ladie," 
 published in 1849, telling, in English verse, the story 
 of Prithivi Raj, the famous Hindu King of Delhi and his 
 
 ^ Dutt, R. C, "The Literature of Bengal," p. 169. 
 
 ^ Such as the " Alaler-gharer Dulal," of Pyari Chand Mitra, which has been 
 translated into English, and the " Hutam Pechar Naksha," of Kali Prasanna 
 Sinha, who also translated the " Mahabharata " into Bengali, a work also 
 accomplished (1885) for the " Ramayana " by Hem Chandra Vidyaratna. See 
 Dutt, R. C, "The Literature of Bengal," pp. 182-183. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 415 
 
 wife, Sanjuta, clearly showed the impossibility even of ,a 
 poetic genius, such as he undoubtedly was, ever finding an 
 outlet for his imagination in the uncongenial trammels of 
 an English garb. 
 
 The task has been essayed by nearly all the recent 
 native writers who may be safely held to have been 
 endowed with that unceasing striving, and indomitable 
 perseverance that denotes genius, but never yet have they 
 reached a result worthy of their efforts. Michael wisely 
 turned away from English, and in 1858 produced an original 
 play, the "Sarmishta," a second Padmavati, and then, in 
 1 859, set to work on two great works in blank verse. In these 
 he abandoned the Bengali rhyme, and in i860 published 
 the " Tillottama," and in 1861, the " Meghanad badh Kavya." 
 
 The work of the drama, abandoned by Madhu Sudan 
 Datta for epic poetry, was resumed by others, the most 
 striking being Dinabandu Mitra, who in i860 produced his 
 "Nil Darpan," a fierce satire on the indigo planters of 
 Jessore and Nadiya. The Rev. James Long published the 
 play, as translated into English by a native, for which he 
 was fined and imprisoned. An exhaustive enquiry into the 
 subject by an Indigo Commission ultimately led to the 
 failure of much of the indigo growing in Nadiya, and a 
 refusal of the cultivators to sow indigo. As the play has 
 now only an historical and literary importance, and as a 
 copy of it is now difficult, if not impossible, to procure, no 
 fault can be found if it is used for the purpose of throwing 
 some light on the thought of the time, when the drama had 
 travelled from its ancient classic repose to an active power 
 for social reform. 
 
 The introduction to the " Nil Darpan," or " Indigo Planting 
 Mirror," states that, as the Bengali drama had exposed 
 " the evils of Kulin Brahmanism, widow-marriage pro- 
 hibition, quackery, fanaticism," the "Nil Darpan" pleads 
 the cause of those who are the feeble. It purports, according 
 
4i6 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 to the Introduction, to describe " a respectable ryot, a peasant 
 proprietor, happy with his family in the enjoyment of his 
 land till the indigo system compelled him to take advances" 
 for the cultivation of indigo, to the neglect of his own land 
 and crops, so that he became beggared, and reduced " to the 
 condition of a serf and vagabond." The effect of all this 
 system on his home, children, and relatives is " pointed out 
 in language plain but true ; it shows how arbitrary power 
 debases the lord as well as the peasant. Reference is also 
 made to the partiality of various magistrates in favour of 
 planters, and to the act of last year penally enforcing 
 indigo contracts." ^ 
 
 In the play itself the English planter is depicted as 
 upbraiding his native manager for want of zeal, and is 
 answered by the retorts : " Saheb, what signs of fear hast 
 thou seen in me? When I have entered on this indigo 
 profession I have thrown off all fear, shame, and honour ; 
 and the destroying of cows, Brahmans, of women, and 
 the burning-down of houses are become my ornaments." ^ 
 The cultivators who refuse to accept advances are dragged 
 before the planter, who twists their ears, beats them with a 
 leather strap, calls them scoundrels, " bloody niggers," and 
 then, with many " God damns!" and other words of chastise- 
 ment, orders them to be imprisoned unless they accept 
 advances binding them to grow indigo instead of rice. 
 The ryots assemble together and declare there is no hope 
 for them, for they had seen '• the late Governor Saheb go 
 about all the indigo factories, being feasted like a bride- 
 groom just before the celebration of the marriage. Did you 
 not see that the planter Sahebs brought him to this factory 
 well-adorned like a bridegroom ? " The whole despairing 
 lot of the village is summed up in a favourite verse : — 
 
 " The missionaries have destroyed the caste : 
 The factory monkeys have destroyed the rice." ^ 
 
 ' Long. Rev. J., " Nil Darpan," iii. ^ Bid., p. 13. » Ibid., p. 29. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 417 
 
 The " Indigo Planter " declares the fate in store for the 
 cultivators: "We indigo planters are become the com- 
 panions of death ; can our factories remain if we have 
 pity ? By nature we are not bad ; our evil disposition has 
 increased by indigo cultivation. Before, we felt sorrow in 
 beating one man ; now we can beat ten persons with the 
 leather strap, making them senseless, and immediately after, 
 we can, with great laughter, take our dinner or supper." ^ 
 
 As a result, tragedy is piled on tragedy, to show that 
 " the sorrows which the ryots endure in the preparation 
 of the indigo is known only to themselves and the great 
 God, the preserver of the poor." With less of exaggeration, 
 and less of melodrama, the play would have served its 
 purpose better, and had an independent artistic value. 
 
 The great interest of the play is now purely literary. 
 The use of it, for a social purpose, shows how the new 
 weapon, placed in the hands of the people, could serve a 
 double purpose. Its realistic movement and over-wrought 
 tragedy have been adapted from the West, probably, so 
 far as can be judged, from the vague idea a translation 
 necessarily gives of the original, from an imperfect reading 
 of the spirit of " Macbeth," " Hamlet," and the " Merchant 
 of Venice." 
 
 Traces are here and there to be seen of truly Eastern 
 poetic charm and idealism. An extraordinary mixture of 
 Eastern conventional symbolism, with ideas and touches 
 borrowed from Elizabethan tragedy, occurs in the final 
 scene, where the last surviving member of a family of 
 cultivators pours forth his lamentation over his wife, Sarala, 
 and all his relations, who have been brought to a tragic 
 death through the wickedness of the indigo planter. In 
 his deep sorrow the cultivator cries out : — 
 
 " In this world of short existence, human life is as a bank of a river, 
 which has a most violent course and the greatest depth. How 
 
 » "MlDarpan,"p. 53. 
 2 D 
 
41 8 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 very beautiful are the banks, the fields covered over with new 
 grass most pleasant to the view, the trees full of branches newly 
 coining out ; in some places the cottages of fishermen, in others 
 the kine feeding with their young ones. To walk about in such 
 a place, enjoying the sweet songs of the beautiful birds, and the 
 charming gale full of the sweet smell of flowers, only wraps the 
 mind in contemplation of that Being who is full of pleasure. 
 . . . The cobra de capello, like the indigo planters, with mouths 
 full of poison, threw all happiness into the flame of fire. The 
 father, through injustice, died in the prison ; the elder brother in 
 the indigo field; and the mother, being insane through grief for 
 her husband and son, murdered, with her own hands, a most 
 honest woman. . . . The cry of mama, mama, mama, mama, do 
 I make in the battle-field and the wilderness whenever fear arises 
 in the mind. . . . Ah ! ah ! it bursts my heart not to know 
 where my heart's Sarala is gone to. The most beautiful, wise, 
 and entirely devoted to me ; she walked as the swan, and her 
 eyes were handsome as those of the deer. . . . The mind was 
 charmed by thy sweet reading, which was as the singing of the 
 bird in the forest. Thou, Sarala, hadst a most beauteous face, 
 and didst brighten the lake of my heart. Who did take away 
 my lotus with a cruel heart ? The beautifiil lake became dark. 
 The world I look upon is as a desert full of corpses ; while I 
 have lost my father, my mother, my brother, and my wife ! " ^ 
 
 The play, however weak and artificial, marks the grave 
 dangers that must be faced when England gives Indici, in 
 consideration of her political servitude, the fullest possible 
 freedom of thought, of conscience, and of expression of her 
 needs and aspirations. If not true to fact, the very exaggera- 
 tion of such writings as the " Nil Darpan " train the people 
 who know the truth to more sober views of the situation, 
 and to gradual mistrust of similar effusions. To establish 
 a new industry, and especially to expect an agricultural 
 population to accept more profitable modes of cultivation 
 than those followed by their forefathers, is a task difficult 
 of success, and one that must invariably lead to the 
 strongest opposition against those who strive to move 
 habits which have become almost instincts. Perhaps, for 
 many reasons, it was well for India that the cultivation 
 » "Nil Darpan," p. loi. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 419 
 
 of indigo had a check, even as had the efforts to introduce 
 the English plough, in preference to the surface-scratching 
 native one, for speedy results, in a land like India, often 
 mean speedy exhaustion, and permanent decay. The " Nil 
 Darpan " was the instinctive reaction of a poetic mind, ever 
 ready, through the stress of its imagination, to exaggerate 
 the meaning of passing changes, and revolt against a system 
 it could not fit into its conception of the times. 
 
 The whole course of England's mission is calmly to note 
 the power of the old, mark its failing strength, and graft 
 any of its lasting principles of vitality on to new ideals. 
 
 Nowhere better than in the novels of Bankim Chandra 
 Chatterji can the full force of this strife between old and 
 new be traced. The novels themselves owe their form to 
 Western influences, but the subject-matter and spirit are 
 essentially native. Bankim Chandra Chatterji himself was 
 the first B.A. of the Calcutta University. Born in 1838, his 
 earliest novel, "Durges Nandini," ^ appeared in 1864, pro- 
 fessedly inspired as a historical novel under the influence 
 of the works of Sir Walter Scott. This work was followed 
 by " Kopala Kundala," ^ a tale of life in Bengal some two 
 hundred and fifty years ago, and was succeeded by the 
 " Mrinalini." In 1872 the novelist commenced, in his newly- 
 started magazine, the Banga Darsan, the monthly publica- 
 tion of his novel of social life, the " Bisha Brikka," translated 
 into English as "The Poison Tree" in 1884.8 The "Debi 
 Chaudhurani," "Ananda Mathar," and "Krishna Kanta's 
 Will " * followed, the last being translated into English in 
 1895. The "Krishna Charitra," published in 1886, is, how- 
 ever, the work through which the name of Bankim Chandra 
 Chatterji will probably remain famed in the memory of his 
 own country-people. 
 
 1 Translated by Charu Candra Mookerji (Calcutta, 1880). 
 
 - Translated by H. A. D. Phillips (Trubner & Co., 1885). 
 
 ' Translated by Marian Knight, with Preface by Sir Edwin Arnold. 
 
 ' TraLslated by Marian Knight, with Introduction by Prof. J. F. Blunihardt. 
 
420 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 It is the crowning work of all his labours. It inculcates, 
 with all the purity of style of which the novelist was so 
 perfect a master, a pure and devout revival of Hinduism, 
 founded on monotheistic principles. The object was to show 
 that the character of Krishna was, in the ancient writings, 
 an ideal perfect man, and that the commonly-received 
 legends of his immorality and amours were the accretions 
 of later and more depraved times. Bankim Chandra 
 Chatterji is the first great creative genius modern India has 
 produced. For the Western reader his novels are a revela- 
 tion of the inward spirit of Indian life and thought. 
 
 As a creative artist he soars to heights unattained by 
 Tulsi Das, the first true dramatic genius India saw. To 
 claim him solely as a product of Western influence would 
 be to neglect the heritage he held ready to his hand from 
 the poetry of his own country. He is, nevertheless, the first 
 clear type of what a fusion between East and West may yet 
 produce, and the type is one reproduced in his successor, 
 Romesh Chandra Dutt, and in a varied manner by others, 
 such as Kasinath Trimbak Telang, in Bombay. It is 
 names such as Ram Mohun Roy, Keshab Chandar Sen, 
 Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Toru Dutt, and Telang that 
 would live in the future as the memorial of England's 
 fostering care, if all the material evidences of Western 
 civilisation were swept from off the land. 
 
 To those who would know something of the life, thoughts, 
 feelings, and religions of the Indian people, no better 
 instructor can be found than Bankim Chandra Chatterji. 
 The English reader must not be surprised if, in the 
 novels of the greatest novelist India has seen, there is 
 much of Eastern form, much of poetic fancy and spiritual 
 mysticism alien to a Western craving for objective realism. 
 Bankim Chandra Chatte>ji, with all the insight of Eastern 
 poetic genius, with all the artistic delicacy of touch so 
 easily attained by the subtle deftness of a high-caste native 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 421 
 
 of India, or a Pierre Loti, weaves a fine-spun drama of life, 
 fashioning his characters and painting their surroundings 
 with the same gentle touch, as though his fingers worked 
 amid the frail petals of some flower, or moved along the 
 lines of fine silk, to frame therewith a texture as unsub- 
 stantial as the dreamy fancies with which all life is woven, 
 as warp and woof. So the " Kopala Kundala " opens with 
 a band of pilgrims travelling by boat to the sacred place 
 of pilgrimage, where the holy River Ganges pours its 
 sin-destroying waters into the boundless ocean. The frail 
 boat, with its weight of sin, is being swept by the rushing 
 flood out towards the sea. The boatmen are powerless ; 
 they cry for help to the Muhammadan saints, the 
 pilgrims wail to Durga, the dreaded wife of Siva, the 
 Destroyer. One woman alone weeps not; she has cast 
 her child into the flowing stream, for such was her vow of 
 pilgrimage. In its unguided course the boat, by chance, 
 touches land, and the hero, Nobo Kumar, volunteers to 
 wander along the sandy shore in search of firewood. The 
 tide rises, the boat is swept away, and Nobo Kumar is 
 left to gaze after it in despair. The sandy waste is the 
 abode of an ascetic worshipper of Kali, who is waited on by 
 the heroine, "Kopala Kundala," destined as a sacrifice to the 
 fierce goddess. The ascetic sage is clothed in tiger skins ; 
 he is seated on a corpse, and wears a necklace of rudra 
 seeds and human bones ; his hair is matted and unshorn. 
 The wild scene is depicted with all the dreamy, poetic 
 repose which saturates the whole life of the East. The 
 ocean is spread in front ; across it speeds an English trading 
 ship, with its sails spread out like the wings of some large 
 bird ; the blue waters gleam like gold beneath the setting 
 sun ; far out, in the endless expanse, the waves break in 
 foam ; along the glittering sands there runs a white streak 
 of surf like to a garland of white flowers. The two scenes — 
 one the lonely pilgrim and the near-seated, hideous, human- 
 
422 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 sacrificing ascetic, the other of the vastness and stillness 
 of the sea — seem to picture forth the emptiness of man's 
 imaginings and efforts amid the impassive immensity of 
 the universe. Over all, the murmuring roll of the ocean, 
 echoed as it is in the poet's words, seems as though it 
 bore to the senses the wailing moan of a soul lost in time 
 and space. In the midst of the mystic scene a woman, 
 the heroine, appears. She is a maiden, with hair as black 
 as jet trailing to her ankles in snake-like curls. Her face, 
 encircled by her black hair, shines like the rays of the 
 moon through the riven clouds. As Nobo Kumar gazes 
 on her form, she tells him to fly from the ascetic Yog^, 
 who has already prepared the sacrificial fire and awaits a 
 human victim. Spellbound, Nobo Kumar has no power 
 to fly from the devotee to Kali ; he follows to the place 
 of sacrifice, and is there bound. Kopala Kundala, in the 
 absence of the priest, appears, severs the bonds, and 
 releases Nobo Kumar. The priest returns, seeks the sacri- 
 ficial sword, then notes how his victim has been released. 
 In his rage he rushes to and fro along the sandy dunes, 
 from the summit of one of which he stumbles in the dark- 
 ness, falls, "like a buffalo hurled from some mountain 
 peak," and breaks his arms. The hero and heroine, before 
 they fly from the waste of sands, are married. Kopala 
 Kundala, however, longs to know the will of the goddess. 
 A leaf placed at the foot of the dread deity falls to the 
 ground, fatal omen that the goddess is displeased. 
 
 So the fate of man is, for the poet's purpose, as uncertain 
 as the face of a trembling raindrop on a lotus leaf. The 
 new-made wife departs, weeping, from the shrine. The 
 novelist has now to follow her destiny to its relentless 
 course. The shadow of her future soon throws its dark 
 gloom across the soul of Kopala Kundala. Amid the 
 intrigues of the Mughal court of the time of Jahangir the 
 course is prepared for the tragedy to close round Kopala 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 423 
 
 Kundala, whose husband grows to doubt her love, and then 
 to witness what has been cunningly devised to seem her 
 faithlessness. The ascetic sage, with broken arms, now 
 appears before Nobo Kumar, and declares that the angered 
 goddess still claims a sacrifice. In his rage, Nobo Kumar 
 offers to sacrifice his wife, and so at once to appease Kali 
 and his own blind jealousy. Kopala Kundala has herself 
 resolved to fulfil her fate. The relentless decrees, that 
 hold the destiny of man at their beck and nod, have now 
 almost worked out their purposes. The voice of the priest 
 wails with pity as he calls on the victim ; her husband 
 seizes the sword, but his passion bursts forth in moaning 
 cries to his beloved to assure him, at the last moment, that 
 she has not been faithless. He hears the truth, that all his 
 suspicions were roused by cunning design. Fate, typified 
 by the will of the goddess, must be worked out. Nobo 
 Kumar extends his arms to clasp his love, but Kopala 
 Kundala steps back, and the waters of the Ganges rise 
 to sweep her away in its sin-destroying flood, where Nobo 
 Kumar also finds his death. 
 
 The novel throughout moves steadily to its purpose. 
 There is no over-elaboration, no undue working after effect ; 
 everywhere there are signs of the work of an artist whose 
 hand falters not as he chisels out his lines with classic 
 grace. The force that moves the whole with emotion, and 
 gives to it its subtle spell, is the mystic form of Eastern 
 thought that clearly shows the new forms that lie ready for 
 inspiring a new school of fiction with fresh life. Outside 
 the " Mariage de Loti " there is nothing comparable to the 
 " Kopala Kundala" in the history of Western fiction, although 
 the novelist himself, and many of his native admirers, see 
 grounds for comparing the works of Bankim Babu with 
 those of Sir Walter Scott, probably because they are 
 outwardly historical. 
 
 A novel far surpassing "Kopala Kundala" in realistic 
 
424 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 interest is the same novelist's " Poison Tree." This novel 
 has its own artistic merits, but its chief value, for English 
 readers, lies in the life-like pictures it presents of modem 
 Indian life and thought. With subdued satire the 
 interested efforts of would-be social reformers are shown to 
 be founded often on motives of self-interest, dishonesty, or 
 immorality. The evil results which too often follow the 
 breaking - away from the strict seclusion and moral re- 
 straints of Hindu family life under the influence of 
 Western education are indicated plainly. These modem 
 movements are depicted as often leading the native 
 more towards agnosticism and impatience of control than 
 towards the implanting of a vigorous individuality, founded 
 on a heightening of religious feelings, and wider views of 
 the necessity of self-control and altruistic motives of action. 
 It is a danger which grows graver daily ; it is a movement 
 which must be expected in the history of a nation's 
 advance from bondage to freedom, and one to be resolutely 
 met with a firm faith in the eternal elements underlying 
 all enlightenment and social progress, and not with a 
 hopelessness of a pessimistic despair. The novel itself is 
 very simple. It deals with the same few human elements 
 which always form the leading motive for any great creative 
 work of universal and abiding interest The hero, 
 Nagendra Nath, is a wealthy landlord, aged thirty, a model 
 amongst men, wealthy and handsome, surrounded by 
 friends, retainers, and relations, all of whom live an ideal 
 life of happiness through his bounty. He rejoices in the 
 possession of a beloved and loving wife, Surja Mukhi, aged 
 twenty-six, who moves amid the household with a calm 
 dignity and graceful gentleness, an ideal picture of a faith- 
 ful Hindu spouse and well-educated, sensible woman. 
 Nagendra, during a journey to Calcutta, befriends an 
 orphan girl, Kunda, aged but thirteen — an age described as 
 that in which all the charm of simplicity is combined with 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 425 
 
 the radiance of the moonbeams and scent of sweet flowers. 
 Nagendra brings the girl to his married sister at Calcutta, 
 but, as he seems in no hurry to depart, his wife writes 
 playfully upbraiding him, and suggesting in jest that he 
 should bring his new-found treasure home and marry her 
 himself, or give her to the village schoolmaster, who has not 
 yet found a willing bride. The child is accordingly brought 
 to the village and married to the schoolmaster. This 
 schoolmaster, snub-nosed, conceited, and copper-coloured, 
 is represented as an up-to-date product of an undigested 
 surfeit of Western emancipation. He has received an 
 English education at a free mission school, and planted 
 himself amid the village community as a very mine of 
 learned lore ; it was whispered abroad that he had read the 
 " Citizen of the World," and passed in three books of " Euclid." 
 He extracted essays against idolatry, against the seclusion 
 of women and child-marriage from the Tattva-bodhinl, 
 and published them under his own name. He joined the 
 local Brahma Samaj, established by the spendthrift of the 
 neighbourhood, who had imbibed all the Western vices 
 and abandoned all the native virtues, who drank wine from 
 decanters with cut-glass stoppers, carried a brandy flask, 
 and ate roast mutton and cutlets, and who, when not drunk, 
 occupied his time in encouraging the marriage of low-caste 
 widows, so that he might pose as a local reformer. The 
 satire is perfect, the characters satirised true to life. The 
 new product of Western influences encouraged the in- 
 fatuated schoolmaster to read papers and deliver eloquent 
 addresses on the subject of the emancipation of women, 
 and the moralising influence of bringing women out into 
 public life, but finds that although the schoolmaster can be 
 jeered into allowing him to visit Kunda, the outraged pride 
 of the timid beauty bursts forth in a flood of indignant 
 tears. 
 
 Luckily for Kunda, the schoolmaster dies. The widow 
 
426 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 returns to the home of her former protector, the all-loving 
 Nagendra. The gentle beauty of Kunda sinks deep into 
 the heart of Nagendra, whose want of self-control sows the 
 seeds of the poison tree, whose baneful fruit must be 
 eaten. Nagendra's wife looks on in sorrow until her 
 husband, unable to stifle his thoughts or bear her silent 
 reproaches, seeks to drown his feelings in drink. At length 
 he can bear the restraint no longer. Isvara Chandra Vidya- 
 sagar has proved, from the ancient law books, that widow- 
 marriage is allowable, although no Hindu custom. His 
 wife hides her wounded feelings, wondering if Isvara 
 Chandra Vidyasagar be a pandit, who then is wanting in 
 wisdom ? She sacrifices all her feelings to her great love 
 for her husband and prepares the marriage ceremonies, but 
 once the marriage takes place, she steals away from the 
 happy home where she was once sole mistress. She had 
 made her resolve to wander as a mendicant from place to 
 place, unable to remain at home and bear the pain of seeing 
 Kunda claim her husband. 
 
 The suffering of Surja Mukhi, the despair of Nagendra 
 when he finds his once loved wife has left, and that, as 
 a consequence, his overwhelming passion for Kunda has 
 turned to indifference, almost to loathing, are set forth with 
 a fulness of sympathy and emotional feeling which a 
 native can so deeply feel and express. To its bitterest 
 depths the novelist traces the stern course of the unrelenting 
 destiny which decrees that the seeds of sin once sown must 
 grow, and the fruit be reaped. 
 
 A welcome relief comes when the story breaks into some- 
 what laboured humour. The eager servants of Nagendra 
 go forth with coaches and palanquins in search of their 
 mistress, whose face they have never seen. Every good- 
 looking and high-caste woman along the road, by the 
 bathing tanks, or river-side, is forcibly seized and brought, 
 with cries of joy, to the unfortunate husband, to see if he 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 427 
 
 can recognise among them his lost wife, so that, finally, no 
 woman dare venture from home for fear of being brought 
 to Nagendra. Surja Mukhi returns not. Her husband 
 leaves his new wife, Kunda, to mourn alone over her destiny 
 in the now deserted home, once so full of joy and happiness. 
 
 Nagendra returns after weary wanderings to end his life 
 in pious deeds and holy living. Kunda he is resolved 
 never more to speak to nor to see. For her, therefore, 
 there is only death ; the poisoned fruit must be eaten that 
 grew from the seed of sin. Before she dies the long-lost wife 
 reappears, and Kunda, in her dying moments, is received 
 as a younger sister, and sinks to rest, her hands clasping 
 her rival's feet, her head supported by her husband, whose 
 love she had once won, and whom she now knows cannot 
 abide by her. 
 
 In Nagendra's love for Kunda the novelist declares that 
 he wished to depict the fleeting love of passion, as sung by 
 Kalidasa, Byron, and Jaya Deva, and in his love for Surja 
 Mukhi, the deep love which sacrifices one's own happiness 
 for the love of another, as sung by Shakespeare, Valmiki, 
 and Madame de Stael. 
 
 The Bengali novelist could not so readily shake himself 
 free from his Eastern form of thought, and view all things 
 from an objective point of view. The love for Kunda is 
 still the fettering of the soul by the objects of sense ; the 
 love of the husband for his first wife is still the mystic love 
 of the soul for God. 
 
 The wealth of material which lies to the hand of the 
 future great novelist of India has been virtually untouched. 
 Bankim Chandra Chatterji, has but led the way and 
 indicated the material which awaits the next great artist. 
 
 He leaves us in doubt whether he is depicting life as it 
 throbbed around him, or whether he has hemmed in his 
 characters with a surrounding of Eastern mysticism and 
 romantic reserve born of Western conventionality. 
 
428 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 If Bankim Chandra Chatterji has struck a chord which 
 vibrates through the hearts of the many women of zenanas 
 in India, whose eyes must have wept bitter tears over the 
 agony of Surja Mukhi, deplorable indeed, and worthy of all 
 his deep feeling as an artist, must be the condition of a 
 vast multitude of suffering women in the East, who have 
 been nurtured to see their life blasted by a rival love placed 
 by their side to rejoice their lord's heart, or that a son may 
 be born to save their husband's soul. We are, however, 
 left in doubt as to whether Nagendra sinned in having a 
 second wife — he defends polygamy in the course of the 
 story — or whether his fault lay in marrying a widow against 
 social custom. The motive for fatality of act should have 
 been as clear and unmistakable as it was in the " Mud 
 Cart," where the jealousies of the two rival wives who 
 became reconciled do not influence the action. 
 
 The same idea is further worked out in " Krishna Kanta's 
 Will." Here the true workings of the novelist's mind are 
 apparent ; a deeper vein is touched. The love of the erring 
 husband for his wife, and the rival love by which he is 
 infatuated, typifies a struggle between a Divine love and 
 the ever-recurring phantasmal attraction of the soul to the 
 objects of sense, from which freedom can only be reached 
 by centring the mind on ideal perfections. 
 
 The praise of Krishna, as a perfected man, is sung by the 
 poet in his greatest work, the " Krishna Charitra," published 
 in 1862, as a contribution to a Hindu revival in the ancient 
 national religion, which Romesh Chandra Dutt describes as 
 " the nourishing and life-giving faith of the ' Upanishads,' 
 and the ' Vedanta,' and the ' Bhagavad Gita,' which has been, 
 and ever will be, the true faith of the Hindus." ^ 
 
 A worthy follower of India's first great novelist appeared 
 in Romesh Chandra Dutt, the ablest native member of 
 the Indian Civil Service. His novels have now passed 
 
 1 Dutt, R. C, "The Literature of Bengal," p. 235. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 429 
 
 through five or six editions in the Bengali. He has resisted 
 all entreaties to translate them into English, although he 
 is as able with his pen in English, as he is in Sanskrit 
 and Bengali. The advice given him by Bankim Chandra 
 Chatterji now no longer applies ; the Eastern form has fused 
 sufficiently with the English motive force to make a prose 
 translation by himself of his works not only widely accept- 
 able by the Western public, but necessary for all students 
 of history and literature. 
 
 Bankim Chandra's advice was given in 1872, and then 
 mainly referred to poetry, not to prose : " You will never 
 live by your writings in English," he said ; " look at others. 
 Your uncles, Govind Chandra and Shashi Chandra's 
 English poems will never live. Madhu Sudan's Bengali 
 poetry will live as long as the Bengali language will 
 live." 
 
 In his own time the elder novelist clearly recognised the 
 younger as a worthy rival, and on the appearance, in 1874 
 of Romesh Chandra Dutt's first novel, " Banga Bijeta," a 
 tale of the times of Akbar, he wrote : " I am crowding my 
 canvas with characters ; it won't do for a veteran like me 
 to be beaten by a youngster." ■ 
 
 The other five novels of Romesh Chandra Dutt followed 
 in quick succession. "Rajput Jiban Sandhya" (1878), a 
 tale of the times of Jahanglr; "Madhalei Kankan" (1876) 
 a tale of the times of Shah Jahan ; " Maharashtra Jiban 
 Prabhat" (1877), a tale of the times of Aurangzib; 
 "Sansar'' (1885); "Samaj" (1894); two social novels 
 continuing the same story. His translation of the " Rig 
 Veda Sanhita" into Bengali appeared in 1887 ; his valuable 
 " History of Civilisation of Ancient India," in English, in 
 three volumes from 1889; his second edition of "The 
 Literature of Bengal," so often quoted in this work, in 
 1895 ; and his selection of translations from the " Rig Veda 
 Puranas," and " Hindu Sastras," from 1895 to 1897. 
 
430 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 A whole library of " Sorrow and Song " was poured forth 
 by this Dutt family of Rambagan. Govind Chandra Dutt 
 and Shashi Chandra Dutt first published the " Dutt Family 
 Album," in 1870, in England, hoping, as they said, that their 
 poems would be regarded in England as curiosities, and 
 the work of foreigners educated at the Hindu College at 
 Calcutta who had become Christians. 
 
 Their work, like much similar work of the same class 
 — the " Lotus Leaves " of H. C. Dutt, the " Cherry Blossom " 
 of G. C. Dutt, the " Vision of Sumeru," and other poems, 
 by S. Chandra Dutt and others — indicate the enormous 
 difficulties which lie before even the most gifted who work 
 in English verse. 
 
 A few verses from "A Vision of Sumeru, and other 
 Poems,"! by tjie estimable Shashi Chundra Dutt, a Rai 
 Bahadur and Justice of the Peace at Calcutta, strike a key- 
 note that wails of itself: — 
 
 MY NATIVE LAND. 
 
 " My native land, I love thee still ! 
 There's beauty yet upon thy lonely shore ; 
 And not a tree, and not a rill, 
 But can my soul with rapture thrill, 
 Though glory dwells no more." 
 
 " What though those temples now are lone 
 Where guardian angels long did dwell ; 
 What though from brooks that sadly run, 
 The naiads are for ever gone — 
 Gone with their sounding shell ! " 
 
 " Those days of mythic tale and song, 
 When dusky warriors, in their martial pride, 
 Strode thy sea-beat shores along. 
 While with their fame the valleys rung, 
 And tum'd the foe aside. 
 
 ^ Tbacker Spink (Calcutta, 1879). 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 431 
 
 "Then sparkled woman's Ijrilliant eye, 
 And heaved her heart, and panted to enslave; 
 And beauteous veils and flow'rets shy, 
 In vain to hide those charms did try 
 That flash'd to woo the brave. 
 
 " My fallen country ! where abide 
 Thy envied splendour, and thy glory now ? 
 
 The Pithin's and the Mogul's pride, 
 
 Spread desolation far and wide. 
 And stain'd thy sinless brow." 
 • *•..• 
 
 " And beauty's eye retains its fire, 
 What though its lightnings flash not for the brave ; 
 
 And beauteous bosoms yet aspire. 
 
 With passion strong and warm desire, 
 To wake the crouching slave. 
 
 "My country ! fallen as thou art, 
 My soul can never cease to heave for thee : 
 I feel the dagger's edge, the dart 
 That rankles in thy widow'd heart, 
 Thy woeful destiny I " 
 
 The full force of the clashing of new and old reached its 
 climax in the short, sad life of the "Jeune et cdldbre 
 Hindoue de Calcutta." ^ 
 
 Toru Dutt, the gifted daughter of a gifted family, was 
 born in Calcutta in 1856, where, as she sings : — 
 
 " The light green graceful tamarinds abound 
 Amid the mango clumps of green profound. 
 And palms arise, like pillars grey, between, 
 And o'er the quiet pools the seemuls lean." ^ 
 
 She died at the early age of twenty-one, but in her short 
 span of life she had crowded her imaginative mind with 
 imagery gleaned from French, German, English, and 
 Sanskrit literature, and with her retentive memory had 
 
 ' " Le Journal de Mdlle. d'Arvers par Toru Dutt " (Paris, 1879). 
 » Toru Dutt, " Ballads and Legends of Hindustan " (1885). 
 
432 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 stored up an unique knowledge which she afterwards showed 
 in "A Sheaf gleaned in French Fields," published in 1876, 
 containing unaided translations from the French, some by 
 her sister Aru, and criticisms, amongst others, of Leconte de 
 Lisle, Alfred de Musset, Victor Hugo, Frangois Coppde, 
 and Th^ophile Gautier. More remarkable was " Le Journal 
 de Mdlle. d'Arvers," a romance in French, published with 
 an account of Toru Dutt's life and work by Mdlle. Clarisse 
 Bader in 1879. The work, however, by which she will be 
 best known to English readers is her " Ancient Ballads and 
 Legends of Hindustan," published in 1885, with an intro- 
 duction by Edmund Gosse. The poems often faultless as 
 they are in technical execution, sometimes the verse, as Mr 
 Gosse truly says, being exquisite to a hypercritical ear, can 
 never take an abiding-place in the history of English or 
 Indian literature. The old ballads and legends have lost 
 all their plaintive cadence, all the natural charm they bore 
 when wrapped round with the full-sounding music of the 
 Sanskrit, or in what lay ready to the hands of the poetess, 
 her own classical Bengali. 
 
 The imagery, the scenery has even lost its own Oriental 
 colour and profusion of ornamentation. The warmth of 
 expression and sentiment has of necessity been toned down 
 by the very use of a language which, even had it been 
 plastic in the hands of Toru Dutt, could never have afforded 
 her the delicate touch and colour which she found in the 
 French. 
 
 In her poem " Jogadhya Uma," her own creative powers 
 have found their fullest play. In her own vernacular the 
 poem would have been sung to music so weird and soothing, 
 the words would have been attuned to feelings so deep and 
 sincere, that, although she had parted from her ancient 
 faith and become a Christian, it would have been a poem 
 destined to live in the religious poetry of Hinduism, and 
 take a place among the songs of the people. As it is, 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 433 
 
 while it shows all her innate resources, it also shows the 
 lack of power of her choice of a medium to express her 
 ideals. The story is one she has learned for herself : — 
 
 " Absurd may be the tale I tell, 
 Ill-suited to the marching tiroes, 
 I loved the lips from which it fell, 
 So let it stand among my rhymes." 
 
 In the poem a pedlar wanders to and fro crying his 
 wares : — 
 
 " Shell bracelets, ho ! Shell bracelets, ho ! 
 Fair maids and matrons come and buy ! " 
 
 As he cries, 
 
 " A fair young woman with large eyes, 
 And dark hair falling to her zone, 
 She heard the pedlar's cry arise. 
 And eager seemed his ware to own." 
 
 A shell bracelet is bought, and the woman tells the 
 pedlar to go to her home, a manse near the village temple 
 where her father is priest. The pedlar goes to the priest 
 and demands the price, and from the story he tells, the 
 priest discerns that it was the goddess Uma who had 
 appeared to the pedlar. 
 
 The priest cries : — 
 
 " How strange ! how strange ! Oh blest art thou 
 
 To have beheld her, touched her hand, 
 Before whom Vishnu's self must bow, 
 
 And Brahma and his heavenly band. 
 Here have I worshipped her for years. 
 
 And never seen the vision bright. 
 Vigil and fasts and secret tears 
 
 Have almost quenched my outward sight ; 
 And yet that dazzling form and face 
 
 I have not seen, and thou, dear friend. 
 To thee, unsought-for, comes the grace. 
 
 What may its purport be, and end ? " 
 2 E 
 
434 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 They hasten back to the water-side, where the goddess 
 had been seen bathing, but there 
 
 " The birds were silent in the wood, 
 Over all the solitude. 
 A heron as a sentinel. 
 Stood by the bank. . . ." 
 
 The goddess had disappeared, but in answer to tlie 
 priest's prayer for her reappearance 
 
 I 
 
 " Sudden from out the water sprung 
 A rounded arm on which they saw. 
 As high the lotus buds among 
 It rose, the bracelet white. . • ." 
 
 " It sinks. 
 They bowed before the mystic Power, 
 
 And as they home returned, in thought 
 Each took from thence a lotus flower, 
 
 In memory of the day and spot. 
 Years, centuries have passed away, 
 
 And still before the temple shrine, 
 Descendants of the pedlar pay 
 
 Shell bracelets of the old design, 
 As annual tribute. Much they own 
 
 On land, and gold, — but they confess 
 From that eventful day alone. 
 
 Dawned on their industry, — success." 
 
 A novel of great interest, entitled " Induleka," has passed 
 almost unnoticed in England, although it was translated by 
 the able Malayalam scholar, Mr Dumergue of the Indian 
 Civil Service. It appeared in 1889, and was written in the 
 vernacular language of the Malabar* coast, Travancore, and 
 Cochin by Mr O. Chandu Menon. It was avowedly written 
 for the purpose of introducing the Western form of fiction to 
 the home of the novelist, so that when " stories composed 
 of incidents true to national life, and attractively and grace- 
 fully written, are once introduced, then, by degrees, the old 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 435 
 
 order of books, filled with the impossible and the super- 
 natural, will change, giving place to the new." 
 
 In the course of the story, the newly-acquired thoughts 
 and habits of natives educated on English lines, are con- 
 trasted with those of the old school of conservative and 
 orthodox Hindus. 
 
 The inward life of a Nair family or Tarwad, ruled, ac- 
 cording to the local custom, by the chief of the house, or 
 " Karnavan," is laid bare, with the conflict waged by the 
 younger members against their " unprogressive " elders. 
 
 The author, in his preface, describes the hero, Madhavan, 
 as "a graduate both in Arts and Law. He is extremely 
 handsome in appearance, and extraordinarily intelligent, 
 and a good Sanskrit scholar. He excelled in sports and 
 English games, such as cricket and lawn-tennis." As the 
 novel is to be "a novel after the English fashion," the 
 author confesses that " it is evident that no ordinary 
 Malayalee lady could fill the role of the heroine of 
 such a story. My Induleka is not, therefore, an ordinary 
 Malayalee lady. She knows English, Sanskrit, music, etc., 
 and is at once a very beautiful and a very accomplished 
 young lady of about seventeen years of age when our story 
 opens." 
 
 That the reader should not imagine that the character 
 is altogether untrue to life, the novelist hastens to add : " I 
 myself know two or three respectable Nair ladies now 
 living, who, in intellectual culture (save and except in the 
 knowledge of English), strength of character, and general 
 knowledge, can well hold comparison with Induleka. As 
 for beauty, personal charms, refined manners, simplicity of 
 taste, conversational powers, wit and humour, I can show 
 hundreds of young ladies, in respectable Nair Tarwads, 
 who would undoubtedly come up to the standard of my 
 Induleka." 
 
 The storj' of the trials of the hero and heroine and of 
 
436 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 the final triumph of their love, is well worked out on the 
 lines of English fiction, with the added interest and charm 
 of Eastern life and Eastern scenery. 
 
 One chapter towards the end of the story gives, in the 
 form of a conversation between Madhavan, the hero, his 
 father, Govinda Panikkar, a "bigoted Hindu," and his 
 cousin, Govinda Kutti Menon, the current native view on 
 such subjects as religion, education, and the National 
 Congress. Madhavan's father first upbraids his son with 
 want of love, faith, and veneration : — 
 
 " The cause of all this, I say, is English education. Faith in God 
 and piety should rank foremost in the hearts of men, but you who 
 learn English have neither. . . . Your new-fangled knowledge and 
 notions have ruined everything. I see you continually forsaking the 
 good old practices which we Hindus have observed from time im- 
 memoriaL . . . All this hostility to our time-honoured rules of virtuous 
 life, is due to nothing but the study of English. If the acquisition of 
 human knowledge and human culture comes into conflict with faith in 
 things Divine, then they are most utterly worthless. It behoves each 
 and every man to cling to the faith of his forefathers, but you apparently 
 think that the Hindu religion is altogether contemptible.'' 
 
 The usual arguments on the subjects of theism, atheism, 
 and agnosticism follow. The father, Govinda Panikkar, at 
 length retorts : — 
 
 " If you say that God is omnipresent, can you therefore make up 
 your mind not to go to the temples ? Besides, do you really mean to 
 say that there are no saints upon earth who have freed themselves 
 from all worldly cares and passions ? " 
 
 " I certainly do," answered Madhavan. " I maintain emphatically 
 that, except when all natiual appetites and desires are quenched by 
 sickness, there is no man devoid of the impulses and passions which 
 are inherent in the flesh." 
 
 " This is dreadful," exclaimed Govinda Panikkar. " Just think how 
 many great devotees and ascetics have conquered all fleshly lusts." 
 
 " I don't believe there are any who have," replied Madhavan. 
 
 " Then are you an atheist altogether, my son ? " 
 
 " I am no atheist ; on the contrary, I firmly believe there is a God." 
 
 " Then what about the ascetics ? " 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 437 
 
 " I do not believe there are any such men as you mentioned, 
 whether they are devotees or not." 
 
 " But I saw an ascetic once who Hved on nothing but seven pepper- 
 corns and seven neem leaves a day. He never even drank water." 
 
 " He must have been an uncommonly clever impostor," said 
 Govinda Kutti Menon, " and I have no doubt he humbugged you." 
 
 " He stayed for nine days in the lodge with me," returned Govinda 
 Panikkar, " and ate nothing the whole time." 
 
 " You did not see him eat anything, brother," said Govinda Kutti 
 Menon, " and believed that he ate nothing ; that's all. A man cannot 
 live without food. It is so ordained by nature, and what is the use of 
 any one telling lies about it ? " 
 
 " There, now," said Govinda Panikkar, " this perversity comes from 
 your intercourse with English people. You never believe a word we 
 say." 
 
 Long extracts from the writings of Bradlaugh are quoted 
 to break down the faith of the orthodox Hindu in all his 
 ancient religion. The story of creation and of Adam, as 
 dealt with by Bradlaugh, are next discussed : — 
 
 " But there is no mention of any man named Adam in our ' Shastras ' 
 and ' Puranas,' and I don't believe a word of what you have read," 
 objected Govinda Panikkar. 
 
 " You need not believe in Adam,'' replied Govinda Kutti Menon. 
 " But the account given by the Christian Scriptures of the curse which 
 is said to have fallen on Adam, and the tribulation which is described 
 as resulting from the wrath of God, is nothing compared with similar 
 accounts in our ' Puranas.' According to them, it is not only God, but 
 also saintly men and minor deities, and Brahmans, and, more than this, 
 women, that are paragons of virtue, who, in their wrath, take cruel and 
 manifold vengeance on immortals and mortals, and the dumb brute 
 creation from one birth to another. None of this rank, preposterous 
 folly appears in the Christian Scriptures." 
 
 " Don't speak like that," said Govinda Panikkar. " What do you 
 mean by saying such things of our ' Puranas,' Govinda Kutti ? Do you 
 imagine any one will believe you when you condemn as rank folly our 
 ' Puranas,' which are as old as the world itself, simply because you have 
 read an English book, a creation of yesterday ? But, apart from that, 
 if there is no God, then what you say must amount to this, that man 
 called himself into existence." 
 
 " It amounts to more," repUed Govinda Kutti, " because I say that 
 not only man, but also the whole world, came into existence through 
 
438 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 various elements and forces, and is attaining complete development 
 spontaneously." 
 
 " Then, in that case, when a man dies, what becomes of the spirit of 
 life ? " asked Govinda Panikkar. 
 
 " Nothing," replied Govinda Kutti Menon. " It simply becomes 
 extinct. If you put out a lighted candle, what becomes of the flame ? 
 Surely nothing ; it is simply extinguished, and so it is with the spirit 
 of life." 
 
 " Then man has no ftiture state ! All is ended in death ! " exclaimed 
 Govinda Panikkar. " Verily, this is a creed fit only for devils ! " 
 
 The unfortunate father has, however, to sit still and listen 
 to a discussion over the relative merits of the writings of 
 Darwin, Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and other English 
 writers, and those of the Indian sages. The case for and 
 against the National Congress is next considered, 
 Madhavan's cousin vehemently opposing its purposes 
 and methods : — 
 
 " Even for the English, with all their unity of caste and fusion of 
 race. Parliamentary Government is a matter of difficulty, and how 
 preposterous then is the idea entertained by some bawling Babus, 
 Brahmans, and Mudalis of forming, out of the inhabitants of India, 
 who are divided by ten thousand differences of caste into sections 
 as antagonistic to each other as a mongoose is to a snake, an 
 assembly like Parliament for the administration of the country? 
 The project is sheer folly, nothing else. It is simply their fear of 
 being knocked over by bullets and their weakness that has made 
 the nations between the Himalayas and Cape Comorin live at 
 peace with one another since the advent of the Enghsh, but let 
 the English leave India to-morrow, and then we shall see the great- 
 ness and valour of the Babus. Will these open-mouthed demagogues 
 be able to protect the country for a single minute ? Why, if they 
 really possessed that fine feeling of self-esteem which they profess, 
 they would long ago have obtained the privileges they so earnestly 
 desire. But in truth they possess neither courage, nor strength, 
 nor energy, nor patience. Clamour is almost everything with them. 
 Their sole object, their one set ambition is to make a fine speech 
 in English. If the English Government, working on its present lines, 
 gradually introduces changes and reforms into India for the next 
 generation, this is all that is required. There are thousands of 
 customs and institutions in India which are wholly imperfect or dis- 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NE W 439 
 
 graceful, and should be developed and improved. Why should the 
 supporters of the Congress neglect them utterly and go beyond all 
 bounds in grasping first of all at sovereignty ? Why, for instance, 
 do they make no attempt to remove the obstacles to improvement 
 and progress which are interposed by so many unnecessary distinc- 
 tions of caste ? Why do they not, in order to relieve the poverty of 
 the land, try to teach its nations trade with foreign countries, better 
 modes of agriculture, manufacture, mechanical engineering? Why 
 not endeavour to spread education among women? Wliy not seek 
 to reform our obscure household customs and barbarous practices ? 
 It is now many years since the railway, and telegraph, and other 
 wonderful inventions, were introduced into India, and why should 
 no efforts be made to instruct Hindus and Muhammadans how to 
 construct them and work them ? " 
 
 The case for the Congress is argued out by Madhavan, 
 who sets forth its objects shortly in the following words : — 
 
 "With the beginning of their administration began not only the 
 diffusion of knowledge and education among the natives of India, 
 but also a desire to participate in the privileges to which knowledge 
 affords us a title. Inasmuch then as we have every reason to 
 believe that the English Government will, in justice grant us the 
 fiilfilment of this desire if we ask for it, the Congress has been 
 established in order to prefer our request by all lawful and reasonable 
 
 In Madras the two novels "Saguna," and "Kamala" 
 were written by Mrs S. Satthianadhan, whose fragile life 
 passed away in 1894. She was born in 1862, her parents, 
 Haripunt and Radhabai, being the first Brahman converts 
 to Christianity in the Bombay Presidency.^ Her novels 
 are now well known in England. The two conspicuous 
 features of her novels — both derived from her English 
 education and surroundings — are seen in the following 
 extract from "Saguna." The scene is one she witnessed 
 with her brother in the Deccan. The objective mode of 
 
 ^ " Kamala : a Story of Hindu Life," by Mrs S. Satthianadhan, with Memoir 
 by Mrs H. B. Grigg (Madras, 1894). "Saguna: a Story of Native Christian 
 Life," with Preface by Mrs R. S. Benson (Madras, 1895). 
 
440 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 viewing Nature is peculiarly the outcome of Western in- 
 fluence, to which influence must also be ascribed 
 her sincerely Christian piety. 
 
 " The mountain path with its loose stones, moss-grown and dark, the 
 trees loaded with foliage, the twisted, gnarled trunks springing 
 from the midst of granite rocks and stones, the huge serpentine 
 creepers swinging overhead, and over it all the faint glimmer- 
 ing light of dawn— all this formed a picture too fiiU of living 
 beauty, light and shade, to be ever forgotten. We ascended 
 a little rocky eminence, and were looking at the wonders round 
 us, the mists and the shadows, and the play of the light over 
 all, when suddenly the scene changed, and the sun emerged 
 from behind a huge rock. In a moment the whole place was 
 bathed in light. Did the birds make a louder noise, or was 
 the echo stronger, for I thought I heard, with the advent of 
 light, quite an outburst of song and merriment ? My brother, 
 in his, usual earnest way, remarked that it is just like this, 
 shadowy, dark, mystic, weird, with superstition and bigotry 
 lurking in every comer, before the light of Christianity comes 
 into a land. When the sim rises, he said, all the glory of the 
 trees and the rocks comes into view, each thing assumes its 
 proper proportions and is drawn out in greater beauty and 
 perfection. So it is when the sunbeams of Christianity dispel 
 the darkness of superstition in a land." 
 
 In later years the names crowd round of those who 
 
 show that 
 
 During the last two generations India has gone through a new and 
 unique development, fraught with momentous consequences to 
 itself and to the British Empire. Under Western influences the 
 former traditional moorings are already being gradually left 
 behind, and the educated classes are drifting towards another 
 goal."' 
 
 It would be almost an endless task to even enumerate 
 the names of those whose works and labours show evidences 
 of this new influence, this awakening of the torpid Hindu 
 intellect from the sleep into which it had been thrown by 
 the fierce, foreign rule of the Muhammadans during seven 
 centuries. Of all the names, that of Behramji Malabari is 
 ' Karkaria, " India : Forty Years of Progress and Reform,'' p. 13. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 441 
 
 most familiar to English readers, from his well-known 
 work, " The Indian Eye on English Life," and his " Guzarat 
 and the Guzaratis." 
 
 Malabari, a Parsi, was bom in 1853 at Baroda, in the 
 dominion of the Gaikwad, now one of surviving repre- 
 sentatives of the great Maratha power. Failing to pass 
 the matriculation examination at Bombay, he commenced 
 a desultory course of reading described by himself: — 
 
 " I have ranged aimlessly over a very wide field of poetry, English 
 as well as Indian ; also Persian and Greek translated. As 
 to English masters, Shakespeare was my daily companion 
 during schooldays, and a long while after that. Much of my 
 worldly knowledge I owe to this greatest of seers and practical 
 thinkers. Milton filled me with awe. Somehow I used to feel 
 unhappy when the turn came for ' Paradise Lost.' His torrents 
 of words frightened me as much by their stateliness as by 
 monotony. Nor could I sympathise with some of the personal 
 teachings of this grand old singer. Wordsworth is my philo- 
 sopher, Tennyson is my poet." ^ 
 
 The command Malibari obtained over Guzarati resulted 
 in the production of his " Niti Vinod," or " Pleasures of 
 Morality,'' and his acquaintance with English emboldened 
 him to risk his " Indian Muse in English Garb," to an 
 English public. From the latter a few lines ^ will indicate 
 the spirit in which the new reformer commenced his work, 
 and the style of his verse : — 
 
 " O mourn thou not in vain regrets 
 
 That fancied wrong thy peace alloys ; 
 When thy ungrateful heart forgets 
 
 What bliss thy conquered race enjoys. 
 What if thy English brother lords 
 
 It o'er thee, with contempt implied ? 
 Recall the day when Moslem swords 
 
 Cut thee and thine in wanton pride ! 
 Think how a generous nation strives 
 
 To win thee back thy prestige lost ; 
 Of what dear joys herself deprives 
 
 To aid thee at a frightful cost ! " 
 ' KarHaria, " Indiaec," p. 40. ^ Ibid., p. 67. 
 
442 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 During his active life Malabari cast the whole of the 
 power his command over Guzarati and English gave him 
 into the tasks of endeavouring to soften race antipathies, 
 and to introduce some of the more obviously required 
 reforms into Indian society. As editor of the Spectator 
 he exercised an influence far-spread and deep, being, in 
 the words of Mr Martin Wood, the editor of the Times 
 of India, " peculiarly fitted for being a trustworthy inter- 
 preter between rulers and ruled, between the indigenous 
 and immigrant branches of the great Aryan race. It is 
 easy to see that he thoroughly understands the mental 
 and moral characteristics of these two great divisions of 
 the Indian community, not only as presented in Bombay, 
 but in other provinces in India." In his notes on " Infant 
 Marriage and Enforced Widowhood," Malabari pointed out 
 forcibly the two gravest social blots in Indian life. As a 
 result of his labours, both in the Press and on the platform, 
 in England as well as in India, he had the satisfaction of 
 seeing the "Age of Consent Bill of 1891 " pEissed, during 
 the administration of Lord Lansdowne, by which the age 
 of consummation of marriage was raised from ten to twelve. 
 
 In his " Sketch of the Life and Times of Behramji M. 
 Malabari," R. P. Karkaria points out, from an Indian point 
 of view, the tendencies, so apparent to all, in one direction of 
 the continued contact with a new and Western civilisation: — 
 
 " The work of destruction is being done efifectively ; belief in the old 
 religion is giving way among the men who receive an English 
 training. This may not be perhaps quite desirable, as it is 
 better to be, in the phrase of Wordsworth, ' a Pagan suckled in 
 a creed outworn,' than to have no creed at all. The old creeds 
 are found to be outworn by them, but they have taken definitely 
 to no new creed. The ground for such a one, however, is being 
 cleared. What that creed is to be is a matter for speculation. 
 That it will be Christianity in any dogmatic form, one cannot 
 hope. The present agnostic tendency of European thought 
 seems to have a fascination for the Indian intellect, and there 
 are signs here and there to show that atheism is spreading and 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 443 
 
 taking the place of the old superstitions. The writings of 
 agnostics and atheists are growing in favour with our academic 
 youths, who seem to consider all religion as superstition, and 
 every creed to be an anachronism." ^ 
 
 In the same work the opinion of Malabari is quoted on 
 this problem of the future, the most momentous, not only 
 for India, but for the whole civilised world : — 
 
 " I know not if India will become Christian, and when. But this much 
 I know, that the life and work of Christ must tell in the end. 
 After all, He is no stranger to us Easterns. How much of our 
 own He brings back to us, refined and modernised? His 
 European followers seek Him most for His Divine attributes, 
 to me, Jesus is most Divine in His human element. He is so 
 human, so like ourselves, that it will not be difficult to under- 
 stand Him, though it is doubtful if the dogmas preached in His 
 name will acquire a firm hold on the East." ^ 
 
 What may be expected in the near future, as a result of a 
 contact between the intensely earnest and brooding thought 
 of the East with the best of what may be called Western 
 civilisation, can, in some measure, be dimly shadowed 
 forth, as some hope of encouragement to England in the 
 work she has undertaken, if the lines are read and re-read 
 of a brilliant article that has appeared on the situation by 
 Sir Raymond West, in his review of the life and work of 
 Kasinath Trimbak Telang, a Judge of the High Court of 
 Bombay, who died in 1894. 
 
 Kasinath Trimbak Telang was born, in 1850, of a respect- 
 able family in Bombay.' He early perfected himself in 
 MarathI and Sanskrit, and by 1 869 had taken the degree of 
 M.A. and LL.B. in the Bombay University. In 1872 he 
 became an advocate, and soon, " in all matters of Hindu 
 law, Telang was, by general &c\i.novr\edgTaent, facile frinceps 
 of the Bombay Bar." 
 
 To a native alone can be known the true force of the 
 various schools of Hindu law among the varied classes 
 
 -1 Karkaria, " Sketch of the Life and Times of B. M. Malabari," p. 67. 
 ^Ibid., p. 81. 
 
444 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 of the community, and in how far local circumstances, 
 habits, or customs have the binding force of law outside 
 all the formulated codes of the Brahmanical legislators. 
 The English judge naturally accepts these Brahmanical 
 codes as of universal authority, and as being generally 
 known or accepted as such. That the Brahmanical codes 
 were made by a special class, and for a special class, of the 
 community is evident to all acquainted with the literary 
 history of India. To the overworked and practical adminis- 
 trator, or advocate, a law is accepted as law, and applied 
 without those restrictions which only an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the past history or present life of the people 
 would suggest The peculiar province of a native advocate 
 or judge, such as Telang, is to impress these facts on 
 their English legislators and jurists. In the words of Sir 
 Raymond West,^ Telang " felt very strongly that in Hindu 
 Law, as elsewhere, life implies growth and adaptation. He 
 hailed with warm welcome the principle that custom may 
 ameliorate, as well as fix, even the Hindu law, and it was 
 refreshing sometimes to hear him arguing for moderniza- 
 tion, while, on the other side, an English advocate, to whom 
 the whole Hindu system must have seemed more or less 
 grotesque, contended for the most rigorous construction of 
 some antique rule." 
 
 Telang received, as a fitting recognition of his position 
 as "the most capable of Hindus of our generation," a 
 Judgeship of the High Court of Bombay, in 1889, and 
 afterwards the Vice-Chancellorship of the University. As 
 a Legislative Member of the Council at Bombay he threw 
 the whole weight of his scholarship and power as an 
 advocate against such of his orthodox countrymen as 
 opposed the raising of the age of consummation of 
 marriage for child -wives. He showed that by neither 
 Vedic authority, nor by the wording of the Queen's 
 
 ' West Sir Raymond, J R.A.S. (1894). 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NEW 445 
 
 Proclamation was the English Government anything but 
 free to legislate on the subject. " It is the bounden 
 duty of the Legislative," he said, "to do what it is now 
 doing in the interests of humanity, and of the worldly 
 interests of the communities committed to its charge, 
 and for such a purpose as the present to disregard, if 
 need be, the ' Hindu Shastras.' " ^ 
 
 As a profound Sanskrit scholar, he is known as author 
 of many valued works. As a debater whose " language 
 of a limpid purity would have done credit to an English- 
 born orator," he is remembered for his stirring addresses on 
 such subjects as the Ilbert Bill, Licence and Salt Taxes, 
 his advocacy for the extended admission of natives to the 
 Indian Civil Service, and on many other important measures 
 and topics. In these addresses " his style was framed on the 
 classic writers, and expressed his meaning with admirable 
 force and clearness. It may, indeed, be doubted if any 
 native orator has equalled him in lucidity and that re- 
 straint which is so much more effective than exaggeration 
 and over-embellishment." ^ 
 
 As a member of the Education Commissioners of 1882 
 his report is, "in some respects, the most valuable of a 
 crushingly voluminous collection," and, as Vice-Chancellor 
 of the University, he warmly supported all the great efforts 
 of Lord Reay * for the establishment and encouragement of 
 technical education, and convinced as he was that " success 
 in the modern world was to be obtained only by adaptation 
 to the needs of modern life, he wished his fellow-Hindus to 
 unite an inner light of Divine philosophy, drawn from the 
 traditional sources, and generously interpreted, to a mastery 
 of the physical sciences, and the means of natural improve- 
 ment." Jurist, statesman, scholar, orator, poet, lover of 
 Nature, and meditative sage, he remains to the West the 
 
 1 West, Sir Raymond, J.R.A.S. (1894), p. 119- ^ lii^-, "S- 
 
 » See Hunter, Bombay, "A Study in Indian Administration," p. 157. 
 
446 LITERARY HISTORY OF INDIA 
 
 convincing proof that " it is by the word and the example 
 of him and his like that India must be regenerated, and the 
 moral endowments of her children made noble, serviceable 
 for the general welfare of mankind." 
 
 To his fellow-countrymen, he is the example of how " the 
 present generation of cultivated Hindus want only physical 
 robustness and public experience, or a modest sense of 
 inexperience and reasonable limitation of practical aims, 
 to be outwardly distinguished from the mass of pushing, 
 intelligent Europeans with whom they mingle." 
 
 There are other well-known names whose places and fame 
 future times will have to record and note, as affording clear 
 evidences that East and West have met, and sent new forces 
 out into the world for the solving of its plan and mysteries. 
 There are names, such as Rajendra lal Mitra, Bhagvan lal 
 Indraji,^ Ram Krishna Gopal Bhandarkar, which tell how 
 India, with a newly-awakened respect for historical accuracy, 
 and perspective combined with labour, can produce works 
 fuUyable to rankwith those of the best of Western scholarship. 
 
 The West has plainly recognised how the subtle, nervous 
 temperament, the quick co-relation between thought and 
 action joined to untiring perseverance, can produce a 
 cricketer, probably the keenest the world has seen ; and yet 
 there are doubts that the same qualities cannot produce, 
 and have not produced, their due effect in the realms more 
 congenial to them, those of thought, where for the present 
 their true working must remain more or less hidden from 
 our gaze. 
 
 Men such as Ram Mohun Roy, Keshab Chandar Sen, 
 Michael Sudan Datta, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Kasinath 
 Trimbak Telang are no bastard bantlings of a Western 
 civilisation ; they were creative geniuses worthy to be 
 reckoned in the history of India with such men of old as 
 Kalidasa, Chaitanya, Jaya Deva, Tulsi Das, and Sankara 
 
 ' Set "Memoir" in T.B.R.A.S., vol. xvii. p. i8. 
 
THE FUSING POINT OF OLD AND NE W 447 
 
 Acharya, and destined in the future to shine clear as the 
 first glowing sparks sent out in the fiery furnace where 
 new and old were fusing. 
 
 Year by year the leaders of Indian thought in India 
 spread their influence over ever-widening circles, though 
 what the final result may be when these leaders, infused 
 with all the best of the spirit of the East and West, rise 
 up to proclaim that East and West have met, and from 
 the union new forms of thought, new modes of artistic 
 expression, new ways of viewing life, new solutions of 
 religious, social, and moral problems have been produced, 
 as produced they must be, is one that the whole past history 
 of the world teaches us is to be watched with hope, not 
 fear or doubt. Slowly the movement will take place, and 
 in each step there will be unrest and dangers both to State 
 and people, and in a land like India fierce commotion, 
 taking all the steadying hand of the English rule to direct 
 and guide it towards a safe haven. The words of one of 
 the many of the great thinkers of India, who has received, 
 in his own sphere of thought, a recognition that might be 
 extended more liberally to all those who strive to find 
 expression for what the West has inplanted in them, may 
 be quoted as some hope for the future, though not, perhaps, 
 in the sense intended by Professor Bose : ^ — 
 
 " How blind we are ! How circumscribed is our knowledge ! The 
 little we can see is nothing compared to what actually is ! But 
 things which are dark now will one day be made clear. 
 Knowledge grows little by little, slowly but surely. Patient 
 and long-continued work will one day unravel many of the 
 mysteries with which we are surrounded. Many wonderful 
 things have recently been discovered, much more wonderful 
 things still remain to be discovered. We have already caught 
 broken glimpses of invisible lights. Some day, perhaps not far 
 distant, we shall be able to see light -gleams, visible or invisible, 
 merging one into the other, in unbroken sequence.'"' 
 
 1 Itidian Magazine and Reuiem (May 1897), p. 237 ; S. J. L. Bose, on 
 " Electric Waves." 
 
A SHORT LIST OF USEFUL WORKS RECOM- 
 MENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY 
 
 2F 
 
A SHORT LIST OF USEFUL WORKS RECOM- 
 MENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY. 
 
 Baden-Powell, B. H. The Indian Village Community. 1896. 
 Barth, a. The Religions of India. Authorised Translation. By 
 
 Rev. J. Wood. Lonelon, 1&82. 
 Bergaigne, Abel. La Religion Vddique. 3 vols. Part's, 1878-83. 
 Bigandet, Bishop. The Life or Legend of Gaudama. Rangoon, 
 
 1858. London, 1880. 
 
 Campbell, F. Index Catalogue of Bibliographical Works relating to 
 
 India. London, 1897. 
 Chatterjee, B. C. Poison Tree. Translated. London, 1884. 
 
 Kopala Kundala. Translated. London, 1885. 
 
 Krishna Kanta's Will. Translated. London, 1895. 
 
 Colebrooke, H. T. Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the 
 
 Hindus. London, 1882. 
 CowELL, E. B., and A. E. Gough. Sarva Darsana Sangraha. 
 Cowell, Professor E. B., and Mr Thomas of Trinity College, 
 
 Cambridge. Bana's Harsa Carita. Oriental Translation Series. 
 
 1897. 
 Crooke, W. The Tribes and Castes of the North- West Provinces 
 
 and Oudh. Calcutta, 1896. 
 Crooke, W. Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India. 
 
 2 vols. London, 1896. 
 
 Dahlmann, Joseph. Das Mahabharata als Epos und Rechtsbuch. 
 
 Berlin, 1895. 
 Darmesteter, J. English Studies. 1896. 
 
452 WORKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 
 
 Davids, T. W. Rhys. Buddhist Birth-Stories. London, 1880. 
 
 Buddhism. 2nd edit. London, 1894. 
 
 Buddhism : Its History and Literature (American Lectures). 
 
 1896. 
 Davies, J. Bhagavad-gita. London, 1882. 
 Davies, Rev. J. Hindu Philosophy. 1881. 
 Deussen, p. Das System des Vedanta. 1883. 
 Duff, J. G. A History of the Mahrattas. 3 vols. London, 1826. 
 
 Later Editions. 
 DUTT, J. C. Kings of Kashmir. Calcutta. 1879. 
 Dutt, R. C. a History of Civilisation in Ancient India. 2 vols. 
 London, 1893. 
 
 Literature of Bengal. London, 1895. 
 
 Dutt, Toru. Journal de Mdlle. d'Arvers. 
 
 Lays and Ballads of Hindustan. London, 1882. 
 
 Education in India, Progress of. Second Quinquennial Review. 
 Calcutta, 1893. 
 
 Fergusson, Dr J. Tree and Serpent Worship. London, 1 868. 
 
 History of Indian and Eastern Architecture. London, 1876. 
 
 FiCK, R. Die Sociale Gliederung in N. Ostlichen Indien zu 
 Bhudda's Zeit Kiel, 1897. 
 
 Garbe, R. Sankhya Philosophie. 
 
 GOUGH, A. E. The Philosophy of the Upanishads. Oriental Series. 
 
 1882. 
 Griffith, R. Sama Veda. Benares, 1893. 
 
 Atharva Veda. 2 vols. Benares, 1896. 
 
 Growse, F. S. Ramayana of Tulsi Das. Translated from the Hindi. 
 
 Haug, Martin. Aitareya Brahmana. Text, Translation, and Notes. 
 
 2 vols. Bombay, 1863. 
 Hibbert Lectures : — 
 Lectures on the Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by some 
 
 Points in the History of Indian Buddhism. By T. W. Rhys 
 
 Davids. London, 1881. 
 Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as Illustrated 
 
 by the Religions of India. By F. Max MiiUer. 2nd edit. 
 
 London, 1878. 
 Holtzmann, a. Das Mahabharata, 1892-1895. 
 
WORKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 453 
 
 Hopkins, E. W. Religions of India. Boston, 1895. 
 
 The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient 
 
 India. Reprint. Newhaven, 1889. 
 Hunter, Sir William Wilson. The Indian Empire : Its History, 
 
 People, and Products. London, 1893. 3rd edit. 
 
 Annals of Rural Bengal. 5th edit. 
 
 Orissa: Its History and People. 2 vols. London, 1872. 
 
 Our Indian Musalmans. 3rd edit. 
 
 Rulers of India Series. Edited by Oxford. 
 
 Indian Magazine and Review. A Monthly Publication. London. 
 
 JEVONS, F. B. Introduction to the History of Religions. London; 
 1896. 
 
 Kaegi, Professor A. The Rig Veda. Translated by Arrowsmith, R. 
 
 1886. 
 Karkaria, R. P. India: Forty Years of Progress and Reform. 
 
 London, 1896. 
 
 Lassen, C. Indische Alterthumskunde. Bonn, 1847-61. 2nd edit. 
 
 Leipzig, 1867-74. 
 Levi, S. Th&tre Indien. Paris, 1890. 
 LuDWiG, Alfred. Der Rigveda, oder die heiligen Hymnen der 
 
 Brahmana. A Translation in German. 6 vols. Prague, 1876-88. 
 Lyall, Sir Alfred. Asiatic Studies. London, 1882. 
 
 MacCrindle, J. W. The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, 
 as described by Q. Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin. With 
 an Introduction containing a Life of Alexander. 1893. 
 
 Macdonell, a. a. Vedic Mythology (Grundriss der Indo-Arischen 
 Philologie und Altertumskunde, herausgegeben von Georg Biihler). 
 1897. 
 
 Mahabhaeata, The, of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa. Translated 
 into English Prose by Pratapa Chandra Ray. Calcutta, 1893-96. 
 
 Manning, Mrs. Ancient and Mediaeval India. London, 1869. 
 
 Mitchell, J. Murray. Hinduism, Past and Present. London, 1885. 
 
 MoNiER- Williams, Sir Monier. Non-Christian Religious Systems : 
 Hinduism. London, 1877. 
 
 Indian Wisdom. 1876. 
 
454 WORKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 
 
 MONIER-WILLIAMS, Sir MoNlER. Brahmanism and Hinduism. 
 
 1891. 
 
 Religious Life and Thought in India. 1893. 
 
 Sakuntala of Kalidasa. 1887. 
 
 MuiR, J. Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers. 1879. 
 Original Sanskrit Texts. Translated into English. 5 vols. 
 
 1858-61. 2nd edit. 1868-73. 
 MiJLLEB, Max. A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature. London, 
 
 1859. 
 
 Chips from a German Workshop. 2nd edit. London, 1868. 
 
 India : What Can It Teach us. London, 1892. 
 
 Biographical Essays. 1884. 
 
 Biographies of Words. London, 1888. 
 
 Sacred Books of the East. Translated by various Scholars, 
 
 and edited by Prof. Max. Miiller. 
 
 Oldenberg, H. Buddha, sein Leben, etc. Berlin, 1881. Trans- 
 lation. London, 1882. 
 
 Die Religion Des Veda. Berlin, 1894. 
 
 Oman, J. C. Indian Life; Religious and Social 1889. 
 
 Padfield, Rev. J. E. The Hindu at Home. 1896. 
 Pope, Rev. G. U. Naladiyar. Oxford, 1893. 
 
 Rae, G. Milne. The Syrian Church in India. London, 1892. 
 Ragozin, Z. A. Vedic India : Story of the Nations. 1896. 
 Ramayana of Valmiki. Translated into English Verse, by R. T. H. 
 
 Griffith. I vol. Benares, 1895. 
 Rendall, G. H. Cradle of the Aryans. 1889. 
 
 Samuelson, James. India, Past and Present. London, 1890. 
 Schrader, Dr O. Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan People. 
 
 Translated by Jevons, F. Byron. 1890. 
 Sen ART, E. Les Castes dans I'lnde. 1896. 
 
 Essai sur la Legende du Buddha, son Caractfere et ses Orig^es. 
 
 Paris, 1882. 
 Stevenson, Rev. J. Translation of the Sama Veda. 1841. 
 
 Tassy, Garcin dk Les Auteurs Hindoustanis et leurs Ouvrages. 
 2nd edit. Paris, i868. 
 
WORKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 455 
 
 Tassy, Garcin DE. Histoire de la Litt^rature Hiiidouie et Hin- 
 
 doustanie. 3 vols. 2nd edit. Paris, 1870-71. 
 Taylor, Isaac. Origin of the Aryans. 1890. 
 Thibaut.G. Vedanta Sutras, S.B.E. Vols. XXXIV. and XXXVIII. 
 
 1890-96. 
 Tod, Lieut.-Col. J. Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. London^ 
 
 1829-32. 
 Trumpp, E. The Adi Granth. Translated from the Gurmukhi. 
 
 London, 1877. 
 Tuka Rama, The Poems of. Edited by Vishnu Parashuram Shastrl 
 
 Pandit, with a Life of the Poet in English. Bombay, 1869. 
 
 Walus, H. W. The Cosmology of the Rig- Veda. London, 1887. 
 
 Warren, H. C. Buddhism in Translations. 1896. 
 
 Weber, Albrecht. The History of Indian Literature. London, 
 
 1878. 
 West, Sir Raymond. Higher Education in India : Its Position and 
 
 Claims. Transactions of the Ninth Oriental Congress. London, 
 
 1892. 
 Wilson, H. H. Translation of Hymns of the Rig Veda, continued 
 
 by Professor E. B. Cowell and W. F. Webster. 1850-88. 
 Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus. 3 vols. 
 
 1835- 
 
 The Vishnu Purana. London, 1840. 
 
 Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus. Calcutta, 1846. 
 
 Complete Works of. 12 vols. London, 1862-77. 
 
 WiNDlsCH, E. Der griechische Einfluss im indischen Drama. 
 Berlin, 1882. 
 
 Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft. Quoted 
 throughout as Z.D.M.G. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aboriginal races, 301. 
 Abul Fazl, 356, et seq. 
 Abul Kadir Badaunl, 357. 
 Acharyas in South India, 325. 
 Adhvaryu priests, 68, 72, 87, 
 Adi Brahma Samaj, 406. 
 Adi Granth, 374, et seq. 
 Adil Shahi dynasty, 375. 
 Aditi, 46. 
 Agastya, 302. 
 Aghoris, 291. 
 Agni, 17, 9S, 124. 
 
 attributes, 45 -47. 
 
 the first victim always sacrificed 
 
 to, 74. 
 
 Agnihotra sacrifice, 113. 
 
 Agnimitra, 288. 
 
 Agni Vaisvanara, the protector of the 
 
 king, who has a purohita, 91. 
 Agriculture performed by women, 85. 
 Ahavaniya altar, 71, 81. 
 Ahi, the snake, 53. 
 Ain-i-Akbari, 358. 
 Aitareya Brahmana, 72. 
 
 on sacrifice, 85. 
 
 story of Sunahsepa, 87, et seq. 
 
 Ajatasatru, 142, 144. 
 
 instructs a Brahman, 112. 
 
 Akbar, 3SS-364- 
 
 Alara, a. Brahman teacher of Buddha, 
 
 131-132. 
 Alexander the Great, 171- 174. 
 
 Alexander II. of Epirus, 244. 
 Alexandria in Egypt, 172. 
 
 the modern Herat, 172. 
 
 the modern Ucch, 173. 
 
 All and Rama, 346. 
 Altamsh, tomb of, 363. 
 
 Altar for Brahmanic sacrifice, 71. 
 
 shape of, 71, 73. 
 
 Ambapall entertains Buddha, 143. 
 Ambattha visits Kapilavastu, 118. 
 Amravati, 127, 147, 150. 
 
 Ananda, Buddha's injunctions to, 143. 
 
 Anathapindika, 142. 
 
 Andhra kingdom, 150, 176. 
 
 Andhrabrityas, 307. 
 
 Andhras, 250, 306. 
 
 Angas, 95, 131. 
 
 Animal sacrifice substituted for human, 
 
 43. 75- 
 Antelope, black, 78. 
 Antigonos Gonatas of Macedonia, 244. 
 Antiochus II. of Syria, 243. 
 Apastamba, 176. 
 
 law book of, 152, i^^,etsei;. 
 
 rules for Siidras, 154. 
 
 rules for Brahmans, 160. 
 
 Apsaras, 217. 
 
 Arahat, 139. 
 Aranyakas, 96. 
 Arashtra, 173. 
 Arbela, the battle of, 172. 
 Arjuna, 221. 
 
458 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Arjuna draws the bow, 221. 
 
 meets Krishna, 223. 
 
 marries Krishna's sister, 224. 
 
 submits to Siva, 230. 
 
 chooses Krishna as charioteer, 
 
 236. 
 
 addressed by Krishna, 238-241. 
 
 Arjuna, fifth Sikh Guru, 376. 
 
 put to death, 378. 
 
 Arrian, 181. 
 
 Aruni wood, 40. 
 
 Arya, meaning noble, 2, 
 
 Aryan vernaculars, 264. 
 
 literary influence, 265. 
 
 Aryans : early ideas as to habitat, 6 ; 
 later theories, 7-9, 13 ; early beliefs, 
 II; Nature worshippers, 12; entry 
 into India, 2, 17 ; their first home in 
 India, 20; alliances with aboriginal 
 folk held impure, 20; settled in 
 Sind, 63; intercourse with darker 
 races eliminated from Vedas, 64 ; 
 settled in Oudh, Benares, and Behar, 
 69; mix with aboriginal races, 97; 
 causes of their disunion, 98. 
 
 Aryavarta, 4, 149, 251. 
 
 Ascetics, 115. 
 
 rules for, 116. 
 
 last stage of life, 163. 
 
 Asoka, 119, 133, 334. 
 
 erected a pillar at Buddha's birth- 
 place, 120. 
 
 adopted Buddhism, 144. 
 
 embraces Buddhism, 242. 
 
 — publishes his Edicts, 243-47. 
 
 sends foreign embassies, 243-44. 
 
 death of, 247. 
 
 Asvamedha, 242, 25 1. 
 
 Turanian in origin, 242. 
 
 Asvins, 29. 
 
 physicians of the gods, 48. 
 
 Atharva-veda : Hymns setting forth 
 vengeance on oppressors, etc. , of the 
 Brahmans, 25-26. 
 
 Atharva-veda, love-charms, 33. 
 
 on widow-burning, 36. 
 
 Atheism in Vedas, 58. 
 
 in ancient India, 128. 
 
 Atman as the sun, 105. 
 
 the Self of man, 105. 
 
 the universe, 106, et seq., 
 
 114. 
 
 Buddha's knowledge of, 123. 
 
 Atmlya Sabha, 394. 
 
 Attock, 172. 
 
 Aurangzib, 364, 374, e( seq. 
 
 Ayodhya, ancient capital of Kosalas, 131. 
 
 the home of Rama, 214. 
 
 Babar, 338, 345, 352-55. 
 
 Babylon, 172. 
 
 Bactria, 172. 
 
 Badarayana, 196. 
 
 Badaunl, 357. 
 
 Badrinath monastery, 325. 
 
 Bahikas, 66. 
 
 Bali, the demon, 340. 
 
 Bana, 255, 257 ; the Harsha Charita, 
 255-62. 
 
 Banga Darsan, 419. 
 
 Baptist missions, 389. 
 
 Bassava, 344. 
 
 Baudhayana, 176; law book of, 152, 
 et seq. ; penalties on Siidras, 153 ; 
 penalties for mixing of twice-born 
 with Sudras : penances for Brahman 
 murder, 159. 
 
 Belugamaka visited by Buddha, 143. 
 
 Benares, 132. 
 
 Bhagavad Gita, 203, 207 ; its answer to 
 pessimism, 235 ; its doctrine of faith 
 in Krishna, 235, 238 ; its essential 
 doctrines, 236 ; mysticism, 236 ; its 
 historical position, 237 ; duties of tlie 
 four castes as taught by, 240. 
 
 Bhagavan, 316. 
 
 Bhagavan Das, 364. 
 
 Bhagavata Purana, 348. 
 
INDEX 
 
 459 
 
 Bhairava, 229. 
 
 Bhaja Govinda, 327. 
 
 Bhaja temple, 146. 
 
 Bhakta Mala, 367. 
 
 Bhandarkar, R. G., 446. 
 ■ Bharata, brother of Rama, 214. 
 
 Bharatas, 67. t 
 
 Bharata Varsha, 215. 
 
 Bharhut, the mound at, 127. 
 
 Bhartrihari's Satakas, 4 (note). 
 
 Bhavabhuti, 288-93. 
 
 Bhima, 218, et seq. 
 
 slays the demon Rakshasa, 220. 
 
 vows vengeance on Kurus, 228. 
 
 Bhujyu, 29. 
 
 Bidyapati Thakur, 347. 
 
 Biharl Lai, 366. 
 
 Bimbisara, King of Magadha, 128, 130, 
 142, 243. 
 
 Birbal, 359. 
 
 Blood covenant, 75, 164. 
 
 Boar incarnation of Vishnu, 340. 
 
 Bose, S. J. L., 447. 
 
 Brahma, 194, 217. 
 
 Brahman (prayer), 23, 230 ; power over 
 the gods, 59 ; evil effect if wrongly 
 pronounced, 59 ; the neuter essence, 
 106 ; as the cause of the world, loi, 
 103 ; the self-existent, 103 ; in re- 
 lationship to the Self, 103 ; derivation 
 of the word, 103 ; as prayer, 104 ; in 
 Vedanta Sutras, 198, et seq. 
 
 Brahmanas, 69, 96. 
 
 Brahmanic supremacy asserted, 68. 
 
 Brahmanical power, 148, et seq. ; rules 
 have retarded advance, 187; victory, 
 l88 ; claim to supremacy, 189; cry 
 of pain, 190. 
 
 Brahmanism, 310, 335, 364; its position 
 as regards Buddhism, and the Epics, 
 210, 212 ; accepts Krishna, 226 ; 
 Siva, 230 ; compromises with abori- 
 ginal beliefs, 243. 
 
 Brahmans, composers of Vedic Hymns, 
 23 ; no one class or order, 23-24 ; 
 created from mouth of Purusha, 25 ; 
 described as gods, go, 1S8 ; their 
 wealth, 92 ; conflicts with warrior 
 class, 92 ; missionary efforts, 94 ; ' 
 instructed by a Kshatriya, 112; 
 looked down on by Kshatriyas, 118; 
 supremacy of, 148, et seq.; taught by 
 word of mouth, 150 ; their aim to 
 preserve themselves apart from ab- 
 origines, 152 ; custom of going to 
 sea, 158; penalties for touching, 
 '59 ; permitted to perform duties of 
 a. lower caste, 160 ; described by 
 Megasthenes, 179 ; accept the demo- 
 nology of the masses, 213. 
 
 Brahma Samaj founded, 397. 
 
 essential articles of, 403-4. 
 
 Brahma Sutras, 196. 
 
 Brahmavarta, 17, 66. 
 
 Biahmi alphabet, 243. 
 
 Brihaspati, lord of prayer, 74, 104. 
 
 Broughton, Colonel, Letters from a 
 Maratha Camp, 255. 
 
 Bucephala, founded by Alexander, 173. 
 
 Buddha, 96, 1 17, 119; his birthplace, 
 117; his visions, 121; leaves his 
 home, 122, 130 ; his philosophy, 122, 
 et seq.; his knowledge of the Upani- 
 shads, 123 ; of the various philoso- 
 phies, 130 ; his quest after know- 
 ledge, 131 ; gains knowledge, 132 ; 
 goes to the five ascetics, 133 ; his 
 personality, 133 ; declares the truth, 
 134, et seq. ; his journeys, 143 ; 
 worshipped, 147 ; injunctions to 
 Ananda, 143 ; changes after his 
 death, 144 ; his ideals, 246-7 ; as an 
 incarnation of Vishnu, 340. 
 
 Buddhism, 113, 323, 324, 335; a 
 revolt from Brahmanism, 93 ; an 
 outcome of Aryan thought, 97 ; 
 powerless to unite the masses, 98 ; 
 
460 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Buddhism {continued^ — 
 position as regards Brahmanism, 118; 
 its philosophy) izz-z"] ; resemblance 
 to Jainism, 129 ; spread among 
 ■ Scythians, 130 ; doctrines of, 132- 
 139 ; historical significance of, 140 ; 
 took no account of caste, 141 ; a 
 celibate order, 142 ; drifts into 
 idolatry, 147 ; failure to break 
 through caste, 149 ; driven out by 
 Muhammadans, 246 ; accepted by 
 Asoka, 243 ; and by Kanishka, 249. 
 
 Buddhist Canon, 232. 
 
 Councils, 145. 
 
 Edicts of Asoka, 234. 
 
 Calcutta Madrissa, 388. 
 
 Carey, the Baptist missionary, 389, 390. 
 
 Caste, 93, 148-69. 
 
 Census of 1891, 263. 
 
 Chaitanya, 338, 348, ei seq. 
 
 Chalukyas, 307. 
 
 Chamunda, a form of Durga, 289. 
 
 Chanakya, 294. 
 
 Chandala, offspring of a Sudra and a 
 
 Brahman woman, 126, 155. 
 Chanderi, siege of, 354. 
 Chandidas, 347. 
 Chandogya Upanishad, the teaching of 
 
 Uddalaka, 109 ; on transmigration, 
 
 126. 
 Chandragupta, 144, 174, 176, 334; 
 
 makes alliance with Seleukos Nika- 
 
 tor, 175. 
 . Chandra Gupta I., 242, 294. 
 
 II., 251. 
 
 Charanas, 217. 
 
 Charudatta, hero of Mricchakatika, 272, 
 
 et seq. 
 Chatterji, Bankim Chandra, and his 
 
 novels, 419-29. 
 Cheras, or Keralas, 305, 306. 
 Chola dynasty, 305, 306. 
 
 Christianity, supposed traces in Bhaga- 
 vad Gita, 231-32; its failure in India, 
 312. 
 
 Civilisation in Vedic times, 27-33. 
 
 Climatic influence on the people of 
 India, 253. 
 
 Creation of man in Vedic Hymns, 24. 
 
 Cyrus the Persian, 171-72. 
 
 Dadu, 374. 
 
 Dakshina, the reward to the Brahman, 
 
 92. 
 Dakshina, or southern part, 302. 
 Dakshinagni fireplace, 71. 
 Dareios, 169, 171. 
 Das'aratha, 214, 247. 
 Dasyus, 52 ; abhorred by Aryans, 20 ; 
 
 their civilisation, 20, 
 Datta, Akhay Kumar, 403, 411, 414. 
 
 Madhu Sudan, 414, etseq. 
 
 Dawn, 31, 48. 
 
 Dayabhaga, 338. 
 
 Death, ideas concerning, in Veda, 36-39 ; 
 
 later ideas of, 124-26. 
 Deccan, 302, 306, 361, 382. 
 Dekkan. See Deccan. 
 Derozia, 394. 
 
 Devald, mother of Krishna, 225. 
 Devaran, Hymns of Sambandha, 330. 
 Devi, or Kali, 229. 
 Dhavaka, probable author of Naga- 
 
 nanda, 293. 
 Dhritarashtra, father of the hundred 
 
 Kurus, 215. 
 Dikshita, 79. 
 Diodorus, 169, 173. 
 Dionysos, the worship of, 182. 
 Divodasa, 65. 
 Drama, 265-99. 
 Draupadi, 216, 220 ; her Svayamvara, 
 
 220 ; marriage to the Pandavas, 221 ; 
 
 staked and lost, 226 ; bewails the 
 
 power of evil, 234. 
 Dravidians, 302, et seq., 309. 
 
INDEX 
 
 461 
 
 Drishadvati, 66, 216. 
 
 Drona, the preceptor of the Pandavas, 
 
 217. 
 Duncan, Jonathan, endows Benares 
 
 College, 389. 
 Durga, 229 ; as Chamunda, 289. 
 Duryodhana, 218, et seq., 227, 235. 
 Dushyanta, hero of Sakuntala, 285. 
 Dutt, Romesh Chandra, 428. 
 
 his works, 429. 
 
 Dutt, Shashi Chundra, his works, 430. 
 
 Dutt, Torn, 431. 
 
 her poems and novels, 432- 
 
 434- 
 Dvapara Age, 370. 
 Dvaraka, 225, 226, 325. 
 Dwarf incarnation of Vishnu, 340. 
 Dyaus, 12, 50. 
 
 Education — Grant's Treatise, 388; 
 college and school founded at Cal- 
 cutta and Benares, 394; Court of 
 Directors on, 396-98 ; Macaulay's 
 Minute, 399 ; Lord W. Bentinck on, 
 399 ; Sir J. Malcolm's Minute, 400 ; 
 Sir C. Wood's Despatch, 401 ; uni- 
 versities founded, 401 ; Sir R. West 
 on higher, 402 ; Census Report of 
 1892, 402. 
 
 Eightfold Path, 134, 138, 141, 144. 
 
 Endogamy, 165, et seq. 
 
 England's mission in India, 168. 
 
 Epics, 210, et seq. 
 
 Eudemos murders Porus, 174. 
 
 Exogamy, I^S, et seq. 
 
 Fa Hi an, the Chinese traveller, I20. 
 
 FaizI, 357. 
 
 Fakir-ud-din, 336. 
 
 Fire reverenced by Hindus, 40; the 
 three sacrificial fires, 42. 
 
 Fish incarnation of Vishnu, 339. 
 
 Five Rivers inveighed against as ac- 
 cursed, 66. 
 
 Five People, epithet in Vedic Hymns 
 
 of Aryans, 66. 
 Five organs of sense and action, 193. 
 Five subtle elements, 193. 
 Flood in Satapatha Brahmana, 83. 
 Folk-songs, origin of the Epic, 211. 
 Four Noble Truths, 138, 141. 
 Funeral ceremonies in the Veda, 35. 
 
 Gambling in Vedic Hymns, 32. 
 
 Gana, or song-books, 68. 
 
 Gandharvas, 217. 
 
 Ganga, 66. 
 
 GargI argues with Yajnavalkya, loi. 
 
 Gargya Balaki, a Brahman instructed 
 
 by a Kshatriya, 112. 
 Garhapatya fireplace, 71, 81. 
 Garuda, 50, 222, 293. 
 Gauri, 229. 
 
 Gautama, the Buddha, 119. 
 Gautama, the aphorisms of, 152, et seq. 
 
 rules for Brahmans, 158-60. 
 
 penalties on Siidras reciting Vedic 
 
 Hymns, 3. 
 Gautama, author of Nyaya system, 208. 
 Gayatii, 61. 
 Gentoo Code, 4, 186. 
 Girnar inscriptions, 243. 
 GIta Govinda, 339-44- 
 Gods — Vedic gods phenomena of 
 
 Nature, 45. 
 Gotama, the Vedic sage, 119. 
 Govind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, 
 
 345. 375, 379- 
 
 forms the Khalsa, 379. 
 
 Grahavarman of Kanauj, 257-59. 
 Grant, Charles, on education, 388. 
 Greeks in India, 169-82. 
 Gunas, the triple, 194. 
 Gupta line, 250. 
 
 Isvara Chandra, 393. 
 
 Guzarat, 249, 250, 257. 
 
 Hair-drbssing, 29. 
 
462 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hare, David, 394. 
 
 Har Govind, sixth Sikh Guru, 378. 
 
 Hati, or Vishnu, taught as supreme God 
 by Madhava, 330. 
 
 Hari Nath, 365. 
 
 Harischandra, the story of, 87. 
 
 Harsha Charita of Bana, 255-62. 
 
 Harsha Vardhana, 250, 257, 308, 334 ; 
 described by Hiouen Tsang, 254 ; the 
 Harsha Charita, 255-62 ; his lineage, 
 
 257- 
 Hastinapur, 67 ; Pandavas removed 
 
 from, 217 ; return to, 222. 
 Hastings, Warren, founds Calcutta 
 
 Madrissa, 388. 
 Havir sacrifices, 162, 
 Heraclitus, 122. 
 Herakles, 177, 182. 
 Herat founded by Alexander, 172. 
 Hermit, the third stage of life, 163. 
 Herodotus, 169. 
 Hicky's Gazetteer, 390. 
 Hinayana Canon, 232. 
 Hinduism, 289 ; how far aboriginal, 64. 
 Hiouen Tsang, 248, 249, 254 ; on 
 
 Kapilavastu, 117, 120. 
 Hiranya Kasipa, the monster, 340. 
 Horse sacrifice, 242, 251. 
 
 Turanian in origin, 242. 
 
 Hotar priest, 87, 90. 
 
 Imprecations on those who curse 
 
 . the, 91. 
 
 Householder, duties to be performed 
 
 by, 162-63. 
 Hoysala Ballalas, 309. 
 Human sacrifice, 42, 86. 
 
 story of Sunahsepa, 88. 
 
 Satapatha Brahmana on, 89. 
 
 Humayun, 355. 
 
 Hylobioi ascetics, 180. 
 
 Ikshvaku, 1 19 ; the Solar race of, 214. 
 Indika of Ktesias, 170. 
 of Megasthenes, 175. 
 
 Indian Mirror, 405. 
 Indra, 18, 31, 38, 51, 75 ; the rise of, 
 52; the slayer of Sushma, 53; Hjmm 
 to, 53 ; the destroyer of the foes of 
 the Aryans, 63-65. 
 Indraji, Bh^vanlal, 446. 
 Indra-prastha, 222. 
 Induleka, 434-39- 
 
 Indus, or Sindhu, Vedic Hymn to, 19.- 
 Initiation, 79, 160. 
 
 ^e for, and duties after, 161. 
 
 Intermarriage between Aryan and Su- 
 dras forbidden, 154. 
 
 restrictions on, 164, etseq. 
 
 Iron Pillar of Delhi, 252. 
 Islam, 332. 
 
 Jainism, 311,323-24; its resemblance 
 to Buddhism, 129 ; the three gems, 
 129 ; its tenets, 129-30. 
 
 Jains, 128, et seq. 
 
 the object of, 129. 
 
 Svetambaia and Digambara sect, 
 
 129. 
 
 Jalandra, the monastery, 249. 
 Janaka, King of Videha, 99, 338, 37a 
 Jaya Deva, 339-44- 
 Jetavana, the monastery of, 142. 
 Jimiitavahana, hero of Nagananda, 293. 
 Jimutavahana, the author of Dayabbaga, 
 
 338- 
 Jina, the conqueror, 129. 
 Jognarain Ghosal, 394. 
 Joint-partnership in village community, 
 
 65. 
 Jones, Sir W., elected President of the 
 
 Asiatic Society, 389. 
 
 Kabir, 345-46, 376, et seq. 
 
 Kaikeyi, the wife of Dasaratha, 214, 
 
 368, 370, et seq. 
 Kailasa, the heaven of Siva, 229. 
 Kali, 229. 
 
INUEX 
 
 463 
 
 Kali Age, account of in Vishnu Purana, 
 340. 
 
 Kalidasa praised by Goethe, 5 ; his 
 Malavikagnimitra, 248, 288 ; Sakun- 
 tala, 285, et seq. ; Vikramorvasi, 288. 
 
 Kalki, the future incarnation of Vishnu, 
 
 340- 
 Kalpas, 207. 
 Kamala, 4.39, 
 
 Kampilya, capital of the Panchalas, 67. 
 Kanada, author of Vaiseshika system, 
 
 208. 
 Kanauj, 250, 254, 257, 333, 335. 
 Kanishka, 249. 
 Kansa, King of Mathura, slain by 
 
 Krishna, 226. 
 Kant, 327 ; and the Vedanta, 201, 206. 
 Kanya Kubja, or Kanauj, 250, 254, 257, 
 
 333. 335- 
 Kapala Kundala, priestess in Malati 
 
 Madhava, 290. 
 Kapila, rgo-206. 
 
 Kapilavastu, 117, 119, 141, 143, 248. 
 Karkaria, R. P. , his life of Malabari, 442. 
 Karli temple, 146. 
 
 Karma, the doctrine of, 135, 147, 313. 
 Karman (work), lOi. 
 Karuppan, southern name of Krishna, 
 
 304- 
 Kasis, 69, 95. 
 
 Kataka, chief of the Licchavis, 130. 
 Katb-ud-din, 252, 336 ; the mosque of, 
 
 363- 
 Katb Shahi djmasty, 375. 
 Kathians defeated by Alexander, 173. 
 Katyayana, the Vartikhas, 151. 
 Kedernath, 326. 
 Keralas, or Cheras, 305, 306. 
 Kharosthi alphabet, 243. 
 Khilji dynasty, 337. 
 King in Vedic times, 21. 
 Kiravan, or elder, 304. 
 Kohana, the river, 142. 
 Kolarian languages, 301. 
 
 Koliyans, 142. 
 
 Kopala Kundala, a novel by Chatterji, 
 421. 
 
 Kosalas, 69, 94, ng, 131, 144, 212. 
 
 Krishna, 223, et seq., 304 ; his worship 
 described by Megasthenes, 1 82 ; 
 meets Arjuna, 224 ; his place in the 
 Mahabharata, 224 ; legends, 225 ; 
 and the gopis, 225 ; received into 
 Brahmanism, 226 ; subordinated to 
 Siva, 229 ; in Mahabharata, 230 ; 
 rises supreme in Mahabharata, 231 ; 
 as the saviour in Bhagavad Gita, 
 235, 23S ; as Arjuna's charioteer, 
 236 ; his discourse to Arjuna, 238-41 ; 
 as Brahman, 239 ; teaches duty of 
 the four castes, 240 ; in village plays, 
 269 ; as incarnation of Vishnu, 
 
 340- 
 
 Krishna Charitra, 419. 
 
 Krishna Kanta's Will, 428. 
 
 Krivis, 67. 
 
 Kshatriyas, 186 ; their conflicts with 
 Brahmans, 92 ; instruct Brahmans, 
 112 ; hold aloof from Brahmans, 118. 
 
 Kshema, wife of Bimbisara, 142. 
 
 Ktesias, 170. 
 
 Kulina Kula Sarvasa, 414. 
 
 Kulin Brahmans, 413. 
 
 Kullaka Bhatta, 338. 
 
 Kumara Gupta I., 252. 
 
 Kurral, 316, 325, 330. 
 
 Kuru Panchalas, 94, 212. 
 
 Kurukshetra, 66, 70, 215, «/ seq. ; 
 starting-point of Erahmanic mission- 
 ary effort, 94; the holy place of 
 pilgrimage, 216. 
 
 Kurus, 215, 226. 
 
 Kusa grass, 7 ( . 
 
 Kusinagara visited by Buddha, 143. 
 
 Kutsa, King of the Purus, 67. 
 
 Lallu JI Lal, author of Prem 
 Sagar, 392. 
 
464 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lanka, 214, 305. 
 Law books, 148, et seq. 
 
 notbindingonthemasses, 158,184. 
 
 their study forbidden to Sudras 
 
 and women, 185. 
 Levitate marriage in the Veda, 33. 
 Licchavis, 128, 130, 143. 
 Lingayatas, 309, 311. 
 Lodi dynasty, 338, 345. 
 Lokayatas, an atheistic sect, 128. 
 Lomas Rishi Cave, 146. 
 Long, Rev. J., 415. 
 Lumbini Garden, the birthplace of 
 
 Buddha, 119. 
 
 Macaulay's Minute, 399. 
 Madhava Achaiya, 326. 
 
 - . — teaches Vfelmu as supreme god, 
 
 330- 
 Madhura Sutta, 1 18. 
 Magadha, 128, 130, 141, 142. 
 Magadha, the ofispring of a Sudra and 
 
 Vaisya, 155. 
 Magadhas, 69, 95, 130, 145. 
 MagadhI Prakrit, 263. 
 Magas of Cyrene, 244. 
 Mahabharata, 210, et seq. ; 305. 
 
 its Brahmanic purpose, 211. 
 
 Dahlmann's theories, 213. 
 
 didactic element of, 214. 
 
 shows the rise of Hinduism, 215, 
 
 229. 
 
 the motive of, 215. 
 
 as strife between right and wrong, 
 
 217. 
 
 fading away of the Epic, 219. 
 
 polyandry in, 221. 
 
 Vedic gods change their attribute;, 
 
 229. 
 
 — sees rise of the triple deity, 229. 
 
 Siva in, 229-30. 
 
 Krishna in, 231. 
 
 supposed Christian doctrines in, 
 
 Mahabhashya, 151. 
 
 Mahadeva, or 6iva, 230. 
 
 Maharajas, sect of, 349. 
 
 Maharashtrakas, 308. 
 
 Mahatmas, 171. 
 
 Mahawra Charitra of Bhavabhuti, 288, 
 
 292. 
 Mahavira, the Jaina preacher, 128, 130. 
 Mahayana school, 249. 
 Maitreyi, the wife of Yajhafelkya, 106. 
 Malabari, Behramji, his works, 441. 
 Malati Madhava of Bhavabhuti, 288-92. 
 Malavikagnimitra, 248. 
 Manas, 193. 
 
 Mandara mountain, 222, 339. 
 Manava Dharma sastra, 183. 
 Manavas and the Black Yajur Veda, 152. 
 
 the school of the, 183. 
 
 Manikka Vasagar, 320, 322, et seq. 
 Man-Lion incarnation of Vishnu, 340. 
 Man Singh, 365. 
 
 Manu and the Flood, 83. 
 repeopled the world, 84. ■ 
 
 the law book of, 152, 154, 18^. 
 
 Marathas, 375. 
 
 Mardonius, 170. 
 
 Marriage among Aryans, 14 ; forbidden 
 
 between Aryans and Sudras, 154; 
 
 restrictions, 164, etseq.; by sale, 185; 
 
 rules concerning, 185-86; Act of, 
 
 1872, 407. 
 ISIarshman, 389. 
 Maruts, 50, 53, 75. 
 
 their attributes, 54. 
 
 Maya, 345, 376 ; in the Vedanta, 199, ' 
 
 etseq. 
 Mayadevi, the mother of Buddha, 119. 
 MayiKpur, 315. 
 Mecca, 332. 
 Medhatithi, 167, 338. 
 Megasthenes, 175, 177-82. 
 
 divides the people of India, l79-8a 
 
 Menon, O. Chandu, 434-39. 
 Meru, Mount, 215. 
 
INDEX 
 
 46s 
 
 Mira Bai, 347-48, 352. 
 
 Mitakshara, 339. 
 
 Mitra, the Avestan Mithra, 51, 
 
 gives place to Savitar, 5 J. 
 
 Mitra, Dinabandu, 415, 
 
 Mlecchas, 78. 
 
 Moksha, 129, 
 
 Monism, 107, 115, 
 
 Monotheism, conception of, in Vedic 
 
 Hymns, 57. 
 Mount Abu, 129, 
 
 Mozoondar, Protab Cbandar, 4P5, 
 Mricchakatlka, 270-84, 
 Mrinalini, 419, 
 Mud Cart, 270-84. 
 Mydra Rakshasa, 294, 
 Muha,mmad, 332 ; of Ghazni, 333 ; of 
 
 Ghor, 336. 
 Muhammadans, 333, 
 Mukharas, 257. 
 
 Multan, Alexander wounded at, 173. 
 Muttra sacked byMuhammad of Ghazni, 
 
 334- 
 Muntaj Mahal, 374, 
 Mysticism taught in BhagavadGita, 236. 
 
 Nabha Djvs, 367, 
 
 Nachiketqs and Death, 109, et seq. 
 
 Nadiya, 335. 
 
 Naga sect, 365. 
 
 Nagananda, 293, 
 
 Nagas, 217. 
 
 Nakula, brother of Bhima, 219, 
 
 Naladiyar, 313-14, 316, 330. 
 
 Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, 345, 374, 
 
 el seq. 
 Narayana, 206. 
 Narbad^, 150. 
 Nataka, 270, 285, 
 Native Press, rise of, 391, ei seq. 
 Nature worship, 40, 56. 
 Navadvip school of logic, 338, 
 Nepalese Ter^i, (he land of the Sakyas, 
 
 Nietsche, 189. 
 
 Nil Darpan, 415, et seq, 
 
 Nirgranthas, 129. 
 
 Nirvana, 134, 138, 141, 147. 
 
 Nishada woman burnt by Pandavas ,218. 
 
 Niti Vinod, 441. 
 
 Nyaya school of philosophy, 20$. 
 
 Occupations in Vedic times, 27-28, 
 " Om," the mystic syllable, 61. 
 
 the title of the Supreme Being in 
 
 Yoga Sutras, 195. 
 
 Paka sacrifices, 162, 
 
 Panchalas, 67. 
 
 Parfdae, 177, 
 
 Pandavas, the five princes, 215, 217, 
 
 et seq. , 226. 
 
 leave Hastinapur, 217. 
 
 1^ escape from death by burning, 218, 
 
 -,-T — life in the forest, 220. 
 
 at Draupadl's Svayamvara, 221, 
 
 take Draupadl for their common 
 
 wife, 221. 
 -^^- build Indra-prastha, 222. 
 
 go into exile, 228. 
 
 —I- — have Siva for their aid, 229, 
 
 perform horse sacrifice, 242. 
 
 Pandiyan, or elder, See also Pandyan, 
 
 304- 
 Pandus,'3io. 
 
 Pandyas, 304, 305, etseq., 313, 318, 324, 
 Panini, 151, 208, 307. 
 Panis, S3- 
 
 Pantheism in Vedic Hymns, 56. 
 Paramatman, 106. 
 Parasu Rama, 340. 
 Pariah. See Parriyar, 304. 
 Parjanya, 202. 
 Parmenides, 327. 
 Parriyar, 304. 
 
 Parsva, the founder of the jains, 128. 
 Parthalis, the capital of tlie King gf 
 
 Kalinga, 176, 
 
 G 
 
466 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Pataliputra, 143, 175, 176, 232, 248, 
 251, 294. 
 
 Patanjali, 151, 195. 
 
 Patna, 119, 143. 
 
 Penances for Brahman murder, 159. 
 
 I'itakas collected, 145. 
 
 Pitris, or Fathers, 37, 105. 
 
 had their home in the stars, 105. 
 
 Plato, 327. 
 
 Pliny, 177. 
 
 Plutschau, 389. 
 
 Poison Tree, by Chatterji, 424. 
 
 Polygamy in Vedic Hymns, 30. 
 
 Porus defeated by Alexander, 173. 
 
 defeated Eudemos, 174. 
 
 Prabhakara Vardhana, father of Harsha, 
 257. 
 
 death of, 258. 
 
 Pradhana, 206. 
 
 Prajapati, the first to sacrifice human 
 beings, 74, 89. 
 
 Prakriti, 191-93, 2q6, 289. 
 
 Prakrits, 263. 
 
 Prasenajit, King of the Kosalas,i3l,l42. 
 
 Pralapacila, name of Prabhakara Vard- 
 hana, 257. 
 
 Prayer (Brahman) : its power over the 
 gods in the Veda, 59. 
 
 evil eSecl if wrongly pronounced, 
 
 59- 
 Prem Sagar, 392. 
 Prithivi Raja, 335. 
 Proclamation of the Queen, 186. 
 Ptolemy II. of Egypt, 243. 
 Pulike^inll., 307. 
 Puranas, 289. 
 
 Puri attacked by Pulikesin, 308. 
 Purohita, 21-23, 9lj etseq., 159. 
 Purukutsa, 119. 
 Purus, 67. 
 
 Purusha, 24, 25, 289. 
 Piishan, 74 
 
 Radha, 22s, 339-44. 346-48. 
 
 Rahu, 204. 
 
 Raghunath, 338. 
 
 Rahula, 121, 142. 
 
 Raiatwari tenure, 304. 
 
 Raja, or king, in Vedic times, 21. 
 
 Rajagriha, 127, 130, 131. 
 
 Rajanya, or warriors created from arms 
 
 of Purusha, 25. 
 Rajasuya, coronation ceremony, 226. 
 Rajendra lal Mitra, 446. 
 Rajputs, 254. 
 Rajya Sri, sister of Harsha Vardhana, 
 
 257-61. 
 Rajyavardhana, elder brother of Harsha, 
 
 257-60. 
 Rakshasa, the demon enemy of the 
 
 Pandavas, 220; character in the 
 
 Mudra Rakshasa, 294. 
 Rama, 213, 214, 292, 305. 
 
 Chandra, 340. 
 
 Ramadas, the Guru of Sivaji, 380. 
 Ramanand, 344, 345, 369. 
 Ramanandis, 345. 
 
 Ram Mohun Roy: his essay on idolatry, 
 392 ; work on the Vedanta, 394 ; 
 founds the Atmlya Sabha, 394 ; pub- 
 lishes Precepts of Jesus, 395 ; founds 
 Brahma Samaj, 397 ; death, 403. 
 
 Ramanuja, 206, 329, 344. 
 
 Ramavats, 345. 
 
 Ramayana, 210, 292, 305. 
 
 its Brahmanic purpose, 211, 
 
 Ramayana of Tulsi Das, 367. 
 Ranjit Singh, 334. 
 Rashtiakutas, 309. 
 
 Ravana, 214, 292, 305. 
 
 Richardson, 394. 
 
 Rig Veda, 3 ; Hymns referring to levi- 
 
 rate marriage, 34; Hymns referring to 
 
 funeral ceremonies, 35. 
 Rishis, 217. 
 
 Ritual, meaning of obscured, 82. 
 Rohita, son of Harischandra, 88. 
 Rudra, 50. 
 
INDEX 
 
 467 
 
 Saedabai.I, 345. 
 Sacrifice, tribal, 41. 
 
 human, 42. 
 
 animal, 43. 
 
 declared m Brahmanas to be man, 
 
 and again speech, 82 ; animal substi- 
 tuted for human, 85 ; of ^unahsepa, 
 88 ; as a means of salvation, 124. 
 
 Sacrificer, must be twice-born, 80. 
 
 the food of, 81. 
 
 disquisitions on the intentions, 82. 
 
 Sacrifices, 70; funeral, 71; counter- 
 part of divine sacrifice, 74 ; Agnihotra, 
 113; for householder, 162; horse 
 sacrifice, 242. 
 
 Sacrificial observances in the Veda, 41, 
 etsec^.; ceremonial, 71; pillar, 72; 
 stake, 72 ; participation of women, 
 84; subordinated to knowledge of the 
 Self, 102. 
 
 Sadanira, 94. 
 
 Sadharana Samaj, 407. 
 
 Saguna, 439. 
 
 Sahadeva, brother of Bhima, 219. 
 
 St Thomas, 315. 
 
 Saiva Bible, 323. 
 
 Saktas, 289. 
 
 6akti, 289, 349. 
 
 Sakuni, 226. 
 
 Sakuntala, 285, et seq. 
 
 Sakyas, 113, n6, et seq., 127, 142. 
 
 Samachar Darpan, 390. 
 
 Samarkhand, 171 ; mosque, 337. 
 
 Sama Veda, 68, 152. 
 
 Sambad Prabhakar, 393. 
 
 Sambandha. See Tiru Nana, 323-30. 
 
 Sambara, 65. 
 
 Sambvika, the story of, 293. 
 
 Samudra Gupta, 251. 
 
 ^ his conquests, 251. 
 
 Sanchi, the mound at, 127, 147. 
 
 ^andilya, m, 344. 
 
 Sangan, or College of Madura, 318. 
 
 Sankara Acharya, 113, 196-205, 325,*/ 
 seq, 344. 
 
 life of, 326. 
 
 the Bhaja Govinda, 327. 
 
 Advaita doctrine, 329. 
 
 Sankhya philosophy, 190-206. 
 Sankhyan solution, 193-94. 
 Sanskrit as primitive language, 6. 
 
 later theories, 8-9. 
 
 Sarama, 53. 
 
 SarasvatI, 17, 66, 70, 74, 216. 
 
 Saraswati, Dayananda, 410. 
 
 Sarmanes, an Order of Brahman men- 
 tioned by Megasthenes, 180. 
 
 Satapanni Cave, 144. 
 
 Satapatha Brahmana, 80, 83, 86, 89, 
 105. 
 
 Sati, 35 7. 
 
 Satsaiya of Bihari, 366. 
 
 Satthianadhan, Mrs, novels of, 439. 
 
 Sauraseni Prakrit, 263. 
 
 Savitar, the Quick ener, 49. 
 
 Savitri, 75. 
 
 verse to, used at initiation, 161. 
 
 Sayyid dynasty, 338, 345. 
 Schopenhauer, 232 ; and the Vedanta, 
 
 201. 
 Schwartz founds Tinnevelly Mission, 
 
 389. 
 Scythians, 248-50. 
 Self, the knowledge of, as means of 
 
 salvation, 102, 123. 
 
 in relationship to the Brahman, 
 
 103. 
 
 as the Sun, 105. 
 
 of man, or Atman, 105. 
 
 of the Universe, lo6, et seq. ,114. 
 
 Seleukos Nikator, 174, 176. 
 
 makes alliance with Chandra 
 
 Gupta, 175. 
 
 Semiramis, 169. 
 
 Sen, Keshab Chandar, 405, 407, etseq. 
 Serampur, Danish Settlement at, 390. 
 Sesha, the serpent, 339. 
 
468 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Sesostris, 169. 
 Shah Alam, 383. 
 Shahjahan, 361, 363, 374. 
 Ships in Vedic Hymns, 29. 
 Sib, or Aryan clan, 13, 21. 
 Siddartha, 113, 119, 121. 
 
 the father of Parsva, 128. 
 
 Siddhas, 217. 
 
 Sikhs, 345, 374-80. 
 
 Slladitya II., or Harsha Vardhana, 
 
 250 ; author of Nagananda, 293. 
 Sindhu, Hymn to the river, 19. 
 
 compared to Agni, 46. 
 
 Sisupala, King of the Chedi, 226. 
 Sita, Hymn addressed to, 28 ; wife of 
 
 Rama, 214, 292, 305. 
 Siva, SO, 182, 194, 229, 309, 311, 319, 
 
 326, 33°- 
 Sivajl, 334, 375, 379, 380. 
 Skanda, 310. 
 Skandas, 137. 
 Skylax of Karyanda, 169. 
 Smarta Brahmans, 326. 
 Smriti, 202. 
 Soma, 31, 38, SSi 68> 74 ! sacrifices, 
 
 162. 
 Sommath, 334. 
 Son, the river, 130. 
 Sophytes made alliance with Alexander, 
 
 173- 
 Soul, 193. 
 
 Soul of the Universe, 209. 
 Speech personified in Vac, 60. 
 Spells used in Atharva-veda, 34. 
 Srauta sacrifices, 70. 
 Sravakas, lay members ofthe Jains, 129. 
 Sravasti, capital of the Kosalas in 
 
 time of Buddha, 131, 142, 144. 
 Sringiri monastery, 325. 
 Strabo, 171. 
 
 Studentship, duration of, 161. 
 Subtle body, 193. 
 Sudas, 26, 65, 67. 
 
 Suddhodhana, the father of Buddha, 
 119, 142. 
 
 Siidra, duties of, 293. 
 
 Sudraka, author of Mricchakatika, 271. 
 
 Sudras, 3, 25, IS3-SS. '86. 
 
 Sukh Nidhan, 345. 
 
 Sun, the, as holder of the life-breath of 
 mortals, I05. 
 
 as the Self, or Atman, 105. 
 
 Sunahsepa, story of, 43, 87. 
 
 Supreme Being, introduced in Yoga 
 Sutras, 195. 
 
 Surashtra, or Guzarat, 250. 
 
 Sur Das, 210, 365. 
 
 Siir Sagar, 365. 
 
 Siirya, the Sun-god, 49. 
 
 Susa, 172. 
 
 Sushma.the Drought, slain by Indra,53. 
 
 Sutradhara, 271. 
 
 Sutras, Vedic rules reduced to, 151. 
 
 Svayamvara, 182, 221, 224. 
 
 Svetadwipa, 231. 
 
 Svetaketu, 109. 
 
 Svetambara, sect of Jains, 129. 
 
 Syapama Sayakayana, the last to sacri- 
 fice human beings, 89. 
 
 Tagore, Dvaraka Nath, 394. 
 
 Debendra Nath, 403, 405. [406. 
 
 founds Adi Brahma Saroaj, 
 
 Taittiriya Brahmana on the home ofthe 
 
 dead, 105. 
 Taj Mahal, 127. 
 Talikota, battle of, 309, 360. 
 Talvandi, birthplace of Nanak, 375. 
 Tamerlane, 337, 344. 
 Tamil poetry, 310-31. 
 Tangabhadra, 360. 
 Tanjore, later capital of Cholas, 305. 
 Tantras, 289. 
 Tantric rites, 289-91. 
 Tapti, 150. 
 
 Tarikh-i-Badaunl, 357. 
 Tattva-bodhinl-patrika, 403, 412. 
 
INDEX 
 
 469 
 
 Taxilas, 172. 
 
 Teg Bahadur, ninth Sikh Guru, 378. 
 
 Telang, K. T., 443-46. 
 
 Thales, 122. 
 
 Thaneswar, 250, 257, 333. 
 
 Tibeto-Burman languages, 301. 
 
 Timur, 337. 
 
 Tiru Nana Sambandha, 323. 
 
 life of, 324, 
 
 Devaran Hymns of, 330. 
 
 Tiruvalluvar, 315, 330. 
 
 Tiru Vasakam, 319-32. 
 
 Todar Mai, 364. 
 
 Tortoise incarnation of Vishnu, 339. 
 
 Totemism, 76, 164. 
 
 Transmigration, 126, 135, 193, 206, 
 
 313. 330- 
 Tripitaka, 232. 
 Trisala, mother of the Jain Mahavira, 
 
 130. 
 Trita, 50. 
 
 Tritsus, 26, 28, 67. 
 Tugra, 2g. 
 
 Tughlak dynasty, 337. 
 Tuka Rama, 380, et seq. 
 Tulsi Das, 210, 213, 365, 387. 
 Turanian raids, 248. 
 Tyre, 172. 
 
 Uddalaka, his discourse on the Self, 
 
 109. 
 Udgiitar priests, 68, 90. 
 Udraka, it Brahman teacher of Buddha, 
 
 131-32- 
 Uma, 229. 
 
 Universities founded, 401. 
 Upanishads, 96, 99, 123, 202, 210. 
 Ur, 169. 
 
 Uraiyur, ancient capital of Cholas, 305. 
 Uttara-Rama-Charitra of Bhavabhuti, 
 
 288, 292. 
 
 Vac, the goddess of speech, 60, 70, 74. 
 Vac, Vedic Hymn to, 60. 
 Vaidik sacrifices, 70. 
 
 Vaikhanas, or hermit, 163. 
 Vaisali, 128, 130, 143. 
 
 Buddhist Council at, 145. 
 
 Vaiseshika school of philosophy, 208. 
 
 Vaisyas, 25, 1 86. 
 
 Vala, S3. _ 
 
 Vallabha Acharya, 344, 348. 
 
 Vallabhi line, 250. 
 
 Valmiki, author of Ramayana, 213. 
 
 Yaranasi, 133. 
 
 Vardhana, kings of Thaneswar and 
 
 Kanauj, 250. 
 Varman dynasty, 250. 
 Vartikas of Panini, 307. 
 Varuna, 51, 75, 87. 
 Vasantasena, heroine of Mricchakatika, 
 
 274, et seq. 
 Vasishta, 26, 67, 88 ; the law book of 
 
 152 ; penances for Brahman murder, 
 
 IS9- 
 Vayu, 89. 
 Vedanta philosophy, 179, 196-209, 233, 
 
 323. 325. 327- 
 
 Vedas, 210. 
 
 Vehicle, the Little, 146. 
 
 the Great, 146. 
 
 Vedic Hymns, birthright of the Brah- 
 mans, 3 ; penalties on Sudras for 
 reciting, 3 ; date of composition, 
 16 ; outcome of Nature worship, 18 ; 
 \heir poetic power, 19 ; the Sanhita 
 made, 20 ; to Sindhu, 19 ; of the 
 purohita, 21-23 > one describes the 
 people as divided into four classes, 
 24 ; showing vengeance of the Brah- 
 mans on their enemies, 25 ; praising 
 liberality towards priests, 26-27 > 
 people in the early Hymns pastoral, 
 27 ! one addressed to Sita, 28 ; occu- 
 pations in, 27-28 ; ships mentioned, 
 29 ; social life not primitive, 29 ; 
 physicians mentioned, 29 ; position 
 of woman, 30-32 ; at wedding of 
 Soma and Surya, 31 ; gambling in, 
 32 ; love-charms, 33-34 ; referring to 
 
470 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Vedic Hymns {contimKcC) — 
 
 levirate marri^e, 34. ; funeral cere- 
 monies, 35 ; widow-burning, 35-36 ; 
 idea of death, 36-39 ; sacrificial ob- 
 servance in, 42, et seq. ; story of 
 Sunahsepa, 43 ; substitution of ani- 
 mal for human sacrifice, 43 ; to Agni, 
 46, et seq.j to Varuna, 51-52 ; Indra, 
 S3 ; considered as prayers, 59 ; to 
 Vac, 60 ; the Gayatrl, 61. 
 
 Vempa metre, 317. 
 
 Vernaculars, Aryan, 264. 
 
 Videhas, 69, 94. 
 
 Vidyasagar, Isvara Chandra, 411. 
 
 Vijnanesvara, 339. 
 
 Vikramaditya, 249. 
 
 Vikramorvasi of Kalidasa, 288. 
 
 Village plays, 267-70. 
 
 Vindhyas, a barrier to Aryan advance, 
 151, 302. 
 
 Vira Saivas, 311. 
 
 Vishhu, a solar deity, Jo. 
 
 sacrificial stake dedicated to, 72. 
 
 the worship of, 194, 206, 309, 330. 
 
 in Gita Govinda, 339. 
 
 incarnations of, 339-40. 
 
 Vispala, 30. 
 
 Visvamitra, 26, 67, 88, 306. 
 
 Visakadatta, author of Mudra Rak- 
 shasa, 294. 
 
 Visesha, or eternal essence, 208. 
 
 Visve Devas, 74. 
 
 Vithoba, the Maratha idol, 380. 
 
 Von Hartmann, 232. 
 
 Vrikodara, name of Bhima, 219. 
 
 Vritra, the demon, 53. 
 
 Vyasa, fabled author of Mahabharata, 
 213. 
 
 Wajjians, 142, 145. 
 Ward, the Baptist missionary, 389, 
 Weaving in Vedic times, 28. 
 White Country, 231. 
 
 Widow-burning in Veda, 35-36. 
 Wife, position of, among Aryans, 1 5. 
 Wilkins, translation of BhagavadGJta,5. 
 
 translation of Hitopadesa, 5. 
 
 Woman in Vedic Hymns, 30-32. 
 
 participation in sacrificial ritual, 
 
 84. 
 
 to be avoided according to Buddha, 
 
 142. 
 
 admitted to the Buddhist Order, 
 
 142. 
 
 excluded from studying the law 
 
 books, 185. 
 
 Xenophanes, 232. 
 Xerxes, 170. 
 
 Yadavas settled in Sind, 150. 
 
 of Halibid, 309. 
 
 Yajnavalkya, 86, 99. 
 
 questioned by Gargi, loi. 
 
 his wife Maitreyl, 106. 
 
 Yajur Veda, Black. 68, 152, 183. 
 
 White, 69. 
 
 Yakshas, 217, 229. 
 Yama, 36, 105. 
 
 and Nachiketas, 109. 
 
 Yamuna, 66. 
 
 Yasoda, foster-mother of Krishna, 225. 
 Yasodhara, the wife of Buddha, 1:1. 
 Yasodhara admitted to the Order, 142. 
 Yasodharman, 250. 
 Yasovati, wife of Prabhakara Vardhana, 
 
 257- 
 Yatis, Jaina ascetics, 129. 
 Yoga, the Siitras, 195 j the system, 216. 
 Yc^is, 195. 
 Yuddhisthira,2i7,e/Kg'., 221, 224, 226, 
 
 234- 
 Yueh-Chi, 249. 
 
 ZlEGBNBALG, 389. 
 Zoroaster, 122. 
 
SILENT GODS AND SUN-STEEPED LANDS. 
 
 With a Photogravure Frontispiece and four other fuU-pEge 
 Illustrations by A. D. McCORMICK. 
 
 Elegantly bound in cloth, price -^s. td. Second Edition. 
 
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 SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
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 ment by a scholar and a poet of the vast mass of information which has slowly been accumu- 
 lating about the people and their lives. These poems — for poems they are, though written in 
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 Eastern light and shade, depicted in poetic language, but containing a distinct underlying 
 current of thought respecting many pressing questions — religious, social, and political — in 
 India of to-day." — Indian Afagazhte. 
 
 " Such a book could only have been written by a man who is steeped — to borrow a word 
 from his title — to the finger ends in Indian lore and Indian superstition." — Mr Coulsoh 
 Kernahan, in \h^ Literary Worid. 
 
 "These weird, dramatic, half-savage, wholly mystical idylls which Mr Frazer has woven 
 in this remarkable book." — Canity Fair. 
 
 " The sketches bear, in short, the stamp of universal truth, and are the work of an artist in 
 letters who is at the same time a scholar and a philosopher." — Home J^ews. 
 
 "There is a weird horror about some of his tales." — IVesttninster Gazette. 
 
 *' The Author has succeeded in permeating every page with the spirit of India . . . 
 with a spirit and a force which can spring only out of an intimate and scholarly knowledge of 
 history and of modern conditions in the East." — Academy: 
 
 " The volume is almost oppressively sombre, but its combination of intimate knowledge 
 with a certain intensity of imagination makes it deeply interesting." — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 "It is a good long time since I have read a more fascinating book. . . . Mr 
 Frazer's prose, simple and unelaborated as it is, has that quality of imaginative expressiveness 
 which belongs only to the prose of a potential poet, and with it as a vehicle he can rendc the 
 strange beauty, as well as the haunting terror, of the twilight in which the old faiths of India 
 are slowly falling on sleep." — New Age. 
 
 " An example of far-reaching research into the inner and hidden life of the Indian peoples." 
 —Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Told with such skill that one goes on reading story after story until the hook is finished." 
 Queen. 
 
 " The glamour of the East is over the whole book. Everywhere the language has the 
 languor and rhythm of slow-moving leaves and heaving waters." — Sunday Times. 
 
 "An impressive example is ^iven of the operation of the social law that forbids the re- 
 marriage of Hindu widows. Still more striking is the story of a human sacrifice performed by 
 the Khonds."— i'//awfj' Gazette. 
 
 " Mr Frazer is a polished writer, and possesses the art of stoiy-telling in a high degree." — 
 Christian World. 
 
 LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square, E.G. 
 
BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "STORY OP THE NATIONS" SERIES. 
 By R. W. FRAZER, LL.B., I.C.S. 
 
 (retired.) 
 
 Lecturer in Telugu and Tamilai University College and at ike Imperial Institute ; Awards 
 Jrom Gormmment of Madras for High Prt^ciency in SansMrit, l/riya, and Telugui 
 Secretary and Principal Librarian^ London Institution. 
 
 Author of " Silent Gods and Sun-Stkeped Lands." 
 
 SONIE PRESS OPINIONS. 
 
 *' In this task Mr Frazer has succeeded in a remarkable de|;ree. For the plan of the book 
 does not confine itself to a succinct statement of facts. It Empires to be something more than 
 an accurate catalogue of battles, kings, and dates. Mr Frazer may fairly claim that he has 
 
 raisedthestudent'smanualintoastory of human interest for grown-up men and women 
 
 Mr Frazer selects his point of view with a real insight into the essentials of history, and what 
 be chooses to tell us he tells with accuracy, with fairness of spirit, and in good EnglUh." — 
 Times. 
 
 " The results of a close study of the most helpful documents. . , . The extent and 
 thoroughness of his reading may be seen in every page." — Atkemeum. 
 
 " It is a wonderful story, and it is written fittingly, in a spirit of grave historical accuracy, 
 with balanced judgment, and with a strong faith. . . . One rises from the book with an 
 added sense of dignity, with an added sense of responsibility, with a quickened consciousness, 
 too, of the terrible possibilities which surround the situation." — Academy. 
 
 " II nous manquait, k Tusage du grand public, un r£sum6 bieo fait, reposant sur de solides 
 recherches personnelles. M. Frazer — vient de nous le donner — tout son r^t, clair^^ substantiel 
 et forci^ement impartial, montre qu'il a fait de ces sources Tusage le plus consciencieux." — 
 M. ^^'RTH, Journal des Savants. 
 
 "Bright and lively enough not to repel even the mpst superficial of general readers, ai^d 
 sufficiently full and accurate to supply the student with a bandy compendium for ordinary 
 ■ reference."— /(Wrwa^ of the Royal Asiatic Society. 
 
 " His book is of absorbing interest, and comes verjr ^ear to being a perfect short history. 
 .... Mr Frazer has given us the best popular history of British India ever written."-^ 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 " 'British Iqdia' needs no extraneous ^d to become (he popuUr ^t^dard work on tha 
 subject." — JVew Saturday. 
 
 " To fully appreciate what we have accomplished iq Ipdi^ in spite of alnjiost overwhelming 
 difficulties, ^nd what difficulties have still to he overcome, you frannot do better than read 
 this admirable history of British India by Mr Frazer." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 "* British India,' by the author of * Silent Gods and Sun-Steeped Lands' is, as might he 
 expected from the pen qf so gifted a writer on Indian subjects, a brilliant sketch, and reads 
 with all the ease of a novel." — Dundee Advertiser. 
 
 *' In tracing the history of India through the administration of these rulers the author has 
 shown remarkable skill, and that not ^IereIy in the ordering of his facts, but in his estimate 
 of policy, a(.d his appreciation of character as well." — Glasgoru Heraid. 
 
 "He has an eye for the suggestive jioints. He can indicate a character without any 
 laborious word-painting. .... It is one of the best volumes yet published in the 
 * Story of the Nations ' Series," — Daily Nej/os^ 
 
 "The old, romantic, fascinating story of our e^ly commerce with the East is told onoo 
 again m this bright little history. — Daily Mail. 
 
 " Any one who has read Mr Frazer's ' Silent Gods and Sun-Steeped Lands ' must respect 
 the author's power of literary expression. Here he proves that he has, in a high degree, the 
 gifts of wide comprehension and condensation." — Sheffield Independent. 
 
 " A volume which, while modest in proportion* indicates at once, clearly and vividly, the 
 agencies and influences that have been at work in founding and expanding the British 
 Empire in India."— 5ci7^m;w«. 
 
 LOtlOON: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square, E.Q.