Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California
 
 JAN 5 1926 
 
 MAY 1 7 1926 
 *** 1 5 192^ 
 
 MAR 
 
 MAY 1 5 1928 
 
 'FB7
 
 MILL'S HISTORY 
 
 OF BRITISH INDIA, 
 
 BY WILSON. 
 
 IN EIGHT VOLUMES. 
 VOL. II. 
 
 VA
 
 THE HISTORY OF 
 
 BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BY JAMES MILL, ESQ. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION, WITH NOTES AND CONTINUATION, 
 
 BY HORACE HAYMAN WILSON, M.A.F.R. S. 
 
 MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY AND OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETIES OF PARIS AND 
 
 CALCUTTA ; OF THB IMPERIAL SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS OF MOSCOW ; 
 
 OF THE ROYAL ACADEMIES OF BERLIN AND MUNICH, ETC. ETC. ; 
 
 AND BODBN PROFESSOR OF SANSCRIT IN THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 VOLUME II. 
 
 LONDON 
 JAMES MADDEN AND CO., 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO PARBURY & CO., 8, LEADENHALL STREET. 
 
 L. A. LEWIS, FLEET STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXXX. 
 
 54580
 
 LONDON : 
 
 B. VARTY, 27, CAMOMILE STBBET, BISHOPSOATK.
 
 PS 
 
 (j> 3 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 (COSTINIED.) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Arts . 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Literature 47 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 General Reflections . .152 
 
 BOOK III. 
 THE MOHAMMEDANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 From the first Invasion of India by the Nations in the 
 North, till the Expulsion of the Gaznevide Dynasty .... 234 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 From the Commencement of the first Gaurian Dynasty 
 to that of the second Gaurian or Afghan Dynasty 259
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 From the Commencement of the second Gaurian or 
 Afghan Dynasty, to the Commencement of the Mogul 
 Dynasty 281 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From the Commencement to the Close of the Mogul 
 Dynasty 319 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A Comparison of the State of Civilization among the 
 Mohammedan Conquerors of India, with the State of Civili- 
 zation among the Hindus 479
 
 HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 The Arts. 
 
 WE come now to the arts, necessary or ornamental, BOOK n. 
 known to the Hindus. As the pleasures, to which ' 
 the arts are subservient, form one of the grounds of 
 preference between the rude and civilized condition 
 of man, the improvement of the arts may be taken 
 as one of the surest indications of the progress of 
 society. 
 
 Of the Hindus, it may, first of all, be observed, 
 that they little courted the pleasures derived from 
 the arts, whatever skill they had attained in them. 
 The houses, even of the great, were mean, and 
 almost destitute of furniture ; l their food was simple 
 
 1 " The buildings are all base, of mud, one story high, except in Surat, 
 where there are some of stone. The Emperor's own houses are of stone, 
 handsome and uniform. The great men build not, for want of inherit- 
 ance ; but, as far as I have yet seen, live in tents, or houses worse than 
 our cottages." Sir T. Roe's Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 Churchill, i. 803. 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 2 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. an( i common ; and their dress had no distinction 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 - (which concerns the present purpose) beyond certain 
 degrees of fineness in the texture. 
 
 If we desire to ascertain the arts which man would 
 first practise, in his progress upwards from the lowest 
 barbarism, we must inquire what are the most urgent 
 of his wants. Unless the spontaneous productions of 
 the soil supplied him with food, the means of in- 
 snaring, or killing the animals fit for his use by clubs 
 or stones, and afterwards by his bow and arrows, 
 would first engage his attention. How to shelter 
 himself from the inclemency of the weather would be 
 his second consideration ; and where cavities of the 
 earth or hollow trees suppb'ed not his wants, the rude 
 construction of a hut would be one of his earliest 
 operations. A covering for his person would pro- 
 bably be the next of the accommodations which his 
 feelings prompt him to provide. At first he contents 
 himself with the skin of an animal ; but it is sur- 
 prising at how early a period he becomes acquainted 
 with the means of fabricating cloth. l Weaving, 
 therefore, and architecture, are among the first of the 
 complicated arts which are practised among barba- 
 rians ; and experience proves that they may be carried, 
 at a very early period of society, to a high state of 
 
 1 It is curious to observe how Plato traces this progress. He is en- 
 deavouring to account for the origin of society. I#< ^ (tjv Vy<u) 
 no Xo'/w ef ap^s iroiwfiev iro\iv' iroiijoei tfavTyv, ws eoixev, rf 
 yjieTfpa \peia. Ho*! ' ; AXXa [lev TrpwTij fye KOI fie^ia-rrj iwv 
 Xpew, T] Tijt Tpofas irapaoKevi), Sevrepa &/ otKijaetas, -rpnij 
 eaOijTos teat TWV -rottntov. E<rrt TOVTO' fape 8i] (nv &e<yu)') Trias 7 
 vo\it apiceaet eirt ToaavtrfV TrapaaKevrjv a\\OTi, tyewpyof fiev f 
 tit, o Be otKoOofios' aXXoi Be n s i0aim;r. Pl at . de Repub. lib. ii. 
 p. 599.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 3 
 
 perfection. It has been remarked, too, that one of BOOK n. 
 
 . . i-i CHAP. 8. 
 
 the earliest propensities which springs up in the 
 
 breast of a savage is a love of ornaments, of glittering 
 trinkets, of bits of shining metals, or coloured stones, 
 with which to decorate his person. The art, accord- 
 ingly, of fetching out the brilliancy of the precious 
 stones and metals, and fashioning them into orna- 
 ments for the person ; the art, in fine, of jewellery, 
 appears at an early period in the progress of a rude 
 people. 
 
 These three, architecture, weaving, and jewellery, 
 are the only arts for which the Hindus have been 
 celebrated ; and even these, with the exception of 
 weaving, remained in a low state of improvement. 
 
 In a few places in Hindustan are found the remains 
 of ancient buildings, which have attracted the atten- 
 tion of Europeans ; and have, where there existed a 
 predisposition to wonder and admire, been regarded 
 as proofs of a high civilization. " The entry," says 
 Dr. Robertson, " to the Pagoda of Chillambrum, is 
 by a stately gate under a pyramid 122 feet in height, 
 built with large stones above forty feet long, and 
 more than five feet square, and all covered with 
 plates of copper, adorned with an immense variety 
 of figures neatly executed. The whole structure 
 extends 1332 feet in one direction, and 936 in 
 another. Some of the ornamental parts are finished 
 with an elegance entitled to the admiration of the 
 most ingenious artists." l The only article of precise 
 information which we obtain from this passage is the 
 great size of the building. As for the vague terms 
 
 1 Robertson's Histor. Disquis. concerning India, p. 225. 
 B 2
 
 4 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK n. O f general eulogy, bestowed upon the ornaments, they 
 __are almost entirely without significance the loose 
 and exaggerated expressions, at second-hand, of the 
 surprise of the early travellers at meeting with an 
 object, which they were not prepared to expect. 
 Another structure still more remarkable than that of 
 Chillambrum, the Pagoda of Seringham, situated in 
 an island of the river Cavery, is thus described by 
 Mr. Orme. " It is composed of seven square enclo- 
 sures, one within the other, the walls of which are 
 twenty-five feet high, and four thick. These enclo- 
 sures are 350 feet distant from one another, and each 
 has four large gates with a high tower ; which are 
 placed, one in the middle of each side of the enclosure, 
 and opposite to the four cardinal points. The out- 
 ward wall is near four miles in circumference, and 
 its gateway to the south is ornamented with pillars, 
 several of which are single stones thirty-three feet 
 long, and nearly five in diameter ; and those which 
 form the roof are still larger; 'in the inmost enclosures 
 are the chapels." l In this nothing is described as 
 worthy of regard except the magnitude of the di- 
 mensions. 
 
 The cave of Elephanta, not far from Bombay, is 
 another work which, from its magnitude, has given 
 birth to the supposition of high civilization among 
 the Hindus. It is a cavity in the side of a mountain, 
 about half-way between its base and summit, of the 
 space of nearly 120 feet square. Pieces of the rock, 
 as is usual in mining, have been left at certain dis- 
 tances supporting the superincumbent matter; and 
 the sight of the whole upon the entrance, is grand 
 
 1 Orme's Hist, of Milit. Transac. of Indostan, i. 178.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 and striking. It had been applied at an early period 
 to religious purposes, when the pillars were probably 
 fashioned into the sort of regular form they now pre- 
 sent, and the figures, with which great part of the 
 inside is covered, were sculptured on the stone. 1 
 
 1 The cave of Elephanta is not the only subterranean temple of the 
 Hindus, exhibiting on a large scale the effects of human labour. In the 
 isle of Salsette, in the same vicinity, is a pagoda of a similar kind, and but 
 little inferior to it in any remarkable circumstance. The pagodas of 
 Ellora, about eighteen miles from Aurungabad, are not of the size of those 
 of Elephanta and Salsette, but they surprise by their number, and by the 
 idea of the labour which they cost. See a minute description of them by 
 Anquetil Duperron, Zendavesta, Disc. Prelim, p. ccxxxiii. The seven 
 pagodas, as they are called at Mavalipuram, near Sadras, on the Coro- 
 mandel coast, is another work of the same description ; and several others 
 might be mentioned. Dr. Tennant, who has risen higher above travellers' 
 prejudices in regard to the Hindus, than most of his countrymen, says, 
 " Their caves in Elephanta and Salsette are standing monuments of the ori- 
 ginal gloomy state of their superstition, and the imperfection of their arts, 
 particularly that of architecture." Indian Recreations, i. 6. The extraordi- 
 nary cavern, the temple of Pusa, near Chas-chou-fou, in China, which was 
 visited by Lord Macartney, and full of living priests, vies in wonderful cir- 
 cumstances with the cave of Elephanta. See Barrow's Life of Lord Ma- 
 cartney, Journal, ii. 374. " However these gigantic statues, and others 
 of similar form, in the caves of Ellora and Salsette may astonish a common 
 observer, the man of taste looks in vain for proportion of form, and ex- 
 pression of countenance." Forbes' Oriental Memoirs, i. 423. " I must 
 not omit the striking resemblance between these excavations (Ele- 
 phanta, &c.) and the sculptured grottoes in Egypt," &c. " I have often 
 been struck with the idea that there may be some affinity between the 
 written mountains in Arabia, and the excavated mountains in Hindustan." 
 Ibid. i. 448, 449. It is difficult to say how much of the wonderful in these 
 excavations may be the mere work of nature : " Left Sullo, and travelled 
 through a country beautiful beyond imagination, with all possible diversities 
 of rock ; sometimes towering up like ruined castles, spires, pyramids, &c. 
 We passed one place so like a ruined Gothic abbey, that we halted a little, 
 before we could satisfy ourselves that the niches, windows, ruined stair- 
 case, &c. were all natural rock. A faithful description of this place would 
 certainly be deemed a fiction." Mungo Park's last Mission to Africa, 
 p. 75. " Between the city of Canton, and first pagoda, on the bank of the 
 river, is a series," says Mr. Barrow, " of stone-quarries, which appear not 
 to have been worked for many years. The regular and formal manner in 
 which the stones have been cut away, exhibiting lengthened streets of 
 houses with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes
 
 6 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HOOK ii. Antecedently to the dawn of taste, it is by mag- 
 
 CHAP. 8. J i -i T 1 ! . 
 
 nitude alone that, in building, nations can exhibit 
 
 magnificence, and it is almost uniformly in honour 
 of the gods, that this species of grandeur is first at- 
 tempted. Experience alone could have made us 
 comprehend, at how low a stage in the progress of 
 the arts, surprising structures can be erected. The 
 Mexicans were even ignorant of iron. They were 
 unacquainted with the use of scaffolds and cranes. 
 They had no beasts of burden. They were without 
 sledges and carts. They were under the necessity of 
 breaking their stones with flints, and polished them 
 by rubbing one against another. Yet they accom- 
 plished works, which, in magnitude and symmetry, 
 vie with any thing of which Hindustan has to boast. 
 " The great temple," says Clavigero, " occupied the 
 centre of the city. Within the enclosure of the wall, 
 which encompassed it in a square form, the con- 
 queror Cortez affirms that a town of 500 houses might 
 have stood. The wall, built of stone and lime, was 
 
 at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams ; the smooth- 
 ness and perfect perpendicularity of the sides, and the number of detached 
 pillars that are scattered over the plain, would justify a similar mistake to 
 that of Mr. Addison's doctor of one of the German universities, whom he 
 found at Chateau d" Un in France, carefully measuring the free-stone quar- 
 ries at that place, which he conceived to be the venerable remains of vast 
 palaces of great antiquity." Barrow's Travels in China, p. 599. The 
 conclusions of many of our countrymen in Hindustan will bear comparison 
 with that of the German doctor in France. It is not a bad idea of Forster, 
 the German commentator upon the travels of P. Paolino, that the forming 
 caverns into temples must naturally have been the practice when men as 
 yet had their principal abodes in caverns. Voyage aux Indes Oricu. par 
 le P. Paolino, iii. 115. Volney says, " those labyrinths, temples, and 
 pyramids, by their huge and heavy structure, attest much less the genius 
 of a nation, opulent and friendly to the arts, than the servitude of a 
 people, who were slaves to the caprice of their monarch." Travels in 
 Egypt, &c. i. 282.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 7 
 
 very thick, eight feet hiarh, crowned with battlements BOOK n. 
 
 J ' . CHAP. 8. 
 
 in the form of niches, and ornamented with many 
 
 stone figures in the shape of serpents. It had four 
 gates to the four cardinal points. Over each of the 
 four gates was an arsenal, filled with a vast quantity 
 of offensive and defensive weapons, where the troops 
 went, when it was necessary, to be supplied with 
 arms. The space within the walls was curiously 
 paved with such smooth and polished stones that the 
 horses of the Spaniards could not move upon them 
 without slipping and tumbling down. In the middle 
 was raised an immense solid building of greater 
 length than breadth, covered with square equal 
 pieces of pavement. The building consisted of five 
 bodies, nearly equal in height, but different in length 
 and breadth ; the highest being narrowest. The first 
 body, or basis of the building, was more than fifty 
 perches long from east to west, and about forty-three 
 in breadth from north to south. The second body 
 was about a perch less in length and breadth than 
 the first; and the rest in proportion. The stairs, 
 which were upon the south side, were made of large 
 well-formed stones, and consisted of 114 steps, each 
 a foot high. Upon the fifth body (the top) was a 
 plain, which we shall call the upper area, which was 
 about forty-three perches long, and thirty-four broad, 
 and was as well paved as the great area below. At 
 the eastern extremity of this plain were raised two 
 towers, to the height of fifty-six feet. These were 
 properly the sanctuaries, where, upon an altar of 
 stone, five feet high, were placed the tutelary idols." 1 
 The Tlascalans, as a rampart against the Mexican 
 
 1 Clavigero, Hist, of Mexico, book vi. sect. 10.
 
 8 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 tro P s > erected a wall, " six miles in length, between 
 two mountains ; eight feet in height, besides the 
 breast-work ; and eighteen feet in thickness/' l 
 
 Garcilasso de la Vega informs us, that " the Incas, 
 who were kings of Peru, erected many wonderful 
 and stately edifices ; their castles, temples, and royal 
 palaces," says he, " their gardens, store-houses, and 
 other fabrics, were buildings of great magnificence, 
 as is apparent by the ruins of them. The work of 
 greatest ostentation, and which evidences most the 
 power and majesty of the Incas, was the fortress of 
 Cozco, whose greatness is incredible to any who 
 have not seen it, and such as have viewed it with 
 great attention cannot but admire it, and believe 
 that such a work was raised by enchantment, or the 
 help of spirits, being that which surpasses the art 
 and power of man. For the stones are so many and 
 so great which are laid in the three first rounds, being 
 rather rocks than stones, as passes all understanding, 
 how, and in what manner, they were hewn from the 
 quarry, or brought from thence, for they had no in- 
 struments of iron or steel, wherewith to cut or 
 fashion them : nor less wonderful is it to think, how 
 they could be carried to the building ; for they had 
 neither carts nor oxen to draw them with ; and if they 
 had, the weight was so vast as no cart could bear, or 
 oxen draw ; then to think that they drew them with 
 great ropes, over hills and dales, and difficult ways, 
 by the mere force of men's arms, is alike incredible ; 
 for many of them were brought ten, twelve, and 
 fifteen leagues off. But to proceed further in our 
 imagination of this matter, and consider how it was 
 
 1 Clavigero, Hist, of Mexico, book vii. sect. 26.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 possible for the people to fit and join such vast BOOK u. 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 machines of stones together, and cement them so 
 
 close, that the point of a knife can scarce pass 
 between them, is a thing above all admiration ; and 
 some of them are so artificially joined, that the cre- 
 vices are scarce discernible between them : Then to 
 consider that to square and fit these stones one to the 
 other, they were to be raised and lifted up and 
 removed often, until they were brought to their just 
 size and proportion ; but how this was done by men 
 who had no use of the rule and square, nor knew how 
 to make cranes or pulleys, and cramps, and other 
 engines, to raise and lower them as they had occasion, 
 is beyond imagination." 1 
 
 Whatever allowance any preconceptions of the 
 reader may lead him to make for exaggeration, which 
 we may believe to be considerable, in the above 
 descriptions, enough undoubtedly appears to prove, 
 that no high attainments, in civilization and the arts, 
 are implied in the accomplishment of very arduous 
 
 1 Royal Commentaries of Peru, by the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, 
 book vii. ch. xxviii. Acosta likewise says (see his Natural and Moral 
 History of the Indies, book vi. ch. xiv.), that of these stones he measured 
 one, at Tiagunaco, which was thirty-eight feet long, eighteen broad, and 
 six in thickness ; and that the stones in that building were not so large as 
 those in the fortress at Cuzco. He adds, " And that which is most strange, 
 these stones, being not cut, nor squared to join, but contrariwise, very un- 
 equal one with another in form and greatness, yet did they join them 
 together without cement, after an incredible manner." Acosta tells us, 
 however (Ibid.), that they were entirely unacquainted with the construc- 
 tion of arches. Humboldt, who could have no national partialities on the 
 subject, is almost as lofty in his praises of the remains of the ancient archi- 
 tecture of the Mexicans and Peruvians. " Au Mexique el au Perou," 
 says he, Tableaux de la Nature, i. 168, " on trouve partout dans les 
 plaines elevees des montagnes, de traces d'nne grande civilisation. Nous 
 avons vu, a une hauteur de seize a dix-huit cent toises, des mines de palais 
 et de bains." The ruins which he saw of a palace of immense size, are 
 mentioned at p. 158.
 
 10 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. an( | surprising works in architecture ; and it will be 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 allowed that such comparisons between the attain- 
 ments of different nations, are the only means of 
 forming a precise judgment of the indications of civi- 
 lization which they present, The Gothic cathedrals 
 reared in modern Europe, which remain among the 
 most stupendous monuments of architecture in that 
 quarter of the globe, were constructed, many of them 
 at least, at comparatively a very low stage of civili- 
 zation and science. To allude to Nineveh and 
 Babylon, is to bring to the recollection of the his- 
 torical reader, the celebrated works of architecture, 
 in temples, walls, palaces, bridges, which distin- 
 guished those ancient cities. Yet it is demonstrated, 
 that no high degree of improvement was attained by 
 the people that erected them. The pyramids of 
 Egypt, vast as their dimensions, and surprising their 
 durability, afford intrinsic evidence of the rudeness 
 of the period at which they were reared. 1 According 
 to Strabo, the sepulchre of Belus, at Babylon, was 
 a pyramid of one stadium in height. It appears to 
 have been built of different bodies, or stages, one 
 rising above another, exactly in the manner of the 
 great temple at Mexico. A tower, says Herodotus, 
 
 1 " Let us now speak," says the President Goguet, Origin of Laws, part 
 iii. book ii. ch. i. " of the bridge of Babylon, which the ancients have 
 placed in the number of the most marvellous works of the East. It was 
 
 near 100 fathoms in length, and almost four in breadth, &c While we 
 
 do justice to the skill of the Babylonians, in conducting these works, we 
 cannot help remarking the bad taste, which, at all times, reigned in the 
 works of the eastern nations. The bridge of Babylon furnishes a striking 
 instance of it. This edifice was absolutely without grace, or any air of 
 
 majesty Finally, this bridge was not arched." The first chiefs in 
 
 Iceland built no inconsiderable houses. Ingulph's palace was 135 feet in 
 length. Mallet. Introd. Hist. Denmark, vol. i. ch. xiii.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 11 
 
 a stadium both in length and breadth, is reared at BOOK " 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 the base ; and upon this is erected another tower, 
 
 and again another upon that, to the number of eight 
 towers in all. 1 
 
 Sonnerat informs us, " that the architecture of the 
 Hindus is very rude ; and their structures in honour 
 of their deities are venerable only from their mag- 
 nitude." 2 "Mail-cotay," says Dr. Buchanan, "is 
 one of the most celebrated places of Hindu worship, 
 both as having been honoured with the actual pre- 
 sence of an avatara, or incarnation of Vishnu, who 
 founded one of the temples; and also as being one 
 of the principal seats of the Sri Vaishnavam Brah- 
 mans, and having possessed very large revenues. 
 The large temple is a square building of great di- 
 mensions, and entirely surrounded by a colonnade ; 
 but it is a mean piece of architecture, at least out- 
 wardly. The columns are very rude, and only about 
 six feet high. Above the entablature, in place of a 
 balustrade, is a clumsy mass of brick and plaster, 
 much higher than the columns, and excavated with 
 
 1 Herodot. Clio, 181. Major Rennel, who was obliged to trust to Mr. 
 Beloe's translation, was puzzled with the expression, " a tower of the 
 solid depth and height of one stadium;" justly pronounces it incredible, 
 and says, " Surely Herodotus wrote breadth and length, and not breadth 
 and height," (Geog of Herodot. p. 359, 360) which is precisely the fact, 
 the words of Herodotus being KCLI TO [irjicos icai TO eu/>os. The word 
 <nepeot, too, here translated solid, as if the tower was a mere mass 
 of brick-work, without any internal vacuity, by no means implies a 
 fact so very improbable. 'S-repeos means strong, firmly built, &c. This 
 resemblance has been noticed by Humboldt (Essai Polit. sur la Nouv. 
 Espagne,)p. 170, also that between the pyramids of Egypt, and the vast 
 pyramids of which the remains are to be found in Mexico, p. 187. The 
 palace of Montezuma bore a striking resemblance to that of the Emperor 
 of China, p. 190. 
 
 * Voyage de Sonnerat. liv. iii. ch. viii.
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OK IL numerous niches, in which are huddled together 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 many thousand images, composed of the same ma- 
 terials, and most rudely formed. The temple itself 
 is alleged to be of wonderful antiquity, and to have 
 been not only built by a god, but to be dedicated to 
 Krishna, on the very spot where that avatara per- 
 formed some of his great works." l Of the celebrated 
 pagodas at Congeveram, the same author remarks, 
 that " they are great stone buildings, very clumsily 
 executed, both in their joinings and carvings, and 
 totally devoid of elegance or grandeur, although they 
 are wonderfully crowded with what are meant as 
 ornaments." 2 
 
 Wonderful monuments of the architecture of rude 
 nations are almost every where to be found. Mr. 
 Bryant, speaking of the first rude inhabitants of 
 Sicily, the Cyclopes, who were also called Lestry- 
 
 1 Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. ii. 70. 
 
 * Id. Ib. i. 13. Sir James Mackintosh ingeniously remarks, that among 
 the innumerable figures of men and monsters of all sorts exhibited at 
 Ellora, you perceive about one in ten thousand that has some faint rudi- 
 ments of grace, those lucky hits, the offspring of chance, rather than 
 design, -which afford copies to a rude people, and enable them to make 
 gradual improvements. " Rude nations," (says Dr. Ferguson, Hist, of 
 the Roman Republic, i. 18, ed. 8vo.) " sometimes execute works of great 
 magnificence, for the purposes of superstition or war ; but seldom works 
 of mere convenience or cleanliness." Yet the common sewers of Rome, 
 the most magnificent that ever were constructed, are assigned to the age 
 of the elder Tarquin. Polybius tells us, that the city of Ecbatana, in 
 Media, which contained one of the palaces of the Persian kings, far ex- 
 ct lied all other cities in the world, TT^HTW icai TIJ TTJS KavaaicevT)? 
 TroXtrreXtia fic^/a TI Trapa TOS aXXas o*cet dievrfvoj^evai woXeir. 
 With regard to the palace itself, he was afraid, he said, to describe its 
 magnitude and magnificence, lest he should not be believed. It was seven 
 stadia in circumference ; and though all the wood employed in it was cedar 
 or cypress, every part of it, pillars, cornices, beams, every thing was 
 covered with plates of silver or gold, so that no where was a bit of wood 
 visible ; and it was roofed with silver tiles. Polyb. Hist. lib. x. 24.
 
 \KC itnT.rn RF. OF THF HINDUS. 13 
 
 U'ons and Lamii. says. " They erected many temples, BOOKII. 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 and likewise high towers upon the sea-eoast ; and . 
 
 founded many cities. The ruins of some of them 
 are still extant; and have been taken notice of by 
 Fazellus. who speaks of them as exhibiting a most 
 magnificent appearance. They consist of stones 
 which are of great size. Fazellus, speaking of the 
 bay. near Segesta, and of an hill which overlooked 
 the bay, mentions wonderful ruins upon its summit, 
 and gives an ample description of their extent and 
 appearance." The old traveller, Knox, after de- 
 scribing the passion of the Ceylonese for construct- 
 ing temples and monuments of enormous magnitude, 
 in honour of their gods, drily adds; " As if they had 
 been born solely to hew rocks and great stones, and 
 lay them up in heaps ; " ' the unsophisticated decision 
 of a sound understanding, on operations which the 
 affectation of taste, and antiquarian credulity, have 
 magnified into proofs of the highest civilization. 3 
 
 1 Bryant's Ancient Mythology, book v. p. 311. From p. 187 to 213, an 
 ample and instructive collection will be found of instances to prove the 
 passion of rude nations for erecting great buildings; and the degree of 
 perfection in art which their works display. Priam's palace, according to 
 Homer, was a magnificent building. That remarkable structure, the 
 labyrinth of Crete, was produced in a very early age. Mr. Ward assures 
 us, " that of the Hindu temples none appear to be distinguished for the 
 elegance of their architecture : they are not the work of a people sunk in 
 barbarism ; neither will they bear any comparison with the temples of the 
 Gieeks and Romans." lie adds, " We learn from the A in Akburee, 
 however, that the entire revenues of Orissa, for twelve years, were ex- 
 pended in erecting a temple to the sun." Introd. p. Ix. 
 
 4 Knox's Hist, of Ceylon, London, 1681. 
 
 3 This laborious depreciation of the architecture of the Hindus, affords 
 some curious specimens of the inveteracy of the author's prejudices. In 
 his zeal to undervalue the cavern-temples of the Hindus, he even insi- 
 nuates that they are not artificial. "It is difficult to say, how much of 
 the wonderful in these excavations, may be the Avork of nature." N. p. 5. 
 And in the quarto edition, he seemed inclined with Bryant, to think that
 
 14 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Of one very necessary and important part of 
 architecture, the Hindus were entirely ignorant. 
 They knew not the construction of arches, till they 
 first learned it from their Moslem conquerors. In 
 the description of the superb temple at Seringham, 
 we have already seen 1 that no better expedient was 
 known than great flat stones for the roof. " On the 
 south branch of the river" Cavery, at Seringapatam, 
 says Dr. Buchanan, " a bridge has been erected, 
 which serves also as an aqueduct, to convey from the 
 upper part of the river a large canal of water into 
 the town and island. The rudeness of this bridge 
 
 it was not impossible that the pyramids had dropped from the clouds, or 
 sprung out of the soil. " Mr. Bryant offers strong reasons to prove, that 
 the pyramids in Egyt were, in a great measure, the work of nature, not of 
 art." 4to. Ed. N.335. It is quite as likely that the caves, as that the py- 
 ramids, were the work of nature not of art, agreeably to Mr. Bryant's 
 ' strong reasons.' Magnitude is not the only element of beauty in the 
 cavern-temples. The columns are carved with great elegance and fitness 
 of design, and many of the figures are graceful and expressive. No notice 
 is taken of the numerous remains of temples, in various parts of India, in 
 which extreme architectural beauty is to be found. And it may be doubted 
 if those observers whom he has cited, have done justice to the edifices of 
 which they speak so disparagingly. What is more to the purpose, how- 
 ever, is, that the Hindus did not 'heap up stones' without a reason. 
 They had reduced architecture to a science ; and although they depart, in 
 the variety, and sometimes grotesqueness of their details, from the 
 stately simplicity of Grecian art, yet, their rules of proportion are very 
 much the same. Ignorance of the arch, which is presently objected to 
 them, is common to them and the Greeks. See Ram Raz, on Hindu 
 architecture. Sykes on the Caves of Ellora. Trans. R. As. Soc. Grind- 
 lay's Architecture of Western India. Daniell's Engravings of the Caves 
 of Ellora. J. Prinsep's Sketches of Benares, and a variety of pictorial 
 works, which afford ocular demonstration, even to untravelled observers, 
 of our author's injustice to Indian architecture. W. 
 
 1 See above, p. 3, 4. "Their knowledge of mechanical powers," says 
 Mr. Orme, " is so very confined, that we are left to admire, without being 
 able to account for, the manner in whicfi they have erected their capital 
 pagodas. It does not appear that they had ever made a bridge of arches 
 over any of their rivers, before the Mahomedaus came amongst them.'" 
 Hist, of Mil. Trans, of Indostan, i. 7.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 15 
 
 will show the small progress that the arts have made BOOK n - 
 in Mysore. Square pillars of granite are cut from . 
 the rock, of a sufficient height to rise above the water 
 at the highest floods. These are placed upright in 
 rows, as long as the intended width of the bridge, 
 and distant about ten feet from each other. They 
 are secured at the bottom by being let into the solid 
 rock, and their tops being cut to a level, a long stone 
 is laid upon each row. Above these longitudinal 
 stones, others are placed contiguous to each other, 
 and stretching from row to row, in the direction of 
 the length of the bridge." l The celebrated bridge 
 over the Euphrates, at Babylon, was constructed on 
 similar principles, and the president Groguet remarks, 
 " that the Babylonians were not the only people who 
 were ignorant of the art of turning an arch. This 
 secret," he adds, " as far as I can find, was unknown 
 to all the people of remote antiquity." 2 Though the 
 ancient inhabitants, however, of Persia, were igno- 
 rant of this useful and ingenious art, the modern 
 Persians are admirably skilled in it: the roofs of the 
 houses are almost all vaulted ; and the builders are 
 peculiarly dexterous in constructing them. 3 
 
 1 Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. i. 61. 
 
 2 Goguet, Origin of Laws, part iii. book ii. ch. i. He says, " it even 
 appears to me demonstrated, that the Egyptians had not much more know- 
 ledge of architecture, of sculpture, and of the fine arts in general, than 
 the Peruvians and the Mexicans. For example, neither the one nor the 
 other knew the secret of building vaults. What remains of foundery or 
 sculpture, is equally clumsy and incorrect. I think this observation ab- 
 solutely essential." Origin of Laws, part iii. dissert iii. Clavigero, 
 however, asserts that the Mexicans did know the art of constructing 
 arches and vaults, as appears, he says, from their baths, from the remains 
 of the royal palaces of Tezcuco, and other buildings, and also from 
 several paintings. Hist. Mex. book vii. sect. 53. 
 
 3 Chardin, Voy. en Perse, iii. 116. ed. 4to. Amsterd. 1785. " On est 
 frappe [a Ispahan] de 1'elegante architecture des ponts; 1'Europe n'offre
 
 If) HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Of the exquisite degree of perfection to which the 
 Hindus have carried the productions of the loom, it 
 would be idle to offer any description ; as there are 
 few objects with which the inhabitants of Europe 
 are better acquainted. Whatever may have been the 
 attainments, in this art, of other nations of antiquity, 
 the Egyptians, for example, whose fine linen was so 
 eminently prized, the manufacture of no modern 
 nation can, in delicacy and fineness, vie with the 
 textures of Hindustan. It is observed at the same 
 time, by intelligent travellers, that this is the 
 only art which the original inhabitants of that 
 country have carried to any considerable degree of 
 perfection. l 
 
 To the skill of the Hindus, in this art, several 
 
 rien qui leur soit comparable pour la commodite des gens de pied, pour la 
 facilete de leur passage, pour les faire jouir sans trouble, le jour, de la vue 
 de la riviere et de ses environs, et, le soir, de la fraicheur de Pair." Olivier, 
 
 Voyage, &c. v. 180. " La sculpture est nulle en Perse Mais Par- 
 
 cliitecture, plus simple, plus elegante, mieux ordonne"e que chez les Turcs, 
 est tout-a-fait adaplee au climat. Les plafonds et les domes sout d'une 
 
 recherche, d'un fini, d'un precieux, d'une richesse qui etonne 
 
 Les Persans ont pousse fort loin Part de faire les voutes 
 
 Les toils de leurs maisons sont voutes, leur planchers le sont aussi." 
 
 Ib. v. 298, 299. The skill in architecture of the Turks, a very rude people, 
 is well known. " Perhaps I am in the wrong, but some Turkish mosques 
 in Constantinople please me better than St. Sophia. That of Valide Sultan 
 is the largest of all, built entirely of marble ; the most prodigious, and I 
 think the most beautiful structure I ever saw. Between friends, St. 
 Paul's Church would make a pitiful figure near it." Letters of Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montague, Works, ii. 249, 250. 
 
 1 " No art in Hindustan is carried to the same degree of perfection as 
 in Europe, except some articles in which the cheapness of labour gives 
 them an advantage, as in the case of the fine muslins at Dacca." Ten- 
 nant's Indian Recreations, i. 104. The people are in a state of gross 
 rudeness, Buchanan informs us, " in every part of Bengal, where arts have 
 not been introduced by foreigners ; the only one that has been carried to 
 tolerable perfection is that of weaving." Journey through Mysore, &c. 
 ii. 285.
 
 ARCHITECTURE OF THE HINDUS. 17 
 
 causes contributed. It is one of the first to which the BOOK n. 
 
 . . . CHAP. 8. 
 
 necessities of man conduct him ; * it is one of those 
 
 which experience proves to arrive early at high per- 
 fection ; and it is an art to which the circumstances 
 of the Hindu were in a singular manner adapted. 
 His climate and soil conspired to furnish him with the 
 most exquisite material for his art, the finest cotton 
 which the earth produces. It is a sedentary occupa- 
 tion, and thus in harmony with his predominant 
 inclination. It requires patience, of which he has an 
 inexhaustible fund ; it requires little bodily exertion, 
 of which he is always exceedingly sparing ; and the 
 finer the production, the more slender the force which 
 he is called upon to apply. But this is not all. The 
 weak and delicate frame of the Hindu is accompanied 
 with an acuteness of external sense, particularly of 
 touch, which is altogether unrivalled, and the flexibility 
 of his fingers is equally remarkable. The hand of the 
 Hindu, therefore, constitutes an organ, adapted to the 
 finer operations of the loom, in a degree which is 
 almost, or altogether, peculiar to himself. 2 
 
 1 Mr. Park tells us that the arts of spinning, weaving, and dyeing cotton, 
 are familiar to the Africans. Travels, p. 17. 
 
 8 " A people," says Mr. Orme, " born under a sun too sultry to admit 
 the exercises and fatigues necessary to form a robust nation, will natu- 
 rally, from the weakness of their bodies (especially if they have few 
 wants), endeavour to obtain their scanty livelihood by the easiest labours. 
 It is from hence, perhaps, that the manufactures of cloth are so multiplied 
 in Indostan. Spinning and weaving are the slightest tasks which a man 
 can be set to, and the numbers that do nothing else in this country are 
 exceeding." He adds ; " The hand of an Indian cook-wench shall be 
 more delicate than that of an European beauty ; the skin and features of 
 a porter shall be softer than those of a professed petit-maitre. The women 
 wind off the raw silk from the pod of the worm. A single pod of raw silk 
 is divided into twenty different degrees of fineness ; and so exquisite is the 
 feeling of these women, that whilst the thread is running through their 
 fingers so swiftly, that their eye can be of no assistance, they will break 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 Is HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Yet the Hindus possessed not this single art in so 
 
 CHAP. 8. 1 1 
 
 great a degree of perfection, compared with rude 
 
 nations, as, even on that ground, to lay a founda- 
 tion for very high pretensions. " In Mexico," says 
 Clavigero, " manufactures of various kinds of cloth 
 were common every where ; it was one of those arts 
 which almost every person learned. Of cotton they 
 made large webs, and as delicate and fine as those of 
 Holland, which were with much reason highly esteemed 
 in Europe. A few years after the conquest, a sacer- 
 dotal habit of the Mexicans was brought to Rome, 
 which, as Boturini affirms, was uncommonly admired 
 on account of its fineness. They wove these cloths with 
 different figures and colours, representing different 
 animals and flowers." ' When the Goths first broke 
 into the Roman empire they possessed fringed carpets 
 and linen garments of so fine a quality as greatly sur- 
 prised the Greeks and Romans, and have been thought 
 worthy of minute description by Eunapius and Zosi- 
 mus. 2 " Pliny, speaking of a carpet for covering 
 such beds as the ancients made use of at table, says, 
 
 it off exactly as the assortments change, at once from the first to the 
 twentieth, from the nineteenth to the second. The -women likewise spin 
 the thread designed for the cloths, and then deliver it up to the men, who 
 have fingers to model it as exquisitely as these have prepared it." Orme, 
 on the Gov. and People of Indostan, p. 409 to 413. 
 
 1 Clavigero, Hist, of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57. 
 
 8 See Gibbon (Hist, of the Decl. and Fall of the Rom. Emp. iv. 364), 
 who says, " Yet it must be presumed, that they (the carpets and garments) 
 were the manufactures of the provinces ; which the barbarians had acquired 
 as the spoils of war ; or as the gifts or merchandise of peace." But had 
 they been the manufactures of the provinces, the Romans must have known 
 them familiarly for what they were ; and could never have been so much 
 surprised with their own manufactures, transferred by plunder, gift, or sale 
 to the barbarians, (of none of which operations, had they existed, could 
 they have been altogether ignorant,) as to make their historians think it 
 necessary to place a minute description of them in their works.
 
 WOVEN MANUFACTURES OF THE HINDUS. 19 
 
 that this piece of furniture, which was produced from BOOK Ir - 
 
 c HAP. o. 
 
 the looms of Babylon, amounted to eighty-one thou- 
 
 sand sestertia." 1 This proves the fineness to which 
 that species of manufacture was then wrought, and 
 the excellence which the Babylonians, who yet could 
 not construct an arch, had attained in the art. The 
 Asiatic nations seem to have excelled, from the earliest 
 ages, in the manufactures of the loom. It is by Pliny 
 recorded, as the opinion of his age and nation, that 
 of the art of weaving cotton Semiramis is to be revered 
 as the inventress. The city Arachne, celebrated by 
 
 1 Goguet, Origin of Laws, part iii. book vi. ch. i. art. 2. That dili- 
 gent and judicious writer says, " Of all the arts of which we have to speak 
 in this second part, there are none which appear to have been more or 
 better cultivated than those which concern clothing. We see taste and 
 magnificence shine equally in the description Moses gives of the habits of 
 the high priest and the vails of the tabernacle. The tissue of all these 
 works was of linen, goat's hair, wool, and byssus. The richest colours, 
 gold, embroidery, and precious stones, united to embellish it." Ib. part 
 ii. book ii. ch. ii. The following lofty description of the tissues of Babylon, 
 by Dr. Gillies, (see the description of Babylon, in his History of the 
 World,) is not surpassed by the most strained panegyrics upon the weaving 
 of the Hindus. " During the latter part of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and 
 the twenty-six years that intervened berween his death and the conquest 
 of his capital by Cyrus, Babylon appears not only to have been the seat 
 of an imperial court, and station for a vast garrison, but the staple of the 
 greatest commerce that perhaps was ever carried on by one city. Its 
 precious manufactures under its hereditary sacerdotal government re- 
 mounted, as we have seen, to immemorial antiquity. The Babylonians 
 continued thenceforward to be clothed with the produce of their own in - 
 dustry. Theirbodies were covered with fine linen, decending to their feet 
 their mitres or turbans were also of linen, plaited with much art ; they wore 
 woollen tunics, above which a short white cloak repelled the rays of the 
 sun. Their houses were solid, lofty, and separated, from a regard to health 
 and safety, at due distances from each other : within them the floor s 
 glowed with double and triple carpets of the brightest colours ; and the 
 walls were adorned with those beautiful tissues called Sindones, whose fine 
 yet firm texture, was employed as the fittest clothing for eastern kings. 
 The looms of Babylon, and of the neighbouring Borsippa, a town owing 
 its prosperity to manufactures wholly, supplied to all countries round, the 
 finest veils or hangings, and every article of dress or furniture composed 
 of cotton, of linen, or of wool." 
 
 C 2
 
 20 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. the Greeks and Romans, as the place where weaving 
 
 CHAP. K. '11 
 
 . was first invented, and where it was earned to the 
 highest perfection, is represented by Mr. Bryant as 
 the same with Erech or Barsippa, and situated on the 
 Euphrates, in the territory of Babylon. 1 One of the 
 accomplishments of the goddess of wisdom herself 
 (so early was the date), was her unrivalled excellence 
 in the art of weaving ; and Arachne, according to the 
 poets, was a virgin, who, daring to vie with Minerva 
 in her favourite art, was changed into a spider for 
 her presumption. 2 
 
 That ingenuity is in its infancy among the Hindus, 
 is shown by the rudeness still observable in the in- 
 struments of this their favourite art. The Hindu 
 
 1 Bryant's Ancient Mythology, iii. 425. It was from this city the spider 
 (Arachne) for its curious web, was said to have derived its name. The 
 poet Nonnus thus celebrates its manufactures : 
 
 Kat Trope TroiKiXa jreTrXa, ~ta irep' Trapa TvypiSot v 
 tirjfunt Xe7TTaXej> re^vtjaaro Tlepais Apa^vrj. 
 Again: 
 
 Ni^jeuj fiev Ta<5e Swpa irdKvrpoTra.' dwice Be icovpij 
 TlepaiKos E,v<j)pr)Ti]s iro\vdai?ia,\ov li 
 
 Nonnus, lib. xviii. p. 326, Edit. 1569; et lib. xlii. p. 747. Sec the 
 brilliant description which Chardin gives of the exquisite skill of the 
 modern Persians in the art of weaving ; of the extraordinary beauty and 
 value of their gold velvets. They make not fine cottons, he says, only 
 for this reason, that they can import them cheaper from India. Chardin 
 Voyages en Perse, iii. 119. Olivier says ; " Us excellent dans la fabrica- 
 tion dcs etoffes de soie pure, de soie et colon, de soie et or ou argent, de 
 coton pur, de coton et laine. A Yesd, a Cachan, a Ispahan, on travaille 
 avec autant de gobt que de propriete les brocards, les velours, les taffetas, 
 les satins, et presque toutes les tofles que nous connaissons." Olivier, 
 Voyage, &c. v. 304, 305, 306. 
 
 * Ovid. We learn from Plato, that, when any fine production of the 
 loom among the Greeks was represented as of the most exquisite fineness 
 and beauty, it was compared to those of the Persians; Tip gtDvijv IQV 
 XnovtOKOV fivai ftev otai ai HepatKat Tiav TroXuTeXwi/. Hippias 
 Min. 255.
 
 WOVEN MANUFACTURES OF THE HINDUS. 21 
 
 loom with all its appurtenances, is coarse and ill- 
 fashioned, to a degree hardly less surprising than the 
 fineness of the commodity which it is the instrument 
 of producing. It consists of little else than a few 
 sticks or pieces of wood, nearly in the state in which 
 nature produced them, connected together by the 
 rudest contrivances. There is not so much as an 
 expedient for rolling up the warp. It is stretched 
 out at the full length of the web ; which makes the 
 house of the weaver insufficient to contain him. He 
 is therefore obliged to work continually in the open 
 air ; and every return of inclement weather interrupts 
 him. 1 
 
 Among the arts of the Hindus, that of printing 
 and dyeing their cloths has been celebrated ; and the 
 beauty and brilliancy, as well as durability, of the 
 colours they produce, are worthy of particular praise. 
 This has never been supposed to be one of the 
 circumstances on which any certain inference with 
 regard to civilization could be founded. It has been 
 generally allowed that a great, if not the greatest part 
 of the excellence which appears in the colours of the- 
 Hindu cloths, is owing to the superior quality of the 
 colouring matters, with which their happy climate 
 and soil supply them. 2 Add to this that dyeing is an 
 
 1 Orme, on the Governments and People of Indostan, p. 409, &c. 
 Tenuant's Indian Recreations, p. 301. " The apparatus of the weaver 
 is very simple ; two rollers placed in four pieces of wood fixed in the 
 earth ; two sticks which traverse the warp, and are supported at each of 
 the extremities, one by two strings tied to the tree under which the loom 
 is placed, and the other by two other strings tied to the workman's feet, 
 which gives him a facility of removing the threads of the warp to throw 
 the woof." Sonnerat, Voyag. liv. iii. ch. viii. 
 
 2 " Perhaps their painted cloths are more indebted to the brilliancy of 
 the colours, and the goodness of the water, than any skill of the artist, 
 for that admiration with which they have been viewed." Tennant's
 
 2-2 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 1 early art. "It must have made," says Goguet, " a 
 - very rapid progress in the earliest times in some coun- 
 tries. Moses speaks of stuffs dyed sky-blue, purple, 
 and double-scarlet ; he also speaks of the skins of 
 sheep dyed orange and violet." 1 The purple, so 
 highly admired by the ancients, they represented as 
 the invention of Hercules, thus tracing back its 
 origin even to the fabulous times. In durability it 
 appears not that any thing could surpass the colours 
 of the ancients. " We never," says Goguet, " find 
 them complain that the colour of their stuffs was 
 subject to alter or change. Plutarch tells us, in the 
 life of Alexander, that the conqueror found among 
 the treasures of the kings of Persia, a prodigious 
 quantity of purple stuffs, which, for one hundred and 
 eighty years which they had been kept, preserved all 
 their lustre, and all their primitive freshness. We 
 find in Herodotus, that certain people, on the bor- 
 ders of the Caspian Sea, imprinted on their stuffs 
 designs, either of animals or flowers, whose colour 
 never changed, and lasted as long even as the wool 
 of which their clothes were made." 3 
 
 Indian Recreations, i. 299. Chardin, who tells us how admirable the 
 Persians arc in the art of dyeing, adds that their excellence in this respect, 
 is principally owing to the exquisitencss of their colouring matters. 
 Voyages en Perse, iii. 116. 
 
 1 Goguet, Origin of Laws, part ii. book ii. ch. ii. art. 1 . 
 
 * Ibid. " The linen manufactured by the Colchians was in high 
 repute. Some of it was curiously painted with figures of animals and 
 flowers ; and afterwards dyed like the linen of the Indians. And Hero- 
 dotus tells us, that the whole was so deeply tinctured, that no washing 
 could efface the colours. They accordingly exported it to various marts, 
 as it was every where greatly sought after." Bryant's Anc. Mythol. v. 109. 
 Herodotus, however, represents the people of whom he speaks, as in a 
 state of great barbarity ; fit^iv re TOVTWV riav avOptuirwv eivai ep- 
 <j)avea icarairep roiai Trpofitnoioi. Clio, cciii. The Chinese dye 
 scarlet more exquisitely than any other nation. Lord Macartney says
 
 AGRICULTURE. 23 
 
 We shall next consider the progress of the Hindus BOOK u. 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 in agriculture, which, though the most important of 
 
 all the useful arts, is not the first invented, nor the 
 first which arrives at perfection. It is allowed on all 
 hands that the agriculture of Hindustan is rude ; but 
 the progress of agriculture depends so much upon the 
 laws relating to landed property, that the state of this 
 art may continue very low, in a country where other 
 arts are carried to a high degree of perfection. 
 
 A Hindu field, in the highest state of cultivation, 
 is described to be only so far changed by the plough, 
 as to afford a scanty supply of mould for covering the 
 seed ; while the useless and hurtful vegetation is so far 
 from being eradicated, that, where burning precedes 
 not, which for a short time smooths the surface, the 
 grasses and shrubs, which have bid defiance to the 
 plough, cover a large proportion of the surface. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the rudeness and inefficiency 
 
 it arises " from tlicir indefatigable care and pains, in washing, purifying 1 
 and grinding their colouring matters." Sec Lord Macartney's Journal, 
 Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, ii. 516. The same expenditure of 
 time and patience, commodities generally abounding in a rude state of 
 society, are the true causes of both the fine dyeing and the fine weaving of 
 the Hindus. Both Hindus and Chinese are indebted for all elegance of 
 pattern to their European visitors. " Pour ce qui est des arts mechaniques, 
 celui ou les Persans excellent le plus, et ou ils nous surpassent peut-etre, 
 c'est la teinture. Ils donnent a leurs etoffes des couleurs plus vives, plus 
 solidcs qu'on no fait en Europe. Ils impriment eelles de coton et celles 
 de soie avec une nettete ct une tenacite surprenantes, soit qu'ils emploient 
 des couleurs, soit qu'ils precedent avec des feuilles d'or et d' argent." Olivier, 
 Voyage, &c. v. 303. Mr. Park informs us, that the negroes of Africa have 
 carried the art of dyeing to great perfection. Travels in Africa, p. 281 : 
 see also his last Mission, p. 10. The arts in which the Hindus have any 
 pretensions to skill are the very arts in which so rude a people as the 
 Turks most excel. " Presque tous les arts sont dans 1'enfance, ou sont 
 ignores chez eux, si nous en exceptons la teinture, la fabrication de 
 diverses etoffes, celle des lames de sabre et de couteau." Voyages dans 
 1'Empirc Ottoman, &c. par G. A, Olivier, i. 26,
 
 24 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 '"HA* H' ^ ^ e Hi ntui implements of agriculture. The plough 
 
 consists of a few pieces of wood, put together with 
 
 less adaptation to the end in view, than has been else- 
 where found among some of the rudest nations. It 
 has no contrivance for turning over the mould ; and 
 the share, having neither width nor depth, is incapable 
 of stirring the soil. The operation of ploughing is 
 described by the expressive term scratching. l Several 
 ploughs follow one another, all to deepen the same 
 furrow ; a second ploughing of the same sort is per- 
 formed across the first ; and very often a third and 
 a fourth, in different directions, before so much as an 
 appearance of mould is obtained for the seed. 2 
 
 The instrument employed as a harrow is described 
 as literally a branch of a tree ; in some places as a 
 log of wood, performing the office partly of a roller, 
 partly of a harrow ; and in others as a thing resem- 
 bling a ladder of about eighteen feet in length, drawn 
 by four bullocks, and guided by two men, who stand 
 upon the instrument to increase its weight. 3 The 
 hackery, which answers the purpose of cart or wag- 
 
 1 What is meant by this ? If it is intended, as may be supposed, to express 
 the sense of the native term for ploughing ; it is incorrect ; and, as it ap- 
 pears to rest upon Mr. Tennant's authority, it is an additional proof of his 
 ignorance. W. 
 
 * " You frequently see a field, after one ploughing, appear as green as 
 before ; only a few scratches are perceptible, here and there, more resem- 
 bling the digging of a mole, than the work of a plough." Tcnnant's Ind. 
 Recr. ii. 78. M. No allowance is made either here or in the text fur the 
 peculiarities of the soil or climate : the deep ploughing of England is not 
 needed in a soil, in which seeds take root upon the surface, and the re- 
 appearance of vegetation is scarcely to be prevented by any care ; the 
 assertion of the text, that repeated ploughings are necessary before an ap - 
 pearance of mould is obtained, seems to be a notion of his own, and shows 
 strange unacquaintancc with the peculiarities of the country, at least, of 
 Bengal, where the whole soil is alluvial mould. W. 
 
 3 Ibid. 121, 275.
 
 AGRICULTURE OF THE HINDUS. 25 
 
 gon, is a vehicle with two wheels, which are not BOOK H- 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 three feet in diameter, and are not unfrequently solid 
 
 pieces of wood, with only a hole in the middle for the 
 axle-tree. The body of the machine is composed of 
 two bamboos, meeting together at an angle between 
 the necks of the two bullocks, by which the vehicle 
 is drawn, and united by a few crossing bars of the 
 same useful material. It is supported at the angle by 
 a bar which passes over the necks of the two animals, 
 and cruelly galls them. To lessen the friction between 
 the wheel and axis, and save either his wretched 
 cattle, or his own ears, the simple expedient of 
 greasing his wheels never suggested itself to the 
 mind of a ryot of Hindustan. l Even this wretched 
 vehicle can seldom be employed for the purposes of 
 husbandry, from the almost total want of roads. It 
 is in back loads that the carriage of almost all the 
 commodities of the country is performed ; and in 
 many places the manure is conveyed to the fields in 
 baskets on the backs of the women. 2 
 
 1 Tcnnant's Ind. Recr. ii. 75. " You cannot, by any argument, prevail 
 upon the listless owner to save his ears, his cattle, or his cart, by lubri- 
 cating it with oil. Neither his industry, his invention, nor his purse, 
 would admit of this, even though you could remove what is generally in- 
 surmountable his veneration for ancient usage. If his forefathers drove 
 a screeching hackery, posterity will not dare to violate the sanctity of 
 custom by departing from their example. This is one instance of a thou- 
 sand in which the inveterate prejudices of the Asiatics stand in the way of 
 their improvement, and bid defiance equally to the exertions of the active, 
 and the hopes of the benevolent." Ibid. 76. This characteristic mark of 
 a rude people, a blind opposition to innovation, is displayed by persons 
 among ourselves, as if it was the highest mark of wisdom and virtue. 
 The waggon wheels are one piece of solid timber like a millstone. Taver- 
 nier, in Harris, i. 815. 
 
 8 Into Oude are imported a variety of articles of commerce from the 
 northern mountains, gold, copper, lead, musk, cow-tails, honey, pome- 
 granate seeds, grapes, dried ginger, pepper, red-wood, tincar, civet, ze- 
 doary, wax, woollen cloths, wooden ware, and various species of hawks,
 
 2(> HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Every thing which savours of ingenuity ; even the 
 
 most natural results of common observation and good 
 
 sense, are foreign to the agriculture of the Hindus. 
 The advantages arising from the observation of the 
 fittest season for sowing are almost entirely neglected. 
 No attention was ever paid in Hindustan to the 
 varieties of the grains ; so as to select the best seed, 
 or that fittest for particular situations. For restoring 
 fruitfulness to a field that is exhausted, no other ex- 
 pedient is known, than suspending its cultivation; 
 when the weeds, with which it is always plentifully 
 stored, usurp undivided dominion. Any such refine- 
 ment as a fallow, or a rotation of crops, is far beyond 
 the reach of a Hindu. The most irrational practice 
 that ever found existence in the agriculture of any 
 nation, is general in India, that of sowing various 
 species of seeds, mustard, flax, barley, wheat, millet, 
 maize, and many others, which ripen at different in- 
 tervals, all indiscriminately on the same spot. As 
 soon as the earliest of the crops is mature, the reapers 
 are sent into the field, who pick out the stalks of the 
 plant which is ripe, and tread down the rest with 
 their feet. This operation is repeated as each part of 
 the product arrives at maturity, till the whole is 
 separated from the ground. l 
 
 amber, rock-salt, assafoctida, glass toys. What is carried back is earthen- 
 ware. All this commerce is carried upon the backs of men, or horses and 
 goats. Ayeen Akbcry, ii 33. Buchanan's Journey, i. 205, 434. Capt. 
 Hardwicke, Asiat. Res. vi. 330. 
 
 1 That there is much slovenliness in Indian agriculture, may be admitted ; 
 but much that is here charged against it, is untrue. Hindu cultivators are 
 by no means deficient in common observation and good sense, and are re- 
 gulated in their proceedings by a knowledge of their soil and climate ; in 
 which the heavy implements . and laborious culture of Europe, would be 
 wholly out of place. To say that the Indian farmer is ignorant of the
 
 AGRICULTURE OF THE HINDUS. 27 
 
 Though, during the dry season, there is an almost BOOK n. 
 
 total failure of vegetables for the support of cattle ; of 
 
 which every year many are lost by famine, and the 
 remainder reduced to the most deplorable state of 
 emaciation and weakness ; none but the most im- 
 perfect means were ever imagined by the Hindu of 
 saving part of the produce of the prolific season, 
 to supply the wants of the barren one. Hay is 
 a commodity which it would not always be con- 
 venient to make; but various kinds of pulse and 
 millet might be produced at all seasons, and would 
 afford the most important relief to the cattle when 
 the pasture-grounds are bare. The horses themselves 
 are often preserved alive by the grooms picking up 
 the roots of the grass with a knife from the ditches 
 and tanks. l 
 
 fittest season for sowing, is the contradiction of known facts ; as nothing 
 can be more regular than the periodical recurrence of the harvests. Nor 
 is the Indian farmer unacquainted with the advantage of a rotation of 
 crops ; although, in general, the soil does not require it : where, as in the 
 case of sugar-cane, the produce exhausts the soil, we have Dr. Rox- 
 burgh's evidence, that the Indians " do not attempt to rear a second crop . 
 oftener than every third or fourth year ; allowing the land either to rest, 
 or employing it for the growth of such plants as are found to improve the 
 soil ; of which the Indian farmer is a perfect judge." As. Annual Reg. 
 1802. Tracts, p. 8. Few persons had better opportunities of estimating 
 the character of Indian agriculture than Sir Thomas Munro, and he calls 
 it ' a good system.' Evidence, 1813. W. 
 
 1 For this sketch of Hindu agriculture, the chief authorities are, a short 
 treatise, entitled " Remarks on the Agriculture, &c. of Bengal ;" Ten- 
 nant's Indian Recreations, particularly the second volume ; and Dr. Bu- 
 chanan's Journey through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar. After describing 
 the wretched state of agriculture in the neighbourhood of Seringapatam, 
 Dr. Buchanan says ; " I am afraid, however, that the reader, in perusing 
 the foregoing accounts, will have formed an opinion of the native agricul- 
 ture still more favourable than it deserves. I have been obliged to use the 
 English words ploughings, weedings, and hoeings, to express operations 
 somewhat similar, that are performed by the natives ; and the frequent 
 repetition of these, mentioned in the accounts taken from the cultivators, 
 might induce the reader to imagine that the ground was well wrought, and 
 kept remarkably clean. Quite the reverse, however, is the truth. Owing
 
 2S' HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. The only circumstance to captivate the fancy of 
 . those Europeans, who were on the look-out for sub- 
 jects of praise, was the contrivance for irrigation. 
 Reservoirs or excavations, known in India by the 
 name of tanks, were so contrived as to collect a 
 large body of water in the rainy season, whence it 
 was drawn off in the season of drought for the re- 
 freshment of the fields. These tanks appear to have 
 been at all times a principal concern of the govern- 
 ment; and when it is considered that almost the 
 whole revenue of the sovereign depended in each year 
 upon the produce of the soil, and that the decay of 
 the tanks ensured the decay of revenue, it is no won- 
 der that of such care and wisdom as the government 
 any where displayed, a large portion should appear 
 to have been bestowed upon the tanks. In certain 
 places much care and labour have been employed. 
 But those authors were strangely mistaken who 
 looked upon this as a proof of refined agriculture 
 and great civilization. It is only in a small number 
 of instances, where the whole power of an extensive 
 
 to the extreme imperfection of their implements, and want of strength in 
 their cattle, a field, after six or eight ploughings, has numerous small 
 bushes remaining as upright in it as before the labour, -while the plough 
 has not penetrated above three inches deep, and has turned over no part 
 of the soil. * * * The plough has neither coulter nor mould-board, to 
 divide and to turn over the soil ; and the handle gives the ploughman very 
 little power to command its direction. The other instruments are equally 
 imperfect, and are more rudely formed than it was possible for my 
 draughtsman to represent." Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. 
 i. 126. In another place he says, " In every field there is more grass 
 than corn. Notwithstanding the many ploughings, the fields are full of 
 grass roots." Ibid. p. 345. See also p. 15. Agriculture was almost uni- 
 versal among the American tribes. " Throughout all America, we scarcely 
 meet with any nation of hunters, which does not practise some species of 
 cultivation." Robertson's America, ii. 117. " The agriculture of the Pe- 
 ruvians was apparently superior to that of the Hindus." Ibid. iii. 341.
 
 AGRICULTURE OF THE HINDUS. 29 
 
 government, and that almost always Mahomedan, 1 c 
 had been applied to the works of irrigation, that 
 they are found on a considerable scale, or in any but 
 the rudest state. In a country in which, without 
 artificial watering, the crops would always be lost, 
 the ingenuity of sinking a hole in the ground, to 
 reserve a supply of water, need not be considered 
 as great. 2 
 
 To separate the grain from the straw, the ancient 
 method of treading with oxen has, in Hindustan, 
 
 1 The most considerable works of this class, are in the South and West 
 of India, -where the Mohammedan rule was either not known at all, or not 
 until a very recent date. W. 
 
 4 Frezier (see his Voyage to the South Sea, p. 213, London edition, 
 1718,) says, " The ancient Indians were extraordinary industrious in con- 
 veying the water of the rivers to their dwellings : there are still to be seen 
 in many places aqueducts of earth and of dry stones, carried on and turned 
 off very ingeniously along the sides of hills, with an infinite number of 
 windings, which shows that those people, as unpolished as they were, 
 very well understood the art of levelling." There is something indicative 
 of no little art in the floating gardens and fields which were on the lake of 
 Mexico. (See the Description in Clavigero, Hist. Mex. book vii. sect. 27.) 
 The cultivation of their fields, considering it was done by human, without 
 the aid of animal labour, was remarkable, and their produce surprising. 
 (Ibid. sect. 28.) The following passage from Garcilasso de la Vega de- 
 serves to be quoted as a monument of the labours of the Peruvians in 
 agriculture : " They drained all wet moors and fens, for in that art they 
 were excellent, as is apparent by their works which remain unto this day : 
 And also they were very ingenious in making aqueducts for carrying water 
 into dry and scorched lands." (He explains how careful they were to 
 water both their corn-lands and pasture.) * * * " After they had made 
 a provision of water, the next thing was to dress, and cultivate, and clear 
 their fields of bushes and trees ; and, that they might with most advantage 
 receive the water, they made them in a quadrangular form ; those lands 
 which were good on the side of hills, they levelled by certain alleys or 
 walks which they made. To make these alleys they raised three walls of 
 friezed stone, one before, and one of each side, somewhat inclining 
 inwards, so that they may more securely bear and keep up the weight of 
 the earth, which is pressed and rammed down by them, until it be raised 
 to the height of the wall. Then next to this walk they made another, some- 
 thing shorter and less, kept up in the same manner with its wall ; until 
 at length they came to take in the whole hill, levelling it by degrees in
 
 .30 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "' &i ven wa y * no improvement ; and for the most part 
 the com is still ground in handmills by the women. 1 
 Of the arts which at an early age of society 
 acquire the greatest excellence, one, as we have 
 already observed, is that of preparing brilliant 
 trinkets for the ornament of the person. The Hin- 
 dus cut the precious stones, polish them to a high 
 degree of brilliancy, and set them neatly in gold 
 and silver. It remains to be ascertained how much 
 
 fashion of a ladder, one alley above the other. Where the ground was 
 stony, they gathered up the stones, and covered the barren soil with 
 fresh earth to make their levels, that so no part of the ground might be 
 lost. The first quadrangles were the largest, and as spacious as the 
 situation of the place could bear, some being of that length and breadth as 
 were capable to receive a hundred, some two hundred, or three hundred 
 bushels of seed. Those of the second row were made narrower and 
 shorter. * * * * In some parts they brought the channels of water from 
 fifteen or twenty leagues' distance, though it were only to improve a slip 
 of a few acres of land, which was esteemed good corn-ground." Royal 
 Commentaries of Peru, part i. book v. ch. i. The Mercurio Peruano de- 
 scribes extensive works for irrigation among the Peruvians, of which the 
 vestiges are still to be seen. Mercur. Peruano, viii. 38. Acosta tells us, 
 (Nat. and Mor. Hist, book iii. ch. xviii.) "The Indians do draw from 
 these floods, that run from the mountains to the valleys and plains, many 
 and great brooks to water their lands, which they ususilly do with such 
 industry, as there are no better in Murcia, nor at Milan itself, the which 
 is also the greatest and only wealth of the plains of Peru, and of many 
 other parts of the Indies." 
 
 1 Sonnerat, Voyag. liv. iii. ch. viii. ; Tennant's Ind. Recr. i. 302. The 
 country of the Seiks, a people confessedly barbarous, a well-informed 
 author, Francklin, in his Memoirs of George Thomas, p. G5, 66. informs 
 us, is highly cultivated, and their arts and manufactures are on a level 
 with those of any other part of India. " Les Tartares du Daghestan ont 
 une coutume qu'ils observent soigneusement : sgavoir, que personne ne 
 peut se marier chez eux, avant que d'avoir plante en un endroit marque 
 cent arbres fruitiers ; ensorte qu'on trouve partout dans les montagncs du 
 Daghestan de grands fore ts d'arbres fruitiers." (Hist. Gfcneal. des Tartars, 
 p. 313.) Zoroaster made the duties of agriculture part of his religion. 
 " To BOW grain with purity, is to fulfil the whole extent of the law of the 
 Mazdeiesnans." (Anquetil, Zendav. ii. 610.) The Heruli and Lombards, 
 in their native wilds, cultivated flax, " which supposes," says Gibbon, 
 "propcrty : agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." (Gibbon, vii. 276. )
 
 JEWELLERY OF THE HINDUS. 31 
 
 of civilization this faculty implies. So early as the 
 time of Moses, the art of forming jewels had attained 
 great perfection among the Jews. In the ephod of 
 Aaron, and in the breast-plate of judgment, were 
 precious stones set in gold, with the names of the 
 twelve tribes engraved on them. The account of 
 these jewels in the book of Exodus, suggests ideas 
 of considerable magnificence. 1 Clavigero informs 
 us, that the ancient Mexicans " set gems in gold 
 and silver, and made most curious jewellery of great 
 value. In short/' says that author, " these sort of 
 works were so admirably finished, that even the 
 Spanish soldiers, all stung as they were with the 
 same wretched thirst for gold, valued the workman- 
 ship above the materials." 2 
 
 1 Exod. ch. xxviii. " I look upon engraving on fine stones," says 
 Goguet, (Origin of Laws, part ii. book ii. ch. ii. art. 3.) "as the most 
 remarkable evidence of the rapid progress of the arts in some countries. 
 This work supposes a number of discoveries, much knowledge, and much 
 experience." He adds, in a note, " It must be agreed, that the ancient 
 Peruvians, whose monarchy had not subsisted above three hundred and 
 fifty years, understood perfectly well the working of precious stones." 
 (Hist Gen. des Voyages, xiii. 578.)" Ibid. 
 
 2 Clavigero, Hist, of Mexico, book vii. sect. 51. Even the most rude 
 of the American tribes seem not to have been without some knowledge of 
 the art of working the precious stones. M. de la Condamine, speaking of 
 the green stones, found in some places bordering on the Amazons' River, 
 in South America, says, (Voyage dans PInterieur de 1'Amerique Me- 
 ridionale, p. 131,) " La verite est qu'elles ne different, ni en couleur, ni 
 en durete, du Jade Oriental ; elles resistent a la lime, et on n'imagine pas 
 par quel artifice les anciens Americains ont pu les tailler, et leur donner 
 diverses figures d'animaux, sans fer ni acier." In the same place, he 
 mentions another phenomenon of the ancient Americans. " Ce sont," 
 says he, " des Emeraudes arrondies, polies, et percees de deux trous 
 coniques, diametralement opposes sur un axe commun, telles qu'on en 
 trouve encore aujourd'hui au Perou sur les bords de la Riviere de St. Jago 
 dans la province d'Esmeraldas, a quarante lieues de Quito, avec divers 
 autres monumens de 1'industrie de ses anciens habitans." The Persians 
 of the present day are eminent lapidaries. Chardin, Voy. en Perse, iii.
 
 32 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 When Europeans have compared the extreme im- 
 perfection, the scantiness and rudeness of the tools 
 by which the Hindu artist performs his task, with 
 the neatness, and in some cases the celerity of the 
 execution, they have frequently drawn an inference, 
 the very reverse of that which the circumstances im- 
 plied. This sort of faculty is no mark of high civi- 
 lization. A dexterity in the use of its own imperfect 
 tools is a common attribute of a rude society. 
 
 Acosta, speaking of some remarkable instances of 
 this species of talent in the natives of Mexico and 
 Peru, says, " Hereby we may judge, if they have any 
 understanding, or be brutish ; for my part, I think 
 they pass us in those things whereunto they apply 
 themselves." 1 Mr. Forster himself, whose admira- 
 tion was excited by the dexterity of the Hindus, af- 
 fords an instance in the rude person of a Russian 
 peasant, which might have suggested to him an ap- 
 propriate conclusion. " At the distance," says he, 
 " of a few miles from Choperskoy, the driver of the 
 carriage alarmed me by a report of the hinder axle 
 
 115. Olivier says, " Us taillent assez bien les pierres prcieuses, ct les 
 montcnt avec assez de gout." Olivier, Voy. &c. v. 304, &c. " At this 
 place I had an opportnnity of seeing their mode of smelting gold. Isaaco 
 had purchased some gold in coming through Konkodoo, and here he had 
 it made into a large ring. The smith made a crucible of common red clay, 
 and dried it in the sun. Into this he put the gold, without any flux or 
 mixture whatever. He then put charcoal under it and over it ; and blow- 
 ing the fire with the common bellows of the country, soon produced such 
 a heat as to bring the gold in a state of fusion. He then made a small 
 furrow in the ground, into which he poured the melted gold. When it 
 was cold he took it up, and heating it again soon hammered it into a square 
 bar. Then heating it again he twisted it by means of two pair of pincers 
 into a sort of screw, and, lengthening eut the ends, turned them up, so 
 as to form a massy and precious ring." Mungo Park's Last Mission to 
 Africa, p. 78. 
 
 1 Acosta, Nat. and Mor. Hist of the Indies, book vi. chap. viii.
 
 TOOLS AMONG THE HINDUS. 
 
 being shattered ; an accident which gave me an op- 
 portunity of observing the dexterity of a Russian car- 
 penter in the use of the axe. Without the help of 
 any other tool, except a narrow chisel, to cut a space 
 in the centre of it for receiving an iron bar which 
 supports the axle, and to pierce holes for the linch- 
 pins, he reduced in two hours a piece of gross timber 
 to the requisite form, and his charge was one shil- 
 ling." 1 
 
 But while dexterity in the use of imperfect tools 
 
 1 Forster's Travels, ii. 282. Les habitans de Kamschatka, d'une stu- 
 pidite sans egale a certains egards, sont a d'autres d'une Industrie mer- 
 veilleuse. S'agit-il de se faire des vetemens ? Inur adresse en ce genre, 
 dit leur Historien, surpasse celle des Europeens. Helvetius, de I'Homme, 
 i. 304. " In general, the ingenuity of all their (the Otaheitans') works, 
 considering the tools they possess, is marvellous. Their cloth, clubs, fish- 
 ing implements, canoes, houses, all display great skill; their mourning 
 dresses, their war head-dress and breast-plates, show remarkable taste ; 
 their adjustment of the different parts, the exact symmetry, the nicety of 
 the joining, are admirable : and it is astonishing how they can, with such 
 ease and quickness, drill holes in a pearl-shell with a shark's tooth, and 
 so fine as not to admit the point of a common pin." Missionary Voyage, 
 p. 330. Observe the same remarkable coincidence in patience, rudeness 
 of tools, and neatness of execution, in the following description by Robert- 
 son of the state of the arts in Mexico. " The functions of the mason, the 
 wearer, the goldsmith, the painter, and of several other crafts, were 
 carried on by different persons. Each was regularly instructed in his 
 calling. To it alone his industry was confined ; and, by assiduous appli- 
 cation to one object, together with the persevering patience peculiar to 
 Americans, their artisans attained to a degree of neatness and perfection 
 in work, far beyond what could have been expected from the rude tools 
 which they employed. Their various productions were brought into com- 
 merce ; and, by the exchange of them in the stated markets held in the 
 cities, not only were their mutual wants supplied, in such orderly inter- 
 course as characterizes an improved state of society, but their industry 
 was daily rendered persevering and inventive." Robertson's Hist, of 
 America, iii. 286. Voltaire has a passage on this subject which shows 
 philosophical discernment. " Il-y-a dans 1'homme un instinct de me- 
 chanique qne nous voyons produire tous les jours de tres grands effets, 
 dans des hommes fort grossiers. On voit des machines inventees par les 
 habitans des montagnes du Tirol et des Vosges, qui etonnent les savans." 
 Voltaire, Essai sur les Mceurs et 1'Esprit des Nations, Introd. p. 32. 
 VOL. II. D 
 
 33
 
 34 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 *is not a proof of civilization; a great want of inge- 
 nuity and completeness in instruments and machinery 
 is a strong indication of the reverse ; nor would it 
 be easy to point out any single circumstance, which 
 may be taken as a better index of the degree 
 in which the benefits of civilization are any where 
 enjoyed, than the state of the tools and machinery of 
 the artists. All European visitors have been vehe- 
 mently struck with the rudeness of the tools and 
 machinery used by the people of Hindustan. 1 Son- 
 nerat, one of those travellers who have surveyed the 
 state of the arts in that country with the greatest 
 attention, and the most enlightened eyes, informs us, 
 that with his hands, and two or three tools, the Hindu 
 artisan has to perform that kind of task about which 
 with us a hundred tools would be employed. 2 " When 
 the rudeness of the tools," says Mr. Forster, " with 
 the simplicity of the process, is examined, the degree 
 of delicacy which the artisans have acquired in their 
 several professions must challenge a high admira- 
 tion." 3 Fryer, speaking of the mode in which coral 
 is cut, says, " The tools of the workman were more 
 
 1 Crauford's Sketches, p. 328, 1st ed. 
 
 8 Sonnerat, Voy. liv iii. chap. viii. " The Indian carpenter knows 
 no other tools than the plane, the chisel, the wimble, a hammer, and a 
 kind of hatchet. The earth serves him for a bench, and his foot for a 
 holdfast. He is a month in performing what our workman will do in three 
 days. Even after instruction he will not adopt our method of sawing. 
 Placing his wood between two beams fixed in the ground, and sitting on 
 a bench, a man employs three days, with one saw, to make a plank, which 
 wonld cost our people an hour's work." Ibid. Among the Birmans the 
 state of the more necessary and useful arts seems to be fully as much 
 advanced as among the Hindus : in not a few cases more so. (See Mr. 
 Symes' Embassy to Ava.) The waggons are more neat and commodious 
 than the clumsy gauries or carts of India. 
 
 3 Forster's Travels, i. 25. " Their artificers," says Stavorinus, " work 
 with so little apparatus, and so few instruments, that an European would
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 35 
 
 to be wondered at than his art ; his hands and feet CHAP 8 I- 
 
 being all the vice, and the other tools unshapen bits 
 
 of iron." 1 
 
 In the mode in which the Hindu artisans, of almost 
 all descriptions, perform their work, is observed a 
 circumstance, generally found among a rude people, 
 and no where else. The carpenter, the blacksmith, 
 the brazier, even the goldsmith and jeweller, not to 
 speak of others, produce not their manufacture, as in 
 a refined state of the arts, in houses and workshops 
 of their own, where the accommodations requisite for 
 them can best be combined : they repair for each 
 job, with their little budget of tools, to the house of 
 the man who employs them, and there perform the 
 service for which they are called. 2 
 
 With regard to the fine arts, a short sketch will 
 suffice. Hardly by any panegyrist is it pretended 
 
 be astonished at their neatness and expedition. Stavorinus, Voy. p. 
 412. See, to the same purpose, Tennant, Indian Recreations, i. 301, 
 302, 303. 
 
 ' Fryer's Travels, let. iii. chap. iii. They cut diamonds, he says, with 
 a mill turned by men, the string reaching, in manner of our cutlers' 
 wheels, to lesser that are in a flat press, where under steel wheels dia- 
 monds are fastened, and with its own bort are worn into what cut the 
 artist pleases. Ibid. 
 
 * The blacksmith goes from place to place carrying his tools with 
 him. Beside his forge and his little furnace, a stone serves for an anvil, 
 and his whole apparatus consists of a pair of pincers, a hammer, a 
 mallet, and a file. They have not attained the art of polishing gold and 
 silver, or of working gold in different colours. The goldsmith goes about 
 with his tools, like the blacksmith. Sonnerat, Voy. liv. iii. chap. viii. 
 The workmen in gold and silver are frequently only little boys, who sit 
 every day in the bazaar or market waiting till they are called, when they 
 go to your house, with their implements in a little basket, consisting of a 
 very small anvil, a hammer, a pair of bellows, a few files, and a pair of 
 pincers ; a chafing-dish, or pan of embers, is then given to him with a 
 model of what is to be made, and the material. He then sets about his 
 work in the open air, and performs it with despatch and ingenuity. Other 
 
 D 2
 
 36 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 s. 1 ^ iat *h e sculpture, the painting, the music of the 
 - Hindus are in a state beyond that in which they 
 appear in early stages of society. The merely me- 
 chanical part, that for which the principal requi- 
 sites are time and patience, the natural produce of 
 rude ages, when labour is of little value, is often exe- 
 cuted with great neatness ; and surprises by the idea 
 of the difficulty overcome. In the province of genius 
 and taste, nothing but indications of rudeness ap- 
 pear. The productions are not merely void of at- 
 traction : they are unnatural, offensive, and not un- 
 frequently disgusting. " The Hindus of this day," 
 says Mr. Forster, " have a slender knowledge of the 
 rules of proportion, and none of perspective. They 
 are just imitators, and correct workmen, but they 
 possess merely the glimmerings of genius." 1 " The 
 style and taste of the Indians," says Paolino, " are 
 indeed extremely wretched ; but they possess a won- 
 derful aptitude for imitating the arts and inventions 
 of the Europeans, as soon as the method has been 
 pointed out to them." 2 Major Rennel himself in- 
 forms us, that the imitative or fine arts were not car- 
 ried to the height even of the Egyptians, much less 
 of the Greeks and Romans, by the Hindus; that 
 like the Chinese they made great progress in some of 
 the useful arts, but scarcely any in those of taste. 3 
 
 tradesmen go to your home in the same manner, the shoemaker and tailor. 
 Stavoriuus, Voy. p. 412. It is remarkable how exactly this description of 
 the state of the arts among the Hindus tallies with that among the Persians ; 
 C hardin informs us that every where in Persia, the artisans of all descrip- 
 tions go to work in the houses of those who employ them that they per- 
 form their work with the poorest apparatus, and, comparing the tools with 
 the work, to a surprising degree of perfection. Chardin, Voy. en Perse, 
 iii. 98. 
 
 1 Forster's Travels, i. 80. * Bartolomeo's Travels, book i. chap. vii. 
 
 3 Rennel's Memoir, p. xzii.
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 37 
 
 " In India/' says Sonnerat, " as well as among all BOOK n. 
 
 CHAP, o. 
 
 the people of the East, the arts have made little or 
 
 no progress. All the statues we see in their temples 
 are badly designed and worse executed." 1 We have 
 the testimony of Mr. Hodges, which to this point at 
 least is a high testimony, that the sculpture in the 
 pagodas of Hindustan is all very rude. 8 In the de- 
 scription of a temple of Siva, at Hullybedu in Mysore, 
 Dr. Buchanan says, " Its walls contain a very ample 
 delineation of Hindu mythology ; which, in the re- 
 presentation of human or animal forms, is as desti- 
 tute of elegance as usual ; but some of the foliages 
 possess great neatness. It much exceeds any Hindu 
 building that I have seen elsewhere." 3 
 
 Whatever exaggeration we may suppose in the 
 accounts which the historians of Mexico and Peru 
 have given us of the works of sculpture in the new 
 world, the description of them will not permit us to 
 conclude that they were many degrees inferior to the 
 productions of Hindustan. Clavigero says, " The 
 Mexicans were more successful in sculpture than in 
 
 1 Sonnerat, Voy. liv. iii. ch. viii. M. That this condemnation is too un- 
 qualified we have satisfactory testimony in some of the sculptures at Ellora, 
 of which drawings are given by Captain Grindlay in the Trans. Royal Asia- 
 tic Society, vol. ii. 326. W. 
 
 s Hodges' Travels in India. Mr. Hodges says, " I am concerned I can- 
 not pay so high a compliment to the art of sculpture among the Hindoos as 
 is usually paid by many ingenious authors who write on the religion of Bra- 
 mah. Considering these works, as I do, with the eyes of an artist, they 
 are only to be paralleled with the rude essays of the ingenious Indians I 
 have met with in Otaheite, and on other islands in the South Seas :" p. 26. 
 He adds in the next page, that in point of carving, that is, the mere me- 
 chanical part, the ornaments in the Hindu temples are often beautiful. In 
 another passage, too, p. 151, he speaks again of the same mechanical nicety, 
 the peculiar sharpness of the cut in Hindu carvings. See, to the same pur- 
 pose, Tennant's Indian Recr. i. 299. 
 
 3 Buchanan, Journey through Mysore, &c. iii. 391. 
 
 5'IOSQ
 
 38 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "' P amt i R g- They learned to express in their statues all 
 . the attitudes and postures of which the human body 
 is capable ; they observed the proportions exactly ; 
 and could, when necessary, execute the most deli- 
 cate and minute strokes with the chisel. The works 
 which they executed by casting of metals were in 
 still more esteem. The miracles they produced of 
 this kind would not be credible, if, besides the testi- 
 mony of those who saw them, curiosities in numbers, 
 of this nature, had not been sent from Mexico to 
 Europe." 1 
 
 The progress was similar, as we might presume, 
 in the sister art of painting. The Hindus copy with 
 great exactness, even from nature. By consequence 
 they draw portraits, both of individuals and of groups, 
 with a minute likeness ; but peculiarly devoid of 
 grace and expression. Their inability to exhibit the 
 simplest creations of the fancy, is strongly expressed 
 by Dr. Tennant, who says, " The laborious exact- 
 
 1 Clavigero, Hist. Mcx. book vii. sect. 50. He adds, " The works of 
 gold and silver sent in presents from the conqueror Cortez to Charles V. 
 filled the goldsmiths of Europe with astonishment, who, as several authors 
 of that period attest, declared that they were altogether inimitable. The 
 Mexican founders made, both of gold and silver, the most perfect ima- 
 ges of natural bodies. They made a fish in this manner, which had its 
 scales, alternately, the one of silver and the other of gold, a parrot with 
 a moveable head, tongue, and wings, and an ape with a moveable 
 head and feet, having a spindle in its hand in the attitude of spinning." 
 Ibid. Garcilasso tells us, " that the Peruvians framed many figures of men 
 and women, of birds of the air, and fishes of the sea ; likewise of fierce ani- 
 mals, such as tigers, lions and bears, foxes, dogs, cats; in short, all crea- 
 tures whatsoever known amongst them, they cast and moulded into true 
 and natural figures of the same shape and form of those creatures which 
 they represented. They counterfeited the plants and wall-flowers so well, 
 that being on the walls they seemed to be natural ; the creatures which 
 were shaped on the walls, such as lizards, butterflies, snakes, and serpents, 
 some crawling up and some down, were so artificially done, that they seem- 
 ed natural, and wanted nothing but motion." (Book vi. chap, i.)
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 39 
 
 ness with which they imitate every feather of a bird, 
 or the smallest fibre on the leaf of a plant, renders 
 them valuable assistants in drawing specimens of 
 natural history ; but further than this they cannot 
 advance one step. If your bird is to be placed on a 
 rock, or upon the branch of a tree, the draughtsman 
 is at a stand ; the object is not before him ; and his 
 imagination can supply nothing." 1 In one remark- 
 able circumstance their painting resembles that of all 
 other nations who have made but a small progress in 
 the arts. They are entirely without a knowledge of 
 perspective, and by consequence, of all those finer and 
 nobler parts of the art of painting, which have per- 
 spective for their requisite basis. 2 
 
 1 Tennant's Ind. Rec. i. 299. 
 
 2 Dr. Tennant, at the place cited above, supports his own authority, by 
 quoting the following passage of Sonnerat : " La peinture chez les Indiens 
 est, et sera toujours, dans Penfance ; ils trouvent admirable un tableau charge 
 de rouge et de bleu, et dont les personnages sont vetus d'or. Ils n'entendent 
 point le clair-obscur, n'arrondissent jamais les objets, et ne savent pas les 
 mettre en perspective ; en un mot, leurs meilleures peintures ne sont que de 
 mauvaises enluminures." (Voyages aux Indes, i. 99.) The Indian pic- 
 tures, says Mandelsloe, are more remarkable for their diversity of colours, 
 than any exactness of proportion. Harris' Collect, of Voy. i. How ex- 
 actly does this correspond with the description which Chardin gives us of 
 the state of the same art among the Persians ! En Perse les arts, tant libe- 
 raux que mechaniques, sont en general presque tous rudes etbruts, en com- 
 
 paraison de la perfection ou 1' Europe les a portes Ils enteudent fort 
 
 mal le dessin, ne sachant rien faire au naturel ; et ils n'ont aucune con- 
 
 noissance de la perspective Pour ce que de la platte-peinture, il est 
 
 vrai que les visages qu'ils represented sont assez ressemblans ; ils les tirent 
 d'ordinaire de profil, parce que ce sont ceux qu'ils font le plus aisement ; 
 ils les font aussi de trois quarts : mais pour les visages en plein ou de front, 
 ils y reussissent fort mai, n'entendant pas a y donner les ombres. Ils ne 
 
 sauroient former une attitude et une posture Leur pinceau 
 
 est fin et delicat, et leur peinture vive et eclatante. II faut attribuer a 1'air 
 du pays la beaute des couleurs. Voy. en Perse, iii. '284. La peinture est 
 
 encore au berceau : les Persans n'ont fait aucun progres dans cet art 
 
 En general, leur maniere de faire ressemble un peu a celle des Chinois : 
 leur dessin est ties incorrect ; ils nc conuaissent pas la perspective : ils ne
 
 40 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. it i s anomalous and somewhat surprising that the 
 
 CHAP. 8. . 
 
 music of the Hindus should be so devoid of all excel- 
 lence. As music is, in its origin, the imitation of the 
 tones of passion ; and is most naturally employed for 
 the expression of passion, in rude ages, when the 
 power of expressing it by articulate language is the 
 most imperfect ; simple melodies, and these often 
 highly expressive and affecting, are natural to un- 
 cultivated tribes. It was in the earliest stage of civi- 
 lization, that Orpheus is fabled to have possessed the 
 power of working miracles by his lyre. -Yet all 
 Europeans, even those who are the most disposed to 
 
 savent pas employer les ombres Cependant on voit sortir de leur s 
 
 mains des ouvragcs assez jolis; Us peignent assez bien les flours ct les 
 uiseaux de fantaisie ; Us reussissent dans les arabesques ; Us emploicnt 
 
 tres bien Tor ; Us font de tres beaux vernix Les couleurs que les Per- 
 
 sans emploient. etqu'ils font eux-memes, ont tout 1'eclat, toute la solidite.qu'on 
 peut desirer. Ce sent eux qui nous ont fait connaitre 1'outremer. (Olivier* 
 Voyage, v. 301.) It is remarkable to find the state of the fine arts in China 
 so exactly the same. " Quoique les Chinois ayent une passion extraordi- 
 naire pour tous les ouvrages de peiuture, et que leurs temples en soient or- 
 ncz, on ne peut rien voir neanmoins de plus borne, et dc moins regulier. 
 Us ne sgavcnt point menager lea ombres d'un tableau, ni meler ou adoucir 
 
 les couleurs Us ne sont pas plus heurcux dans la sculpture, et Us n'y 
 
 observent ni ordre, ni proportions. (Le GentU. Voyage, u. 111.) The 
 painting of the Mexicans seems to have had the same perfections and im- 
 perfections with that of these eastern nations. The colours, Robertson 
 (iii. 278) informs us, were remarkably bright, but laid on without any art, 
 and without any regard to light and shade, or the rules of perspective. 
 Clavigero, though the skill of the Mexicans in painting is not one of the 
 points for which he most highly admires them, says, " We hare seen, 
 among the ancient paintings, many portraits of the kings of Mexico, in 
 which, besides the singular beauty of the colours, the proportions were most 
 accurately observed." (Hist. Mex. book vii. sect. 49.) " Les Mexicains," 
 says Humboldt, " ont conserve un gout particulier pour la peiuture et pour 
 1'art de sculpter en pierre et en bois. On- est etonne de voir ce qu'ils exe- 
 
 cutent avec un mauvais couteau, et sur les bois les plus durs Us 
 
 montrent beaucoup d' aptitude pour 1'exercice des arts d'imitation ; Us en 
 deploient une plus grande encore pour les arts purement mecaniques. Cette 
 aptitude deviendra un jour tres precicuse, &c." Humboldt, Essai Politi- 
 que sur le Royaumc de la Nouveile Espague, p. 9.
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 41 
 
 eulogize the attainments of the Hindus, unite in de- BOOK n. 
 
 scribing the music of that people as unpleasing, and 
 
 void both of expression and art. Dr. Tennant, who 
 founds his testimony both on his own, and other 
 people's observation, says : " If we are to judge 
 merely from the number of instruments, and the 
 frequency with which they apply them, the Hindoos 
 might be regarded as considerable proficients in music, 
 yet has the testimony of all strangers deemed it 
 equally imperfect as the other arts. 1 Their warlike 
 instruments are rude, noisy, and inartificial : and in 
 temples, those employed for the purposes of religion 
 are managed apparently on the same principle ; for, 
 in their idea, the most pleasant and harmonious is 
 that which make the loudest noise." 2 After a de- 
 scription of the extreme rudeness of the instruments 
 of music of the people of Sumbhulpoor, Mr. Motte 
 says, " the Rajah's band always put me in mind 
 
 1 Europeans in general know nothing of Indian music. They hear only 
 the accompaniments to public processions, in which noise is the chief ob- 
 ject to be obtained, or the singing of Mohammedans, which is Persian, not 
 Indian. That music was cultivated on scientific principles, is evident 
 from the accounts given of it by Sir William Jones and Mr. Colebrooke, 
 from which it appears, that the Hindus had a knowledge of the gamut, of 
 a mode of notation, of measurement of time, and of a division of the notes 
 of a more minute description than has been found convenient in Europe. 
 The practice of the art amongst them has declined, in consequence pro- 
 bably of its supersession by the Mohammedans, but occasionally Hindu 
 performers are met with, whose instruments and execution might please 
 more accomplished musicians than those whose opinions have been fol- 
 lowed by the writer. See Willard, on the Music of Hindostan. W. 
 
 * Indian Rec. i. 300. Ces peuples n'ont aucune idee des accords. 
 Leur chant commence par un bourdonnement sourd et fort bas, apres 
 lequel ils eclatent. Anquetil Duperron, Voyage aux Indes Orientales, 
 Zendavesta, i. xxvi. Even Sonnerat himself informs us, that their music 
 is bad, and their songs destitute of harmony. Voyages aux Indes, liv. iii. 
 chap. viii.
 
 42 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. O f a number of children coming from a country 
 
 CHAP. 8. J 
 
 1 
 
 fair. 
 
 1 Motto's Journey to Orissa, (Asiat. An. Regist. i. Miscellaneous 
 Tracts, p. 77.) " Their ideas of music, if we may judge from their prac- 
 tice, are barbarous." Orme's Hist. Milit. Trans, i. 3. The following 
 passage from Garcilasso de la Vega is an important document in the his- 
 tory of music. It exhibits more nakedly the fact respecting its origin, 
 than, perhaps, any other written monument ; and it proves at the same 
 time the power of expression which the art had attained. " In music," 
 says he, " the Peruvians arrived to a certain harmony in which the 
 Indians of Colla did more particularly excel, having been the inventors of 
 a certain pipe made of canes glued together, every one of which having a 
 different note of higher and lower, in the manner of organs, made a pleasing 
 music by the dissonancy of sounds, the treble, tenor, and basse, exactly 
 corresponding, and answering to each other ; with these pipes they often 
 
 played in concert They had also other pipes, which were flutes with 
 
 four or five stops, like the pipes of shepherds ; with these they played not 
 in concert, but singly, and tuned them to sonnets, which they composed in 
 metre, the subject of which was love, and the passions which arise from 
 
 the favours or displeasures of a mistress . . Every song was set to its 
 
 proper tune ; for two songs of different subjects could not correspond with 
 the same air, by reason that the music which the gallant made on his flute 
 was designed to express the satisfaction or discontent of his mind, which 
 were not so intelligible, perhaps, by the words, as by the melancholy or 
 cheerfulness of the tune which he played. A certain Spaniard, one night 
 late, encountered an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, and would 
 have brought her back to his lodgings ; but she cried out, ' For God's 
 sake, sir, let me go, for that pipe which you hear in yonder tower calls me 
 with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons ; for love constrains 
 me to go, that I may be his wife, and he my husband.' The songs which 
 they composed of their wars, and grand achievements, were never set to 
 the airs of their flute, being too grave and serious to be intermixed with 
 the pleasures and softness of love ; for these were only sung at their prin- 
 cipal festivals, when they commemorated their victories and triumphs." 
 Royal Comment, book ii. ch. xiv. " The accounts of twenty-two centu- 
 ries ago represent the Indians as a people who stood very high in point of 
 civilization : but to judge from their ancient monuments, they had not 
 carried the imitative arts to any thing like the degree of perfection attained 
 by the Greeks and Romans ; or even by the Egyptians. Both the Hindoos 
 and the Chinese appear to have carried the arts just to the point requisite 
 for useful purposes ; but never to have approached the summit of perfec- 
 tion, as it respects taste or boldness of design." Reunel's Memoir, Introd. 
 p. xxii. Our latest informants are the most intelligent. Mr. Ward 
 (Introd. p. Ixii.) assures us, " whatever may have been the case in other 
 countries, idolatry in this has certainly not contributed to carry the arts of
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 43 
 
 As the talent of the Hindus for accurate imitation, 
 both in the manual and in some of the refined arts, 
 has excited much attention ; and been sometimes 
 regarded as no mean proof of ingenuity and mental 
 culture, it is necessary to remark, that there are few 
 things by which the rude state of society is more uni- 
 formly characterized. It is in reality the natural 
 precursor of the age of invention ; and disappears, or 
 at least ceases to make a conspicuous figure, when 
 the nobler faculty of creation comes into play. Gar- 
 cilasso de la Vega, who quotes Bias Valera, in his 
 support, tells us that the Peruvian Indians, " if they 
 do but see a thing, will imitate it so exactly, without 
 being taught, that they become better artists and 
 mechanics than the Spaniards themselves." l 
 
 Sir William Jones, in pompous terms, remarks : 
 " The Hindus are said to have boasted of three in- 
 ventions, all of which indeed are admirable ; the 
 method of instructing by apologues ; the decimal 
 scale ; and the game of chess, on which they have 
 some curious treatises." 2 As the game of chess is a 
 
 painting or sculpture to any perfection. The Abbe Dubois (p. 463) ob- 
 serves, " that the ornamental arts, such as painting, instrumental music, 
 and the like, are extremely low in estimation. Hardly any but the low 
 tribe of the Mushiers exercise the first of these ; and music is nearly con- 
 fined to the barbers and Pariahs; instrumental music wholly so. The 
 small encouragement these two arts receive is, no doubt, owing to the little 
 progress they have made. In painting, nothing can be seen but mere 
 daubing, set off with bright colours and extravagant glare. And though 
 all Hindus are great lovers of music, introducing it into all their civil and 
 religious ceremonies, yet I can vouch that it is still in its infancy." 
 
 1 Royal Comment, part ii. book ii. chap. xxx. Frezier (Voyage to the 
 South Sea, p. 263) says of the same people, " They have a genius for arts, 
 and are good at imitating what they see, but very poor at invention." 
 
 4 See the Discourse, Asiatic Researches, i. 429. " Invented apo- 
 logues!" as well might he tell us they invented language. And the 
 " decimal scale !" as if they were the only nation that had ten fingers !
 
 44 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "' S l )ec ^ es f art > ^ e account of it seems to belong to 
 - this place ; and as it has been rated high among the 
 proofs of the supposed civilization of the Hindus, we 
 must see what it really imports. Though there is 
 no evidence that the Hindus invented the game, 
 except their own pretensions, 1 which as evidence are 
 of very little value, it is by no means improbable. 
 The invention of ingenious games is a feat most com- 
 monly displayed by nations in their rude condition. 
 It is prior to the birth of industry, that men have the 
 strongest need for games, to relieve them from the 
 pain of idleness : at that period they are most ad- 
 dicted to gaming ; bestow upon it the greatest por- 
 tion of time ; and most intensely fix upon it all their 
 faculties. It is, in fact, the natural occupation and 
 resource of a rude mind, whenever destitute of the 
 motives to industry. The valuable and intelligent 
 historian of Chili observes of a tribe, but a few re- 
 moves from the savage state ; " If what the cele- 
 
 or, as if most nations had not been led, by the simple and very natural 
 process of counting by the fingers, to denominate and distinguish numbers 
 by comparison with that sum ! The Scandinavians, Mallet informs us, 
 counted up the unities to twelve, and denominated higher numbers by 
 comparison with twelve, which, he justly remarks, is preferable to ten, as 
 being more divisible into fractions. Mallet, Introd. Hist. Denmark, vol. i. 
 chap. xiii. The Swedes and Icelanders, as well as Scotch, retain a me- 
 morial of this in their great hundred. From Mr. Park we learn that some 
 of the negro tribes in Africa counted only five, the number of fingers on 
 one of the hands, and then doubled ; thus, instead of six, they said five 
 and one ; seven, five and two, &c. Park's Travels in Africa, p. 17. 
 
 1 This is not true : we have not the evidence of their own pretensions. 
 The evidence is that of Mohammedan writers : the king of India is said 
 by Firdausi, in the Shah Nama, and the story is therefore of the tenth 
 century at latest, to have sent a chess-board and a teacher to Naushirvan. 
 Sir William Jones refers to Firdausi as his authority, aud this reference 
 might have shown by w"hom the story was told. Various Mohammedan 
 writers are quoted by Hyde, in his Historia Shahiludii, who all concur in 
 attributing the invention to the Indians. W.
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 45 
 
 brated Leibnitz asserts is true, that men have never BOOK n. 
 
 CHAP. 8. 
 
 discovered greater talents than in the invention of 
 
 the different kinds of games, the Araucanians may 
 justly claim the merit of not being in this respect 
 inferior to other nations, Their games are very 
 numerous, and for the most part very ingenious ; 
 they are divided into the sedentary and gymnastic, 
 It is a curious fact, and worthy of notice, that among 
 the first is the game of chess, which they call com- 
 ican, and which has been known to them from time 
 immemorial. The game of quechu, which they 
 esteem highly, has a great affinity to that of back- 
 gammon, but instead of dice they make use of tri- 
 angular pieces of bone marked with points, which 
 they throw with a little hoop or circle, supported 
 by two pegs." * 
 
 1 Molina, Civil Hisi. of Chili, book ii. chap. x. The Persians claim 
 the invention of this game ; and as their game is radically different from 
 that of the Hindus, it is probable they are both inventions. See Chardin, 
 Voy. en Perse, iii. 62. Gibbon, vii. 276, marks a fact in the narrative 
 of Paul Diaconus, expressive of the manners of the Heruli : Dum ad 
 tabulam luderet, while he played at draughts, says Gibbon; but he might 
 as well have said chess ; for the word as much expresses the one as the 
 other: And we know that, among the Scandinavians, a game very closely 
 resembling chess was known. The ancient chronicles of the Scandi- 
 navians frequently present us with young warriors endeavouring to acquire 
 the good opinion of their mistresses by boasting of their accomplishments, 
 such as their skill at chess, their dexterity in swimming and skating, their 
 talents in poetry, and their knowing all the stars by their names. Mallet, 
 Introd. Hist. Denmark, chap. xiii. Mr. Barrow informs us that the chess 
 of the Chinese is totally different from that both of the Hindus and Per- 
 sians. Travels in China, p. 158. It has been therefore probably, in each 
 of those cases, a separate invention. The idea that chess was invented 
 by the Hindus was, we believe, first started by Hyde (de Relig. Vet. 
 Pers. ii. 1.), and thereafter it has been taken for granted. The curious 
 reader may see an interesting description of a game at chess by four Brah- 
 mens, in Moor's Hist, of Capt. Little's Detachment, p. 139. That there 
 are books in India containing the doctrine of chess proves nothing. There 
 are books in Icelandic, on the art of poetry, but the Icelanders were not 
 the inventors of poetry.
 
 46 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 L Though the Hindus knew the art of making a 
 species of rude glass, which was manufactured into 
 trinkets and ornaments for the women, they had 
 never possessed sufficient ingenuity to apply it to the 
 many useful purposes to which it is so admirably 
 adapted. In few climates is glass in windows more 
 conducive to comfort than that of Hindustan ; yet 
 the Hindus had never learnt to afford this accom- 
 modation to themselves. 1 Of its adaptation to optical 
 purposes they were so ignorant, that they were 
 astonished and confounded at the effects of a com- 
 mon spy-glass. They are unable to construct fur- 
 naces sufficiently powerful to melt either European 
 glass, or cast iron. 2 
 
 1 The use of glass for windows, is a proof of civilization, that neither 
 Greek nor Roman refinement presents. W. 
 
 * "Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. iii. 370. Dr. Tennant 
 says, " Before the arrival of the Europeans, there was not a house in all India 
 furnished with glass windows ; even at present, when glass is so common 
 here, I believe none of the natives have availed themselves of 8,0 obvious 
 a remedy. Glass is considered by the Europeans as an indispensable re- 
 quisite in the construction of every Bungalow at the upper stations: they 
 have even introduced the use of it into the camp. Several officers carry, 
 on their march, a frame of glass, which they fix in the windw ard door of 
 their tents, during the hot winds, should the service call them into the 
 field at that season." Indian Recreations, i. 325. See, too, Voyage aux 
 Indes, par le P. Paolino, ii. 403, 404. The Jews first discovered the art 
 of making glass. Taciti Hist. lib. v. cap. vii. ; Plin. lib. v. cap. xix; also 
 lib, xxxvi. cap. xxvi. ; Strabo, lib. xvi. ; Josephus, Wars of the Jews, ii. 
 19. The Hindus seem to be considerably behind the perfection which the 
 Japanese have attained in the useful arts. " As to all sorts of handicrafts," 
 says Ksempfer, " either curious or useful, they are so far from having 
 occasion for masters, that they rather exceed all other nations in ingenuity 
 and neatness of workmanship, particularly in brass, gold, silver, copper. 
 What skill they have in working and tempering iron, is evident by the 
 goodness and neatness of their arms. No nation in the East is so dexterous 
 and ingenious, in making, carving, graving, gilding of servaas, which is a 
 particular kind of a precious, blackish metal, made artificially of a mixture 
 of copper with a little gold. They weave silken stuffs so fine, so neat and 
 equal, that they are inimitable even to the Chinese." Ka?mpfer, Hist, of
 
 FINE ARTS AMONG THE HINDUS. 47 
 
 In almost every manufacture, and certainly as a BOOK n. 
 
 * _ * CHAP. 8. 
 
 manufacturing people in general, the Hindus are 
 
 inferior to the Chinese. Yet Sir William Jones says 
 of that latter people ; " Their mechanical arts have 
 nothing in them characteristic of a particular family; 
 nothing which any set of men, in a country so 
 highly favoured by nature, might not have dis- 
 covered and improved." l The partialities, which it 
 was so much his nature to feel, prevented him from 
 perceiving how much less entitled to any kind of 
 admiration were the arts of another people, whom 
 he had adopted it as a business to eulogize. 
 
 CHAP, IX. 
 
 Literature. 
 
 As the knowledge of what conduces to the augmen- 
 tation of human enjoyment and the diminution of 
 human misery, is the foundation of all improvement 
 in the condition of human life ; and as literature, if 
 not synonymous with that knowledge, is its best 
 friend and its inseparable companion, the literature 
 of any people is one of the sources from which the 
 
 Japan, Appendix, p. 62. M. ' Casting iron' is not so simple a matter as 
 onr author seems to suppose. It is an art that has been practised in this 
 manufacturing country, only within a very few years. The Hindus have 
 the art of smelting iron, of welding it, and of making steel ; and have 
 had thesearts from time immemorial. Ctesias notices the excellence of 
 Indian steel. W. 
 
 1 Works of Sir W. Jones, Discourse on the Chinese.
 
 48 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. surest inferences may be drawn with respect to their 
 
 CHAP. 9. .... J 
 
 civilization. 
 
 The first literature is poetry. Poetry is the lan- 
 guage of the passions, and men feel, before they 
 speculate. The earliest poetry is the expression of 
 the feelings, by which the minds of rude men are 
 the most powerfully actuated. Before the invention 
 of writing, men are directed also to the use of ver- 
 sification by the aid which it affords to the memory. 
 As every thing of which the recollection is valuable 
 must be handed down by tradition, whatever tends 
 to make the tradition accurate is of corresponding 
 importance. No contrivance to this end is com- 
 parable to verse; which preserves the ideas, by 
 preserving the very words. In verse not only the 
 few historical facts are preserved, to which the 
 curiosity of a rude age attaches itself, but in verse 
 are promulgated the maxims of religion, and the 
 ordinances of law. Even after the noble art of 
 writing is known, the habit of consigning to verse 
 every idea, destined for permanency, continues, till 
 certain new steps are effected in the intellectual 
 career, 1 
 
 At this first stage the literature of the Hindus has 
 
 1 " It was long before mankind knew the art of writing ; but they very 
 early invented several methods to supply, in a good measure, that want. 
 The method most commonly used was, to compose their histories in verse, 
 aud sing them. Legislators made use of this expedient to consign and hand 
 dowr to posterity their regulations. The first laws of all nations were com- 
 posed in verse, and sung. Apollo, according to a very ancient tradition, was 
 one of the first legislators. The same tradition says, that he published his 
 laws to the sound of his lyre, that is to say, that he had set them to music. 
 We have certain proof that the first laws of Greece were a kind of songs. 
 The laws of the ancient inhabitants of Spain were verses which they 
 sung. Tuiston was regarded by the Germans as their first lawgiver.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 49 
 
 always remained. The habit of expressing every B c "' 
 
 thing in verse ; a habit which urgent necessity im- 
 
 poses upon a people unacquainted with the use of 
 permanent signs, 1 and which the power of custom 
 upholds, till after a certain progress in improvement, 
 even among those to whom permanent signs are 
 known; we trace among the Hindus to the present 
 day. All their compositions, with wonderfully few 
 exceptions, are in verse. For history they have 
 only certain narrative poems, which depart from all 
 resemblance to truth and nature ; and have evidently 
 no further connexion with fact than the use of cer- 
 tain names and a few remote allusions. Their laws, 
 like those of rude nations in general, are in verse. 
 Their sacred books, and even their books of science, 
 
 They said he put his laws into verses and songs. This ancient custom was 
 long kept up by several nations." Goguet's Origin of Laws, i. 28. See 
 the various authorities there quoted. The laws of the Druids were in 
 verse. Henry, Hist, of Great Britain, i. 315. 
 
 1 It is not clear what the writer means by ' permanent signs.' If he 
 means the art of printing, the Hindus were, in that respect, situated 
 similarly as the Greeks and Romans were ; and they should have also 
 retained the use of metre in their literature. If he means the art of 
 writing, the Hindus have been in possession of that, as long as of a lite- 
 rature, for any thing we know to the contrary certainly long enough to 
 have rendered the use of memorial stanzas as a substitute for writing, 
 unnecessary, and obsolete. A little consideration might have led the 
 writer to suspect that his theory did not satisfactorily account for the 
 singularity, for the practice has nothing in common with the carmina 
 autiqua of the Germans. The principal reason for the continued use of 
 metre, seems to be the greater facility of its composition. Sanscrit metre is 
 unencumbered by rhyme the prosody is infinitely varied and the greater 
 freedom of syntax, and the facility of forming compound terms, in which 
 grammatical inflexions are merged, render it less laborious to construct 
 metrical stanzas, than to attend to the niceties of a complex grammar, 
 which are indispensable to the composition of intelligible prose. This 
 seems to be the chief inducement to the continuation of the practice, and 
 not the power of habit alone. W. 
 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HOOKII. are j n V erse; and what is more wonderful still, 
 
 GRAF. 9. 
 
 - their very dictionaries. 1 
 
 There is scarcely any point connected with the 
 state of Hindu society, on which the spirit of exag- 
 geration and enthusiasm has more signally displayed 
 itself than the poetry of the Hindus. Among those 
 whose disposition was more to admire than explore, 
 scarcely any poetry has been regarded as presenting 
 higher claims to admiration. Among the Hindus 
 there are two great poems, the Ramayan, and the 
 Mahabharat, which are long narratives, or rather 
 miscellanies, in verse, and which their admirers have 
 been puzzled whether to denominate histories, or 
 epic poems. By the Hindus themselves, they are 
 moreover regarded as books of religion ; nay further, 
 as books of law ; and in the Digest which the Brah- 
 mens, under the authority of the British government, 
 have recently compiled, the text of these poems is 
 inserted as text of the law, in the same manner as 
 the text of any other legal authority and standard. 
 They may even be regarded as books of philosophy ; 
 and accordingly the part of the Mahabharat, with the 
 translation of which Mr. Wilkins has favoured us, 
 he actually presents to his reader as one of the most 
 instructive specimens of the philosophical specu- 
 lations of the country. 
 
 1 " Le Dictionnaire Amarasinha est ecrit en vers Sanscrit , comme tous 
 les anciens livres, et n'eat pas divise par chapitrcs comme les mJtres, mais 
 
 par classes dc noms ainsi classe Svarggavargga, c'est a dire 
 
 classe des noms qui apartiennent an ciel ; Manouchavargga, de ccux qui 
 apartiennent a 1'homme, &c. Voyage aux Indes Orientales, par le P. 
 Paolino, ii. 228. " Presque tous les livres Indiens sont Merits en rers. 
 L'astronomie, la medicine, 1'histoire, tout se chante." Ibid. p. 369. 
 The same was the case with the ancient Germans ; " Celebrant carminibus 
 antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est, Tuis- 
 tonem," &c. Tacit, de mor. Germ. cap. x.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 51 
 
 It is incompatible with the present purpose to BOOK. 11. 
 
 speak of these poems in more than general terms. 
 
 They describe a series of actions in which a number 
 of men and gods are jointly engaged. These fictions 
 are not only more extravagant, and unnatural, less 
 correspondent with the physical and moral laws of 
 the universe, but are less ingenious, more monstrous, 
 and have less of any thing that can engage the affec- 
 tion, awaken sympathy, or excite admiration, re- 
 verence, or terror, than the poems of any other, even 
 the rudest people with whom our knowledge of the 
 globe has yet brought us acquainted. l They are ex- 
 cessively prolix and insipid. They are often, through 
 long passages, trifling and childish to a degree, which 
 those acquainted with only European poetry can 
 hardly conceive. Of the style in which they are 
 
 1 Even Mr. Maurice, whose appetite for Hindu miracles is not easily 
 overcome, could not digest the beauties of their historic muse. After an 
 exhibition of some of these specimens in his history, he says, " I know not 
 whether some of my readers may not be so insensible to the charms of the 
 Indian historic muse as to rejoice that the Ramayan (only passages of it 
 were then in an English dress) has not been translated ; for certainly inflated 
 accounts of the combats of giants, hurling rocks, and darting serpents at 
 one another, and of monsters whose blood, spouting forth in torrents, is 
 formed into considerable rivers, are not very consistent with the sober and 
 dignified page of history." Maurice, Hist, of Hindustan, ii. 100. " To 
 the above list of absurdities we may add monsters with ten heads and a 
 hundred hands, which continue to fight after all their heads are cut off, 
 and mow down whole battalions." Ibid. p. 248. " The minute accounts 
 of incantations and combats of giants, that fill the Indian legends, how- 
 ever they may astonish the oriental literati, have no charm for the polished 
 scholar of western climes, and are justly consigned to puerile reading." 
 Ibid. p. 251. Yet Sir William Jones could say, " The first poet of the 
 Hindus was the great Valmic ; and his Ramayan is an epic poem on the 
 story of Rama (or rather of the three Ramas,) which in unity of action, 
 magnificence of imagery, and elegance of style, far surpasses the learned 
 and elaborate work of Nonnus." See Asiat. Res. i. 258. We strongly 
 suspect that Sir William Jones never read the poem ; or more of it than 
 scraps. 
 
 E 2
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HOOK ii. composed it is far from too much to say, that all the 
 
 CIIAP.'J. ' 
 
 - vices which characterize the style of rude nations, 
 and particularly those of Asia, they exhibit in per- 
 fection. Inflation ; metaphors perpetual, and these 
 the most violent and strained, often the most unna- 
 tural and ridiculous ; obscurity ; tautology ; repeti- 
 tion ; verbosity ; confusion ; incoherence ; distinguish 
 the Mahabharat and Ramayan. 1 That amid the num- 
 berless effusions, which a wild imagination throws 
 forth, in its loose and thoughtless career, there should 
 now and then be something which approaches the 
 confines of reason and taste, is so far from surprising, 
 
 1 At the time at which this was written, no other specimen of the Ma- 
 habharat had been translated, than the philosophical dialogue of the Gecta, 
 and as there are certainly no such faults in that composition as those 
 which Mr. Mill describes, he must have depended wholly upon his imagi- 
 nation for his knowledge of their existence in the rest of the poem. Some 
 portions of the Ramayana had been rendered very uncouthly into English; 
 but whatever may be the defects there so ruthlessly stripped of every re- 
 deeming grace, most certainly page after page will be searched in vain for 
 ' metaphors perpetual, and these the most violent, strained, unnatural, and 
 ridiculous.' It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Mill had not read even such 
 portion of the Ramayana as was within his reach, but condemns both it 
 and the Mahabharataupon the credit of some vague and superficial criticism, 
 applicable not to Hindu, but to Mohammedan poetry ; the characteristics 
 of which are totally unlike. There is not so wide a contrast between 
 Hindu aud European poetry, as between Hindu and Persian. With re- 
 spect to the particular poems under consideration, they are not to be 
 judged of by a European standard, and that which to a person professing 
 the Hindu religion, constitutes their greatest charm, is to us their main 
 deformity ; but, leaving the absurd inventions of mythology out of view, 
 they both abound with poetical beauties of the first order, and particularly 
 in delineations of picturesque manners and situations, and in the expres- 
 sion of natural and amiable feeling. On this subject we may take the 
 opinion of a more competent judge of poetical merit than the historian. 
 ' Le Ramayana et le Mahabharata sont des monumens d'une antiquite ve- 
 nerable ; mais, abstraction faite de la valeur que cela leur donne, j'y trouve 
 des choses sublimes, d'autres pleines de charme et de grace, une fc'con- 
 dite inepuisable de 1" imagination, 1'attraif du merveilleux, de nobles carac- 
 teics, des situations passionnees, et je ne sais quellc candeur sainte et 
 ingenue, dans le.s mceurs qui y sont points." Reflexions sur PEtude des 
 Langues Asiatiqups. par A. W. de Schlegel. W.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 53 
 
 that it wou!4 be truly surprising if there were not. BOOK n. 
 
 A happy description, or here and there the vivid con- 1 
 
 ception of a striking circumstance, are not sufficient; 
 the exact observation of nature, and the symmetry 
 of a whole, are necessary, to designate the poetry of 
 a cultivated people. 
 
 Of the poems in dialogue, or in the dramatic form, 
 Sacontala has been selected as the most favourable 
 specimen. The author, Calidas, though he left only 
 two dramatic pieces, Sir William Jones denominates 
 the Shakspeare of India, and tells us that he stands 
 next in reputation to their great historic poets, Valmic 
 and Vyasa. 
 
 Sacontala was the daughter of a pious king, named 
 Causica, and of a goddess of the lower heaven; 
 brought up by a devout hermit, as his daughter, in a 
 consecrated grove. The sovereign of the district, on 
 a hunting excursion, arrives by accident in the forest. 
 He observes Sacontala, and her two companions, the 
 daughters of the hermit, in the grove, with watering 
 pots in their hands, watering their plants. Instantly 
 he is captivated. He enters into conversation with 
 the damsels, and the heart of Sacontala is secretly 
 inflamed. The king dismisses his attendants, and 
 resolves to remain in the forest. In a little time the 
 quality of the lover is ascertained, while the secret 
 agitation in the bosom of Sacontala throws her into 
 a languor which resembles disease. The king over- 
 hears a conversation between her and her compa- 
 nions, in which, being closely interrogated, she con- 
 fesses her love. The king immediately discovers 
 himself, and declares his passion. The two friends 
 contrive to leave them together, and they consummate 
 " that kind of marriage which two lovers contract
 
 54 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. f rom th e desire O f amorous embraces." So precipi- 
 
 CHAP. 9. ... 
 
 tate a conclusion, irreconcileable as it is with the 
 notions of a refined people, is one of the numerous 
 marriages legal among the Hindus. Presently, how- 
 ever, the king is summoned to his court. He pro- 
 mises to send for his wife in three days, and leaves a 
 ring. In the mean time a Brahmen, of a proud and 
 choleric temper, comes to the residence of the hermit, 
 when his two daughters are at a little distance, and 
 Sacontala has been overtaken with sleep. Finding 
 no one to receive him with the expected honours, he 
 utters an imprecation : " He on whom thou art me- 
 ditating, on whom alone thy heart is now fixed, 
 while thou neglectest a pure gem of devotion who 
 demands hospitality, shall forget thee when thou 
 seest him next, as a man restored to sobriety forgets 
 the words which he uttered in a state of intoxica- 
 tion." This malediction, which falls upon Sacontala, 
 is overheard by her companions, and fills them with 
 horror. They hasten to appease the angry Brahmen ; 
 who tells them, his words cannot be recalled, but 
 that the spell would be dissolved when the lord of 
 Sacontala should look upon his ring. Her two friends 
 agree to conceal the calamity from Sacontala, who 
 now languishes at the neglect of her husband, and 
 finds herself pregnant. The hermit Canna, who at 
 the time of the visit of the king was absent from 
 home, returns, and is, by a voice from heaven, made 
 acquainted with the events which have intervened. 
 Encouraged by good omens, he soothes Sacontala, 
 and resolves to send her to her lord. Her friends 
 instruct her, should he not immediately recognise 
 her, to show him the ring. Arrived at the palace, 
 she is disowned by the king ; thinks of the ring, but
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 55 
 
 discovers it is lost. The king treats her, and the BOOK n - 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 messengers who brought her, as impostors ; and 
 
 orders them into custody; but while they are con- 
 veying her away, a body of light, descending in a 
 female shape, receives her into its bosom, and dis- 
 appears ; upon which the king regards the whole as 
 a piece of sorcery, and dismisses it from his thoughts. 
 After a time, however, the ring is found, and con- 
 veyed to the king ; when his wife, and all the con- 
 nected circumstances, immediately rush upon his 
 mind. He is then plunged into affliction ; ignorant 
 where Sacontala may be found. In this despondency, 
 he is summoned by Indra, the god of the firmament, 
 to aid him against a race of giants, whom Indra is 
 unable to subdue. Having ascended to the celestial 
 regions, and acquitted himself gloriously in the divine 
 service, he is conveyed, in his descent to the earth, 
 to the mountain Hemacuta, " where Casyapa, father 
 of the immortals, and Aditi his consort, reside in 
 blessed retirement." To this sacred spot had Sacon- 
 tala, by her mother's influence, been conveyed; and 
 there she had brought forth her son, a wonderful 
 infant, whom his father found at play with a lion's 
 whelp, and making the powerful animal feel the 
 superiority of his strength. The king now recog- 
 nises his wife and his son, of whom the most remark- 
 able things are portended; and perfect happiness 
 succeeds. 
 
 There is surely nothing in the invention of this 
 story, which is above the powers of the imagination 
 in an uncultivated age. With the scenery and the 
 manners which the Hindu poet has perpetually pre- 
 sent to his observation, and the mythology which 
 perpetually reigns in his thoughts, the incidents
 
 56 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK "-are among the most obvious, and the most easy 
 - to be imagined, which it was possible for him to 
 choose. Two persons of celestial beauty and accom- 
 plishments meet together in a solitary place, and fall 
 mutually in love : To the invention of this scene but 
 little ingenuity can be supposed to be requisite. To 
 create an interest in this love, it was necessary it 
 should be crossed. Surely no contrivance for such a 
 purpose was ever less entitled to admiration than the 
 curse of a Brahmen. A ring with power to dissolve 
 the charm, and that ring at the moment of necessity 
 lost, are contrivances to bring about a great event, 
 which not only display the rudeness of an ignorant 
 age, but have been literally, or almost literally, re- 
 peated, innumerable times, in the fables of other 
 uncultivated nations, To overcome the difficulties, 
 which the interest of the plot rendered it necessary 
 to raise, by carrying a man to heaven to conquer 
 giants for a god, for whom the god was not a match, 
 is an expedient which requires neither art nor in- 
 vention ; and which could never be endured, where 
 judgment and taste have received any considerable 
 cultivation, 1 
 
 The poem, indeed, has some beautiful passages. 
 The courtship, between Sacontala and Dushmantu, 
 is delicate and interesting ; and the workings of the 
 passion in two amiable minds are naturally and vivid- 
 ly portrayed. The friendship which exists between 
 
 1 Much of what is intended for disparagement here is the highest com- 
 mendation that criticism could have uttered. The incidents arc natural 
 and easy, and in accordance with national taste and belief. The hero and 
 heroine are persons of the highest Interest, not only for their rank, but their 
 beauty and accomplishments. Yet, notwithstanding their exalted excel- 
 lence, they are subjected to the usual fate of lovers. The course of true 
 love runs not smooth and they are made uuhappy by the most awful, in 
 Hindu estimation, of all events, the imprecation of a Brahman. The in-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS 
 
 the three youthful maidens is tender and delightful ; 
 and the scene which takes place when Sacontala 
 is about to leave the peaceful hermitage where she 
 had happily spent her youth ; her expressions of ten- 
 derness to her friends, her affectionate parting with 
 the domestic animals she had tended, and even with 
 the flowers and trees in which she had delighted, 
 breathe more than pastoral sweetness. These, how- 
 ever, are precisely the ideas and affections, wherever 
 the scene is a peaceful one, which may naturally 
 arise in the simplest state of society ; as the fables of 
 the golden age and of Arcadia abundantly testify ; 
 and in whatever constitutes the beauty of these 
 scenes they are rivalled by the Song of Solomon, 
 which is avowedly the production of a simple and 
 unpolished age. l Beyond these few passages, there 
 is nothing in Sacontala, which either accords with 
 the understanding, or can gratify the fancy, of an in- 
 structed people. 
 
 Sir William Jones, who, on the subject of a sup- 
 posed ancient state of high civilization, riches, and 
 happiness among the Hindus, takes every thing for 
 
 terest is artfully kept up by a contrivance to which the only grave objec- 
 tion is, that it is not new, the consequence of its being popular; and a 
 happy catastrophe is brought about by the most approved of all rules, the 
 dignus vindice nodus. In all this there is great art, and the skill is evidenced 
 by the success with which it has deceived the critic. W. 
 
 1 Of the Song of Solomon, Voltaire, notwithstanding all his prejudices 
 agaiust the Jews, confesses " Apres tout, ce cantique est un morceau pre- 
 cieux de 1'autiquite. C'est le seul livre d'amour qui nous soit reste des 
 Hebreux. II y est souvent parle de jouissance. C'est une eglogue Juive. 
 Le style t-st comme celui de tous les ouvrages d'eloquence des Hebreux, 
 sans liaison, sans suite, plein de repetitions, confus. ridiculemect metapho- 
 rique ; mais il y a des endroits qui respirent la naivete et 1'amour." Vol- 
 taire, Diction. Philos., Mot Solomon. The criticism would in most respects 
 exactly suit Sacontala. M. Few, except the writer, would have had re- 
 course to Voltaire, for a criticism on the Song of Solomon. Still fewer 
 will find any resemblance between it and Sacontala. W. 
 
 57 
 
 ,
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 'I' ff rant ed, not only without proof, but in opposition to 
 almost every tiling, saving the assumptions of the 
 Brahmens, which could lead him to a different con- 
 clusion, says, " The dramatic species of entertain- 
 ment must have been carried to great perfection, when 
 Vicramaditya, who reigned in the first century before 
 Christ, gave encouragement to poets, philologers, and 
 mathematicians, at a time when the Britons were as 
 unlettered and unpolished as the army of Hanumat." l 
 Sir William forgets that, more than a century before 
 Christ, the Britons had their Druids ; between whom 
 and the Brahmens, 2 in character, doctrines, and 
 acquirements, a remarkable similarity has been 
 traced. 3 
 
 The mere existence, however, of dramatic enter- 
 tainments has been held forth, in the case of the 
 
 1 Preface to Sir William Jones's Translation of Sacoutala. 
 
 * When the voluminous works of the Druids, or when any written speci- 
 mens of them are produced, we shall be better able to compare their learn- 
 ing with that of the Brahinans. Even if the testimony of such superficial and 
 credulous inquirers as the ancients undoubtedly were, be admitted, it will 
 not be denied that Sir William Jones's parallel is allowable. The Britons 
 were, if we may credit the same testimony, which vouches for "the learn- 
 ing " of the Druids, as unlettered and unpolished as the army of Hanumat : 
 they certainly had no theatrical amusements. W. 
 
 3 The conformities in their religious system have already been remarked. 
 All their doctrines, their narratives, and even the laws of which they were 
 the promulgators, were delivered in verse. " They had made considerable 
 progress," says Dr. Henry, " in several branches of learning. We shall 
 be confirmed in this," he adds, " by observing the respectful terms in which 
 the best Greek and Roman writers speak of their learning. Diogenes 
 Laertius places them in the same rank, in point of learning and philoso- 
 phy, with the Chaldeans of Assyria, the Magi of Persia, and the gymno- 
 sophists and Brachmans of India. Both Ctesar and Mela observe, that 
 they had formed very large systems of astronomy and natural philosophy ; 
 and that these systems, together with tkeir observations on other parts of 
 learning, were so voluminous, that their scholars spent no less than twenty 
 years in making themselves masters of them, and in getting by heart that 
 infinite multitude of verses in which they were contained." Henry's Hist, 
 of Great Britain, ii. 5, and i. 153.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 59 
 
 Hindus, as proof of a high state of civilization ; and BOOK H- 
 
 CHAF. 9. 
 
 Sir William Jones, whose imagination on the accom- 
 
 plishments of the orientals delighted to gild, thinks 
 the representation of Sacontala must have been some- 
 thing pre-eminently glorious; as the scenery must 
 have been striking ; and " as there is good reason," 
 he says, " to believe, that the court at Avanti was 
 equal in brilliancy, in the reign of Vicramaditya, to 
 that of any monarch in any age or country." 1 To 
 how great a degree this latter supposition is erro- 
 neous,, we shall presently see. In the mean time, 
 it is proper to remark, that nations may be acquainted 
 with dramatic entertainments, who have made but 
 little progress in knowledge and civilization. In 
 extent of dominion, power, and every thing on which 
 the splendour of a court depends, it will not, probably, 
 be alleged, that any Hindu sovereign ever surpassed 
 the present emperors of China. The Chinese, too, 
 are excessively fond of dramatic performances ; and 
 they excel in poetry as well as the Hindus ; yet our 
 British ambassador and his retinue found their dra- 
 matic representations very rude and dull entertain- 
 ments. 2 
 
 1 Preface to Sacontala. 
 
 2 " Wretched dramas," Lord Macartney calls them. Barrow's Life 
 of Lord Macartney, ii. 286. 
 
 Garcilasso de la Vega, on the subject of the ancient Peruvians, says, 
 " The Amautas, who were men of the best ingenuity among them, in- 
 vented comedies and tragedies, which in their solemn festivals they re- 
 presented before their king and the lords of his court. The plot or argu- 
 ment of their tragedies was to represent their military exploits, and the 
 triumphs, victories, and heroic actions of their renowned men." Royal 
 Commentaries of Peru, book ii. chap xv. 
 
 " Dramatic as well as lyric poetry,'' says Clavigero, " was greatly in 
 repute among the Mexicans." He then describes their theatres, and adds, 
 " Boturini says, that the Mexican comedies were excellent." Clavigero,
 
 (iO 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 As poetry is the first cultivated of all the branches 
 
 CHAT. 9. * 
 
 of literature, there is at least one remarkable instance, 
 that of Homer, to prove, that in a rude state of society 
 it may acquire extraordinary perfection. At a point 
 of civilization lower than that which we ascribe to 
 the Hindus, poetry has been produced more excellent 
 than theirs. From the effects produced by the poetic 
 declamations of the Druids, it is certain that they 
 must have possessed the faculty of working powerfully 
 on the imaginations and sympathies of their audience. 
 The Celtic poetry, ascribed to Ossian, and other bards, 
 which, whatever age, more recent or more remote, 
 controversy may assign for its date, is, beyond a doubt, 
 the production of a people whose ideas were extremely 
 scanty, and their manners rude, surpasses in every 
 point of excellence, the sterile extravagance of the 
 Hindus. 1 In so rude a state of society as that which 
 
 Hist, of Mexico, book vii. sect. 43. C..rli (Lettres Americaines, i. 296) 
 says, " Mais quc direz vous si je vous assure que les Peruviens jouoient 
 des comedies pendant ces fetes, et qu'ils aimoient passionnement ceplaisir. 
 Cela est cependant vrai. La comedie faisoit done uu des plaisirs du 
 Peru ; mais la tragedie eloit preferee & Tlascala, dont le peuple etoit repu- 
 blicain. Chez un peuple independant on se plait a produire les lyrans sur 
 la scene pour en inspirer la haine a la generation actuclle, qui la transmit 
 
 & la suivante Mais on a aussi remarque" ce gout du theatre chez 
 
 plusicurs peuplcs des ilcs du Sud." Bui an art which is known to the 
 islanders of the South Sea, is not a proof of high civilization. The people 
 in the Binnau empire are fond of dramatic entertainments; but these 
 entertainments among them are very rude. Dr. Buchanan, Asiat. Res. vi. 
 305. M. Of the Chinese drama, we are now qualified to judge, as well 
 as of the Hindu, by translations; and the comparison is much in favour of 
 the latter. The action of Chinese plays is unskilfully conducted, and 
 they are wanting in the high poetic tone which distinguishes those of the 
 Hindus ; at the same time they are ingenious, often interesting, and re- 
 present manners and feelings with truth, and sometimes with force. They 
 are the works of a civilized people. "Of the Peruvian and Mexican 
 theatre we may estimate the merits when specimens are produced. W. 
 
 1 The poems of Ossian are the impositions of a civilized age, founded 
 upon a few ancient traditions ; and their unnatural, and forced turgidity,
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 61 
 
 existed in Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, at the time of BOOK - 
 
 ' CHAP. 9. 
 
 our Anglo-Saxon monarchies, the number of poets, 
 
 and the power of their compositions, were exceed- 
 ingly great. 1 
 
 Even in that figurative and inflated style, which 
 has been supposed a mark of oriental composition, 
 and is, in reality, a mark only of a low stage of so- 
 ciety, uniformly discovered in the language of a 
 
 their want of truth, as pictures of manners, their barrenness of incidents, and 
 the absence of both simplicity and variety, render them unworthy to be 
 named with the authentic, natural and rich, although, sometimes, extra- 
 vagant inventions of the Hindus. W. 
 
 1 " The poets of the north" (to use the words of Dr. Henry) " were 
 particularly famous in this period, and greatly caressed by our Anglo- 
 Saxon kings. ' It would be endless,' (says an excellent antiquary) ' to 
 name all the poets of the north who flourished in the courts of the kings of 
 England, or to relate the distinguished honours and magnificent presents 
 that were heaped upon them." The same writer hath preserved the names 
 of no fewer than eight of those Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic poets, 
 who flourished in the Court of Canute the Great. The poems of those 
 ancient bards of the north, are said to have produced the most amazing 
 effects on those who heard them, and to have roused or soothed the most 
 impetuous passions of the human mind. Revenge, it is well known, rages 
 with the greatest violence in the hearts of warlike, fierce barbarians, and 
 is, of all their passions, the most furious and ungovernable : yet it is said 
 to have been subdued by the enchanting power of poetry. Egil-Skal- 
 lagrim, a famous poet of those times, had quarrelled with Eric Blodox, 
 King of Norway; and in the course of the quarrel had killed the King's 
 son and several of his friends ; which raised the rage of Eric against him 
 to the greatest height. Egil was taken prisoner, and sent to the King, 
 who was then in Northumberland. No sooner was he brought into the 
 presence of the enraged Monarch, who had in his own mind doomed him 
 to the most cruel tortures, than he began to sing a poem which he had 
 composed in praise of his royal virtues, and conveyed his flattery in such 
 sweet and soothing strains, that they procured him not only the forgive- 
 ness of all his crimes, but even the favour of his prince. The power of 
 poetry is thus described in one of their most ancient odes : ' I know a song 
 by which I soften and enchant the arms of my enemies, and render their 
 weapons of none effect. I know a song which I need only to sing when 
 men have loaded me with bonds ; for the moment I sing it my chains fall 
 in pieces, and I walk forth at liberty. I know a song useful to all man- 
 kind : for as soon as hatred inflames the sons of men, the moment I sing 
 it, they are appeased. I know a song of such virtue, that were I caught
 
 62 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. nu i e people, the poetry of the northern bards ex- 
 
 CHAP. 9. J 
 
 hibits a resemblance to that of the Hindus, the 
 
 Persians, Arabians, and other eastern nations. 1 
 " The style of these ancient poems," says Mallet, 
 " is very enigmatical and figurative, very remote 
 from common language ; and for that reason, grand, 
 but timid ; sublime, but obscure. If every thing 
 should be expressed by imagery, figures, hyperboles, 
 and allegories, the Scandinavians may rank in the 
 highest class of poets." For these peculiarities, 
 too, this author philosophically accounts. " The 
 soaring flights of fancy, may possibly more pe- 
 culiarly belong to a rude and uncultivated, than to 
 a civilized people. The great objects of nature strike 
 more forcibly on their imaginations. Their passions 
 
 in a storm, I can hush the winds, and render the air perfectly calm." 
 Those ancient bards, who had acquired so great an ascendant over the 
 minds of their ferocious countrymen, must certainly have been possessed 
 of an uncommon portion of that poetic fire, which is the gift of nature, 
 and cannot be acquired by art." Henry's Hist, of Great Britain, book 
 ii. chap. v. 
 
 1 This is repetition of an error already corrected. The poetry of Eng- 
 land might be classed with those of Persia and Arabia, with equal pro- 
 priety, as that of the Hindus. W. 
 
 * Mallet, Introd. Hist. Denmark, i. 13. The following is a very soft 
 but correct delineation of the rude features of Hindu poetry. "The po- 
 etical expression of the Hindus perhaps offends by too great loftiness and 
 emphasis. One may understand their books and conversation in prose ; 
 but it is impossible to comprehend those in verse, until diligent study has 
 rendered them familiar. Quaint phrases, perpetual allegories, the po- 
 etical terminations of the words, contracted expressions and the like, ren- 
 der the poetical style obscure and difficult to be understood, excepting to 
 those who are inured to it. One of the principal defects of the Hindu 
 poets is that their descriptions are commonly too long and minute. For 
 example, if they are describing a beautiful woman, they are never con- 
 tented with drawing her likeness with a single stroke Such a mode 
 
 of expression would not be strong enough for the gross comprehension of 
 a Hindu. The poet must particularize the beauty of her eyes, her fore- 
 head, her nose, her cheeks, and must expatiate on the colour of her skin, 
 and the manner in which she adorns every part of her body. He will
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 63 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 are not impaired by the constraint of laws and educa- CHAP. y. 
 tion. The paucity of their ideas, and the barrenness ~ 
 of their language, oblige them to borrow from all 
 nature images in which to clothe their conceptions." l 
 The poetry of the Persians resembles that of the Ara- 
 bians ; both resemble that of the Hindus ; both have 
 been celebrated in still higher strains, and are entitled 
 to more of our admiration. The Persians have their 
 great historic poem, the Shah Namu, corresponding 
 to the Mahabharat or Ramayan of the Hindus. It em- 
 braces a period of 3700 years, and consists of 60,000 
 rhymed couplets. On this poem the most lofty epi- 
 thets of praise have been bestowed ; and a part of it, 
 embracing a period of 300 years, Sir William Jones 
 
 describe the turn and proportion of her arms, legs, thighs, shoulders, 
 chest, and. in a word, of all parts, visible or invisible ; -with an accurate 
 recital of the shape and form which best indicate their beauty and sym- 
 metry. He will never desist from his colouring till he has represented in 
 detail every feature and part in the most laboured and tedious style, but 
 at the same time with the closest resemblance. The epithets, in their 
 poetical style, are frequent, and almost always figurative. The brevity 
 and conciseness of many modes of expression in the Hindu idioms does 
 not hinder their style, upon the whole, from being extremely diffuse. To 
 give an exact idea of the different species of Hindu poesy would not be 
 much relished by the greater number of readers, so different in their man- 
 ner from ours. All their little pieces that I have seen are in general very 
 flat." Description, &c. of the People of India, by the Abbe Dubois, 
 p. 267. 
 
 1 Mallet, ut supra. In the very subjects of their poems, as well as the 
 style of them, the Scandinavian bards bore a great resemblance to the 
 Hindu. Of the poetry of the Scalds, Mallet says, Ibid. ii. 183, " The same 
 taste and mode of composition prevails every where : we have constantly 
 allegories and combats ; giants contending with the gods ; Loke perpetually 
 deceiving them ; Thor interposing in their defence, &c." The Scandina- 
 vians had not only striking poems, but treatises on the art ef poetry. Id. 
 Introduction to the Edda, p. xix. Clavigero says of the Mexicans, " The 
 language of their poetry was brilliant, pure, and agreeable, figurative, and 
 embellished with frequent comparisons to the most pleasing objects in na- 
 ture, such as flowers, trees, rivers, &c." Hist, of Mex. book vii. sect. 42.
 
 > HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HC 10 Kir 
 CHAP. 9. selects as itself a whole ; a poem tnily epic, of which 
 
 - the merit hardly yields to that of the Iliad itself. 1 
 We shall speak of it in the language of an oriental 
 scholar, who has made the literature of Persia more 
 peculiarly his study than Sir William Jones. The 
 Shah Namu, says Mr. Scott Waring, " has probably 
 been praised as much for its length as its intrinsic 
 merit. When we allow it is unequalled in the East, 
 we must pause before we pronounce it to be equal, 
 or to approach very nearly, to the divinest poem of 
 the West. The stories in the Shah Namu," he says, 
 " are intricate and perplexed, and as they have a re- 
 lation to each other, they can only be understood by 
 a knowledge of the whole. Episodes are interwoven 
 in episodes ; peace and war succeed each other ; and 
 centuries pass away without making any alteration in 
 the conduct of the poem the same prince continues 
 to resist the Persian arms ; the same hero leads them 
 to glory and the subterfuge of supposing two Afra- 
 siabs or two Roostums, betrays, at least, the intri- 
 cacy and confusion of the whole fable. The charac- 
 ter of Nestor answered the most important ends, his 
 eloquence and experience had a wonderful effect in 
 soothing the contentions of a divided council ; but 
 the age of Zal or of Roostum answers no purpose, for 
 they only share longevity in common with their fellow- 
 creatures." In many instances, he adds, " the poet is 
 tedious and uninteresting. He is often too minute ; 
 
 1 The words of Sir William Jones are : " Nobilissimum interea, et longis- 
 simum (voluminis enim permagni, prope dimidiam partem constituit) est 
 sine ulla dubitatione vere epicum, et profccto nullum est ab Europeis scrip- 
 turn poema, quod ad Homeri dignitatem, et quasi coclestem ardorem pro- 
 pius accedat." Works, ii. 502.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 65 
 
 and by making his description particular makes it BOOK n. 
 
 . i . i . CHAP. 9. 
 
 ridiculous. An example of this may be given in his 
 
 description of the son of Ukwan Deo ; which instead 
 of expressing his immense size by some bold figure, 
 gives us his exact measure : He was one hundred 
 yards high and twenty broad" 1 With respect to the 
 style of this as well as of other Persian poets, the 
 same author informs us, that " the style of the most 
 admired Persian authors is verbose and turgid ; the 
 mind is filled with words and epithets, and you pro- 
 bably meet with several quibbles and monstrous ima- 
 ges before you arrive at one fact." 2 And in another 
 passage he says, " The Persian poets, in all their 
 similes or comparisons, fall infinitely below medio- 
 crity." 3 
 
 1 Tour to Sheeraz, by Ed. Scott Waring, pp. 158, 159, 160, 198. 
 * Ibid. p. 150. The author adds, " I shall give one instance from an im- 
 mense number, of the forced images of Persian historians ; it would be 
 disgusting to the reader to produce others : " a style of which more than 
 one instance would disgust must be a bad style indeed. " Nous savons 
 assez," says Voltaire, " que le bon gout n'a jamais etc connu dans 1'Orient. 
 Otez aux Arabes, aux Persans, aux Juifs, le soleil et la lune, les mon- 
 tagnes et les vallees, les dragons et les basiliscs, il ne leur reste presque 
 plus de poesie." Voltaire, Essai sur les Mosurs et 1'Esprit de Nations, 
 torn. i. ch. v. 
 
 3 Tour to Sheeraz, ut supra, p. 235. To the imagination of the eastern 
 poets, and above all, of the Hindus, may be aptly applied, in many of its 
 particulars, the description of the Demoness, Imagination, in the en- 
 chanted castle of Hermaphrodix : 
 
 Sous les grands arcs d'un immense portique, 
 
 Amas confus de moderne et d'antique, 
 
 Se promenoit un fant&me brillant, 
 
 Au pied leger, a 1'oeil etincelant, 
 
 Au geste vif, a la marche egaree, 
 
 La tte haute, et de clinquans paree. 
 
 On voit son corps toujours en action, 
 
 Et son nom est 1' 'Imagination, 
 
 Non cette belle et charmante deesse 
 
 Qui presida dans Rome et dans la Grece t 
 
 VOL. II. F
 
 66 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. ^ g goon as reas on begins to have considerable in- 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 - fluence in the direction of human affairs, no use of 
 letters is deemed more important than that of pre- 
 serving an accurate record of those events and actions 
 by which the interests of the nation have been pro- 
 moted or impaired. But the human mind must have 
 a certain degree of culture, before the value of such a 
 memorial is perceived. The actions of his nation, or 
 of his countrymen, which the rude and untutored 
 barbarian is excited to remember, are those which he 
 wonders at and admires ; and they are remembered 
 solely for the pleasure of those emotions. Exaggera- 
 tion, therefore, is more fitted to his desires than ex- 
 actness ; and poetry than history. Swelled by fiction, 
 and set off with the embellishments of fancy, the 
 scene lays hold of his imagination, and kindles his 
 passions. All rude nations, even those to whom the 
 use of letters has long been familiar, neglect history, 
 and are gratified with the productions of the mytho- 
 logists and poets. l 
 
 Aux beaux travaux de tant de grands auteurs, 
 
 Qiu repandit 1'eclat de ses couleurs ; 
 
 Mais celle-la qu'abjure le ban sens, 
 
 Cette etourdie, tffarke, insipide, 
 
 Que tant d'auteurs, approchent de si pres. 
 
 Pres d'elle e"toit le Galimatias, 
 Monstre bavard caresse dans ses bras. 
 
 La Pucclle d'Orleans, Chant 17me. 
 
 Gibbon well denominates the Koran, " an endless incoherent rhapsody 
 of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment 
 or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in 
 the clouds." Chap. 1. p, 269. Yet it is a superior composition to any 
 work among the Hindus. M. This is boldly said ; especially as the 
 means of comparison were wholly wanting. It would be as reasonable to 
 compare the Koran with the Iliad, as with the Mahabharat, but a critic 
 of the school of Voltaire is as little likely to exhibit diffidence of judg- 
 ment as purity of taste. W. 
 1 The mistake which runs through most of our author's generalizations
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 67 
 
 It is allowed on all hands that no historical compo- BOOK u. 
 
 1 CHAP. 9. 
 
 sition existed in the literature of the Hindus ; they 
 
 had not reached that point of intellectual maturity, 
 at which the value of a record of the past for the 
 guidance of the future begins to be understood. 
 " The Hindus," says that zealous and industrious 
 Sanscrit scholar, Mr. Wilford, " have no ancient civil 
 history." Remarking a coincidence in this charac- 
 teristic circumstance between them and another an- 
 cient people, he adds, "Nor had the Egyptians any 
 
 is here committed ; that of drawing universal inferences from particular 
 instances : because the Greeks early cultivated history, therefore all other 
 people who have emerged from barbarism, cultivate history ; the Hindus 
 have neglected this branch of literature ; therefore, they are still barba- 
 rians. But, as no one but the writer would so regard them, we must look 
 to other causes, to explain what may be admitted, with some reservation, 
 to be true. It is not correct to say that the Hindus never compiled his- 
 tory, particularly since the Mohammedan conquest. The literature of the 
 south abounds with local histories by Hindu authors. Mr. Stirling found 
 various chronicles in Orissa, and Col. Tod, has met with equally abundant 
 materials in Rajputana. The history of Cashmir has been brought down 
 by a succession of Hindu authors, from the remotest ages to the reign of 
 Akbar, and an account of Akbar's reign is the work of a Hindu. See 
 Mackenzie Collection. As. Res. vol. xv- and Tod's Rajasthan. It is, 
 however, true, that the details of ancient times, though more authentic 
 than they are presently represented to be, are few and imperfect, and there 
 are various causes to account for this more satisfactorily than inapplicable 
 generalities. The bias of the Hindu mind was from the first directed to 
 matters of speculation, and it has never attached such value or interest to 
 the concerns of ephemeral mortality, as to deem them worthy of record. 
 The duty of preserving the memory of all such events was transferred from 
 the Brahman to an inferior order of men ; the bard, the herald, the gene- 
 alogist : whose compilations were never invested with any degree of im- 
 portance ; nor, in general, were they probably of much worth. India 
 appears tn have been, with perhaps some rare exceptions, parcelled out 
 into a great number of petty states, whose transactions were of too in- 
 significant a character, whose duration was too brief, whose influence 
 upon the fortunes of the country was too confined to have offered events 
 that were deserving of commemoration. In later times, the Hindu has 
 had still less inducement to cultivate history, as it would have been little 
 else than a record of his own humiliation, a chronicle of centuries of sub- 
 jection to foreign rule. W. 
 
 * 2
 
 68 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. wor fc purely historical." ! Major Rennel says, that, 
 _l!^L_ founded on Hindu materials, there is no known his- 
 tory of Hindustan, nor any record of the historical 
 events of that country prior to the Mahomedan con- 
 quests ; s and since that period, it is not to Hindu, but 
 Mahomedan pens that we are indebted for all our 
 knowledge of the Mahomedan conquests, and of the 
 events which preceded the passage to India by the Cape 
 of Good Hope. 3 An inclination at first appeared among 
 
 1 WHford, on Egypt and the Nile, Asiat. Res. iiL 296. 
 * Rennel's Memoir, Introd. p. xL 
 
 3 " That no Hindu nation, but the Cashmirians, hare left us regular 
 histories," says Sir W. Jones, " in their ancient language, ire must ever 
 lament." Asiat. Res. iv. xriL What he meant by excepting the Cask- 
 TTnrian< -we know not. No history of them has ever been seen. " Al- 
 tkoogh we have had recourse," says Dr. Tennant, " to the Sanscrit records 
 at Benares for seTcral years, no history of the country has been found, 
 which is the composition of a native." Ind. Rec, L 10. " Their poets," 
 says Mr. W. Chambers, " seem to hare been their only historians as well 
 1* divines ; and whatever they relate is wrapped up in this burlesque garb, 
 set off, by way of ornament, with circumstances highly incredible and 
 absurd, and all this without any date, and in no order or method, than 
 sack as the poet's fancy suggested and found most convenient. Asiat. 
 Res. L 157. Such is the character of the Puranas, from which Mr. Wilford 
 kas exerted himself with such a waste of labour and credulity to extract 
 soave scattered fragments of history ; or rather something, it is difficult to 
 say what, on which some few historical inferences might be founded. 
 " Tfc JajaMpaafc of ancient history in the East is so deformed by fable 
 and anachronism, that it may be considered an absolute blank in Indian 
 literature." Wflks's Mysore, Pref. p. XT. Mr. Dow's prejudices went 
 fu: "We mat not," says he, (Preface to his Hist, of Hindostan) " with 
 the Hindoos as destitute of genuine domestic annals, or 
 t they poaaess are mere legends framed by the 
 Yet it has been found that all whioh Ferishta said was true, 
 and aH that CoL Dow believed was fclse. " Serioxisly speaking, the turn 
 : of the imagination of the people of India are sock, that they can 
 be excited but by what a monstrous. Ordinary occurrences 
 upon them at all. . Their attention cannot be gained 
 of giants and pygmies. The Brahmans, tkere- 
 d this propensity, availed themselves of it to invent a 
 
 p, which they artfully interwove with their own private 
 interest*, Tkis paaskn of the Hindus for the extraordinary and the won-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 69 
 
 the warm admirers of Sanscrit to regard the poems 
 
 OU.F. 9. 
 
 Mahabharat and Ramayan, as a sort of historical re- 
 cords. A more intimate acquaintance with those 
 grotesque productions has demonstrated the impossi- 
 bility of reconciling them with the order of human 
 affairs, and. as the only expedient to soften the de- 
 formities in which they abound, suggested a theory 
 that they are allegorical. l 
 
 derful must have been remarked by every one who has ever so little stadiad 
 their character. It continually Leads to the observation I hare so fre- 
 jaaary repeated, that as often as it was neceaaary to nave their gross 
 imagination, some circuiaafcaaee, aftoprtierextravagaa*, bo* coloured with 
 the hue of truth, was required to be added to the aimaficity of narrative or 
 fact. To give them any idea, of the marveOoos, aomtAimf mast to m- 
 vented that will overturn, or at leaat after t&ewbjate aaier of 
 
 to a common understanding. are by no means so to tie Hindu. Upon 
 them they have no effect. The expiaaB of Josbna, ami las army, and the 
 aaBaapes they effected by the interposition of Gad, in the conquest of the 
 land of Canaan, seem to Aem mrworthy of notice, when compared with 
 
 ~ . "". ; ~ .. ~ ^ 1 _--..-. -,1 _ -1 ~1_ f. - " . .".1I1~1_? 
 
 progress when he subjected Ceylon to Ms yoke. The mizhty strength of 
 Samaon dwindles into nothing, when opposed to the overwkeJmraajenerfj 
 
 pies, neejuae they have been actually opposed to me mace tban once by 
 Bkabmans, in my disputations with, them on rdudan." Abbe Dobois, 
 p. 421. 
 
 * Such is the opinion of some of the best < **wn iP scholars ; Sx example, 
 af Mr. Wlmiaa. Toe same idea, is encouraged by Sir William Jones, Aaam. 
 135. The good sense of Major Renael rejected at an early period 
 the notion of their historical troth. ~ The Mahabharat. .. .supposed to 
 contain a large portion of interesting' historical matter : bat if the lather of 
 flbtnim poetry made so total a change in the story of Helen, in order to 
 give a toll scope to his imagination ; what security have we 
 poet may not mislead us in m*tm of fact." Memoir, p. via A : 
 of greater compass and force had previously said 
 orote the &ble of the Iliad or the Odyssey, the legends of : 
 sens, or CMpuiy as art&orHJgH in natter of &et relating to the history of 
 mankind; but they may, with, great justice, be cited to ascertain what 
 were the conceptions and sentiments of the age in which, they were com- 
 posed, or to cfraractrrBH? t&e genas of that people, with whose !',? 
 toons they were blended, ami by whom they were fondly rehearsed and 
 admired." Ferguson, Essay on the Hist, of Civil Society, part ii. sect. 1.
 
 -Q HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. The ancient Persians, who used the Pehlivi lan- 
 
 - guage, appear in this respect to have resembled the 
 
 Hindus, " I never," says Sir John Malcolm, have 
 
 been able to hear of the existence of any work in the 
 
 ancient Pehlivi that could be deemed historical." ' 
 
 The modern Persians, in this, as in many other 
 respects, are found to have made some progress 
 beyond the ancient Persians, and beyond the Hindus. 
 The first step towards the attainment of perfect 
 history is the production of prose compositions, ex- 
 pressly destined to exhibit a record of real transac- 
 tions, but in which imagination prevails over exact- 
 ness, and a series of transactions appears in which 
 the lines of reality can but faintly be traced. With 
 histories of this description the Persians abound ; 
 but " the Persians," says Mr. Scott Waring, " do not 
 make a study of history ; consequently their histories 
 abound with idle tales, and extravagant fables." 5 
 Another celebrated Persian scholar says : " The 
 Persians, like other people, have assumed the privi- 
 lege of romancing on the early periods of society. 
 The first dynasty is, in consequence, embarrassed by 
 fabling. Their most ancient princes are chiefly 
 celebrated for their victories over the demons or 
 genii called dives ; and some have reigns assigned 
 
 1 Hist, of Persia, i. 273. Yet the Jewish scriptures tell us, that the 
 deeds of the kings of Persia were written in chronicles of that kingdom ; 
 and Ctesias, who was at the court of Artaxeraes Mncmon, says he had 
 otew to volumes contained in the royal archives. The Persians had no 
 historians before the era of Mohammed ; Kinneir's Geog. Mem. of the 
 Persian Empire, p. 49. In Persia, there is now, as there has long been, a 
 royal historiographer, whose business it is to record the glories of the 
 reigning prince. Ibid. 
 
 * Tour to Shccraz, p. 152. 
 
 I
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 
 
 to them of eight hundred or a thousand years." 1 
 On the comparison of the Grecian and native his- 
 tories of Persia, he says, " There seems to be nearly 
 as much resemblance between the annals of England 
 and Japan, as between the European and Asiatic 
 relations of the same empire." The names and 
 numbers of the kings, as exhibited by the historians 
 of the two countries, have no analogy. No mention 
 in the Persian annals is made of the Great Cyrus, 
 nor of any king of Persia, the events of whose reign 
 can, by any construction, be tortured into a simili- 
 tude with his. No trace is to be found of Croesus, 
 of Cambyses, or of his expedition against the Ethi- 
 opians; none of Smerdis Magus, or of Darius 
 Hystaspes: " not a vestige of the famous battles of 
 Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea, or Mycale, 
 nor of the mighty expedition of Xerxes." 2 
 
 1 Richardson's Dissertations, p. 47. 
 
 8 Richardson's Dissertations, p. 47 to 60. He gives us the following 
 as the account, by the Persian historians, of the conquest of Alexander. 
 Bahmau, the King, had married his own daughter. When he died, 
 leaving her pregnant, he appointed her his successor, if she had no son ; 
 and regent, if she had one. The lady wished to reign ; and being deli- 
 vered of a son, concealed his birth. He was exposed, but found, and 
 brought up by a dyer. When grown to manhood he joined the Queen's 
 army, which was marching against the Greeks, and performed prodigies 
 of valour. The Queen sent for him ; he was recognised, and the Queen 
 resigned. He became King Darab. He marched against Philip of Ma- 
 cedon, and forced him to take refuge in a forest. Peace was granted, on 
 Philip's giving his daughter to Darab, and paying annually a thousand 
 eggs of gold. Philip's daughter ceased to please, and Darab sent her back 
 after she was pregnant. The child she brought forth was the famous 
 Alexander. The son of Darab, who succeeded him, proved so bad a king, 
 thac the nobles of Persia advised Alexander to assert his right to the 
 throne. Alexander refused the annual tribute. Darab, the younger, 
 marched against him, and was conquered. After the battle he was assas- 
 sinated in his tent by his attendants. But Alexander protested his igno- 
 rance of the crime, and Darab named him his successor, requesting him to 
 govern Persia by Persian nobles, which he did. Ibid. In another pas- 
 
 71
 
 72 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 B c "' On the geography and chronology, as parts of 
 - the literature of the Hindus, I shall express myself 
 in the language of Mr. Wilford. "The Hindus," says 
 that celebrated Hindu scholar, "have no regular 
 work on the subject of geography, or none at least 
 that ever came to my knowledge. 1 I was under a 
 
 sage (Ibid. p. 326) he acknowledges that no account is found in the Per- 
 sian historians of the expedition of Cyrus the younger. The story of 
 Alexander, as told by Sir John Malcolm, in his late history of Persia, is 
 similar, though not the same. Mr. Gibbon says well, " The art and ge- 
 nius of history has ever been unknown to the Asiatics And 
 
 perhaps the Arabs might not find in a single historian, so clear and com- 
 prehensive a narrative of their own exploits as will be deduced in the en- 
 suing sheets." Gibbon, chap. li. Chardin, speaking of the ignorance of 
 the Persians, in regard to geography and history, says, " On ne croiroit 
 jamais que cette ignorance fut aussi outree qu'elle Test, et je ne Paurois 
 pu croire moi-meme, si je ne m'en etois convaincu par un long usage .... 
 Pour ce qui est de Phistoire du pays, les livres qui en traiteut ne sont 
 clalrs et surs, et ne se suivent, que depuis la naissance de la religion Ma- 
 hometane ; de maniere qu'on ne se peut fier a rien de ce qui est rapportee 
 de sie"cles precedens, surtout en matie're de chronologic, oft ces gens com- 
 mettent les plus grossieres erreurs, confondant les siecles, et mettant tout 
 pe'le-me'le sans se soucier du terns. Toutes ces histoires, jusqu'au terns de 
 Muhammed, sont des pieces ou fabuleuses ou Romanesques, rcmplies de 
 mille contes ou il n'y a rien de vraisemblable." Voyage en Perse, iii. 256. 
 And Gibbon says, (Hist, of Decl. and Fall, ch. x. p. 442.) " So little 
 has been preserved of Eastern history before Mahomet, that the modern 
 Persians are totally ignorant of the victory of Sapor, an event so glorious 
 to their nation." " When the Romans had snpplanted the Greeks, and 
 extended their dominion over all Europe, they also engaged in endless 
 wars with the Persian kings of the Ashkanian and Sassanian dynasties, 
 for these Asiatic provinces. The events of these early periods are not well 
 described in our histories, as we have no authentic records prior to the 
 time of Mohammed : But the Greeks, who have histories which extend 
 back 2000 years, have minutely described all the circumstances of these 
 wars." Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan, translated by Charles Stewart, 
 Esq. M.A.S. Professor of Oriental Languages, in the Hon. East India 
 Company's College, Herts, iii. 23. 
 
 1 Hindu literature is not devoid of sensible and correct geography, as 
 far as India is concerned. The general geography of the Puranas, is my- 
 thology. But even they declare the topography of the country .[mountains, 
 and rivers, and cities, with perfect fidelity. Col. Wilford's later as well 
 as his earlier notions, should have been cited. In the fourteenth volume
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 73 
 
 necessity of extracting my materials from their his- BOOK n. 
 
 * J CHAP. 9. 
 
 torical poems, or as they may be called more pro- 
 
 perly, their legendary tales. "In another place he says, 
 "The Hindu systems of geography, chronology, and 
 history, are all equally monstrous and absurd. The 
 circumference of the earth is said to be 500,000,000 
 yojanas, or 2,456,000,000 British miles : the 
 mountains are asserted to be 100 yojanas, or 491 
 British miles high. Hence the mountains to the 
 south of Benares are said, in the Puranas, to have 
 kept the holy city in total darkness, till Maha-deva 
 growing angry at their insolence, they humbled 
 themselves to the ground, and their highest peak 
 now is not more than 500 feet high. In Europe, 
 similar notions once prevailed ; for we are told that 
 the Cimmerians were kept in continual darkness by 
 the interposition of immensely high mountains. In 
 the Calica Purana, it is said that the mountains 
 have sunk considerably, so that the highest is not 
 above one yojana, or five miles high. When the 
 Puranics speak of the kings of ancient times, they 
 are equally extravagant. According to them, King 
 Yudhishthir reigned 27,000 years; King Nanda 
 is said to have possessed in his treasury above 
 1 ,584,000,000 pounds sterling in gold coin alone ; 
 the value of the silver and copper coin, and jewels, 
 
 of the Researches, is a paper on the ancient geography of India, from 
 original sources, which had latterly come into his hands ; and from which 
 rational and accurate accounts of India were to be extracted. Col Wilford 
 announced his intention of making the originals over to the Asiatic Society 
 of Bengal; but the intention wasnever fulfilled. The MSS. disappeared 
 at his death, except a few loose leaves, from some of which I translated a 
 description of the western districts of Bengal, containing much curious 
 and authentic information. Oriental Quarterly Magazine. See also Vishnu 
 Purana. W.
 
 CMAf. 9. 
 
 74 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 " exceeded all calculation: and his army consisted of 
 100000,000 men. These accounts, geographical, 
 chronological, and historical, as absurd and incon- 
 sistent with reason, must be rejected. This mon- 
 strous system seems to derive its origin from the 
 ancient period of 12,000 natural years, which was 
 admitted by the Persians, the Etruscans, and, 3 
 believe, also by the Celtic tribes; for we read of 
 a learned nation in Spain, which boasted of having 
 written histories of above six thousand years." 
 
 It is an error to suppose, that for the origin of 
 unprofitable speculations respecting the nature and 
 properties of thought, great progress in civilization 
 is required. The fears and hopes, the conceptions 
 and speculations, respecting the Divine Nature, and 
 respecting a future state of existence, lead to inquiries 
 concerning the invisible operations of the mind. If 
 we consult but history, we shall be led to conclude, 
 that certain curious, and subtle, but idle questions, 
 respecting the mental operations, are a mark, not 
 of a cultivated, but a rude state of society. 2 It was 
 
 Sec Wilford on Egypt and the Nile, Asiat. Res. iii. 295 ; and on the 
 Chronology of the Hindus, Ibid. r. 241. 
 
 Mr. Mill had no other key to the philosophy of the Hindus, than the 
 imperfect views conveyed in a few verses of the laws of Manu. His 
 opinion of its character and value, is necessarily erroneous. Of his criti- 
 cism on the passages in the Code, it may be remarked, that besides being 
 as usual uncandid, he makes no allowance for the difficulty of expressing 
 terms, which in the original, have a determinate import, by others which 
 have no precise and definite signification ; and he forgets that in Manu, 
 the ideas are enounced, not explained. The object of the writer not being 
 to teach philosophy, but to detail the evolution of the mind, and the rest, 
 in the order in which certain philosophical schools had arranged them. 
 With regard to the writer's theory, that the cultivation of metaphysics is a 
 proof rather of barbarism than of civilization, it may be asked if Locke. 
 Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Schelling, were barbarians. That men 
 when they begin to reason, should reason respecting their own being is 
 natural ; but time, and thought, and intellectual effort, arc necessary be-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 75 
 
 during an age of darkness and barbarity, that meta- BOOK n. 
 
 physical speculations engaged so passionately the 
 
 minds of the European doctors ; and called forth 
 examples of the greatest acuteness and subtlety. It 
 was prior to the dawn of true philosophy, that the 
 sophists, whose doctrine was a collection of inge- 
 nious quibbles on abstract questions, enjoyed their 
 celebrity in Greece. Pythagoras flourished at a very 
 early age ; and yet there is a high degree of subtle 
 ingenuity in the doctrines he is said to have taught. 
 Amid the rudeness of the Celtic inhabitants of Gaul 
 and Britain, the Druids carried, we know not how 
 far, the refinements of metaphysical speculation. 
 Strabo, as quoted by Dr. Henry, 1 says, " The Druids 
 add the study of moral philosophy to that of phy- 
 siology. 2 Ammianus Marcellinus informs us, that 
 the inhabitants of Gaul, having been by degrees a 
 little polished, the study of some branches of useful 
 learning was introduced among them by the bards, 
 the Eubates, and the Druids. The Eubates made 
 researches into the order of things, and endeavoured 
 to lay open the most hidden secrets of nature. The 
 Druids were men of a still more sublime and pene- 
 trating spirit, and acquired the highest renown by 
 
 fore their reasonings can assume systematic and diversified classification, 
 The metaphysical speculations of the Hindus are now more accurately 
 known and estimated. " La philosophic Indienne est tellement vaste que 
 tous les systemes de philosophic s'y rencontrent, qu'elle forme tout un monde 
 philosophique, et qu'on peut dire a la lettre que 1'histoire de la philosophic 
 de PInde est un abrege de 1'histoire entiere de la Philosophic." Coursde 
 1'histoire de la Philosophic par M.V. Cousin. This opinion, it is important 
 to observe, is founded not upon a few scattered and imperfect notions, 
 but the elaborate dissertations of Mr. Colebrooke. Trans. R. As. Society. 
 Professor Cousin, was therefore acquainted with his subject. W. 
 1 Hist, of Great Britain, ii. 4. 2 Strabo, lib, iv. p. 197.
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ii. their speculations, which were at once subtle and 
 l,,fty." ' The progress which the Arabians made in 
 a semblance of abstract science has been highly 
 celebrated. The following observations, borrowed 
 from one of the most intelligent of the Europeans by 
 whom they have been studied, will enable us to 
 appreciate their metaphysical science. Of the Ara- 
 bians, he says, even at the brightest period of their 
 history, the Europeans have been prone to form 
 too favourable, indeed extravagant ideas. 2 Their 
 best writers are the translators or copiers of the 
 Greeks. The only study peculiar to them, a study 
 which they continue to cultivate, is that of their 
 own language. But by the study of language, 
 among the Arabians, we must not understand that 
 philosophical spirit of research, which in words 
 investigates the history of ideas, in order to perfect 
 the art by which they are communicated. The study 
 is cultivated solely on account of its connexion with 
 religion. As the word of God, conveys the mean- 
 ing of God, no conceivable nicety of investigation 
 is ever too much to eh'cit that meaning in its divine 
 purity. For this reason, it is of the highest moment 
 to ascertain not only the exact signification of the 
 words, but likewise the accents, inflections, signs, 
 and pauses ; in a word, all the most minute niceties 
 of prosody and pronunciation ; and it is impossible 
 
 1 Ammian. Marcell. lib. XT. cap. ix. 
 
 * The high civilization, refined literature, beautiful language, profound 
 philosophy, polished manners, and amiable morals of the Arabians, are 
 celebrated in the highest strains, by M. de Boulainvilliers, Vie de Ma- 
 homet, p. 33; Ed.of Amsterdam, 1731. Pythagoras, after having studied 
 the sciences of the Egyptians, travelled into Arabia to learn the philosophy 
 of the Arabians. Porphyr. dc Vit. Pythag.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 77 
 
 to conceive to what a degree of complication they BOOK n - 
 
 have invented and refined on this subject, without 
 
 having heard their declamations in the mosques. 
 The grammar alone takes several years to acquire. 
 Next is taught the nahou, which may be defined 
 the science of terminations, These, which are 
 foreign to the vulgar Arabic, are superadded to 
 words, and vary according to the numbers, cases, 
 genders, and person. After this, the student, now 
 walking among the learned, is introduced to the 
 study of eloquence. For this, years are required ; 
 because the doctors, mysterious like the Brahmens, 
 impart their treasures only by degrees. At length 
 arrives the time for the study of the law and the 
 Fikah ; or science peculiarly so called : by which 
 they mean theology. If it be considered that the 
 object of these studies is always the Koran; that it 
 is necessary to be acquainted with all its mystical 
 and allegorical meanings, to read all its commen- 
 taries and paraphrases, of which there are 200 
 volumes on the first verse ; and to dispute on thou- 
 sands of ridiculous cases of conscience ; it cannot 
 but be allowed that one may pass one's whole life 
 in learning much and knowing nothing. l It is 
 vain, as the same author still further remarks, to 
 tell us of colleges, places of education, and books : 
 These words, in the regions of which we are treat- 
 ing, convey not the same ideas as with us. 2 The 
 
 1 Volney's Travels in Egypt and Syria, ii. 434. " In two recent voy- 
 ages into Egypt," says Gibbon, (Hist, of Dec. and Fall, &c. ix. 448.) 
 " we are amused by Savary, and instructed by Volney. I wish the latter 
 could travel over the globe." " The last and most judicious," he calls 
 him, " of our Syrian travellers," Ibid. p. 224. 
 
 * Volney, ut Supra, p. 443.
 
 78 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Turks, though signal, even among rude nations, 
 1 for their ignorance, are not without speculations of 
 a similar nature, which hy superficial observers have 
 been taken for philosophy. " Certain it is," says 
 Sir James Porter, " That there are among the 
 Turks many philosophical minds. They have the 
 whole systems of the Aristotelian and Epicurean phi- 
 losophy translated into their own language." ! " The 
 metaphysical questions," says Gibbon, " on the 
 attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have 
 been agitated in the schools of Mahomedans, as 
 well as in those of the Christians." ' And Mr. 
 Elphinstone informs us, that if the rude Afghaun is 
 ever stimulated to any degree of literary activity, it 
 is when pursuing the subtletes of metaphysical 
 speculation. 3 
 
 These facts coincide with a curious law of human 
 nature, which some eminent philosophers have 
 
 1 Observations on the Religion, Laws, Government, and Manners of 
 the Turks, p. 39. Most, if not all, the Arabian versions of the Greek 
 anthers, were done by the Christian subjects of the caliphs. See Gibbon, 
 ch. lii. The same is probably the origin of the Turkish versions. What 
 use, if any, they make of them, does not appear. Mr. Scott Waring says, 
 " The science of the Persians is, I believe, extremely confined. They 
 have translations of Euclid, Ptolemy, the works of Plato, Aristotle, 
 Pythagoras, and some other of the Grecian philosophers, which few of 
 them read, and fewer understand." Tour to Sheeraz, p. 254. 
 
 Hist of Decline and Fall, &c. ch. i. Mr. Forster mentions a Mus- 
 sulman fellow-traveller, a disputant, who, says he, " unhappily for himself 
 and his neighbours, had conned over some of those books of ingenious 
 devices and quaint syllogisms, which are held in high note among the 
 modern Mahometans, and hare Bxed among them a false distorted taste.'. 
 Tiatel* in India, p. 106. 
 
 " There is generally a want of ardour in pursuit of knowledge among 
 the Asiatic., which is partaken by the Afghauns; excepting, however, in 
 the science* of dialectics and metaphysics, in which they take much 
 intere*, and have made no contemptible progress." Elphinstone's 
 Account of Caubul, p. 189.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 79 
 
 already remarked. The highest abstractions are BOOK n. 
 
 * . CHAP. 9. 
 
 not the last result of mental culture, and intellectual ___ 
 
 strength; it is discovered, that some of our most 
 general and comprehensive notions are formed at 
 that very early period, when the mind, with little 
 discriminating power, is apt to lump together things 
 which have but few points of resemblance ; and that 
 we break down these genera into species more and 
 more minute in proportion as our knowledge be- 
 comes more extensive, more particular, and precise. 
 The propensity to abstract speculations is then the 
 natural result of the state of the human mind in a 
 rude and ignorant age. 1 
 
 The Vedanti doctrine, which has caught the fancy 
 of some of the admirers of Sanscrit, appears to be 
 delivered viva voce, and solely in that mode. 2 As 
 
 1 The clearest accounts I have seen of this important fact, which Mr. 
 Dugald Stewart (Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, ii. 231,) 
 appears not to have knowu that any body had noticed but M. Turgot, is in 
 the following passage of Condillac. " Mais il faut observer, qu'une fois 
 qu'un enfant commenee a generaliser, il rend une idee aussi etendue 
 qu'elle peut 1'etre, e'est-a-direqu'il se hate de donner le memenom a tous 
 les objets qui se ressemblent grossi&rement, et il lescomprend tous dans une 
 seule classe. Les ressemblances sont les premieres choses qui le frappent, 
 parce qu'il ne sait pas encore assez analyser pour distinguer les objets 
 par les qualites qui leur sont propres. II n'imaginera done des classes 
 moms generales, que lorsqu'il aura appris a observer par oil les choses 
 different. Le mot komme, par exemple, est d'abord pour lui une denomi- 
 nation commune, sous laquelle il comprend indistinctement tous les 
 hommes. Mais lorsque dans la suite il aura occasion de connoitre les 
 differentes conditions, il fera aussit6t les classes subordonnees et moins 
 generales de militaires, de magistrats, de bourgeois, d'artisans, de labou- 
 reurs, &c. ; tel est done 1'ordre de la generation des idees. On passe tout 
 a coup de 1'individu au genre, pour descendre ensuite aux diiferentes 
 especes qu'on multiplie d'autant plus qu'on acquiert plus de discernement, 
 c'est-a-dire, qu'on apprend mieux a faire Panalyse des choses." Cours 
 d'Etude, i. 49, 50. Ed. a Parme, 1776. Vide note A. at the end of the 
 volume. 
 
 2 A strange assertion which Ward could have corrected, as he enu- 
 merates a long list of Vedanti writings, iv. 172. W.
 
 HO HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 K " no passage implying it has been quoted from any 
 
 m w 
 
 Sanscrit work, it might, if it were any refinement, 
 be suspected of being wholly modern, The follow- 
 ing is the account of it by Sir William Jones. " The 
 fundamental tenet of the Vedanti school consisted, 
 not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of 
 solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to 
 deny which would be lunacy), but in correcting the 
 popular notion of it, and in contending that it has 
 no essence independent of mental perception, that 
 existence and perceptibility are convertible terms, 
 that external appearances and sensations are illusory, 
 and would vanish into nothing, if the divine energy, 
 which alone sustains them, were suspended but for 
 a moment ; an opinion which Epicharmus and Plato 
 seem to have adopted, and which has been main- 
 tained in the present century with great elegance, 
 but with little public applause ; partly because it has 
 been misunderstood and partly because it has been 
 misapplied by the false reasoning of some unpopular 
 writers, who are said to have disbelieved in the 
 moral attributes of God, whose omnipresence, wis- 
 dom, and goodness, are the basis of the Indian phi- 
 losophy. I have not sufficient evidence on the 
 subject to profess a belief in the doctrine of the 
 Vedanta, which human reason alone could, perhaps, 
 neither fully demonstrate, nor fully disprove ; but it 
 is manifest, that nothing can be further removed 
 from impiety than a system wholly built on the 
 purest devotion." 4 
 
 1 Work* of Sir Win. Jones, i. 165. It may be remarked that Sir Wil- 
 liam Jones, after all these praises, allows that the Vedanti doctrines arc 
 wild and erroneous. Asiat. Res. iy. 164, 165.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 81 
 
 " In some of these observations," Mr. Dugald BOOK ri - 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 Stewart very justly observes, " there is a good deal 
 
 of indistinctness, and even of contradiction." He also 
 remarks, that Sir William Jones totally misunder- 
 stands the doctrine of Berkeley and Hume. 1 We 
 may suspect that he not less widely mistakes the 
 doctrine of the Brahmens, and fastens a theory of his 
 own creation upon the vague and unmeaning jargon 
 which they delivered to him. If in all minds the 
 propensity be strong, and in weak minds irresistible, 
 to see only through the medium of a theory ; we 
 need not wonder if theory manufactures the ideas of 
 the other senses, of hearing, for example, after the 
 same manner. " If the simplest narrative of the 
 most illiterate observer involves more or less of 
 hypothesis ; and a village apothecary or a hackneyed 
 nurse, is seldom able to describe the plainest case, 
 without employing a phraseology of which every 
 word is a theory," 2 we may conclude with certainty 
 that the same intrusion is very difficult to avoid, in 
 making up our own conception of what we hear, and 
 still more in clothing it with our own language. Of 
 the ideas which we profess to report, and which we 
 believe that we merely report, it often happens that 
 many are our own ideas, and never entered the mind 
 of the man to whom we ascribe them. 
 
 We have a more distinct account of the same 
 doctrine from Sir James Macintosh, whose mind is 
 more philosophical, and on oriental subjects less pre- 
 possessed and less credulous, than that of Sir William 
 
 1 Elements of the Philosophy of the Human MindyTol. ii. note B. 
 
 * The words in which this important observation is expressed, are bor- 
 rowed from a happy application of it by Mr. Stewart, in the same volume, 
 p. 443. 
 
 VOL. II. G
 
 OMA1 
 
 - an 
 
 ^ , HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 I ones. Presenting, in a letter to Mr. Dugald Stewart, 
 account of a conversation with a young Brahmen, 
 Hi- told me," says he, " that besides the myriads 
 of gods whom their creed admits, there was one 
 whom they know by the name of Brim, or the great 
 one, without form or limits, whom no created intel- 
 lect could make any approach towards conceiving ; 
 that, in reality, there were no trees, no houses, no 
 land, no sea, but all without was Maia, or illusion, 
 the act of Brim ; that whatever we saw or felt was 
 only a dream ; or, as he expressed it in his imperfect 
 English, thinking in one's sleep ; and that the re- 
 union of the soul to Brim, from whom it originally 
 sprung, was the awakening from the long sleep of 
 finite existence." 1 
 
 It will require few words, in application of the 
 evidence adduced in the chapter on religion, to make 
 it sufficiently appear, that this is a natural part of 
 that language of adulation towards the deity, in 
 which the Hindu theology mainly consists. One of 
 the deities, who is chosen as the chief object of adora- 
 tion, is first made to excel all the other deities ; next 
 to absorb all their powers ; next to absorb even them- 
 selves; and lastly absorb all things. 2 The fancy 
 of " Maia," is only a part of " the absorption of all 
 things in God." There is nothing but God. All our 
 suppossed perception of things besides God is, there- 
 fore, only illusion ; illusion created by God. Why, 
 then, does God create such an illusion '? this is a 
 very necessary question. If it were put ; and why 
 it has not been put, we may a little admire ; the 
 Brahmens might very consistently reply, that as for 
 
 1 The pUMge is transcribed by Mr. Stewart, in the note quoted above. 
 Vide tupra, TO!, i. p. 368.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 83 
 
 a use, a design, a purpose, in the actions of their BOOK n. 
 
 God, they never thought of ascribing to them any 
 
 such quality. He pleases himself by his actions, and 
 that is enough; no matter how fantastic the taste. 
 It is with great pleasure I quote the following co- 
 incidence with my own opinion, expressed in a sub- 
 sequent passage of the same letter. " I intend to 
 investigate a little the history of these opinions ; for 
 I am not altogether without apprehension, that we 
 may all the while be mistaking the hyperbolical effu- 
 sions of mystical piety, for the technical language of 
 a philosophical system. Nothing is more usual, than 
 for fervent devotion to dwell so long, and so warmly, 
 on the meanness and worthlessness of created things, 
 and on the all-sufficiency of the Supreme Being, that 
 it slides insensibly from comparative to absolute lan- 
 guage, and, in the eagerness of its zeal to magnify 
 the Deity, seems to annihilate every thing else, To 
 distinguish between the very different import of the 
 same words in the mouth of a mystic and sceptic, 
 requires more philosophical discrimination than most 
 of our Sanscrit investigators have hitherto shown." 1 
 Sir James might have passed beyond a suspicion ; 
 if from nothing else, from the very words of the con- 
 versation he reports. Human life is there not com- 
 pared to a sleep ; it is literally affirmed to be a sleep ; 
 and men are not acting, or thinking, but only dream- 
 ing. Of what philosophical system does this form a 
 part ? We awake, only when we are re-united to 
 the Divine Being ; that is, when we actually become 
 a part of the Divine Being, not having a separate 
 existence. Then, of course, we cease to dream ; and 
 
 1 Stewart's Elem. tit supra. 
 G 2
 
 " I HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 80011 " then, it may he supposed, that Maia ceases. Then 
 
 ( 1 1 . t ' I * ' ' 
 
 - will there he any thing to he known ? any thing real "? 
 Or is it the same thing, whether we are awake or 
 asleep Y But my reader might well complain I was 
 only trifling with him, if I pursued this jargon any 
 further. What grieves me is, that between the two 
 passages which I have immediately quoted, Sir James 
 (we must remember that it is in the negligence of 
 private correspondence) has inserted the following 
 words. *' All this you have heard and read before 
 as Hindu speculation. What struck me was, that 
 speculations so refined and abstruse should, in a long 
 course of ages, have fallen through so great a space 
 as that which separates the genius of their original 
 inventor from the mind of this weak and unlettered 
 man. The names of these inventors have perished ; 
 but their ingenious and beautiful theories, blended 
 with the most monstrous superstitions, have de- 
 scended to men very little exalted above the most 
 ignorant populace, and are adopted by them as a sort 
 of articles of faith, without a suspicion of their phi- 
 losophical origin, and without the possibility of com- 
 prehending any part of the premises from which they 
 were deduced." Yet Sir James himself has described 
 the origin from which they were deduced ; namely, 
 44 the hyperbolical effusions of mystical piety;" and 
 surely the Brahmens of the present day may under- 
 stand these effusions as well as their still more igno- 
 rant predecessors. 1 
 
 1 Another circumstance is always to be remembered. If the Brah- 
 mens are once informed of the European doctrine, they will take abun- 
 dant care to make their own conform to it. ' " With respect to the real 
 tenet, of the Hindus, on subjects of theology, they are to be taken from 
 their ancient books, rather than from the oral declarations of the most 
 learned Brahmens of modem times, who have discovered that the opi-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 85 
 
 With respect to morals or duty, it appears not BOOK ti. 
 that any theory has ever been constructed by the 
 Hindus. In what regards the preceptive part, their 
 ethics exactly resemble those of all other rude and 
 iminstructed nations ; an excellent precept, and a 
 
 nions of Christians, concerning the nature of God, are far more rational 
 than those currently entertained among them, and that the gross ido- 
 latry of the Hindus is contemned by the more intelligent natives of the 
 western world. Bernier seems to have found occasion for the same 
 remark in his time ; for, after relating a conference between him and 
 some learned pandits, in which the latter endeavoured to refine away 
 the grossness of their image worship ; ' Voila (says he) sans ajouter ni 
 diminuer la solution qu'ils me donnerent; mais, a vous dire le vrai, 
 cela me sembloit un peu trop bien concerte a la Chretienne, aux prix de 
 ce que j'en avois appris de plusieurs autres pandits.' " (Grant's Ob- 
 servations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Snbjects of Great 
 Britain, p. 73. Papers on India, ordered to be printed by the House of 
 Commons, 15th June, 1813.) This supposed refinement, such as it is, 
 Mr. Elphinstone found among the rude and uncivilized Afghauns. 
 " Another sect in Caubul is that of the Soofees, who ought, perhaps, to 
 be considered as a class of philosophers, rather than of religionists. As 
 far as I can understand their mysterious doctrine, their leading tenet 
 seems to be, that the whole of the animated and inanimate creation is an 
 illusion ; and that nothing exists except the Supreme Being, which pre- 
 sents itself under an infinity of shapes to the soul of man, itself a portion 
 of the Divine essence. The contemplation of this doctrine raises the 
 Soofees to the utmost pitch of enthusiasm. They admire God in every 
 thing ; and, by frequent meditation on his attributes, and, by tracing him 
 through all his forms, they imagine that they attain to an ineffable love for 
 the Deity, and even to an entire union with his substance." (An Account 
 of the Kingdom of Caubul, by the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, p. 207.) 
 See, for an account of a similar sect in Persia, Malcolm's Hist, of 
 Persia, ii. 385. How different is all this from the curious result of the 
 refined and ingenious reasonings of Berkeley ! And how shallow the heads 
 that confound them ! M. The whole of what is here said on the subject 
 of the Vedanta doctrine, as founded on the brief notice of Sir Wm. Jones, 
 and a private letter of Sir James Mackintosh, is necessarily imperfect and 
 erroneous. The conclusion, too, is the reverse of what any one else would 
 have drawn from the authorities cited, one of whom speaks of the Vedanta 
 doctrine as built on the purest devotion ; and the other calls the theory 
 refined, abstruse, ingenious and beautiful. As they are the sole authority 
 for the premises, their conclusions are of equal, weight. The Vedanta 
 system has been since fully explained by Mr. Colebrooke, Dr. Taylor, 
 Ram Mohun Roy, Sir Graves Haughton, Col. Vans Kennedy. Trans. R. 
 As. Society. Translation of the Prabodha Chandrodaya. Translations 
 from the Vedas. Asiatic Journal, &c. W.
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 or absurd one, are placed alternately, or mixed 
 in nearly equal proportions, in all their books which 
 treat upon the subject. For specimens of their ethi- 
 cal precepts, it is sufficient to refer to what we have 
 already produced under the head of religion. If all 
 the good precepts were selected from the rest, and 
 exhibited pure by themselves, they would present a 
 tolerably perfect code of the common duties of mo- 
 rality. As we have authors who have attached im- 
 ]>ortance to this, without adverting to the fact that 
 a soundness in detached maxims of morality is com- 
 mon to all men down to the lowest stage of so- 
 ciety, it is necessary to give a specimen of the 
 ethical rules of nations confessedly barbarous. We 
 might, perhaps, be satisfied with a reference to the 
 proverbs of Solomon, and other preceptive parts of 
 the Jewish writings, which are not equalled by the 
 corresponding parts of the books of the Hindus. We 
 shall, however, produce another instance, which is 
 less exposed to any objection. The Havamaal or 
 sublime discourse of Odin, is a Scandinavian com- 
 position of great antiquity. It is a string of moral 
 aphorisms, comprised in 120 stanzas; with which, 
 as a whole, there is nothing in Hindu literature in 
 any degree worthy to be compared. The following 
 is a specimen : 
 
 "To the guest who enters your dwelling with 
 frozen knees, give the warmth of your fire : he who 
 hath travelled over the mountains hath need of food 
 and well-dried garments : 
 
 rt A man can carry with him no better provision 
 for his journey than the strength of the understand- 
 ing. In a foreign country this will be of more use
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 87 
 
 to him than treasures ; and will introduce him to the BOOK * L 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 table of strangers : 
 
 " There is nothing more useless to the sons of 
 the age than to drink too much ale ; the more the 
 drunkard swallows, the less is his wisdom, till he 
 loses his reason. The bird of oblivion sings before 
 those who inebriate themselves, and steals away their 
 souls : 
 
 " I have never yet found a man so generous and 
 munificent, as that to receive at his house was not 
 to receive ; nor any so free and liberal of his gifts as 
 to reject a present when it was returned to him : 
 
 " They invite me up and down to feasts, if I have 
 only need of a slight breakfast ; my faithful friend is 
 he who will give me one loaf when he has but 
 two: 
 
 " Where is there to be found a virtuous man with- 
 out some failing ; or one so wicked as to have no 
 good quality?" 1 
 
 Among the parts of Hindu learning chosen by its 
 admirers as the peculiar objects of their applause, are 
 the niceties, the numerous and intricate subtleties, of 
 the Hindu grammar. We are informed by an emi- 
 nent Sanscrit scholar, that the grammatical precepts 
 of one single treatise are no fewer tban 3996. The 
 reader will observe, that this number is composed of 
 the digit 3 and its multiples, to which peculiar vir- 
 tues are ascribed by the Hindus. It is not impro- 
 bable that the rules may have been made to corre- 
 spond with the number rather than the number with 
 the rules. Nevertheless, we learn from Mr. Cole- 
 brooke, that " those rules are framed with the utmost 
 
 1 See Mallet, Introd. Hist. Denmark, vol. ii. For additional illustra- 
 tions we may refer to the maxims of Confucius and Zoroaster.
 
 H8 HISTOUY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HOOK ii. conciseness, the consequence of very ingenious me- 
 _ thods." But it is added that the studied brevity of 
 the Paniniya Sutnis renders them in the highest de- 
 gree obscure; that even with the knowledge of the 
 key to their interpretation, the student finds them 
 ambiguous ; that the application of them, even when 
 understood, discovers many seeming contradictions ; 
 and that, with every exertion of practised memory, 
 the utmost difficulty is experienced in combining 
 rules dispersed in apparent confusion through differ- 
 ent portions of Paninis and lectures. The number of 
 commentaries on the books of grammar is exceed- 
 ingly great, and many of them very voluminous." ] 
 
 As these endless conceits answer any purpose rather 
 than that of rendering language a more commodious 
 and accurate instrument of communication, they afford 
 a remarkable specimen of the spirit of a rude and ig- 
 norant age: which is as much delighted with the jug- 
 gleries of the mind, as it is with those of the body, 
 and is distinguished by the absurdity of its passion 
 for both.* It could not happen otherwise than that 
 the Hindus should, beyond other nations, abound in 
 those frivolous refinements which are suited to the 
 taste of an uncivilized people. A whole race of men 
 were set apart and exempted from the ordinary cares 
 and labours of life, whom the pain of vacuity forced 
 upon some application of mind, and who were under 
 the necessity of maintaining their influence among 
 the people, by the credit of superior learning, and, if 
 not by real knowledge, which is slowly and with 
 
 ' Colebrooke on the Sanscrit and Pracrit Languages, Asiat. Res. rol. 
 
 Tii. 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke still further remarks, that the Hindus delight in scho- 
 dupmaUou; and that their con trovemal commentaries on grammar 
 exhibit copious specimens of it. Ibid.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 89 
 
 much difficulty attained, by artful contrivances for BOOK 11. 
 deceiving the people with the semblance of it. This ' 
 view of the situation of the Brahmens serves to ex- 
 plain many things which modify and colour Hindu 
 society. In grammatical niceties, however, the Hin- 
 dus but discover their usual resemblance to other na- 
 tions in the infancy of knowledge and improvement. 
 We have already seen that the Arabians on this sub- 
 ject carry their complex refinements to a height scarcely 
 inferior to that of the Brahmens themselves. 1 Even 
 the Turks, who are not in general a refining race, 
 multiply conceits on this subject. 8 During the dark 
 ages the fabrication of grammatical distinctions and 
 subtleties furnished a favourite exercise to the Euro- 
 pean schoolmen. 3 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 7678. 
 
 s Tout ce que le mauvais gout peut inventer pour fatiguer Pesprit, fait leur 
 delices, ct ravit leur admiration. Memoires du Baron de Tott sur les Turcs 
 et les Tartares, i. 8. 
 
 3 The following remarkable passage in the celebrated letter of our coun- 
 tryman, and (but for one exception) admirable countryman, Sir Thomas 
 More, to Martin Dorpius, affords at once a proof of the fact, and a judg- 
 ment on the practice : " At nunc absurda qusedam portenta, ad certam 
 bonarum artium nata perniciem, et luculenter ab antiquis distincta, com- 
 miscuerunt ; et veterum purissimas tradition es suis adjectis sordibus infe- 
 cerunt omnia. Nam in Grammatica (ut omittam Alexandrum, atque id 
 genus alios; qui quamquam imperite, tamen grammaticam utcun- 
 que docuerunt) Albertus quidam, grammaticam se traditurum pro- 
 fessus, logicam nobis quandam, aut metaphysicam, immo neutram, sed 
 mera somnia, mera deliria grammaticee loco substituit : et tamen hae nuga- 
 cissimae nugse in publieas academias non tantum receptse sunt, sed 
 etiam plerisque tarn impense placuerunt, ut is propemodum solus aliquid in 
 grammatica valere censeatur, quisquis fuerit Albertistae nomen assequutus. 
 Tantum auctoritatis habet, ad pervertenda bonorum quoque ingeuiorum 
 judicia, semel ab ineptis tradita, magistris, dein tempore corroborata per- 
 suasio. Quo fit ut minus mirer, ad eundem modum in dialectics locum 
 nugas plus quam sophisticas irrepsisse quae cultoribus suis argutiarum no- 
 mine tarn vehementer, arrident." Caramuel says of the subtle doctor, 
 Scotus, Vix alibi subtilius scripsit quam cum de grammaticis modis signiji- 
 candi. Mr. Home Tooke, however, on this, remarks, that his De modis 
 significandi should be entitled, An Exemplar of the subtle art of saving
 
 JX) HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Not only the grammar; the language itself has 
 H. been celebrated as the mark of a refined and elegant 
 people. " It is more copious," we are told, " than 
 the Latin. It has several words to express the same 
 thing. The sun has more than thirty names, the 
 moon more than twenty. A house has twenty ; a 
 stone six or seven ; a tree ten ; a leaf five ; an ape 
 ten ; a crow nine." ' 
 
 That which is a defect and a deformity of Ian- 
 guage is thus celebrated as a perfection. 2 The high- 
 
 apprmrances, and of discoursing deeply and learnedly on a subject with 
 which we are perfectly unacquainted. Quid enim aubtiliua vel mayis tenue 
 yuan* quod nihil eit t (Diversions of Purley, Introd. p. 12.) 
 
 1 Lc PJrc Paolino (Bartolomeo) Voyage aux Indes, ii. 201. 
 
 Mr. Gibbon quaintly says, " In Arabia as well as in Greece, the per. 
 fectio* ttf language outstripped the refinement of manners ; and her speech 
 could diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, 
 the fire hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this 
 copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate people." 
 Hist, of Dec. and Fall, &c. ix. 240. The German professor Forster, who 
 writes notes on the Voyage du Pere Paolino, says not ineptly on the pas- 
 sage quoted in the text, (Paolino, Voy. aux Indes, iii. 399.) " Ce n'est 
 pas dc ccttc maniere-la qu'on doit jugcr de la richcsse d'une langue. On 
 a coutume de dire que la langue Arabe est riche, parce qu'elle a je ne 
 sals qucl nombre de synonimes pour exprimer le mot epie. Un de ces 
 synoniraes, par exemple, signifie le incurtricr des hommes. Ce n'cst la, 
 dans la rfaliu', qu'unc expression metaphorique et figure, telle qu'on en 
 pent former dans toutes les langues tant soit peu cultivees. On pouvait de 
 nu-rac trourcr plus de trente noms pour exprimer le soleil dans les poetes 
 Grecs ; mais il n'est venu dans 1' esprit de personne, de faire valoir cela 
 pour prourer la richcsse dc la langue Grecque." Our own sagacious, and 
 in many respects highly philosophical Wilkins judges better when he 
 names " rignificancy, perspicuity, brevity, and consequently facility," 
 among the perfections of a language ; and says that the multitude of rules 
 in the Latin " argues the imperfection of that language, that it should stand 
 in need of such and so many rules as have no foundation in the philosophy 
 of speech If these rules be not necessary to language, and ac- 
 cording to nature, but that words may signify sufficiently, and in some 
 respects better without them, then there is greater judgment showed in 
 laying them aside, or framing a language without them." Essay towards 
 a Real Character, &c. p. 448. Another writer, 'who speaks with as much 
 boldness, as he thinks with force on the subject of language says, " Per- 
 sons too dull or too idle to understand the subject cannot, or will not, per- 
 mit* how great an evil manyvordt is ; and boast of their copies vcrboium,
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 91 
 
 est merit of language would consist in having one BOOK n. 
 
 CH.AP, y. 
 
 name for every thing which required a name, and no 
 
 more than one. 1 Redundancy is a defect in lan- 
 guage, not less than deficiency. Philosophy, and 
 even common good sense, determine, that every 
 thing which can simplify language, without impair- 
 ing it in point of precision and completeness, is a 
 first-rate advantage. An ignorant and fantastical 
 age deems it a glory to render it in the highest de- 
 gree perplexing and difficult. 
 
 The other perfections which are ascribed to the 
 Sanscrit are its softness, or agreeableness in point of 
 sound, and its adaptation to poetry. Of its complete- 
 ness or precision, those who were the fullest of ad- 
 miration for it, were too little acquainted with it to 
 be able to venture an opinion. Yet completeness 
 and precision would have been undeniable proofs of 
 the mental perfection of the people by whom it was 
 used ; while a great multitude of useless words and 
 grammatical rules were the very reverse. Nothing 
 is more probable than that a language which has too 
 many words of one description, has too few of another, 
 and unites in equal degree the vices of superfluity 
 and defect. 2 The adaptation of a language to poetry 
 
 as if a person diseased with gout or dropsy boasted of his great joints, or 
 big belly." And again, " It cannot be too often repeated that superfluous 
 variety and copia, are faults, not excellencies. Simplicity may be consi- 
 dered poverty by perverted understandings, but it is always of great utility; 
 and to true judges it always possesses beauty and dignity." Philosophic 
 etymology, or Rational Grammar, by James Gilchrist, p. 110, 170. "If the 
 Sanscrit is to be admired for its amplicated grammar, the Ethiopic should 
 be admired for its 202 letters ;" Wilkins' Essay towards a Real Character, 
 p. 14. 
 
 1 What would become of poetry, of eloquence, of literature, of intellect, 
 if language was thus shorn of all that gives it beauty, variety, grace, and 
 vigour ? W. 
 
 2 Tliis is a gratuitous assumption in the case of the Sanscrit language.
 
 92 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK it. and the car, affords no evidence of civilization. Lan- 
 _ guages, on which equal eulogies are bestowed to any 
 which can be lavished on Sanscrit, are the languages 
 confessedly of ignorant and uncivilized men. Nothing 
 can surpass the admiration which is often expressed 
 of the language of the modern Persians. Molina, 
 the intelligent and philosophical historian of Chili, 
 informs us, that of the language of the Chilians the 
 grammar is as perfect as that of the Greek or Latin ; 
 that of no language does the formation and structure 
 display greater ingenuity and felicity. l The lan- 
 guage of the Malays is described as remarkably 
 sweet.Jand well adapted to poetry. 2 Clavigero knows 
 not where to set a limit to his admiration of the 
 Mexican tongue. 3 " Many extravagant things have 
 been advanced concerning the great antiquity and 
 superior excellency of the Anglo-saxon language. 
 
 One of iit merits is not here adverted to ; its subservience to a sound theory 
 of general philosophy and the affinities of languages W. 
 
 1 " Gl* indigeni Chilesi formano una sola nazione divisa in varie tribu, e 
 tutti haiino la medesima fisionomia, e la raedesima lingua chiamata da loro 
 CkiUdugu, che ruol dire lingua Chilese. Qucsta lingua e dolcc, armoniosa, 
 Mprewira, regolare, e copiosUsima di termini fatti ad enunciare non solo le 
 COM fiaiche general!, o particolari, ma an che le cose mor.ili, e astratte." 
 Saggio Sulla Storia Naturale del Chili Del Signor Abate Giovanni Ignazio 
 Molina, lib IT. p. 334. 
 
 * Manden's Hist, of Sumatra, p. 197, ed. 3rd. 
 
 " It is so copious, polished, and expressive, that it has been esteemed 
 by many superior to the Latin, and even to the Greek. It abounds," says 
 he, " more than the Tuscan, in diminutives and augmentatives ; and more 
 than the English, or any other language we know, in verbal and abstract 
 terms : for there is hardly a verb from which there are not many verbals 
 formed, and scarcely a substantive or adjective from which there are not 
 soce abstract* formed. It is not less copious in verbs than in nouns ; as 
 from every single verb others are derived of different significations. Chihua 
 " is to do," Ckickikua " to do with diligence or often," Chihuilia " to do 
 to another," Ckikualtia " to cause to be done," Chihuatiuh " to go to do," 
 Ckikuaeo " to come to do," Ckiuktiuh " to be doing," & c . Having men- 
 IKM the extraordinary variety with which the Mexicans express different 
 jfjP? rf "!><* by adding adverbs and other particles to the names em- 
 ployed, Clavigcro adds, Th variety, which gives so much civilization
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 93 
 
 According to some writers, it was the most ancient BOOK n. 
 
 and most excellent in the world, spoken by the first 
 
 parents of mankind in Paradise ; and from it they 
 pretend to derive the names, Adam, Eve, Cain, Ahel, 
 and all the antediluvian patriarchs." 1 
 
 The same sacred volume which affords the most 
 authentic materials for ascertaining the Hindu modes 
 of accounting for the phenomena of mind, lends equal 
 assistance in leading us to a knowledge of their modes 
 of accounting for the phenomena of matter. At the 
 close of the night of Brahma, " intellect called into 
 action by his will to create worlds, performed again 
 the work of creation ; and thence first emerges the 
 subtle ether, to which philosophers ascribe the qua- 
 lity of conveying sound :" 2 Ignorant that air is the 
 great agent in the conveyance of sound, the Hindus 
 had recourse to a fiction ; the imagination of a some- 
 
 to the language, does not, however, make it difficult to be spoken ; because 
 it is subjected to rules which are fixed and easy; nor do we know any 
 language that is more regular and methodical. The Mexicans, like the 
 Greeks and other nations, have the advantage of making compounds of 
 two, three, or four simple words ; but they do it with more economy than 
 the Greeks did ; for the Greeks made use of the entire words in composi- 
 tion, whereas the Mexicans cut off syllables, or at least some letters from 
 them. Tlazotti signifies valued, OT beloved; Mahuitzic, honoured or re- 
 vered ; Tespixqui, priest; Tatli, father. To unite these five words in 
 one, they take eight consonants and four vowels, and say, for instance, 
 Notlazomahuitzteopixcatatzin, that is, my very worthy father, or revered 
 priest, prefixing the No which corresponds to the pronoun my, and adding 
 tzin, which is a particle expressive of reverence. There are some com- 
 pounds of so many terms as to have fifteen or sixteen syllables In 
 
 short all those who have learned this language, and can judge of its copious- 
 ness, regularity, and beautiful modes of speech, are of opinion, that such a 
 language cannot have been spoken by a barbarous people." Clavigero, 
 Hist, of Mexico, book vii. sect. 41. 
 
 1 Henry's Hist, of Great Britain, iv. 365. " I know not a language 
 spoken in Europe that hath words of more sweetness and greatness than 
 theirs :" Penn's Letter on the American Indians, in Clarkson's Life of 
 Penn, i. 385. 
 
 8 Laws of Menu, ch. i. 75.
 
 94 HISTORY OP BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. th j n g of whose existence they had no proof. Equally 
 - futile is their account of air, " From ether, effecting 
 a transmutation in form, springs the pure and potent 
 air, a vehicle of all scents ; and air is held endued 
 with the quality of touch." l The word touch is here 
 ambiguous ; it may mean either that air is tangible, 
 or that it has the faculty, the sense of touch. The 
 latter, I suspect, is the meaning of the original ; for 
 I can hardly credit that so great a master of language 
 as Sir William Jones, would have explained a pas- 
 Age which only meant that air is tangible, by so 
 exceptionable a term as that it is endued with the 
 quality of touch. I can with less difficulty suppose, 
 from other instances, that he endeavoured to cloak a 
 most absurd idea under an equivocal translation. 
 
 With respect to light and heat, we are told in the 
 immediately succeeding passage ; " Then from air, 
 operating a change, rises light or fire, making objects 
 visible, spreading bright rays ; and it is declared to 
 have the quality of figure." 8 It sufficiently appears 
 from these several passages, that the accounts with 
 which they satisfy themselves, are merely such ran- 
 dom guesses as would occur to the most vulgar and 
 untutored minds. From intellect arose ether : from 
 etluT, air ; from air, fire and light. It appears from 
 this passage that they consider light and heat as abso- 
 lutely the same ; yet the moon afforded them an in- 
 stance of light without heat ; and they had instances 
 innumerable of heat without the presence of light. 
 What is the meaning, when it is declared that fire, 
 alias light, has the quality of figure, it is impossible 
 to say. That fire, or, which is the same thing, light, 
 
 1 Laws of Mean, ch. i. 76. lb. 77.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 95 
 
 is itself figured, is an affirmation wherein little mean- BOOK n. 
 
 ... CHAP. 9. 
 
 ing can be found. That fire, that is, light, is the 
 
 cause of figure in all figured bodies, is an affirmation 
 which, notwithstanding the absurdity, is in exact 
 harmony with the mode of guessing at the opera- 
 tions of nature, admired as philosophy among the 
 Hindus. 
 
 The account of water and earth is a link of the 
 same chain. " From light, a change being effected, . 
 comes water with the quality of taste ; and from water 
 is deposited earth with the quality of smell." 1 As 
 from ether came air, so from air light, from light 
 water, and from water earth. It is useless to ask 
 what connexion appears between water and light, or 
 earth and water. Connexion, reason, probability, 
 had nothing to do with the case. A theory of suc- 
 cessive production struck the fancy of the writer, and 
 all inquiry was out of the question. Here occurs 
 the same difficulty as in the case of air ; air was 
 endowed with the quality of touch ; water and earth 
 are said to have the qualities of smell and taste. In 
 this we perceive a most fantastic conceit : To water 
 is ascribed the quality of taste ; to earth the quality 
 of smell ; to fire, the quality of figure ', (I suspect it 
 should be translated sight); to air, the quality of 
 touch; and to ether, the quality (as Sir William 
 Jones translates it) of conveying sound ; I suspect it 
 should be translated, the quality of hearing. 3 
 
 1 Laws of Menu, ch. i. 78. 
 
 4 It is not easy to apprehend the force of the technical terms of a system 
 with \vhieh we are imperfectly acquainted, and it is still more impossible to 
 express their purport in a foreign language in which no precise equivalents 
 for the originals exist. We need not wonder, therefore, that the author sees 
 nothing but absurdity in the imperfectly detailed evolution of the elements 
 and their properties, although as far as relates to the connexion between 
 the elements and their properties there is nothing irrational or absurd iu
 
 % HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. \Ve have thus seen the speculations respecting the 
 L origin and qualities of the principal parts of inanimate 
 nature. The same divine volume affords us a spe- 
 cimen of their ideas concerning the origin of at least 
 one great department of animated nature. " From 
 hot moisture are born hiting gnats, lice, fleas, and 
 common flies; these, and whatever is of the same 
 class, are produced by heat." 1 If this be an idea 
 . natural enough to the mind of an uncultivated ob- 
 server it is at least not a peculiar proof of learning 
 and civilization. 
 
 Of the arbitrary style of deciding without inquiry, 
 the natural and ordinary style of all rude minds, a 
 curious specimen is afforded by the Hindu dogma, 
 that vegetables, as well as animals, " have internal 
 consciousness, and are sensible of pleasure and pain."* 
 
 Mr. Wilford, the industrious explorer of the litera- 
 ture of this ancient people, informs us : " The Hin- 
 
 the scheme. The Hindus early adopted tie doctrine that there is no vacu- 
 um in nature but observing that air was excluded under various circum- 
 stance* from space, they devised, in order to account for the separation of 
 particles, a subtle clement or ether, by which all interstices, the most mi- 
 nute and inaccessible, were pervaded, a notion which modern philosophy 
 intimates some tendency to adopt, as regards the planetary movements ; 
 and it was to this subtle element that they ascribed the property of con- 
 veying sound : in which they were so far right that in vacuo there can be 
 BO sound. Air again is said to be possessed of the faculty of touch, that is, 
 it is the medium through which the contact of bodies is effected ether keeps 
 then apart air impels them together. Fire, or rather light, has the pro- 
 perty of figure. Mr. Colebrooke renders it of colour; in either case the 
 theory is true, for neither colour nor form is discernible except through 
 the medium of light. Water has the property of taste, an affirmation per- 
 fcctfy true, (or nothing is sensible to the palate until it is dissolved by the 
 natural fluids. The presence of odour as a property of earth, is less intel- 
 ligible, but the notion was probably derived from observation of the fra- 
 grance of the vegetable world, which was assigned to the soil on which the 
 flowers bloomed. That these views are open W philosophical objections 
 is perfectly true, but they are not fantastic, not random guesses, they are 
 
 fe*dd on observation, and are not devoid of rationality. W. 
 
 Law, of Menu, ch. i. 45. Ibid. 49. See also Ib. xi 143 to 146.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 97 
 
 dus were superficial botanists, and gave the same BOOK H- 
 
 appellation to plants of different classes." l To ar- 
 
 range or classify, 2 on this or on any other subject, 
 seems an attempt which has in all ages exceeded the 
 mental culture of the Hindus. 
 
 Of all circumstances, however, connected with 
 the state of Hindu society, nothing has called forth 
 higher expressions of eulogy and admiration than 
 the astronomy of the Brahmens. Mons. Bailly, the 
 celebrated author of the History of Astronomy, may 
 be regarded as beginning the concert of praises, upon 
 this branch of the science of the Hindus. The 
 grounds of his conclusions were certain astronomical 
 tables ; from which he inferred, not only advanced 
 progress in the science, but a date so ancient as to 
 be entirely inconsistent with the chronology of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures. The man who invented a theory 
 of an ancient and highly civilized people, now extinct, 
 formerly existing in the wilds of Tartary, and who 
 maintained it with uncommon zeal, and all the efforts 
 of his ingenuity, is not to be trusted as a guide in the 
 regions of conjecture. Another cause of great dis- 
 trust attaches to Mons. Bailly. Voltaire, and other 
 excellent wrtters in France, abhorring the evils which 
 they saw attached to Catholicism, laboured to subvert 
 the authority of the books on which it was founded. 
 Under this impulse they embraced, with extreme 
 credulity, and actual enthusiasm, the tales respecting 
 the great antiquity of the Chinese and Hindus as 
 
 1 Wilford on Egypt and the Nile, Asiat. Res. iii. 310. 
 
 2 The Hindus were certainly unacquainted with either the Linnaean or 
 natural orders, but they were careful observers both of the external and in- 
 ternal properties of plants, and furnish copious lists of the vegetable world, 
 with sensible notices of their uses, and names significant of their peculiari- 
 ties. W. 
 
 VOL. II. H
 
 9H HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. disproving entirely the Mosaic accounts of the dura- 
 _ tion of the present race of men. When a case oc- 
 curred, in which it appeared that this favourite con- 
 clusion could be established on the strength of 
 astronomical observations and mathematical reason- 
 ing. the grand object seemed to be accomplished. The 
 argument was laboured with the utmost diligence by 
 Mons. Bailly, was received with unbounded applause, 
 and for a time regarded as a demonstration in form 
 of the falsehood of Christianity. 
 
 The most eminent of all the mathematical con- 
 verts, gained by Mons. Bailly, was Mr. Playfair, the 
 professor of mathematics in the University of Edin- 
 burgh. A bias was probably created in his mind 
 by the high reputation of Mons. Bailly for his 
 attainments in that science in which Mr. Playfair 
 himself was so great a master ; and any feeling of 
 that nature could not fail to be greatly strengthened, 
 by the loud applause, in which his countrymen, both 
 those who were still in India, and those who had 
 returned from it, at that time concurred, of the won- 
 derful learning, wonderful civilization, and wonderful 
 institutions of the Hindus ; applause which imposed 
 implicit belief on minds such as that of his illustrious 
 colleague, the author of the Historical Disquisition 
 concerning the knowledge which the ancients had 
 of India. In a paper published in the Transactions 
 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Mr. Playfair 
 stated, with skill and dexterity, the matter of evi- 
 dence on which the proposition is founded ; l and in 
 an article lately published in the Edinburgh Review, 3 
 
 Royal Society of Edin. rot ii. 
 Of which he has orer all Europe been recognised as the author ; Vide 
 infra, p. 105, note 1.
 
 LITERATURE OP THE HINDUS. 99 
 
 the arguments are controverted by which Mr. Bentlev BOOK " 
 
 _ CHAP. J. 
 
 had endeavoured to overthrow his opinion ; but a 
 
 suspension of belief, till further information shall 
 yield more satisfactory proof, is all that in this latter 
 document is contended for. 
 
 Such a demand, however, is infinitely too much, 
 and at variance with all the principles of reasoning. 
 When an opinion is obviously contradicted by a 
 grand train of circumstances, and is not entirely 
 supported by the special proof on which it pretends 
 to rest, it is unproved ; and whatever is unproved, 
 and out of the known order of nature, is altogether 
 unworthy of belief; deserves simple rejection. 
 
 Whoever, in the present improved state of our 
 knowledge, shall take the trouble to contemplate 
 the proofs which we possess of the state of knowledge 
 and civilization among the Hindus, can form no 
 other conclusion, but that every thing (unless astro- 
 nomy be an exception) bears clear, concurring, and 
 undeniable testimony to the ignorance of the Hindus, 
 and the low state of civilization in which they 
 remain. That such a people are masters of the 
 science of astronomy to a degree which none but 
 nations highly cultivated have elsewhere ever 
 attained, is certainly not to be credited on any 
 chain of proof that is not entire. 1 
 
 Of the fitness of the proof to maintain any such 
 conclusions as have been founded upon it, an idea may 
 
 1 Mr. Playfair has himself given us a criterion for determining on his 
 notions of the Hindu astronomy, which is perfectly sufficient. He says, 
 in the conclusions of his discourse (Edin. Trans, ii. 192), "These con- 
 clusions are without doubt extraordinary ; and have no other claim to our 
 belief, except that their being false were much more wonderful than their 
 being true." On this principle, the question is decided: for the wonder 
 is little that they should be false, but mighty indeed were they true. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. | )C f onnet i f rom tj^ . that Mr. Kentley, who has paid 
 
 mr. y. J 
 
 - great attention to the books of Hindu astronomy, 
 says they are all of modern date, and their pretensions 
 to antiquity founded only on forgery. 1 As his mo- 
 derate knowledge of mathematics, however, and 
 even the inelegancies of his style, have been sar- 
 castically employed to throw discredit upon his con- 
 clusions, it is of importance to add that the two 
 mathematicians whose reputation for profundity 
 seems to exced that of all their contemporaries, 
 Laplace, and an eminent ornament of our country, 
 not only reject the inference of the great antiquity 
 and perfection of the Hindu astronomy, but from 
 the evidence offered, draw a conclusion directly the 
 reverse ; viz., that this science is in the very same 
 state of infancy among the Hindus with all the other 
 branches of knowledge. The Surya Sidhanta is the 
 great repository of the astronomical knowledge of 
 the Hindus. It is on the authority of our own 
 countryman 2 I am enabled to declare, that this 
 
 Asiat. Re. vi. 577. M. As presently mentioned, Mr. Bentley had 
 
 bat a moderate knowledge of mathematics. H e had a still more moderate 
 
 knowledge of Sanscrit, and was quite incapable of forming an opinion of 
 
 the authenticity of Sanscrit writings, upon an accurate estimate of their 
 
 His notion that the astronomical works of the Hindus were all 
 
 wies, was founded entirely upon prejudice, not upon inquiry. Having 
 
 liim personally, the writer had various opportunities of appreciating 
 
 Character, in this respect. Hindu forgery, was the engrossing idea of 
 
 iu mind, w,th which it was vain to agree, as it was the progeny of pas- 
 
 won, not of reason. W. 
 
 No weight can be attached to an anonymous authority : what means 
 
 forming an estimate of the Sur'ya Siddhanta ? The 
 
 t.on of a standard work on Hindu astronomy, is much wanted, 
 
 enmne accurately the extent of their science. The conclusions 
 
 ided on parual extract, from astronomical works, and dissertations, 
 
 rcrtam nrrumscribed purposes, are necessarily imperfect, and are 
 
 probably, in many rwpecu, erroneous. W.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 101 
 
 book is itself the most satisfactory of all proofs of BOOK " 
 
 J CHAP. 9. 
 
 the low state of the science among the Hindus, and 
 
 the rudeness of the people from whom it proceeds ; 
 that its fantastic absurdity is truly Hindu ; that all 
 we can learn from it is a few facts, the result of 
 observations which required no skill ; that its vague 
 allegories and fanciful reflections prove nothing, or 
 every thing ; that a resolute admirer may build upon 
 them all the astronomical science of modern times ; 
 but a man who should divest his mind of the recol- 
 lection of European discoveries, and ask what a 
 people unacquainted with the science could learn 
 from the Surya Sidhanta, would find it next to 
 nothing. 1 
 
 1 Dr. Smith, with his usual sagacity, says, " There are various causes 
 which render astronomy the very first of the sciences which is cultivated 
 by a rude people : though from the distance of the objects, and the con- 
 sequent mysteriousness of their nature and motions, this would seem not 
 to be the case. Of all the phenomena of nature, the celestial appearances 
 are, by their greatness and beauty, the most strikingly addressed to the 
 curiosity of mankind. But it is not only their greatness and beauty by 
 which they become the first objects of a speculative curiosity. The spe- 
 cies of objects in the heavens are few in number ; the sun, the moon, the 
 planets, and the fixed stars. All the changes too which are ever observed 
 in these bodies, evidently arise from some difference in the velocity and 
 direction of their several motions. All this formed a very simple object of 
 consideration. The objects, however, which the inferior parts of nature 
 presented to view, the earth and the bodies which immediately surround 
 it, though they were much more familiar to the mind, were more apt to 
 embarrass and tierplex it, by the variety of their species, and by the 
 intricacy and seeming irregularity of the laws or orders of their succession 
 The variety of meteors in the air, of clouds, rainbows, thunder, lightning, 
 winds, rain, hail, snow, is vast, and the order of their succession seems to 
 be most irregular and inconstant. The species of fossils, minerals, plants 
 animals, which are found in the waters and near the surface of the earth, 
 are still more intricately diversified ; and if we regard the different man- 
 ners of their production, their mutual influence in altering, destroying, 
 supporting one another, the orders of their succession seem to admit of 
 an almost infinite variety. If the imagination, therefore, when it con- 
 sidered the appearances in the heavens, was often perplexed and driven
 
 CHAT. 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. The Hindu astronomy is possessed of very con- 
 Inferable accuracy in regard to the mean motions. 
 In other respects it has no pretensions to correctness 
 or refinement. Astronomy may acquire great accu- 
 racy in regard to the mean motions, without ti 
 help of any nice or delicate observations ; and while 
 the science can hardly be said to exist. If there is 
 every reason to believe, and none whatsoever to dis- 
 believe, that the mean motions of the Hindu astro- 
 nomy have been gradually corrected in the same 
 manner in which the calendars of ancient nations 
 have been improved, the legimate conclusion cannot 
 be mistaken. 
 
 As far as a conclusion can be drawn respecting 
 the state of astronomy among the Hindus, from the 
 state of their instruments of observation (and an 
 analogy might be expected between those closely 
 connected circumstances,) the interference entirely 
 corresponds with what the other circumstances in 
 the condition of the Hindus have a tendency to 
 
 out of its natural career, it would be much more exposed to the same em- 
 barrassment, when it directed its attention to the objects which the earth 
 presented to it, and when it endeavoured to trace their progress and suc- 
 cessive revolutions." Essays by Dr. Adam Smith, p. 97, 98. Of the 
 Persians, Mr. Scott Waring says, " Their perverse predilection for judicial 
 astrology excites them to the study of astronomy, merely that they may 
 foretell the conjunction of the planets ; and when they are able to do this 
 with any degree of accuracy, they are accounted men of considerable science. 
 They have two descriptions of Ephemeris ; the first containing the con- 
 junction and opposition of the luminaries : and the second the eclipses, the 
 longitude and latitude of the stars," &c. Tour to Sheeraz, p. 254. The pages 
 of the historian being little adapted to mathematical and astronomical dis- 
 cussion, I have inserted, by way of Appendix, an examination of the 
 arguments for the antiquity and excellence of the Hindu astronomy ; with 
 which the friendship of the great mathematician to whom I have alluded 
 has enabled me to elucidate the subject. See Append. No. 1. at the end 
 of the chapter.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 103 
 
 establish. The observatory at Benares, the great 
 seat of Hindu astronomy and learning, was found to 
 be rude in structure, and the instruments with 
 which it was provided of the coarsest contrivance 
 and construction, 
 
 Even Mr. Playfair himself observes that " regular 
 observations began to be made in Chaldea with the 
 era of Nabonassar ; the earliest which have merited 
 the attention of succeeding ages." The observation 
 which he next presents is truly philosophical and 
 important. " The curiosity of the Greeks," says he, 
 "was, soon after, directed to the same object; and 
 that ingenious people was the first that endeavoured 
 to explain or connect, by theory, the various pheno- 
 mena of the heavens." l This was an important step ; 
 all that preceded was mere observation and empiri- 
 cism, not even the commencement of science. 2 He 
 adds ; " The astronomy of India gives no theory, nor 
 even any description of the celestial phenomena, but 
 satisfies itself with the calculation of certain changes 
 in the heavens, particularly of the eclipses of the sun 
 and moon, and with the rules and tables by which 
 
 1 Playfair on the Astronomy of the Brahmens, Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. ii. 
 135. 
 
 * Dr. Smith says, Nature, according to common observation, appears a 
 chaos of jarring and discordant appearances, into which philosophy endea- 
 vours to introduce order by representing the invisible chains which bind 
 together all these disjointed objects. It thus soothes the imagination, and 
 renders the theatre of nature a more coherent, and therefore a more mag- 
 nificent "spectacle, than otherwise it would appear to be Mankind in the 
 first ages of society have little curiosity to find out those hidden chains of 
 events which bind together the seemingly disjointed appearances of nature. 
 A savage has no inclination to amuse himself with searching out what 
 seems to serve no other purpose than to render the theatre of nature a 
 more connected spectacle to his imagination." Essays, Hist, of Astron. pp. 
 20, 21, 23.
 
 JQ4 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 IMMIK ii. these calculations must be performed. The Brahmen, 
 1 seating himself on the ground, and arranging his 
 shells before him, repeats the enigmatical verses that 
 are to guide his calculation, and from his little tablets 
 and palm-leaves, takes out the numbers that are to 
 lie employed in it. He obtains his result with won- 
 derful certainty and expedition ; but having little 
 knowledge of the principles on which his rules are 
 founded, and no anxiety to be better informed, he 
 is perfectly satisfied, if, as it usually happens, the 
 commencement and duration of the eclipse answer, 
 within a few minutes, to his prediction. Beyond this 
 his astronomical inquiries never extend ; and his ob- 
 servations, when he makes any, go no further than 
 to determine the meridian line, or the length of the 
 day at the place where he observes." l 
 
 Scarcely can there be drawn a stronger picture 
 than this of the rude and infant state of astronomy. 
 The Brahmen, making his calculation by shells, is 
 an exact resemblance of the rude American perform- 
 ing the same operation by knots on a string ; and 
 both of them exhibit a practice which then only 
 prevails ; either when the more ingenious and com- 
 modious method of ciphering, or accounting by writ- 
 ten signs, is unknown ; or when the human mind is 
 too rude and too weak to break through the force of 
 an inveterate custom. 2 
 
 1 Playfair, on the Astron. of the Brahmins, Trans. U.S. E. ii. 138, 139. 
 
 * Goguct baring mentioned the quipos of the Peruvians, says, " It is 
 the same with the negroes on the coast of Juida. They know nothing of 
 the art of writing, and yet they can calculate the largest sums with great 
 facility by means of cords and knots, which have their own signification." 
 Hist. Gta. de Voyage, it. 283, 373, and 393." Origin of Laws, i. 224. 
 We arc informed by Herodotus, that the Egyptians, like the Brahmens,
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 105 
 
 But the rude state of the science of astronomy BOOK n. 
 
 -T-. /> i CHAF - 9- 
 
 among the Brahmens 01 the present day, is supposed 
 
 to have been preceded by a period in which it was 
 cultivated to a high degree of perfection. It is vain 
 to ask at what date this period had its existence ; 
 and where the signs of such ancient knowledge are 
 to be found. To these questions no answer can be 
 returned. Sir William Jones himself admits, " it is 
 improbable that the Indian astronomers, in very 
 early times, had made more accurate observations 
 than those of Alexandria, Bagdad, or Maraghah ; and 
 still more improbable that they should have relapsed 
 without apparent cause into error." l Mr. Davis, 
 one of the oriental inquirers to whom we are most 
 
 counted by shells; and at one time at least, the Greeks; but in an inverse 
 order, the Greeks passing from left to right, the Egyptians from right to 
 left. Herodot. lib. ii. cap. 36. 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. ii. 115. The following is valuable from the pen of M. De- 
 lambre. " M. La Place, qui avoit quelque interet a soutenir lagrande an- 
 cienncte de 1'astronomie Indienne, et qui avoit d'abord parle des mouve- 
 mens moyens et des epoques des Hindous de la maniere la plus avantageuse, 
 a fini pourtant par croire et imprimer que leurs tables ne remontent pas au 
 dela du 13me siecle. Mr. Playfair, en repondant a 1'objection de M. de 
 la Place, ne la detruit pas. Peu importe que Bailly ait affirme plus ou 
 moins directement et positivement la conjonction generate des planetes 
 qui a determine Pepoque; Ce qu'il falloit eclaircir est un fait. Les tables 
 indiquent-elles en effet cette conjonctiou, Pepoque alors est fietive, et 1'a- 
 stronomie Indienne est beaucoup plus moderne. Les tables n'indiquent- 
 elles pas cette conjonction, alors 1'objection de M. la Place tombe d'elle- 
 meme. C'est ce que ne ditpas Mr. Playfair, et c'est ee que jen'ai pas le terns 
 de verifier. Mais quandmeme 1'objection seroit sans force, il resteroit bien 
 d'autres difficultes. Ce ne sont pas quelques rencontres heureuses parmi une 
 foule de calculs errones.ou incoherens, qui suffiroient pour prouver Pantiquite 
 de P Astronomic Indienne. La forme mysterieuse de leurs tables et de leurs 
 methodes suffiroit pour donner des soupgous sur leur veracite. C'est une 
 question qui probablement ne sera jamais decidee, et qui ne pourroit Petre 
 que par de nouvelles decouvertes dans les ecrits des Hindous." Letter 
 from M. Delambre, dated Paris July 2J, 1814, published, Appeudix, note 
 D, of " Researches concerning the Laws, &c. of India, by Q. Craufurd, 
 Esq."
 
 106 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ,J L indebted for our knowledge of Hindu astronomy, 
 - says, " I had been inclined to think with many 
 others, that the Brahmens possess no more know- 
 ledge in astronomy, than they have derived from 
 their ancestors in tables ready calculated to their 
 hands, and that few traces of the pinciples of the 
 science could be found among them ; but by con- 
 sulting some Sanscrit books I was induced to alter 
 my opinion. I believe the Hindu science of astro- 
 nomy will be found as well known now as it ever was 
 among them." l In other words, the ignorance of 
 the present age is the same with the ignorance of all 
 former ages. 2 
 
 While we are thus unable, from all we have learn- 
 ed of the Hindu astronomy, to infer either its high 
 antiquity, or great excellence, it is a matter of doubt 
 whether even that portion of the science which they 
 possess, they may not to a great degree have derived 
 from other nations more advanced in civilization than 
 themselves. 3 The Hindu astronomy possesses certain 
 features of singularity which tend to prove, and have 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. ii. 226228. 
 
 * Of that ignorance take the following specimens : ' The Bhagavat," 
 (says Mr. Davis, Asiat. Res. iii. 225) " when treating of the system of the 
 universe, places the moon above the sun, and the planets above the fixed 
 stars." "The prince of serpents continually sustains the weight of this 
 earth." Sacontala, beginning of act v. " Some of them " [the Brahmena 
 of the present day] "are capable," says Mr. Orme, Hist, of Indost i. 3, 
 " of calculating an eclipse, which seems to be the utmost stretch of their 
 mathematical knowledge." 
 
 3 As compared with the state of Astronomical science in modern times 
 Hindu Astronomy, of course, is far from excellence, as Schlegel remarks, 
 "il n'cst pas besoin de faire de gros livres pour la prouver ;" it is, perhaps, 
 inferior to the Astronomy of the Greeks, but it exhibits many proofs of ac- 
 curate observation and deduction, highly creditable to the science of Hindu 
 Astronomers. The division of the ecliptic into lunar mansions, the solar 
 zodiac, the mean motions of the planets, the precession of the equinoxes, 
 the earth's self support in space, the diurnal revolution of the earth on its
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 107 
 
 by various inquirers been held sufficient to prove, its c 
 perfect originality. But it may very well be sup- 
 posed, that in a science which so naturally fixes the 
 attention of even a rude people, the Hindus them- 
 selves proceeded to a certain extent; and even if 
 they did borrow the most valuable portion of all that 
 they know, that it was constrained to harmonize 
 with the methods they had already invented, and 
 the discoveries they had previously made. The fact, 
 moreover, is, that if the Hindu astronomy exhibits 
 marks of distinction from other systems, it exhibits, 
 on the supposition of its originality, still more sur- 
 prising instances of agreement with other systems. 
 " The days of the week" (I use the language of Mr. 
 Playfair) " are dedicated by the Brahmens, as by us, 
 to the seven planets, and, what is truly singular, 
 they are arranged precisely in the same order. The 
 ecliptic is divided, as with us, into twelve signs of 
 
 axis, the revolution of the moon on her axis, her distance from the earth, 
 the dimension of the orbits of the planets, the calculation of eclipses, are 
 parts of a system which could not have been found amongst an unenlight- 
 ened people. That the antiquity of the Hindu Astronomy has been exag- 
 gerated is no doubt true, but there is no reason to conceive that it is not 
 ancient. Even Bentley himself refers the contrivance of the lunar mansions 
 to B.C. 1424, a period anterior to the earliest notices of Greek Astronomy, 
 and implying a course of still earlier observation. The originality of Hindu 
 Astronomy, if this era be granted, is at once established, but it is also 
 proved by intrinsic evidence, as although there are some remarkable coinci- 
 dences between the Hindu and other systems, their methods are their own. 
 " If there be any resemblances," says Professor Wallace (Account of British 
 India, Edinburgh,) they have arisen out of the nature of the science, or 
 from what the Indians have borrowed from the Arabians, who were in- 
 structed by the Greeks, rather than from anything borrowed from the In- 
 dians by the Arabians or the Greeks." There is no occasion to suppose the 
 Greeks were instructed by the Hindus, but the Arabians certainly were. 
 Their own writers affirm that Indian Astronomers were greatly encouraged 
 by the early khalifs, particularly Harun al Rashid and Al Mamun; they were 
 invited to Bagdad, and their works were translated into Arabic. The 
 Hindus were fully as much as the Greeks the teachers of the Arabians. 
 W.
 
 108 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. thirty degrees each. This division is purely ideal, 
 
 and is intended merely for the purpose of calculation. 
 
 The names and emblems by which these signs are 
 expressed, are nearly the same as with us ; and as 
 there is nothing in the nature of things to have 
 determined this coincidence, it must, like the arrange- 
 ment of the days of the week, be the result of some 
 ancient and unknown communication." 1 From this 
 striking circumstance, Montucla, the celebrated his- 
 torian of mathematics, inferred, that the Hindu 
 zodiac was borrowed from the Greeks ; and from the 
 vicinity of the Greek empire of Bactria, as well as 
 from the communications which took place between 
 the Hindus, the Persians, and Arabians, the facility 
 with which the knowledge of the Grecian astronomy 
 might pass into India is clear. Sir William Jones 
 controverts the position that the Hindu ecliptic was 
 borrowed from the Greeks ; he contends that it was 
 derived from the Chaldeans. 2 But this is the same 
 in the end. 3 
 
 At one time a disposition appeared to set the 
 knowledge of the Hindus in pure mathematics very 
 high. 
 
 1 Playfair, on the Astronomy of the Brahmens, Trans. R. S. E. ii. 140, 
 141. See to the same purpose, Colebrooke on the Indian and Arabian 
 Divisions of the Zodiac, Asiat. Res. ix. 323, 376. 
 
 * Asiast. Res. ii. 289. 
 
 3 The division of the zodiac among the Birmans as well as the Brah- 
 mens, resembles ours, the original Chaldean. " My friend Sangermano," 
 (says Dr. Buchanan, Asiat. Res. vi. 204,) "gave Captain Symes a silver 
 basin on which the twelve signs were embossed. He conceived, and I 
 think justly, that this zodiac had been communicated to the Burmans from 
 Chaldea by the intervention of the Brahmens. And I find that in this con- 
 jecture he is supported by Sir W. Jones, (As. Res. ii. 306). Both, how- 
 ever, I am afraid, will excite the indignation of the Brahmens, who, as the 
 learned judge in another place alleges, have always been too proud to 
 borrow science from any nation ignorant of the Vedas. Of their being so
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 109 
 
 A very convenient, and even an ingenious mode BOOK n. 
 / -i i / CHAP. y. 
 oi constructing the table of approximate signs, is m 
 
 use among the Hindu astronomers. " But ignorant 
 totally/' says Professor Leslie, " of the principles of 
 the operation, those humble calculators are content 
 
 proud as not to acknowledge their obligations I make no doubt ; but that 
 they have borrowed from the Chaldeans who were ignorant of the Vedas, 
 Sir W. Jones himself has proved. Why then should he have opposed the 
 sarcastic smiles of perplexed Pandits to the reasoning of M. Montucla, 
 (As. Res. ii. 303, 289,) when that learned man alleged that the Brahmens 
 have derived astronomical knowledge from the Greeks and Arabs. The 
 expression of the Brahmens quoted by him as a proof, namely, ' that no 
 base creature can be lower than a Yavan or Greek,' only exposes their 
 miserable ignorance and disgusting illiberality." On this pride, too great 
 to learn (a sure sign of barbarity), it is also to be remarked, that a matri- 
 monial connexion (among the Hindus the most sacred of all connexions) 
 took place between Seleucus and Sandracottos. " On this difficulty," 
 says Mr. Wilford, " I consulted the pundits of Benares, and they all gave 
 me the same answer ; namely, that in the time of Chandragupta, the Ya- 
 vanas were much respected, and were even considered as a sort of Hindus." 
 Asiat. Res. v. 286. What was to hinder the Brahmens from learning as- 
 tronomy from the Greeks at that period ? Mr. Wilford indeed says that a 
 great intercourse formerly subsisted between the Hindus and the nations 
 of the West. Ibid. iii. 297, 298. Sir William seems to have known but 
 little of the intercourse which subsisted between the Hindus and the people 
 of the West. Suetonius (in vit. Octav.) informs us, that the Indians sent 
 ambassadors to Augustus. An embassy met him when in Syria, from king 
 Porus, as he is called, with letters written in the Greek character, contain- 
 ing, as usual, an hyperbolical description of the grandeur of the monarch. 
 Strabo, lib. xv. p. 663. A Brahmen was among those ambassadors, who 
 followed Augustus to Athens, and there burnt himself to death. Strabo, 
 Ibid, and Dio. Cass. lib. liii. p. 527. Another splendid embassy was sent 
 from the same quarter to Constantine. Cedreni Annal. p. 242, Ed. Basil. 
 1566 ; Maurice, Hist. iii. 125. " I have long harboured a suspicion," says 
 Gibbon, " that all the Scythian, and some, perhaps much, of the Indian 
 science, was derived from the Greeks of Bactriana." Gibbon, vii. 294. 
 A confirmation of this idea, by no means trifling, was found in China, by 
 Lord Macartney and his suite, who discovered the mathematical instru- 
 ments deposited in the cities of Pekin, and Nankeen, not constructed for 
 the latitude of those places, but for the 37lh parallel, the position of Balk 
 or Bactria : Barrow's China, p. 289. The certainty of the fact of a Chris- 
 tian church being planted in India at a time not distant from that of the 
 apostles, is a proof that the Hindus had the means of learning from the 
 Greeks. We learn the following very important fact from Dr. Buchanan. 
 The greater part of Bengal manuscripts, owing to the badness of the paper, 
 require to be copied at least once in ten years, as they will, in that climate,
 
 110 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 y 1 ' to fN w blindly a slavish routine. The Brahmens 
 - must, therefore, have derived such information from 
 people further advanced than themselves in science, 
 and of a bolder and more inventive genius. What- 
 ever may be the pretensions of that passive race, 
 their knowledge of trigonometrical computation has 
 no solid claim to any high antiquity. It was proba- 
 bly, before the revival of letters in Europe, carried 
 to the East by the tide of victory. The natives of 
 Hindustan might receive instruction from the Per- 
 sian astronomers, who were themselves taught by 
 the Greeks of Constantinople, and stimulated to 
 those scientific pursuits by the skill and liberality of 
 their Arabian conquerors." l 
 
 preserve no longer ; and every copyist, it is to be suspected, adds to old 
 books whatever discoveries he makes, relinquishing his immediate reputa- 
 tion for learning, in order to promote the grand and profitable employment 
 of his sect, the delusion of the multitude. As. Res. vi. 174, note. An- 
 quetil Duperron, who had at an early period asserted the communication 
 of Grecian science to the Hindus, (See Recherches Historiques et Philo- 
 sophiques sur 1'Inde) supported this conclusion at the end of his long life. 
 " N'est il pas avoue," says he in his notes to the French translation of 
 Paolino's Travels, iii. 442 ; " que, de tout terns, sans conquete, avec con- 
 quete, par terre comme par mer, 1'Asie, 1'Inde, et 1'Europe, ont en des 
 relations plus ou moins actives ; que les savans, les sages de ces contrees 
 se sont visites, ont pu se faire part de leurs decouvertes ; et qu'il n'est pas 
 hors de vraisemblance que quclques uns auront fait usage dans leurs livres, 
 memo sans en avertir, des nouvelles lumieres qu'ils avaient recjues de 
 1'etranger ? De nos jours, le Rajah d' Amber, dans ses ouvrages astrono- 
 miques, parle des tables de la Hire. Le Rajah Djessingue, aura profile 
 des lecjons du P. Boudier, qu'il avait appele aupres de lui. Si 1'astronome 
 Brahme, avec lequel M. le Geutil a travaille a Pondicherri, ecrit sur 1'as- 
 tronomie, sans abandonner le fond de ses piincipes, du systeme Indien, il 
 adoptera des pratiques qu'il aura remarquees dans son disciple, calculera, 
 quoique Indou, a la Frangaise, et donnera comme de lui, du pays, des re- 
 sultats reellement tires de ses rapports avec 1'astrpnomie Francaise. Nier 
 ces probabilites, c'est ne pas connaitre les hommes." " II y a differentes 
 epoques dans les sciences Indiennes, dans la mythologie, les opinions reli- 
 gieuses de cette contree. Les Indiens ont recu ou emprunte diverses con- 
 naissances des Arabes, des Perses, en tel temps ; des Grecs dans tel autre." 
 Ib. p. 451. 
 1 Elements of Geometry, &c. By John Leslie, Professor of Moral Phi-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. Ill 
 
 Arithmetic is a branch of mathematics ; and among BOOK " 
 
 CHAP. y 
 
 other inventions, of which the honour has been 
 
 claimed for the Hindus, is that of numerical cha- 
 
 losophy in the University of Edinburgh, note xxiv. All that can be said 
 in favour of the mathematical science of the Hindus is very skilfully 
 summed up in the following passage, by a mathematician of first-rate emi- 
 nence, William Wallace, Esq. the Professor of Mathematics in the Univer- 
 sity of Edinburgh. " The researches of the learned have brought to light 
 astronomical tables in India, which must have been constructed by the 
 principles of geometry ; but the period at which they have been formed has 
 by no means been completely ascertained. Some are of opinion, that they 
 have been framed from observations made at a very remote period, not less 
 than 3,000 years before the Christian era ; and if this opinion be well 
 founded, the science of geometry must have been cultivated in India to a 
 considerable extent, long before the period assigned to its origin in the 
 West ; so that many of the elementary propositions may have been brought 
 from India to Greece. The Hindus have a treatise called the Surya Sid- 
 hanta, which professes to be a revelation from heaven, communicated to 
 Meya, a man of great sanctity, about four millions of years ago ; but setting 
 aside this fabulous origin, it has been supposed to be of great antiquity, 
 and to have been written at least two thousand years before the Christian 
 era. Interwoven with many absurdities, this book contains a rational sys- 
 tem of trigonometry, which differs entirely from that first known in Greece 
 or Arabia. In fact, it is founded on a geometrical theorem, which was not 
 known to the geometricians of Europe, before the time of Vieta, about two 
 hundred years ago. And it employs the sines of arcs, a thing unknown to 
 the Greeks, who used the chords of the double arcs. The invention of 
 sines has been attributed to the Arabs, but it is possible that they may 
 have received this improvement in trigonometry, as well as the numeral 
 characters, from India." Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Article Geometry, 
 p. 191. The only fact here asserted which bears upon the question of the 
 civilization of the Hindus, is that of their using the sines of arcs instead of 
 the chords of the double arcs. Suppose that they invented this method. 
 It proves nothing beyond what all men believe ; that the Hindus made a 
 few of the first steps in civilization at an early period ; and that they en- 
 gaged in those abstract speculations, metaphysical and mathematical, to 
 which a semi-barbarous people are strongly inclined. The Arabians were 
 never more than semi-barbarous. The Greeks were no better, at the early 
 age when they were acquainted with the elementary propositions of geome- 
 try. If the Greeks or Arabians invented, in the semi-barbarous state, the 
 mode of computation by the chords ; what was to hinder the Hindus from 
 inventing, while semi-barbarous, the mode of computing by the sines of 
 arcs ? This is upon the supposition that the mode of computing by sines, 
 and the elementary propositions on which it depends, really are original 
 among the Hindus. But this seems not to rest upon very satisfactory 
 proof, when it is barely inferred from the use of chords by the Greeks ; and
 
 112 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. racers. 1 Whether the signs used bv the Hindus are 
 
 CHAP. 8. * 
 
 so peculiar as to render it probable that they invented 
 
 them, or whether it is still more probable that they 
 borrowed them, are questions which, for the purpose 
 of ascertaining their progress in civilization, are not 
 worth resolving. " The invention of numerical cha- 
 racters," says Goguet, " must have been very ancient. 
 For though flints, pebbles, and grains of corn, &c. 
 might be sufficient for making arithmetical calcula- 
 tions, they were by no means proper for preserving 
 the result of them. It was, however, necessary on 
 many occasions to preserve the result of arithmetical 
 operations, and consequently it was necessary, very 
 early, to invent signs for that purpose." 2 Under 
 these motives, a people, who had communication 
 with another people already acquainted with nume- 
 rical signs, would borrow them : a people who had 
 no such communication, would be under the neces- 
 sity of inventing them. But alphabetical signs, far 
 more difficult, were invented at a rude period of 
 society ; no certain proof of civilization is therefore 
 gained by the invention of arithmetical characters. 
 
 the possibility alone is asserted of the Arabians having derived the know- 
 edge from the Hindus. M. The author has here shifted his ground; as 
 his quotation from Professor Wallace is hostile to the purport of his ar- 
 gument, and proves that the Hindus had an original method of computa- 
 tion, and one which anticipated modern discovery. The position that 
 they must have been indebted to a people further advanced than them- 
 selves, as for instance, the Greeks, is shown to be untenable. Obliged, 
 however reluctantly, to admit that the Hindus may have invented this 
 method, the author falls back upon the more general charge, and says, 
 " it does not substantiate their civilization." The question at issue in 
 this place, is, not their civilization, but their proficiency in mathematics ; 
 and the instance given is favourable to the pretensions of the Hindus to 
 very considerable progress effected by their own independent efforts. W. 
 
 1 Even Delambre, who disputes the originality of Hindu Astronomy, 
 concedes their claim to early progress in arithmetic, and the invention of 
 numerical ciphers. W. 
 
 1 Origin of Laws, i. 221.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 113 
 
 The characters of which Europeans themselves make BOOKII. 
 
 CHAP 9. 
 
 use, and which they have borrowed from the Ara- 
 bians, are really hieroglyphics ; and " from the mo- 
 numents of the Mexicans," says Goguet, " which are 
 still remaining, it appears that hieroglyphics were 
 used by that people, both for letters and numerical 
 characters." l That diligent and judicious inquirer 
 says, in general, " The origin of ciphers or numeri- 
 cal characters was confounded with that of hierogly- 
 phic writing. To this day, the Arabian ciphers are 
 real hieroglyphics, and do not represent words, but 
 things. For which reason, though the nations which 
 use them speak different languages, yet these charac- 
 ters excite the ideas of the same numbers in the 
 minds of all." 2 
 
 Algebraic signs, which were brought into Europe 
 from Arabia, may, it is said, have originated in India. 
 There is an assertion of the Arabian writers, that an 
 Arabian mathematician in 959 travelled to India, in 
 quest of information. He might, however, travel 
 without finding. On this foundation, it is plain that 
 no sound inference can be established. If, indeed, it 
 were proved that the algebraic notation came from 
 India, an invention, which the Arabians could make, 
 implies not much of civilization wherever it was 
 made. The shape, indeed, in which it was imported 
 from Arabia, sets the question at rest. It cannot be 
 described more clearly and shortly than in the words 
 of Mr. Playfair. The characters, as imported from 
 
 1 Origin of Laws, i. 224. 
 
 * Ibid. Mr. Gilchrist renders it highly probable, that not only the digits, 
 but the letters of the alphabet are hieroglyphics. Philosophic Etymology, 
 p. 23. 
 
 VOL. II. I
 
 114 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Arabia, "are mere abbreviations of words. Thus 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 the first appearance of algebra is merely that of a 
 system of short-hand writing, or an abbreviation of 
 common language, applied to the solution of arith- 
 metical problems. It was a contrivance merely to 
 save trouble." 1 
 
 The books of the Hindus abound with the praise 
 of learning ; and the love and admiration of learning 
 is a mark of civilization and refinement. By the 
 panegyrics, however, in the books of the Hindus, 
 the existence is proved of little to which admiration 
 is due. On the pretensions of the Brahmens to 
 learning, the title to which they reserved exclusively 
 to themselves, a great part of their unbounded in~ 
 fluence depended. It was their interest, therefore, 
 to excite an admiration of it, that is, of themselves, 
 by every artifice. When we contemplate, however, 
 the acquirements and performances on which the 
 most lofty of these panegyrics were lavished, we can 
 be at no loss for a judgment on their learning, or the 
 
 1 Second Dissertation. Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 p. 12. It is a coincidence well worth remarking, that Diophantus, a Greek 
 mathematician of Alexandria, about 150 years after Christ, employed a 
 like expedient. " The questions he resolves," says Mr. Playfair, " are of 
 considerable difficulty. The expression is that of common language ab- 
 breviated, and assisted by a few symbols." (Ib. p. 13.) In a MS. of Dio. 
 phantus, which Bombclli says he saw in the Vatican library, the Indian 
 authors, he says, are often quoted. Nothing of this appears in the work of 
 Diophantus, which was published about three years after the time when 
 Bombelli wrote. Nor has any other work of Diophantus been produced. 
 It is, besides, to be remembered, that the Greeks used the word Indian 
 with great latitude. They applied it not merely -to the people beyond the 
 Indus ; they applied it also to a people on the Euxine Sea; to a people 
 in Ethiopia ; in a general way, to all the people of the East. It is by no 
 means clear that Diophantus would not apply it to the Arabians themselves 
 (See Appendix, No. II. at the end of the chapter.)
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 115 
 
 motive from which the praises of it arose. To be BOOK n - 
 
 I CHAP. 9. 
 
 able to read the Vedas, was merit of the most . 
 
 exalted nature ; to have actually read them, elevated 
 the student to a rank almost superior to that of mor- 
 tals. " A priest," says the sacred text of Menu, 
 " who has gone through the whole Veda, is equal to 
 a sovereign of the whole world. 1 What is valuable 
 
 1 Laws of Menu, ch. ix. 245. " Since the era of Halhed and Sir William 
 Jones," says Mr. Scott Waring, "the existence of the precious manuscripts 
 of Sanscrit learning has, like the chorus to a popular song, been echoed 
 from author to author, who, though entirely ignorant of Sanscrit, have 
 stamped with credibility a seemingly vague supposition ; for what pro- 
 duction have we yet seen to justify those extravagant praises ?" Tour to 
 Sheeraz, by Ed. Scott Waring, p. 5. Mr. Wilford, better acquainted 
 with the Puranas than any other European, speaks of them with little re- 
 spect. He talks of " the ignorant compilers of the Puranas, who have ar- 
 ranged this heterogeneous mass without method and still less judgment." 
 As. Res. vi. 471. M. Bernier than whom no European had better oppor- 
 tunies of observing the actual and present attainments of the Brahmens, 
 who observed with a penetrating and judicious spirit, and wrote before the 
 birth of theory on the subject, says, " Apres le Purane quelques uns se 
 jettent dans la philosophic oft certainement ils reussissent bien peu ; je 1'ai 
 deja dit, ils sont d'une humeur lente et paresseuse, et ne sont point ani- 
 mes dans 1'esperance de parvenir a quelque chose par leur etude." Suite 
 des Memoires sur 1'Empire du Grand Mogol, i. 184. " Leurs plus fameux 
 Pendets," says he, "me semblent tres ignorans." (Ibid. p. 185.) Mention- 
 ing their accounts of the world, he says, "II y en a aussi qui veulent que 
 la lumiere et les tenebres soient les premiers principes, et disent la-dessus 
 mille choses a vue de pays sans ordre ni suite, et apportent de longues rai- 
 sons qui ne sentent nullement la philosophic, mais souvent la fagon ordi- 
 naire de parler du peuple." (Ibid. p. 187.) Though the Hindus abstain 
 religiously from anatomy, they pretend to know most confidently anato- 
 mical facts. " Ils ne laissent pas d'assurer qu'il y a cinq mille veines dans 
 Phomme, ni plus ni moins,comme s'ils les avoientbien contees."(Ibid. p. 190.) 
 After a review of their whole knowledge, which would be reckoned no in- 
 correct outline, by the best informed of the present day, he adds, " Toutes 
 ces grandes impertinences que je viens de vous raconter m'ont souvent fait 
 dire en moi-meme que si ce sont la les fameuses sciences de ces anciens 
 Bragmanes des Indes, il faut qui'l y ait eu bien du monde trompe dans les 
 grandes idees qu'on en a congues." (Ibid. p. 193.) " For some time a 
 very unjust and unhappy impression appeared to have been made on the 
 
 I 2
 
 116 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. j n learning could be little understood, where conse- 
 
 CHAP. 9. . 
 
 quences of so much importance were attached to a 
 
 feat of this description. 
 
 public mind, by the encomiums passed on the Hindoo writings. In the 
 first place, they were thus elevated in their antiquity beyond the Christian 
 Scriptures, the writings of Moses having been called the productions of 
 yesterday, compared with those of the bramhuns. The contents of these 
 books, also, were treated with the greatest reverence; the primitive reli- 
 gion of the Hindoos, it was said, revealed the most sublime doctrines, and 
 inculcated a pure morality. We were taught to make the greatest distinction 
 between the ancient and modern religion of the Hindoos ; for the apologists 
 of Hindooism did not approve of its being judged of by present appearances- 
 Some persons endeavoured to persuade us, that the Hindoos were not idola- 
 ters, because they maintained the unity of God ; though they worshipped the 
 work of their own hands as God, and though the number of their gods was 
 330,000,000. It is very probable, that the unity of God has been a sentiment 
 amongst the philosophers of every age ; and that they wished it to be under- 
 stood, that they worshipped the One God, whether they bowed before the 
 image of Moloch, Jupiter, or Kalee ; yet mankind have generally concluded 
 that he who worships an image is an idolater ; and I suppose they will conti- 
 nue to think so, unless in this age of reason common sense should be turned 
 out of doors. Now, however, the world has had some opportunity of deciding 
 upon the claims of the Hindoo writings, both as it respects their antiquity 
 and the value of their contents. Mr. Colebrooke's Essay on the Vdus, and 
 his other important translations ; the Bhuguvut Geeta, by Mr. Wilkins ; 
 the translation of the Ramayunu. several volumes of which have been 
 printed ; some valuable papers in the Asiatic Researches ; with other 
 translations by different Sungskritu scholars ; have thrown a great body of 
 light on this subject ; and this light is daily increasing. Many an object 
 appears beautiful when seen at a distance, and through a mist ; but when 
 the fog has dispersed, and the person has approached it, he smiles at the 
 deception. Such is the exact case with these books, and this system of 
 idolatry. Because the public, for want of being more familiar with the 
 subject, could not ascertain the point of time when the Hindoo Shastrus 
 were written, they therefore at once believed the assertions of the bram- 
 huns and their friends, that their antiquity was unfathomable." Ward on 
 the Hindoos, Introd. p. xcix.) " There is scarcely any thing in Hindooism 
 when truly known, in which a learned man can delight, or of which a be- 
 nevolent man can approve ; and I am fully persuaded, that there will soon 
 be but one opinion on the subject, and that this, opinion will be, that the 
 Hindoo system is less ancient than the Egyptian, and that it is the most pue- 
 rile, impure, and bloody, of any system of idolatry that was ever established 
 on earth." (Ib. ciii.)
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 117 
 
 The Hindus have institutions of education : and BOOK H- 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 the Brahmens teach the arts of reading and writing, 
 
 by tracing the characters with a rod in the sand. 1 
 How extensively this elementary knowledge is dif- 
 fused, we have received little or no information. This 
 is a satisfactory proof of the want of intelligence and 
 of interest, with which our countrymen in India have 
 looked upon the native population. The magistrates, 
 however, who returned answers to the interrogatories 
 of government in the year 1801, respecting the mo- 
 rals of the people, describe the state of education in 
 general terms, as deplorable in the extreme. Mr. J. 
 Stracey, magistrate of Momensing, says, " The lower 
 sort are extremely ignorant." Mr. Paterson, magis- 
 trate of Dacca Jelalpore, recommends " a total change 
 in the system of education amongst those who have 
 any education at all :" adding, that " the great mass 
 of the lower ranks have literally none." The judges 
 of the court of appeal and circuit of Moorshedabad 
 say : " The moral character of a nation can be 
 improved by education only. All instruction is 
 unattainable to the labouring poor, whose own ne- 
 
 1 Anquetil Duperron, who lodged a night at the house of a schoolmaster 
 at a Mahratta village, a little north of Poona, gives a ludicrous picture of 
 the teaching scene. " Les ecoliers, sur deux files, accroupis sur leur ta- 
 ^ons, tracjoient avec le doigt les lettres, ou les mots, sur une planche noire 
 couverte de sable blanc ; d'autres repetoient les noms des lettres en forme 
 de mots. Car les Indiens, au lieu de dire comme nous, a, b, c, prononcent 
 ainsi awam, banam, kanam. Le maitre ne me parut occupe pendant une 
 demi heure que la classe dura encore, qu'a frapper avec un long rotin le 
 dos nud de ces pauvres enfans : en Asiec'est la partie qui paye; la passion 
 malheureusement trop commune dans ces contrees, veille a la surete de 
 celle que nos maitres sacrifient a leur vengeance. J'aurois ete bien aise 
 de m'entretenir avec Monsieur le Pedagogue Marate, ou de moins d'avoir 
 un alphabet de sa main ; mais sa morgue ne lui permit pas de repondre A 
 ines politcsses." (Zendavesta, Disc. Prelim, p. ccxxx.)
 
 11H HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 cessities require the assistance of their children as 
 soon as their tender limbs are capable of the smallest 
 labour. With the middle class of tradesmen, arti- 
 ficers, and shopkeepers, education ends at ten years 
 of age, and never reaches further than reading, 
 writing (a scarcely legible hand on the plantain leaf), 
 and the simplest rules of arithmetic." l But if the 
 Hindu institutions of education were of a much more 
 perfect kind than they appear to have ever been, they 
 would afford a very inadequate foundation for the 
 inference of a high state of civilization. The truth 
 is, that institutions for education, more elaborate 
 than those of the Hindus, are found in the infancy 
 of civilization. Among the Turks and the Persians 
 there are schools and colleges, rising one above 
 another for the different stages of instruction." 2 And 
 
 1 Papers on India Affairs, No. iii. ordered to be printed by the House of 
 Commons, 30th April 1813. 
 
 * " There were in these times [the times of Aliverdi, nabob of Bengal] at 
 Azimabad," says the author of the Seer Mutakhareen, " numbers of per- 
 sons who loved sciences and learning, and employed themselves in teach- 
 ing and in being taught ; and I remember to have seen in that city and its 
 environs alone, nine or ten professors of repute, and three or four hundred 
 students and disciples ; from whence may be conjectured the number of 
 those that must have been in the great towns, and in the retired districts." 
 Seer Mutakhareen, i. 705, 4to. Calcutta, 1789. N. B. this with regard to 
 the Mussulmans of Bengal. The translator says, in a note, " The reader 
 must rate properly all these students, and all these expressions : their only 
 object was the Goran and its commentaries ; that is the Mahometan reli- 
 gion, and the Mahometan law." Ibid. A hint very different from those 
 we are wont to receive from our guides in Hindu literature. " In vain do 
 some persons talk to us of colleges, of places of education, and books : these 
 words in Turkey convey not the same ideas as with us." Volney's Tra- 
 vels in Syria and Egypt, ii. 443. Chardin, who formed as high an opinion 
 of the Persians as Sir William Jones of the Hindus, tells us, (Voyage en 
 Perse, iii. 130,) " Le genie des Persans est porte aux sciences, plus qu'a 
 toute autre profession ; et Ton peut dire que les Persans y reussissent si 
 bien quc ce sont, apres les Chretiens Europeens, les plus sqavans pvuplcs 
 du mondc Us envoy en t les cnfans aux colleges, ct les elevent aux
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS 119 
 
 scarcely in any nation does the business of education 
 appear to have been a higher concern of the govern- 
 ment than among the Americans of Mexico and 
 Peru. l 
 
 As evidence of the fond credulity with which the 
 state of society among the Hindus was for a time re- 
 garded, I ought to mention the statement of Sir W. 
 Jones, who gravely, and with an air of belief, in- 
 forms us, that he had heard of a philosopher " whose 
 works were said to contain a system of the universe, 
 founded on the principle of attraction and the central 
 
 lettres autant que leurs moyens le peuvent permettre." And at page 
 137, 138. he adds that schools are distributed in great numbers in Persia 
 and colleges very numerous. 
 
 1 " Inca Roca was reputed the first who established schools in Cozco, 
 where the Amautas were the masters, and taught such sciences as were fit 
 to improve the minds of Incas, who were princes, and of the chief nobility, 
 not that they did instruct them by way of letters, for as yet they had not 
 attained to that knowledge, but only in a practical manner, and by daily 
 discourses : their other lectures were of religion, and of those reasons and 
 wisdom on which their laws were established, and of the number and true 
 exposition of them ; for by these means they attained to the art of govern- 
 ment and military discipline ; they distinguished the times and seasons of 
 the year, and by reading in their knots they learned history and the actions 
 of past ages ; they improved themselves also in the elegance and ornament 
 of speaking, and took rules and measures for the management of their do- 
 mestic affairs. These Amautas, who were philosophers, and in high esteem 
 amongst them, taught something also of poetry, music, philosophy, and as- 
 trology," &c. Garcilasso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries, book iv. ch. xix. 
 This same Inca exhibited one stroke at least which will be reckoned high 
 wisdom by some amongst us: " He enacted that the children of the com- 
 mon people should not be educated in the liberal arts and sciences, for 
 that were to make them proud, conceited, and ungovernable, but that the 
 nobility were those only to whom such literature did appertain, to render 
 them more honourable, and capable of offices in the common-wealth." 
 Ibid. " There is nothing," (says Acosta, book vi. ch. 27) " that gives me 
 more cause to admire, nor that I find more worthy of commendation and 
 memory, than the order and care the Mexicans had to nourish their youth." 
 He tells us they had schools in their temples, and masters to instruct the 
 young " in all commendable exercises, to be of good behaviour," &c.
 
 120 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. position of the sun." l This reminds the instructed 
 
 CHAP. 9. J 
 
 _ reader of the disposition which has been manifested 
 by some of the admirers of the Greek and Roman 
 literature, and of these by one at least who had not 
 a weak and credulous mind, to trace the discoveries 
 of modern philosophy to the pages of the classics. 
 Dr. Middleton, in his celebrated life of Cicero, says, 
 that " several of the fundamental principles of the 
 modern philosophy, which pass for the original dis- 
 coveries of these later times, are the revival rather 
 of ancient notions, maintained by some of the first 
 philosophers, of whom we have any notice in history ; 
 as the motion of the earth, the antipodes, a vacuum ; 
 and an universal gravitation or attractive quality of 
 matter, which holds the world in its present form 
 and order." 2 It is a well-known artifice of the 
 Brahmens, with whose pretensions and interests it 
 would be altogether inconsistent to allow there was 
 any knowledge with which they were not acquainted, 
 or which was not contained in some of their books, 
 to attach to the loose and unmeaning phraseology of 
 some of their own writings, whatever ideas they find 
 to be in esteem ; or even to interpolate for that fa- 
 vourite purpose. 3 It was thus extremely natural 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. i. 430, and iv. 169. 
 
 * Middleton's Life of Cicero, sect. 12. Considerable currency was ob- 
 tained by a very learned work of a clergyman of the Church of England 
 Mr. Dutens, who undertook to prove that all the discoveries which the 
 modems have made in the arts and sciences, may be found distinctly 
 broached in the writings of the ancients. 
 
 3 Anquetil Duperron gives us a remarkable instance of the disposition 
 of the Brahmens to accommodate by falsification, even their sacred re- 
 cords, to the ideas of Europeans. " Si je n'avois pas SQU que le commence- 
 ment de I'Amerkosh contenoit la description du lingam, peut-etre m'eut il 
 etc impossible de decouvrir que mes Brahmes, qui ne vouloient pas de- 
 voiler le fond de leurs mystercs, paraphrasoicnt ctpallioient plutotqu'ils nc 
 traduisoient." Zeiidav. Disc. Prelim, i. ccclxix. Dr. Buchanan found
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. 121 
 
 that Sir William Jones, whose pundits had become 
 acquainted with the ideas of European philosophers 
 respecting the system of the universe, should hear 
 from them that those ideas were contained in their 
 
 the propensity general, to deceive him in their accounts both of their reli- 
 gion and history. See Journey through Mysore, &c. ii. 76, 79, 80. " The 
 Brahmena," he says, " when asked for dates, or authority, say that they 
 must consult their books, which may be readily done ; but when I send 
 my interpreter, who is also a Brahmen, to copy the dates, they pretend tha t 
 their books are lost." Ibid. i. 335. All information, he says, from the 
 Brahmens, usually differs most essentially as derived from different indi- 
 viduals. Ibid. ii. 306. See an account of the imposition practised by his 
 pundits upon Captain Wilford, by Lord Teignmouth, in the Introduction 
 to his Life of Sir William Jones; also an account by Mr. Wilford himself, 
 Essay on the Sacred Isles in the West, Asiat. Res. viii. 253. In a letter 
 to a friend, Sir W. Jones said, " 1 can no longer bear to be at the mercy 
 of our pundits, who deal out the Hindu law as they please, and make it at 
 reasonable rates, where they cannot find it ready made." Life of Sir W. 
 Jones, by Lord Teignmouth, 4to. Ed. p. 307. Colonel Wilkes accuses the 
 Hindu author of the Digest of Hindu Law, translated by Mr. Colebrooke, 
 of substituting a false principle of law for a true one, out of " a courtesy 
 and consideration, for opinions established by authority, which is peculiar 
 to the natives of India." Histor. Sketches, p. 116. M. These proofs 
 " of a well-known artifice of the Brahmans," are for the most part proofs 
 only of the ignorance or misconceptions of Europeans. Du Perron's 
 instance is remarkable as an illustration of the former. There is no allu- 
 sion to the ' lingam,' in a mythological sense, in the beginning of the 
 Amerkosh, and the Brahmans must have been much amused and asto- 
 nished at Du Perron's discovery ; the word ' linga ' does occur it is true, 
 but only in its grammatical import of gender ; the author intimating that 
 his work (a lexicon) specifies the genders of the nouns which it contains. 
 Buchanan insisted on the production of what rarely, if ever, exists in 
 manuscripts dates, and that they were not manufactured for him proves 
 the integrity of his informers. Sir Wm. Jones's assertion is general, and 
 purports no more than an undeniable truth, that it becomes those Euro- 
 peans who administer Mohammedan and Hindu law, to know that law 
 for themselves, and not be wholly dependent upon interpreters, who may 
 have an interest in misleading them. Colonel Wilks assumes, without 
 any warrant, that Jagannatha was influenced by courtesy and consideration 
 for established opinions, in pronouncing the earth to become the property 
 of kings by conquest. It is much more probable that Jagannatha was quite 
 honest, as he would attach great weight to the text on which he comments, 
 however inconclusive it may appear to European critics, and whether 
 well-founded or not, he expresses the general sentiment of his country- 
 men. The only one of these proofs then that will bear examination, is the 
 case of Colonel Wilford, and he tempted imposition by his iiicautiou and
 
 122 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. own books : The wonder was, that without any proof 
 
 CHAP. 9. J L 
 
 he should believe them. l 
 
 credulity. That instances of literary imposture occur in India, as else- 
 where, is no doubt true, but they are not of a nature or extent to justify 
 the unqualified attribution of dishonesty to all learned Brahmans what- 
 ever. W. 
 
 1 He might have got proofs, equal to those with which they presented 
 him, of Plato's having been acquainted with the circulation of the blood ; 
 viz., because when speaking of that fluid he uses the word Trepta^caOut 
 which signifies to be carried round. It is worthy of remark, that the phi- 
 losopher, of whom Sir William heard, and whose works contained such im- 
 portant discoveries, was called Yavan Acharya, that is Gentile or Greek. By 
 the argument of Sir William, we might believe that the Greeks anticipated 
 Newton. When Copernicus, dissatisfied with the received account of the 
 heavenly motions, addressed himself to discover anew arrangement, we are 
 told that " he examined all the obscure traditions delivered down to us, con- 
 cerning every other hypothesis which the ancients had invented. He found 
 in Plutarch, that some old Pythagoreans had represented the earth as re- 
 volving in the centre of the universe, like a wheel round its own axis ; and 
 that others of the same sect, had removed it from the centre, and repre- 
 sented it as revolving in the ecliptic, like a star round the central fire. By 
 this central fire he supposed they meant the sun," &c. Dr. Ad. Smith, Essay 
 on Hist. Astron. p. 51. We might prove that Parmenides had a just con- 
 ception of the figure of the globe. Plato informs us that, according to 
 that inquirer, To o\ov eyri 
 
 YlavToOev evKVK\ov atyaipas eva\i<yiciov opfKtp, 
 Meffaodev iffoiraXes iravTrj' TOV <yap ov^e rt fieigov 
 Ovre Pefiaio-repov TreXet. Plat. Sophista, p. 171. 
 
 Herodotus mentions the opinion of a naturalist, even in his days, who 
 supposed that the ocean flowed round the earth, (a bold step towards the 
 conception of its right figure,) rov wneavov yijv -jrt.pl -jraaav peetv 
 lib. ii. sect. 22. Dr. Vincent, giving an account of the knowledge pos- 
 sessed by the ancients of the globular form of the earth, and of the saying 
 of Strabo, that nothing obstructed the passage from Spain to India by a 
 westerly course, but the immensity of the Atlantic ocean, has the following 
 note ; " Aristotle seems the author of this supposition, as well as of most 
 other things that are extraordinary in the knowledge of the ancients. See 
 Bochart, Phaleg. 169. ^vvaineiv TOI/ repi -ras 'Hpaic\eiovs irj\at 
 TOTTOV TW irept rrjv IV&IKIJV. The parts about the pillars of Hercules 
 join to those about India. This is a nearer approach still ; but both sup- 
 positions arise from the contemplation of the earth as a sphere. Aristotle 
 has also preserved the opinion of the Pythagoreans, who made the sun the 
 centre of our system, with the earth and the other planets revolving round 
 it, which is the hypothesis adopted by Copernicus, and established by 
 Newton. Strabo, likewise, who left the phenomena of the heavens, and 
 the form of the earth, to the mathematicians, still thought the earth a 
 sphere, and describes our system agreeably to the theory which was after-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 123 
 
 wards adopted by Ptolemy ; but he adds the idea of gravitation in a most BOOK II. 
 singular manner. 20at^oet^y fiev o Koffftos KO.I o Qvpavos. 'H CHAP - " 
 
 POFIH c'eTri TO fieaov TUJV flapewv o B'ovpavos 7rept(j)epeT-ai 
 
 jrepi re avTrjv KO.I ire.pi TOV agova, air 1 avavoKris ETTI Svaiv. 
 Lib. ii. 110. The earth and the heaven are both spherical; but the ten- 
 dency is to the centre of gravity. The heaven is carried round itself, and 
 round its axis from east to west. I barely suggest the extent of ancient 
 knowledge on these questions ; those who wish to gratify their curiosity 
 may consult Stobseus, torn. ii. cap. 25, Ed. Heeren, Getting. 1792, 1794 5 
 and Diogenes Laertius in Anaximander, Pythagoras, and Zeno, lib. vii. 
 sect. 155." Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, part ii. 517. Sir William 
 Jones tells us, in his Discourse on the Hindu zodiac, that the pundit Ra- 
 machandra had a correct notion of the figure of the earth. So had the 
 elder Hermes, of whom it was one of the established maxims, that the 
 earth was oviform, and hence the oval form of many of the oldest temples 
 of Egypt. The earth was called Brahma's egg. See Asiat. Res. i. 360. 
 Or Ramachandra, like a common fortune-teller, might only repeat to Sir 
 William what he had learned from Sir William. Europeans will arrive in 
 time to think justly respecting the Hindus: Thus speaks Dr. Buchanan; 
 " No useful science have the Brahmens diffused among their followers ; 
 history they have abolished ; morality they have depressed to the utmost ; 
 and the dignity and power of the altar they have erected on the ruins of 
 the state, and the rights of the subject." Asiat. Res. vi. 166. 
 
 APPENDIX, No. I. 
 
 Remarks on the Arguments for the Antiquity of 
 
 Hindu Astronomy. 
 
 THE knowledge of the^ Europeans concerning the 
 astronomy of India is chiefly derived from different 
 sets of astronomical tables brought to Europe at 
 different times. All these tables are obviously con- 
 nected with one another : for they are all adapted to 
 one meridian; the mean motions are the same in 
 them all ; and their principal epochs are all deduced 
 by calculation from one original epoch. The most 
 ancient of the Indian epochs is fixed in the year 3102 
 before the Christian sera, at the commencement of 
 the Cali-yug. On account of the mutual connexion 
 which, it is allowed, subsists between the three re- 
 maining epochs, it is only necessary to discuss that
 
 124 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "' one wn * c h se ems to be the most important : it is 
 _ comparatively of modern date, and goes back no 
 further than to the year of Christ, 1491. 
 
 M. Bailly, in his Astronomie Indienne, has endea- 
 voured to prove that the more ancient of the two 
 epochs is fixed by actual observations: a proposi- 
 tion, which, if it were clearly made out, would con- 
 fer the highest antiquity on the astronomy of India. 
 In a paper in the Endinburgh Transactions, Mr. 
 Play fair, who has adopted the opinion of M. Bailly, 
 has given a clear and forcible summary of all the 
 arguments that have been adduced in favour of the 
 side he supports. M. Laplace, who is the only 
 other author that has noticed the subject of the 
 Indian astronomy since the publication of M. 
 Bailly's work, does not accede to the opinion of his 
 brother academician. In a very short passage in 
 the " Systeme du Monde," Laplace states it as his 
 own opinion, that the ancient epoch of the Brahmens 
 was adopted with the view of making all the celes- 
 tial motions begin at the same point of the zodiac : 
 and he very briefly hints the reasons on which his 
 opinion is founded. In drawing up the following 
 remarks, the observations of Laplace have been kept 
 in view. 
 
 1. If we set out from the epoch of 1491, and com- 
 pute the places of the sun, moon, and the planets, 
 for the ancient epoch in 3102 A. C. it is found that 
 all the celestial bodies are then in mean conjunction 
 with the sun in the origin of the moveable zodiac. 
 Here then is an astronomical fact, which the Indian 
 tables necessarily suppose to have taken place, and 
 which, it must be allowed, appears to be very fit to 
 bring the authenticity of the ancient epoch to the
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 125 
 
 proof. For, although the tables of the modern as- BOOK n. 
 
 . CHAP. 9. 
 
 tronomy, highly unproved as they are, do not enable 
 
 us to go back more than 2000 years with extreme 
 accuracy, yet they are sufficiently exact to afford the 
 means of judging whether the general conjunction, 
 supposed in the Indian tables, was actually copied 
 from the heavens or not. Now M. Bailly has com- 
 puted the places of the planets at the time of the 
 ancient epoch of the Indians, or for the commence- 
 ment of the Cali-yug, from the tables of M. La- 
 lande : and, although all the planets, except Venus, 
 w T ere s then nearly in conjunction with the sun, yet 
 they were by no means so near to one another as to 
 render it probable that this epoch was fixed by ob- 
 servation. M. Bailly argues that the conjunction 
 could not be determined by direct observation ; be- 
 cause the planets are invisible when immersed in the 
 sun's light : and he shows that fifteen days after the 
 epoch all the planets, except Venus, were contained 
 within seventeen degrees of the zodiac. But this is 
 not satisfactory. Mr. Playfair admits that the 
 Indian tables cannot be entirely vindicated in this 
 respect. Laplace lays all the stress on this argu- 
 ment to which it seems fairly entitled. 
 
 The fiction of a general conjunction in the begin- 
 ning of the moveable zodiac is the more remarkable, 
 because it agrees precisely with the account which 
 M. Bailly gives of the formation of the Indian astro- 
 nomical systems. 
 
 The validity of the observations made by the critic 
 in the Edinburgh Review, as far as they regard the 
 accuracy of the mean motions, and other astrono- 
 mical elements which do not depend on the epochs, 
 cannot be disputed. There is but one way of deter-
 
 126 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ^ " mining the mean motions with accuracy ; namely, by 
 - comparing together real observations of the places of 
 the planets made at a sufficient interval of time. 
 No fictitious, or assumed, epochs can be of the least 
 use for this purpose. Indeed Mr. Bentley does not 
 maintain that the Brahmens make any such use of 
 their assumed epochs. The artificial systems of the 
 Indian astronomy necessarily suppose the mean mo- 
 tions, and other elements, to be already determined 
 and known. Mr. Bentley seems in some measure to 
 have misconceived the nature of the arguments by 
 which the Europeans endeavour to establish the 
 antiquity of the Hindu astronomy. He seems to 
 have imagined that nothing more was necessary for 
 confuting all their reasoning on this subject, than to 
 make them acquainted with the formation of the 
 artificial systems of the Brahmens. 
 
 But considering Mr. Bentley as a person acquaint- 
 ed with the astronomy of the East, and as having 
 access to the books in which it is contained, his tes- 
 timony cannot but be allowed to be of great force in 
 the present argument. He tells us that the Brah- 
 mens, when they would form an astronomical sys- 
 tem, go back to a remote epoch, and assume as the 
 basis of their system, that all the heavenly bodies 
 are in a line of mean conjunction with the sun in 
 the beginning of Aries: Now the Indian tables 
 actually suppose such a conjunction at the com- 
 mencement of the Cali-yug ; and in this they are at 
 variance with the most exact of the. modern astrono- 
 mical tables. Is it not then in the highest degree 
 probable that the era of the Cali-yug is an assumed, 
 or fictitious epoch in the astronomy of the Hindus ? 
 If the ancient epoch, in 3102 A. C. be fictitious,
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 127 
 
 the force of many of the arguments for the antiquity BOOK n. 
 
 of the Indian astronomy will be greatly diminished. 
 
 For that reasoning must needs be a good deal 
 vague and unsatisfactory which rests entirely on the 
 quantity of an astronomical element of an uncertain 
 date, affected, as must be the case, by the errors of 
 observation, of the limits of which we have no 
 means of judging. 
 
 2. The equation of the sun's centre, according to 
 the Indian tables, is 2 10|' ; whereas the same 
 quantity, according to modern observations, is only 
 1 551'. It is one consequence of the mutual dis- 
 turbances of the planets that the excentricity of the 
 solar orbit, on which the equation just mentioned 
 depends, was greater in former ages than it is at the 
 present time. From the quantity which the Hindus 
 assign to this astronomical element, M. Bailly has 
 drawn an argument in favour of the antiquity of the 
 Indian tables, which it must be confessed, is of great 
 weight, when the difference of the Indian and Eu- 
 ropean determinations is considered as arising from 
 the gradual alteration of the planetary orbits. But 
 Laplace has remarked that the equation, which in 
 the Hindu tables amounts to 2 10| x , is really com- 
 posed of two parts ; namely, the equation of the 
 sun's centre, and the annual equation of the moon ; 
 both of which depend alike on the excentricity of the 
 sun's orbit, and complete their periods in the same 
 interval of time. The Indians have naturally enough 
 blended these two irregularities together; because, 
 the great object of their astronomy being the calcu- 
 lation of eclipses, the relative places of the sun and 
 moon are effected by the sum of both. The annual
 
 128 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. equation of the moon is nearly IT: and, when 
 
 CHAP. 9. * 
 
 added to the equation of the sun's centre, the amount 
 (2 6^',) does not differ much from the quantity set 
 down in the Indian tables. The force of M. Bailly's 
 argument is therefore completely taken off. 
 
 But the remark of Laplace not only invalidates, 
 the argument for the antiquity, but it furnishes a 
 powerful one on the opposite side. It is indeed in 
 the situation of a perfidious ally, who not only de- 
 serts his friends, but marshals his whole force in the 
 ranks of their opponents. The amount of the two- 
 irregularities which are blended together by the 
 Indians is 2 6J' at the present time : but if we go 
 back to the commencement of the Cali-yug, there 
 must be added about 13|', on account of the greater 
 magnitude of the sun's excentricity in that age above 
 what it is in the present century ; and thus we 
 ought to have found 2 20', in place of 2 10|' in 
 the Hindu tables, if their supposed antiquity be 
 granted. It must be admitted that, in this instance 
 at least, the Indian tables, when they are referred to 
 the ancient epoch, are fairly at variance with the 
 state of the heavens. 
 
 3. The quantities which the Indian tables assign 
 to two other astronomical elements, viz. the mean 
 motions of Jupiter and Saturn, have been found to 
 agree almost exactly, not with what is observed at 
 the present time, but with what the theory of gravity 
 shows would have been observed at the beginning 
 of the Cali-yug. This curious coincidence between 
 the Hindu tables and the most abstruse theory of 
 modern Europe, was discovered by Laplace after 
 the publication of the Astronomic Indienne : and
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 129 
 
 it was communicated to M. Bailly in a letter in- BOOK n - 
 
 CHAP 9 
 
 serted in the Journal des Sgavans. The argument 
 
 which this circumstance furnishes in favour of the 
 antiquity is not forgotten by Mr. Playfair; and it 
 is also mentioned by the critic in the Edinburgh 
 Review. 
 
 But the discovery of Laplace, although it cannot 
 be disputed, is absolutely of no avail in establishing 
 the antiquity of the Indian astronomy : for no infer- 
 ence can be drawn from it respecting the ancient 
 epoch in 3102 A. C. which is not equally conclusive 
 with regard to the modern epoch in 1491 of our era. 
 
 The theory of astronomy is indebted to Laplace 
 for many interesting discoveries. Of these, two 
 equations, affecting the mean motions of Jupiter and 
 Saturn, are not the least important. These irregu- 
 larities are periodical, and they both complete their 
 courses in 91 7f years : And while one of them aug- 
 ments the motion of one of the planets, the other 
 diminishes the motion of the other planet. It is a 
 consequence of this discovery of Laplace, that, after 
 an interval of time equal to 917f years ; or equal to 
 twice, or thrice, or any exact number of times that 
 period ; the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn will 
 return, to be precisely of the same quantity that they 
 were at the beginning of the interval of time. Now, 
 if from the epoch 1491, we reckon back a number 
 of years, equal to five times the period of Laplace, we 
 shall arrive at the year 3095 A. C., which is so near 
 the ancient epoch of the Indians, as to entitle us to 
 infer, that an observer who lived in 1491, would 
 agree in his determinations of the mean motions of 
 Jupiter and Saturn, with an astronomer who had 
 
 VOL. II. K
 
 130 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 K ( J L lived forty-six centuries before, at the beginning of 
 
 the Cali-yug. 
 
 No reliance, then, can be placed on this argument, 
 as a proof of the antiquity of the Hindu tables. On 
 the contrary, if we admit, what it must be allowed is 
 extremely probable, that the ancient epoch is a ficti- 
 tious one, pointed out by superstition, or fixed upon 
 for convenience in calculation, this argument will 
 concur with the last in giving, to the astronomy of 
 India, a modern date, rather than the high antiquity 
 contended for. 
 
 4. M. Bailly has shown that the place of the aphe- 
 lion of Jupiter's orbit, determined by the Indian 
 tables for the beginning of the Cali-yug, agrees with 
 the modern tables of Lalande, when corrected by the 
 theoretical equations of La Grange. The same thing 
 is true of the quantity which the Hindus assign to 
 the equation of Saturn's centre. It requires but 
 little scepticism to raise up doubts of the validity of 
 arguments founded on such coincidences. In the 
 first place, we are ignorant of the limits of the errors, 
 that the Indian determinations may be susceptible of. 
 In the second place, the dates of the observations on 
 which the astronomical elements of the Indians de- 
 pend are unknown and merely conjectural ; yet these 
 are necessary data for calculating the corrections that 
 must be applied to the modern tables, to fit them for 
 representing the ancient state of the heavens : In 
 the third place, the theoretical formulas, themselves, 
 by which the corrections are computed, cannot be sup- 
 posed to enable us to go back with much accuracy, 
 to so remote an epoch as the Cali-yug ; a circum- 
 stance which is not owing to any imperfection of the
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 131 
 
 theory, but to the want of our knowing with precision BOOK n. 
 
 the relative proportions of the masses of the planets 
 
 that compose our system. When we reflect on these 
 things, even the very exact coincidence of the Indian 
 elements, with the calculated quantities (which is 
 nearer than there is reasonable ground to expect) is 
 apt to create a suspicion that the whole is owing to 
 a happy combination of balancing errors. 
 
 But waving these objections, fairness of reasoning 
 requires that we should lay no more stress on such 
 coincidences, as those just mentioned, in favour of 
 one side of the question, than we are willing to allow 
 to discrepancies in similar circumstances, in support 
 of the other side. M. Bailly allows that not any 
 more of the elements of the planetary motions, con- 
 tained in the Indian tables, agree so well with the 
 determinations derived from the theory of gravity : 
 and the quantities which are assigned to the equa- 
 tions of the centre, for Jupiter and Mars, are quite 
 irreconcileable with the supposition of so remote an 
 antiquity as the beginning of the Cali-yug. Such a 
 contrariety of results justly invalidates the wiiole 
 argument. 
 
 5. Another argument urged by the favourers of 
 the antiquity of the Indian astronomy, is derived 
 from the obliquity of the ecliptic, which the Indians 
 state at 24. 
 
 Both observation and theory concur in showing 
 that the obliquity of the ecliptic has been diminishing 
 slowly for many ages preceding the present. At 
 the beginning of the Cali-yug, this astronomical ele- 
 ment, according to theory, was 23 51', which is still 
 short of what the Indians make it. Twelve centu- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 " es Before ti 16 Cali-yug, the actual obliquity of the 
 ecliptic, as derived from theory, would coincide with 
 the Indian quantity within 2' : And, by going back 
 still further, the error may, no doubt, be entirely an- 
 nihilated. Nothing, it must be confessed, can be 
 more vague and unsatisfactory than this sort of rea- 
 soning. 
 
 Let us grant that the Hindus determined the obli- 
 quity of the ecliptic, 4300 years before our era, which 
 supposes that they made an error of 2' only : How 
 are we to account for the strange circumstance, that 
 a quantity, which they were at one time able to de- 
 termine with so much accuracy, should remain unal- 
 tered for a period of nearly 6000 years ; during which 
 time, the error of the first determination has accumu- 
 lated to half a degree % Are we to suppose that, im- 
 mediately after this imaginary epoch, the art of as- 
 tronomical observation disappeared, and was entirely 
 lost *? This, we know, could not be the case, because 
 many other astronomical elements necessarily sup- 
 pose observations of a comparatively modern date : 
 as, for instance, the equation of the sun's centre. 
 
 We shall account for the quantity which the In- 
 dians assign to the obliquity much more simply and 
 naturally, if we trust to the authority of Mr. Bentley. 
 According to him, the Hindu, astronomers (unless in 
 cases where extraordinary accuracy is required) make 
 it a rule, in observing, to take the nearest round 
 numbers, rejecting fractional quantities : so that we 
 have only to suppose that the observer who fixed the 
 obliquity of the ecliptic at 24, actually found it to be 
 more than 23J.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 133 
 
 6. The length of the tropical year, as deduced BOOK n. 
 from the Hindu tables, is 365 d 5 h 50' 35" which is 1' 
 46" longer than the determination of La Caille. This 
 is certainly not a little accurate, and necessarily sup- 
 poses some degree of antiquity, and the comparison 
 of observations made at a great interval of time. 
 We shall be the better able to form a judgment of 
 the length of time which such a degree of accuracy 
 may require, if we consider the errors of some of our 
 older tables, published before the art of making as- 
 tronomical instruments was brought to its present 
 perfect state. In the Alphonsine Tables, published 
 about 1252, the length of the tropical year, is 
 
 365 d 5h 49' 16" 
 
 Copernicus (about 1530) makes it. .365 5 49 6 
 Kepler (about 1627) 365 5 48 57J 
 
 These quantities are determined by observations 
 distant from one another about 1500 or 1600 years: 
 and the differences between them and the year of La 
 Caille, is about the fourth part of the error of the 
 Indians. 
 
 If we suppose that the length of the year found in 
 the Hindu tables was actually determined by ob- 
 servation at the beginning of the Cali-yug, the error, 
 which has been stated at 1' 46", may be reduced to 
 1 5 . The reason of this is that the year has been 
 decreasing in duration, for all the intervening time, 
 and the quantity, computed by theory, which must 
 be added to the length of the year as observed in the 
 present age, to have its length forty-nine centuries 
 ago, is 40|". Arguments of this kind carry but little 
 force with them. For the time when the observa- 
 tions from which the length of the Indian year was
 
 134 HISTORY OF 15RITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. deduced is totally unknown : and it seems highly 
 ' probable, that the beginning of the Cali-yug is not 
 an epoch settled by observation. Besides, the error 
 of observation (which cannot be reduced under 1' 5") 
 must be allowed to be, in this instance, nearly double 
 of the correction applied : and there is nothing to 
 prove that it may not amount to much more. 
 
 It is to be remarked that the Indian tables contain 
 the sidereal motion of the sun, and not his motion in 
 respect of the moveable equinox as our tables do. If 
 we draw our comparison from the length of the side- 
 real, instead of the tropical year, the result will not 
 be so favourable to the accuracy of the Hindu astro- 
 nomy. The sidereal revolution of the sun, according 
 to the Indians, is 365 d 6 h 1 2' 30" ; according to mo- 
 dern observation it is 365 d 6 h 9' 11"; and the error 
 is 3 19", nearly double the former error. The differ- 
 ence of those errors arises from the quantity which 
 they assign to the precession of the equinoxes, which 
 is 54" instead of 50J". 
 
 7. Of all the arguments in support of the antiquity 
 of the Hindu astronomy, the strongest and most di- 
 rect is that which is derived from an ancient zodiac 
 brought from India by M. le Gentil. This argument 
 therefore deserves to be particularly considered. 
 
 It must be observed, that the force of an argument 
 such as this, which turns on the magnitude of an as- 
 tronomical quantity that accumulates slowly, and is 
 perceptible only after a long lapse of time, will en- 
 tirely depend on the authenticity of the observations, 
 or facts, from which the argument is drawn, and on 
 the precision and accuracy with which they are re- 
 corded. Any thing uncertain, or arbitrary, or hypo-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 135 
 
 thetical, respecting these fundamental points, will BOOK n. 
 
 CHAP. y. 
 
 greatly weaken the strength of the argument. We 
 
 are told by Mr. Playfair, that the star Aldebaran has 
 the longitude of 3 20' in the zodiac of M. le Gentil : 
 and it is on the authenticity and precision of this 
 fact, that the validity of his reasoning hinges. Now, 
 if we turn to the passage of the Astronomic Indienne, 
 which is cited by Mr. Playfair, it will appear that 
 this position of Aldebaran is rather a conjecture, or 
 hypothesis, of M. Bailly, than an authentic observa- 
 tion recorded with precision. 
 
 The Indian zodiac moves westward, at the same 
 rate as the fixed stars, and it is divided into twenty- 
 seven constellations, each of 13 20'. The vernal 
 equinox was 54 to the east of the beginning of the 
 zodiac at the commencement of the Cali-yug ; and it 
 was therefore in the fifth constellation, being 40' 
 more advanced than the fourth. The Indians mark 
 the fourth constellation, which they call Rohini, by 
 five stars, of which the most easterly, or the most 
 advanced in the zodiac, is the very brilliant star Al- 
 debaran. These things being premised, M. Bailly 
 thus proceeds : " II est naturel que cette belle etoile 
 ait marque la fin ou le commencement d'une constel- 
 lation. Je suppose qu'elle marque en effet la fin de 
 Bohini, la quatrieme des constellations Indiennes, 
 et le commencement de la cinquieme ; il resulte de 
 cette supposition que 1'etoile Aldebaran etoit placee 
 dans le zodiaque Indien a 1 s 23 20' de 1'origin du 
 zodiaque." It appears then that the whole of the 
 argument, which is stated so strongly by Mr. Play- 
 fair, and by the critic in the Edinburgh Review, 
 rests on the conjecture of M. Bailly ; that Aldebaran
 
 13G HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK n. was exactly placed at the end of the fourth, and the 
 
 beginning of the fifth constellation in the Indian 
 
 zodiac. For this, no sort of proof is offered, except 
 the conspicuousness of the star, which is certainly 
 one of the most brilliant in the heavens. Are we to 
 suppose, for the sake of this argument, that the posi- 
 tion of the Indian zodiac was entirely regulated by 
 the star Aldebaran? For it must be admitted 
 that when the beginning of one constellation is fixed, 
 all the rest are thereby determined. Or, are we to 
 suppose, what is still more improbable, that the be- 
 ginning of the fifth constellation fell, by a lucky 
 chance, exactly in the place of this conspicuous star ? 
 But the Indians themselves afford us the means of 
 correcting the supposition of M. Bailly. Mr. Bentley 
 tells us that Brahma Gupta makes the longitude of 
 the star, Spica Virginis, in the moveable zodiac of 
 the Hindus, 6 s 3 : According to De la Caille, the 
 longitude of the same star in 1750, was 
 
 6 8 20 21' 18" 
 Of Aldebaran . . 2 6 17 47 
 
 Difference 4 14 3 31 
 
 which subtracted from 6 8 3, leaves 1 s 18 56' 29" for 
 the longitude of Aldebaran in the Indian zodiac, in- 
 stead of 1 s 23 20' which it is according to the hypo- 
 thesis of M. Bailly. The error amounts to 4 23' 
 31": a quantity which is nowise inconsistent with 
 the configuration of the constellation Rohini, while 
 it is sufficient to show that the Indians may have 
 fixed the origin of their zodiac at the beginning of 
 the Cali-yug by calculating back from a modern 
 epoch.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 137 
 
 And indeed the Brahmens point out a modern BOOK 11. 
 epoch, a noted one in their astronomy, which is con- ' 
 nected with the era of the Cali-yug by their preces- 
 sion, in the same manner that the modern epoch 
 1491 is connected with it by the mean motions. 
 Mr. Bentley tells us that, according to Varaha, the 
 year 3601 of the Cali-yug (A. D. 499) began pre- 
 cisely at the vernal equinox : which implies that the 
 origin of the Indian zodiac did then coincide with the 
 equinoxial point. Now if we deduct I s 24, the 
 Indian precession for 3600 years, from 12 s , we shall 
 have 10 s 6 for the origin of the zodiac, reckoned 
 eastward from the vernal equinox according to the 
 practice of our astronomy : precisely as it comes out 
 by the Indian tables. 
 
 The epoch 3601 of the Cali-yug is involved in all 
 the Indian tables, insomuch that M. Bailly was led 
 to discover it by calculation : And in fact, there is 
 no authority for fixing the origin of the Indian zodiac 
 in 10 s 6 at the era of the Cali-yug, except by 
 reckoning back from this epoch, according to the 
 Hindu rule for the precession. 
 
 It appears then that the argument drawn from the 
 zodiac of M. le Gentil, when closely considered, not 
 only affords no evidence for the antiquity of the 
 Indian astronomy, but rather favours the opinion that 
 the beginning of the Cali-yug, is a fictitious epoch 
 fixed by calculation. For it has been shown that the 
 place of the origin of the Indian zodiac, at the era of 
 the Cali-yug, is connected by the precession contained 
 in the Hindu tables with the epoch 3601 of that age : 
 and indeed all the epochs of the Brahmens, ancient as 
 well as modern, are connected wtth the same funda-
 
 138 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ^MiA 1 ^ 1 ' menta ^ epoch, in what regards the precession. The 
 
 pretended position of the star Aldebaran is merely a 
 
 conjecture of M. Bailly : and it is at variance with 
 the place which Bramha Gupta, and other Indian as- 
 tronomers, assign to the star " Spica Virginis." 
 
 8. In the preceding observations, all the argu- 
 ments that have been adduced in favour of the anti- 
 quity of the Indian astronomy, as far as the question 
 is purely astronomical, have been considered, except- 
 ing those drawn from the places of the sun and moon, 
 at the beginning of the Cali-yug, (at midnight be- 
 tween the 17th and 18th of February, of the year 
 3102 A. C.) With regard to the first of these, there is 
 a difficulty which weighed so much with Mr. Playfair, 
 as to induce him to set aside the argument entirely, 
 and to lay no stress upon it. It is remarkable that 
 the critic in the Edinburgh Review has brought for- 
 ward this argument, without noticing the difficulty 
 which, in Mr. Playfair's opinion, rendered it incon- 
 clusive. After all that has been urged to invalidate the 
 opinion of M. Bailly, that the ancient epoch of the 
 Indian tables was settled by observation, we shall be 
 spared the task of examining the remaining argument 
 drawn from the place of the moon : allowing to this 
 argument all the force which the most sanguine 
 supporters of the antiquity can demand, it can have 
 but little weight in opposition to the many strong 
 and concurring indications of a contrary nature. 1 
 10. If the author of the " Astronomic Indienne" 
 
 1 Laplace has remarked, that the mean motions of the lunar orbit are 
 quicker in the Indian tables, than in those of Ptolemy : which indicates 
 that the former tables were constructed posterior to those of the Greek as- 
 tronomer. This argument is at least as strong as any of those by which 
 the antiquity is supported.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 139 
 
 has succeeded in establishing any of his positions, it 
 is in proving that the astronomy of the Brahmens is 
 original, or at least that it has not been borrowed 
 from any of the astronomical systems that we are 
 acquainted with. This was a preliminary point 
 which his favourite system required him to examine : 
 for if the astronomy of the Brahmens had turned out 
 to have an obvious affinity to the astronomical systems 
 of Arabia or Greece, it would have been in vain to 
 bring proofs of its antiquity. But how does this 
 prove the antiquity of the Indian astronomy 4 ? It 
 only proves that the inhabitants of the eastern world, 
 separated from the rest of mankind, have made the 
 same progress to a certain extent, which, in the wes- 
 tern world, has been carried to a far greater pitch of 
 perfection. 1 
 
 APPENDIX N. II. 
 
 Colebrooke on Sanscrit Algebra. 
 
 SINCE the pages relating to the science of the 
 Hindus were sent to the press, has appeared a work 
 entitled, " Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration, 
 from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara ; 
 translated by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq." No 
 
 1 The question discussed in this Appendix is not the antiquity of Hindu 
 astronomy, but the soundness of Bailly's views in assigning to it an impro- 
 bable antiquity. This does not affect the probability of its being the 
 oldest system of which we are able to judge from authentic materials fur- 
 nished by itself. Even Bentley, as before noticed, places the invention of 
 the lunar mansions, 1426, B.C., implying necessarily previous observation 
 of the heavens, and classification of the heavenly bodies. W.
 
 140 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. person who takes an interest in the history of the 
 human mind, can fail to recognise that Mr. Cole- 
 brooke has added largely to the former obligations 
 he had conferred upon us, not only by laying open to 
 European readers the most approved production on 
 Algebra, in the Sanscrit language, but by the research 
 and ability with which, in a preliminary dissertation, 
 he has brought together the materials for forming an 
 opinion, both respecting the origin of that science 
 among the Hindus, and their merit in the prosecution 
 of it. 
 
 On mathematics I must speak superficially, be- 
 cause my knowledge does not permit me to speak pro- 
 foundly. Enough, I think, however, appears on the 
 face of this subject, to enable me to resolve the only 
 question, in the solution of which I am interested. 
 
 Mr. Colebrooke thinks it possible, nay probable, 
 that the Hindus derived their first knowledge of 
 algebra from the Greeks ; that they were made 
 acquainted with the writings of Diophantus, before 
 they had of their own accord made any attempts in 
 the science ; and that it is in the accessions which 
 Algebra received in their hands, that their title, if any, 
 to our respect, must, in this particular, look for its 
 foundation. 1 That the Hindus cultivated astronomy, 
 
 1 " If it be insisted, that a hint or suggestion, the seed of their know- 
 ledge, may have reached the Hindu mathematicians immediately from the 
 Greeks of Alexandria, or mediately through those of Bactria, it must at the 
 same time be confessed that a slender germ grew and fructified rapidly, 
 and soon attained an approved state of maturity in Indian soil. More will 
 not be here contended for : Since it is not impossible, that the hint of the 
 one analysis may have been actually received by the mathematicians of 
 the other nation : nor unlikely ; considering the arguments which may be 
 brought for a probable communication on the subject of astrology." (Dis- 
 sertation, p. xxii.) This is an important admission which Mr. Colebrooke 
 was too well informed to overlook, and too honest to conceal. His partia-
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 141 
 
 and the branches of the art of calculation subservient BOOK n. 
 
 to astronomy, solely for the purposes of astrology, is 
 
 not disputed by any body, and least of all by Mr. 
 Colebrooke. That candid and careful inquirer has 
 brought to light a very important fact, that even on 
 the subject of astrology, on which they might have 
 been supposed original, the Hindus have been 
 borrowers, and borrowers from the Greeks. 1 " Join- 
 ing/' he says, " this indication, to that of the division 
 of the zodiac into twelve signs, represented by the 
 
 lities, however, lead him to a very useless effort of extenuation. Why 
 call the knowledge which the Hindus derived of the Diophantine methods, 
 a hint f What should confine it to a hint ? Why make use of the word 
 hint ? when it is perfectly clear that if they had the means of receiving a 
 hint, they had the means of receiving the whole. The communication was 
 full and complete between the Hindus and the Greeks, both of Bactria 
 and of Egypt ; and the Hindus had the means of receiving from the Greeks 
 all those parts of their knowledge, which the state of 'civilization among 
 the Hindus enabled them to imbibe. Of the exaggerating language of Mr. 
 Colebrooke, on the other side, about the growing and fructifying of the 
 germ, and its attaining a state of approved maturity in Indian soil, we shall 
 speak by-and-by. 
 
 1 He had stated long ago, " That astronomy was originally cultivated 
 among the Hindus, solely for the purposes of astrology : That one branch, 
 if not the whole of their astrological science, was borrowed from^the Ara- 
 bians : And that their astronomical knowledge must, by consequence, have 
 been derived from the same quarter." (Asiat. Res. ix. 376.) And on the 
 present occasion he says ; " The position that astrology is partly of foreign 
 growth in India ; that is, that the Hindus have borrowed, and largely too, 
 from the astrology of a more western region, is grounded, as the similar 
 inference concerning a different branch of divination, on the resemblancp 
 of certain terms employed in both. The mode of divination, called Tdjaca, 
 implies by its very name its Arabian origin : Astrological prediction, by 
 configuration of planets, in like manner, indicates even by its Indian name 
 a Grecian source. It is denominated Hard, the second of three branches 
 which compose a complete course of astronomy and astrology ; and the 
 word occurs in this sense in the writings of early Hindu astrologers .... 
 The same term hard occurs again in the writings of the Hindu astrologers, 
 with an acceptation that of hour which more exactly conforms to the 
 Grecian etymon. The resemblance of a single term would not suffice to 
 ground an inference of common origin, since it might be purely accidental. 
 But other words are also remarked in Hindu astrology," &c. (Algebra, 
 &c. from the Sanscrit, Dissert. Notes and Illust. p. Ixxx.)
 
 142 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. same figures of animals, and named by words of the 
 
 CHAP. 9- . . 
 
 _ same import, with the zodiacal signs of the Greeks ; 
 and taking into consideration the analogy, though not 
 identity, of the Ptolemaic system, and the Indian 
 one of excentric deferents and epicycles, no doubt 
 can be entertained that the Hindus received hints 
 from the astronomical schools of the Greeks." 1 
 
 To draw, then, from the tracts which Mr. Cole- 
 brooke has translated, an inference to any high state 
 of civilization among the Hindus, the three following 
 propositions must, first, be established ; 
 
 1 . That the Greeks did not teach to the Hindus 
 as much of the science as the works in question 
 contain : 
 
 2. That the works are sufficiently old to render it 
 impossible that the knowledge could have been bor- 
 rowed from any modern source ; 
 
 3. That the accessions made to the knowledge de- 
 rived from the Greeks are so difficult as not to have 
 been made except by a people in a high state of 
 civilization. 
 
 If all these propositions are not fully and entirely 
 made out ; if any weakness appears in the evidence of 
 any one of them, the inference falls to the ground 
 Upon inquiry, it seems to come out, that for not one 
 of them is the evidence sufficient, or trustworthy. 
 
 1 . That the Hindus received from the Greeks all 
 that the latter knew, is admitted by Mr. Colebrooke. 
 It is also admitted by Mr. Colebrooke, that " Dio- 
 phantus was acquainted with the direct resolution of 
 affected quadratic equations, and of indeterminate 
 problems of the first degree ; that he displays infinite 
 
 1 Algebra, &c. from the Sanscrit, Dissert. Notes and Illust. pp. x. and 
 xvi.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 143 
 
 sagacity and ingenuity in particular solutions ; and BOOK n. 
 
 that a certain routine is discernible in them." 1 It is 
 
 unfortunately from Diophantus alone, that we derive 
 any knowledge of the attainments of the Greeks in 
 this branch of mathematics. It is no less unfortunate, 
 that out of thirteen books which he wrote upon this 
 subject, only six, or possibly seven have been pre- 
 served. How does Mr. Colebrooke, know, that these 
 other books of Diophantus did not ascend to more 
 difficult points of the science *? 2 He says, you have 
 no right to infer that. True ; but neither has he 
 any right to infer the contrary. There is, however, 
 another possibility and a still more important one, 
 which Mr. Colebrooke has altogether overlooked. 
 Supposing that nothing more of Algebra was known 
 to the Greeks, at the time of Diophantus, than is 
 found in seven out of thirteen books of one author, 
 which is a pretty handsome allowance ; is it certain 
 or is it probable, that when the Greeks had made so 
 considerable a progress, they remained stationary ? 
 and, though the most ingenious and inventive people 
 in the world, peculiarly at that time turned to 
 mathematical and abstruse investigatons, they made 
 no addition, through several generations, to what 
 was taught them by Diophantus? This argument 
 appears to be conclusive. 
 
 1 Algebra, &c. from the Sanscrit, Dissert. Notes and Illust. pp. x. and 
 xvi. 
 
 4 Dr. Hutton says, that Diophantus " knew the composition of the cube 
 of a binomial In some parts of book vi. it appears that he was ac- 
 quainted with the composition of the fourth power of the binomial root, as 
 he sets down all the terms of it ; and from his great skill in such matters, 
 it seems probable that he was acquainted with the composition of other 
 higher powers, and with other parts of Algebra, besides what are here 
 treated of. . . . Upon the whole, this work is treated in a very able and mas- 
 terly manner, manifesting the utmost address and knowledge in the solutions,
 
 144 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 y 1 ' ^' ^ r - Colebrooke has a very elaborate, complex, 
 and in some parts obscure train of argument to prove 
 the antiquity of certain points of algebraic know- 
 ledge among the Hindus. That it is not conclusive 
 may be made to appear very certainly ; it is only to 
 be regretted that so many words are required. 
 
 The point is, to prove the antiquity of certain 
 treatises which Mr. Colebrooke possesses ; part 
 under the name of Bhascara, one mathematician ; 
 part under that of Brahmegupta, another. He 
 begins with Bhascara.; 
 
 There are two treatises of astronomy, which bear 
 the name of Bhascara, and which themselves affirm, 
 that they were written at a particular time, corre- 
 sponding to the middle of the twelfth century of the 
 Christian era : Therefore the Treatise on Algebra, 
 possessed by Mr. Colebrooke, was produced about 
 the middle of the twelfth century. For this degree 
 of antiquity, this is the whole of the evidence. Let 
 us see what it is worth. 
 
 In the first place, the dates refer only to the astro- 
 nomical treatises ; not to the algebraic. The alge- 
 braic is indeed prefixed to the astronomic ; but it is 
 alleged by one of the commentators, and believed 
 by Mr. Colebrooke, that it " may have been added 
 subsequently." And then at what date subse- 
 quently, or by what hand, are questions to which 
 we shall presently see that there is no answer. 
 
 and forcing a persuasion that the author was deeply skilled in the science 
 of Algebra, to some of the most abstruse parts of which these questions or 
 exercises relate. However, as he contrives his assumptions and notations, 
 so as to reduce all his conditions to a simple equation, or at least a simple 
 quadratic, it does not appear what his knowledge was, in the resolution of 
 compound or affected quadratics." Mathematical Dictionary, Art. Dio- 
 phantus.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 145 
 
 In the next place, an important observation applies BOOK n. 
 
 fY* * T CHAP. j. 
 
 to the amrmations, with respect to their own age, 
 
 found in the treatises on astronomy. From the 
 known, the extravagant disposition of the Hindus 
 to falsify with regard to dates, and make almost 
 every thing with respect to their own transactions 
 and attainments more ancient than it is, such asse- 
 verations, found in books, or transcripts of books, 
 are no proof of what is affirmed ; and only deserve 
 a moment's regard when fully corroborated by other 
 circumstances. Not one circumstance is adduced 
 to corroborate them by Mr. Colebrooke. 
 
 We come down, all at once, from the date of the 
 work, to the date of the commentaries upon it. For 
 none of them does Mr. Colebrooke claim a degree 
 of antiquity beyond 200 or 300 years. Supposing 
 this date to be correct, what reason has Mr. Cole- 
 brooke to infer that the work on which they com- 
 ment, was, at the time of that commentary, 400 
 years old "? None, whatsoever. In nine instances 
 out of ten, the commentator would be sure to speak 
 of it as old, whether it was so or not. But further, 
 what reason have we to believe that the date which 
 he ascribes to these commentaries is the real one *? 
 Again the answer is, None : none that will bear 
 examination. The date of the oldest is assumed 
 upon the strength of an astronomical example, de- 
 scribing a particular state of the heavens : But this 
 may be perfectly accidental; and, besides, the 
 Hindus have the power of calculating backwards. 
 Of the next two, the date is assumed upon the 
 strength of their own assertion : This we have 
 shown is of no value. Of the next two the date is 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. assumed upon the assertion of other books. This, 
 
 CHAP. 9. l 
 
 if possible, is of less value. There are three others 
 
 to which no date is assigned : And there are two 
 commentaries upon the astronomical treatises, the 
 date of which too rests upon their own assertion. 
 
 Neither to the treatise, therefore, in the hands of 
 Mr. Colebrooke, nor to the Commentaries upon it, 
 has any thing appeared, in what we have yet men- 
 tioned, which enables us to assign, with any degree 
 of certainty, any one date in preference to any other. 
 We may, if we please, assume that all of them in a 
 body are less than a century old. 
 
 Beside the Sanscrit commentaries, there is a Per- 
 sian translation, of each of the two treatises of Bhas- 
 cara. In general, what is testified by Persian is far 
 more trustworthy, than what rests upon Sanscrit 
 authority; because there was more publicity in 
 the Persian writings ; whereas the Sanscrit, being 
 wholly secret, and confined to a small number of 
 Brahmens, accustomed and prone to forgery, there is 
 security for nothing which they had any interest, real 
 or imaginary, to change. If there was any evidence, 
 therefore, to fix the dates of the Persian translations, 
 we could not reasonably dispute a degree of antiquity 
 corresponding to them. I suspect that there is no 
 evidence to fix the dates of these translations. Mr. 
 Colebrooke says, the one was made by order of the 
 emperor Acber, the other in the reign of Shah Jehan. 
 But he subjoins no reason for this affirmation. The 
 cause probably is, that he had none; and that he 
 took the conjecture from some date written some- 
 where in the book, nobody knows at what time, 
 nobody knows by whom.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. . 147 
 
 Such is the whole of the evidence which is ad- BOOKII. 
 
 CHAP.y. 
 
 duced by Mr. Colebrooke to prove the antiquity of 
 
 Bhascara. " The age of his predecessors," he adds, 
 rt cannot be determined with equal precision : " that 
 is to say, the evidence which can be adduced for the 
 antiquity of the other treatise, that of Brahmegupta, 
 is still less conclusive and less satisfactory. As we 
 have seen that the better evidence proves nothing, I 
 shall spare the reader a criticism to show, what he 
 will easily infer, that the worse evidence proves as 
 little : evidence, which, as it is tedious and intricate, 
 it would require a criticism of some length to unfold. 
 3. We come to the third of the propositions ; that 
 if the Hindus had discovered as much of algebra, 
 as they know beyond what appears in the fragment 
 of Diophantus, they must have been placed in a high 
 state of civilization. That this proposition cannot 
 be maintained, I expect to find universally acknow- 
 ledged. I transcribe the passage from Mr. Cole- 
 brooke, in which he sums up the claims and preten- 
 sions of the Hindus. " They possessed well the 
 arithmetic of surd roots ; they were aware of the 
 infinite quotient resulting from the division of finite 
 quantity by cipher ; they knew the general resolu- 
 tion of equations of the second degree, and had 
 touched upon those of higher denomination, resolv- 
 ing them in the simplest cases, and in those in which 
 the solution happens to be practicable by the method 
 which serves for quadratics ; they had attained a 
 general solution of indeterminate problems of the first 
 degree ; they had arrived at a method for deriving a 
 multitude of solutions of answers to problems of the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. second decree from a single answer found tenta- 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 -lively." 1 
 
 In all this it appears, that the only point in 
 which there can be a pretence for their having gone 
 beyond what we have in the fragment of Diophantus, 
 is the general solution of indeterminate problems of 
 the first degree. But, to quote Dr. Hutton once 
 more, " Diophantus was the first writer on inde- 
 terminate problems. His book is wholly on this 
 subject ; whence it has happened that such kind of 
 questions have been called by the name of Dio- 
 phantine problems." Now, take the point at which 
 the solution of indeterminate problems appears in 
 the fragment of Diophantus, and the point at which 
 it appears in the Sanscrit treatise, of whatever age, 
 in the hands of Mr. Colebrooke; the interval be- 
 tween the two points is so very small, and the step 
 is so easily made, that most assuredly far more dif- 
 ficult steps in the progress of mathematical science 
 have been made in ages of which the civilization has 
 been as low as that of the Hindus. Thales lived at 
 a period when Greece was still uncultivated, and 
 but just emerging from barbarism ; yet he excelled 
 the Egyptians in mathematical knowledge, and 
 astonished them by computing the height of the 
 pyramids from the shadow. Pythagoras lived in 
 the same age; and was a great inventor both in 
 arithmetic and geometry: In astronomy he made 
 great discoveries, and maintained, we are told, the 
 true system of the universe ; that the sun is in the 
 
 1 "Algebra;" &c. ut supra, Dissert, p. xiv.
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 149 
 
 centre, and makes all the planets revolve about him. BOOK n - 
 
 . . CHAP. 9. 
 
 Regiomontanus was born in 1456, when the human . 
 
 mind was still to a great degree immersed in the 
 darkness of the middle ages : Yet of him, Mr. 
 Playfair says, " Trigonometry, which had never 
 been known to the Greeks as a separate science, 
 and which took that form in Arabia, advanced, in 
 the hands of Regiomontanus, to a great degree of 
 perfection ; and approached very near to the con- 
 dition which it has attained at the present day : He 
 also introduced the use of decimal fractions into 
 arithmetic, and thereby gave to that scale its full 
 extent, and to numerical computation the utmost 
 degree of simplicity and enlargement, which it seems 
 capable of attaining." l Cardan was born in 1501, 
 when assuredly much had not yet been gained of 
 what deserves the name of civilization. " Before 
 his time," says the same accomplished mathe- 
 matician, " little advance had been made in the 
 solution of any equations higher than the second 
 degree. In 1545 was published the rule which 
 still bears the name of Cardan ; and which, at this 
 day, marks a point in the progress of algebraic 
 investigation, which all the efforts of succeeding 
 analyists have hardly been able to go beyond." 2 
 Even Vieta, with all his discoveries, appeared at an 
 early and ill-instructed age. 
 
 In looking at the pursuits of any nation, with a 
 view to draw from them indications of the state of 
 
 1 Suppl. Encycl. Brit. Dissert. Second, p. 4- * Ib. p. 14.
 
 150 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. civilization, no mark is so important, as the nature 
 
 CHAP. 9. 
 
 of the End to which they are directed. 
 
 Exactly in proportion as Utility is the object of 
 every pursuit, may we regard a nation as civilized. 
 Exactly in proportion as its ingenuity is wasted on 
 contemptible or mischievous objects, though it may 
 be, in itself, an ingenuity of no ordinary kind, the 
 nation may safely be denominated barbarous. 
 
 According to this rule, the astronomical and mathe- 
 matical sciences afford conclusive evidence against 
 the Hindus. They have been cultivated exclusively 
 for the purposes of astrology; one of the most 
 irrational of all imaginable pursuits ; one of those 
 which most infallibly denote a nation barbarous; 
 and one of those which it is the most sure to re- 
 nounce, in proportion as knowledge and civilization 
 are attained. 1 
 
 The authority of Professor Wallace is recognised by Mr. Mill, and his 
 conclusions from Mr. Colebrooke's publication are of a very different com- 
 plexion from those of the text. The Surya Siddhanta, he states, contains a 
 very rational system of trigonometry. In expressing the radius of a circle 
 in parts of the circumference, the Hindus are quite singular. Ptolemy and 
 the Greek mathematicians, in their division of the radius, preserved no 
 reference to the circumference. The use of sines, as it was unknown to 
 the Greeks, forms a difference between theirs and the Indian trigonome. 
 try. Their rule for the computation of the lines is a considerable refine- 
 ment in science first practised by the mathematician Briggs. However 
 ancient a book may be in which a system of trigonometry occurs, we may be 
 assured it was not written in the infancy of the science. Geometry must 
 have been known in India long before the writing of the Surya Siddhanta. 
 The age of Brahmagupta is fixed with great probability to the sixth or be- 
 ginning of the seventh century of our era, a period earlier than the first dawn 
 of Arabian sciences. Aryabhatta appears to have written as far back as 
 the fifth century, or earlier ; he was therefore almost as old as the Greek 
 algebraist Diophautus. The Lilavati treats of Arithmetic, and contains 
 not only the common rules of that science, but the application of these to 
 various questions on interest, barter, mixtures, combinations, permutations, 
 sums of progression, indeterminate problems, and mensuration of surfaces
 
 LITERATURE OF THE HINDUS. APPENDIX. 151 
 
 and solids. The rules are found to be exact, and nearly as simple as in BOOK II. 
 the present state of analytical investigation. The numerical results are CHAP. 9. 
 
 readily deduced ; and if they be compared with the earliest specimens of 
 
 Greek calculation, the advantages of the decimal notation are placed in a 
 striking light. In geometry, though inferior in excellence to the algebra, 
 there is much deserving of attention. We have here the celebrated pro- 
 position that the square on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is 
 equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle, and other pro- 
 positions, which form part of the system of modern geometry. There is 
 one proposition remarkable, namely, that which discovers the area of a 
 triangle when its three sides are known. This does not seem to have been 
 known to the ancient Greek geometers. In algebra the Hindus under- 
 stood well the arithmetic of such roots, and the general resolution of 
 equations of the second degree, which it is not clear that Diophantus 
 knew that they attained a general solution of indeterminate pro- 
 blems of the first degreo which it is certain Diophantus had not attained 
 and a method of deriving a multitude of answers to problems of the 
 second degree when one solution was discovered by trial, which is as near 
 an approach to a general solution as was made until the time of La Grange. 
 Professor Wallace concludes by adopting the opinion of Playfair on this 
 subject, " that before an author could think of embodying a treatise of 
 algebra in the heart of a system of astronomy, and turning the researches 
 of the one science to the purposes of the other, both must have been in 
 such a state of advancement as the lapse of several ages and many re- 
 peated efforts of inventors were required to produce." This is unanswer- 
 able evidence in favour of the antiquity, originality, and advance of Hindu 
 mathematical science, and is fatal to all Mr. Mill's references and conjec- 
 tures. We have also historical evidence, that the Arabs derived their 
 mathematical sciences in part from the Hindus; and we have every 
 reason, from the differences of method, and in some instances sup- 
 riority of progress, .as well as from the absence of all evidence to the 
 contrary, to conclude that the Hindus were as little indebted to the 
 Greeks. A people who had pursued for ages researches of this nature, 
 could not have been merely upon the threshold of civilization. The 
 test of civilization proposed by Mr. Mill and the school to which he 
 belonged, ' utility,' will not be generally admitted in the restricted sense 
 in which he employs the term ; but even that is inapplicable, for in the 
 estimation of those nations amongst whom astrology was credited, what 
 could in their eyes be more useful, than rules of conduct derived from 
 astrological calculation. It is not true, however, that the mathematical 
 sciences of the Hindus were applied to astrology alone, as the greater , 
 
 number of the results which their arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, and 
 even their astronomy afford, have no relation to that kind of knowledge, 
 but are indispensable to the ordinary purposes of social life. W.
 
 152 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HOOK II. 
 
 CHAI-. 10. 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 General Reflections. 
 
 To ascertain the true state of the Hindus in the 
 scale of civilization, is not only an object of curiosity 
 in the history of human nature ; but to the people 
 of Great Britain, charged as they are with the 
 government of that great portion of the human 
 species, it is an object of the highest practical im- 
 portance. 1 No scheme of government can happily 
 conduce to the ends of government, unless it is 
 adapted to the state of the people for whose use it is 
 intended. In those diversities in the state of civili- 
 zation, which approach the extremes, this truth is 
 universally acknowledged. Should any one propose, 
 for a band of roving Tartars, the regulations adapted 
 to the happiness of a regular and polished society, 
 he would meet with neglect or derision. The in- 
 conveniences are only more concealed and more or 
 less diminished, when the error relates to states of 
 society which more nearly resemble one another. 
 If the mistake in regard to Hindu society, committed 
 by the British nation, and the British government, 
 
 1 The measures of the British Government have very little conceni with 
 what the Hindus were in the days of Manu ; what they are now is within 
 their observation, and all that is required is to see them as they are with- 
 out any bias from erroneous theories. Above all things it is necessary for 
 every purpose of wise and benevolent rule to see them with a bias rather 
 in their favour than to their disadvantage. We shall not promote their 
 advance in civilization by treating them as little better than barbarians. 
 W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 153 
 
 be very great ; if they have conceived the Hindus to BOOK n. 
 
 . ... . CHAP. 10. 
 
 be a people of high civilization, while they have in 
 
 reality made but a few of the earliest steps in the 
 progress to civilization, it is impossible that in many 
 of the measures pursued for the government of that 
 people, the mark aimed at should not have been 
 wrong. 
 
 The preceding induction of particulars, embracing 
 the religion, the laws, the government, the manners, 
 the arts, the sciences, and literature, of the Hindus, 
 affords, it is presumed, the materials from which a 
 correct judgment may, at last, be formed of their 
 progress toward the high attainments of civilized 
 life. That induction, and the comparisons to which 
 it led, have occupied us long, but not longer, it is 
 hoped, than the importance of the subject demanded, 
 and the obstinacy of the mistakes which it was the 
 object of it to remove. 
 
 The reports of a high state of civilization in the 
 East were common even among the civilized nations 
 of ancient Europe. But the acquaintance of the 
 Greeks and Romans with any of the nations of Asia, 
 except the Persians alone, was so imperfect, and 
 among the circumstances which they state so many 
 are incredible and ridiculous, that in the information 
 we receive from them on this subject, no confidence 
 can be reposed. 
 
 Of the modern Europeans, the individuals who 
 first obtained a tolerable acquaintance with any of 
 the nations of the East, were the popish mission- 
 aries, chiefly the Jesuits, who selected China for 
 the scene of their apostolical labours. Visiting a 
 people who already composed a vast society, and
 
 154 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 B K I 1 exhibited many, though fallacious, marks of riches, 
 
 while Europe as yet was every where poor ; and 
 
 feeling, as it was natural for them to feel, that the 
 more they could excite among their countrymen an 
 admiration of the people whom they described, the 
 greater would be the portion of that flattering sen- 
 timent which would redound upon themselves, these 
 missionaries were eager to conceive, and still more 
 eager to propagate, the most hyperbolical ideas of 
 the arts, the sciences, and institutions of the Chi- 
 nese. As it is almost always more pleasing, and 
 certainly far more easy, to believe, than to scru- 
 tinize ; and as the human mind in Europe, at the 
 time when these accounts were first presented, was 
 much less powerful and penetrating, than it is at 
 present, they were received with almost implicit cre- 
 dulity. The influence of this first impression lasted 
 so long, that even to Voltaire, a keen-eyed and 
 sceptical judge, the Chinese, of almost all nations, 
 are the objects of the loudest and most unqualified 
 'praise. 1 The state of belief in Europe has, through 
 the scrutiny of facts, been of late approximating to 
 sobriety on the attainments of the Chinese, and a 
 short period longer will probably reduce it to the 
 scale of reason and feet. 2 
 
 1 " Any thing proposed to us which causes surprise and admiration, 
 gives such a satisfaction to the mind, that it indulges itself in those agree- 
 able emotions, and will never be persuaded that its pleasure is entirely 
 without foundation." (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, i. 53.) 
 
 * To this good effect, if to no other, the embassy of Lord Macartney, and 
 the writings to which it has given occasion, have largely contributed. See 
 Barrow's two works, Travels in China, and Life of Lord Macartney, and 
 above all, that important document, a volume of the Laws of China, trans- 
 lated by Sir George Staunton. No one has more approximated to a correct 
 judgment of the Chinese, than De Guignes. See Voyage.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 155 
 
 It was under circumstances highly similar, that 
 the earliest of the modern travellers drew up and 
 presented their accounts of Hindustan. The empire 
 of the Moguls was in its meridian splendour. It 
 extended over the principal part of India ; and the 
 court, the army, and the establishments of Akher or 
 Aurungzehe, exhibited that gorgeous exterior, that 
 air of grandeur and power, which were well calcu- 
 lated to impose upon the imagination of an unphilo- 
 sophical observer 1 . 
 
 It was unfortunate that a mind so pure, so warm 
 in the pursuit of truth, and so devoted to oriental 
 learning, as that of Sir William Jones, should have 
 adopted the hypothesis of a high state of civilization 
 in the principal countries of Asia. This he sup- 
 ported with all the advantages of an imposing man- 
 ner, and a brilliant reputation ; and gained for it so 
 great a credit, that for a time it would have been 
 very difficult to obtain a hearing against it. 
 
 Beside the illusions with which the fancy mag- 
 nifies the importance of a favourite pursuit, Sir Wil- 
 liam was actuated by the virtuous design of exalting 
 
 1 Many of the observations of Mr. Barrow upon the panegyrical ac- 
 counts of the Chinese by the popish missionaries are very applicable to 
 the flattering accounts which travellers have been so fond of giving us of the 
 Hindus. " In the same breath that they extol the wonderful strength of 
 filial piety, they speak of the common practices of exposing infants ; the 
 strict morality and ceremonious conduct of tha people are followed by a 
 list of the most gross debaucheries ; the virtues and the philosophy of the 
 learned are explained by their ignorance and their vices : if in one page 
 they speak of the excessive fertility of the country, and the amazing exten- 
 sion of agriculture, in the next thousands are seen perishing with want; 
 and whilst they extol with admiration the progress they have made in the 
 arts and sciences, they plainly inform us that without the aid of foreigners 
 they can neither cast a cannon nor calculate an eclipse." Barrow's Tra- 
 vels in China, p. 31.
 
 156 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 *ijf' the Hindus in the eyes of their European masters ; 
 and thence ameliorating the temper of the govern- 
 ment; while his mind had scope for error in the 
 vague and indeterminate notions which it still re- 
 tained of the signs of social improvement. The 
 term civilization was by him, as by most men, 
 attached to no fixed and definite assemblage of ideas. 
 With the exception of some of the lowest states of 
 society in which human beings have been found, it 
 was applied to nations in all the stages of social 
 advancement. 1 
 
 It is not easy to describe the characteristics of the 
 different stages of social progress. It is not from 
 one feature, or from two, that a just conclusion can 
 be drawn. In these it sometimes happens that na- 
 tions resemble which are placed at stages conside- 
 rably remote. It is from a joint view of all the great 
 circumstances taken together, that their progress can 
 be ascertained ; and it is from an accurate compa- 
 rison, grounded on these general views, that a scale 
 of civilization can be formed, on which the relative 
 position of nations may be accurately marked. 
 
 Notwithstanding all that modern philosophy had 
 performed for the elucidation of history, very little 
 had been attempted in this great department, at the 
 time when the notions of Sir William Jones were 
 formed; 2 and so crude were his ideas on the subject, 
 
 1 One of the chief circumstances from which Sir William Jones drew 
 conclusions respecting the high civilization of the Hindus, was the suppo. 
 sition that they never went abroad, a supposition which is now well known 
 to have been erroneous. See Asiat. Res. vi. 531, and i. 271. 
 
 * The writings of Mr. Miller of Glasgow, of which but a small part wag 
 then published, and into which it is probable Sir William had never looked, 
 contained the earliest elucidations of the subject. The suggestions offered
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 that the rhapsodies of Rousseau on the virtue and 
 happiness of the savage life surpass not the pane- - 
 gyrics of Sir William on the wild, comfortless, pre- 
 datory, and ferocious state of the wandering Arabs. 
 rt Except," says he, " when their tribes are engaged 
 in war, they spend their days in watching their flocks 
 and camels, or in repeating their native songs, which 
 they pour out almost extempore, professing a con- 
 tempt for the stately pillars and solemn buildings 
 of the cities, compared with the natural charms of 
 the country, and the coolness of their tents; thus 
 they pass their lives in the highest pleasure of which 
 they have any conception, in the contemplation of 
 the most delightful objects, and in the enjoyment of 
 perpetual spring." 1 " If courtesy," he observes, "and 
 
 in his successive productions, though highly important, were but detached 
 considerations applied to particular facts, and not a comprehensive induc- 
 tion, leading to general conclusions. Unfortunately the subject, great as 
 its importance, has not been resumed. The writings of Mr. Miller remain 
 almost the only source from which even the slightest information on the 
 subject can be drawn. One of the ends which has at least been in view 
 during the scrutiny conducted in these pages, has been to contri- 
 bute something to the progress of so important an investigation. It is 
 hoped that the materials which are here collected will be regarded as going 
 far to elucidate the state of society in all the leading nations of Asia. Not 
 only the Hindus, the Persians, the Arabians, the Turks, and Chinese of 
 the present day, but the Hindus, Arabians, and Persians of ancient days, 
 the Chaldeans, the Jews, and even the ancient Egyptians, may all be re- 
 garded as involved in the inquiry ; and to these, with the sole exception of 
 the wandering Tartars and the Hyperborean hordes, may be added the se- 
 cond-rate nations ; the inhabitants of the eastern peninsula, and of the 
 plains and monntains of Tibet. It is surprising, upon a close inspection, 
 how extensively all these various nations, notwithstanding the dissimila- 
 rity in some of the more obvious appearances, resemble one another, in 
 laws and institutions of government, in modes of thinking, in superstition 
 and prejudices, in arts and literature, even in the external forms of manner 
 and behaviour, and as well in ancient, as in modern times. 
 
 1 Essay on the Poetry of Eastern Nations. Voltaire exclaimed, on 
 reading Rousseau's panegyrics. " Jamais n'avais-je tant d'envie de 
 marcher a quatre pattes." 
 
 157
 
 158 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 , a l ve f P oetr y ant l eloquence, and the 
 practice of exalted virtues, be a just measure of per- 
 fect society, we have certain proof that the people of 
 Arabia, both on plains and in cities, in republican 
 and monarchical states, were eminently civilized for 
 many ages before their conquest of Persia." 1 We 
 need not wonder if the man, who wrote and delivered 
 this, found the Hindus arrived at the highest civili- 
 zation. Yet the very same author, in the very same 
 discourse, and speaking of the same people, declared, 
 " I find no trace among them, till their emigration, of 
 any philosophy but ethics ; " 2 and even of this he 
 says, "The distinguishing virtues which they boasted 
 of inculcating, were a contempt of riches and even of 
 death ; but in the age of the seven poets, their libe- 
 rality had deviated into mad profusion, their courage 
 into ferocity, and their patience into an obstinate 
 spirit of encountering fruitless dangers." 3 He adds, 
 " The only arts in which they pretended to excellence 
 (I except horsemanship and military accomplish- 
 ments) were poetry and rhetoric." 4 It can hardly 
 be affirmed that these facts are less wonderful as re- 
 garding a people " eminently civilized ;" a people 
 exhibiting " a just measure of perfect society." 5 
 
 1 Sir W. Jones, Asiat. Res. ii, 3. * Ibid. p. 9. 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Sir W Jones, Asiat. Res. ii. p. 14. " On this occasion, as well as on 
 many others, the sober historian is forcibly wakened from a pleasing vi- 
 sion ; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess that the pastoral 
 manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and 
 innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a mi- 
 litary life." Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxvi.,p. 342. 
 
 * In the same discourse Sir William further remarks ; " That we have 
 none of their compositions in prose before the Koran, may be ascribed, 
 perhaps, to the little skill which they seem to have had in writing, to their 
 predilection in favour of poetical measure, and the facility with which
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 159 
 
 Amonor the causes which excited to the tone of BOOK n. 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 eulogy adopted with regard to the Hindus, one un- 
 
 verses are committed to memory; but all their stories prove that they 
 were eloquent in a high degree, and possessed wonderful powers of speak- 
 ing without preparation, in flowing and forcible periods." (Asiat. Res, ii. 
 p. 14.) " Who," says Dr. Ferguson, " would from mere conjecture sup- 
 pose, that the naked savage would be a coxcomb and a gamester; that he 
 would be proud and vain without the distinctions of title and fortune ; and 
 that his principal care would be to adorn his person, and to find an amusement? 
 Even if it could be supposed that he would thus share in our vices, and in 
 the midst of his forest vie with the follies which are practised in the town 5 
 yet no one would be so bold as to affirm that he would likewise in any in- 
 stance excel us in talents and virtue ; that he would have a penetration, 
 a force of imagination and elocution, an ardonr of mind, an affection and 
 courage, which the arts, the discipline, and the policy of few nations 
 would be able to improve. Yet these particulars are a part in the de- 
 scription which is delivered by those who have had opportunities of see- 
 ing mankind in their rudest condition : ^nd beyond the reach of such testi- 
 mony , we can neither safely take, nor pretend to give information on the 
 subject." Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, part ii. 
 sect. 1. 
 
 The extreme inaccuracy and fluctuation of the ideas of European scho- 
 lars with respect to civilization, are curiously exemplified in their opinions 
 of the Asiatic nntions. Gibbon says, " The cavalry of Scythia was forced 
 to yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian horses ; their 
 riders were skilled in the evolutions of irregular war; and the northern 
 barbarians were astonished and dismayed by the inhuman ferocity of the 
 barbarians of the south. A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an 
 Arab ; and the hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, ex- 
 pressed a horrid delight, while he sucked the blood of his vanquished ene- 
 my." Gibbon, Hist, of the Dec. and Fall, &c. iv. 413. Of the various nations 
 subject to the Persian sceptre, many of them still higher in civilization 
 than the most civilized portion of the Arabians, the same author thus ex- 
 presses himself: " It was here," says he, "in a place where the opposite 
 banks cannot exceed 500 paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge 
 of boats, for the purpose of transporting into Europe 170 myriads of barba- 
 rians." Ibid. iii. 9. Of the Syrians and Egyptians, who still more nearly 
 than the Arabians resembled the Hindus, and were acquainted with more 
 of the arts which attain their perfection in civilized life, he says, " The 
 use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of man- 
 kind, checked the improvements of these barbarians." Ibid. i. 62. (N. B. 
 The same cause operated among the Hindus, and still more powerfully 
 to the production of the same effects.) Mr. Halhed says, that the Jews, at 
 the time of the Mosaic institutions, " were very little removed from a state 
 of barbarism, gross in their conceptions, illiterate in their education, and
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 doubtedly was, the affectation of candour. Of rude 
 and uncultivated nations, and also of rude and un- 
 cultivated individuals, it is a characteristic, to admire 
 only the system of manners, of ideas, and of institu- 
 tions to which they have been accustomed, despising 
 others. The most cultivated nations of Europe had 
 but recently discovered the weakness of this propen- 
 sity : Novelty rendered exemption from it a source 
 of distinction : To prove his superiority to the preju- 
 dices of home, by admiring and applauding the man- 
 ners and institutions of Asia, became, therefore, in 
 the breast of the traveller, a motive of no inconside- 
 rable power. l 
 
 The nations of Europe became acquainted nearly 
 
 uncultivated in their manners." Preface to Code of Gentoo Laws, p. xvii. 
 And yet thesse institutions are not only superior to the institutions of the 
 Hindus ; they are in a high degree superior to the institutions of any other 
 nation in Asia. But with the circumstances of Jewish society, we become 
 through the medium of our religion, early and familiarly acquainted. No 
 European is early ; hardly any is ever familiarly acquainted with the other 
 nations of Asia. No blind propensity therefore excites to admiration in 
 the one case : several do so in the other. Among the authors who have 
 followed Sir Wliliam Jones in his track of eulogy and admiration, it may 
 be suspected, from the limited information of some, that they were unac- 
 quainted with the facts of uncivilized life, and wherever man exhibited the 
 attributes of humanity believed he must there be civilized ; ignorant of the 
 intense exercise which is given to several of the human faculties even among 
 savages, and of the streugth which those faculties must hence acquire. 
 
 1 None of them has confessed the existence of this motive with more 
 frankness than Le Gentil, Voy. ii. 98. "Avant que j'eusse perdu mon 
 
 clocher de vue, les Frangois toient mes lu'ros Quant i moi jesuis 
 
 gue'ri de mes prjuges, et je m'applaudis en secret de m'itre dttrompi. 
 Col. Dow boasts of being actuated by the same sentiments and scruples not 
 to call Goths, or worse than Goths, all those who are not so : " In love 
 with our own times and country," says he, " we are apt to consider dis- 
 tant ages and nations as objects unworthy of the page of the historian 
 Some men of genius have entertained sentiments upon that sub- 
 ject, too narrow and confined for the Goths of a much darker age. Had 
 the translator of the following history thonght so meanly of the affairs of 
 the East," &c. Dow's Hindostan, Preface.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 161 
 
 about the same period, with the people of America, BOOK n. 
 
 r . . CHAP. 10. 
 
 and the people of Hindustan. Having contemplated 
 
 in the one, a people without fixed habitations,, with- 
 out political institutions, and with hardly any other 
 arts than those indispensably necessary for the pre- 
 servation of existence, they hastily concluded, upon 
 the sight of another people, inhabiting great cities, 
 cultivating the soil, connected together by an artifi- 
 cial system of subordination, exhibiting monuments 
 of great antiquity, cultivating a species of literature, 
 exercising arts, and obeying a monarch whose sway 
 was extensive, and his court magnificent, that they 
 had suddenly passed from the one extreme of civiliza- 
 tion to the other. The Hindus were compared with 
 the savages of America ; the circumstances in which 
 they differed from that barbarous people, were the cir- 
 cumstances in which they corresponded with the 
 most cultivated nations ; other circumstances were 
 overlooked; and it seems to have been little suspected 
 that conclusions too favourable could possibly be 
 drawn. 1 
 
 1 The account which Robertson gives of the causes which led to exag- 
 gerated conceptions in the mind of the Spaniards, respecting the civiliza- 
 tion of the Mexicans, applies in almost every particular to those of the 
 English and French respecting the Hindus. " The Spaniards," says he, 
 " when they first touched on the Mexican coast, were so much struck with 
 the appearance of attainments in policy and in the arts of life, far superior 
 to those of the rude tribes with which they were hitherto acquainted, that 
 they fancied they had at length discovered a civilized people in the New 
 World. This comparison between the people of Mexico and their uncul- 
 tivated neighbours, they appear to have kept coustantly in view, and ob- 
 serving with admiration many things which marked the pre-eminence of 
 the former, they employed, in describing their imperfect policy and infant 
 arts, such terms as are applicable to the institutions of men far beyond 
 them in improvement. Both these circumstances concur in detracting 
 from the credit due to the descriptions of Mexican manners by the early 
 Spanish writers. By drawing a parallel between them and those of people 
 VOL. II. M
 
 162 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 P r g ress of knowledge, and the force of obser- 
 vation, demonstrated the necessity of regarding the 
 actual state of the Hindus as little removed from that 
 of half-civilized nations. The saving hypothesis, 
 however, was immediately adopted, that the situa- 
 tion in which the Hindus are now heheld is a state 
 of degradation ; that formerly they were in a state 
 of high civilization ; from which they had fallen 
 through the miseries of foreign conquest, and sub- 
 jugation. 
 
 This was a theory invented to preserve as much 
 as actual observation would allow to be preserved, of 
 a pre-established and favourite creed. It was not an 
 inference from what was already known. It was a 
 gratuitous assumption. It preceded inquiry, and no 
 inquiry was welcome, but that which yielded matter 
 for its support. 1 
 
 To this purpose were adapted the pretensions of 
 the Brahmens, who spoke of an antecedent period, 
 when the sovereigns of Hindustan were masters of 
 great power and great magnificence. It was of 
 importance to weigh these pretensions ; because the 
 rude writers of rude nations have almost always 
 spoken of antecedent times as deserving all the praise 
 with which their powers of rhetoric or song could 
 
 so much less civilized, they raised their own ideas too high. By their 
 mode of describing them, they conveyed ideas to others no less exalted 
 above truth. Later writers have adopted the style of the original histo- 
 rians, and improved upon it." Hist, of America, iii. 320. 
 
 1 " Le voyageur racontant ses avanturcs, cherche dans 1'admiration de 
 ceux qni 1't'coutent, un dedommagement aux dangers qu'il a courus ; il eufle 
 la narration : Le sgavant, qui s'est domic beaucoup de peine pour appren- 
 drc des langues etrangeres et lointaines, s'extasie sur la beaute des ou- 
 vrages qu'il est parvenu a entendre." Anquetll Duperron, Note, No. ii. 
 Supplement auz Recherchcs, &c. sur 1'Inde.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 163 
 
 exalt them. If the descriptions of antiquity pre- B K n. 
 sented by the Brahmens bore the consistent marks nf 
 truth and reality, a degree of intrinsic evidence would 
 be attached to them. If these descriptions flew wide 
 of all resemblance to human aftairs, and were nothing 
 but wild unnatural fictions, they would be so far from 
 proving an antecedent state of knowledge and civili- 
 zation, that they would prove the reverse. And, had 
 the Hindus remained fixed from the earliest ages in 
 the semibarbarous state, it is most certain that the 
 Brahmens would have given to us just such accounts 
 of antiquity as those we have actually received at their 
 hands. 
 
 As the Hindus have enlightened us by no record of 
 antecedent events, and we thus have no immediate 
 proof of their state of civilization, in the times that are 
 past, the only sure ground of inference is the laws and 
 institutions which they framed, the manners they 
 adopted, and the arts and sciences to which they at- 
 tended. If these great circumstances were at variance 
 with the existing state of society, but adapted to one 
 more advanced, the inference would certainly be a 
 probable one, that to a period when society was in 
 that improved condition, they really owed their birth. 
 But in regard to the Hindus, their laws and institu- 
 tions are adapted to the very state of society which 
 those who visit them now behold. They are laws 
 and institutions which, so far from importing any 
 more perfect state of society, seem entirely inconsistent 
 with it; such as could neither begin, nor exist, 
 under any other than one of the rudest and weakest 
 states of the human mind. As the manners, the arts 
 and sciences of the ancient Hindus are entirely corre- 
 
 M 2
 
 164 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK i!. 1 ' spondentwith the state of their laws and institutions, 
 
 (' 11 A I*. IU. 1 
 
 - every thing we know of the ancient state of Hindu- 
 stan conspires to prove that it was rude. 
 
 It is another important fact, that, if the Hindus 
 had ever been placed in this pretended state of civili- 
 zation, we know of no such period of calamity, as was 
 sufficient to reduce them to a state of ignorance and 
 barbarity. The conquest of Hindustan, effected by 
 the Mahomedan nations, was to no extraordinary 
 degree sanguinary or destructive. It substituted 
 sovereigns of one race to sovereigns of another, and 
 mixed with the old inhabitants a small proportion of 
 new ; but it altered not the texture of society ; it 
 altered not the language of the country ; the original 
 inhabitants remained the occupants of the soil ; they 
 continued to be governed by their own laws and in- 
 stitutions ; nay, the whole detail of administration, 
 with the exception of the army, and a few of the 
 more prominent situations, remained invariably in 
 the hands of the native magistrates and officers. 1 
 
 1 " The administration of justice has been almost universally, by the 
 Mogul conquerors of Indostan, devolved upon the Hindus, the office of 
 Duan being generally conferred upon one of that people." Onne on the 
 Government and People of Indostan," p. 443. Although the Mogul Tar- 
 tars nnder Tamerlane and his successors have at last rendered themselves 
 lords of almost the whole of it (India); yet the original inhabitants have 
 lost very little of their original character by the establishment of these 
 strangers amongst them." Onne, Hist, of Milit. Transact, in Indostan. 
 i. 2. M. Mr. Mill may be excused for making such a mistake as to assert 
 that under the Mohammedan Government, the offices of" magistrates," were 
 filled by Hindus ; he follows the authority of Orme, but Orme, though an 
 excellent guide in all that relates to the European transactions which he 
 beheld, must have been exceedingly ignorant of the character, and appa- 
 rently of the languages of the people. His remark that the administration 
 of justice devolved upon the Hindus is most certainly erroneous, as no un- 
 believer could, consistently with the principles of the Mohammedan faith, 
 have been intrusted with such duty, and the illustration he gives, that the
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 165 
 
 The few occasions of the persecution, to which, under BOOK n. 
 
 f . CHAP. 10. 
 
 the reigns of one or two bigoted sovereigns, they were 
 
 subjected on the score of religion, "were too short and 
 too partial to produce any considerable effects. 1 
 
 When we look for the particulars of those pre- 
 tended reigns of mighty kings, the universal lords of 
 India, under whom science flourished, and civilization 
 rose to the greatest height, we meet with nothing but 
 fable, more wild, and inconsistent, and hyperbolical, 
 than is any where else to be found. From this no 
 
 office of Duan was generally conferred upon Hindus, is an amusing proof 
 how little he understood what he was saying. The office of Duan or 
 Dewan being entirely of a financial nature, and wholly unconnected with 
 the administration of justice. W. 
 
 1 It seems to have been a rash and foolish assimilation of the conquest 
 of Hindustan by the Moguls to the overwhelming of the Roman empire by 
 the northern nations, that alone could have suggested so gratuitous a sup- 
 position as that of the degradation of the Hindus from an improved to a 
 barbarous state of society by the calamities of conquest. The two cases are 
 totally dissimilar. By the successive inundations of the barbarians, the 
 ancient inhabitants of the Roman provinces were well-nigh swept from the 
 face of the earth. Every where they were stript of the possession of the 
 land, and commonly reduced to the state of bondsmen and slaves. The 
 ancient institutions entirely gave way, and were replaced by a set 
 of institutions altogether new. The language of the conquerors in 
 most places entirely supplanted ; in all it so much altered the lan- 
 guage of the people subdued or exterminated, as to impose upon it a 
 different structure. Another circumstance is never to be forgotten. To 
 such a degree of barbarity were the inhabitants of the Roman provinces 
 degraded, by the long-continued effects of a detestable government, that 
 the invaders had really not much to accomplish to reduce them to the same 
 level with themselves. This was abundantly seen in the state of the 
 Greeks of the eastern empire ; who, upon their very first subjugation to 
 the Turks, exhibited a condition not greatly different from that in which 
 they grovel at the present day. The conquest to which, with greatest pro- 
 priety, that of the Hindus by one tribe of Tartars might be compared would 
 be the conquest of the Chinese by a similar tribe of Tartars. There is no rea- 
 son to think that the one was a conquest of a more destructive nature than the 
 other. If the Moguls did not adopt the religion and institutions of the 
 Hindus, it was because the religion and institutions of the Hindus admitted 
 of no participation, and because the Moguls had already embraced a more 
 enlightened faith. See Francis's Minute, p. 30 : also the treatise of Mr- 
 Grant, on the Character of the Hindus, printed by order of the House of 
 Commons in 1813.
 
 HISTORY OK BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. rational conclusion can be drawn, except that it is 
 
 CHAP. JO. 
 
 the production of a rude and irrational age. Bharat 
 
 or Bharata, is said to have been the first universal 
 sovereign of India, which from him derived its name ; 
 India being, in the language of the natives, Bharata 
 Versh. In this, however, as usual, the Hindu ac- 
 counts contradict themselves, since Bharat is repre- 
 sented as preceding Rama, the son of Gush, who, 
 according to Sir William Jones, might have esta- 
 blished the first regular government in India. 1 Jud- 
 hishter is another of these universal sovereigns ; but 
 of him even the origin is allegorical ; he is the son of 
 Dherma, or the god of justice, and he reigned 27,000 
 years. The name, with which, chiefly, the idea of the 
 universal sovereignship of India, and the glory of art 
 and science, is combined, is that of Vicramaditya. 
 Of him, let us hear what is represented ; and then 
 we shall be enabled to judge. " The two periods," 
 says Captain Wilford, " of Vicramaditya and Sali- 
 vahana are intimately connected ; and the accounts 
 we have of these two extraordinary personages are 
 much confused, teeming with contradictions and ab- 
 surdities to a surprising degree. In general the Hin- 
 dus know but of one Vicramaditya ; but the learned 
 acknowledge four ; and when, at my request, they 
 produced written authorities, I was greatly surprised 
 to find no less than eight or nine. Vicramaditya 
 made a desperate tapasya, in order to obtain power 
 and a long life from Calidevi, and as she seemingly 
 continued deaf to his entreaties, he was going to cut 
 off his own head, when she appeared, and granted 
 him undisturbed sway over all the world for one 
 thousand years, after which a divine child, born of a 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. i. 258.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 167 
 
 virgin, and the son of the great Tacshaca, carpen- BOOK n. 
 
 ill 1 1 1 1 i CHAP. 10. 
 
 ter or artist, would deprive mm both of his kingdom 
 
 and of his life. This would happen in the year of the 
 Cali yug, 3101, answering to the first of the Chris- 
 tian era. The history of these nine worthies, but 
 more particularly when considered as a single indivi- 
 dual, is a most crude and undigested mass of hetero- 
 geneous legends, taken from the apocryphal gospel of 
 the infancy of Christ, the tales of the Rabbis and Tal- 
 mudists concerning Solomon, with some particulars 
 about Muhammed; and the whole is jumbled toge- 
 ther with some of the principal features of the history 
 of the Persian kings, of the Sassanian dynasty. Thus 
 Vicrama is made contemporary with Solomon: and 
 like him, he is said to have found the great mantra, 
 spell or talisman ; through which he ruled over the 
 elements, and spirits, of all denominations, who obeyed 
 him like slaves. Like Solomon he had a most won- 
 derful throne, supported and adorned with lions, who 
 are endued with reason and speech. We read in the 
 Vetala-pancha-vinsati, 1 that it was through the assist- 
 ance of the great Vetala, or devil, that two Vicrama'- 
 dityas obtained the empire of the world, a long life, 
 with unlimited sway. They performed the puja in 
 his honour, offered sacrifices, and in short dedicated 
 or gave themselves up to him." 2 On this foundation 
 of historical matter is built the magnificent fabric of 
 a great and universal monarchy, the reign of the arts 
 
 1 Here again the Historian is misled by his authority. No Hindu ever 
 proposed the twenty-five stories of a demon, as history; all the confusion, 
 too, that arises out of multiplied Vikramadityas, is Wilford's work: 
 not that of the Hindu traditions, which are simple and consistent. W. 
 
 * Essay on Vicramaditya and Salivahana, by Capt. Wilford, Asiat. Res. 
 ix. 117 to 120.
 
 168 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BO K II. and sciences, all that embellishes human life, and aug- 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 ments the human powers. Such being the premises, 
 
 and such the conclusion, are they not admirably adapted 
 to one another ? The legend speaks, and that loudly, 
 and distinctly, what it is ; the creation of a rude and 
 uncultivated fancy, exerting itself to rouse the wonder 
 of a rude and uncultivated age, by a recital of actions, 
 powers, and events, swelled beyond the measure of 
 human nature; profiting by all the hints which the 
 legends or history of other nations supplied to furnish 
 out its story, and by appropriating the wonderful 
 deeds of all the world to gratify the barbarous vanity 
 of the people to whom the story was addressed. If 
 the historian gave to his hero a reign of a thousand 
 years ; it was quite in the same temper, and condu- 
 cive to the same end, to give him the sovereignty of 
 all India ; and not only of all India, but, as we see 
 was the fact, the sovereignty of the whole world. 
 This is precisely the course which a wild and igno- 
 rant mind, regarding only the wonder which it has 
 it in view to excite, naturally, in such cases, and 
 almost universally, pursues. Such legends, if they 
 existed in myriads, are no more a proof of a mon- 
 archy common to all India, which they do not 
 assert, than of the universal monarchy of the whole 
 world, or of the thousands or the myriads of years to 
 one reign, which they expressly assert. 1 
 
 The very lists which are found in the books of the 
 Hindus, filled up with the names of successive mon- 
 archs, Mr. Wilford assures us, are the creation of 
 
 1 If we examine the chronological table of the Hindu kings, presented 
 us by Sir William Jones, we shall find Vicramaditya placed at an era pos- 
 terior to the Mussulman conquests.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 169 
 
 the fancies of the writers, and are formed without BOOK n. 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 any reference to facts. In enumerating the authori- 
 
 ties, from which he drew his materials, in the essay on 
 Vicramaditya and Salivahana, he says, " The fourth list 
 has been translated into all the dialects of India, and 
 new-modelled at least twenty different ways, accord- 
 ing to the whims and pre-conceived ideas of every in- 
 dividual, who chose to meddle with it. It is, how- 
 ever, the basis and ground-work of modern history 
 among the Hindus ; as in the Khaldset-ul-Tuwarikh 
 and the Tadkerat-us-sulatin. The latter treatise is a 
 most perfect specimen of the manner of writing his- 
 tory in India ; for, excepting the above list, almost 
 every thing else is the production of the fertile genius 
 of the compiler. In all these lists the compilers and 
 revisers seem to have had no other object in view, 
 but to adjust a certain number of remarkable epochs. 
 This being once effected, the intermediate spaces are 
 filled up with names of kings not to be found any 
 where else, and most probably fanciful. Otherwise 
 they leave out the names of those kings of whom no- 
 thing is recorded, and attribute the years of their 
 reign in some among them better known, and of 
 greater fame. They often do not scruple to trans- 
 
 , Years. 
 
 From Chandragupta to the end of the Mauryarace (As. Res. ii. 139) 137 
 
 From the beginning to the end of the Sunga (Ibid. p. 140.) 112 
 
 From the ditto to ditto of the Canna (Ibid.) 345 
 
 From ditto to ditto of Andra (ending with Chandrabija) (p. 141") . . 456 
 From Chandrabija to Vicramaditya (Ibid. p. 142) 396 
 
 From Chandragupta to Vicramaditya 1446 
 
 Now Seleucus, who was contemporary with Chandragupta (Asiat. Res. 
 iv. xxvi.), began to reign about 300 years before Christ. By this chro- 
 nology, therefore, Vicramaditya began to reign about 1146 years after 
 Christ.
 
 170 HISTORY OK BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 l )0se some f ^ose kings, and even whole dynasties ; 
 either in consequence of some pre-conceived opinion, 
 or owing to their mistaking a famous king for an- 
 other of the same name. It was not uncommon with 
 ancient writers, to pass from a remote ancestor to a 
 remote descendant ; or from a remote predecessor to 
 a remote successor, by leaving out the intermediate 
 generations or successions, and sometimes ascribing 
 the years of their reigns to a remote successor or pre- 
 decessor. In this manner the lists of the ancient 
 kings of Persia, both by oriental writers, and others 
 in the west, have been compiled : and some instances 
 of this nature might be produced from Scripture. I 
 was acquainted lately, at Benares, with a chronicler 
 of that sort ; and in the several conversations I had 
 with him, he candidly acknowledged, that he filled 
 up the intermediate spaces between the reigns of 
 famous kings, with names at a venture ; that he 
 shortened or lengthened their reigns at pleasure ; and 
 that it was understood, that his predecessors had 
 taken the same liberties. Through their emenda- 
 tions and corrections, you see plainly a total want of 
 historical knowledge and criticism ; and sometimes 
 some disingenuity is but too obvious. This is, how- 
 ever, the case with the sections on futurity in the 
 Bhagavat, "Vayu, Vishnu, and Brahmanda Puranas ; 
 which with the above lists constitute the whole stock 
 of historical knowledge among the Hindus ; and the 
 whole might be comprised in a few quarto pages of 
 print" 1 
 
 Such is the mode, in which the authors of the Pu- 
 
 1 Essay oil Vicramaditya, and Salivahana, by Captain Wilford, Asiat. 
 Res. ix. 132, 133.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 171 
 
 ranas supply themselves with a convenient quantity 
 of ordinary kings : Mr. Wilford affords most satis 
 factory information with regard to the manner in 
 which they further supply themselves with extra- 
 ordinary ones. " The propensity," says he, " of the 
 Hindus, to appropriate every thing to themselves, is 
 well known. We have noticed before, their claims to 
 Bahram-Gur and his descendants ; and in the same 
 manner they insist that Acbar was a Hindu in a 
 former generation. The proximity of the time, in 
 which this famous emperor lived, has forced them, 
 however, to account for this in the following manner. 
 There was a holy Brahmen, who wished very much 
 to become emperor of India; and the only practicable 
 way for him was to die first, and be born again. For 
 this purpose he made a desperate Tapasya, wishing 
 to remember then every thing he knew in his present 
 generation. This could not be fully granted ; but 
 he was indulged with writing upon a brass plate a 
 few things which he wished more particularly to re- 
 member; then he was directed to bury the plate, and 
 promised that he would remember the place in the 
 next generation. Mucunda, for such was his name, 
 went to Allahabad, buried the plate, and then burned 
 himself. Nine months after he was born in the 
 character of Acbar, who, as soon as he ascended the 
 throne, went to Allahabad, and easily found the spot 
 where the brass plate was buried. Thus the Hindus 
 claim Muhammed and Acbar as their own ; exactly 
 like the Persians of old, who insisted that Alexander 
 was the son of one of their kings ; so that after all
 
 172 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 were forced to submit to their countrymen 
 
 only." 1 
 
 The account of the claim to Bahram-Gur, men- 
 tioned in the beginning of the preceding passage, is 
 extremely important on the present occasion ; as it 
 shows us that Vicramaditya, whom the legend makes 
 sovereign of the world, and the believers in the great 
 Hindu monarchy take for emperor of Hindustan, 
 was in reality a King of Persia, borrowed by the 
 Brahmens, from their propensity to appropriate every 
 thing remarkable which they heard of in the world. 
 " One of these Vicramas," says Mr. Wilford, speak- 
 ing of the different persons in whom this Vicrama- 
 ditya appears, " was really a Sassanian Prince : and 
 the famous Shabour or Sapor, of that dynasty, who 
 took the emperor Valens prisoner." 2 The story is 
 as follows ; " In Gurjjara-mandalam are the Sabha- 
 ramati and Mahi rivers ; between them is a forest, 
 in which resided Tamralipta-rishi, whose daughter 
 married King Tamrasena. They had six male chil- 
 dren and one daughter called Mandava-recha. The 
 king had two young lads, called Devas'arma and 
 Havisarma, whose duty chiefly was to wash, every 
 day, the clothes of their master, in the waters of the 
 nearest river. One day, as Devas'arma went, by 
 himself, for that purpose, he heard a voice, saying, 
 Tell King Tamrasena to give me his daughter ; 
 should he refuse me he will repent it. The lad on 
 his return mentioned the whole to his master ; who 
 would not believe it, and the next day sent Havisar- 
 
 1 Essay on Vicramaditya, and Salivahana, by Capt. Wilford, Asiat. Res. 
 ix. 158, 159. 
 Ibid. p. 149.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 173 
 
 ma to the river, who heard the same voice also, with BOOK ii. 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 the threats in case of a refusal. The King was as- 
 
 tonished ; and going himself heard the voice also. 
 On his return he assembled his council; and after 
 consulting together, it was agreed, that the king 
 should go again, and ask him who he was. The 
 supposed spirit being questioned, answered, I am a 
 Gand'harva, or heavenly chorister ; who, having in- 
 curred Indra's displeasure, was doomed to assume 
 'the shape of an ass. I was born in that shape, in 
 the house of a cumbhacara, or potter, in your capi- 
 tal city ; and I am daily roving about in quest of 
 food. The king said that he was very willing to 
 give him his daughter ; but that he conceived that 
 such an union was altogether impossible while he 
 remained in that shape. The Gand'harva said, Trou- 
 ble not yourself about that ; comply with my request, 
 and it shall be well with you. If, says the king, you 
 are so powerful, turn the walls of my city, and those 
 of the houses, into brass ; and let it be done before 
 sun-rise to-morrow. The Gand'harva agreed to it, 
 and the whole was completed by the appointed time ; 
 and the king of course gave him his daughter. This 
 Gand'harva's name was Jayanta, the son of Brahma. 
 When cursed by Indra, he humbled himself; and 
 Indra relenting, allowed him to resume his human 
 shape in the night time ; telling him that the curse 
 should not be done away, till somebody had burned 
 his ass-like frame. The mother of the damsel spied 
 them once in the night ; and, to her great joy, found 
 that the Gand'harva dallied with her daughter in a 
 human shape. Rejoiced at this discovery, she looked 
 for his ass-like form, and burned it. Early in the
 
 174 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK " morning, the Gand'harva looked for this body of his, 
 
 CHAP. 10. J 
 
 - and found that it had been destroyed. He returned 
 immediately to his wife, informing her of what had 
 happened, and that his curse being at an end, he 
 was obliged to return to heaven, and leave her. He 
 informed her also that she was with child by him, 
 and that the name of the child was to be Vicrama- 
 ditya." } After the statement of some other particu- 
 lars, Mr. Wilford says ; " This is obviously the 
 history of Yesdegird, son of Bahram-Gur, or Bahrain 
 the ass, King of Persia : the grand features are the 
 same, and the times coincide perfectly. 2 The 
 amours of Bahram-Gur, with an Indian princess, are 
 famous all over Persia, as well as in India." 3 Such 
 are the accounts of Vicramaditya, from which we 
 are called upon for our belief of an universal mo- 
 narchy, and a period of civilization and knowledge. 4 
 
 1 Essay on Vicramaditya, and Salivaliana, by Captain Wilford, Asiat. 
 Res. ix. 147, 148, 149. 
 
 s These are not the accounts of Vikramaditya which the Hindus call 
 upon us to believe. They are avowedly tales and fables having no con- 
 nexion with a celebrated prince, except the employment of his name. 
 There is no reason whatever to confound him with Behram-Gur. The 
 story of the transformation of the Gand'harva is a mere popular tra- 
 dition current in the west of India, the origin of which may be ac- 
 counted for. The Puranas notice a dynasty of modem princes cabled 
 Gardabhas, and the word happening to signify "an ass," has no doubt 
 given rise to the tale of the transformation of the Gandharba to that 
 animal. W. 
 
 3 Essay on Vicramaditya, and Salivahana, by Captain Wilford, Asiat. 
 Res. ix. p. 149. 
 
 4 Mr. Wilford presents us also with the history which the Brahmens 
 have manufactured for placing Mahomed among the great men of Hindu- 
 stan. It is of much importance, to elucidate the accounts, which are given by 
 the Hindus, not only of the actions, but of the very persons and existence 
 of their pretended heroes. I should otherwise have been pleased to omit 
 a story, tainted with that indelicacy, which, even when they are inventing, 
 and have the circumstances at their own selection, marks the writings of 
 an uncultivated people. " The Hindus say, that the son of a certain King
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 175 
 
 Our experience of human nature, and the pheno- BOOK n. 
 
 1 . CHAP. 10. 
 
 mena which are exhibited under the manners, attain- . 
 
 of India, being disgusted with the world, turned pilgrim, and went to 
 Mocsheswarasl'hana (or Mecca). In his way thither, and in Arabia, he 
 stopped at the house of a Brahmen, who received him kindly, and ordered 
 his daughter to wait on him as usual. Whilst asleep, the cloth with which 
 his loins were covered was accidentally defiled. When he awoke, he took 
 it off, and concealed it in a corner of the house, in some hole, and out of the 
 sight of the damsel, as he thought. Being from home, to perform his ab- 
 lutioiis, in consequence of this nocturnal defilement, the damsel came at 
 the usual hour ; and her courses suddenly making their appearance, she 
 was much distressed, and looking every where for some cloth, she spied 
 the bundle in short she conceived. He departed for Mecca : and some 
 months after, the parents of the damsel and herself were thrown into the 
 greatest confusion, as may be imagined. The holy man was considered 
 as the author of their disgrace ; though the damsel exculpated him : Yet 
 she could not account for her present situation. She was like Hagar, 
 turned out of the house inio the wilderness with her son : where they 
 were miraculously preserved, both being innocent. Some years after the 
 holy man returned, unconscious of his having been the cause of so much 
 uneasiness to the family of the hospitable Brahmen. After much abuse, 
 the matter was explained ; but the son of the damsel could uot be ad- 
 mitted to share with his relatives, or even to remain in their communion. 
 He was, however, honourably dismissed with his mother, after they had 
 given him a suitable education, and rich presents ; and they advised him 
 to shift for himself, and to set up a new religion, as he could not be con- 
 sidered as a member of the old one, on accouut of his strange birth, or 
 rather conception. When advanced in years, he wished to see his paternal 
 relations and India ; and to persuade them to conform to his new doctrine ; 
 but he died in his way thither, at Medina, near Candahar. This Medina 
 is Ghazni, called emphatically the second Medina, from the great number 
 of holy men entombed there : and it is obvious that the Hindus have con- 
 founded Muhammed with Sultan-Mahmood, whose sumptuous Mausoleum 
 is close to that city. Thus we see, that the account they give of Muham- 
 med is a mere rhapsody, retaining some of the principal features of the 
 history of Ishmael, Hagar, Muhammed himself, and Sultan-Mahmood. 
 This Samvat, or era, of Maha'bhat (Muhammed), was early introduced 
 into India, and the Hindus were obliged to use it, as they do now in all 
 their civil transactions; and thus Muhammed became at least a Sambatica 
 or Santica. According to the rules laid down by the learned in India, 
 Muhammed is certainly a Saca and Saceswara, and is entitled to the 
 epithet of Vicrama. He is a Saca, or mighty chief ; and, like olher Sacas, 
 he killed his millions ; he is Saceswara, or the ruler of a sacred period, 
 still in use in India. For these reasons, the Pandits, who assisted Abul- 
 Fazil, did not scruple to bestow the title of Vicramaditya upon him ; and
 
 176 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. ments, and institutions of the Hindus, are the only 
 
 CHAP. 10. ' . 
 
 materials from which a rational inference can be 
 
 even to consider him as the real worthy of that name; and in order to 
 make the era, or at least the time of Vicramaditya's appearance coincide 
 with the era of Muhammed, they have most shamefully distorted the 
 chronology of the appendix to the Agni-purana. Mr. Wilford, Asiat. Res. 
 ix. 159, 1GO, 161. See a still more extraordinary attempt to foist the story 
 of Jesus Christ, borrowed from the spurious gospels, into the Puranas; 
 and to make Christ at one time Crishna, at another time Salivahana, at 
 another time Buddha. Essay on the Origin and Decline of Christianity 
 in India, by Captain Wilford, Asiat. Res. x. 
 
 It would thus appear that Vicramaditya is a sort of an appellative, and 
 is applied to any character, whether real or imaginary, whom it suited the 
 Brahmens to erect into a hero ; and whether it was originally the name of 
 some Hindu prince who had greatly distinguished himself, or of pure in- 
 vention, it is altogether useless to inquire. That this name has been 
 attached to a particular era, in one of the numerous Hindu modes of 
 dating, establishes nothing. What we do not know is for what cause 
 they adopted such an era : What we do know is that they would very 
 naturally apply to it the appellative Vicramaditya, whatever the cause. 
 And no one can doubt the absurdity of supposing that the cause was a 
 particular prince, contemporary at o&ce with Solomon, with Jesus Christ, 
 with Sapor, and with Mohammed. 
 
 What the Brahmens fable, about an universal monarchy, and the celes- 
 tial glory of this or that pretended hero, can therefore be regarded as no 
 evidence of the facts which they assert. The propensity of the Hindus to 
 exaggeration is every where displayed. " The officers of government 
 here," says Dr. Buchanan, "had the impudence to inform me, that ac- 
 cording to Chica Deva Raya's valuation of the country which belonged to 
 
 Nandi Raj, it contained 32,000 villages. The account here 
 
 given seems to be one of those gross exaggerations common in India, and 
 is entirely contradicted by the accounts which I received from the revenue 
 office at Seringapatam." Journey through Mysore, &c. ii. 97. In other 
 places the native officers told him lies, contradicted by the very facts pre- 
 sented to their and his eyes, at the moment of delivering them. " Among 
 the natives, however," he remarks, " similar departures from the truth are 
 common." Ibid. p. 136, 137. Vicramaditya is indeed, expressly, at times 
 asserted, not to have been King of all India, but only of a certain portion 
 of it in the west. " The author of the Vicrama-Upac'hyana says, that be 
 was a powerful prince, in the west of India, and possessed of the countries 
 which we find, afterwards, constituting the patrimonial territories of the 
 Balahara, which included Gurjjarasht'ra (or Gujjarat) with some adjacent 
 districts." Essay on Vicramaditya, &c. by Captain Wilford, Asiat. Res. 
 ix. 149. M. 
 
 Where Wilford picked up all this nonsense cannot be ascertained ; it 
 was probably manufactured for him. No trace of it has been ever met
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 177 
 
 drawn. It is by no means impossible for a people, BOOK n. 
 
 ; . , CHAP - 10 - 
 
 "vvho have passed but a small number of stages in the 
 
 career of civilization, to be united, extensively, under 
 one government, and to remain steady for a great 
 length of time in that situation. The empire of China 
 is one conspicuous proof; the ancient kingdom of 
 Persia, which for several ages stood exempt from re- 
 volution, is another. The Ottoman empire may be 
 considered as a similar instance. And the Russians, a 
 barbarous people, have long formed a very extensive 
 monarchy. It would, therefore, be far from evidence 
 of any higher civilization, among the Hindus, than 
 what they now manifest, had the existence of a great 
 monarchy been proved. 1 Among uncivilized nations, 
 however, it is most common to find a perpetual suc- 
 cession of revolutions, and communities in general 
 small ; though sometimes a prince or individual with 
 uncommon talents arises ; and, acquiring power, ex- 
 tends his authority over several of those communities ; 
 
 with by any other sancrit scholar. I have elsewhere remarked that the 
 appendix to the Agni Puranii has never yet made its appearance in any 
 collection of Sanscrit manuscripts. W. 
 
 1 If the existence of a great monarchy be no proof of civilization the 
 pains that are here taken to disprove its existence in India have been some- 
 what superfluous, and in any case it is with the theories of European 
 writers, not the assertion of the Hindus themselves, that the dispute is 
 maintained. As to the question of civilization however it in truth appears 
 to be little influenced by extent of territory, and in some cases, as in 
 ancient Greece, the division of the country amongst a number of petty 
 principalities and communities, seems to have been favourable to social 
 advancement. 
 
 The ancient state of India was for the most part, no doubt, such as it 
 has been known to be in later times : it was held by a number of indepen- 
 dent princes whose dominions varied in extent according to their personal 
 character : at times, however, one more ambitious and able than the rest, 
 does seem to have brought a very considerable portion of the country 
 under ' one umbrella." The edicts of Asoka are found engraven on the 
 column of Delhi, the rocks of Orissa, and the mountains of Guzerat. W. 
 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. or even, as in the case of Charlemagne, over a great 
 number ; while, after his death the large empire which 
 he had erected gradually dissolves, till the whole, or 
 the greater part, is re-divided into small communities 
 as before. Every thing which the Europeans have 
 seen in Hindustan conspires to prove that such 
 subdivision of communities, and occasional and tem- 
 porary extensions of power in particular hands, have 
 composed the history of that country. The Mahratta 
 empire affords a striking example of those changes 
 which seem natural to the circumstances in which the 
 people are placed. Within the period of the modern 
 intercourse of the Europeans with Hindustan, an as- 
 piring individual was enabled to extend his authority 
 partly by persuasion, partly by force, first over one 
 district, and then over another, till at last he united 
 under his command an extensive empire, composed 
 chiefly of the separate and disjointed communities, 
 who occupied the mountainous districts in the western 
 and central parts of Hindustan. 1 Soon was this em- 
 pire broken into several different governments, the 
 owners of which hardly acknowledged even a nominal 
 homage to the throne of Sivajee ; and had they been 
 left to themselves, free from the irresistible operation 
 of the British power, the empire of the Mahrattas, in 
 all probability, would have been resolved, ere this 
 time, into its primitive elements. Even the empire 
 of the Moguls, itself ; though erected on firmer foun- 
 
 1 The word Hindustan is in this work generally used to signify, com- 
 prehensively, the land of the Hindus, from Cape Comorin to the farthest 
 boundary of the country which they inhabited. It is necessary to mention, 
 that in the oriental books, it has often a more limited signification, being 
 appropriated to that part of the land of the Hindus, which is north of the 
 river Nerbudda.
 
 .GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 179 
 
 dations than it is reasonable to suppose that any BOOK n - 
 
 rr f J CHAP. 10. 
 
 Hindu monarchy ever enjoyed; though supported by 
 
 a foreign force ; and acted upon by peculiar motives 
 for maintaining undivided power, had no sooner at- 
 tained its greatest extension by the conquests of Au- 
 rungzebe, than it began immediately to fall to pieces ; 
 and a single century beheld it in fragments. 
 
 The monuments of the ancient state of Hindustan 
 conspire in giving indication of a troubled scene. 
 Every ancient writing, which bears any reference to 
 the matter of history, the historical poems, the Pura- 
 nas, hold up to view a state of society, the reverse of 
 tranquil ; perpetual broils, dethronements, injustice, 
 wars, conquests, and bloodshed. Among the most 
 important of all the documents of antiquity found in 
 Hindustan, are the inscriptions, declaratory of grants 
 of land, made by the ancient princes of the country. 
 These princes are so far from appearing to have 
 presided over a peaceful land, that they are all repre- 
 sented, as victorious warriors ; and as having been 
 surrounded by enemies, over whom they have tri- 
 umphed, and whom they have severely chastised. 1 
 Almost all the princes mentioned in these inscrip- 
 tions, princes in all the parts of India, and not pre- 
 tended to have been more than the sovereigns of 
 some particular district, are described as the con- 
 querors and sovereigns of the whole world. 2 
 
 1 See the inscription found at Monghir, and translated in the Asiat. Res. 
 i. 123. That found at Buddal, Ibid. p. 130. That found at Tanna, Ibid, 
 p. 357. Those from the Vindhya mountains, Ibid. ii. 168, 169. That on 
 the staff of Feeroz Shah, Ibid. p. 382. That respecting a grant of 
 land in Carnatic, Ibid. iii. 40 47. That found in the district of Go- 
 rakhpur, Ibid. ix. 410. That found at Chitradurg, Ibid. p. 418, 419, 420. 
 That found at Curugode, Ibid. p. 436, 437, 438. Those found at Nedi- 
 gal and Goujda, Ib. p. 447. 
 
 * See the inscriptions translated in the Asiat. Researches, i. 360, 123, 
 
 N 2
 
 180 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. Of the unsparing and destructive cruelty which 
 
 accompanied the perpetual wars and conquests of the 
 
 Hindus, among other proofs, the following may be 
 considered as strong. In the inscription found at 
 Tanna, part of the panegyric bestowed upon the do- 
 nor Prince, is in these words ; " Having raised up 
 his slain foe on his sharp sword, he so afflicted the 
 women in the hostile palaces, that their forelocks fell 
 disordered, their garlands of bright flowers dropped 
 from their necks on the vases of their breasts, and 
 the black lustre of their eyes disappeared ; a warrior, 
 the plant of whose fame grows up over the temple 
 of Brahma's egg (the universe) from the-repeated- 
 watering-of-it-with-the-drops-that-fell-from-the-eyes- 
 of-the-wives-of-his-slaughtered-foe." 1 It would be 
 in the highest degree absurd to reject this, were it 
 even a solitary instance, as evidence of a general 
 fact ; because the exterminating ferocity is described 
 as matter of the highest praise ; and panegyric, to 
 be what it is, must be conformable to the ideas of 
 the people to whom it is addressed. 2 
 
 125 ; iii. 48, 52 ; iz. 406, 418. The inscription, cut on a stone, upon the 
 hill of Belligolo, in front of the great Jain image, bears a similar testimony. 
 
 " In the year of the Saca 1290 (A. D. 1367) be success and 
 
 glory to the honourable monarch, the sovereign and destroyer of envious 
 princes, lord of foreign kings, whose name is Buccaraya." (Asiat. Res. 
 ix. 270.) 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. i. 360. It is a mere common place, and after all what does 
 it mean ? that the women of the prince, or the people of a subjugated 
 country will have cause to grieve for the loss of those killed in battle a 
 mere truism denoting unsparing cruelty no more than the same event in all 
 times and places. On the other hand the Hind.u ' laws ' of war are very 
 chivalrous and humane, and prohibit the slaying of the unarmed, of women, 
 of the old, and of the conquered. Manu vii. Their practice has been 
 found in general conformable to their laws, and for sanguinary cruelty and 
 the abuse of victory, Mohammedan, not Hindu princes, must be cited. W. 
 
 * The inscription on the Lat (staff) of Firoz .Shah, celebrates the
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 181 
 
 The picture which Major Rennel, looking only to BOOK n. 
 
 a limited period, drew of the state of Hindustan, may 
 
 be taken, agreeably to every thing which we know 
 of Hindustan, as the picture of it, to the remotest 
 period of its history. 1 Rebellions, massacres, and 
 barbarous conquests, make up the history of this fair 
 country, (which to an ordinary observer seems des- 
 tined to be the paradise of the world,) the imme- 
 diate effect of the mad ambition of conquering more 
 
 monarch, in whose honour it has been erected, "for having achieved 
 conquest in the course of travelling to holy places as resentful to 
 haughty kings, and indulgent to those whose necks are humbled 
 making Ariaverta [the land of virtue or of respectable men] once 
 more what its name signifies, by causing the barbarians to be ex- 
 terminated. Visala Deva, son of the fortunate Vella Deva, king of 
 Sacambari, the situation of which the translator does not know, most 
 eminent of the tribe which sprang from the arms of Brahma boasts 
 of having rendered tributary the region of the earth between Himavat (the 
 Imaus of ancient geographers) and Vindhya (the range of hills which 
 passes through the provinces of Bahar, Benares) and exhorts his descen- 
 dants to subdue the remainder." No proof, all this, of the peaceful state 
 of Hindostan. The inscription continues. " May thy abode, Vigraha, 
 sovereign of the earth, be fixed, as in reason it ought, in the bosoms, akin 
 to the mansions of dalliance, of the women with beautiful eye-brows, who 
 were married to thy enemies " The abuse of an enemy's wives is no 
 great proof of a generous or civilized conqueror. The inscription then 
 deifies this same Rajah. "Art thou not, Vishnu himself? Art thou 
 not he who slept in the arms of Lacshmi, whom thou didst seize from the 
 ocean, having churned it ?" Are epithets of extravagant praise to the 
 deity surprising, when they are thus heaped upon a mortal ? (As. Res. 
 ii. 382.) The account of the Sacas affords important proof of the glory 
 that was attached by the Hindus to the shedding of blood. The Cali-yug 
 is divided into six Sacas, so called from six glorious monarchs. Of these, 
 three have made their appearance ; three are yet to come. To become a 
 Saca, each of these monarchs must have first killed 550,000,000 of a 
 certain mighty tribe of heretics, called Sacas. The first of these blood- 
 thirsty sovereigns was Judishter, whose period was 3044 years ; the second 
 Vicramaditya, whose saca lasted only 135 years ; the third, Salivahana 
 whose period is to last 18,000 years ; the fourth Nandada, 10,000 years ; 
 the fifth Nargarjuna, 400,000 years ; for the sixth, will re-appear the Ante- 
 diluvian Bali, whose period will be 821 years, at which period a general 
 renovation of the world will take place. Wilford, Asiat. Res. ix. 82. 
 1 Rennell, in speaking of India under the Mohammedans.
 
 182 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 can be governed by one man." 1 " Revolutions," 
 - (says Sonnerat, directing his attention to the coast of 
 Malabar, which had been little affected by foreign 
 conquest) " have been more rapid in this than in any 
 other part of the globe. A daring robber, possessed 
 of policy and courage, in a short time gives laws to 
 the whole coast, but in his turn becomes tributary to 
 a bolder villain, who marching in the same path, 
 subjects him to that lot he had inflicted on others." 2 
 Notwithstanding, in other respects, the extreme 
 scantiness and uncertainty of the materials for any 
 inferences except the most general, in regard to the 
 ancient state of Hindustan, there is a great body of 
 evidence to prove the habitual division of the country 
 into a number of moderate, and most frequently, petty 
 sovereignties and states. 3 In the dramatic poem Sa- 
 contala, the daughter of the hermit asks the royal 
 stranger, who had visited their consecrated grove; 
 
 1 Rennel's Memoir, p. 1. 
 
 * Sonnerat, Voy. liv. iii. ch. ii. Their very laws and religion encourage 
 a spirit of restlessness, and warfare ; " Fully performing all duties re- 
 quired by law, let a king seek to possess regions yet unpossessed." 
 (Laws of Menu, ch. ix. 251.) This gives implicit encouragement to a 
 spirit of conquest. The gloss of Culluca, the commentator, inserts the 
 words with justice, a saving clause ; but even then, the practical effect of 
 the law is but too visible. 
 
 * In the Bhagavat, (See Maurice, Hist, of Hindustan, ii. 395,) Creeshna 
 says, he does not vaunt, " though he carried away Rokemenee from so 
 numerous an assemblage of monarchs." When Creeshna fought with the 
 seven bulls of Koosele, great numbers of rajahs and rajpoots were collected 
 to see the conflict. Ib. p. 402. Bhoom Assoor had collected the daughters 
 of 16,000 rajahs, Ib. p. 405. Rajah Doorjoodhen, sovereign of Hastana- 
 poor, had a daughter who was courted by rajahs and rajpoots from every 
 quarter, Ib. 413. Twenty thousand and eight hundred rajahs of eminence 
 were held in confinement by Jarasandha, and released upon his destruc- 
 tion by Creeshna and Rama, Ib. p. 433. When Creeshna carried away 
 Rokemenee, Jarasandha said, " This is surely most astonishing, that, in 
 the presence of so many crowned heads as are here assembled, this 
 coward should make so bold an effort." Ib. p. 394. 

 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 183 
 
 " What imperial family is embellished by our noble BOOK ii. 
 
 r . . . J CHAP. 10. 
 
 guest*? What is his native country? Surely it must 
 
 be afflicted by his absence from it?" The question 
 undoubtedly implied that there were more royal 
 families than one to which he might belong; and 
 these at no remarkable distance; since the stranger 
 was known to have come into the forest in the course 
 of a hunting excursion. In the Hitopadesa mention 
 is made of a variety of princes. Thus in the compass 
 of a few pages, we are told : " In the country of Ca- 
 linga is a prince, named Rucmangada, who, advanc- 
 ing with preparations to subdue the adjacent regions, 
 has fixed his station near the river Chandrabhaga." 1 
 Again, " In the country of Canyacubja is a prince 
 named Virasena." 2 And further, " There is near the 
 Bhagirathi a city, named Pataliputra, in which lived 
 a prince named Sundersana." 3 In the inscription, 
 formerly quoted, found at Monghir, and bearing date 
 23 years B. C. there is sufficient proof of the division 
 of Hindustan into numerous kingdoms. Gopal, the 
 prince, or the father of the prince, by whom the grant 
 is made, is panegyrized as the conqueror of many 
 princes ; and his son is, " He, who marching through 
 many countries, making conquests, arrived with his 
 elephants, in the forests of the mountains Beendhyo, 
 where seeing again their long-lost families, they 
 mixed their mutual tears ; and who going to subdue 
 other princes, his young horses meeting their females 
 at Kamboge, they mutually neighed for joy : who 
 conquered the earth from the source of the Ganges as 
 far as the well-known bridge which was constructed 
 
 1 Hitopadesa, in Sir William Jones's Works, vi. 43. * Ib. p. 44 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 51.
 
 184 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOO^H. by the enemy of Dosasyo, from the river of Luckee- 
 
 cool as far as the ocean of the habitation of Booroon." 1 
 
 If this prince overran the peninsula, and conquered 
 a multitude of princes, the peninsula must have been 
 possessed by a multitude of princes before. And 
 we may form an idea of the exaggeration used in 
 the account of his victories, when we are told that 
 his father Gopal was king of the world and pos- 
 sessed of two brides, the earth and her wealth. 2 The 
 conquests by those princes, even when they took 
 place, were but inroads, never to any considerable 
 extent, effecting a durable possession. This prince 
 himself we are told, " when he had completed his 
 conquests, released all the rebellious princes he had 
 made captive ; and each returning to his own country 
 laden with presents, reflected upon this generous deed, 
 and longed to see him again." 3 The laws frequently 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. i. 123. * Ibid. 
 
 3 Asiat. Res. i. 123. The third stanza of this inscription, omitted by 
 Mr. Wilkins, but translated by Sir W. Jones, affords additional proof 
 that these conquests were but an irruption : " By whom, having con- 
 quered the earth as far as the ocean, it was left as being unprofitably 
 seized." Ibid. p. 142. In the inscription on the pillar near Buddal, 
 found by Mr. Wilkins, is described a race of princes, who originally, it is 
 said, ruled over "but one quarter, and had no authority in other regions ;" 
 but one of the line, "being a virtuous prince, became supreme over every 
 country without reserve, and the three worlds were held in subjection by 
 his hereditary rank." The dominions of his son and successor extended 
 from Reva Janak, to the father of Gowree, and to the two oceans, &c. 
 and all this country, the prince Sree Dev Pal rendered tributary. 
 Ibid. p. 134. Yet Sir W. Jones says, that this race of princes were all 
 along only prime ministers to the House of Devu Pal: p. 142. Nothing 
 can be more contradictory to the text ; but it is necessary for Sir William's 
 theory that the kings of Gaur, of whom Devupal was one, should be the 
 lords paramount of India. Sir William, when he had a theory, seems to 
 have had eyes to see nothing but what made in its favour. An additional 
 proof of the small kingdoms of Hindustan is found in the inscription (As. 
 Res. i. 133, stanza xiii.) " The king of Gowr " (Bengal) " for a long time 
 enjoyed the country of the eradicated race of Ootkal " (Orixia,) " of the
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 185 
 
 afford evidence to the same purpose. The penalty, BOOK n - 
 
 CHAP. 1U. 
 
 so frequently imposed, of banishment from one king- 
 
 dom to another, proves the vicinity of different 
 kingdoms. 1 The following is another instance in 
 point : " If a lender of money says to a person, A 
 debt due to me is outstanding in your hands, and that 
 person denies the debt, if at that time the bond is not 
 in the lender's hands, but should be in some other 
 kingdom, then, until he brings the bond from such 
 other kingdom, the suit shall not be determined." 2 
 In the code of Menu is a series of rules for behaviour 
 to neighbouring princes ; sufficiently proving, that 
 Hindustan was in that state of subdivision which 
 rendered these rules pertinent and useful. 3 These 
 
 Hoons " (Huns,) " of humbled pride, of the kings of Draveer " (a country 
 to the south of the Carnatic,) "and Goojar" (Goozerat,) "-whose glory 
 was reduced, and the universal sea-girt throne." Another grant of land 
 (Ib. p. 357) affords evidence to the same purpose : a number of kings are 
 actually named in the royal grant. As. Res. iii. 48. 
 
 1 See Gentoo Code, passim. 
 
 4 Halhed's Gentoo Code, ch. iii. sect. 6. p. 106, 107. 
 
 3 Laws of Menu, ch. vii. p. 154, 155. Even Robertson, though a firm 
 believer in the universal monarchy, is forced to allow that it had not yet 
 existed in the time of Alexander. " In the age of Alexander, though there 
 was not established in it any powerful empire, resembling that which in 
 modern times stretched its dominion from the Indus almost to Cape 
 Comorin, it was even then formed into monarchies of considerable extent." 
 Robertson's Disq. concerning ancient India, p. 21. But the times of 
 Alexander, and times long antecedent, are the times fixed upon by the 
 Brahmens, for this perpetually asserted, but never ascertained empire. 
 To what modern times does Robertson allude ? for he himself gives it as 
 true information, that in the tenth century, there were four kingdoms in 
 the north part alone of India. " The first was composed of the provinces 
 situated on the Indus, and the rivers which fall into it ; the capital of 
 which was Moultan. The capital of the second kingdom was Canoge, 
 which, from the ruins of it remaining, appears to have been a very large 
 city. The third kingdom was Cachemire. Massoudi, as far as I know, 
 is the first author who mentions this paradise of India, of which he gives 
 but a short description. The fourth is the kingdom of Guzerate, which he 
 represents as the greatest and most powerful ; and he concurs with the 
 two Arabian travellers, in giving the sovereign of it the appellation of 
 Balhara." Ibid Note xxxvii. p. 332.
 
 186 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BO K ii- articles, to which there is nothing whatsoever OP- 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 _ posed, but the absurd fables of the Brahmens, 
 constitute a degree of evidence to which we may 
 with sufficient confidence attach our belief. 1 
 
 We have already seen, in reviewing the Hindu 
 form of government, that despotism, in one of its 
 simplest and least artificial shapes, was established in 
 Hindustan, and confirmed by laws of Divine autho- 
 rity. We have seen likewise, that by the division of 
 the people into castes, and the prejudices which the 
 
 ' The inconsistencies of the believers in the great empire of Hindustan 
 are miserable. Mr. Maurice tells us that Bali, " if that name imply not 
 rather a dynasty of princes than an individual monarch," [a shrewd sus- 
 picion] " was the puissant sovereign of a mighty empire, extending over 
 the vast continent of India; that under Rama, the next in succession, 
 there is every appearance of its having remained unbroken ; that Judishter 
 is generally acknowledged to have been the sovereign of all India." 
 Maurice, Hist. ii. 511. Yet both Mr. Maurice and Sir W. Jones believe 
 Rama to be the Raamah of Scripture, the son of Gush, Genesis, ch. x. ver. 
 7, in whose days it was impossible that any considerable part of India 
 could be peopled. See Sir W. Jones, Asiat. Res. ii. 401, and Mr. 
 Maurice, Hist. iii. 104. Bali, the Baal, and Bel, of other eastern nations, 
 who is also said to have been the first king of Assyria, was not a name of 
 any particular person, but a title assumed by many, and those of different 
 nations. It is in fact a title of the sun. (See Bryant's Myth.) Judishter, 
 too, it is remarkable, was the cotemporary of Rama, both being heroes in 
 the war of the Mahabharat. For the performance of the Raisoo yug, it was 
 not necessary, as they pretend, to conquer all princes, since at Judishter' s 
 yug, the father of Cansa, whom Creeshna, after the death of Cansa, seated 
 on the throne of Mathura, was not conquered by Judishter. Nay it is 
 remarkable that this yug was celebrated while Judishter was yet a 
 dependent upon Doorjoodhen, before the war of the Pandoos. Even after 
 the war of the Mahabharat, when they assure us, for certain, that 
 Judishter was king of all India, Ogur Sein, the grandfather of Creeshna, 
 was reigning at Mathura; Creeshna and the Yadavas were all nourishing. 
 See the Mahabharat, translated by Halhed ; Maurice, History of India, 
 ii. 463. M. The Brahmans are here charged with " fables," which are 
 almost wholly of European fabrication : although a prince may be some- 
 times termed in compliment, a universal monarch, yet they almost always 
 describe India as parcelled out amongst a number of independent rulers : 
 the common division of India, according to Brahtninical authorities, is 
 into fifty-six principalities, but the Purauas and poems specify many 
 more. W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 187 
 
 detestable views of the Brahmens raised to separate BOOK IL 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 them, a degrading and pernicious system of subordi 
 
 nation was established among the Hindus, and that 
 the vices of such a system were there carried to a 
 more destructive height than among any other peo- 
 ple. 1 And we have seen that by a system of priest- 
 craft, built upon the most enormous and tormenting 
 superstition that ever harassed and degraded any 
 portion of mankind, their minds were enchained 
 more intolerably than their bodies; in short that, 
 despotism and priestcraft taken together, the Hindus, 
 in mind and body, were the most enslaved portion of 
 the human race. Sir William Jones, in his preface 
 to the translation of the Institutes of Menu, says, 
 that this code exhibits " a system of despotism and 
 priestcraft, both indeed limited by law, but artfully 
 conspiring to give mutual support, though with 
 mutual checks." The despotism and priestcraft of 
 the system were, it seems, too glaring to be mistaken 
 or denied ; but, in order to palliate the deformity, 
 Sir William is betrayed into nonsense. A despotism, 
 he says, limited by law ; as if a despotism limited by 
 
 1 " In so far as the Hindu superstition tends to estrange mankind by 
 creating artificial sources of mutual aversion and disgust; so far certainly 
 does it counteract the real interests of society. Let it not be urged that 
 the practical effects of the artificial separation of the Asiatics are not greatly 
 felt in society ; or that a Brahmin or Rajah will as readily supply the 
 wants of the poorer classes as he would those of his own The fact is 
 otherwise ; the Brahmin considers his order as in some measure a different 
 race of beings ; and imagines that the lower ranks are incapable of the 
 same sensibility to suffering : he regards them as a race whose feelings 
 are deadened by the meanness of their intellect, and therefore not entitled 
 to the same share of compassion. That this is the idea of the princes and 
 civil magistrates throughout India, their own conduct sufficiently evinces ; 
 hence the severity of their government, the rigour of their punishments, 
 and their universal indifference to the comfort, and even the lives of their 
 subjects." Tennaut's Indian Recreations, i. 121.
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 were not a contradiction in terms ; what is 
 limited by law, so far as so limited, being not a 
 despotism. A priestcraft, he also says, limited by 
 law : A law of which the priests themselves were the 
 sole makers, and the sole interpreters ! A despotism, 
 and a priestcraft, he says, with mutual checks. Yes, 
 truly ; it was the interest of the priestcraft to check 
 the despotism, in all encroachments on the priest- 
 craft; and it was the interest of the despotism to 
 check the priestcraft, in all encroachments on the des- 
 potism : But who checked the despotism and the 
 priestcraft in oppressing the people ? Alas ! no one. 
 It was the interest of the despotism and the priest- 
 craft to join together in upholding their common 
 tyranny over the people ; and it must be allowed 
 that so commanding a motive had all the influence 
 upon their conduct which it might be expected to 
 have. 1 Apply this remark of the splendid orientalist 
 to the Turks ; There is a despotism and a priestcraft, 
 limited, (if we may so abuse the term,) and still more 
 
 1 These notions of the condition of the people are all drawn from the history 
 of Europe, and are in a great degree inapplicable to India. The people 
 under their native princes know little of despotic government. They have 
 determinate laws and fixed institutions, which no Raja can in any way 
 modify or change, and which, therefore, set insuperable limits to arbitrary 
 rule. With regard to the Brahmins, again, it must be always remembered 
 that whatever influence they may have exercised, it has been entirely 
 personal, proportionate to their individual reputation for sanctity and 
 learning. They are no priesthood : they have never had as a body any 
 common purpose, any organization, any head ; and they can never, there, 
 fore, have prosecuted systematically designs upon the liberties of the 
 people. They are in fact the people ; not separated from them as monastic 
 or clerical sections, but making up a very large proportion of the popula- 
 tion, and giving the whole force of the consideration which their caste 
 confers to the security of popular rights. A great mistake pervades all 
 reasoning about the position of the Brahmins in Hindu society ; they are 
 a tribe, a people, not an order or corporation. W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 189 
 
 strictly limited, by law ; for the Moslem laws are BOOK IL 
 
 J - CHAP. 10. 
 
 more precise and accurate than those of the Hindus : 
 
 There, too, the despotism and priestcraft check one 
 another: But has all this prevented the Turkish 
 despotism and priestcraft from being the scourge of 
 human nature ; the source of barbarity and desola- 
 tion *? 
 
 That the Hindu despotism was not practically 
 mild, we have a number of satisfactory proofs. We 
 have seen the cruelty and ferocity of the penal laws ; 
 itself a circumstance of the highest importance, " A 
 thunderbolt/' says the author of the Hitopadesa, 
 " and the power of kings are both dreadful ! But the 
 former expendeth its fury at once, whilst the latter is 
 constantly falling upon our heads." 1 Some of the 
 observations are so comprehensive, and pointed, as to 
 afford the strongest evidence. " In this world," 
 says the same celebrated book, " which is subject to 
 the power of one above, a man of good principles is 
 hard to be found, in a country, for the most part, 
 governed by the use of the rod"* " Princes in 
 general, alas ! turn away their faces from a man 
 endowed Avith good qualities," 3 " The conduct of 
 princes, like a fine harlot, is of many colours : True 
 and false ; harsh and gentle ; cruel and merciful ; 
 niggardly and generous ; extravagant of expense, 
 and solicitous of the influx of abundant wealth and 
 treasure." 4 " An elephant killeth even by touching, 
 a servant even by smelling, a king even by ruling." 5 
 
 1 Wilkins' Hitopadesa, p. 161. s Ibid. p. 82. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 160. 4 Ibid. p. 166. 
 
 s Ibid. p. 176. The following maxim, among many others in the book, 
 is a proof of the idle and useless life of the Rajahs, who devolved all
 
 190 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK i 1 ,!' All the general maxims of the Hindus import the 
 
 CHAF. 10. 
 
 extreme degradation of the great body of the people. 
 
 " The assistance, O king, which is rendered to those 
 of low degree, is like endeavouring to please bears. 
 A low person should never be placed in the station of 
 the great. One of low degree having obtained a 
 worthy station seeketh to destroy his master." ' 
 " The Hindus," says Dr. Buchanan, " in their state of 
 independence, exacted deference from those under 
 them with a cruelty and arrogance rarely practised 
 but among themselves. A Nair was expected in- 
 stantly to cut down a Tiar or Mucua, who presumed 
 to defile him by touching his person ; and a similar 
 fate awaited a slave, who did not turn out of the 
 road as a Nair passed." 2 In Sacontala, Dushmanta 
 is represented as a king who possessed every virtue, 
 and made happiness flourish as in the golden age. 
 Yet we have a specimen of the justice and legality 
 which prevailed during this happy reign, in the pas- 
 sage relating to the innocent fisherman. He was 
 found, by certain of the king's officers, offering to sale 
 a ring with the king's name upon it. They instantly 
 seize him, and drag him away to justice : all the 
 
 business upon their ministers, and wallowed in sensuality and sloth. 
 " The sovereign being a vessel for the distribution of happiness, and not 
 for the execution of affairs, the minister, who shall bring ruin upon the 
 business of the state is a criminal." (Ibid. p. 142.) The last article of 
 the following character of a good minister is an abundant 'proof of the 
 rapacious nature of the government ; " A king should engage for his 
 minister one who is a native of his own country ; pure in all his ways and 
 cleanly in his dress ; not one who is an outcast, addicted to idle pleasures, 
 or too fond of women ; but one of good repute, who is well versed in the 
 rales of disputation, is of a firm mind, and expert in raising a revenue." 
 Ibid. p. 179. See also the Inscription respecting a Royal Grant, Asiat. 
 Res. iii. 48. 
 
 1 Wilkins' Hitopadesa, p. 242. 
 
 * Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. ii. 410.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 191 
 
 while beating and bruising him ; and loading him 
 with opprobrious epithets. The victim of this brutal 
 treatment offers only the most humble entreaties, 
 making statement of the facts, and protestation of his 
 innocence. Upon the sight of the ring, the king ac- 
 knowledges that he is innocent ; and orders him a 
 sum of money, equal in value to the ring. Of this 
 reward he is obliged to resign a half to the very men 
 who had abused him, " to escape," it is said, "the 
 effects of their displeasure." 1 
 
 The laws for guarding the authority of the magis- 
 trate exhibit a character of extreme severity, and in- 
 dicate an habitual state of the most rigid domina- 
 tion. " If a man speaks reproachfully of any upright 
 magistrate, the magistrate shall cut out his tongue, 
 or, having confiscated all his effects, shall banish him 
 the kingdom." 2 By this law even the privilege of 
 complaint was taken from the wretched Hindu. The 
 victim of oppression was bound, under ferocious pe- 
 nalties, to suffer in silence. 
 
 The following is a law by which every act of des- 
 potism is legalized, " If a magistrate, for his own 
 good, hath passed any resolutions, whoever refuses to 
 submit to such resolutions, the magistrate shall cut 
 out that person's tongue." 3 If every resolution which 
 the magistrate chooses to pass for his own good, is 
 by the very circumstance of his passing it, obligatory 
 under violent penalties, the state of the government 
 is not doubtful. 
 
 1 Another remarkable circumstance. The fisherman informs the officers 
 he gives them his present to purchase wine ; on which they cry, " Oh ! 
 now thou art our beloved friend. Good wine is the first object of our 
 affection. Let us go together to the vintner's." Sacontala, act v. 
 
 * Halhed's Gentoo Code, ch. xv. sect. 2. 3 Ibid.
 
 192 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ^ i p K 1 I I - " If a man makes complaint before the magistrate 
 against the magistrate's counsellor, without any real 
 fault in him, or performs any business or service for 
 the magistrate's accuser, the magistrate shall put him 
 to death." 1 Under the operation of this law, the 
 magistrate had little to fear from accusation. There 
 could be no remedy for any grievance ; because the 
 existence of any grievance could hardly ever be told. 
 If the magistrate was willing to hear of his own 
 misconduct, or that of his servants, in that case he 
 might hear of it; where he was unwilling, in that 
 case it was death. 2 
 
 Though all peaceable applications for the redress of 
 grievances were thus precluded, any violence offered 
 to the person of the magistrate, was punished in a 
 manner which none but the most savage people ever 
 endured. " If a magistrate has committed a crime, 
 and any person, upon discovery of that crime, should 
 beat and ill-use the magistrate, in that case, whatever 
 be the crime of murdering one hundred Brahmins, 
 such crime shall be accounted to that person ; and the 
 magistrate shall thrust an iron spit through him, and 
 roast him at the fire." 3 
 
 1 Halhcd's Gentoo Code. ch. xxi. 10. 
 
 * The self-abasement of the Hindus, before their kings, is decisive 
 proof of a merciless government. " The sovereign, although but a child, 
 is not to be despised, but to be respected as a man ; or as a mighty divinity 
 who presideth in human form." Wilkins* Hetopadesa, p. 117. " They 
 performed prostration to their princes, falling down with eight members, 
 as they expressed their abject and grovelling mode of approach." Ibid, 
 note 137. " Plus un gouvernement est despotique, plus les ames y sont 
 avilies et degradees ; plus 1'ou s'y vante d'aimer son tyran. Les esclaves 
 b^nissent a Maroc leur sort et leur Prince, lorsqu'il daigne lui-mme leur 
 couper le cou." Helvetius de 1'Homme, i. 318. 
 
 3 Halhed's Gentoo Code, ch. xvi. sect. 1. M. These laws are all from 
 Halhed's Code : their authority is questionable, and it may be doubted 
 if in all respects the translation is accurate. W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 193 
 
 The notices afforded us of particular sovereigns 
 are exeedingly few. But, such as they are, most of 
 them declare the misgovernment and cruelty of the 
 individuals to whom they relate. " According to 
 Plutarch, in his life of Alexander, Chandra-Gupta 
 (I use the words of Mr. Wilford) had been in that 
 prince's camp, and had been heard to say afterwards, 
 that Alexander would have found no difficulty in the 
 conquest of Prachi, or the country of the Prasians, 
 had he attempted it, as the king was despised and 
 hated too, on account of his cruelty." 1 
 
 As the Hindu manners and character are inva- 
 riable, according to their admirers; these admirers 
 cannot consistently reject their present, as proof of 
 their ancient, behaviour; and all men will allow 
 that it affords strong ground of inference. " It is a 
 remark," says one of the best-informed observers of 
 Hindustan, " warranted by constant experience, that 
 wherever the government is administered by Gentoos, 
 the people are subject to more and severer oppressions 
 
 1 Wilford, on the Chronology of the Hindus, Asiat. Res. v. 284. There 
 is a passage in Quintus Curtius which would lead us to conclude that India 
 was not thickly inhabited in the times of Alexander. Speaking of 
 Alexander's march into the interior of India, after the overthrow of 
 Darius, he says ; "Ad magnam delude, ut in ea regions, urbem pervenit." 
 (Curt. lib. ix. cap. i.) Not a syllable escapes from this author indicative 
 of a populous country. He styles the inhabitants, " Barbari operum 
 militarium rudes." Ibid. cap. viii. The names of the separate nations 
 which Alexander found in India are numerous. M. 
 
 The inference deduced from an equivocal phrase of Curtius is contra- 
 dicted by the positive testimony of the Greek writers. Megasthenes states 
 that there are 120 nations in India; and Arrian, though he questions the accu- 
 racy of this enumeration, admits that the Indians are very numerous. 
 On India, c. vii. : Strabo says, that Eukratides was master of 1000 cities 
 between the Hydaspes and Hyphasis, xv. 3. To attach the general cha. 
 racter of cruelty to Hindu princes because mention is made of one cruel 
 sovereign is a conclusion certainly not warranted by the premises. W. 
 
 VOL. II. O
 
 194 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. than when ruled by the Moors. I have imputed this 
 
 CHAP. 10. * 
 
 to intelligent Gentoos, who have confessed the justice 
 
 of the accusation, and have not scrupled to give their 
 opinions concerning it." The opinions of the Gen- 
 toos are as favourable to themselves as, suiting the 
 occasion, they could possibly make them. " A Gen- 
 too," say they, "is not only bora with a spirit of 
 more subtile invention, but by his temperance and 
 education becomes more capable of attention to 
 affairs, than a Moor; who no sooner obtains power 
 than he is lost in voluptuousness; he becomes vain 
 and lordly, and cannot dispense with satiating the 
 impulse of his sensual appetites ; whereas a Gentoo 
 Prince retains in his Durbar the same spirit which 
 would actuate him if keeping a shop." Mr. Orme 
 adds, " Avarice is his predominant passion: and all 
 the wiles, address, cunning, and perseverance, of 
 which he is so exquisite a master, are exerted to 
 the utmost in fulfilling the dictates of this vice ; and 
 his religion, instead of inspiring, frees him from the 
 remorse of his crimes; for whilst he is harassing 
 and plundering the people by the most cruel op- 
 pressions, he is making peace with the gods by deny- 
 ing nothing to their priests." Mr. Orme exhibits an 
 impressive example. " The present King of Tra- 
 vancore (an Hindu prince whose dominions had never 
 been subject to a foreign government) has conquered 
 or carried war into all the countries that lay round 
 his dominions, and lives in the continual exercise of 
 his arms. To atone for the blood, which he has spilt, 
 the Brachmans persuaded him that it was necessary 
 he should be born anew : this ceremony consisted in 
 putting the prince into the body of a golden cow of
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 195 
 
 immense value, where, after he had laid the time 
 prescribed, he came out regenerated and freed from 
 all the crimes of his former life. The cow was after- 
 wards cut up and divided among the SEERS who 
 had invented this extraordinary method for the re- 
 mission of his sins." 1 No testimony can be stronger 
 
 1 Orme, on the Government and People of Hindustan, p. 434, 435, 436. 
 " Quelques missionaires, tels que le P. de Magistris, le Danois F. Schwartz, 
 le P. Jean de Brito, dans une relation manuscrite que j'ai entre les mains, 
 accusent les rois payens d'exercer des oppressions intolerables envers leurs 
 sujets. M. Anquetil du Perron tache de justifier les souverains- * * * 
 Je pourrais demontrer avee une historique evidence que M. Anquetil ne 
 connait pas 1'Inde. * * * II est certain qu'il se commettait de grands abus 
 dans Pexercice de 1'autorite royale, et je pense que ce fut la la principale 
 cause de la chute des rois de Madure, de Maiesour, deTanjaur, et de Marava. 
 Quioque ces rois fussent tous payens, de la premiere noblesse, et indigenes, 
 sans cesse ils se faisaient la guerre reciproquement, et presque tous vex- 
 aient le peuple." Voyage aux Indes Orientales par le P. Paulin, de S. Bar- 
 telemy, i. 87. M. Anquetil Duperron, in a note, (Ibid. iii. 365,) falls into 
 a curious coincidence with, and confirmation of, the above passage of Pao- 
 lino, at the same time that he is controverting it : " Le missionaire n'a pas 
 lu 1'histoire del'Inde, n'est pas meme au fait de ce qui se passe tous les 
 jours. Quoique le caractere propre de 1'Indien soit la douceur, 1'humanite, 
 on voit encore dans cette contree, comme ailleurs, des querelles entre les 
 princes naturels Indiens, des querellcs dans les families ; les chefs Ma- 
 rattes sont presque toujours divises, et en guerres. Le Tanjaur, le Madure, 
 le Maissour, le Samorin, Narsingue, le Canara, offraient la meme specta- 
 cle lorsque la puissance des Rajahs etoit dans sa vigueur; il en est de 
 meme de ceux de Bengale, du reste de 1'Indoustan," Bernier, who had no 
 theory on Indian affairs, but who displays more personal knowledge of the 
 country than almost any other European, thus describes the Rajahs. " Ce 
 sortes de rois barbares n'ont aucune veritable generosite, et ne sont guere 
 retenus par la foi qu'ils ont promise, ne regardant qu'a leurs interets pre- 
 sents, sans songer me'me aux malheurs qui leur peuvent arriver de leur per- 
 fidie, et de leur brutalite." Revol. des Etats Mogol. p. 174. The ryots 
 have every reason to dread the prevalence of the Mahratta power; of that 
 power which yields them up to the tyranny and oppression of their chiefs, 
 which affords no protection to its subjects ; which, -is perpetually at war 
 with its neighbours ; and which has, in effect, laid waste the greatest part 
 of Hindostan." Sir H. Strachey, Report as Judge of Circuit, Fifth Re- 
 port of the Committee on Indian Affairs, 1810, p. 568, sect. 17. " La po- 
 litique de leurs princes doit tenir de leur gouvernement. D'une main on 
 les voit signer une traite, et de 1'autre ils jurent la perte de celui avec lequel 
 
 O 2
 
 196 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 j" to the natural tendency of the Hindu religion, and 
 - to the effects which their institutions are calculated 
 to produce. l 
 
 Us font alliance." Anquetil Duperron, Zendavesta, cxvii. "The annals 
 of Persia," says Mr. Scott Waring, " contain little more than a uniform 
 tale of wretchedness and misery, of murder and treachery ; and the mind, 
 wearied and disgusted with this uniformity of vice, is hurried away to a 
 contemplation of similar causes and events." Tour to Sheeraz, p. 267. 
 
 1 There can be no rational doubt that what by European eyes has been 
 seen to be the detail of government, in the hands of the Hindus, though 
 under Mogul principals, was a fair picture of what had been the detail of 
 government under Hindu principals ; administration in the hands of Mogul 
 magistrates being, according to all testimony, less oppressive than adminis- 
 tration in the hands of Hindus. The same intelligent and unexceptionable 
 witness, Mr. Orme, goes on to say : " Imitation has conveyed the unhappy 
 system of oppression which prevails in the government of Indostan through- 
 out all ranks of the people, from the highest even to the lowest subject of 
 the empire. Every head of a village calls his habitation the Durbar, and 
 plunders of their meal and roots the wretches of his precinct ; from him 
 the Zemindar extorts the small pittance of silver, which his penurious 
 tyranny has scraped together ; the Phousdar seizes upon the greatest share 
 of the Zemindar's collections, and then secures the favour of his Nabob by 
 voluntary contributions, which leave him not possessed of the half of his 
 rapines and exactions : the Nabob fixes his rapacious eye on every portion 
 of wealth which appears in his province, and never fails to carry off part of 
 it : by large deductions from these acquisitions, he purchases security from 
 his superiors, or maintains it against them at the expense of a war. Sub- 
 ject to such oppressions, property in Indostan is seldom seen to descend to 
 the third generation." Orme, on the Government and People of Indostan, 
 p. 450, 451. The following is another stroke in the formation of the same 
 picture. " The Havildar plunders the village, and is himself fleeced by 
 the Zemindar ; the Zemindar by the Phousdar ; the Phousdar by the Na- 
 bob or his Duan. The Duan is the Nabob's head slave : and the Nabob 
 compounds on the best terms he can make, with his Subah, or the throne. 
 Wherever this gradation is interrupted, bloodshed ensues." Ibid. p. 402. 
 " In every city, and in every considerable town, is appointed a guard, di- 
 rected by proper officers, whose duty it is to coerce and punish all such 
 crimes and misdemeanours as affect the policy of that district, and are at 
 the same time of too infamous or of too insignificant a nature to be admitted 
 before the more solemn tribunal of the Durbar. These ministers of justice 
 are called the Catwall ; and a building bearing the same name is allotted for 
 their constant resort. At this place are perpetually heard the clamours of 
 the populace : some demanding redress for the injury of a blow or a bad 
 name ; others for a fraud in the commerce of farthings : one wants assis- 
 tance to take, another has taken a thief; some offering themselves as bonds-
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 197 
 
 Among other expedients for saving the favourite 
 system, it has been maintained that the petty states 
 and princes in Hindustan were but subordinate parts 
 of one great monarchy, whose sceptre they acknow- 
 ledged, and mandates they obeyed. There is no 
 definable limit to gratuitous suppositions. 1 If we are 
 to be satisfied with opinions not only void of proof, 
 but opposed by every thing of the nature of proof, 
 attainable upon the subject, we may conjure up one 
 opinion after another ; and nothing, except physical 
 impossibility or a defect of ingenuity, can set bounds 
 to our affirmations. In the loose mode of thinking, 
 or rather of talking without thinking, which has 
 prevailed concerning Indian affairs, the existence of 
 
 men ; others called upon for witnesses. The cries of wretches under the 
 scourge, and the groans of expiring criminals, complete a scene of perfect 
 misery and confusion. After these employments of the day, parties are 
 sent from the Catwall to patrole and watch through the town by night. In 
 such governments, where the superiors are lost to all sense of humanity, 
 the most execrable of villanies are perpetrated by this institution, designed 
 to prevent them. The Catwall enters into treaty with a band of robbers, 
 who receive from hence the intelligence necessary to direct their exploits, 
 and in return pay to it a stipulated portion of their acquisitions : besides 
 the concessions necessary to secure impunity when detected, one part of 
 the band is appointed to break into houses, another assaults the traveller 
 upon the road, a third a merchant upon the rivers. I have seen these re- 
 gulated villains commit murders in the face of day, with such desperate 
 audacity as nothing but the confidence of protection could inspire." Ibid, 
 p. 452, 453. M. This picture is evidently exaggerated, and belief cannot 
 be readily granted to Orme's assertion that he had been an eye-witness of 
 " murders" perpetrated in the face of day by organised assassins. W. 
 
 1 Yet something of the kind has been at various times the political state 
 of India, a number of independent princes acknowledged the supremacy 
 of one amongst them, to whom, on particular occasions, they offered a kind 
 of feudal homage, by performing menial services to his person, and with 
 whom they held consultations on points of common interest. The Raja- 
 suya sacrifice was a case of the former, and repeated instances of the latter 
 occur in the Mahabharata. In modern times it is not uncommon for one 
 Hindu prince to receive from another the toka, or mark in the forehead, 
 which denotes sovereignty, and of which the grant is a proof of supremacy. 
 See Annals of Mewar in Tod's Rajasthan, i. 211. W.
 
 198 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 institutions in modern Europe has constituted 
 - a sufficient basis for the belief of feudal institutions 
 in India ; though it would have been just as rational 
 to conclude that, because the Saxon language forms 
 the basis of most of the languages of Europe, there- 
 fore the Saxon language forms the basis of the lan- 
 guage in India. 
 
 There are two modes in which the subordination 
 of a number of petty princes to a great one may 
 take place. The inferior states may exist merely as 
 conquered, enslaved countries, paying tribute to a 
 foreign government, obeying its mandates, and 
 crouching under its lash. A second mode would be, 
 where the inferior states were connected together by 
 confederacy, and acknowledged a common head for 
 the sake of unity, but possessed the right of delibe- 
 rating in common upon common concerns. It may 
 with confidence be pronounced, that in neither mode 
 is the supposed effect compatible with the state of 
 civilization in Hindustan. 
 
 To retain any considerable number of countries in 
 subjection, preserving their own government, and 
 their own sovereigns, would be really arduous, even 
 where the science of government were the best under- 
 stood. To suppose it possible in a country where the 
 science of government is in the state indicated by 
 the laws and institutions of the Hindus, would be in 
 the highest degree extravagant. Even the Romans 
 themselves, with all the skill which they possessed, 
 retained their provinces in subjection, only by sending 
 thither their own governors and their own armies, 
 and superseding entirely the ancient authorities of 
 the country. The moderation of conquering, with-
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 199 
 
 out seizing, is a phenomenon so rarely exemplified in BOOK n - 
 
 .... . . CHAP. 10. 
 
 the most civilized times, that to suppose it universal 
 
 in India, is to make a supposition in contradiction to 
 the known laws of human affairs, and even to parti- 
 cular experience. Wherever an Indian sovereign 
 is able to take possession, he hastens to take it. 
 Wherever he can make a plundering incursion, 
 though unable to retain, he ravages and destroys. 
 Now it sometimes happens, that a neighbouring 
 prince, too weak to prevent or chastise these inju- 
 ries, endeavours to purchase exemption from them 
 by a composition. This, in the language of the 
 Mahrattas, who, in modern times, have been almost 
 the only people in India in a situation to exact it, is 
 called Chout, of which the standard is a fourth part 
 of the revenues of the district liable to be over-run. 
 It has in several instances, and these abundantly 
 recent ones, been paid, for certain districts, by the 
 British government itself, without the most distant 
 idea of any lordship paramount in the Mahrattas. 
 It is abundantly evident that this species of subor- 
 dination, if subordination it can be called, never 
 could have extended far ; never could reach beyond 
 the countries immediately contiguous to that from 
 which the chance of mischief arose. 
 
 A confederation of princes, similar to that which 
 was exemplified in Germany, and which no combina- 
 tion of circumstances has elsewhere produced, is a 
 supposition, still more opposed to experience. Of all 
 the results of civilization, that of forming a combina- 
 tion of different states, and directing their powers to 
 one common object, seems to be one of the least con- 
 sistent with the mental habits and attainments of the
 
 200 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Hindus. 1 It is the want of this power of combina- 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 - tion which has rendered India so easy a conquest to 
 all invaders ; and enables us to retain, so easily, that 
 dominion over it which we have acquired. Where is 
 there any vestige in India of that deliberative as- 
 sembly of princes, which in Germany was known by 
 the name of the Diet *? Where is there any memorial 
 of that curious constitution by which the union of the 
 German princes was preserved : or of those elections 
 by which they chose among themselves him who 
 should be at their head*? That nominal homage, 
 which the Mahratta chiefs paid to the throne of 
 Sivajee, was a temporary circumstance, entirely of 
 a different nature. These chiefs were not subordi- 
 nate princes, but revolted subjects, in a dismembered 
 empire. There was among them no confederacy. 
 When at war with Sindia, the British were at peace 
 with the Peshwa and Holkar ; when they were at 
 war with Holkar, they were at peace with the rest. 
 They acknowledged a subordination to the primary 
 seat of government, only because their subjects had 
 
 1 They have always allowed themselves to be conquered in detail, just 
 as the tribes of Gauls and Germans, by the Romans. Gaul, however, cost 
 Julius Ccesar himself five years to subdue ; and it several times carried 
 fire and sword to the gates of Rome. The Gauls must have known much 
 more of the art of war than the Hindus. See the fine generalship of 
 Vercingetorix described by the conqueror himself in the 7th book of his 
 Commentaries; and analyzed by Guischardt, Memoires Militaircs sur les 
 Grecs et les Remains, ch. xvi, " The most remarkable of these new 
 states were the Polygars of Chittledroog, Raidroog, Harponelly, Tarrikera, 
 with many others of inferior note, whose united efforts might have 
 opposed a respectable barrier to Mohammedan encroachment, if united 
 efforts could be expected from restless savages, perpetually occupied 
 by intestine quarrels." (Wilks' Hist. Sketches, p. 63.) Wilks says 
 (p. 23) that the Hindu character exibits but few shades of distinction, 
 wheresoever found. It follows, that no where is it far removed from the 
 savage state.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 201 
 
 been accustomed to look to it ; and because they BOOK u. 
 
 ,.,,. CHAP. 10. 
 
 were not yet secure of their obedience. 1 
 
 They,, who affirm the high state of civilization 
 among the Hindus previous to their subjugation to 
 foreigners, proceed so directly in opposition to evi- 
 dence, that wherever the Hindus have been always 
 exempt from the dominion of foreigners, there they 
 are uniformly found in a state of civilization inferior 
 to those who have long been the subjects of a Maho- 
 medan throne. 2 
 
 It is in no quarter pretended, that the Hindu 
 superstition was ever less gross than it now appears. 
 It is remarkable, that in any quarter it should not be 
 recollected, that superstition necessarily gives way, 
 
 1 To some persons it may be of use to hear, that the sober good sense 
 of Major Rennel makes him reject the theory of union. " History gives 
 us the most positive assurances, that India was divided into a number of 
 kingdoms or states, from the time of Herodotus, down to that of Acbar." 
 (Rennel's Mem. Introd. p. xxxii.) 
 
 2 Witness Nepaul, and the strong districts along the Malabar coast, 
 where the reign of the Hindu princes had been not at all or very little 
 disturbed. For an account of Nepaul, see the history of Col. Kirkpatrick'a 
 embassy; and of the Malabar coast, among other works, Voyage de P. 
 Paolino ; Sonnerat ; and Anquetil Duperron ; above all, the Journey of 
 Dr. Buchanan through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar. " Mr. Wilford 
 states, in the ninth volume of the Asiatic Researches, that the kings of 
 Behar or Magadha were for many ages the sovereigns or lords-paramount 
 of India. If such was the case, their descendants must have degenerated 
 exceedingly; for at the period of the Mohammedan invasion, the Raja, 
 instead of heading his army, in defence of his country and religion, shame- 
 fully absconded, leaving his capital, then a celebrated seat of Hindu 
 learning (whence its name of Behar) so destitute, that it was taken by a 
 detachment of 200 men, who put a number of the unopposing Brahmens 
 to the sword, and plundered all the inhabitants." (Hist, of Bengal, by 
 Charles Stewart, Esq. p. 40.) Mr. Stewart speaks with judgment. Every 
 thing in the state of India, as it was originally found by the Mahommedans, 
 bears testimony against the fiction of a great monarchy, great prosperity, 
 and great civilization. M. One great monarchy did not exist it is true: 
 but there were many prosperous kingdoms. The Mohammedan conquest was 
 not so simple a process as is here insinuated : it took them two centuries 
 to get to Delhi. W.
 
 202 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. as civilization advances. Powerful, at an early age, 
 
 CHAP. 10 
 
 among the Greeks and Romans, it finally ceased to 
 
 have almost any influence; 1 and Goguet had long 
 ago declared, with philosophical truth, that " we 
 wanted no evidence to prove the ignorance and rude- 
 ness of the Greeks in the heroic times ; their credulity 
 and their respect for oracles are proofs, more than 
 sufficient. This species of superstition has no force 
 or dominion, but in proportion to the gross ignorance 
 of the people: witness the savages, who do not 
 undertake any thing till they have previously con- 
 sulted their divines and their oracles." 2 
 
 So many regulations are found in the Hindu codes 
 of law respecting seasons of calamity ; seasons when 
 it is supposed that a great portion of the people are 
 without the means of subsistence, that those dreadful 
 visitations must be very frequent. From which soever 
 of these two great causes, famine, or the ravages 
 of war, the frequency of those calamities arose, it 
 equally bars the supposition of good government and 
 high civilization. 3 
 
 If we apply the reflection, which has been much 
 admired, that if a man were to travel over the whole 
 world, he might take the state of the roads, that is, 
 the means of internal communication in general, as a 
 measure of the civilization ; a very low estimate will 
 
 1 " Quse anus," says Cicero, " tarn excors inveniri potcst, quae ilia 
 quae quondam credebantur apud inferos portenta extimescat ?" (De Nat. 
 Deor. lib. U. cap. 2.) 
 
 * Goguet, Origin of Laws, part ii. book i. ch. IT. art. 8. 
 
 3 In all parts of India, where things have not been altered by the in- 
 fluence of the Mahomedan government, the Hindus are found collected in 
 Tillages, not in detached habitations ; " a custom," says Millar, (English 
 GOT. i. 70,) " introduced by necessity in times of extreme barbarity and 
 disorder." M. Famines still occasionally visit India : are they still 
 ascribable to the same causes ? W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 203 
 
 be formed of the progress of the Hindus, " In India," B OK n. 
 
 CHAP 10 
 
 says Rennel, " the roads are little better than paths, ' 
 and the rivers without bridges." 1 " In Malabar," 
 says Dr. Buchanan, speaking of the wretched state 
 of the roads, " even cattle are little used for the 
 transportation of goods, which are generally carried 
 by porters." 2 The Emperor, Shah Jehan, constructed 
 certain roads in Bengal, which were celebrated as 
 prodigies; but the remains of them, Dr. Tennant 
 remarks, sufficiently manifest that they can never 
 have been good, and the admiration they excited 
 proves nothing except the wretched condition of 
 every thing, under the name of road, which had been 
 known in India before. 3 Another fact, of much import- 
 ance, is, that a Mahomedan sovereign was the first 
 who established Choultries; that is, Caravanseras, or 
 houses of reception for travellers upon the road, of 
 which, till that period, they had no experience. 
 " This fact," says Mr. Forster, " also recorded in 
 Dow's history, is well known amongst the natives." 4 
 
 1 Rennel's Memoir, p. 6. 
 
 9 Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. ii. 434. " It is a fact, that 
 there is not a road in the couutry made by Hindoos, exeept a few which 
 lead to holy places." A View of the History, Literature, and Religion of 
 the Hindoos, &c. By the Rev. W. Ward, one of the Baptist Missionaries 
 at Serampore, Introd. p. Iviii. M. The want of roads can scarcely be 
 ascribed to the neglect of Hindu princes, seeing the greater part of the 
 country had for so many centuries been under Mohammedan domina- 
 tion. W. 
 
 * Tennant's Indian Recreations, ii. 13, 14, 323. M. The road might 
 have been a very good one when made by Shah Jehan. A very few years 
 in India are sufficient to destroy any road that is not regularly kept in 
 repair. Materials for ' Roman roads ' are deficient, and even they would 
 not long resist the destructive effects of climate and vegetation. W. 
 
 * Forster's Travels, i. 74. Tennant's Indian Recreations, ii. 69. The 
 fact is more than doubtful. Had it been the case they would have borne 
 exclusively the Mohammedan appellation of Serai. Choultry and Dharam- 
 sala are both Hindu names. W.
 
 204 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Among the pretensions received without examina- 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 tion, that of enormous riches found in India by the 
 
 first Mahomedan conquerors, requires particular at- 
 tion. If those accounts had not far exceeded all 
 reasonable bounds, it would have been a matter 
 of difficulty, to prove the falsehood of them, except 
 to those who were capable of estimating one circum- 
 stance, in any state of society, by its analogy with 
 the rest. As the amount, however, stated by those 
 authors, whose testimony has been adopted; by 
 Ferishta, for example, followed by Dow; far ex- 
 ceeds the bounds, not of probability only, but of 
 credibility; and affords decisive evidence of that 
 Eastern exaggeration which in matters of history 
 disdains to be guided by fact, the question is left 
 free of any considerable difficulty. 1 These accounts 
 refute themselves. We have, therefore, no testimony 
 on the subject ; for all that is presented to us in the 
 shape of testimony betrays itself to be merely fiction. 
 We are left to our knowledge of circumstances, and 
 to the inferences which they support. Now if the 
 preceding induction, embracing the circumstances 
 of Hindu society, is to be relied on, it will not 
 be disputed, that a state of poverty and wretched- 
 ness, as far as the great body of the people are con- 
 cerned, must have prevailed in India, not more 
 in the times in which it has been witnessed by 
 Europeans, than the times which preceded. A gilded 
 throne, or the display of gold; silver, and precious 
 stones, about the seat of a court, does not invalidate 
 this inference. Only there, where gold and silver 
 
 1 See some observations on Dow, by Mr. Edward Scott Waring, Tour 
 to Shccraz, p. 15.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 205 
 
 are scarce, can the profuse display of them about the 
 monarch's person either gratify the monarch's va- 
 nity, or dazzle by its rarity the eyes of the mul- 
 titude. Perhaps there are few indications more 
 decisive of a poor country, and a barbarous age, than 
 the violent desire of exhibiting the precious metals 
 and precious stones, as the characteristic marks and 
 decorations of the chief magistrate. 1 
 
 The science of political economy places this con- 
 clusion on the ground of demonstration. For the 
 people to have been rich in gold and silver, these 
 commodities must have circulated among them in 
 the shape of money. But of gold and silver in the 
 shape of money, no nation has more, than what is in 
 proportion to its exchangeable commodities. Now 
 that ever the people of Hindustan were profusely 
 supplied with commodities, every thing in their 
 manners, habits, government, and history, concur 
 to disprove. There is, besides, a well-established 
 fact, which ascertains the impossibility of their 
 having abounded in gold and silver.^ Their com- 
 modities were not exchanged by the medium of 
 the precious metals. The traffic of India, as in the 
 rudest parts of the earth, was chiefly a traffic of 
 barter ; 2 and its taxes, as already seen, were paid in 
 
 1 Speaking of the Mohammedan governments in the Deccan, Colonel 
 Wilks says : " These princes had arrived at that stage of civilization 
 in which gorgeous and awkward splendour covered the most gross poli- 
 tical darkness." (Historical Sketches, p. 65.) 
 
 * These assertions are all at variance with facts, but facts must give way 
 to the ' science of political economy.' The trade of India with Rome and 
 the Greek empire was maintained on their part, we know, from indisput- 
 able evidence, chiefly by the export of the precious metals. The passages 
 of Tacitus and Pliny are well known, in which the prodigal exchange of 
 silver for the spices and silks of India, are lamented as a national evil ;
 
 206 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. kj m j it W as not till the time of Akber that gold 
 
 CHAP 10. 
 
 or silver was coined for circulation, in the greatest 
 part of India ; antecedently to that period small 
 pieces of copper were the only coin. 1 Up to the 
 present hour, when the real signs of riches and civi- 
 lization are hut just beginning to be understood, 
 nothing has been more common with rash and 
 superficial travellers, than to set down lofty accounts 
 of the riches of almost every new country to which 
 they repaired. 2 
 
 and the author of the Periplus and the laws of Justinian both specify 
 coin and bullion as articles of export to India. Nor is it more true that 
 a gold and silver coinage was unknown till the time of Akbar. Great 
 quantities of both, the date of which must commence long prior to the 
 Mohammedan conquest, have been found in various parts of the country. 
 See Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
 
 1 See the Analysis of Tooril Mull's System of Finance in British India 
 Analyzed, i. 191. These copper pieces were called pulsiah or feloos, 
 sixteen of which were reckoned equal to a Tunkah of base silver ; a sort 
 of coin, or rather medal, sometimes struck, at the pleasure of the king, not 
 for use, but to make presents to foreign ambassadors, and others. " Trade 
 must, therefore," says the author, "have been carried on chiefly by 
 barter; the rents for the most part paid in kind." In the Dcccan, a 
 gold and silver coin was known earlier ; which the same author thinks 
 must have been introduced by the intercourse of the Persians and Ara- 
 bians, to whom the use of coin had been known nearly a thousand years 
 before. (Ibid. p. 194.) See an instructive dissertation on this point in 
 " Researches on India," by Q. Craufurd, Esq., i. 36 80. Yet this 
 author, p. 80 84, is a firm believer in the great riches of India. 
 
 * Agatharchides gives the most magnificent description of the riches 
 of the Sabians. " Their expense of living, rivals the magnificence of 
 princes. Their houses are decorated with pillars glistening with gold and 
 silver. Their doors are crowned with vases, and beset with jewels ; the 
 interior of their houses corresponds with the beauty of their outward 
 appearance, and all the riches of other countries are here exhibited in 
 variety of profusion. (See the account extracted and translated, in 
 Vincent's Periplus, part i. p. 33. See also Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 778.) In 
 the barbarous state of the ancient Russian court at Moscow, there was 
 the highest degree of magnificence and splendour. The Earl of Carlisle, 
 giving an account of his embassy, says, that he could see nothing but gold 
 and precious stones, in the robes of the Czar, and his courtiers. The trea- 
 sure of Sardanapalus, was a thousand myriads of talents of gold, at the lowest
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 207 
 
 As rude nations, still more than civilized, are in- BOOK n. 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 cessantly harassed by the dangers, or following the 
 
 gains of war, one of the first applications of know- 
 ledge is, to improve the military art. The Hindus 
 have, at no period, been so far advanced in knowledge, 
 as even to be aware of the advantage of discipline, 1 of 
 those regular and simultaneous movements, upon 
 which, in skilled warfare, almost every thing depends. 
 " In the Hindu armies," says Francklin. " no idea of 
 discipline ever existed." 2 " The rudeness of the mili- 
 tary art in Indostan," says Mr. Orme, "can scarce be 
 imagined but by those who have seen it. The infan- 
 try consists of a multitude of people assembled toge- 
 ther without regard to rank and file." 3 
 
 estimation, 44,174,999,760. (Herodot. lib. ii. cap. 150; Athensei 
 Deipnosop. lib. xii. ; Gibbon sur la Monarchic des Medes, Miscel. Works, 
 8vo. Ed. iii. 68.) " What is said to be given by David (1 Chron. xxii. 
 14, 15, 16, and xxix. 3, 4, 5,) and contributed by his princes, xxix.6, 7, 8,) 
 toward the building of the temple at Jerusalem, if valued by the Mosaic 
 talents, exceeded the value of 800,000,000, of our money." (Prideaux, 
 Connexion of the History of the Old and New Testament, i. 5. Edit. 
 5th.) The Arcadian who was sent ambassador to the court of the king of 
 Persia, in the days of Agesilaus, saw through the glare of eastern magni- 
 ficence. 'G Be Avrio^os a7TJ7<Y<YtXe irpos TUS fivpitis, on fiaai\,evs 
 ap-TOKOTrus, Kai o"^ro7rot,Ks , Kai oivo^oeis, Kai Ovpwpes 7rafi7r\rj6eis 
 eX ot ' avftpas e, 01 fjLa^oivr* av EXX^fft, iravv ^IJTWV SK av 60-^ 
 Svvaffdai ifieiv. jrpos Se TUTOIS, Kai TO Tiav ^pi^fiaTtov irhrfBos 
 aXa^ovetav 01 rye doiceiv eivat e.(f)rj' eirei Kai TIJV vfivuftevrjv av 
 Xpvarjv 7T\aTavov 8^ iKavijv e<f>rj eivai rern^i OKiav jrape^eiv. 
 Xenophontis Grsecorum, &c. lib. vii. sect. 1, near the eud.) 
 
 1 Here again assertion and fact are at variance : whatever may have 
 been the efficiency of the discipline in practice, there was no want of a 
 theory of regular movements and arrangements for the march, array, en- 
 campment, and supply of troops. They are all repeatedly described in 
 the Mahabharata. W. 
 
 2 Francklin's Life of George Thomas, p. 103. 
 
 3 Orme, on the Government and People of Indostan, p. 420. The 
 exquisite ignorance and stupidity of the Mysoreans in the art of war, 
 while yet a purely Hindu people, is strongly remarked by Orme. i. 207. 
 In the following description appears the simplicity of the fortification of 
 Hindu towns : " A place that hath eight cose in length and breadth, and 
 on the skirts of which, on all the four sides, is a ditch, and above the
 
 208 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. Even medicine and surgery, to the cultivation of 
 
 CHAP. 10. J 
 
 _ which so obvious and powerful an interest invites, had 
 scarcely, beyond the degree of the most uncultivated 
 tribes, attracted the rude understanding of the Hin- 
 dus, 1 Though the leisure of the Brahmans has mul- 
 tiplied works, on astrology, on the exploits of the 
 gods, and other worthless subjects, to such a multi- 
 tude, " that human life," says Sir W. Jones, " would 
 not be sufficient to make oneself acquainted with 
 
 ditch, on all the four sides, a wall or parapet, and on all the four sides 
 of it are bamboos, and on the east or north side thereof, a hollow or 
 covered way, such place is called Nigher, or a city ; in the same manner, 
 if it hath four cose in length and breadth, it is called Gherbut, or a small 
 city," Gentoo Code, ch. xiv. See alse Motte's Journey to Orissa, As. 
 An. Reg, i. 51, 67. " The fortifications of places of the first order for- 
 merly consisted, and in many places still consist, in one or two thick 
 walls, flanked with round or triangular towers. A wide and deep ditch 
 is on the outside ; but as the Hindus are unskilful in the construction of 
 bridges, they always leave a causeway from the gate of the town over the 
 ditch." The Abbe Dubois, p. 543. See a curious testimony to the im- 
 perfection of the military art among the Mahrattas, (Broughton's Letters 
 from a Mahratta Camp, p. 107, 108) ; and another, still more remarkable, 
 to the wretched pusillanimity of the Rajpoots, those boasted descendants 
 of the supposed magnanimous Cshatriyas, a pusillanimity, which, accord- 
 ing to Mr. Broughton, forfeits their title even to pity, while " possessing 
 so many advantages, they voluntarily bend their necks to one of the most 
 galling yokes in the world." Ibid. p. 133. 
 
 1 The expressions of Sir William Jones, to be properly understood, 
 should have been quoted more in detail. He does not mean to say that 
 the Hindus had not cultivated the practice of medicine ; on the contrary, 
 he says, " we have still access to a number of Sanscrit books on the old 
 Indian practice of physic, from which, if the Hindus had a theoretical 
 system, we might easily collect it." The value of a mere theoretical sys- 
 tem of medicine is very small, and few medical men will condemn the 
 Hindu works for containing only practical instruction. The real nature of 
 the Hindu medical works is yet to be determined by translation. There 
 is a very large body of medical literature in Sanscrit, and some of the 
 principal works are named by Arabic writers, as having been known and 
 translated at Bagdad, in the ninth century. These works comprise all the 
 branches of medical science, surgery included ; and, although mixed up 
 with much that is irrational, contain numerous instances of accurate ob- 
 servation and judicious treatment. See Calcutta Oriental Magazine, 
 1823. Transactions, Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta, and Essay 
 on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, by Dr. Royle", London, 1837. W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 any considerable part of Hindu literature," 1 he 
 confesses, there is " no evidence that in any language 
 of Asia, there exists one original treatise on medicine 
 considered as a science." 2 Surgery, says an author 
 who beh'eves in the high civilization of the Hindus, 
 is unknown among that people. In the case of gun- 
 shot, or sabre wounds, all they did was to wash the 
 wound, and tie it up with fresh leaves; the patient, 
 during the period of convalescence, eating nothing 
 but the water gruel of rice. 3 
 
 1 Asiat. Res. i. 354. * Ibid. iv. 159. 
 
 3 Craufurd's Sketches. Sir William Jones says, " We may readily 
 believe those who assure us, that some tribes of wandering Tartars had 
 real skill in applying herbs and minerals to the purpose of medicine ;" the 
 utmost pretended extent of the medical science of the Hindus. As. Res. 
 ii. 40. See Tennant's Indian Recreations, for some important details, i. 
 357 ; Buchanan's Journey through Mysore, &c. i. 336. " Medicine," 
 says the last intelligent observer, " in this country has indeed fallen into 
 the hands of charlatans equally impudent and ignorant." Ibid. " There 
 are not indeed wanting several persons who prescribe in physic, play upon 
 a variety of musical instruments, and are concerned in some actions and 
 performances which seem at least to suppose some skill in nature or ma- 
 thematics. Yet all this is learned merely by practice, long habit, and 
 custom ; assisted for the most part with great strength of memory, and 
 quickness of invention." (Shaw's Travels, speaking of the people of 
 Barbary, p. 263.) The good sense of Colonel Wilks has made that in- 
 structive writer use the following terms : " The golden age of India, like 
 that of other regions, belongs exclusively to the poet. In the sober inves- 
 tigation of facts, this imaginary era recedes still further and further at every 
 stage of the inquiry ; and all that we find is still the empty praise of the 
 
 ages which have passed If the comparative happiness of mankind in 
 
 different ages be measured by its only true and rational standard, namely, 
 the degree of peace and security which they shall be found collectively 
 and individually to possess, we shall certainly discover, in every successive 
 step towards remote antiquity, a larger share of wretchedness to have been 
 the portion of the human race The force of these observations, gene- 
 ral in their nature, is perhaps more strongly marked in the history of India 
 than of any other region of the earth. At periods long antecedent to the 
 Mohammedan invasion, wars, revolutions, and conquests, seem to have 
 followed each other, in a succession more strangely complex, rapid, and 
 destructive, as the events more deeply recede into the gloom of antiquity. 
 
 VOL. II. P 
 
 209
 
 210 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 In comparing them with other people, it cannot, in 
 a single word, be declared, with which of the nations, 
 more familiar to Europeans, the Hindus, in point of 
 civilization, may be regarded as on a level; because, 
 in comparison with those whom they most nearly ap- 
 proach, while inferior to them in some, they are su- 
 perior in other respects. Should we say that the 
 civilization of the people of Hindustan, and that of 
 the people of Europe, during the feudal ages, are not 
 far from equal, we shall find upon a close inspection, 
 that the Europeans were superior, 1 in the first place, 
 notwithstanding the vices of the papacy, in religion : 
 and, notwithstanding the defects of the schoolmen, in 
 philosophy. They were greatly superior, notwith- 
 standing the defects of the feudal system, in the insti- 
 tutions of government and in laws. Even their 
 poetry, if the observance of nature, if the power of 
 
 The rude valour, which had achieved a conquest, was seldom combined 
 with the sagacity requisite for interior rule; and the fabric of the con- 
 quered state, shaken by the rupture of its ancient bonds, and the substitu- 
 tion of instruments, clumsy, unapt, and misapplied, either fell to sudden 
 ruin, or gradually dissolved." Historical Sketches of the South of India 
 by Lieut. Col. Mark Wilks, p. 1, 2. 
 
 1 That Europeans in the feudal ages were superior in character, may be 
 admitted ; but it may be doubted if they were more advanced in civiliza- 
 tion. They had, it is true, a better religion, but understood it little and 
 practised it less. Education was less generally diffused ; literature less 
 honoured and less cultivated. They had no fixed standard of govern- 
 ment, or written code of laws ; their philosophy was less profound ; 
 their poetry more rude. In war practically they excelled the Hindus ; 
 they probably studied it less as a science. In manufactures, they 
 were decidedly inferior, and so they were in agriculture and com- 
 merce. The manners of the higher ranks furnish abundant instances of 
 profligacy, treachery, falsehood, and brutality ; and those of the serf and 
 bondsman, were not unlikely to afford examples of servility and deceit. 
 Although, therefore, the state of civilization in Europe, in the feudal ages, 
 contained in its restless activity the seeds of future improvement, yet 
 there can be little doubt, that from the tenth to the twelfth century, the 
 superiority of civilization was on the side of the Hindus. W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 211 
 
 moving the affections, or indeed ingenuity of inven- BOOK j'- 
 
 tion, be regarded as the marks of excellence, is beyond 
 
 all comparison preferable to the poetry of the Hindus. 
 That, in war, the Hindus have always been greatly 
 inferior to the warlike nations of Europe, during the 
 middle ages, it seems hardly necessary to assert. 1 
 In some of the more delicate manufactures, however, 
 particularly in spinning, weaving, and dyeing, the 
 Hindus, as they rival all nations, so they no doubt 
 surpass all that was attained by the rude Europeans. 
 In the fabrication, too, of trinkets; in the art of po- 
 lishing and setting the precious stones ; it is possible, 
 and even probable, that our impatient and rough 
 ancestors did not attain the same nicety which is dis- 
 played by the patient Hindus. In the arts of paint- 
 ing and sculpture, we have no reason to think that 
 the Europeans were excelled by the Hindus. In ar- 
 chitecture, the people who raised the imposing struc- 
 tures which yet excite veneration in many of the an- 
 cient cathedrals, were not left behind by the builders 
 of the Indian pagodas. 2 The agriculture of the 
 
 1 The barbarians from Germany and Scythia quickly learned the disci- 
 pline of the Roman armies, and turned their own arts against the legions. 
 See Gibbon, vii. 377. The Hindus have never been able, without Euro- 
 pean officers, to avail themselves of European discipline. 
 
 1 The monastery of Bangor, demolished by Adelfrid, the first king of 
 Northumberland, was so extensive, that there was a mile's distance from 
 one gate of it to another, and it contained two thousand one hundred 
 monks, who are said to have been there maintained by their own labour. 
 (Hume's England, i. 41.) " Les Etrusques, predecesseurs des Remains, 
 et les premiers peuples de 1'Italie sur lesquels 1'histoire jette quelque lueur 
 
 paroissent avoir devance les Grecs dans la carriere des sciences 
 
 et des arts, bien qu'ils n'aient pas pu, comme leurs successeurs, la par- 
 courir toute entiere. Les poetes ont place au milieu d'eux Page d'or sous 
 le regne de Saturne, et leurs fictions n'ont voile qu'a demi la verite. 
 Comme nous ne savons pas meme le nom des ecrivains Etrusques ou 
 Tyrrheniens, et que ces peuples ne nous sont connus quo par quelques 
 
 P 2
 
 212 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Jo Europeans, imperfect as it was, surpassed exceedingly 
 that of the Hindus ; for with the climate and soil of 
 most of the countries of Europe, agriculture, so im- 
 perfect as that of India, could not have maintained 
 the population. In point of manners and character, 
 the manliness and courage of our ancestors, compared 
 with the slavish and dastardly spirit of the Hin- 
 dus, place them in an elevated rank. But they were 
 inferior to that effeminate people in gentleness, and 
 the winning arts of address. Our ancestors, however, 
 though rough, were sincere ; but, under the glosing 
 exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to 
 deceit and perfidy. In fine, it cannot be doubted that, 
 upon the whole, the gothic nations, as soon as they 
 became a settled people, exhibit the marks of a 
 superior character and civilization to those of the 
 Hindus. 1 
 
 fragmens d'historiens Grecs et Latins, ils resteront toujours enveloppes 
 d'une grande obscurite. Cependant nous avons une indication de leur 
 puissance, dans les murailles colossales de Volterra; de leur gout, dans 
 les vases qui nous sont restes d'eux ; de leur savoir, dans le culte de Ju- 
 piter Elicius, auquel ils attribnerenl 1'art qu'ils connurent et que nous 
 avons retrouv^s, d'eviter et de diriger la foudre." Simonde de Sismondi, 
 Hist, des Rep. Ital. Introd. p. iii. These Tuscans cannot have been 
 advanced beyond the stage of semi-barbarism ; and yet here are proofs of 
 a progress in the arts, with which the Hindus have nothing to compare. 
 The Afghauns use a water-mill for grinding their corn. " It is also used 
 in the north of India, under the Sireenugger hills; but, in general, no 
 water-mills are known in India, where all grain is ground with the hand." 
 Elphinstone's Caubul, p. 307. 
 
 1 The Hindus are often found to be orderly and good servants at Cal- 
 cutta, Madras, &c. This is but a fallacious proof of civilization. Hear 
 Lord Macartney in his account of Russia. " All the inhabitants of Sibe- 
 ria, Casan, and the eastern provinces of Russia, to the sea of Kamschatka, 
 who are not Christians, are confounded under the general name of Tartars. 
 Many of these come to the capital in order to procure employment, either 
 as workmen or domestics, and are exceedingly sober, acute, dexterous, and 
 faithful." Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, ii. 26. " Calmuck servants 

 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 213 
 
 No one can take an accurate survey of the different BOOK J 1 - 
 
 * CHAP. 10. 
 
 nations of Asia, and of their different ages, without 
 
 remarking the near approaches they make to the same 
 stage of civilization. This gives a peculiar interest 
 and importance to the inquiry respecting the Hindus. 
 There can be no doubt that they are in a state of ci- 
 vilization very nearly the same with that of the Chi- 
 nese, the Persians, and the Arabians ; who, together, 
 compose the great branches of the Asiatic population; 
 and of which the subordinate nations, the Japanese, 
 Cachin-chinese, Siamese, Burmans, and even Malays 
 
 are greatly esteemed all over Russia, for their intelligence and fidelity." 
 Mr. Heber's Journal, in Clarke's Travels in Russia, p. 241. " I recol- 
 lect," adds Dr. Clarke, " seeing some of them in that capacity among 
 English families in Petersburg. The most remarkable instance ever known 
 of an expatriated Calmuck, was that of an artist employed by the Earl of 
 Elgin, whom I saw, (a second Anacharsis, from the plains of Scythia) 
 executing most beautiful designs among the ruins of Athens. Some Rus- 
 sian family had previously sent him to finish his studies in Rome, where 
 he acquired the highest perfection in design. He had the peculiar features, 
 and many of the manners, of the nomade Calmucks." Ibid. The negroes, 
 when properly treated, make faithful, affectionate, and good servants. 
 But it is more than doubtful whether the Hindus do in reality make those 
 good servants we have heard them called. Dr. Gilchrist says (Preface to 
 his Hindostanee Dictionary, printed at Calcutta, 1787, p. 27) and Lord 
 Teignmouth repeats, (Considerations, &c. on communicating to the Na- 
 tives of India the Knowledge of Christianity, p. 82) " that he cannot hesi- 
 tate about believing the fact that among a thousand servants of all de- 
 scriptions whom he had intrusted and employed, he had the luck to meet 
 with one only whom he knew to be upright in his conduct." By the author 
 of that interesting little book, entitled, Sketches of India, or Observations 
 descriptive of the Scenery, &c. in Bengal, written in India in the years 
 1811, 1812, 1813, 1814, p. 13, we are told that when you are travelling in 
 India, "An object of attention which must excite peculiar attention in 
 every honourable mind, is the thefts and depredations which are apt to be 
 committed at every bazaar or market, and indeed whenever opportunity 
 offers, both by your own servants and the boatmen. Astonishing as this 
 may seem, it is an undoubted fact that these people pillage every step they 
 take ; and, to escape the just indignation of the sufferers, shelter them- 
 selves under the name of their innocent master, to whom these poor 
 wretches are often afraid to refer."
 
 214 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ^ } and Tibetians, are a number of corresponding and re- 
 sembling offsets. 
 
 With regard to former ages, it is true, that the re- 
 ligion, and several circumstances in the outward forms 
 of society, have been altered in Persia, since the days 
 of Darius: but the arts, the sciences, the literature, 
 the manners, the government, concur to prove, in a 
 remarkable manner, the near approach of the two 
 periods to the same points of civilization. The an- 
 cient Persians, too, there is reason to believe, were 
 placed in nearly the same state of society with the people 
 whom they succeeded ; the Chaldeans, Assyrians, 
 and Babylonians. In contemplating, therefore, the 
 state of Hindustan, curiosity is very extensively gra- 
 tified. As the manners, institutions, and attainments 
 of the Hindus, have been stationary for many ages ; 
 in beholding the Hindus of the present day, we are 
 beholding the Hindus of many ages past ; and are 
 carried back, as it were, into the deepest recesses of 
 antiquity. Of some of the oldest nations, about 
 which our curiosity is the most alive, and information 
 the most defective, we acquire a practical, and what 
 may be almost denominated a personal knowledge, 
 by our acquaintance with a living people, who have 
 continued on the same soil from the very times of 
 those ancient nations, partake largely of the same 
 manners, and are placed at nearly the same stage in 
 the progress of society. By conversing with the 
 Hindus of the present day, we, in some measure, con- 
 verse with the Chaldeans and Babylonians of the time 
 of Cyrus ; with the Persians and Egyptians of the 
 time of Alexander. 
 
 A judicious observer of Asiatic manners declares
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 215 
 
 that " The leading customs of the various nations of BOOK ll - 
 
 , CHAP. 10. 
 
 Asia are similar, or but weakly diversified. When 
 
 they sit, the legs are crossed or bent under them ; 
 they perform topical ablutions before and after meals, 
 at which no knife or spoon is used, unless the diet be 
 wholly liquid ; they invariably adopt the like modes 
 of performing natural evacuations." 1 
 
 The account which Gibbon presents us, from Hero- 
 dian, and Ammianus Marcellinus, of the art of 
 war among the Persians, in the time of the Roman 
 emperors, is an exact description of the art, as prac- 
 tised by the Persians and Hindus, and by most of the 
 other nations of Asia, at the present day. " The 
 science of war, that constituted the more rational force 
 of Greece and Rome, as it now does of Europe, never 
 made any considerable progress in the East. Those 
 disciplined evolutions which harmonize and animate 
 a confused multitude, were unknown to the Persians. 
 They were equally unskilled in the arts of construct- 
 ing, besieging, or defending regular fortifications. 
 They trusted more to their numbers than to their 
 courage ; more to their courage than to their disci- 
 pline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless 
 crowd of peasants, levied in haste by the allure- 
 ments of plunder, and as easily dispersed by a vic- 
 tory as by a defeat. The monarch and his nobles, 
 transported into the camp the pride and luxury of 
 the Seraglio. Their military operations were im- 
 peded by a useless train of women, eunuchs, horses 
 and camels ; and in the midst of a successful cam- 
 paign, the Persian host was often separated or de- 
 stroyed by an unexpected famine." 2 
 
 1 Forster's Travels, ii. 135. 2 Gibbon, i. 342.
 
 216 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 CHAP. lu. I* 1 the system of Zoroaster, and in that of the 
 Brahmens, we find the same lofty expressions con- 
 cerning the invisible powers of nature; the same 
 absurdity in the notions respecting the creation ; the 
 same infinite and absurd ritual ; the same justness 
 in many ideas respecting the common affairs of life 
 and morality; the same gross misunderstanding in 
 others ; but a striking resemblance between the two 
 systems, both in their absurdities and perfections. 
 The same turn of imagination seems to have be- 
 longed to the authors of both ; and the same aspect 
 of nature to have continually presented itself; the 
 deformities however of the Hindu system being 
 always the greatest. 
 
 The Persians, in the time of Cambyses, had 
 judges, select sages, who were appointed for life ; 
 and whose business it was, according to pre-esta- 
 blished laws, to terminate all disputes, and punish 
 crimes. This, like similar circumstances, in the 
 state of the Hindus, presents part of the forms of a 
 legal government. 1 These judges, however, when 
 consulted by the king if he might perform an act, on 
 which, for fear of popular odium, he hesitated to 
 venture, gave a solemn opinion, that for the Tdng of the 
 Persians it was law, to do whatsoever he pleased. 2 
 
 1 The text shows clearly, that it is idle to compare the Hindus with the 
 ancient Persians ; the means of estimating the civilization of the latter 
 are too defective. W. 
 
 * Ot e f3aai\T)Oi fiKaa-rai Ketcpijifievoi avcpcs ^ivovtat \\epatwv 
 et ov aTroOavtaat, tj <r0t irapevpeOij ti acitcov fie-^pi -rtfriuv' ovroi Be 
 Totffi fmas (iKii^r.ai Kai efiyyi^Tat twv iraipiwv Oeafitav tyivovrai 
 KOI Travra es rinas avaiceirai' etpofieva wv TH Kauftuacw vire.Kpivovro 
 
 av-Tta ovroi ria fiaai\evovTi llcpacu<i> egeivai Troieetv to. av 
 
 ftov\r)-rat. Herodot. Hist. lib. Ui. cap. juuu. This, Sir William Jones
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 217 
 
 "This constitutional maxim'' says Gibbon archly, BOOKII. 
 
 J J ' CHAP. 10. 
 
 "was not neglected as an useless and barren 
 theory." 1 
 
 " Like Brimha, the Fo of the Chinese has various 
 times become incarnate among men and beasts. 
 Hence he is represented in his temples as riding 
 upon dragons, rhinoceroses, elephants, mules and 
 asses ; dogs, rats, cats, crocodiles, and other amiable 
 creatures, whose figures he fancied and assumed. 
 There are in some of these pagodas, a thousand 
 of these monstrous statues, all most horribly ugly, 
 and ill represented, and unlike any thing in heaven 
 or earth, or the waters under the earth." 2 
 
 Under the reign of credulity, it is instructive 
 to mark the inconsiderateness of a reflecting writer. 
 After many praises of the Chinese husbandry, such 
 as those which we have often heard of the agricul- 
 ture of the Hindus, Lord Macartney adds, " The 
 plough is the simplest in the world, has but one 
 handle, is drawn by a single buffalo, and managed 
 by a single person without any assistance." 3 And 
 Mr. Barrow says, " Two thirds of the small quantity 
 
 would have said, is a despotism limited by law ; and thus the government of 
 the ancient Persians stood upon a foundation resembling that of the Hindus. 
 
 1 Gibbon, Hist. Decl. and Fall, &c. vii. 304. Some ancient sculpture 
 in the vicinity of Shahpoor in honour of Sapor the First, " represents a 
 king, seated in state, amid a group of figures standing before him, one of 
 whom offers two heads to the monarch's notice. If we wanted other evi- 
 dence, this alone would mark the state of civilization to which a nation 
 had advanced, that could suffer its glory to be perpetuated by a represen- 
 tation of so barbarous a character." Sir John Malcolm, Hist, of Persia, 
 i. 254. No historical writings in ancient Persia : none in Hindustan. 
 
 * Lord Macartney's Journal, Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, ii. 279. 
 In reading this passage, one seems to be reading an account of Hindu reli- 
 ligion, temples, and sculpture. 
 
 3 Lord Macartney's Journal, Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, ii. 357,
 
 218 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 II. 
 
 il/' f l an( l un( ler tillage is cultivated with the spade or 
 the hoe, without the aid of draught cattle." l 
 
 Even of the principal route from Pekin to Canton, 
 Lord Macartney remarks, " For horse and foot the 
 road is excellent, but admits of no wheel-carriages." 2 
 Mr. Barrow more explicitly declares, that except 
 near the capital, and in some few places where the 
 junction of the grand canal with navigable rivers is 
 interrupted by mountainous ground, there is scarcely 
 a road in the whole country that can be ranked 
 beyond a foot path. 3 Even the grand canal itself 
 was opened by the Tartar conqueror Gingis Khan, 
 in the thirteenth century : and that solely with a 
 view to convey the taxes, paid in kind, from the 
 southern part of the empire to the capital, a great 
 part of them having been always lost by the un- 
 skilfulness of Chinese navigation, when conveyed 
 by sea." 4 
 
 Like the Hindus, before the improvements intro- 
 duced among them by the Moguls, the Chinese 
 have no coin, above a small one of copper ; and the 
 taxes of that immense empire are paid in kind. 5 
 
 Lord Macartney remarks that the Chinese have 
 no natural philosophy ; no medical or chirurgical 
 skill; that a fractured leg is usually attended by 
 death. 6 
 
 In the sciences and arts of the Hindus and 
 Chinese there is manifested a near approximation to 
 
 1 Barrow's China, p. 585. A large portion of the country, wet, swampy 
 ground, th rich alluvium of rivers, which might be easily gained ; if the 
 Chinese had but the skill. Ibid. p. 70, 83, 208, 533. 
 
 * Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, ii. 357. 
 
 3 Barrow's China, p. 513. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 43. 4 Ibid. p. 561, 499. 
 6 Barrow's Life of Lord Macartney, ii. 363.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 219 
 
 the same point of advancement. In respect to go- 
 vernment and laws, the Chinese have to a consider 
 able degree the advantage. 1 As they are a busy 
 people, however ; and have no idle class, whose in- 
 fluence depends upon the wonder they can excite by 
 pretended learning, they have multiplied, far less 
 than the Hindus, those false refinements, which a 
 barbarous mind mistakes for science. 2 Both have 
 made greater progress in the refinement of the use- 
 ful arts, than in the advancement of science. But 
 in these too the Chinese appear to have the su- 
 periority ; for though it may be doubted whether 
 the Chinese manufacture of silk rivals in delicacy 
 the cotton manufacture of the Hindus, the latter 
 people have nothing to set in competition with the 
 porcelain of the Chinese ; and in the common works 
 in wood and iron, the Chinese are conspicuously 
 
 1 It would be difficult to prove where the advantage lies. Throughout 
 this comparison, the analogies, either do not exist at all, as in the case 
 of the absence of a current coin, or they are too vague and universal to 
 authorize a conclusion. There is one great advantage as a proof and 
 means of civilization possessed by the Hindus, in the use of a perfect alpha- 
 bet. The cumbrous contrivance of the Chinese symbols, must ever impede 
 the advancement of knowledge amongst them. At the same time, the 
 Chinese are in many respects a civilized people, with whom it is no 
 discredit to the Hindus to be compared. W. 
 
 * Lord Macartney remarks that the Chinese had a very limited know- 
 ledge of mathematics and astronomy, " although from some of the printed 
 accounts of China one might be led to imagine that they were well versed 
 in them." " Their affectation of the science of astronomy or astrology 
 (for they have but one word in their language to express both,) induced 
 them at a very remote period to establish a mathematical college or tribu- 
 nal, the duty of which is to furnish to the nation an annual calendar, 
 somewhat like our Poor Robin's Almanack, with lists of all the lucky and 
 unlucky days of the year, predictions of the weather, directions for sowing 
 and reaping, &c. This branch entirely belongs to the Chinese doctors, 
 who are chosen for the purpose from among the most celebrated philomaths 
 of the nation." Ibid. p. 481 ; See too Barrow's China, 284, 291, 292, 
 295, 323.
 
 220 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 preferable. In the contrivance and use of ma- 
 chinery both are equally simple and rude. 1 
 
 In the state of the fine arts, there is a striking re- 
 semblance between the two nations. " The archi- 
 tecture of the Chinese," says Mr. Barrow, rt is void 
 of taste, grandeur, beauty, solidity, or convenience; 
 their houses are merely tents, and there is nothing 
 magnificent in the palace of the emperor." 5 Both 
 nations were good at imitation. 3 Both were ex- 
 tremely defective in inventions. In painting and 
 sculpture they were ignorant of perspective, of at- 
 titude, and proportion. 
 
 Even in manners, and in the leading parts of the 
 moral character, the lines of resemblance are strong. 
 Both nations are to nearly an equal degree tainted 
 with the vices of insincerity ; dissembling, trea- 
 cherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses 
 even the usual measure of uncultivated society. 
 Both are disposed to excessive exaggeration with 
 regard to every thing relating to themselves. Both 
 are cowardly and unfeeling. Both are in the highest 
 degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected 
 contempt for others. Both are, in the physical 
 sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and 
 houses. 4 
 
 1 Barrow's China, p. 311, 512. 
 
 * Barrow's China, p. 101330. 3 Ibid. p. 306, 323. 
 
 4 Similar traces are found in the following character of the Persians 
 drawn by a recent observer, Mr. Scott Waring, Tour to Sheeraz. " Mean 
 and obsequious to their superiors and to their equals, if they have a pros- 
 pect of advantage ; but invariably arrogant and brutal in their behaviour 
 towards their inferiors ; always boasting of some action they never per- 
 formed, and delighted with flattery, though they are aware of the imposi- 
 tion. I have repeatedly heard them compliment a person in his hearing, 
 or in the presence of some one who would convey this adulation to his 
 ears ; and the instant that he has departed, their praises have turned into 
 abuse :" p. 101. " Not the least reliance is to be placed on their words or
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 221 
 
 With respect to the inhabitants of another quarter BOOK " 
 
 CHAP. 10. 
 
 of Asia, Turner, in his account of the embassy to 
 
 Tibet, informs us, that the deportment of the Rajah 
 of Bootan was exceedingly urbane, and his sen- 
 timents breathed that sort of humanity which seems 
 to flow from the belief of the metempsychosis. " My 
 food, said he, consists of the simplest articles : grain, 
 roots of the earth, and fruits. I never eat of any 
 thing which has had breath, for so I should be 
 the indirect cause of putting an end to the existence 
 of animal life, which by our religion is strictly 
 forbidden." l 
 
 Though frequent ablutions are performed for reli- 
 gious purposes, the same author informs us that the 
 people in their persons are extremely unclean. 8 
 
 most solemn protestations." " They conceive it their duty to please ; 
 
 and to effect this, they forget all sentiments of honour and good faith." 
 
 " The Persians have but a faint notion of gratitude, for they cannot con- 
 ceive that any one should be guilty of an act of generosity, without some 
 sinister motive :" p. 103. " Philosophers have held it for a maxim, that 
 the most notorious liar utters a hundred truths for every falsehood. This 
 is not the case in Persia ; they are unacquainted with the beauty of truth, 
 and only think of it when it is likely to advance their interests." . . . . " The 
 generality of Persians are sunk in the lowest state of profligacy and in- 
 famy ; and they seldom hesitate alluding to crimes which are abhorred and 
 detested in every civilized country in the universe." The following is an 
 important observation. (Voyage dans 1'Empire Othoman, 1'Egypte, et la 
 Perse, par G. A. Olivier, v. 120.) " En Europe, il y a un espace immense 
 entre les habitans des grandes villes et ceux des campagnes, entre 1'homme 
 bien eleve et celui qui ne Test pas. En Perse, nous n'avons pas trouve 
 que cet espace fut bien grand : la classe pauvre des villes difiere tres-peu, 
 pour I'esprit, les connaissances et les moeurs, de 1'habitant des campagnes, 
 et il n'y a pas non plus une grande difference, dans les villes, entre les riches 
 et les pauvres. C'est presque partout la meme conduite, la meme allure, 
 la meme maniere de s'exprimer; ce sont Irs mSmes idees, et j'oserais 
 presque dire la meme instruction. Ici 1'habitant des campagnes, celui-la 
 meme qui se trouve toute 1'annee sous la tente, et qui conduit ses troupeaux 
 d'un paturage a un autre, nous a paru plus delie, plus ruse, plus poli, plus 
 instruit, que le cultivateur Europeen un pen eloigne des grandes villes." 
 1 Turner's Embassy to Tibet, book i. ch. iv. 2 Ibid.
 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "Bootan presents to the view nothing but the 
 most misshapen irregularities ; mountains covered 
 with eternal verdure, and rich with abundant forests 
 of large and lofty trees. Almost every favourable 
 aspect of them, coated with the smallest quantity of 
 soil, is cleared and adapted to cultivation, by being 
 shelved into horizontal beds ; not a slope or narrow 
 slip of land between the ridges lies unimproved. 
 There is scarcely a mountain whose base is not 
 washed by some rapid torrent, and many of the 
 loftiest bear populous villages, amidst orchards and 
 other plantations on their summits and on their 
 sides. It combines in its extent the most extrava- 
 gant tracts of rude nature and laborious art." 1 
 
 Yet they have no discipline in their armies. In 
 their mode of warfare, stratagem is more practised 
 than open assault. 2 
 
 The appearance of the capital Teshoo Loomboo 
 was in a high degree magnificent, and together with 
 the palace afforded proofs of a progress in the arts 
 which vied with that of Hindustan and China. 3 
 
 The inhabitants of the great Peninsula, to the 
 eastward of the Ganges, discover, as far as known, 
 the uniform marks of a similar state of society and 
 manners. The Cochin-Chinese, for example, who 
 are merely a separate community of the Chinese 
 race, appear by no means in civilization behind the 
 Chinese and Hindus. A traveller from whom we 
 have obtained a sensible though short account of 
 
 1 Turner's Embassy to Tibet, book ii. ch. li. The agriculture is pro- 
 moted by artificial irrigation, the water being conveyed to the fields 
 through hollow cylinders, formed of the trunks of trees. Ibid, book i. 
 ch. vi. 
 
 * Ibid. 3 Ibid, book ii. ch. ii.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 223 
 
 some of the more striking phenomena of the country, BOOK n - 
 
 . r " CHAI. 10. 
 
 both physical and moral, informs us, that it is " one 
 
 of the most fruitful in the world. In many parts," 
 he says, " the land produces three crops of grain in 
 the year. All the fruits of India are found here in 
 the greatest perfection, with many of those of China. 
 No country in the East produces richer or a greater 
 variety of articles proper for carrying on an advan- 
 tageous commerce, cinnamon, pepper, cardamoms, 
 silk, cotton, sugar, Aquila wood, Japan wood, ivory, 
 
 &C." 1 
 
 The following paragraph describes an important 
 article of accommodation, to which no parallel can 
 be found in all China and Hindustan. lf In this 
 valley we passed through three or four pretty villages 
 pleasantly situated, in which, as well as on other 
 parts of the road, were public houses, where tea, 
 fruits, and other refreshments are sold to travellers. 
 At noon we alighted at one of them, and partook of 
 a dinner, which consisted of fowls cut into small 
 pieces, dressed up with a little greens and salt, some 
 fish, &c." 2 
 
 1 Narrative of a Voyage to Cochin-China in 1778 by Mr. Chapman, in 
 the Asiatic Annual Register for 1801, Miscellaneous Tracts, p. 85. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 72. Of China, Mr. Barrow says, " There are no inns in any 
 part of this vast empire ; or, to speak more correctly (for there are resting- 
 places,) no inhabited and furnished houses where, in consideration of 
 paying a sum of money, a traveller may purchase the refreshments of 
 comfortable rest, and of allaying the calls of hunger. The state of society 
 admits of no such accommodation. What they call inns are mean hovels 
 consisting of bare walls, where, perhaps, a traveller may procure his cup 
 of tea, for a piece of copper money, and permission to pass the night ; but 
 this is the extent of the comforts which such places hold out." Barrow's 
 China, p. 241. Such is the description of the Indian choultries; empty 
 buildings into which the traveller may retire, but into which he must 
 carry with him every accommodation, of which he stands in need. " The
 
 224 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 The appearance of the king's court was not only 
 splendid but decorous ; and even the little of the 
 country which the travellers saw, discovered to them 
 large cities, with streets, laid out on a regular plan, 
 paved with flat stones, and having well-built brick 
 houses on each side. 1 
 
 The people on the western side of that peninsula, 
 whether known by the name of Birmans, Peguans, 
 Assamese, or Siamese, partake strongly of the 
 Hindu character, and exhibit only a variation of the 
 religion, laws, institutions, and manners which pre- 
 vail on the other side of the Ganges. The great 
 difference consists in their having adopted the heresy, 
 or retained the primitive faith of Buddha ; and 
 rejected the distinction of castes. But nothing ap- 
 pears among them which would lead to an inference 
 
 Kans, or Caravanseras," says Volney, speaking of another Asiatic coun- 
 try, Syria, " afford only cells for the accommodation of travellers, with 
 bare walls, dust, and sometimes scorpions. The keeper gives the lodger 
 a key and a mat, and he must find every thing else himself." Travels in 
 Egypt, &c. ii. 420. " In the inland towns and villages of Barbary, there 
 is, for the most part, a house set apart for the reception of strangers, with 
 a proper officer (the Maharak, I think they call him) to attend it. Here 
 persons are lodged and entertained, for one night, in the best manner the 
 place will afford, at the expense of the community." Shaw's Travels, 
 Pref, p. ii. 
 
 1 Chapman's Voyage, ubi supra, p. 73, 76. Sir George Staunton says, 
 Embassy of Lord Macartney, i. 389 : " The Cochin-Chinese seemed suffi- 
 ciently dexterous and attentive, though with scarcely any principles of 
 science, to make, on any substances which promised to be of use or comfort 
 to them in private life, such trials and experiments, as were likely to pro- 
 duce beneficial results. In the culture of their lands, and in the few ma- 
 nufactures exercised amongst them, they were not behind nations where 
 the sciences flourish." " Though these people possessed not scientifically 
 the art of reducing the metallic ore into the metal, they had attained the 
 practice, for example, of making very good iron, as well as of manufac- 
 turing it afterwards, into match-locks, spears, and other weapons. Their 
 earthenware was very neat. Their dexterity appeared in every operation 
 they undertook :" p. 387.
 
 CENERAL REFLECTIONS. 225 
 
 of any inferiority in their progress towards the BOOK Ir 
 
 J CHAT. 10. 
 
 attainments of ciyilized life. 
 
 The Birmans, we are told by Symes, call their 
 code generally Derma Sath or Sastra ; it is one among 
 the many commentaries on Menu. ;> The Birman 
 system of jurisprudence," he adds. " is replete with 
 sound morality, and in my opinion is distinguished 
 above every other Hindoo commentary for perspicuity 
 and good sense. It provides specifically for almost 
 every species of crime that can be committed, and 
 adds a copious chapter of precedents and decisions to 
 guide the inexperienced in cases where there is doubt 
 and difficulty. Trial by ordeal and imprecation are 
 the only absurd passages in the book." 1 
 
 u There is no country of the East," says the same 
 author, " in which the royal establishment is arranged 
 with more minute attention than in the Birman court ; 
 it is splendid without being wasteful, and numerous 
 without confusion." : 
 
 Their literature appears to be as extensive and 
 curious, as that of the Hindus. 3 They have nume- 
 rous, and copious libraries : the books, says Colonel 
 Symes, are '' upon divers subjects ; more on divinity 
 
 1 Symes' Embassy to Ava. ii. 326. The following, too. are abundantly 
 similar to corresponding features in the character of the Hindus. The 
 Birmans, in some points of their disposition, display the ferocity of barba- 
 rians, and in others all the humanity and tenderness of polished life. They 
 inflict the most savage vengeance on their enemies. As invaders, desola- 
 tion marks their track : for they spare neither sex nor age. But at home 
 they assume a different character. Ibid. 
 
 s Ibid. 
 
 J The civilization of the Burmese and the Tibetans, such as it is, is de- 
 rived from India, along with the religion and literature of the Buddhists. 
 Natural and political impediments have opposed their improvement to a 
 much greater extent than similar obstacles in India. W. 
 
 VOL. II. Q
 
 226 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK II. th an on an y O ther . hut history, music, medicine, 
 
 CHAP. 10. J J ' 
 
 painting and romance, had their separate trea- 
 tises." 1 
 
 Of the kingdom of Assam we possess not many 
 accounts ; but what we have yield evidence to the 
 same effect. In the Alemgeernameh of Moham- 
 med Cazim, is a description of Assam, which has 
 been translated by Henry Vansittart, Esqr., and 
 presented to us in several publications. We are 
 there told that the country, at least in many places, 
 is " well inhabited, and in an excellent state of 
 tillage; that it presents, on every side, charming 
 prospects of ploughed fields, harvests, gardens, and 
 groves." 2 
 
 " As the country is overflowed in the rainy season, 
 a high and broad causeway has been raised for the 
 convenience of travellers from Salagereh to Ghergong, 
 which is the only uncultivated ground to be seen : 
 each side of this road is planted with shady bamboos, 
 the tops of which meet and are entwined." 3 And 
 this is more than seems to have been attained in Hin- 
 dustan, before the improvements introduced by the 
 Mohammedan conquerors. 
 
 " The silks are excellent, and resemble those of 
 China. They are successful in embroidering with 
 flowers, and in weaving velvet, and tautband, which 
 is a species of silk of which they make tents and 
 kenauts." 4 
 
 The bigoted and intolerant Mussulman, however, 
 
 1 Symcs' Embassy to ATS, iii. 96. 
 
 1 See Description of the Kingdom of Assam, &c. Asiat. An. Register 
 for 1800, Miscellaneous Tracts, p. 43. 
 
 3 See Description of the Kingdom of Assam, &c. Asiat. An. Register 
 for 1800, Miscellaneous Tracts, p. 43. * Ibid.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 227 
 
 who finds no excellence where he finds not his faith; BOOK n. 
 
 CH VF 10 
 
 discovers no qualities but evil in the minds of the 1 
 
 Assamese. cl They do not adopt," he says, " any 
 mode of worship practised either by heathens or Ma- 
 homedans : nor do they concur in any of the known 
 sects, which prevail amongst mankind. They are a base 
 and unprincipled nation, and have no fixed religion; 
 they follow no rules but that of their own inclina- 
 tions, and make the approbation of their own vicious 
 minds the test of the propriety of their actions." 1 
 Such are the distorted views presented to an ignorant 
 mind, through the medium of a dark and malignant 
 religion, respecting a people cultivating the ground 
 to great perfection, and forming a dense population. 
 Among other particulars of the vileness which he 
 beheld in them, is the following : " The base inha- 
 bitants, from a congenial impulse, are fond of seeing 
 and keeping asses, and buy and sell them at a high 
 price." 2 Yet he speaks in lofty terms of the royal 
 magnificence of the court. rt The Rajahs of this 
 country have always raised the crest of pride and vain 
 glory, and displayed an ostentatious appearance of 
 grandeur, and a numerous train of attendants and 
 servants." And he expresses himself with a mingled 
 horror and admiration of the prowess and superiority 
 of the Assamese in war. " They have not bowed 
 the head of submission and obedience, nor have they 
 paid tribute or submission to the most powerful mo- 
 narch; but they have curbed the ambition, and 
 checked the conquests of the most victorious princes 
 of Hindustan." Several armies from Bengal, which 
 
 1 See Description of the Kingdom of Assam, &c. p. 45. * Ibid. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 been sent to conquer them, having been cut off, 
 of some of which scarce even tidings had ever been 
 received, " the natives of Hindustan consider them 
 wizards and magicians, and pronounce the name of 
 that country in all their incantations and counter- 
 charms: they say that every person who sets his 
 foot there is under the influence of witchcraft, and 
 cannot find the road to return." 1 
 
 The admiration which the Greeks, no very accurate 
 observers of foreign manners, expressed of the Egyp- 
 tians, and which other nations have so implicitly 
 borrowed at their hands, not a little resembles the ad- 
 miration among Europeans which has so long prevailed 
 with regard to the Hindus. The penetrating force of 
 modern intelligence has pierced the cloud: and while 
 it has displayed to us the state of Egyptian civiliza- 
 tion in its true colours, exhibits a people who, stand- 
 ing on a level with so many celebrated nations of an- 
 tiquity, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabians, 
 correspond, in all the distinctive marks of a particular 
 state of society, with the people of Hindustan. The 
 evidence has been weighed by a cool and dispas- 
 sionate judge, in the following manner: " I see 
 nothing," says the President Goguet, " in the Egyp- 
 tians that can serve to distinguish them in a manner 
 very advantageous ; I even think myself authorized 
 to refuse them the greatest part of the eulogies that 
 
 1 See Description of the Kingdom of Assam, &c. Asiat. An. Register 
 for 1800, Miscellaneous Tracts, p. 47, 48. M. This picture of civilization 
 in Assam, would much astonish the British officers, who arc now charged 
 with the management of the country : as it is given by Mohammed Kasim, 
 however, it is confined to abundant population, extensive tillage, a causeway 
 or bank, and the manufacture of a sort of silk, of which they make ' tents.' 
 Assam silk, for such a purpose, must have been something like canvass. W.
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 229 
 
 have been always so liberally bestowed upon them. 
 The Egyptians did invent some arts and some sciences, 
 but they never had the ingenuity to bring any of 
 their discoveries to perfection. I have exposed their 
 want of taste, and I venture to say, of talent, in 
 architecture, in sculpture and in painting. Their 
 manner of practising physic was absurd and ridicu- 
 lous. The knowledge they had of geometry and 
 astronomy was but very imperfect. Their discoveries 
 are far enough from entering into any comparison 
 with those which the Greeks made afterwards in 
 those two sciences. In fine, the Egyptians have had 
 neither genius, ardour, nor talent, for commerce, or 
 for the marine and military art. 
 
 " As to civil laws, and political constitutions, the 
 Egyptians had indeed some very good ones ; but 
 otherwise there reigned in their government a multi- 
 tude of abuses and essential defects, authorized by 
 the laws and by their fundamental principles of 
 government. 
 
 " As to the manners and customs of this people, 
 we have seen to what a height indecency and de- 
 bauchery were carried in their religious feasts and 
 public ceremonies. The public cult which a nation 
 fixes to honour the Deity, bears the stamp of that 
 nation's character. Neither was the morality of the 
 Eyptians extremely pure ; we may even affirm, that 
 it offended against the first rules of rectitude and 
 probity. We see that the Egyptians bore the high- 
 est blame of covetousness, of ill faith, of cunning, 
 and of roguery. 
 
 " It appears to me to result from all these facts 
 that the Egyptians were a people industrious enough,
 
 230 
 
 HI8TORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 10 ^ ut ' as to t ^ lc rest ' wi^out taste, without genius, 
 without discernment ; a people who had only ideas 
 of grandeur ill understood ; and whose progress in all 
 the different parts of human knowledge never rose 
 beyond a flat mediocrity, l knavish into the bargain, 
 and crafty, soft, lazy, cowardly, and submissive ; and 
 who, having performed some exploits to boast of in 
 distant times, were ever after subjected by whoever 
 would undertake to subdue them ; a people again 
 vain and foolish enough to despise other nations 
 without knowing them : superstitious to excess, sin 
 gularly addicted to judicial astrology, extravagantly 
 besotted with an absurd and monstrous theology. 
 Does not this representation sufficiently authorize us 
 to say that all that science, that wisdom, and that 
 philosophy, so boasted of in the Egyptian priests, was 
 but imposture and juggling, capable of imposing only 
 on people so little enlightened, or so strongly pre- 
 judiced, as were anciently the Greeks in favour of the 
 Egyptians?' 2 
 
 1 The monuments of the ancient Egyptians show them to have been 
 well acquainted with the arts of civilized life, and to have carried them to 
 a high degree of perfection. Of their literature, philosophy, and science, 
 we know nothing but from imperfect report and conjecture ; and we de- 
 rive the pictures of their manners, chiefly from the Roman satirists. We 
 are not qualified, therefore, to judge of their relation to the Hindus in 
 these respects. W. 
 
 * Goguet, Origin of Laws, part iii. book vi. ch. ii. He adds, " I should 
 be greatly tempted to compare this nation with the Chinese. I think a 
 good deal of resemblance and conformity is to be perceived between one 
 people and the other." Ibid. Had the Hindus been then as fully de- 
 scribed as they are now, he would have found a much more remarkable 
 similarity between them and the Egyptians. Exaggeration was long in 
 quitting its hold of Egypt. At the time of the Arabian conquest, in the 
 seventh century, " We may read," (says Gibbon, ix. 446) " in the gravest 
 authors, that Egypt was crowded with 20,000 cities or villages : that 
 exclusive of the Greeks and Arabs, the Copts alone were found on the 
 assessment, six millions of tributary subjects, or twenty millions of cither
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 231 
 
 The sagacity of Adam Smith induced him, at an BOOK n. 
 
 . CHAP. 10. 
 
 early period of his life, to deny the supposed proof 
 
 of any high attainments among those ancient na- 
 tions, and to declare, though with hesitancy, his 
 inclination to the opposite opinion. 
 
 " It was in Greece, and in the Grecian colonies, 
 that the first philosophers of whose doctrine we have 
 any distinct account, appeared. Law and order seem 
 indeed to have been established in the great mo- 
 narchies of Asia and Egypt, long before they had any 
 footing in Greece : Yet after all that has been said 
 concerning the learning of the Chaldeans and Egyp- 
 tians, whether there ever was in those nations any 
 thing which deserved the name of science, or whether 
 that despotism which is more destructive of leisure 
 and security than anarchy itself, and which prevailed 
 over all the East, prevented the growth of philosophy, 
 
 sex, and of every age : that three hundred millions of gold or silver were 
 annually paid to the treasury of the Caliph." He adds in a note, "And 
 this gross lump is swallowed without scruple by d'Herbelot, Arbuthnot 
 and De Guignes. They might allege the not less extravagant liberality of 
 Appian, in favour of the Ptolemies ; an annual income of 185, or near 300, 
 millions of pounds sterling ; according as we reckon by the Egyptian or 
 the Alexandrian talent." If this be wonderful, what is to be said of the 
 lumps swallowed by the admirers of the Hindus ? Voltaire remarks, 
 " Que les Egyptiens tant vantes pour leurs lois, leurs connaissances, et 
 leurs pyramides, n'avatent presque jamais etc qu'un peuple esclave, super- 
 stitieux et ignorant, dont tout le merite avait consiste a clever des rangs 
 inutiles de pierres les unes sur les autres par 1'ordre de leurs tyrans; qu'en 
 batissant leurs palais superbes ils n'avaient jamais su seulement former 
 une voute; qu'ils ignoraient la coupe de pierres; que toute leur architec- 
 ture consistait a poser de longues pierres plates sur des piliers sans pro- 
 portion ; que 1'ancienne Egypte n'a jamais eu une statue tolerable que de 
 la main des Grecs ; que ni les Grecs ni les Romains n'ont jamais daigne 
 traduire un seul livre des Egyptiens ; que les elemens de geometric com- 
 poses dans Alexandrie le furent par un Grec, etc. etc on n'apercjoit 
 
 dans les lois de 1'Egypte que celles d'un peuple tres borne." Voltaire 
 Supplement a 1'Essai sur les Mo3urs, &c. Remarque Premier.
 
 232 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii. i s a question which, for want of monuments, cannot 
 
 CHAP. 10. * 
 
 be determined with any degree of precision." To 
 
 leave the subject even in this state of doubt was but a 
 compromise with popular opinion, and with his own 
 imperfect views. The circumstances handed down to 
 us, compared with the circumstances of other nations, 
 afforded materials for a very satisfactory determina- 
 tion. The opinion by which he supports his disbelief 
 of the ancient civilization of Asia is at once philan- 
 throphic and profound; That " despotism is more 
 destructive of leisure and security, and more adverse 
 to the progress of the human mind, than anarchy 
 itself." 8 
 
 1 Essay on the History of Astronomy, p. 27. 
 
 * This question of the civilization of the Hindus, although discussed 
 with disproportionate prolixity, irrelevancy of illustration, and tediousness 
 of repetition, both in these concluding remarks, and in a variety of previous 
 notes and observations, can scarcely be considered as satisfactorily deter- 
 mined. It may be admitted, that the Hindus were not a civilized people 
 according to Mr. Mill's standard ; but -what that standard is, he has not 
 fully defined. Civilization is used by him, however, as a relative term, 
 and in this sense, we may readily grant that the Hindus never attained 
 the advance made by modern Europe. It is not just to institute such a 
 comparison ; for, to say nothing of the advantages we possess in a pure 
 system of religious belief, we cannot leave out of consideration the agency 
 of time. The Hindus, by the character of their institutions, and by the 
 depressing influence of foreign subjugation, are apparently what they were 
 at least three centuries before the Christian sera. Two thousand years 
 have done nothing for them, every thing for us. We must, therefore, in 
 fairness, compare them with their cotemporarics, with the people of anti- 
 quity ; and we shall then have reason to believe, that they occupied a very 
 foremost station amongst the nations. They had a religion less disgraced 
 by idolatrous worship, than most of those which prevailed in early times. 
 They had a government, which, although despotic, was equally restricted 
 by law, by institutions, and religion : they had a code of laws, in many 
 respects wise and rational, and adapted to a great variety of relations, 
 which could not have existed, except in an advanced condition of social 
 organization. They had a copious and cultivated language, and an ex- 
 tensive and diversified literature ; they had made great progress in the 
 mathematical sciences ; they speculated profoundly on the mysteries of 
 man and nature, and they had acquired remarkable proficiency in many of
 
 GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 233 
 
 the ornamental and useful arts of life. Whatever defects may be justly BOOK II. 
 imputed to their religion, their government, their laws, their literature, CHAF - 10. 
 their sciences, their arts, as contrasted with the same proofs of civilization 
 in modern Europe, it will not be disputed by any impartial and candid 
 critic, that as far as we have the means of instituting a comparison, the 
 Hindus were in all these respects quite as civilized as the most civilized 
 nations of the ancient world, and in as early times as any of which records 
 or traditions remain. W.
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK UI. 
 THE MAHOMEDANS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 from the first Invasion of India by the Nations in 
 the North, till the expulsion of the Gaznevide 
 dynasty. 
 
 AT the time when the nations of Europe opened 
 their communication with India, by the Cape of 
 Good Hope, the people whom we have now described 
 had for a number of ages been subject to a race of 
 foreigners. That subjection, though it had not 
 greatly altered the texture of native society, had in- 
 troduced new forms into some of the principal de- 
 partments of state ; had given the military command 
 to foreigners ; and had mixed with the population a 
 proportion of a people differing from them considera- 
 bly, in manners, character, and religion. The politi- 
 cal state of India, at this time, consisted of a Ma- 
 homedan government, supported by a Mahomedan 
 force, over a Hindu population. 
 
 It appears that the people of Hindustan have at all 
 times been subject to incursions and conquest, by the 
 nations contiguous to them on the north-west. The 
 Scythians, that is, the rude nations on the east of 
 Persia, conquered, we are told by Justin, a great part
 
 PERSIAN AND GREEK INVASIONS. 235 
 
 of Asia, and even penetrated as far as Egypt, about BOOK HI 
 
 1500 years before Ninus, the founder of the Assyrian 
 
 monarchy. And we know that in the vast empire of 
 Darius Hystaspes as much of India was included, as 
 constituted one, and that the most valuable, of his 
 twenty satrapies. The exact limits of the Indian 
 satrapy are unknown ; but from the account which 
 Herodotus gives of its tribute, far exceeding that of 
 any of the rest, the extent of it cannot have been 
 small. Major Rennel supposes that it may have 
 reached as far as Delhi, 1 and have included the whole 
 of the Punjab, or country watered by the five 
 branches of the Indus, together with Cabul, Canda- 
 har, and the tract of country which lies along the 
 Indus to the sea. 2 
 
 The conquests of Alexander the Great, which suc- 
 ceeded to those of the Persian monarchs, seem not to 
 have extended so far in India, as the previous posses- 
 sions of Darius ; since his career was stopped on the 
 
 1 This is incorrectly quoted. Kennels' words are, " we may conclude, 
 that Darius, in fact, possessed no more of India, than what lay contiguous 
 to the Indus and its branches ;" 8vo. ed. i. 409. The amount of tribute, 
 less than one million sterling, was not large absolutely ; the only difficulty 
 applies to its relative amount ; it was nearly one-third of the whole reve- 
 nue of the Persian empire ; this is probably an exaggeration. W. 
 
 * RennePs Geography of Herodotus, p. 305. The Major, who is here 
 puzzled with a mistranslation of 600, for 360, corrects the hyberbolical 
 statement of the amount of the tribute, though he doubts not it was great. 
 Herodot. lib. iii. cap. 94, 95. It is by no means impossible, or perhaps 
 improbable, that Cyrus subdued part of India. Herodotus, who knew 
 India, says that lu's General, Harpagus, subdued one part of Asia, and he 
 another, TTO.V cOvos Ka-Taatpe^ofifvos^ KO.I ovSev iraptets .... Travia. 
 TO frjs ijTretpov inro^ftpia cTrotrjatno. Herodot. lib. i. cap. 147. 
 Justin says that -Cyrus, having reduced Asia, and the East in general, 
 carried war into Scythia : lib. i. cap. 8. Xenophon says expressly, rjpt-c 
 Be KO.I Bawpiwv icat Ivdiuv. Cyri Institut. lib. i. cap. i. The Persian 
 historians describe the Persians, in the early ages, as chiefly occupied by 
 war? in Turan and India.
 
 23f) HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii i banks of the Hyphasis, or modem Bey ah, the last of 
 
 CHAP. 1. 
 
 the five branches of the Indus ; whence returning to 
 
 the Hydaspes, he passed down the Indus to the sea. 
 Seleucus, the successor of Alexander in Upper Asia, 
 not only received, but endeavoured to augment, the 
 acquisitions made by that conqueror in India. He 
 gained victories over Sandracottos, the sovereign 
 of a people living on the Ganges. But, as he was 
 recalled to the defence of another part of his domi- 
 nions against Antigonus, he made peace with the 
 Indian : and the limits established between the mare 
 not ascertained. 1 
 
 Among the kingdoms formed out of the vast em- 
 pire of Alexander by the dissensions of his followers, 
 was Bactria. This district was part of that great range 
 of country, on the eastern side of Media and Persia, 
 extending from the lake Aral to the mouths of the 
 Indus, which the power of the Persian monarchs had 
 added to their extensive dominions. 2 The people of 
 this intermediate region seem to have possessed an 
 intermediate stage of civilization between the Tartar 
 or Scythian tribes which bordered with them on the 
 east, and the people of the Assyrian or Persian empire 
 which was contiguous to them on the west. Among 
 these people there is some reason for believing that 
 
 1 The notices relating to the conquests of Alexander and his successors 
 in India are collected in Robertson's Disquisition concerning Ancient 
 India, and Gillies' History of the World. Strabo and Arrian are the 
 authorities from whom almost every thing we know of the transactions of 
 the Greeks in India, is borrowed. 
 
 * This ia by no means an accurate statement- The political power of 
 Bactria may, after its acquirement of independence, have extended over 
 this space ; but the Bactrian province of Persia lay entirely to the north 
 of the Paropamisan mountains, and had Sogdiana and the Scythians 
 between it and the Aral lake. W.
 
 PERSIAN AND GREEK INVASIONS. 237 
 
 the Bactrians were distinguished, and at an early pe- 
 riod, by superior progress in the knowledge, and other 
 acquirements of civilized men Among the numerous 
 Zoroasters, with whom Persian story abounds, one is 
 said to have been king of Bactria, contemporary with 
 Ninus ; and to have invented magic ; that is, to have 
 been the object of admiration on account of his know- 
 ledge. Of the eastern nations added to the subjects 
 of the Persian kings, the Bactrians were the nearest 
 to India, and were only separated from it by that 
 range of mountains, in which the Indus and the Oxus 
 find their respective sources. Bactria as well as India 
 were among the parts of the dominions of Alexander 
 which fell to the share of Seleucus. In the reign, 
 however, of his son or grandson, the governor of the 
 Bactrian province threw off his dependence upon the 
 Seleucidae; and a separate Greek kingdom was erected 
 in that country, about sixty-nine years after the death 
 of Alexander. The Persian dominions in India seem 
 to have shared the fate of Bactria, and to have fallen 
 into the hands of the same usurper. The Greek 
 sovereigns of Bactria became masters of an exten- 
 sive empire ; and assumed the proud title of King 
 of Kings ; the distinctive appellation of the Persian 
 monarchs in the zenith of their power. They carried 
 on various wars with India ; and extended their con- 
 quests into the interior of the country. 1 The limits 
 
 1 Much additional light has been thrown upon the history of Bactria 
 and the adjacent provinces of the Afghan country, by the recent discovery 
 of large quantities of coins, bearing the effigies and names of Greek and 
 Barbaric kings. They have been found in the tract between Balkh and 
 the Panjab, and especially about Peshawar and Kabul, which were, no 
 doubt, included in the dominions of the princes of Bactria, or of those 
 principalities -which were established in the direction of India by the 
 Greeks. As most of these coins bear on one face an inscription which
 
 238 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 of their dominions in that direction we have no means 
 of ascertaining. One of those great movements in 
 central or eastern Tartary, which precipitates the 
 eastern barbarians upon the countries of the west, 
 brought an irresistible torrent of that people across 
 the Jaxartes, about 126 years before the Christian 
 era, which, pouring itself out upon Bactria, over- 
 whelmed the Grecian monarchy, after it had lasted 
 nearly 130 years. 1 
 
 About the same period that the successors of 
 
 has been ascertained to be in a form of Prakrit, a derivative from Sanscrit ; 
 they prove that the Bactrians must have been an Indian people. See the 
 descriptions and observations of Masson and Prinsep, J. As. Soc. of 
 Bengal; of Jacquet, J. Asiatique, Raoul Rochette, J. des Savans; also 
 Richter on the Topes (die Stupe) and Lassen, zur geschichte der Grie- 
 chischen und Indoskytischen konige in Bactrien, Kabul und Jndien. 
 1 A curious history of the Greek kingdom of Bactria has been compiled 
 by Bayer, entitled, Historia regni Graecorum Bactriani. In this, and in 
 Strabo, lib. xi. Diod. lib. xv. and Justin, lib. xli. the only remaining me- 
 morials of this kingdom are to be found. The progress of the barbarians 
 by whom it was destroyed has been traced by De Guignes, Mem. de 
 Lit6rat. xxv. 17, and Hist, des Huns, passim. Herodotus says that those 
 of the Indians, whose mode of life most resembled that of the Bactrians, 
 were the most warlike of all the Indians, (lib. iii. cap. 102) which would 
 seem to indicate a nearer affinity between the Hindus, and their Bactrian 
 neighbours, than is generally supposed. There is some confusion, how- 
 ever, in this part of Herodotus, nor is it easy to know whether he means 
 the people called Indians on the Euxine Sea, or those beyond the Indus, 
 when he says they were like the Bactrians. He distinguishes them from 
 the Indians living irpos VOTOV avefiov, by saying they were contiguous 
 to the city Caspatyrus and the Pactyan territory, and lying Trpot ftopeov 
 avefiov (lib. iii. cap. 102), but (cap. 93 of the same book) he says that 
 the Pactyan territory is contiguous to Armenia, and the countries on the 
 Euxine Sea. Yet in another place (lib. iv. cap. 44) he says that Scylax 
 setting out from the city Caspatyrus, and the Pactyan territory, sailed 
 down the Indus eastward to the sea. And Rennel places Caspatyrus and 
 Pactya towards the sources of the Indus, about the regions of Cabul and 
 Cashmere. Rennet's Mem. Introd. p. xxiii. Rcnnel's Hcrodot. sect. 12. 
 M. Some illustrations of the position of these countries may be found in 
 the As. Res. v. xv., Essay on Kashmir, and in Lassen's Pentapotamia. W.
 
 PERSIAN AND GREEK INVASIONS. 239 
 
 Alexander lost the kingdom of Bactria, the miscon- BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 1. 
 
 duct of a governor in the distant provinces border 
 
 ing on the Caspian Sea, raised up a military chief 
 who excited the rude and turbulent inhabitants to 
 revolt, and laid the foundation of the Parthian king- 
 dom; a power which soon possessed itself of Media, 
 and finally stripped the descendants of Seleucus of 
 almost all that they possessed from the Tigris 
 eastwards. The rebellion of the Parthians is placed 
 about the year 256 before Christ ; and the kings of 
 Syria maintained from that time a struggling and 
 declining existence, till they finally yielded to the 
 power of the Romans, and Syria was erected into a 
 province sixty-four years before the commencement 
 of the Christian era. 1 
 
 The descendants of the Parthian rebel, known 
 under the title of the Arsacides, held the sceptre of 
 Persia till the year of Christ 226. The possession 
 of empire produced among them, as it usually pro- 
 duces among the princes of the East, a neglect of 
 the duties of government, and subjugation to ease 
 and pleasure ; when a popular enterprising subject, 
 availing himself of the general dissatisfaction, turned 
 the eyes of the nation upon himself, and having 
 dethroned his master, substituted the dynasty of the 
 Sassanides to the house of Arsaces. As usual, the 
 first princes of this line were active and valiant ; 
 and their empire extended from the Euphrates to 
 the Jaxartes, and the mountainous ridge which 
 
 1 What is known to us from the Greek and Roman authors, of the Par- 
 thian empire, is industriously collected in Gillies' History of the World ; 
 from the oriental writers by D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, ad verba 
 Arschak, Arminiah. See also Gibbon, i. 316.
 
 240 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in divided the kingdom of Bactria from the Scythians 
 
 CHAF. 1. * 
 
 of the East. To what extent their power was carried 
 
 over the ancient soil of the Hindus, does not appear ; 
 but it is more than probable that the territory west 
 of the Indus, from the time when it was first esta- 
 blished into a Persian satrapy, in the reign of 
 Darius, owned no more the caste who sprung from 
 the arm of the Creator. Bactria was numbered as 
 one among the four provinces of the great Chosroes, 
 who reigned from the year 531 of the Christian era 
 to the year 571, and was denominated King of 
 Persia and of India. The grandson of Chosroes, 
 who was deposed in 628, may be considered as 
 closing the line of the Sassanides ; for, after a few 
 years of tumult and distraction, the irresistible arms 
 of the successors of Mahomet were directed toward 
 Persia, and quickly reduced it under the power of 
 the Caliphs. 1 
 
 In the year 632, Caled, the lieutenant of Abubeker, 
 entered Persia. In a few years the standards of the 
 Faithful were carried to the farthest limits of Bac- 
 tria, and pushing once more the shepherds of the 
 East beyond the Jaxartes, rendered the empire of 
 the Caliphs in that direction conterminous with the 
 Persian monarchy in its proudest days. 2 
 
 1 In Gibbon, vols. vii. viii. ix. the reader will find a slight sketch, cor- 
 rectly but quaintly given, of this portion of the Persian history. Gibbon's 
 first object unfortunately was to inspire admiration of the writer ; to im- 
 part knowledge of his subject only the second. The results of the Persian 
 records (if such they may be called) are carefully collected in D'Herbelot, 
 Bibliotheque Orient., under the several titles. M. Further notices of the 
 Arsacidan princes, have been subsequently published by Col. Vans Ken- 
 nedy, Tr. Bombay, Lit. Soc. v. 3, and by M. St. Martin, in the J. Asia- 
 tique, and Mi-moires de 1'Academie. W. 
 
 * Gibbon, ix. 364; D'Herbclot, Bibliotheque Orient, ad verb.
 
 TARTAR INVASIONS. 241 
 
 The possession of empire required, as usual, but 
 a few generations to relax the minds of the successors 
 of Mohammed,, and render them as unfit as their pre- 
 decessors for any better use of power, than the 
 unrestrained indulgence of themselves in the plea- 
 sures which it commands. 
 
 The tribes of Tartar, or Scythian shepherds, from 
 the centre of Asia, unsettled, fierce, and warlike, 
 had from the earliest ages proved dangerous and 
 encroaching neighbours to the Eastern provinces of 
 Persia. Pushed beyond the Jaxartes and Imaus, 
 by Cyrus, and the more warlike of the successors of 
 Cyrus, they were ever ready, as soon as the reign of 
 a weak prince enfeebled the powers of government, 
 to make formidable incursions, and generally held 
 possession of the provinces which they over-ran, till 
 a renewal of vigour in the government made them 
 retire within their ancient limits. We are informed 
 by Polybius that a tribe of Nomades or shepherds, 
 w T hom he calls Aspasians, forced their way across the 
 Oxus, and took possession of Hyrcania, even in the 
 reign of Antiochus. We have already seen that a 
 body of Tartars overwhelmed Bactria about 120 
 years before Christ. And about 100 years subse- 
 quent to the Christian era, a portion of the great 
 nation of the Huns, who had been forced by a 
 victorious tribe from their native seat behind the 
 wall of China, penetrated into Sogdiana, the country 
 between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, towards the 
 shores of the Caspian Sea; and there established 
 themselves under the titles of the Euthalites, Neph- 
 thalites, and White Huns. After these irruptions, 
 the more vigorous of the princes of the Sassaniau 
 
 VOL. II. R
 
 242 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 dynasty reduced Sogdiana, as well as Bactria, to 
 occasional obedience ; but without expelling the 
 new inhabitants, and without acquiring any perma- 
 nent dominion. In the cultivated provinces in which 
 they settled, the savage Tartars acquired a degree of 
 civilization ; and when obliged to yield to the fol- 
 lowers of Mohammed, felt so little attachment to their 
 ancient religion, as immediately to recommend them- 
 selves to the favour, by adopting the faith, of their 
 conquerors. 1 
 
 When the government of the Caliphs began to 
 lose its vigour, a tribe of Tartars, originally situated 
 in the Altai mountains, and known by the name of 
 Turks, had acquired extraordinary power. They 
 had, in a series of wars, subdued the neighbouring 
 tribes, and extended their sway, that species of sway 
 which it is competent to a pasturing people to exer- 
 cise or to sustain, over a great portion of the Tartars 
 of Asia. 2 When the military virtues of the Arabians 
 sunk beneath the pleasures which flow from the 
 possession of power, the Caliphs sought to infuse 
 vigour into their effeminate armies, by a mixture of 
 fierce and hardy Turks. Adventurers of that nation 
 were raised to the command of armies, and of 
 provinces ; and a guard of Turkish soldiers was 
 appointed to surround the person of the monarch. 
 When weakness was felt at the centre of the 
 empire ; the usurpation of independence by the 
 
 1 Polyb. Hist. lib. x. ; M. de Guigncs, Hist, des Huns, torn. ii. ; Gib- 
 bon's Roman Empire, iv. 367. 
 
 * The rise and progress of the power of the Turkish horde may be col- 
 lected from Abulghazi, Hist. Genealopique des Tartars ; De Guignes, 
 Hist, des Huns; and D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. Mr. Gibbon, yii. 
 284, throws a glance at the leading facts.
 
 TARTAR INVASIONS. 243 
 
 governors of the distant provinces was a natural BOOK in 
 result. The first, by whom this usurpation was 
 attempted, was Taher, Governor of Khorasan, the 
 province extending from the Caspian Sea to the 
 Oxus. He and his posterity, under the title of Tahe- 
 rites, enjoyed sovereignty in that province from the 
 year 813 to the year 872. The son of a brazier, 
 called in Arabian, Soffar, who rose (a common occur- 
 rence in the East) through the different stages of 
 military adventure, to be the head and captain of an 
 army, supplanted the Taherites, and substituted his 
 own family, called from their origin Soffarides, in 
 the government of Khorasan and Transoxiana. The 
 Soffarides were displaced by a similar adventurer, 
 who established the house of the Samanides, after a 
 period, according to the varying accounts, of either 
 thirty-four or fifty-seven years, from the elevation of 
 the Brazier. The Samanides are celebrated by the 
 Persian historians for their love of justice and learn- 
 ing ; they extended their sway over the eastern 
 provinces of Persia, from the Jaxartes to the Indus, 
 and reigned till after the year 1000 of the Christian 
 era. 1 
 
 The Taherites, the Soffarides, and Samanides 
 usurped only the eastern provinces of the empire of 
 the Caliphs, the provinces which, being the nearest 
 to the turbulent and warlike tribes of shepherds, and 
 most exposed to their incursions, were of the least 
 importance to the sovereigns of Persia. Three ad- 
 venturers, brothers, called, from the name of their 
 father, the Bowides, rose to power in the provinces 
 
 1 See D'Herbelot. Biblioth. Orient, ad verb. Thaher, Soffar, et Saman ; 
 Gibbon, x. 80 ; De Guignes, Hist, des Huns, i. 404406. 
 
 R 2
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 extending westward from Khorasan, along the shores 
 of the Caspian Sea, about the year 315 of the 
 Hegira, or 927 of Christ. This dynasty consisted 
 of seventeen successive and powerful princes, who 
 reigned till the year 1056. They conquered the 
 provinces of Gilan, Mazenderan, Erak, Fars, Kerman, 
 Khosistan, Ahvaz, Tabarestan, and Georgian ; and 
 rendered themselves masters of the Caliphs, to 
 whom they left only a shadow of authority. 1 
 
 About the year of Christ 967, Subuctagi, a ser- 
 vant of the Samanides, was appointed governor of 
 the Indian province of Candahar, or Ghazna, as it 
 is called by the Persian writers ; from the name of 
 the capital Ghizni. Having raised himself from the 
 condition of a Turkish slave to such a degree of 
 power as made it dangerous to recall him from his 
 government, he left it to his son Mahmood, who 
 asserted his independence ; and founded the dynasty 
 of the Ghaznevides. Mahmood subverted the throne 
 of the Samanides, reduced to a shadow the power 
 of the Bowides, and reigned from the Tigris 2 to the 
 Jaxartes. He also made extensive conquests 
 towards the south ; and, as he was the first who in 
 that direction bore the crescent beyond the farthest 
 limits of the Persian empire, and laid the foundation 
 of the Mohammedan thrones in India, we are now 
 arrived at the period when the Mohammedan History 
 of India begins. 3 
 
 The northern provinces of India, Cabul, Canda- 
 
 1 D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, ad verb. Buiah. 
 
 * This is not quite correct. Mahmood was content with the province 
 of Khorasan in Persia. W. 
 
 3 D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, adverb. Sebecteghen, Mahmoud, Gaz- 
 naviah ; Ferishta, by Dow, i. 41, 2d Ed. in 4to.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN INVASIONS. 245 
 
 bar, Multan, and the Punjab, appear, from the days BOOK in 
 
 of Darius Hystaspes, to have followed the destiny of 
 
 Bactria, Khorasan, and Transoxiana, the eastern 
 appendages of Persia, and, excepting some short 
 intervals, to have been always subject to a foreign 
 yoke. Even the White Huns, who established 
 themselves in Sogdiana, on the river Oxus, and in 
 Bactria, about the end of the first century of the 
 Christian era, advanced into India, and in the second 
 century were masters as far as Larice or Guzerat. 1 
 Mahmood was already master of the dominions of the 
 Samanides, and of all the eastern provinces that had 
 occasionally owned allegiance to the Persian throne ; 
 when he first, says the Persian historian, " turned his 
 face to India." This expedition, of which the year 
 1000 of the Christian era is assigned as the date, 
 seems to have been solely intended to confirm or 
 restore the obedience of the governors who had sub- 
 mitted to his father, or been accustomed to obey 
 the masters of Eastern Persia ; and few of its par- 
 ticulars have been thought worthy of record. He 
 renewed his invasion the succeeding year ; and pro- 
 ceeded so far as to alarm a prince who reigned at 
 Lahore ; a city, on one of the most eastern branches 
 of the Indus, which gave its name to a small king- 
 dom. This prince, called by the Persian historians 
 Jeipal, or Gepal, met him, with his whole army, and 
 was defeated. It was, according to the same his- 
 torians, a custom or law of the Hindus, that a prince, 
 
 1 The origin and progress of the Indo-Scythse are traced in D'Anville 
 sur PInde, p. 18, 45, and 69, &c. His authorities are drawn from Dionys. 
 Pericget. 1088, with the Commentary of Eustathius, and Cosmas, Topo- 
 graph. Christ, lib. ix.
 
 246 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in twice defeated by Mohammedan arms, was unworthy 
 
 CHAP. I. * 
 
 to reign ; and as this misfortune had happened to 
 Jeipal, who had formerly yielded to Subuctagi, he 
 resigned the throne to his son Anundpaul, and burnt 
 himself alive in solemn state. 1 
 
 In the year 1004 Mahmood again marched into 
 India to chastise, for defect of duty, a tributary prince 
 on the Indus. His presence was still more urgently 
 required the following year; when the king of Mul- 
 tan revolted, and was joined by Anundpaul. Mah- 
 mood was met by Anundpaul as he was descending 
 through the pass in the intervening mountains. 
 Anundpaul was conquered and obliged to fly into 
 Cashmere : when the king of Multan endeavoured, 
 by submission, to save what he could. As Mahmood 
 had received intelligence that a body of Tartars had 
 invaded his northern provinces, he was the more easily 
 softened; and leaving Zab Sais, 2 a Hindu who had 
 embraced the Mohammedan religion, his lieutenant, or 
 governor in India, marched to repel the invaders. 3 
 
 During this expedition against the Tartars, Zab 
 Sais revolted; resumed the Brahmenical faith; and 
 was on the point of being joined by a confederacy of 
 Rajas, or Hindu sovereigns, when Mahmood hastened 
 back to India, took Zab Sais unprepared, and made 
 him prisoner for life; after which, the season being 
 far advanced, he returned to Ghizni. Early, how- 
 ever, in the following spring, some movements of 
 
 1 Ferishta, (apud. Dow, Hist, of Hindost. i. 40 42;) D'Herbelot, 
 Bibl. Orient, ad verb. Mahmoud. 
 
 * This name is omitted in Col. Briggs's translation of Ferishta, and the 
 M.SS. give it variously as Ab-sa or Ab-basa ; the Hindu appellation is 
 written Sewak-pal, or Sikh-pal. W. 
 
 3 Ferishta, ut supra, p. 42 44; D'Herbelot, ut supra.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN INVASIONS. 247 
 
 Ammdpaul recalled him to India, when the princes BOOKIII 
 
 A _ CHAT. 1. 
 
 ofOogeen, Gualior, Callinger, Kanoge, Delhi Aj mere, 
 
 the Guick\vars. and others, joined their forces to op- 
 pose him. A general battle was fought, in which the 
 Ghiznian monarch prevailed. He then reduced the 
 fort of Nagracote or Nagarcote ; and, having plun- 
 dered the temple of its riches, very great, as we are 
 told, returned to his capital. As the king of Multan 
 still continued refractory, Mahmood returned to that 
 province in the following year, and having taken the 
 Raja prisoner, carried him to Ghizni, where he 
 confined him for life. l 
 
 In the year 402.- the passion of war," says the 
 historian, ' fermenting in the mind of Mahmood, 
 he resolved upon the conquest of Tannasar or Tahne- 
 sir, a city about thirty coss north-west from Delhi; 
 the seat of a considerable government; famous for its 
 sanctity and subservience to the Brahmenical religion. 
 Having taken Tannasar. and demolished the idols, he 
 marched to Delhi; which he quickly reduced; and 
 thence returned with vast riches.'' 3 
 
 Two years afterwards, he drove from his dominions 
 the king of Lahore, and overran Cashmere, compel- 
 ling the inhabitants to acknowledge the prophet. 4 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1018, the Sultan 
 (Mahmood was the first on whom that title was be- 
 stowed) with a large army, raised chiefly among the 
 tribes who possessed, or bordered upon, the northern 
 provinces of his empire, marched against Kanoge, 
 
 1 Fcrishta, ut supra, p. 47 50; D'Herbelot ut supra. 
 *- Viz. of the Hesrira; 1011.. A. U. 
 
 ' Fcrishta, ut supra, p. 51 58 ; D'Herbi/lot, ut supra. 
 4 The chronicles of Kashmir take no notice of this event. Essay on the 
 History of Kashmir. As. Res. vol. xv. W.
 
 248 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 the capital of a kingdom, situated on the Ganges, 
 about 100 miles south-east from Delhi. 1 " From the 
 time of Gustasp the father of Darab, to this pe- 
 riod, this city (says the Persian historian) had not 
 been visited by any foreign enemy; three months 
 were necessary to complete the march between this 
 kingdom and the capital of Mahmood; and seven 
 mighty streams rushed across the intervening space." 
 The conqueror having with much difficulty forced a 
 passage through the mountains by the way of Cash- 
 mere, arrived at Kanoge, before the Raja was pre- 
 pared for resistance. Placing his only hopes in sub- 
 mission, he threw himself upon the mercy of the in- 
 vader. The magnitude and grandeur of the city is 
 celebrated in poetic strains by the Persian historians. 
 Mahmood, remaining but three days, proceeded 
 against a neighbouring prince inhabiting a city called 
 Merat; thence to another city, on the Jumna, named 
 Mavin, and next to Muttra, which is still a city of 
 considerable extent, at a small distance from Agra. 
 This last city was full of temples and idols, which 
 Mahmood plundered and destroyed ; and from which, 
 according to the usual story, he obtained incredible 
 treasure. Several other forts and Rajas being sub- 
 dued, Mahmood returned from his eighth expedition 
 into India, laden, we are told, with riches; and began 
 to adorn and improve his capital. He built a mosque, 
 so beautiful and magnificent, that it was called the 
 Celestial Bride, and " struck every beholder with 
 
 1 It may be necessary once for all to state, that in this sketch of Mo- 
 hammedan history, the distances are given generally as in the native histo- 
 rians. Their very inaccuracies (here they do not mislead) are sources of 
 information.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN INVASIONS. 249 
 
 astonishment and pleasure. In the neighbourhood BOOKIn 
 
 * ... CHAP. i. 
 
 of this mosque he founded an university, which he 
 
 furnished with a vast collection of curious books, in 
 various languages: and with natural and artificial 
 curiosities. He appropriated a sufficient fund for 
 the maintenance of the students, and the learned 
 men who were appointed to instruct the youth in 
 the sciences." 1 
 
 Mahmood's ninth expedition, in 1021, was for the 
 purpose of protecting the Rajah of Kanoge, who now 
 held the rank of one of his dependants. The Rajah 
 of Callinger, a city in the province of Bundelcund, 
 situated on one of the rivers which fall into the Jum- 
 na, was the most guilty of the assailants. As the 
 Raja avoided Mahmood in the field, he plundered 
 and laid waste the country, and, this done, returned 
 to his capital. 
 
 Here he had not reposed many days, when he was 
 informed that two districts on the borders of Hindu- 
 stan refused to acknowledge the true prophet, and 
 continued the worship of lions. 2 The zeal of the 
 
 1 D'Herbelot, ut supra ; p. 56 60. Ferishta says, that the taste of the 
 sovereign for architecture being followed by his nobles, Ghizui soon be- 
 came the finest city in the East, Ibid. p. 60. So that the grandeur, and 
 riches, and beauty, he so lavishly ascribes to some of the Hindu cities, 
 get an object of comparison, which enables us to reduce them to their true 
 dimensions. The architecture of the Mohammedans was superior to that 
 of the Hindus. 
 
 4 This incorrect expression, which refers to the fourth avatar, shows 
 the carelessness and ignorance of Ferishta and the Persian historians, in 
 regard to the Brahmanical faith. M. It is probably some blunder of- the 
 copyists, unless the mistake have originated in a misconception of the 
 term ' Sinh,' in the name of Sakya Sinh, or Buddha, as its common 
 import is ' lion' ; in that case, ' Buddhists ' may be intended. In some 
 copies, the word is 'But' an idol in general. The countries are 
 called by Ferishta, Kuriat, and Nardein ; names not verifiable, and 
 probably inaccurate. They are said to be amongst the mountains, on
 
 250 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK } 11 religious sultan immediately took fire. Having 
 
 speedily brought to reason the disrespectful provinces, 
 
 he marched to Lahore, which he gave up to pillage. 
 According to custom, it afforded enormous riches. 
 Mohammedan governors were established in this and 
 several other districts of Hindustan. 
 
 The twelfth expedition of the Ghiznian monarch 
 was undertaken in the year 1024. He had heard 
 not only of the great riches and supposed sanctity of 
 the temple of Sumnaut, but of the presumption of its 
 priests, who had boasted that other places had yielded 
 to the power of Mahmood, by reason of their im- 
 piety ; but if he dared to approach Sumnaut, he 
 would assuredly meet the reward of his temerity. 
 Mahmood, having arrived at Multan, gave orders to 
 his army to provide themselves with water and other 
 necessaries for crossing a desert of several days' 
 march, which lay between this city and Ajmere. 
 The Raja and people of Ajmere abandoned the 
 place at his approach. They were invited to return, 
 and experience the clemency of the victor ; but not 
 complying, beheld their country desolated with fire 
 and sword. Arrived at Sumnaut, which was a strong 
 castle, situated on the promontory of Guzerat, near 
 the city of Diu, 1 washed on three sides by the sea, 
 Mahmood met with a more serious resistance than 
 any which he had yet encountered in Hindustan. 
 Not only did the priests and guardians of the temple 
 
 the borders of India, betweeen it and Turkestan, and were possibly in the 
 direction of the modern Kaferistan, or little Tibet. W. 
 
 1 D'Herbelot, misled by some of the Persian historians, makes Sum- 
 naut the same with the city of Visiaporc in Dcccan. Biblioth. Orient. 
 ad vsrbum Soumenat.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN INVASIONS. 251 
 
 defend it with all the obstinacy of enthusiasm and BOOK in 
 
 . CHAP. 1. 
 
 despair ; but a large army collected in the surround- 
 
 ing kingdoms was brought to its defence. Having 
 triumphed over all resistance, the religious sultan 
 entered the temple. Filled with indignation at sight 
 of the gigantic idol, he aimed a blow at its head, 
 with his iron mace. The nose was struck from its 
 face. In vehement trepidation the Brahmens crowded 
 around, and offered millions, 1 to spare the god. The 
 Omrahs dazzled with the ransom ventured to counsel 
 acceptance. Mahmood, crying out that he valued 
 the title of breaker, not seller of idols, gave orders to 
 proceed with the work of destruction. At the next 
 blow, the belly of the idol burst open : and forth 
 issued a vast treasure of diamonds, rubies, and pearls ; 
 rewarding the holy perseverance of Mahmood, and 
 explaining the devout liberality of the Brahmens. 2 
 
 1 Ferishta says "some crores of gold." Dow says in a note, at the 
 bottom of the page, " ten millions," -which is the explanation of the word 
 crore. Mr. Gibbon says, rashly and carelessly, that the sum offered by the 
 Brahmens was ten millions sterling. Decl. and Fall. x. 337. 
 
 * The whole story of Mahmood's destruction of Somnath, is a curious 
 specimen of the manner in which a story is embellished by repetition. 
 According to earlier Mohammedan writers, the idol Somnath, was a 
 straight solid block of stone, three cubits long ; which, upon the temple 
 being pillaged, was broken to pieces : they say nothing of the mutilation 
 of its features, for, in fact, it had none : nothing of the treasures it con- 
 tained ; which, as it was solid, could not have been within it ; nor do they 
 speak of the sums offered for its ransom. Rozet-as-Safa, Tabkat Akberi. 
 Even Ferishta says nothing of any definite sum of money being offered for 
 it. His words are, the Brahmans went to the attendants of Mahmood, 
 and said, if the king will let the image alone, we will give as much gold, 
 meaning, probably, an equal weight, to the public treasury. The crores 
 and millions are due to Dow and Gibbon. Ferishta, however, invents 
 the hidden treasure of rubies and pearls with quite as little warrant. 
 Somnath was, in fact, a Linga, a Nath, or deity ascribed to Soma, the 
 moon, as having been erected by him in honour of Siva. It was one of 
 the twelve principal types of that deity, which were celebrated in India at
 
 252 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii i After this Mahmood took vengeance on the rajas 
 
 CHAP. 1. D 
 
 who had confederated to defend the temple, and 
 
 reduced all Guzerat to his obedience. It is said 
 that he was so captivated with the beauty of the 
 country, the richness of the soil, and the salubrity of 
 the climate, that he conceived the design of making 
 it the place of his residence, and resigning Ghizni to 
 one of his sons. Diverted from this design by the 
 counsels of his friends, he placed a Hindu governor 
 over the province, and after an absence of two years 
 and six months returned to Ghizni. A people whom 
 the translator of Ferishta calls the Jits, afterwards 
 better known under the name of Jaats, who inhabited 
 part of the country bordering on the Indus, southward 
 from Multan, either failed in respect, or gave mo- 
 lestation, as he marched from Guzerat. Returning 
 in the same year to chastise them, he defeated 4000 
 or 8000 (so wide are the accounts) of their boats, 
 launched on the river to defend an island to which, 
 as the place of greatest safety, they had conveyed the 
 most valuable of their effects, and the most cherished 
 of their people. 1 This was the last of the exploits of 
 Mahmood in India, who died at Ghizni in the year 
 1028. Mahmood, the son of Subuctagi the Turkish 
 slave, is one of the most celebrated of eastern princes. 
 He was supposed to possess in the highest perfection 
 almost every royal virtue. He patronized learning, 
 and encouraged the resort of learned men. Ferdosi, 
 
 the time of the first Mohammedan invasion. -Nandi Upapurana. See 
 Calcutta, Annual Register, 1821. Tracts, p. 34, and As. Res. vol. xvii., 
 p. 194. 
 
 1 Ferishta apud Dow, Mahmood I.; D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient, ad verb. 
 Makmoud.
 
 GHAZNEVIDE DYNASTY. 253 
 
 the author of the Shah Namah, the most celebrated BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 1. 
 
 poem of the East, was entertained at his court. 
 
 After a short contest between Mohammed and 
 Musaood, the sons of Mahmood, Musaood mounted 
 the throne of Ghizni, and the eyes of Mohammed 
 were put out. Musaood entered India three times, 
 during the nine years of his reign ; and left the 
 boundaries of the Ghaznevide dominions there in 
 the situation nearly in which he received them. His 
 first incursion was in the year 1032, when he pene- 
 trated by the way of Cashmere ; and his only memo- 
 rable exploit was the capture of the fort of Sursutti, 
 which commanded the pass. In 1034, he sent an 
 army which chastised a disobedient viceroy. And in 
 1035, he marched in person to reduce Sewalik, a 
 kingdom or rajaship lying at the bottom of the 
 mountains near the place where the Ganges descends 
 upon the Indian plains. He assailed the capital, of 
 great imputed strength; took it in six days; and 
 found in it incredible riches. From this he proceeded 
 against the fort of Sunput, a place about forty miles 
 distant from Delhi on the road to Lahore, the go- 
 vernor of which abandoned it upon his approach, and 
 fled into the woods. He proposed to march against 
 another prince, called Ram; but Ram, understand- 
 ing his intentions, endeavoured to divert the storm 
 by gifts and compliments, and had the good fortune 
 to succeed. Musaood was recalled from India to 
 oppose an enemy, destined to render short the splen- 
 dour of the house of Ghizni. 
 
 During several centuries, the movements westward 
 of the hordes of Turkmans had been accumulating 
 that people upon the barriers of the Persian empire.
 
 254 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in j n the reign of Mahmood, three brothers, sons of 
 
 CHAP. 1. 
 
 Seljuk, solicited permission to pass the Oxus, with 
 their flocks and herds, and to enjoy the unoccupied 
 pastures of Khorasan. Mahmood, disregarding the 
 advice of his best counsellors, granted their re- 
 quest. The example set, the number of Tartars in 
 Transoxiana and Chorasan continually increased. 
 During the vigilant and vigorous reign of Mahmood 
 the Turks behaved so much like peaceable subjects, 
 that no complaint against them seems to have been 
 raised. But in the days of his son and successor 
 Musaood, the inhabitants of Khorasan and Trans- 
 oxiana complained that they were oppressed by the 
 strangers, and Musaood at last resolved to drive 
 them back from his dominions. Togrul Beg, how- 
 ever, the son of Michael, the son of Seljuk, offered 
 himself as a leader and a bond of union to the Turks ; 
 opposed Musaood ; triumphed over him in the field ; 
 rendered himself master of the northern provinces of 
 his empire, and established the dynasty of the Selju- 
 kides. Having baffled the power of the Sultan of 
 Ghizni, Togrul found nothing remaining to oppose 
 to him any serious resistance, from the Oxus to 
 the Euphrates ; he extinguished the remaining sparks 
 of the power of the Bowides ; and took the Caliph 
 under his protection. Togrul was succeeded by his 
 nephew Alp Arslan, and the latter by his son Malek 
 Shah; both celebrated warriors, who pushed the 
 limits of their empire beyond the Euphrates and the 
 Jaxartes, and made deep inroads upon the Roman 
 provinces and the Tartar plains. The provinces of 
 Zabulistan or Candahar, of Segistan, or Seistan, and 
 Cabul, with the provinces in India beyond the
 
 GHAZNEVIDE DYNASTY. 255 
 
 Hydaspes, were all that at last remained to 
 
 J CHAP.l. 
 
 Ghaznevides. _ 
 
 Musaood, returning from the defeat which he, 
 deserted by his troops, had sustained at the hand of 
 the Turkmans, and hastening to India to recruit his 
 forces, was deposed by a mutiny in the army, and 
 his brother Mohammed, whose eyes he had put out, 
 was placed upon the throne. Modood, the son of 
 Musaood, who had been left by his father with an 
 army at Balkh marched against Mohammed, whom 
 he dethroned. Modood made some efforts against 
 the Seljukians, and for a time recovered Transoxiana. 
 But the feebleness and distraction now apparent in 
 the empire of the Ghaznevides encouraged the Raja 
 of Delhi, in consort with some other rajas, to hazard 
 an insurrection. They reduced Tannasar, Hansi the 
 capital of Sewalik, and even the fort of Nagracote. 
 The Rajas of the Punjab endeavoured to recover 
 their independence ; and the Mohammedan dominion 
 was threatened with destruction. 
 
 In the year 1049 Modood died ; and a rapid 
 change of princes succeeded, violently raised to the 
 throne, and violently thrown down from it. His 
 son Musaood, a child of four years old, was set up by 
 one general ; and, after a nominal reign of six days 
 gave place to AH, the brother of Modood, who was 
 supported by another. Ali reigned about two years, 
 when he was dethroned by Abdul Reshid, his uncle, 
 son of the great Mahmood. Togrul, governor of 
 Segistan, rebelled against Reshid, and slew him after 
 reigning one year. Togrul himself was assassinated 
 after he had enjoyed his usurpation but forty days. 
 Furokhzad, a yet surviving son of Musaood, was
 
 256 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 u? i" ^ en ra i se d to tne throne, who, dying after a peaceable 
 
 reign of six years, was succeeded by his brother 
 
 Ibrahim. 
 
 Ibrahim reigned a period of no less than forty-two 
 years. After he had terminated his disputes with 
 the dangerous Seljukians, by resigning to them all 
 the provinces they had usurped of the Ghaznevide 
 empire, he directed his ambition towards India. An 
 army which he despatched into that country is said 
 to have reduced to his obedience many places which 
 had not yet yielded to the Moslem arms. In the 
 year 1080, he marched in person ; and by the suc- 
 cessful attack of several places of strength, added the 
 territory they protected to his dominions. 1 Against 
 the house of Seljuk, now reigning over Persia, Khora- 
 san, and Bucharia, the latter comprehending the 
 ancient provinces or kingdoms of Bactria, Sogdiana, 
 and Transoxiana, he found protection chiefly by 
 intermarriages and alliance. 
 
 Ibrahim was succeeded by his son Musaood, who 
 enjoyed a peaceable reign of sixteen years. With 
 the exception of one expedition, under one of his 
 generals, who penetrated beyond the Ganges, India 
 remained unmolested by his arms. But as the 
 Indian provinces now formed the chief portion of 
 his dominions, Lahore became the principal seat of 
 his government. 
 
 His son Shere, says the Persian historian, " placed 
 his foot on the imperial throne ; but within a year 
 
 1 Ferislita mentions a city to which he came (the place not intelligibly 
 marked,) the inhabitants of which came originally from Khorasan, having 
 been banished thither with their families, for rebellion, by an ancient 
 Persian king. See Ferishta, Dow, i. 117.
 
 GHAZNEVIDE DYNASTY. 257 
 
 was assassinated by his brother Arsilla." Byram, one B OK ni 
 
 of the brothers of Arsilla, made his escape ; and fled 
 
 to the governor of Khorasan, who was brother to 
 the king of Persia, and to his own, and Arsilla's 
 mother. By the assistance of this prince, his uncle, 
 who marched with an army to his support, he 
 dethroned Arsilla, and assumed the reins of govern- 
 ment, which had been held by the usurper for three 
 years. 
 
 Byram, or Bahram, was twice called into India, 
 by the disobedience of the governor of Lahore, who 
 aspired to independence. But he had no sooner settled 
 this disturbance, than he was called to oppose the 
 governor of another of his provinces, whose rebellion 
 was attended with more fatal consequences. A 
 range of mountainous country, known by the name 
 of the mountains of Gaur, occupies the space between 
 the province of Khorasan and Bactria on the west 
 and north, and the provinces of Segistan, Candahar, 
 and Cabul on the south. The mountaineers of this 
 district, a wild and warlike race, had hardly ever 
 paid more than a nominal obedience to the sovereigns 
 of Persia. The district,, however, had been included 
 in the dominions of the Sultans of Ghizni; and had 
 not yet been detached by the Seljukian encroach- 
 ments. In the days of Byram, a descendant of the 
 ancient princes of the country, Souri by name, was 
 governor of the province. Finding himself possessed 
 of power to aim at independence, he raised an army 
 of Afghans, such is the name (famous in the his- 
 tory of India) by which the mountaineers of Gaur 
 are distinguished, and chased Byram from his capital 
 of Ghizni. Byram, however, having collected and 
 
 VOL. II. S
 
 258 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in recruited his army, inarched against his enemy, and 
 
 aided by his subjects of Ghizni, who deceived and 
 
 betrayed their new master, gained a complete vic- 
 tory, and put the Gaurian to a cruel death. The 
 power which he gained was but of short duration. 
 Alia, the brother of Souri, who succeeded him in 
 his usurped dominion, hastened to repair his loss. 
 Byram was defeated in a decisive battle, and fled 
 towards India ; but sunk under his misfortunes, and 
 expired, after a languid, but gentle reign of thirty- 
 five years. 
 
 He was succeeded by his son Khosroo, who with- 
 drew to India, and made Lahore his capital. This 
 prince cherished the hope of recovering the lost 
 dominions of his house from the Gaurian usurper, by 
 aid from his kinsman, the king of Persia ; and col- 
 lected an army for that purpose : but at this moment 
 a fresh horde of Turkman Tartars rushed upon the 
 Persian provinces, and inundated even Cabul and 
 Candahar, from which the Gaurians were obliged to 
 retire. The Turks, after two years' possession, were 
 expelled by the Gaurians. The Gaurians were 
 again defeated by the arms of Khosroo, and yielded 
 up the temporary possession of Ghizni to its former 
 masters. Khosroo continued to reside at Lahore, and, 
 having died after a reign of seven years, was suc- 
 ceeded by his son Khosroo the Second. 
 
 Mohammed, brother to the Gaurian usurper, pur- 
 sued the same ambitious career. He soon rendered 
 himself master of the kingdom of Ghizni or Canda- 
 har ; and not satisfied with that success, penetrated 
 even into India ; overran Multan, with the provinces 
 on both sides of the Indus ; and advanced as far as
 
 GHAZNEVIDE DYNASTY. 259 
 
 Lahore. After an uninteresting struggle of a few B o K m 
 
 years, Khosroo was subdued; and in the year 1184 
 
 the sceptre was transferred from the house of Ghizni 
 to the house of Gaur. The same era which was 
 marked by the fall of the Ghaznevides, was distin- 
 guished by the reduction of the house of Seljuk. 
 The weakness and effeminacy which, after the vigour 
 and ability of the founders of a new dynasty, uni- 
 formly take place among the princes their successors, 
 having relaxed the springs of the Seljukian govern- 
 ment, the subordinate governors threw off their de- 
 pendence ; and a small portion of the dominions of 
 Malek now owned the authority of Togril his de- 
 scendant. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 From the Commencement of the first Gaurian 
 Dynasty to that of the second Gaurian or 
 Afghan Dynasty. 
 
 MOHAMMED left the government of India after the 
 defeat and death of Khosroo, in the hands of a vice- 
 roy, and returned to Ghizni. After an absence of 
 five years, he marched towards Ajmere; and, having 
 taken the city of Tiberhind, is said to have been on 
 his way back, when he heard that the Rajas of 
 Ajmere and Delhi, with others in confederacy, were 
 
 S 2
 
 260 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 B pOK.m advancing with a large army to relieve the city which 
 
 he had just taken and left. He turned and met them 
 
 119 - a little beyond Tannasar. Having incautiously al- 
 lowed his army to be surrounded by superior numbers, 
 he was defeated, and, being severely wounded, escaped 
 with great difficulty from the field of battle. He 
 took such measures, as the moment allowed, to secure 
 his provinces and forts, and hastened to Gaur. 
 
 After little more than a year he was prepared to 
 return to India with a formidable army of Turks, 
 Persians, and Afghans. The combined Rajas had 
 consumed their time in the siege of Tiberhind, which 
 had resisted them for one year and one month. No 
 fewer, it is said, than 150 kings, with their armies, 
 amounting, by " the lowest and most moderate 
 account, to 300,000 horse, 3000 elephants, and 
 a great body of infantry," met him on the former 
 field of battle. The Rajas sent him an insulting 
 proposal that he might be permitted to march back 
 unmolested, if he had the prudence to decline the 
 combat. Mohammed had learned wisdom from expe- 
 rience. Sending an humble answer, that he was 
 only the servant of his brother, bound to execute his 
 commands, and praying for time, to learn the will of 
 his master; he filled the Rajas, and their enormous 
 camp, with an ill-grounded and intemperate presump- 
 tion. While they were spending the night in revelling 
 and joy. Mohammed crossed the river with his army, 
 and fell upon them before the alarm was spread. 
 The extent of the camp was so great, that a part of 
 the army had time to form itself and advance to cover 
 the flight. Mohammed immediately drew off his troops 
 to meet them, Forming a strong reserve of his chosen
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 261 
 
 I 
 
 horse, he ordered the rest of his army, drawn up in BOOK HI 
 
 CHAP. . 
 
 four lines, to receive the enemy calmly. The first 
 
 line, having discharged its missile weapons, was made 1192 - 
 to withdraw to the rear; the next, coming in front, 
 discharged in like manner its weapons, and in like 
 manner gave place to another. By this stratagem 
 were the enemy held in play, " till the sun was ap- 
 proaching the west," when Mohammed, placinghimself 
 at the head of his reserve, rushed upon the fatigued 
 and now presumptuous multitude; who were imme- 
 diately thrown into the greatest disorder, and " re- 
 coiled, like a troubled torrent, from the bloody plain." 
 Shortly after this event Mohammed returned to 
 Ghizni, leaving the fruits of the victory to be gathered 
 and secured by his favourite general, Koottub. The 
 events of this man's life, though far from singular 
 in the East, involved extraordinary changes of condi- 
 tion and fortune. In his childhood, he was brought 
 from Turkestan to Nishapore, the capital of Khorasan, 
 and there sold for a slave. It happened that the 
 master by whom he was bought had the disposition 
 to give him education, and that the quickness of his 
 parts enabled him to profit by this advantage. The 
 death of his patron, however, exposed him once more 
 to the chance of the market; which fortunately as- 
 signed him to Mohammed the Gaurian. His intel- 
 ligence and assiduity attracted in time the notice of 
 the Prince. He advanced by gradual accessions of 
 favour, till he rose to be Master of the Horse. Even 
 misfortune, though he lost a detachment of men, and 
 was taken prisoner by the enemy, did not lose him 
 the kindness of Mohammed: or interrupt the career of 
 his promotion.
 
 262 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Koottub improved, with diligence and ability, the 
 advantages which his master had gained in India. 
 He reduced the surrounding districts ; took the fort 
 of Herat ; and invested Delhi. The garrison ven- 
 tured to meet him in the field. He vanquished 
 them ; and, surmounting all opposition, obtained 
 possession of the city. 
 
 Mohammed returned to India in 1193. Koottub 
 was received with the highest marks of distinction ; 
 and being honoured with the command of the van of 
 the army, he conquered the raja of Benares ; where 
 Mohammed destroyed innumerable idols, and ob- 
 tained, of course, incalculable riches. The whole 
 country submitted, to the confines of Bengal. 
 
 Upon the return of Mohammed to Ghizni, Koottub 
 was declared his adopted son, and confirmed in the 
 government of India. By various expeditions, he 
 chastised repeatedly the refractory rajas of Ajmere 
 and Guzerat ; took the cities of Calinger and Kalpy, 
 with their respective territories ; and at last made 
 himself master of the forts of Biana and Gualior. 
 
 In the year 1202, Mohammed was excited to try 
 his fortune for a share in the dismemberment of the 
 Seljukian empire. Among the provinces of which 
 the governors had thrown off their dependence upon 
 the Seljukian princes, that of Kharism, on the 
 eastern side of the Caspian Sea, had risen to the 
 rank of an independent kingdom, under a race of 
 princes known by the name of the Kharismian 
 dynasty. Against Takash, the reigning sovereign 
 of this kingdom,Mohammedled an army. But Osman, 
 a Tartar chief, who had assumed the rank of sove- 
 reign in another part of Transoxiana, and had
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 263 
 
 Samarcand for his capital, marched to the assistance BOOK in 
 of Takash ; Mohammed sustained a total defeat ; and ' 
 was fain, by a great ransom, to purchase return to 12 2 - 
 his own country. Intelligence of his defeat was to 
 his servants the signal for revolt. His slave Ildekuz, 
 having assumed supremacy in his capital of Ghizni, 
 refused him admittance. He continued his route to 
 Multan, where another of his servants took arms 
 against him. Being joined by many of his friends, 
 he gave the traitor battle, and obtained the victory. 
 He next collected such of his troops as were in the 
 contiguous provinces of India, and marched back to 
 Ghizni, where the rebellious slave was delivered up 
 by the inhabitants. 
 
 At the same time with the other rebellious at- 
 tempts, to which his defeat by the Kharismians had 
 given birth, a tribe of Indians, inhabiting .the coimtry 
 about the sources of the Indus from the Nilab or 
 western branch of that river upwards to the Sewalik 
 mountains ; called by the Persian historian, Gickers, 
 and by him described as a people excessively rude 
 and barbarous, putting their female children to death; 
 attempted the recovery of their independence, and 
 proceeded towards Lahore. Mohammed had no 
 sooner recovered his capital than he marched against 
 them; and Koottub at the same time advancing from 
 Delhi, they were attacked on both sides, and speedily 
 subdued. Mohammed was returning to Ghizni, 
 when he was murdered in his tent by two Gickers, 
 who penetrated thither in the night. 
 
 The death of Mohammed, who left no children, pro- 
 duced a contest for the succession, and a division of 
 the empire. Mahmood, his nephew, retained Gaur,
 
 264 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 f wn i cn he was governor, Eldoze, another governor, 
 took possession of Candahar and Cabul ; and 
 Koottub claimed the sovereignty of India. Eldoze 
 marched against him ; but was met and conquered. 
 Koottub, following up his victory, proceeded to Ghizni, 
 where he was crowned. He now resigned himself 
 to sloth and indulgence. Eldoze, who had retired 
 to Kirman, 1 his former province, obtained intelligence 
 of this degeneracy, and of the disgust to which it 
 had given birth. He raised an army, and surprised 
 Koottub, who withdrew to India, and made no effort 
 for the recovery of Ghizni ; but is celebrated for 
 having governed his Indian dominions with great 
 justice and moderation. During his administration, 
 Bahar and Bengal were added to the Mohammedan 
 dominions. 2 He died only four years after the death 
 of Mohammed, in 1210. Takash, the Kharismi'an, 
 who had extended his sway over almost the whole 
 of Persia, shortly after marched against Eldoze, and 
 added Ghizni, with all the possessions of the Gau- 
 rides, as far as the Indus, to his extensive empire. 
 
 Koottub was suceededby his son Aram; who prov- 
 ed unequal to the task of reigning. Multan and Sind 
 were seized upon by one chief; Bengal by another; 
 and in almost every province the standard of revolt 
 was raised, or preparing to be raised ; when the Om- 
 rahs of Delhi invitedAltumsh,the son-in-law of Koot- 
 tub, and governor of Budaoon, now the country of 
 the Rohillas, to ascend the throne. The reign of 
 Aram scarcely completed a year. 
 
 1 This is said by Ferishta, to be distinct from the province of Persia, 
 so called, and to designate a town between Ghizni and India. Briggs, 
 i. 152. W. 
 
 * Hist, of Bengal, by Charles Stewart, Esq. sect. iii.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 265 
 
 Altumsh, like Koottub, had been a slave from Tar- BOOK In 
 
 CHAP. 2. 
 
 tary ; but, being remarkable for the beauty of his 
 
 person, was thought by his master worthy of a good 1235> 
 education. He was sold to Koottub for a large sum, 
 and appointed master of the chase. He rapidly made 
 his way to great favour ; was at last married to the 
 daughter of his sovereign ; and declared his adopted 
 son. 
 
 Altumsh ascended not the throne in perfect tran- 
 quillity. Several of Koottub's generals aspired to im- 
 prove their fortune by resistance ; and Eldoze, being 
 driven from Ghizni by the arms of the Kharismian 
 monarch, made an effort to procure for himself a 
 sceptre in India. But Altumsh prevailed over all his 
 opponents ; and reigned from the mouths of the In- 
 dus to those of the Ganges. 
 
 This prince died in 1235, and was succeeded by 
 his son Feroze ; who appearing a weak and dissolute 
 prince, subservient to the cruel passions of his mother, 
 was soon deposed; and Sultana Ruzia, the eldest 
 daughter of Altumsh, was raised to the throne. 
 
 It is a rare combination of circumstances which, in 
 the East, places sovereign power in the hands of a wo- 
 man. Ruzia possessed manly talents and great vir- 
 tues. The idea, however, of the weakness of her sex, 
 encouraged the presumption of her deputies in the 
 various provinces. She contended with success 
 against more than one rebellious and usurping gover- 
 nor. But her difficulties continually increased ; and 
 at last a combination of the Omrahs set up her brother 
 Byram, as a competitor for the throne. She was 
 still able to meet the rebels with an army. But the 
 Turkish or Tartarian mercenaries in her brother's pay
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in were an overmatch for her Indian troops. She was 
 
 CHAP. _. A 
 
 -conquered and put to death, after a reign of three 
 1235 - years and six months. 
 
 Byram the Second, nursed in pleasure, and a stran- 
 ger to control, was a weak, imprudent prince. The 
 jealousies which he felt towards the great men in his 
 court, he sought to relieve by assassination. His 
 vizir, having escaped an intended blow, found means 
 to regain his confidence : and being placed at the head 
 of an army against the Moguls, he matured the dis- 
 satisfaction of the Omrahs, and, turning the army of 
 Byram against himself, dethroned and killed him, 
 about two years after he had ascended the throne. 
 
 It was during this reign that the Moguls, destined 
 to erect in India the greatest empire it had ever seen, 
 first penetrated into that country. Jangiz, the chief 
 of a tribe of Tartars, distinguished by the name of 
 Moguls, who roamed with their flocks and herds on 
 the northern side of the wall of China, formed, by 
 talents and good fortune, one of those combinations, 
 among different tribes of Tartars, which more than 
 once within the period of history had been witnessed 
 before; and never without extensive revolutions and 
 conquests. Partly by force, partly by intimidation, 
 partly by hopes of sharing in the advantages of con- 
 quest, Jangiz, about the year 1 21 0, was acknowledged 
 as Khan, by all the shepherd-hordes from the wall of 
 China to the Volga. The presumption and pride of 
 two such elevated neighbours as the emperor of China 
 and the new sovereign of Tartary, could not fail to 
 kindle the flames of war. Innumerable squadrons of 
 Tartars surmounted the unavailing rampart which
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 267 
 
 the Chinese had in former ages raised to exclude B c |f "' 
 
 them. Pekin was taken; and the northern provinces 
 
 of China were added to the empire of Jangiz. 
 
 About the same time a quarrel arose on the op- 
 posite side of his dominions. Mohammed was now 
 king of Kharism, which from a revolted province had 
 grown into the seat of a great empire, extending 
 from the borders of Arabia to those of Turkestan. 
 The monarch of so many provinces, which prided 
 themselves in their riches and the acquirements of 
 civilized life, made light, it seems, of the power of him 
 who ruled over multitudes, indeed, but of men who 
 had no riches except their cattle, and no cities except 
 their camps. An injury done to some of the subjects 
 of Jangiz, for which all reparation was haughtily re- 
 fused, first drew upon western Asia the fury of his 
 arms. Mohammed crossed the Jaxartes to meet his 
 enemy in the plains of Turkestan, with no less, it is 
 said, than four hundred thousand men. But these 
 were encountered by seven hundred thousand Tar- 
 tars, under Jangiz and his sons, who in the first 
 battle, which was suspended by the night, laid one 
 hundred and sixty thousand Kharismians dead upon 
 the field. 
 
 After this fatal blow, Mohammed expected to arrest 
 the progress of the victor, by throwing his troops into 
 the frontier towns. But the arms of Jangiz were 
 irresistible: the places of greatest strength were 
 obliged to surrender; and Kharism, Transoxiana, and 
 Khorasan, soon acknowledged the sovereignty of the 
 Mogul. He was withdrawn, by the wishes of his 
 troops, from the further prosecution of his conquests in
 
 268 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 the West ' and clie(1 in the y ear 1227 but left sons 
 
 and grandsons to copy the deeds of their progenitor. 
 In the year 1258, the conquest of Persia was con- 
 summated ; aud the last remains of the power of the 
 Caliphs and Seljukians trampled in the dust, 
 
 It was but an incursion which, in the year 1242, 
 the Moguls, during the reign of By ram II., made into 
 India : they plundered the country as far as Lahore, 
 and then retreated to Ghizni. 
 
 Upon the fall of Byram, the men in power thought 
 proper to take from his prison Musaood, the son of 
 Feroze, the late king, and set him upon the throne. 
 In the second year of his reign, an army of Mogul 
 Tartars made a descent into Bengal, by the way, says 
 Ferishta, of Chitta and Tibet. 1 They met, we are told, 
 with a total defeat. On the following year, however, 
 another army of the same people crossed the Indus; 
 but Musaood marching against them in force, they 
 were pleased to retire. Musaood, however, in a reign 
 of four years, had disgusted his nobles by his vices; 
 and made them bold, by his weakness, They com- 
 bined to call Mahmood his uncle to the throne, and 
 Musaood was thrown into prison for life. 
 
 1 This fact ; the passage of an army from Tartary, through Tibet, into 
 Bengal (if real) is of no small importance. Ferishta gives us no further 
 intelligence of the place ; and it is in vain to inquire. Chitta may perhaps 
 correspond with Kitta or Kitay, or Catay, which is one of the names of 
 China, but is also applied by the Persian historians to many parts of Tar- 
 tary ; to the country, for example, of the Igoors ; to the kingdom of Koteu, 
 south from Cashgar, &c. See D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, articles Igurs, 
 Cara Calhai, Tarikh Khatha, Kholan. Mr. Stewart, (See Hist, of Bengal, 
 p. 62,) says, that the invasion which is here spoken of by Ferishta, was an 
 invasion of Orissians only, not of Moguls. M. No confusion is made by 
 Ferishta. The events arc clearly quite distinct. There is nothing very 
 extraordinary in an incursion into India from Tibet, through Nepal. It 
 is not long since Nepal was invaded by a Chinese army. Kirkpatrick'* 
 Nepal. W.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 269 
 
 Mahmoocl II., upon the death of his father Altumsh, BOOK J- 11 
 
 . . . CHAP. 2. 
 
 had been consigned to a prison ; but there exhibited 
 
 some firmness of mind, by supporting himself with 1256 57 - 
 the fruits of his industry in copying books; while he 
 often remarked that "he who could not work for his 
 bread did not deserve it." He was released by his 
 predecessor Musaood, and received the government of 
 a province; in which he acted with so much vigour 
 and prudence, that the fame of his administration re- 
 commended him to the Omrahs, as the fittest person 
 to cover, with his power and authority, their rebel- 
 lious enterprise, 
 
 The infirm administration of the preceding princes 
 had introduced much disorder into the kingdom. 
 The tribes of Hindus, known by the name of Gickers, 
 a more active and enterprising race than the general 
 body of their countrymen, had been guilty of many 
 acts of insubordination and violence toward the Mo- 
 hammedan government and people, in the provinces 
 near the Indus. One of the first enterprises of 
 Mahmood, was to chastise this people ; many thou- 
 sands of whom he carried away into captivity. Of 
 the Omrahs, who had received Jagheers, or estates in 
 land, many declined or refused to furnish their quota 
 of troops for the army ; though it was for the main- 
 tenance of those troops, that the estates, says Ferishta, 
 were bestowed. The chiefs who infringed this con- 
 dition were carried prisoners to Delhi; and their sons, 
 or other relations, gifted with the estate. Some 
 places of strength, in the country lying between the 
 Jumna and the Ganges, were taken. A governor 
 of the Indus, who had rebelled, was reduced to obe- 
 dience, and received into favour. Shir, the king's
 
 270 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 2 nephew, viceroy of Lahore and Multan, expelled the 
 Moguls from Ghizni, and once more annexed that 
 kingdom to the Indian part of the Gaurian empire. 
 Mahmood fell into the error of disgusting his Omrahs, 
 by pampering a favourite; but recovered his authority, 
 by sacrificing, with a good grace, the author of his 
 danger. A fresh army of the Moguls crossed the 
 Indus in the year 1257; but retired upon the ap- 
 proach of Mahmood. In the following year, an am- 
 bassador, from Hallaku, the grandson of Jangiz, who 
 had just completed the conquest of Persia, arrived 
 at Delhi. The grandest possible display of the 
 power and wealth of the empire seems to have been 
 studied upon this occasion. To meet the represen- 
 tative of the conqueror, before whom Asia trembled, 
 the vizir went out at the head of 50,000 foreign 
 horse, two hundred thousand infantry, two thousand 
 elephants of war, and three thousand carriages of 
 fireworks. With this magnificent escort, the am- 
 bassador was conducted to the royal presence ; all 
 the officers, dignitaries, and dependants of the empire, 
 in gorgeous attire, surrounding the throne. This 
 appears to have been a message of peace; since 
 nothing of importance occurred, till the death of the 
 Shah, which happened in the year 1265. 
 
 This prince carried to the throne that contempt of 
 pleasure and show, and that simplicity of manners, 
 which he had learned in his adversity. " Contrary," 
 says Ferishta, " to the custom of princes, he kept no 
 concubines. He had but one wife, whom he obliged 
 to do every homely part of housewifery ; and when 
 she complained one day, that she had burned her 
 fingers in baking his bread, desiring he would allow
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 271 
 
 her a maid to assist her, he rejected her request, with B o K p 
 
 saying that he was only a trustee for the state, and 
 
 that he was determined not to burden it with need- 1265 - 
 less expenses. He therefore exhorted her to per- 
 severe in her duty with patience, and God would 
 reward her in the end. As the emperor of India 
 never eats in public, his table was rather that of a 
 hermit, than suitable to a great king. He also con- 
 tinued the whimsical notion of living by his pen. 
 One day, as an Omrah was inspecting a Koran, of the 
 emperor's writing, before him, he pointed out a 
 word, which he said was wrong. The king, look- 
 ing at it, smiled, and drew a circle round it. But 
 when the critic was gone, he began to erase the 
 circle and restore the word. This being observed 
 by one of his old attendants, he begged to know his 
 Majesty's reason for so doing ; to which he replied, 
 " that he knew the word was originally right, but he 
 thought it better to erase from a paper, than to touch 
 the heart of a poor man, by bringing him to shame." 
 Mahmood died without leaving any sons ; and his 
 vizir, Balin, who even in his life-time engrossed the 
 principal share of power, without opposition mounted 
 the throne. Balin was originally a Turk, of Chitta, 1 
 of the tribe of Alberi. He was taken, when very 
 young, by the Moguls who overran his country, and 
 sold to a slave-merchant who carried him to Bagdad. 
 
 1 The names of persons and places are carelessly and inaccurately 
 written in most of the MSS. of Ferishta, and Dow seems to have taken 
 little or no trouble in collating copies, and determining the preferable read- 
 ing. In this respect, the translation by Col. Briggs is much more exem- 
 plary. Accordingly, we find in this place, the name of the king, not Balin, 
 but Bulbun ; he was a Turk and a native of Kara-Khutta, part of Chinese 
 Tartary. W.
 
 272 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in The master into whose hands he fell, learning that 
 
 CHAP. 2. 
 
 he was a relation of Altumsh, who then reigned at 
 
 126570. Delhi, proceeded with him to that city, and presented 
 him to the monarch, who received him gladly, and 
 liberally rewarded his conductor. 
 
 A brother of Balm had already made his way to 
 the court of Delhi, and was considerably advanced in 
 the road of favour and power. The young adventurer 
 improved his advantages ; and rapidly ascended the 
 ladder of promotion. He took an active part in all 
 the revolutions which placed so many successors on 
 the throne. In the reign of Musaood he was raised 
 to the dignity of lord of requests ; and in that of 
 Mahmood obtained the vizirat. 
 
 The reign of Balin was severe ; but vigilant, clear- 
 sighted, and consistent. He punished disobedience 
 with rapidity and cruelty ; but he distinguished 
 talents with care, and rewarded services with dis- 
 cernment and generosity. The fame of his govern- 
 ment made his alliance be courted even by the Mogul 
 sovereigns who reigned over Tartary and Persia. 
 
 " He expelled," says Ferishta, " all flatterers, usurers, 
 pimps, and players, from his court; and being one 
 day told, that an Omrah, an old servant of the crown, 
 who had acquired a vast fortune by usury and mono- 
 poly in the bazaar or market, would present him with 
 some lacks of rupees, if he would honour him with 
 one word from the throne ; he rejected the proposal 
 with great disdain. What, he said, must his subjects 
 think of a king who should condescend to hold dis- 
 course with a wretch so infamous." As freedom of 
 bargain respecting interest on loans is exceptionable 
 on principles of superstition alone, Balin was possibly
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 273 
 
 mistaken in his instance, without being correct in BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 2. 
 
 his rule. The association of the king with persons 
 infamous by their vices, sheds no moral depravity 1270. 
 among the people, except in that proportion exactly 
 in which it sheds contempt upon the throne. 
 
 The generosity of Balin made his court the resort 
 and asylum of the various princes, whom the arms of 
 Jungiz and his successors had rendered fugitives from 
 their kingdoms. More than twenty of these .unfor- 
 tunate sovereigns, from Tartary, Transoxiana, Kho- 
 rasan, Persia, Irak, Azarbijan, Persia proper, Roum, 
 and Syria, among whom were two princes of the race 
 of the Caliphs, had allowances assigned them from 
 the revenues of Balin, with palaces, which took their 
 names from their possessors, and admission on all 
 public occasions to the presence and throne of their 
 benefactor. The most learned men from all Asia, 
 accompanying their respective princes, or seeking the 
 same asylum, were assembled at Delhi. " And the 
 court of India," says the historian," was, in the days 
 of Balin, reckoned the most polite and magnificent in 
 the world. All the philosophers, poets, and divines, 
 formed a society every night, at the house of the 
 prince Shehid, the heir apparent to the empire. An- 
 other society of musicians, dancers, mimics, players, 
 buffoons, and story-tellers, was constantly convened at 
 the house of the emperor's second son Kera, who was 
 given to pleasure and levity. The Omrahs followed 
 the example of their superiors, so that various societies 
 and clubs were formed in every quarter of the city." 
 
 The hills to the south-east of Delhi were inhabited 
 by Hindus, 1 who acted the part of banditti and plun- 
 
 1 They were not the people of the hills, but the inhabitants of the Do-ab, 
 VOL. II. T
 
 274 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 derers; and advanced, in numbers resembling an 
 -army, sometimes to the very walls of the capital. 
 im Balin ordered operations against them ; and they were 
 massacred without mercy. The soldiers, who carried 
 hatchets for the purpose, cut down, to the distance of 
 one hundred miles, the woods to which the robbers 
 retired. The cleared space proved excellent land ; 
 and was speedily peopled ; the inhabitants being 
 proteqted from the mountaineers by a line of forts 
 erected at the bottom of the hills. 
 
 The Shah gave considerable employment to his 
 army, in bridling the wild inhabitants of the moun- 
 tains near the centre of his dominions; but he 
 rejected the advice of his counsellors, to regain the 
 distant provinces of Malwa and Guzerat, which had 
 asserted their independence from the time of 
 Koottub ; l wisely observing, that the cloud of Mo- 
 guls, now gathered on his northern frontier, pre- 
 sented an oject of more serious and anxious regard. 
 
 His accomplished and philosophical son, Moham- 
 med Shehid, was appointed viceroy of the northern pro- 
 vinces, to hold in check those dangerous neighbours. 
 And he assembled around him the men, most emi- 
 nent for thought or action, whom the Asiatic world 
 at that time contained. 
 
 Argun, the grandson of Hallaku who subdued 
 Persia, and the fourth in descent from Jungiz, now 
 filled the throne of Persia ; and another descendant 
 
 and either bank of the Ganges below it ; as Bhojpoor and Benares ; an 
 active, vigorous, and courageous race of peasantry. Their numbers and 
 boldness at this period show that the Mohammedan authority was far 
 from established, even in the districts adjacent to the capital. W. 
 
 1 They had never been conquered, only invaded by the Mohammedans, 
 and that with various success. W.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 275 
 
 of that renowned conqueror, by name Timur, ruled B c ^J 2 n 
 
 over the eastern provinces from Khorasan to the 
 
 Indus. In revenge for some former check, as well 
 as by desire for extension of empire, Timur invaded 
 India with a large army in 1283. They were met 
 by the Indian prince, and battle was joined. Both 
 leaders displayed the talents of great generals ; but 
 Mohammed at last prevailed, and the Moguls betook 
 themselves to flight. Mohammed joined in the pur- 
 suit. He had just halted, in order to return ; when 
 he was surprised with only five hundred attendants, 
 by a party of the enemy ; and, being overpowered 
 by superior numbers, was slain defending himself to 
 the last. The army and the empire were filled with 
 grief by his fall. 
 
 While the son was engaged in his arduous defence of 
 the empire against the Moguls, the father was em- 
 ployed in subduing a dangerous rebellion in Bengal. 
 Toghril, governor of that rich and powerful province, 
 had executed an expedition against the Rajas of 
 Jajnagur, a province bounded on the north by 
 Bengal, and on the east by Orissa. Succeeding, and 
 obtaining great treasure, he began to feel himself too 
 great for a subject; delayed remitting the Em- 
 peror's share of the plunder; and, hearing that 
 Balin was sick, and too ill to survive, raised the red 
 umbrella, and assumed the title of king. Balin or- 
 dered the Governor of Oude to assume the office of 
 Subahdar of Bengal, and, with an army which he 
 committed to his command, to march against the 
 rebel. The new Subahdar was defeated ; and Balin 
 was so enraged that he bit his own flesh, and com- 
 manded the general to be hanged at the gate of 
 
 T 2
 
 27<> HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 SIM 11 Oude. Another of his generals, whom he sent to 
 - wipe off the disgrace, had no better success ; when 
 
 1285. Balin, deeply affected, resolved to take the field in 
 person. Toghril, hearing of his approach, thought 
 proper to elude the storm, by retiring. He intended 
 to remain in Jajnagur, till the Shah retired; and 
 then to resume the command of the province. With 
 some difficulty Balin procured intelligence of his 
 route. An exploring party, at last, discovered and 
 surprised his camp. Toghril fled and was killed, 
 when Balin inflicted sanguinary punishment on his 
 adherents. 
 
 But the death of his great and hopeful son was a 
 blow to the heart of Balin, to which no success 
 could yield a remedy. Oppressed, at once, with 
 grief, with business, and with old age (he was now 
 in his eightieth year,) he languished for a short 
 time, and expired. He appointed his grandson, by 
 the deceased Mohammed, his successor. Kera, 1 how- 
 ever, the second son of Balin, was governor of 
 Bengal, the most affluent province of the empire; 
 and the Omrahs, respecting his present power, more 
 than the will of their deceased master, raised his son 
 Kei Kobad to the throne, 
 
 Kei Kobad was in his eighteenth year, handsome 
 in his person, of an affable and mild disposition, and 
 not slightly tinctured with literature. His mother 
 was a beautiful princess, daughter of the emperor Alt- 
 umsh. " He delighted," says his historian, " in love, 
 and in the soft society of silver-bodied damsels with 
 musky tresses." He adds; " When it was publicly 
 
 1 Ferishta. Mr. Stewart says, that in his MSS. the name is Bagora. 
 M. Briggs writes it Kurra. W.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 277 
 
 known that the king was a man of pleasure, it became BOOK m 
 
 immediately fashionable at court ; and, in short, in a 
 
 few days, luxury and vice so prevailed, that every 1285 - 
 shade was filled with ladies of pleasure, and every 
 street rung with music and mirth. The king fitted 
 up a palace at Kilogurry, upon the banks of the river 
 Jumna ; and retired thither to enjoy his pleasures 
 undisturbed, admitting no company but singers, 
 players, musicians, and buffoons." 
 
 The father of Kei Kobad remained contented with 
 his government of Bengal. But Nizam ud-din, 
 who became the favourite minister of the young 
 Shah, conceived hopes, from the negligence of his 
 master, of paving for himself a way to the throne. 
 He proceeded to remove the persons whose preten- 
 sions were likely to obstruct his career. The many 
 acts of cruelty and perfidy, of which he was the 
 cause, shed discredit upon the government. The father 
 of Kei Kobad saw the danger ; and forewarned his 
 son. But the prince [could not attend to business, 
 without sacrificing pleasure. He .found it, therefore, 
 more agreeable to repose upon the minister, and 
 neglected the advice. Kera, alarmed for his own 
 fate, as well as that of his son, thought it advisable 
 to second his advice with his presence, and his pre- 
 sence with an army. This was construed an act of 
 hostility ; and the Shah marched out from Delhi, at 
 the head of an army, to oppose his father. The 
 father, either conscious of his inferiority in point of 
 strength, or unwilling to proceed to the last extre- 
 mity, requested an interview. This was dreaded by 
 the minister, who endeavoured to blow up the vanity 
 and presumption of the young monarch to such a
 
 278 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 pitch, that he might hear of nothing but a battle. 
 - Kera was not easy to be repulsed ; and renewed his 
 application by a letter full of parental expostulation 
 and tenderness. The heart of the young prince was 
 corrupted, but not yet thoroughly depraved. He could 
 not resist the letter of his father ; and Nizam ud-din, 
 no longer able to defeat the interview by direct, en- 
 deavoured to elude it by artificial means. He pre- 
 vailed upon the prince, as sovereign, to insist upon 
 the first interview ; in hopes that Kera would refuse. 
 Kera was not a slave to points of ceremony ; and 
 readily consented to repair to the imperial camp; 
 where the son was prepared to display his insolence 
 at even his father's expense. The throne was set out 
 with the greatest pomp and ceremony; and Kei 
 Kobad ascending, commanded that his father should 
 three times kiss the ground. At the first door, the 
 aged prince was ordered to dismount ; and, when he 
 came in sight of the throne, to perform the abject 
 obeisance of the East ; the mace-bearer at the same 
 time calling out, according to custom, " The noble 
 Kera to the king of the world sends health !" The 
 father, whose heart was full, was no longer able to 
 restrain his tears. Upon sight of his father in tears, 
 the young prince forgot his insolence, and rushing 
 from the throne, threw himself upon his face at his 
 father's feet, and implored his forgiveness. 1 
 
 The presence and admonitions of Kera made an 
 impression upon the mind of Kei Kobad, which it 
 was too soft to retain. " When- he arrived at Del- 
 
 1 Mr. Stewart has greatly softened the' account of the insolence of K.<-i 
 Kobad.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 279 
 
 hi," says Ferishta, "the advice of his father, for a BOOK P 
 
 * CHAP. 2. 
 
 few days, seemed to take root in his mind. But his 
 
 1 98Q 
 
 reformation was not the interest of the minister," 
 He accordingly plied him with pleasure in all the 
 shapes in which it was known to have the greatest 
 influence on his mind. The most beautiful and 
 accomplished women whom it was possible to pro- 
 cure were made to present themselves to him at all 
 the most accessible moments, and invention was ex- 
 hausted to find an endless variety of modes to surprise 
 and captivate the prince with new combinations of 
 charms. The most exquisite musicians, dancers, 
 players, buffoons, were collected to fill up the inter- 
 vals left vacant by love. 
 
 The hatred, however, which the success, the pre- 
 sumption, and insolence of the minister had engen- 
 dered in his fellow-courtiers; or the suspicions aud 
 fears which, at last, though tardily, were excited in 
 the breast of the sovereign, cut short the days and 
 the machinations of Nizam ud-din. He was taken 
 off by poison. The authority of the king did not 
 long survive. His intemperance in the haram brought 
 on a palsy ; which disabled him in one side, and 
 distorted his countenance. All attention was then 
 absorbed by the scramble for power. Every Om- 
 rah of popularity set up his pretensions. The 
 friends of the royal family brought out the son of 
 Kei Kobad, a child of three years old, and set him 
 on the throne. He was supported by the Tartars; 
 a body of whom, as mercenaries, were generally kept 
 by the Indian sovereigns, whom they became the 
 common instruments of setting up and pulling 
 down. On the present occasion, the Tartars had
 
 280 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Ia f rm idable body of competitors. Of the Af- 
 
 ghans, or mountaineers of Gaur and Ghirgistan, on 
 
 the frontiers of Persia, a tribe named Chilligi l made 
 war and depredation their business; and usually, in 
 great numbers, served, as mercenaries, any power 
 which chose to employ them. An adventurer of 
 this tribe, of the name of Mallek, who subsisted by 
 his sword, rose to distinction in the army of Balin : 
 and left his talent and his fortune to his son Feroze, 
 who at the time of the illnes of Kei Kobad, was one 
 of the chief Omrahs, and commanded a province. 
 He was joined by the Chilligi mercenaries who 
 attacked, and cut to pieces, the Tartars. There was 
 no longer any obstruction. Kei Kobad was killed 
 upon his bed, after a reign of little more than three 
 years. Such was the termination of the Gaurian, or 
 rather of the first Gaurian dynasty ; and such the 
 commencement of the Afghan, or second Gaurian 
 dynasty, in the year 1289. At the time of this 
 revolution, Kubla, the grandson of Jungiz, sat on the 
 throne of Tartary and China ; another of his descen- 
 dants on that of Persia : and a third possessed a 
 kingdom in Transoxiana, and those provinces to the 
 north-west of the Indus which constituted the ori- 
 ginal dominions of the house of Ghizni. 
 
 1 It is written Khuliji by Major Stewart. M. Khilji, Briggs. W.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 281 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 From the Commencement of the second Gaurian 
 or Afghan Dynasty, to the Commencement of 
 the Mogul Dynasty. 
 
 v BOOK m 
 
 r EROZE was seventy years of age when he became CHAP. 3. 
 
 the master of the kingdom. He was a man of in- 
 
 1289 
 
 telligence ; and though guilty of cruelty and injus- 
 tice in acquiring or establishing his throne, he 
 sought to distinguish himself by the justice, and 
 also the popularity, of his administration. "For 
 that purpose," says his historian, "he gave great 
 encouragement to the learned of that age ; who, in 
 return, offered the incense of flattery at the altar of 
 his fame." 
 
 Chidju, 1 however, a prince of the royal blood, 
 nephew of the late Balin, and a nabob or governor 
 of a province, obtained the alliance of several chiefs, 
 and inarched with an army towards Delhi. Feroze 
 placed himself at the head of his army, and sent for- 
 ward his son with the Chilligi cavalry. The prince 
 encountered the enemy, and obtaining an advantage, 
 took several Omrahs prisoners, whom he mounted 
 upon camels with branches hung round their necks. 
 When Feroze beheld them in this state of humilia- 
 tion, he ordered them to be unbound, gave a change 
 of raiment to each, and set an entertainment before 
 
 1 Jujhoo is the reading of this name by Briggs. W.
 
 282 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in them; repeating the verse, " That evil for evil it was 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 - easy to return ; but he only was great who could 
 1291. return good for evil." In a few days Chidju was 
 taken prisoner, and sent to the king ; but instead of 
 death, which he expected, received a pardon, and 
 was sent to reside at Multan, on a handsome ap- 
 pointment for life. To the Omrahs of the Chilligi, 
 displeased at so much lenity, Feroze replied, " My 
 .friends, I am now an old man, and I wish to go 
 down to the grave without shedding blood." 
 
 The mind of this prince, however, did not, it seems, 
 distinguish sufficiently between lenity and relaxation. 
 The police of the empire was neglected; and rob- 
 bery, murder, insurrection, ever ready to break loose 
 in India, diffused insecurity over the nation. The 
 Omrahs of the Chilligi " began," says Ferishta, " to 
 lengthen the tongue of reproach against their sove- 
 reign." The design was conceived of raising one of 
 themselves to the throne; the project was even dis- 
 cussed at an entertainment, at which they were 
 assembled ; but one of the company privately with- 
 drew and informed the emperor, who immediately 
 ordered them to be arrested and brought before him. 
 It occurred to one of them to represent the affair as a 
 drunken frolic, and the words as the suggestion of 
 intoxication. The prince was pleased to accept the 
 apology; and dismissed them with a rebuke. He 
 was not so lenient to a Dirvesh, or professor of 
 piety, who by the appearance of great sanctity, and 
 by the distribution of great liberalities to the poor, 
 the source of which no one could discover, acquired 
 immense popularity ; and on this foundation aspired, 
 or was accused of aspiring, to the throne. Though
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 283 
 
 little or no evidence appeared against him, he was BOOK m 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 cruelly put to death. . 
 
 With his expiring breath, the holy Dirvesh cursed 1291> 
 Feroze and his posterity ; nature was thrown into 
 convulsions upon the death of the saint ; and from 
 that hour the fortunes of Feroze were observed to 
 decline. His eldest son was afflicted with insanity 
 which no power of medicine could remove. Factions 
 and rebellions disturbed his administration, In the 
 year 1291, Hindustan was invaded by a prince of 
 the house of Jungiz, at the head of 100,000 
 Moguls ; and though Feroze engaged them, and ob- 
 tained the advantage, he was glad to stipulate 
 for the departure of the invaders by consenting to let 
 them retreat unmolested. 
 
 In this reign occurred an event of great importance 
 in the histoiy of Hindustan ; the first invasion of 
 the Deccan by Mohammedan arms. Deccan means 
 the south ; and is applied in a general manner to the 
 kingdoms and districts included in the southern por- 
 tion of India. It does not appear that the applica- 
 tion of the name was ever precisely fixed. It has 
 been commonly spoken of as indicating the country 
 south of the Nerbudda river, which falls into the 
 Gulf of Cambay, at Baroach ; but as the Patan or 
 Mogul sovereignties hardly extended beyond the 
 river Kistna, it is only the country between those 
 two rivers which, in the language of India, commonly 
 passes under the name of the Deccan. 
 
 Alia, the nephew of Feroze, was Nabob, or Go- 
 vernor of Korah, one of the districts in the Doab, 
 or country lying between the Ganges and Jumna. 
 Having distinguished himself in a warfare with some
 
 284 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 V ra j as W ^o Bordered on his province, he was gratified 
 by the addition to his government of the province o 
 Oude. His first success appears to have suggested 
 further enterprise. He solicited and obtained the 
 consent of Feroze to extend his empire over the Hin- 
 dus. Having collected such an army as his resources 
 allowed, he marched directly, by the shortest route, 
 against Ramdeo, one of the rajas of the Deccan, whose 
 capital was Deogur, now Dowlatabad. 1 Alia met with 
 no inconsiderable resistance ; but finally prevailed, and 
 exacted heavy contributions (exaggerated by the pen 
 of Oriental history into incredible sums), as the price 
 of his return. He retreated many days through 
 several hostile and populous kingdoms ; the govern- 
 ments of which were too weak or too stupid to offer 
 any obstruction to his march. 
 
 Feroze was not without uneasiness upon intelli- 
 gence of the ambitious adventure of Alia ; and of the 
 great addition to his power which the vastness of his 
 plunder implied. He rejected, however, the advice 
 of his wisest counsellors to take previous measures for 
 the securing of his authority and power ; and resolved 
 to repose on the fidelity of his nephew. He was even 
 so weak as to permit Alia, on feigned pretences, to 
 entice him to Korah, where he was barbarously as- 
 sassinated, having reigned only seven years and some 
 months. 
 
 1 Written Deogire, by Col. Wilks, and declared to be the Tagara of 
 Ptolemy. The author of the Tibcat Nasiri says, that Alia left Korah on 
 pretence of a hunting party, and passing through the territories of many 
 petty rajas, too feeble to think of opposing him, he came upon Ramdeo 
 by surprise. Ferishta, i. 231. The proofs of the division and subdivision 
 of India into a great number of petty states meet us at every step in its 
 authentic liistory.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 285 
 
 Alia made haste to get into his power the family B OK in 
 
 of Feroze ; of whom all who were the objects of any 
 
 apprehension were unrelentingly murdered ; and the 1303 - 
 rest confined. He had scarcely time, however, to 
 settle the affairs of his government, when he learned 
 that the Mogul sovereign of Transoxiana had invaded 
 the Punjab with an army of 100,000 men. An army, 
 commanded by his brother, was sent to expel them. 
 A battle was fought in the neighbourhood of Lahore, 
 in which the Indians were victorious, and the Mo- 
 guls retreated. The successful general was sent 
 into Guzerat, which he quickly reduced to the 
 obedience of the Shah. 
 
 The Moguls returned the following year with much 
 greater force : and marched even to the walls of 
 Delhi, to which they laid siege. Alia at last collected 
 his army, and gave them battle. Though his success 
 was not decisive, the Moguls thought proper to 
 retreat. 
 
 The king's arbitary maxims of government, and 
 the odious manner in which he arrived at the su- 
 preme command, engendered disaffection ; and during 
 the first years of his reign he was harrassed by per- 
 petual insurrections and rebellions. He applied him- 
 self, however, with industry and intelligence, to the 
 business of government ; and though his administra- 
 tion was severe and oppressive, it was regular and 
 vigorous, securing justice and protection to the body 
 of the people. His education had been so neglected 
 that he could neither read nor write; but feeling the 
 disadvantages under which his ignorance laid him, he 
 had firmness of mind to set about the work of his 
 own instruction even upon the throne ; acquired the
 
 286 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 mcs timable faculties of reading and writing ; made 
 himself acquainted with the best authors in the Per- 
 sian language ; invited learned men to his court ; and 
 delighted in their conversation. 
 
 In 1303, he projected another expedition into the 
 Deccan by the way of Bengal, but was recalled by a 
 fresh invasion of the Moguls of Transoxiana ; who 
 advanced as far as Delhi, but retreated without sus- 
 taining a battle. After their departure, he resolved, 
 by an augmentation of his army, to leave himself 
 nothing to fear from that audacious enemy. But 
 reflecting that his revenues were unequal to so great 
 a burden, he resolved to reduce the soldiers' pay. 
 Reflecting again, that this would be dangerous, while 
 the price of articles continued the same, he ordered 
 all prices to be reduced a half ; by that means, says 
 Ferishta, with an ignorance too often matched in 
 more instructed countries, " just doubling his trea- 
 sures and revenue." The Moguls were not dis- 
 couraged by frequency of repulse. The armies of 
 the king of Transoxiana twice invaded Hindustan in 
 1305, and were twice defeated by Toghluk, the 
 general of Alia. 
 
 In the following year the design against the Deccan 
 was renewed, and prosecuted with greater resources. 
 Kafoor, a slave and eunuch, his favourite, and, it was 
 said, the instrument of his pleasures, was placed at 
 the head of a grand army, and marched towards the 
 south. He first " subdued the country of the Mah- 
 rattors, 1 which he divided among his Omrahs," and 
 
 1 This is the first mention which we find of any of the tribes to whom 
 the term Mahrattor, or Mahratta, is applied, by the Moslem historians. 
 From this statement we can only conjecture, that some district in the Deccan,
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 287 
 
 then proceeded to the siege of Deogur. Kamdeo 
 endeavoured to make his peace by submission ; and 
 having agreed to pay a visit to the emperor at Delhi, 131 - 
 and to hold his territories as a dependency, he was 
 dismissed with magnificent presents, and his do- 
 minions were enlarged. 
 
 The division of the Deccan, known by the name of 
 Telingana, is supposed to have extended, along the 
 eastern coast, from the neighbourhood of Chicacole on 
 the north, to that of Pulicat on the south ; and to 
 have been separated on the west from the country 
 known by the name of Maharashtra, or by contrac- 
 tion Mahratta, by a line passing, near Beder, and at 
 some distance east of Dowlutabad, to the river 
 Tapti. 1 
 
 Alia was on his march against the Raja of 
 Warunkul, one of the princes of this district, in 1303, 
 when he was recalled by another invasion of the 
 Moguls. He made, indeed, a part of his army pro- 
 ceed in the expedition, for the purpose of redu cing 
 the fort of Warunkul, a place of great strength, and, 
 by repute, of immense riches ; but the project failed. 
 In 1307, Kafoor was ordered to march into Telingana 
 by the way of Deogur, and lay seige to Warunkul. 
 Warunkul was taken by assault, after a siege of 
 some months. 2 The Raja made his peace, by sacri- 
 ficing largely to the avarice of his conquerors, and 
 accepting the condition of a tribute. 
 
 inhabited by the description of Hindus to whom this name was applied, 
 was overrun, and nominally parcelled out by Kafoor. 
 
 1 Wilks, Hist, of Mysore, p. 6. 
 
 * The neighbouring Rajas, says Ferishta, hastened to the assistance of 
 the Rajah of Warunkul ; another proof of the division into petty sove- 
 reignties.
 
 288 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in The more Au a tasted of the plunder of the Deccan, 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 - the more he thirsted for additional draughts. In 
 13J6. 1310, Kafoor was sent on a more distant expedition. 
 He marched by Deogur ; and penetrating as far as 
 Carnatic, took the Raja prisoner, and ravaged his 
 kingdom. According to the historians, he returned 
 with such wealth as no country ever yielded to a 
 predatory invader. 1 Nor did he remain long at 
 Delhi before he persuaded the Shah to send him 
 once more into the Deccan ; where he ravaged several 
 countries, and sent the plunder to Alia. This prince 
 had ruined his constitution by intemperance in the 
 seraglio ; and felt his health in rapid decline. He sent 
 for Kafoor from the Deccan, and complained to him 
 of the undutiful behaviour of his wife and his son. Ka- 
 foor, whose eyes had already turned themselves with 
 longing to the throne, contemplated the displeasure 
 of the emperor against his family as a means for 
 realizing his most extravagant hopes. He prevailed 
 upon Alia to throw his two eldest sons, and their 
 mother, into prison ; and to put to death several of 
 the chiefs by whom his pretensions were most likely 
 to be opposed. When things were in this train, Alia 
 expired in the year 1316, in the twenty-first year of 
 his reign. 
 
 The time was not yet come when Kafoor deemed 
 it expedient to declare himself king. He produced a 
 testament, genuine or spurious, of the late prince, in 
 which he appointed Omar, his youngest son, then 
 
 1 Besides several chests, of jewels, pearls, and other precious tinners, 
 the gold alone amounted to about one hundred millions sterling. Col. 
 Dow thinks this not at all incredible : Hist, of Hindost. i. 276 : and Col. 
 Wilks (Hist, of Mysore, p. 11) seems to have little objection.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 289 
 
 seven years of age, his successor, and Kafoor regent. BOOK in 
 The first act of Kafoor's administration was to put ' 
 out the eyes of the two eldest of the sons of Alia : 1316-21. 
 But there was a third, Mubarik, who escaped, till a 
 conspiracy of the foot-guards put the regent to death, 
 only thirty-five days after the decease of his master. 
 The reins of government were immediately put into 
 the hands of Mubarik ; but he thought proper to 
 act in the name of his young brother, already upon 
 the throne, for the space of two months, till he had 
 gained the Omrahs. He then claimed his birth- 
 right; deposed his brother; according to the Asi- 
 atic custom, put out his eyes ; and sent him for life to 
 the fort of Gualior. 
 
 Mubarik was a man of vicious inclinations, and 
 mean understanding. He for a moment sought po- 
 pularity, by remitting the more oppressive of the 
 taxes, and relaxing the reins of government; but 
 the last so injudiciously, that disorder and depreda- 
 tion overran the country. 
 
 The reduction of the revolted Guzerat was one of 
 the first measures of Mubarik. The enterprise, 
 being intrusted to an officer of abilities, was suc- 
 cessfully performed. 
 
 The Rajas in the Deccan yielded a reluctant 
 obedience ; which, presuming on their distance, they 
 imagined they might now, without much danger, 
 suspend. Mubarik, in the second year of his reign, 
 raised a great army, and marched to Deogur ; where 
 not finding much resistance, he did little more than 
 display his cruelty, in the punishment of those, who, 
 charged with enmity or disobedience, fell into his 
 hands. 
 
 VOL. II. U
 
 290 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in Amone the favourites of Mubarik was Hassan, 
 
 CHAP. 3. 1 1 
 
 formerly a slave, and, according to 1 enshta, the son 
 1321 of a seller of rags in Guzerat. 1 This man was an 
 instrument of the pleasures of the Shah ; and upon 
 his accession to the throne had been honoured with 
 the title of Khosroo, and raised to the office of Vizir. 
 Finding nothing more to perform in the region of 
 Deogur, Mubarik placed Khosroo at the head of a 
 part of the army, and sent him on an expedition 
 against Malabar, while he himself returned with the 
 remainder to Delhi. 
 
 The vices of Mubarik, and of his government, 
 became daily more odious. He was the slave of every 
 species of intemperance, and void of every humane 
 or manly quality, which could procure the indulgence 
 of mankind to his faults. Conspiracy succeeded con- 
 spiracy, and one insurrection another ; till Khosroo, 
 beholding the contempt in which his master was held, 
 believed he might shed his blood with safety, and 
 place himself upon his throne. The reputation and 
 plunder, derived from the success of his expedition to 
 Malabar, 2 had added greatly to his power. He made 
 use of his influence over the mind of the emperor to 
 fill with his creatures the chief places both in the 
 army and the state. In the year 1321 , he conceived 
 himself prepared for the blow ; when in one night 
 Mubarik and his sons were destroyed. 
 
 On mounting the throne, Khosroo assumed the 
 title of Nasir-ud-din, or defender of religion ; a 
 
 1 He was a converted Purwary or Hindoo outcast. Briggs's Ferishta, 
 i. 387. W. 
 
 * According to Wilks, what is here called Malabar was not the district 
 which is now called by that name, but the hilly belt along the summit of 
 the Ghauts, from Soonda to Coorg. Hist, of Mysore, p. 10.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 291 
 
 cause which has seldom been associated with that of BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 government, except for the purposes of fraud ; and 
 
 Khosroo, it seems, was aware that, for his govern- 1323 - 
 ment, such a covering was required. 
 
 He put to death, without remorse, a great multi- 
 tude of persons in the service of Mubarik ; all those 
 from whom he imagined that he had any thing to 
 fear; and distributed the offices of government among 
 his creatures. "The army," says Ferishta, "loved 
 nothing better than a revolution ; for they had always, 
 upon such an occasion, a donation of six months' pay 
 immediately advanced from the treasury :" so exactly 
 does military despotism resemble itself, on the banks 
 of the Tiber, and those of the Ganges. 
 
 But though Khosroo met with no opposition in 
 ascending the throne ; he did not long enjoy his 
 kingdom in peace. 
 
 Ghazi l was Governor of Lahore ; and though, for 
 the sake of securing him to his interest, Khosroo had 
 bestowed high office and rank upon his son Jonah, 
 Jonah made his escape from Delhi, and joined his 
 father at Lahore. 
 
 Ghazi despatched circular letters to the Omrahs ; 
 exerted himself to raise forces ; and was joined by 
 several of the viceroys with their troops. Khosroo 
 despatched an army to subdue the rebellion ; but 
 the soldiers of Ghazi were hardened by frequent 
 wars with the Moguls ; those of Khosroo, enervated 
 by the debauchery of the city, were broken at 
 the first onset ; and the confederates marched with 
 expedition to the capital. Khosroo was ready to 
 
 1 Ghazi Beg Toghluk is the appellation of this nobleman in Ferishta. W. 
 U 2
 
 292 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 3" rece i ye them with another army. Though betrayed 
 and deserted in the action by a part of his troops, he 
 1323 - maintained the conflict till night ; when he made a 
 fruitless endeavour to fly with a few of his friends. 
 Deserted by his attendants, and dragged from his 
 lurking-place, he met the fate w r hich he would have 
 bestowed. 
 
 The Omrahs hastened to pay their respects to the 
 victor ; and the magistrates of Delhi presented to him 
 the keys. Mounting his horse, he entered the city, 
 and arriving at the gates of the palace, he addressed 
 the people; " O ye subjects of this great empire! 
 I am no more than one of you, who unsheathed my 
 sword to deliver you from oppression, and rid the 
 world of a monster. If, therefore, any of the royal 
 line remains, let him be brought, that we, his ser- 
 vants, may prostrate ourselves before his throne. If 
 not, let the most worthy of the illustrious order be 
 elected among you, and I shall swear to abide by 
 your choice." But the people cried out, with vehe- 
 mence, that none of the royal family remained alive ; 
 and that he, who had protected the empire from the 
 Moguls, and delivered it from the tyrant, was the 
 most worthy to reign. He was then seized, and by 
 a sort of violence, placed upon the throne ; the people 
 hailing him " King of the World." 
 
 Toghluk is the name by which the new emperor 
 chose to be distinguished. It was the name of his 
 father, who is understood to have been a slave in the ser- 
 vice of Balin. His mother was of the tribe of the Jauts. 
 
 After appointing the instruments of his govern- 
 ment, the first care of Toghluk was to secure his 
 northern frontier against the formidable incursions
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 293 
 
 of the Moguls ; and so judiciously did he station his 
 force, and erect his forts, that he was not once 
 molested by those invaders during his reign. 
 
 This being accomplished, he sent his son Jonah 
 into the Deccan to chastise the Raja of Warunkul, 
 who, during the late disorders, " had withdrawn his 
 neck from the yoke of obedience." Jonah, with the 
 usual ease, hardly meeting with any resistance, over- 
 ran the Hindu kingdoms; leaving every where behind 
 him the cruel marks of imperial vengeance and avarice. 
 After a few efforts in the field, the Raja of Warunkul 
 shut himself up in his strong-hold, and was besieged. 
 From the strength of the place, the siege was a work 
 of time ; during which, sickness, and along with sick- 
 ness, desire to return, and from that desire opposed, 
 disaffection, spread themselves in the Mohammedan 
 army. Several of the Omrahs withdrew with their 
 troops; when the Prince, no longer able to continue 
 the siege, retreated first to Deogur, and thence to 
 Delhi. The army was recruited with great expedition. 
 and he marched again in a few months towards Wa- 
 runkul, which soon yielded to his arms. Many thou- 
 sands of the Hindus were put to the sword ; and the 
 Raja and his family were sent to Delhi. Appointing 
 Omrahs to the government of Telingana, he marched 
 against Cuttack, where he gained some advantages, 
 and then returned by the way of Warunkul to Delhi. 
 
 Toghluk, receiving complaints of great oppression 
 against his officers in Bengal, appointed Jonah go- 
 vernor of Delhi, and marched toward that province 
 with an army. Nasir, 1 the grandson of the emperor 
 
 ' His name was Nasir-ud-din Kurra Khan, and he was the son of 
 Bulbim ; see p. 277. W.
 
 294 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Balin, had possessed the viceroy alty of Bengal, since 
 the death of his father. He advanced to meet the 
 
 1324-51. E m p eror w Jth submission and presents ; and was 
 confirmed in his government. Jonah, with the nobles 
 of Delhi, went out to meet his father with rejoicings 
 upon his return. A wooden house was hastily erected 
 to entertain him. When the entertainment was con- 
 cluded, and the emperor was about to retire, the 
 Omrahs hurrying out to be in readiness to attend 
 him, the roof suddenly fell in, and crushed him with 
 several of his attendants ; whether by the contrivance 
 of Jonah, by the fault of the building, or a stroke of 
 lightning, was variously conjectured and believed. 
 He reigned but four years and some months, with 
 the reputation of a wise and excellent prince. 
 
 Jonah mounted the throne by the title of Mo- 
 hammed III ; and began his reign with acts of 
 liberality and beneficence. He distributed profuse 
 gifts, and made magnificent appointments. This 
 prince was a compound of heterogeneous qualities. 
 He was generous to profusion ; a lover of literature, 
 in which he had made considerable acquirements ; 
 he was not only temperate but austere in his manner 
 of life, and an attentive performer of acts of re- 
 ligion ; he had no regard, however, to justice, or 
 to humanity ; he was cruel and vindictive as a man ; 
 oppressive and tyrannical as a ruler. His plans 
 proceeded on the supposition, that the happiness or 
 misery of his subjects was a matter of indifference ; 
 and when their disaffection began to afford him 
 uneasiness, their misery seemed to become an object 
 of preference and a source of gratification. He dis- 
 played however no contemptible -talents in sup-
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 295 
 
 porting himself against the hatred and detestation 
 mankind. 
 
 Immediately upon his accession he directed his at- 1324 ' 51 - 
 tention to the further subjugation of the Deccan ; but 
 more, it would appear, with a view to plunder, than 
 to permanent dominion. His generals appear to 
 have overrun a large portion of its more accessible 
 parts. He reduced the Carnatic ; and in the hyper- 
 bolical language of Ferishta, spread his conquests 
 to the extremity of the Deccan, and from sea 
 to sea. 
 
 He adopted frantic schemes of ambition. He 
 raised an army for the conquest of the kingdom of 
 Transoxiana and Khorasan, and another for the 
 subjugation of China. Previous to the grand expe- 
 dition against China, 100,000 horse were sent to 
 explore the route through the mountains, and to 
 establish forts to the confines of China. The horse 
 did, we are told, penetrate to the frontiers of China, 
 but were met with an army which they durst not 
 oppose ; and the rains, covering with water the roads 
 and the plains, obstructed their retreat. They 
 perished through fatigue, famine, and disease ; and 
 scarcely a man survived to describe the disaster. 
 The inaccurate and uninstructive genius Of Oriental 
 history gives us no information respecting the track 
 which this ill-fated army pursued. 
 
 The expense of Mohammed's government led him 
 to oppress his subjects by increase of taxes. To 
 this great cause of misery and discontent, he added 
 others by injudicious schemes of finance. "The 
 King," says Ferishta, " unfortunately for his people, 
 adopted his ideas upon currency, from a Chinese
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in custom of using paper upon the emperor's credit, 
 " ' with the royal seal appended, for ready money. 
 1324-51. Mohammed, instead of paper, struck a copper coin, 
 which, being issued at an imaginary value, he made 
 current by a decree throughout Hindustan." This 
 produced so much confusion and misery, and so 
 completely obstructed the collection of the revenue, 
 that Mohammed was obliged to recall his debased 
 coin ; and individuals acquired immense fortunes by 
 the ruin of many thousands, the general misery of 
 the people, and the impoverishment of the so- 
 vereign. 
 
 Being called into the Deccan, to suppress an insur- 
 rection raised by his nephew, whom he ordered to be 
 flayed alive, and in that condition carried, a horrid 
 spectacle, round the city ; he took a fancy to the 
 situation of Deogur, resolved to make it his capital, 
 by the name of Dowlatabad, and to remove thither 
 the inhabitants of Delhi. This caprice he carried 
 into execution ; unmoved by the calamities that 
 were to fall upon the individuals; and unable to 
 foresee the alienation in the minds of men to which 
 the sight and the reports of so much unnecessary 
 evil must of necessity expose him. " The emperor's 
 orders," says the historian, " were strictly complied 
 with, and the ancient capital was left desolate." 
 
 The provinces, one after another, began now to 
 rebel. The Governor of Multan set the example. 
 Scarcely was he subdued when Bengal broke into 
 insurrection. This too the vigour of Mohammed 
 quickly reduced. He was thence summoned by 
 disturbances in Telingana, where he lost great part 
 of his army, by a plague, then raging at WarunkuL
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 297 
 
 But what, to the mind of Mohammed, was of more BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 importance than the lives of half the inhabitants of 
 
 Hindustan, he himself was afflicted with the tooth- 1324 - 51 - 
 ach. He even lost a tooth. This he commanded 
 to be buried with solemn pomp, and a magnificent 
 tomb to be erected over it. 
 
 Calamity in every shape assailed the wretched 
 subjects of Mohammed. Such was the excess of 
 taxation, that in many parts, particularly in the 
 fertile country between the Jumna and the Ganges, 
 the cultivators fled from their fields and houses, and 
 preferred a life of plunder and rapine in the woods. 
 From this, and from unfavourable seasons, famine 
 raged about Delhi, and the neighbouring provinces ; 
 and multitudes of people perished from want. A 
 chief of the Afghans came down from the moun- 
 tains, and plundered the province of Multan. The 
 fierce tribes of Hindus, called by Ferishta, Gickers, 
 were combined by a leader, and ravaged the Punjab 
 and Lahore. 
 
 Mohammed, struck at last with the calamities of 
 his reign, had recourse to religion for a cure. He 
 sent a splendid embassy to Mecca, that, his corona- 
 tion being confirmed by the successor of the prophet, 
 the blessing of Heaven might descend upon his 
 throne. 
 
 The Rajas of Telingana and the Carnatic formed 
 a confederacy ; and within a few months expelled 
 the Mohammedans from every place in the Deccan, 
 except Dowlatabad. 
 
 Even the Viceroy of Oude rebelled. But the em- 
 peror, marching against him with expedition, brought 
 him quickly to his feet. Contrary to his usual
 
 29H 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 A* 3" P ract i ce Mohammed pardoned the offender, and even 
 
 - restored him to his government ; declaring, that he 
 
 i324-oi. wou i(j no t, believe in his guilt, and ascribing his 
 
 transgression to a temporary delusion, which the 
 
 malice and falsehood of others had produced. 
 
 An effort was made to regain what had been lost in 
 the Deccan,and governors and troops were despatched 
 to the different districts: who in the way of plunder 
 performed considerable feats. But in the mean time 
 disturbances of a new description broke out in Guzerat. 
 Of the mercenary troops, composed of Tartars, Af- 
 ghans, and other hardy races from the North, in 
 which consisted a great proportion of the armies of 
 the Mohammedan emperors of Hindustan, aconsider- 
 ble number, during some ages, had been Moguls. 
 Of these it would appear that a considerable body 
 had been sent to keep in check the turbulent inha- 
 bitants of Guzerat. They began now to commit 
 depredations, and to set the power of Mohammed at 
 defiance. Mohammed resolved to punish and extir- 
 pate them. The presence of the emperor, and their 
 fears, made them withdraw from Guzerat ; but they 
 retired into the Deccan ; and took Dowlatabad by sur- 
 prise. Mohammed allowed them little time to make 
 an establishment. They ventured to meet him in 
 battle ; when they were partly slain, and partly 
 dispersed. Before he could take the city, fresh dis- 
 turbances arose in Guzerat. Leaving an Omrah to 
 push the reduction of Dowlatabad, he hastened to 
 the new insurgents. An army of no inconsiderable 
 magnitude opposed him. He carried on his opera- 
 tions with vigour, and once more prevailed. But in 
 the mean time the Moguls in the Deccan, gatheriiiLT
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 299 
 
 strength upon his departure, defeated his General, B ^^ n 
 
 and pursued his troops toward Malwa. He re- 
 
 solved to march against them in person. But the 1351 ' 57 - 
 settlement of Guzerat was an arduous and a tedious 
 task. Before it was concluded, he fell sick, and 
 died in the year 1351, after a reign of twenty- 
 seven years. 
 
 His death was propitious to the Moguls in the Dec- 
 can; and afforded time for laying the foundation of a 
 Mohammedan empire, which rose to considerable 
 power, and preserved its existence for several centuries. 
 Upon seizing Dowlatabad, the rebel chiefs agreed to 
 elect a sovereign ; when their choice fell upon Ismael, 
 an Afghan, who had been commander of a thousand 
 in the imperial army. Among the insurgents, was a 
 military adventurer of the name of Hussun. Wonder- 
 ful things are recorded of his predestination to power : 
 as usually happens in the case of those who, from a 
 degraded station, rise to great command over the hopes 
 and fears of mankind. He was an Afghan slave or 
 dependent of a Brahmen, who professed astrology in 
 Delhi. The Brahmen gave him a couple of oxen to 
 cultivate a piece of waste ground near the city, as 
 means of a livelihood : where his plough turned up a 
 treasure. He informed the Brahmen: and the Brah- 
 men, equally conscientious, or equally cautious, the 
 emperor. The Emperor, struck with the honesty of 
 Hussun, bestowed upon him the command of one 
 hundred horse. The Brahmen told him, that he saw 
 by the stars, he was destined to greatness, and stipu- 
 lated that, when king of the Deccan, he would make 
 him his minister. Hussun offered his services to the 
 first commander who was sent into the Deccan; joined
 
 300 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 msur g en ts; and when Ismael was chosen king, 
 he was decorated with the title of Zuffer Khan ; and 
 1351-57. received a large jaghir for the maintenance of his 
 troops. 
 
 After Mohammed was summoned from theDeccan, 
 by the new disturbances in Guzerat, and after his 
 general was obliged to raise the siege of Dowlatabad, 
 Zuffer Khan marched with twenty thousand horse 
 against Beder, a city on the Godavery, nearly a hun- 
 dred miles north-west from Golconda, and about the 
 same distance west from Warunkul. This had been 
 the seat of a Hindu raj ahship; it was at this time a 
 station of one of the imperial generals. Zuffer Khan. 
 obtaining the assistance of the Rajah of Warunkul, 
 who sent him fifteen thousand men ; and being rein- 
 forced with five thousand horse, detached to his as- 
 sistance by the new king of Dowlatabad, engaged and 
 defeated the army of Mohammed. Returning with 
 glory and plunder, he was met, before reaching the 
 capital, by the king ; who could not help observing, 
 that more attention was paid to the general than to 
 himself. Making a merit of what would soon be 
 necessity ; and taking the pretext of his great age, he 
 proposed to retire from the cares of government, and 
 recommend Zuffer Khan as successor. The pro- 
 position was applauded : and the slave or peasant 
 Hussun, mounting the new throne by the style and 
 title of Sultan Alia ad din Hussun Kongoh Bhame- 
 nee, became the founder of the Bhamenee dynasty. 
 Koolburga, or Culberga, which had been the place 
 of his residence, he named Ahsunabad, and rendered 
 it the capital of the Deccanee empire. 
 
 Sultan Alia was not unmindful of his ancient mas-
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 301 
 
 ter ; from whose name he added the term Kongoh, 1 BOOK i* 1 
 
 CHAP* o. 
 
 and according to some authorities, that of Bahmenee, 
 
 Brahmen being so pronounced, to his royal titles. He 1357 - 89 - 
 invited Kongoh from Delhi; made him lord of the 
 treasury ; and in his edicts associated the name of 
 the Brahmen with his own. Hussun lived, after the 
 acquisition of royalty, eleven years, two months, 
 and seven days ; having in that time reduced to his 
 obedience all the regions in Deccan which had ever 
 acknowledged the sway of the emperors of Delhi. He 
 governed with wisdom and moderation, and died at 
 Koolburga, in the year 1357, and the sixty-seventh 
 year of his age. 2 
 
 Upon the death of the emperor Mohammed, his 
 nephew Feroze, whom he recommended for his suc- 
 
 1 This \vord is more correctly, Gungoo. W. 
 
 * A circumstantial history of the Bahmenee sovereigns was composed 
 by Ferishta ; and to Jonathan Scott we are indebted for an instructive 
 translation of it. The above sketch of the origin of the Bahmenee dynasty 
 is drawn partly from Ferishta's Deccan, translated by Scott ; partly from 
 his history of Delhi, translated by Dow. The facts are very shortly men- 
 tioned, or rather alluded to, by Lieut.-Col. Mark Wilks, (Historical 
 Sketches of the South of India, ch. i. ;) where the reader will also find all 
 that research has been able to procure of Hindu materials, and all that 
 sagacious conjecture has been able to build upon a few imperfect frag- 
 ments of the history of the ancient Hindu governments in the south of 
 India. M. It is not correct to say that Col. Wilks's work, however ably 
 and industriously wrought out of imperfect materials, has exhausted those 
 materials: his chief sources of information were the MS. collections of 
 the late Col. Mackenzie, but a small part only of those MSS. were then 
 accessible, nor was their extent or value understood. They are now in a 
 much more serviceable condition, partly owing to the catalogue of the 
 Mackenzie collection published by myself, and partly to a still more 
 careful and competent examination of them by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of 
 Madras, now in progress. Besides these materials, valuable translations 
 of inscriptions in the Deccan, and other documents relating to that part of 
 India, have been published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Ben- 
 gal, in the Madras Journal, and the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic 
 Society ; so that means exist of carrying on a more connected and com- 
 prehensive view of the political and religious history of the Peninsula, 
 from an early date of the Christian era to modern times, than were 
 those employed by Col. Wilks. W.
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 cessor > was m tne imperial camp, and without diffi- 
 - culty mounted the throne. The nerves of the state 
 357 ~ 89> were relaxed by mis-government : and it displayed 
 but little vigour during the days of Feroze. The 
 governor of Bengal aspired to independence ; and the 
 emperor, after several efforts, being unable to reduce 
 him to obedience, was forced to content himself with 
 a nominal subjection. 1 Feroze, however, employed 
 himself with laudable solicitude, in promoting agri- 
 culture, and the internal prosperity of his dominions. 
 He lived till the age of ninety years ; twenty-eight of 
 which he spent upon the throne. He is celebrated in 
 history for having constructed fifty great aqueducts 
 or reservoirs of water; forty mosques; thirty schools; 
 twenty caravanseras ; an hundred palaces ; five hos- 
 pitals ; one hundred tombs ; ten baths ; ten spires ; 
 one hundred and fifty wells ; one hundred bridges ; 
 and pleasure-gardens without number. 
 
 Mohammed, a son of Feroze, had received the reins 
 of government from his father, when the weight of 
 them began to press heavily upon his aged hands. A 
 conspiracy, however, of the Omrahs, had, after a time, 
 obliged him to fly from the throne ; and Feroze made 
 Toghluk, 2 his grandson, successor. Toghluk was a 
 friend to pleasure ; and slenderly provided with ta- 
 lents. He made an effort to get into his power Mo- 
 hammed his uncle, who had been chased from the 
 throne ; but Mohammed threw himself into the fort of 
 Nagracote, which, for the present, it was deemed in- 
 
 1 Such is the account of Ferishta. Mr. Stewart, (Hist, of Bengal, sect, 
 iv.) follows other authorities, who represent Bengal as now erected into 
 a Mohammedan kingdom, perfectly independent. M. Stewart's account 
 is confirmed by coins struck by Sultan Sekandar and his successors. J. 
 Asiatique. W. 
 
 * It should be Gheias-ad-din. Toghluk was the name of the family 
 borne by all of the members. W.
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 303 
 
 expedient to attack. The emperor, meanwhile, in- 
 
 spired so little respect, that Abu Beker, his cousin, 
 
 in danger from his jealousy, found himself able to 1389 - 96 - 
 
 hurry him to his grave. By means of some Omrahs, 
 
 he corrupted the imperial slaves ; who assassinated 
 
 their master, after he had reigned but five months. 
 
 Abu Beker was hardly more fortunate. Some of 
 the Mogul mercenaries, in the imperial service, con- 
 spired against him, and invited Mohammed from Na- 
 gracote, to place himself at their head. Mohammed 
 succeeded ; and Abu Beker resigned his life and his 
 throne, one year and six months after the death of 
 Toghluk. 
 
 In the reign of Mohammed, the Mahrattors (Mah- 
 rattas) again appear in the field. They were soon 
 brought to submission; and Narsing their prince 
 waited upon the emperor at Delhi. The six years 
 of this emperor were chiefly employed in subduing or 
 anticipating the insurrections of the principal Omrahs 
 or governors, from whom he enjoyed scarce an inter- 
 val of repose. His son Humayoon, who succeeded 
 him was seized with a fatal disorder, and survived 
 his father not many days. 
 
 The Omrahs, after high dispute, at last raised 
 Mahmood, an infant son of the late Mohammed, to 
 the throne. The distractions in the empire increased. 
 
 Three of the most powerful Omrahs of the court, 
 Mookurrib, Ekbal and Sadut, fell into deadly feuds. 
 The emperor having left the capital, with the army 
 commanded by Sadut, Mookurrib, fearing the resent- 
 ment of Sadut, shut the gates of the city. The empe- 
 ror was constrained to abandon Sadut, before he was 
 allowed to re-enter his capital and palace. Joined by 
 his sovereign, Mookurrib, the next day, marched out
 
 304 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 an( l gave battle to Sadut, but was worsted and forced 
 back into the city. As the rains had commenced, 
 |9G ' Sadut, was obliged to lead his army into quarters. He 
 immediately sent for Noosrut, a prince of the blood, 
 and set him up in opposition to Mahmood, by the 
 name of Noosrut Shah. A conspiracy soon threw 
 Sadut into the hands of Mookurrib, who put him to 
 death. But a strong party adhered to Noosrut; and 
 a most destructive contest ensued between the parti- 
 sans of the rival kings. The balance continued nearly 
 even for the space of three years, during which every 
 species of calamity oppressed the wretched inhabit- 
 ants. Some of the distant Subahdars looked on with 
 satisfaction, contemplating their own elevation in the 
 depression of the imperial power. But in the year 
 1396, Mohammed Jehangir, the grandson of Timur, 
 or Tamerlane, having constructed a bridge over the 
 Indus, invaded Multan. The governor, who already 
 regarded the province as his own, opposed him with 
 no contemptible force; but was overcome, and re- 
 signed Multan to the conqueror. In the mean time 
 the Omrah Ekbal obtained and betrayed the confi- 
 dence of Noosrut, whom he obliged to fly to Paniput. 
 He opened a deceitful negotiation with the Emperor, 
 under cover of which he surprised and slew Mookur- 
 rib. All power now centred in Ekbal; and the em- 
 peror was converted into a cipher. In this situation 
 were affairs at Delhi, when intelligence arrived that 
 Timur himself had crossed the Indus. 
 
 The birth of Timur, or Tamerlane, was cast at one 
 of those recurring periods, in the history of the 
 Asiatic sovereignties, when the enjoyment of power, 
 for several generations, having extinguished all 
 manly virtues in the degenerate descendants of some
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 305 
 
 active usurper, prepares the governors of the pro- BOOKni 
 
 vinces for revolt, dissolves the power of the state, and 
 
 opens the way for the elevation of some new and 1396 - 
 daring adventurer. At no preceding period, perhaps, 
 had these causes enervated the powers of government 
 over so great a part of Asia at once, as at the time 
 of Tamerlane. The descendants of Jungiz had 
 formed their immense conquests into three great 
 kingdoms; of which Persia was one; the interme- 
 diate regions of Transoxiana, Khorasan, Bactria, and 
 Zabulistan or Kandahar, and Kabul, lying between 
 Persia and Tartary, were the second; and Tartary 
 itself, or rather Tartary and China in conjunction, 
 the third. The dynasties of the race of Jungiz, in 
 all these several kingdoms had been in possession of 
 power so long, as now to display the effects which 
 possession of power in Asia invariably produces. The 
 reigning sovereigns had every where given them- 
 selves up to the vices which are the natural growth 
 of the throne ; the viceroys of the provinces despised 
 their authority; and weakness and distraction per- 
 vaded the empire. About thirty years before the 
 birth of Timur, the kingdom of Persia had under- 
 gone a species of dissolution ; almost every province, 
 under a rebel governor, had been erected into an 
 independency, and the whole divided into a number 
 of petty states. From nearly the same period, the 
 kingdom of Zagatai, (this was the intermediate so- 
 vereignty, so called from that son of Jungiz whose 
 inheritance it became,) had been contended for by 
 a succession of usurpers. The Mogul throne of 
 Tartary and China had been less violently agitated, 
 but was greatly reduced in power. Into what con- 
 
 VOL. II. X
 
 306 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in f us i on am i -weakness the Afghan empire of Delhi 
 
 CIIAI*. 3. 
 
 had fallen, we have seen in sufficient detail. 
 
 Timur was horn forty miles to the south of Samar- 
 cand, in the village of Sebzar, where his fathers, 
 enjoying the rank or command of a toman of horse, 
 had possessed a local authority for some generations. 
 Timur had, from a tender age, been involved in the 
 warfare of a distracted period ; and by his courage, 
 activity, and address, had at five and twenty fixed 
 upon himself the hopes and esteem of a large propor- 
 tion of his countrymen. Amid the other calamities 
 which had fallen upon the kingdom of Zagatai or 
 Samarcand, upon the breaking up of the government 
 of the descendants of Jungiz, the Tartars of Kashgar 
 had been incited, by the apparent weakness of the 
 state, to invade the country, where they now op- 
 pressed and massacred the wretched inhabitants. 
 Timur stood forward as the deliverer of his country ; 
 but when the day for action arrived, the chiefs who 
 had promised to support him betrayed their engage- 
 ments, and he was constrained to fly to the desert 
 with only sixty horsemen. Timur ran every sort of 
 danger, and endured every sort of hardship, for seve- 
 ral months, during which he led the life of a fugitive 
 or outlaw. By degrees, however, he collected a party 
 of well-tried adherents. The soldiers of fortune, the 
 most adventurous of the youth, gathered around him. 
 He harassed the Tartars by daring, yet cautious 
 onsets ; whence he increased his reputation, and 
 multiplied his followers. After a series of struggles, 
 the invaders were finally driven from Transoxiana. 
 But it was not till the age of thirty-four, and after a 
 course of strenuous and fortunate activity, that he
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 307 
 
 was raised by the general voice to the undivided BOOK \ u 
 
 J CHAP. 3. 
 
 sovereignty of his native country. 
 
 Placed on the throne of Samarcand, the eye of 1397> 
 Timur perceived the situation of the neighbouring 
 countries. The provinces or kingdoms which had 
 become detached from the house of Zagatai ; Kha- 
 rism, and Khorasan, first tempted his restless am- 
 bition, and some years were spent in adding these 
 important conquests to his dominion. The conti- 
 guous provinces of Persia; Mazenderan and Segistan, 
 to which was added Zabulistan, the grand southern 
 or Indian district of the kingdom of Zagatai ; next 
 employed his conquering arms. These enterprises 
 successfully terminated, he passed into Fars, the 
 Persia proper; into Persian Irak, and Azerbijian, 
 the conquest of which he completed in two years. 
 The princes or usurpers of the provinces, Shirvan 
 and Gilan, sent to make their submissions, and to 
 promise obedience. At Shiraz, in the year 1386, he 
 received intelligence, that Toktamish Khan, a Tar- 
 tar chief, whose authority was acknowledged through- 
 out the region known to the Persians under the 
 title of Desht Kipchak, north of the Caspian, had 
 made incursion into Transoxiana. He flew to repel 
 the invader ; and the desire of chastising Toktamish 
 was the primary cause of the conquests of Timur in 
 Turkestan. He followed his enemy into regions, 
 void of houses, where the men fled before him. 
 When far driven to the north, they were at last 
 constrained to fight ; and the army of Timur, after 
 severe suffering, repaid itself by a complete victory, 
 which compelled Toktamish, with his remaining 
 followers, to take shelter in the mountains on the 
 
 X 2
 
 308 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 I" western side of the Caspian Sea. From this enter- 
 
 . o. * 
 
 prise, the victor returned to complete the conquest 
 
 397 ' of Persia. He drove from the city of Bagdad, the 
 last prince in Persia of the house of Jungiz ; he con- 
 quered the whole of Mesopotamia ; pushed his way 
 into Tartary through mount Caucasus, to chastise 
 anew the insolence of Toktamish, who had passed 
 Derbend and made an inroad in Shirvan ; and, 
 having settled these extensive acquisitions, was, in 
 1396, prepared to carry his army across the Indus. 
 
 Timur proceeded from Samarcand, by the city of 
 Termed, and passing a little to the eastward of Balk, 
 arrived at Anderob, a city on the borders of that stu- 
 pendous ridge of mountains which separates Hindu- 
 stan from the regions of the north. The difficulties 
 of the passage were not easily surmounted : but every 
 thing yielded to the power and perseverance of 
 Timur. He descended to the city of Cabul : whence 
 he marched towards Attock, the celebrated passage 
 of the Indus : and in the year 1397, commenced his 
 operations against Mubarik, who governed the fron- 
 tier provinces of the empire of Delhi. Mubarik 
 betook him self to a place of strength, and resisted the 
 detachment sent to subdue him : but on the approach 
 of the conqueror with his whole army, fled, with his 
 family and treasure. The attention of Timur was 
 now called to the situation of his grandson, who had 
 invaded Hindustan the preceding year. The solsti- 
 tial rains had forced him to draw his army into 
 Multan, after it had suffered much from the season : 
 and no sooner was he enclosed within the city than 
 the people of the country invested it, preventing 
 supplies. Mohammed was reduced to the greatest
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 309 
 
 distress, when his grandfather detached a body of BOOKni 
 
 horse to support him, and soon after followed with 
 
 his whole army. He ravaged Multan and Lahore, 1397 - 
 putting the inhabitants of such of the cities as pre- 
 sumed to offer any resistance indiscriminately to the 
 sword. Without further delay, he directed his 
 march towards Delhi, and encamped before the 
 citadel. 
 
 On the seventh day, though unlucky, Ekbal, and 
 his ostensible sovereign, marched out to engage him. 
 But the enervated troops of Delhi scarcely bore 
 to commence the action with the fierce soldiers of the 
 north ; and Timur pursued them with great slaugh- 
 ter to the walls of Delhi. Ekbal, and Mahmood, fled 
 from the city in the night, the sovereign towards 
 Guzerat, the minister towards Birren : upon which 
 the magistrates and Omrahs of the city tendered 
 their submissions ; and opened the gates. In levy- 
 ing the heavy contributions imposed upon the city, 
 disputes arose between the Moguls of Timur and the 
 inhabitants ; when blood began to flow. One act of 
 violence led to another, till the city was involved in 
 one atrocious scene of sack and massacre, which 
 Timur was either (authorities differ) careless to 
 prevent, or pleased to behold. 
 
 Timur remained at Delhi fifteen days, and arrested 
 the progress of conquest in Hindustan. Having re- 
 ceived the submissions of several omrahs, the go- 
 vernors or subahdars of provinces, and confirmed 
 them in their commands, he marched in a northern 
 direction, overrunning the country on both sides of 
 the Ganges, till he reached the celebrated spot 
 where it issues from the mountains. He then ad-
 
 310 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in vance d along the bottom of the hills to Kabul, and 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 thence proceeded to Samarcand. 
 
 Delhi remained in a state of anarchy for two 
 months after the departure of the Moguls. It was 
 then entered by the pretended emperor Noosrut, with 
 a small body of horse. Ekbal, however, by means of 
 some Zemindars, was still able to dislodge him, and 
 recovered the Doab or country between the rivers, 
 which, with a small district round the city, was all 
 that now acknowledged the sovereign of Delhi. 
 The governors or subahdars of the provinces all 
 assumed independence, and adopted royal titles. 
 Lahore, Dibalpore [Punjab,] and Multan, were 
 seized by Khizer ; Kanoj, Oude, Korah, and Jon- 
 poor, by Khaja Jehan, then styled the king of the 
 East ; Guzerat, by Azim ; Malwa, by Dilawur ; and 
 the other departments, by those who happened in 
 each to have in their hands the reins of government. 
 Ekbal made some efforts, but attended with little 
 success, to extend his limits. He received Mah- 
 mood, who fled from the disrespectful treatment 
 bestowed on him by the governor or king of Gu- 
 zerat ; but compelled him to live on a pension, with- 
 out claiming any share in the government. At last 
 he came to blows with Khizer, the powerful usurper 
 of Multan and Lahore ; when he was defeated, and 
 lost his life in the action. Mahmood then recovered 
 a small remainder of the power which once belonged 
 to the Shahs of Delhi; but knew not how to 
 employ it either for his own or tire public advantage. 
 Nothing but the struggles and contests which pre- 
 vailed among the usurpers of the provinces prevented 
 some one of them from seizing his throne, and
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 311 
 
 extinguishing his impotent reign in his blood ; 
 when dying of a fever, in the year 1413, " the empire 
 fell/' says Ferishta, " from the race of the Turks [or 1413 - 
 Tartars] who were adopted slaves of the emperor 
 Mohammed Gauri, the second of the race of the 
 sovereigns of India, called the dynasty of Gaur." 1 
 An Omrah, who happened to be in command at 
 Delhi, presumed to mount the vacant throne; but 
 Khizer, with the troops and resources of Multan and 
 Lahore, found little difficulty in throwing him down 
 from his rash elevation. 
 
 Within a short period subsequent to the departure 
 of Timur from Delhi, that conqueror had settled the 
 affairs of Persia: reduced Syria, Egypt, and Asia 
 Minor; defeated Bajazet the Turkish emperor on 
 the plains of Galatia ; and prepared a vast expedition 
 against China, which he was conducting through the 
 plains and across the mountains of Tartary, when he 
 fell sick, and died, in the year 1405, leaving his 
 vast empire to his son Shahrokh. 
 
 Khizer, it seems, was of the race of the prophet. 
 His father had been adopted as the son of a great 
 Omrah, who was governor of Multan, in the reign 
 of Feroze. Upon the death of this Omrah and his 
 son, the father of Khizer succeeded as Subahdar of 
 Multan, and from him the government descended 
 to his son. At the time when Timur arrived in 
 India, he was involved in difficulties, through the 
 
 1 The two dynasties of Gaur are spoken of occasionally by the Oriental 
 historians under the title of the Afghan and Patan government of India; 
 Afghan and Patan, as also Abdaly, and several others, being names, 
 applied to the whole or a part of the people who inhabit the chain of 
 mountains from Herat, to the mouths of the Indus.
 
 312 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OK I 11 power of a neighbouring chief; and had the pru- 
 dence, or good luck, to solicit the protection of the 
 
 142 - conqueror, who confirmed him in the government of 
 Multan, and added to it several other important 
 provinces. 
 
 Khizer affected to decline the title of sovereign ; 
 pretending that he held the government of India 
 only as deputy of the house of Timur, in whose 
 name he ordered the coin to be struck, and the 
 instruments of government to be expedited. By 
 this expedient, we are told, he obviated the jea- 
 lousies and competition of the Omrahs, many of 
 whom would have regarded their claim to the 
 throne as preferable to his own. Khizer governed 
 with considerable abilities; and the people again 
 tasted the fruits of peace and protection under his 
 reign. He made but little progress in re-annexing 
 the revolted provinces to the empire of Delhi. He 
 reigned, however, from the farthest branch of the 
 Indus, to the extremity of the Doab ; and from the 
 Kashmere and Himalaya mountains to the latitude of 
 Gualior. 
 
 After a reign of seven years and some months his 
 death transferred the government to Mubarik his 
 son. Mubarik was early involved in a contest 
 with the Gickers, who, under a leader of the name 
 of Jisserit, continued to molest the Punjab and 
 Lahore during the whole of his reign. The Hindu 
 tribes in the hill-country of Mewat, to the south of 
 Delhi; those also in the hill-country to the north of 
 Budaoon or Rohilcund, gave him at various periods 
 no little disturbance. A war was at one time
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 313 
 
 kindled between him and the governor who had BOOKni 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 usurped the provinces lying eastward from Delhi, . 
 
 and was then known by the title of the King of the 142 - 46 - 
 East. Coming however to a drawn battle, the two 
 sovereigns were contented ever after to leave each 
 other in peace. A rebellious slave, in the northern 
 provinces, drew him into a contest with the Moguls 
 of the empire of Samarcand ; the rebel having in- 
 vited the Viceroy of Shahrokh who resided at Kabul, 
 to come to his assistance. The Moguls were de- 
 feated in battle and repelled. Mubarik, however, 
 in consequence of a conspiracy, headed by the Vizir, 
 was shortly after assassinated, in the fourteenth year 
 of a reign, during which he had displayed consider- 
 able talents for government, and more than usual 
 attention to justice and humanity. 
 
 The Vizir placed Mohammed, a grandson of Muba- 
 rik upon the throne, expecting to govern the king- 
 dom in his name, or in time to appropriate the 
 shadow as well as the substance of command. But 
 the Omrahs were disgusted with his pretensions, and 
 levied war ; which enabled or compelled the king to 
 rid himself by assassination of his domineering 
 minister. The Omrahs returned to obedience ; and 
 the king, after making a parade of his power in a 
 progress through several of the provinces, returned 
 to Delhi, and resigned himself to pleasure. The 
 temper of the times was not such as to permit a 
 negligent hand to hold the reins of government 
 with impunity. The Omrahs in the distant govern- 
 ments began immediately to prepare for indepen- 
 dence. Beloli Lodi, 1 the governor of Sirhind, a town 
 
 1 The Hame is Bheilolc in Briggs. W.
 
 314 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 1 on the Sutlej, or eastern branch of the Indus, 
 made himself master of Lahore, of the greater 
 part of the Punjab, and the country eastwards as 
 far as Paniput, within a few leagues of Delhi. 
 Beloli retired before the imperial army, but pre- 
 served his own entire ; and re-occupied the country 
 as soon as the troops of Mohammed returned. 
 Another Viceroy, who had become independent in 
 Malwa, and assumed the title of its king, marched 
 against the feeble sovereign of Delhi, who saw no 
 hopes of safety, but in calling the rebel Beloli to his 
 aid. An indecisive action was fought: and the 
 monarchs of Delhi and Malwa, both suffering from 
 their fears, made haste to quiet their minds by 
 huddling up an adjustment ; but Beloli attacked in 
 its retreat the army of Malwa, which he plundered 
 and deprived of its baggage. He was despatched by 
 Mohammed against Jisserit the Gicker chief, who 
 still harassed the northern provinces. But Beloli 
 made his own terms with the plunderer; and re- 
 turned to besiege Delhi. It held out however so 
 long, that for the present he abandoned the enter- 
 prise. Mohammed shortly after died, his power re- 
 duced to a shadow, after a reign of twelve years and 
 some months. 
 
 In the same year, viz. 1446, died Shahrokh, son of 
 Timur, and Emperor of the Moguls. Upon his 
 death the vast empire of Timur, which had yet re- 
 mained entire, underwent division. The eldest son 
 of Shahrokh, the famous Ulug Beg, inherited the im- 
 perial titles, and the dominion of Western Tartary 
 or Transoxiana. The eldest son of Basunker, 
 another of the sons of Timur, possessed himself of
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 315 
 
 Khorasan, Kandahar, and Kabul. The second son BOOKIII 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 of Basunker held possession of the Western Persia 
 
 And Abul Kasem, the third of Tiraur's sons, became 1446 - 
 sovereign of Georgia, and Mazenderan. 
 
 Alia, the son of Mohammed, mounted the throne 
 of Delhi, honoured now with the obedience ol little 
 more than a few of the contiguous districts. 1 Alia 
 showed no talents for government ; and after a few 
 years, being attacked by Beloli, resigned to him the 
 throne, upon condition of receiving the government 
 of Budaoon, where he lived and died in peace. 
 
 Beloli was an Afghan, of the tribe of Lodi, which 
 subsisted chiefly by carrying on the traffic between 
 Hindustan and Persia. Ibrahim, the grandfather of 
 Beloli, a wealthy trader, repaired to the court of 
 Feroze at Delhi ; and acquired sufficient influence to 
 be intrusted with the government of Multan. When 
 Khizer succeeded to the same command, he made 
 the son of Ibrahim master of his Afghan troops ; 
 and afterwards bestowed upon him the government 
 of Sirhind. Beloli was not the son of the governor 
 of Sirhind, but of another of the sons of Ibrahim. 
 
 1 Ferishta's enumeration of the independent principalities now existing, 
 shows accurately the limits to which the monarchy of Delhi was reduced. 
 " The Deccan, Guzerat, Malwa, Jonpoor, and Bengal, had each its inde- 
 pendent king. The Punjab, Depalpoor, and Sirhind, as far south as Pani- 
 put, formed the territory of Bheilole Khan Lody. Mehrowly and the 
 country within seven cos (fourteen miles) of Delhi, was in the hands of 
 Ahmud Khan Mewattee. Sumbhul, even to the suburbs of Delhi, was 
 occupied by Durra Khan Lody. Kole-jalesur, in the south by Eesa Khan. 
 Joorb, and Rabery and its dependencies, by Kowuch Khan Afghan. 
 Kampila and Pattialy, by Raja Purtab Sinh, and Byana, by Dawood 
 Khan Lody." Briggs' Translation, i. 541. We may be sure, that the 
 Hindus, in all directions, took advantage of this dismemberment of the 
 Patan sovereignty, to assert their own independence, and to augment the 
 anarchy that must have prevailed. W.
 
 316 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 i, upon the death of his father, repaired to his 
 uncle at Sirhind, and so effectually cultivated his 
 1446. favour, that he received his daughter in marriage, 
 and his recommendation to succeed him in his go- 
 vernment. But Ibrahim left a brother Feroze, and 
 a son Koottub, who disputed the pretensions of the 
 son-in-law of the governor of Sirhind. Beloli was 
 the most powerful and adroit; and of course the 
 successful competitor. The rest, however, excited 
 against him the Emperor of Delhi. His country was 
 attacked and overrun. But Beloli kept his army 
 together, and speedily recovered his territory, when 
 the imperial troops were withdrawn. By activity, 
 valour, and skill, something was daily added to the 
 power of Beloli : by indolence, effeminacy, and folly, 
 something was daily detached from the power of the 
 sovereign of Delhi : till Beloli was able to measure 
 strength with him, on more than equal terms, and 
 finally to seat himself on his throne. 
 
 The mother of Beloli was smothered, while preg- 
 nant, under the ruins of a falling house. Her husband, 
 opening her body, saved the infant, afterwards em- 
 peror of Hindustan. It is related that when Beloli 
 was yet a youth, in the service of his uncle, a famous 
 Durvesh, whom he came to visit, suddenly cried out 
 with enthusiasm. Who will give two thousand 
 rupees for the empire of Delhi *? Beloli had but one 
 thousand six hundred rupees in the world. But he 
 sent his servant immediately to bring them. The 
 Durvesh, receiving the money, laid his hand upon 
 the head of Beloli, and gave him salutation and 
 blessing as the king of Delhi. Ridiculed by his 
 companions as a dupe, Beloli replied, that if he
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 317 
 
 obtained the crown it was cheaply purchased : if not, BOOK in 
 
 still the benediction of a holy man was not without 
 
 its use. 1480. 
 
 Those Omrahs, who regarded their own preten- 
 sions to the throne as not inferior to those of Beloli, 
 were disaffected. A party of them joined Mahmood, 
 who held the usurped sovereignty of Bahar, and the 
 country towards 'Orissa 1 ; and was called king of 
 Jonpoor, the city, at which he resided, on the banks 
 of the Goomty, about forty miles from Benares. 
 The victory which Beloli gained over their united 
 forces established him firmly on his throne. 
 
 Beloli made a progress through his unsettled pro- 
 vinces confirming or removing the several governors, 
 as he supposed them affected to his interests. He 
 was not long suffered to remain in peace. Between 
 him and the rival sovereign of Jonpoor, or the East, 
 an undecisive war was carried on during the whole 
 of his reign. The advantage, partly through force, 
 and partly through treachery, was, upon the whole, 
 on the side of Beloli, who at last drove the king of 
 the East from Jonpoor, and severed from his do- 
 minions the district to which it belonged. In his 
 declining years Beloli divided the provinces of his 
 empire among his sons, relations, and favourites ; 
 and died at an advanced age, in the thirty-ninth year 
 of his reign. He was a modest sovereign ; and when 
 reproved by his friends for showing so little of the 
 prince, " It was enough for him," he replied, " that 
 
 1 Whence this is derived does not appear : it is not in Ferishta. The 
 predecessor of Mahmood invaded Bengal but it was only a predatory in- 
 cursion. The kings of the East never had possession of any part of 
 Orissa W.
 
 318 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK HI the world knew he was king, without his making a 
 
 CHAT. 3. 
 
 vain parade of royalty." 
 
 1526. The partition which Beloli made of his dominions 
 had no tendency to prevent those disputes about the 
 succession which are so frequent in the east; but 
 neither, perhaps, did it augment them. A strong 
 party of the Omrahs declared for Sekunder, one of 
 the younger sons of Beloli ; and after some struggle 
 of no great importance he was seated firmly on the 
 throne. The usual measures were pursued for 
 placing the provinces in a state of obedience : and 
 Sekunder was stimulated to endeavour the restora- 
 tion of some of the districts which for several reigns 
 had affected independence on the throne of Delhi. 
 The tranquillity, however, of an empire, which had 
 been so long distracted, was not easily preserved : 
 and Sekunder was perpetually recalled from the 
 frontiers of his kingdom, to anticipate or to quell 
 insurrections within. He waged notwithstanding a 
 successful war with the king of the East, who had 
 been driven from Jonpoor by the father, and was 
 now driven from Bahar by the son. But he found 
 himself unequal to a war for the recovery of Bengal, 
 to the confines of which he had once more extended 
 the empire of Delhi ; and that important province 
 still remained in the hands of the usurper. Sekun- 
 der reigned, with the reputation of abilities, and of 
 no inconsiderable virtue, for twenty-eight years and 
 five months, and was succeeded by his son Ibrahim. 
 Ibrahim had personal courage, and was not alto- 
 gether destitute of talents : but he was a violent, 
 capricious, unthinking prince ; and quickly lost the 
 affections and respect of his subjects. One of his
 
 GAURIAN AND AFGHAN DYNASTIES. 319 
 
 maxims was, " that kings had no relations ; for that 
 
 CHAP. 3. 
 
 all men equally were the slaves of the monarch." 
 
 This, though perfectly constitutional doctrine in the 1525> 
 East, was a language which had now become un- 
 usual to the proud Omrahs of the falling throne of 
 Delhi. Ibrahim was involved in an uninterrupted 
 struggle with rebellion ; against which, however, 
 he maintained himself, during a space of twenty 
 years. His empire was then invaded by Baber, a 
 descendant of the great Timur, who in 1525 deprived 
 him at once of his throne and his life. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From the Commencement to the Close of the Mogul 
 Dynasty. 
 
 UPON the death of Shahrokh, the son of Timur, and 
 the division of the dominions of that conqueror among 
 his descendants, quarrels and war ensued ; the weak- 
 ness and vice, which are the usual attendants upon 
 long-inherited sovereignty, weakened the unsteady 
 powers of Asiatic government ; and in a few years 
 the great empire of Timur was in a state of dissolu- 
 tion. The Turks, who had penetrated into western 
 Asia, and who, under Bajazet, received a dreadful 
 overthrow by the arms of Timur, no sooner felt the 
 weakness of government in the hands of his succes- 
 sors, than they pressed upon the nearest provinces,
 
 320 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 and at an early period were masters of Mesopotamia. 
 Ismael was a disgraced servant of Jacob Beg, the 
 1525. eighth in the Turkish dynasty of the white sheep. 
 Pursuing the career of a military adventurer, he 
 collected around him a number of those daring 
 characters, so numerous in the turbulent and unset- 
 tled countries of the East, whose business it is to 
 seek a livelihood by their sword ; and after a period, 
 spent in subordinate plunder, he conceived himself 
 sufficiently strong to attack, in the year 1500, the 
 governor, or king (for he now affected independence) 
 of the province of Shirvan. After the conquest of 
 Shirvan, Ismael successively made himself master of 
 Tauris, Media, Chaldea, Persia, and became the 
 founder of the dynasty of the Sophis, who held the 
 sceptre of Persia for a number of generations. 
 
 On the eastern side of the Caspian, Shaibek Khan, 
 a chief of the Usbeks, or Tartars of Desht Kipchak, 
 entered Transoxiana, at the head of his horde, in the 
 year 1494. In the course of four years, he rendered 
 himself master of all Transoxiana and Khorasan ; the 
 last of which was however wrested from the Usbecks, 
 by the arms of Ismael Sophi, in the year 1510. 
 
 Baber was the grandson of Abu Seid, the king of 
 Zagatai ; and Abu Seid was the son of Mohammed, 
 the grandson of Timur, through Miran Shah. The 
 dominions of Abu Seid were at his death divided 
 among his sons. Ali became king of Kabul ; Ahmed, 
 king of Samarcand; Ahmer, king of Indijan and 
 Fergana; 1 and Mahmood, king of Kunduz andBuduk- 
 
 1 A more accurate nomenclature, as \vell as a more precise account, is 
 to be found in the introduction to the Memoirs of Baber, Ivii. Ahmed, 
 was king of Samarkand; Mahmud, of Hisar, Kunduz and Badakhshan;
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. ,321 
 
 shan. Baber was the son of Ahmer, king of Indiian BOOKIII 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 and Fergana; a district surrounded by mountains, 
 
 lying between Samarkand and Kashgar. He sue- 1525 
 ceeded his father, while yet very young, in the year 
 1493 ; l and was immediately involved in a war with 
 his uncles, desirous to profit by his youth and inex- 
 perience. Baber maintained himself against them 
 with varying fortune, sometimes reduced to the lowest 
 ebb, at other times borne on a flowing tide ; till the 
 arrival of Shaibek, the Tartar. Shaibek, after a 
 struggle which was strenuously supported by Baber, 
 swept the posterity of Timur from Transoxiana and 
 Khorasan. Baber was compelled to retire towards 
 Kabul ; where the son of his uncle Ali had been de- 
 throned by his Omrahs, and the greatest anarchy 
 prevailed. The weak resistance opposed to Baber, 
 in Kabul, he had means to overcome, and became 
 master of that province in the year 1504. After 
 spending some years in contending with the enemies 
 who disputed with him the possession of Kabul, and 
 resisted his efforts for obtaining Kandahar, he was 
 fired with the hopes of recovering his paternal do- 
 minions, Ismael Sophi having defeated and slain his 
 enemy, Shaibek. In the year 1511 he marched 
 towards Bokhara, of which, after some resistance, he 
 made himself master. His next object was Samar- 
 kand, which surrendered upon his arrival. His am- 
 bition was to make this celebrated capital of the 
 
 Ulugh Beg, of Kabul and Ghizni; and Omar Sheikh Mirza, father of 
 Baber, king of Ferghana. 
 
 1 It should be 1494. Mem. of Baber. W. 
 
 4 By Ferishta, as translated by Dow, he is called Shaibani, ii. 100. M. 
 And in Baber's Memoirs, Shaibak or Shaibani. W. 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 322 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 g reat founder of his house the place of his residence ; 
 - and he appointed Nasir, his brother, governor of 
 1526 - Kabul. But he had not enjoyed, above nine months, 
 this coveted throne, when the Usbeks, under the 
 successor of Shaibek, 1 returned from the desert, and 
 Baber, after an unavailing struggle, was forced back 
 to Kabul. 
 
 Baber had not spent one year in re-establishing 
 his authority, in Kabul, 2 when information received of 
 the weakness at Delhi inspired him with the hopes 
 of indemnifying himself in the south for the posses- 
 sions which he had been constrained to relinquish in 
 the north. In the year 1519 he took possession of 
 all the countries on the further side of the Blue 
 River, one of the branches of the Indus. He over- 
 ran a part of the Panjab, levying contributions ; and 
 after chastising the Gickers, who had molested him in 
 his progress, he returned to Kabul. Before the end 
 of the same year, he renewed his march into Hin- 
 dustan, and intended to reduce Lahore; but was 
 interrupted, by news from the northern side of the 
 mountains which separate Bokhara from Kabul, that 
 a district there, of which he still retained possession, 
 had been invaded by the Tartars of Kashgar. The 
 following year, the conqueror was recalled, after he 
 had made some progress in the invasion of Hindu- 
 stan, by intelligence that Kabul itself was assailed by 
 the people of Kandahar. Baber resolved to com- 
 plete the conquest of this neighbouring country, 
 
 1 His son Mohammed Taimur Sultan. W. 
 
 * An interval of three years elapsed, during -which, Baber -was endea- 
 vouring to re-establish his authority in Kandahar. Mem. of Baber, 245. 
 W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 323 
 
 before he again led out his armies to regions more BOOKin 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 remote. The vigour of the king of Kandahar, who ' 
 held out for three years, procured, thus long, a 1525 - 
 respite to the kings and Omrahs of Hindustan ; or 
 rather afforded three additional years 1 for the ex- 
 ercise of their mutual hostilities, and the oppression 
 of the wretched inhabitants. But in the year, 1523, 
 Kandahar being at last reduced, Baber rendered 
 himself master of Lahore and the Panjab. The 
 next year, beginning to feel the seducements of 
 luxury and ease, he contented himself with directing 
 his troops in Hindustan to march against Delhi. 
 But they were attacked and overthrown. 2 In 1525 
 Baber resolved to repair this misfortune by his pre- 
 sence. Ibrahim marched out to defend his capital 
 with an army as much inferior in bravery, as it was 
 superior in numbers. It was speedily routed, Ibra- 
 
 1 This is a mistake, the period being confounded -with that previous to 
 Baber's first invasion of India. It was in his third invasion, in 1520, that 
 Shah Beg, of Kandahar, laid siege to Kabul, and Baber returned to its 
 succour. During the following year, he completed his preparations for 
 retaliation, and finally reduced Kandahar to his authority in 1522. Mem. 
 of Baber, 286. W. 
 
 2 This is not a correct representation of the events. Baber led his army 
 into India in 1524, and was joined by several of the nobles of Delhi, with 
 Ala-ad-din, the brother of Ibrahim. Amongst others, were Doulet Khan, 
 and his son, but they shortly deserted Baber, and raised an opposition in the 
 Panjab, which rendered it advisable for him to fall back on Lahore, after 
 having advanced to Sirhind. From Lahore, he returned to Kabul, leaving 
 Ala-ad-din and several of his chiefs, as his governors in the conquered pro- 
 vinces. They were almost immediately dislodged by Doulet Khan, and 
 obliged to join Baber, at Kabul. It was then that he sent a force into 
 India under the command of his officers, and Ala-ad-din, that the latter 
 might be assisted to ascend the throne of Delhi ; and his reason for not 
 leading the army in person, was, his being obliged to march to the relief 
 of Balkh, which was besieged by the Uzbeks. Ala-ad-din was defeated, 
 and again took refuge, though rather reluctantly, with Baber, as he ad- 
 vanced on his fifth and final invasion of Hindustan, in the cold season of 
 1525. Mem. of Baber, 295. W. 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 was slain in battle, Baber entered Delhi, and, 
 
 mounting the throne of the Afghans, or Patans, be- 
 
 301 gan the Mogul dynasty in Hindustan. 
 
 Great efforts were still demanded for the reduction 
 of the provinces, the Omrahs of which being Af- 
 ghans, and expecting little favour under a Mogul 
 monarch, held out, and even formed themselves into 
 an extensive and formidable confederacy, setting a 
 son of the late Sekunder, as sovereign, at their head. 
 Baber's principal officers, alarmed by the resistance 
 which it seemed necessary to overcome, combined in 
 offering him advice to return. The king, declaring 
 that he would relinquish such a conquest only with 
 his life, displayed so formidable a spirit of resolution 
 and perseverance, that in a short time the confe- 
 deracy began to dissolve. Many of the Omrahs, 
 who were the weakest, or whose territories were the 
 most exposed, came over to Baber, and entered into 
 his service. At last a great battle was fought, 
 which Baber with difficulty won, but which gave 
 him so decided a superiority, that his enemies were 
 no longer able to meet him in the field. Having 
 reduced the provinces which latterly paid obedience 
 to the throne of Delhi, he advanced against the 
 Omrahs of the East, who for a length of time had 
 affected independence. He had scarcely, however, 
 conquered Bahar, when he fell sick and died, in the 
 year 1530. 
 
 Humayoon succeeded to the throne of his father, 
 but was not long suffered to enjoy it in peace. His 
 brother Kamran, in the government of Kabul, 
 formed a resolution of seizing upon the Panjab ; and 
 Humayoon was fain to confer upon him the govern-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 325 
 
 ment of all the country from the Indus to Persia, on BOOKm 
 
 J CHAP. 4. 
 
 condition of his holding it as a dependency. Mah- 
 
 mood, too, the son of the Emperor Sekunder, whom lr > 3 - 40 - 
 the confederated Omrahs had placed at their head, 
 was again joined by some chiefs, and kindled the 
 flames of war in the eastern provinces. A victory 
 gained by the Emperor extinguished all immediate 
 danger in that quarter. But Shir Khan, the regent 
 of Bahar, refused to give up the fortress of Chunar. 
 A conspiracy was formed in favour of Mohammed, 
 a prince of the race of Timur ; and Bahadur, king 
 of Guzerat, was excited to hostilities by the protec- 
 tion Humayoon afforded to the Rana of Chitore. 
 Bahadur was unequal to his enterprise; the war 
 against him was pushed with activity and vigour, 
 and he lost entirely the kingdom of Guzerat. Hu- 
 mayoon was now in favour with fortune ; from 
 Guzerat he marched to the eastern provinces, and 
 reduced Chunar. Having gained the passes he then 
 entered Bengal; the government of which had 
 recently been usurped, and its sovereign expelled by 
 the enterprising Shir. He took possession of 
 Gour, then the capital of the province ; and there 
 resided for several months ; but, his troops suffering 
 from the humidity of the climate, and his two 
 brothers now aspiring openly to his throne, he was 
 compelled to proceed towards Agra, which he and 
 his father had made the seat of government. In the 
 mean time, Shir, though he had been defeated, was 
 not subdued. He made himself master of the strong 
 fortress of Rotas, after he had been obliged to retire 
 from Gour ; and he now threw himself in the way of 
 Humayoon, whose presence was urgently required
 
 326 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 * n anot h er part of his empire. Humayoon, threatened 
 with detention, if nothing worse, desired accommoda- 
 4 - tion. After a negotiation, it was agreed that the 
 government of Bahar and Bengal should be conferred 
 upon Shir, on his paying a slight tribute in acknow- 
 ledgment of dependence. The chance of finding the 
 camp of the Emperor unguarded, under the negli- 
 gence inspired by the prospect of peace, was one 
 among the motives which led Shir to open the ne- 
 gotiation. The perfidy succeeded ; and Humayoon, 
 having lost his army, was constrained to fly. 
 
 He repaired to Agra, and was joined by his bro- 
 thers, whose united strength was no more than suffi- 
 cient to defend them against Shir the Afghan. 
 But their conflicting interests and passions defeated 
 every scheme of co-operation. The army with which 
 Humayoon marched out to meet the assailant was 
 overthrown ; the capital no longer afforded him a 
 place of refuge ; he fled from one place to another, 
 subject at times to the greatest hardships ; and was 
 at last obliged to quit the kingdom, and seek an asy- 
 lum in Persia, where he was hospitably and honour- 
 ably entertained. 
 
 The grandfather of Shir, the new sovereign of 
 Hindustan, came from the district of Roh l in the 
 mountains of Afghanistan, in quest of military em- 
 
 1 This district, -which gave its name to the Rohillas, a people considera- 
 ble in the history of British India, is said by Major Stewart, on his Per- 
 sian authorities, to have been the original seat of the Afghans, whose 
 mountainous country (Roh signifies a mountainous country ; and Rohillas, 
 mountaineers or highlanders) extended, according to the same authorities, 
 in length from Sewad and Bijore to the town of Sui, in Bukharest, and in 
 breadth from Hussin to Rabul. Stewart's Bengal, p. 127. M. There is 
 some curious blundering, either by Stewart, or the authorities he has fol- 
 lowed in these statements ; and if the latter, it is extraordinary that he
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 327 
 
 ployment, in the reign of Beloli, and entered into the BOOK in 
 
 service of an Omrah of the court. His son Hussun 
 
 followed the Subahdar, who acquired the title of 1536 - 54 - 
 King of the East ; and rose to considerable rank in 
 his service. Ferid, the son of Hussun, received the 
 name of Shir, which signifies lion, from killing with 
 his own hand, in the presence of the King or 
 Governor of Bahar, an enormous tiger which rushed 
 from a thicket. When this monarch died, and his 
 son, a minor, succeeded him, the government of 
 Bahar rested chiefly in the hand of Shir; and a 
 short time elapsed, when the young prince, having 
 made his escape, left the name as well as the power 
 of sovereign to the usurper. He had just accom- 
 plished the conquest of Bengal, when Humayoon, 
 returning from Guzerat, invaded his dominions. 1 
 
 Immediately after his victory, Shir assumed the 
 imperial title of Shah, and exerted himself with great 
 activity in reducing the provinces to his obedience. 
 His mandates ran from the farthest branch of the 
 
 should have cited them without correction. What contiguity could Bu- 
 kharest possibly have to any part of the Afghan country, and where are 
 Hussin and Rabul ? Ferishta furnishes a more accurate version. Rob. 
 extends in length, he says, from Swad and Bajour, to Sui, in the district 
 of Bhukkur, and in breadth, from Husun Abdul, to Kabul. According 
 to him, Roh means mountain in the Afghan language, but no such term 
 occurs in the list of Pushtu words collected by Mr. Elphinstone, nor in a 
 Pushtu vocabulary, compiled by Mohabbet Khan, of which, a MS. is in 
 the library of the E. I. C. ; Roh, is there explained to be the name of an 
 extensive country, intermediate between Iran and Turan ; bounded on the 
 north by Kashkar, on the south by Baluchistan, on the west by Herat, and 
 Kashmir on the east ; being, in fact, the country of the Afghans. It 
 maybe doubted if this description is very accurate. Roh seems to offer traces 
 of the older appellation of a district of more limited extent, or Arachosia. 
 A town called Roh-kaj, is noticed by Ibn Hakil, not far from Ghizni. W. 
 1 What relates to Bengal, in these transactions, is extracted minutely 
 by Mr. Stewart, (Hist, of Bengal, sect. 5.)
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in Indus, to the Bay of Bengal; a more extensive do- 
 
 CHAP. 4. . . J 
 
 minion than for some ages had belonged to any sove- 
 
 1536-54. r eign of Hindustan. Besieging one of the strongly 
 situated forts, which abound in India, he was killed 
 by an accidental explosion of gunpowder, when he 
 had reigned five years in Hindustan. What can be 
 said of few sovereigns, even in still more enlightened 
 ages, he left various monuments of public beneficence 
 to prolong the memory, and the love, of his short 
 administration. He built caravanseras at every stage, 
 from the Nilab, or farthest branch of the Indus, to 
 the shores of Bengal ; he dug a well for the refresh- 
 ment of the traveller at every two miles ; he ordered 
 that all travellers, without distinction of country or 
 religion, should at every stage be entertained, accord- 
 ing to their quality, at the public expense ; he had 
 trees planted along the roads to shelter the travellers 
 against the violence of the sun ; he established post- 
 horses, the first in India, for the more rapid convey- 
 ing of intelligence to government, 1 and for the ac- 
 commodation of trade and correspondence ; even the 
 religious comfort of the traveller was not neglected ; 
 a number of magnificent mosques were erected along 
 the road, and priests appointed for the performance 
 of devotional services. 
 
 Shir left two sons, of whom the youngest, being 
 with the army, was proclaimed king. A struggle, as 
 usual, ensued, for the possession of the throne; a 
 feigned accommodation was made up between the 
 brothers ; war again quickly broke out ; the eldest 
 
 1 This is a stage of civilization to which the Hindus had not arrived. 
 M. It is one to which British India has not attained. There are obsta- 
 cles to this arrangement which it is difficult to surmount. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 329 
 
 lost a battle, from which he fled, and disappearing, BOOKIII 
 
 was never heard of more. The youngest remained 
 
 emperor, by the name of Selim. The Omrahs, how- 1536 ~ 5 4> 
 ever, or Subahdars of the provinces, who never neg- 
 lected an opportunity that promised a chance of 
 independence, rebelled in several quarters. In some 
 instances they were not without difficulty subdued. 
 After several years spent in reducing his dominions 
 to order and obedience, Selim was roused from his 
 dreams of future tranquillity, by intelligence that the 
 exiled emperor Humayoon was on his way from Persia 
 with an army, for the recovery of Hindustan. Selim 
 prepared for action with vigour. But Humayoon, 
 instead of advancing, retired. Selim, shortly after, 
 was seized with a violent distemper ; and died sud- 
 denly, in the tenth year of his reign. 
 
 He left a son to succeed him ; but only twelve 
 years of age. There was a nephew to the late em- 
 peror Shir, by name Mubarik, whose sister was 
 mother of the young prince. Mubarik assassinated 
 the boy in the arms of his mother, three days after 
 he had been proclaimed as king. 
 
 Mohammed was the name which Mubarik 
 thought proper to use upon the throne. Vice, pro- 
 fusion, and folly, the attributes of his character and 
 administration, lost him speedily the respect of his 
 people, and the obedience of his Omrahs. His bro- 
 ther Ibrahim raised an army, from which Mohammed 
 fled to the eastern provinces, leaving Ibrahim to 
 assume the style of royalty at Delhi. This was not 
 all. Ahmed, another nephew of the emperor Shir, laid 
 claim to the sovereignty in the Panjab, assumed the 
 name of Sekunder Shah, and marched towards Agra.
 
 330 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in I] )ra hi m me t him, and was defeated. Ibrahim was 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 attacked on the other side, by the vizir of Mohammed, 
 1036-54. an( j a f ter severa i turns of fortune, fled to Orissa. 
 Sekunder took possession of Agra and Delhi, while 
 Mohammed was engaged in a war with the governor 
 of Bengal ; in which at first he was prosperous, but 
 finally stript of his dominions and life. 
 
 In the mean time, Sekunder was summoned to 
 oppose the exiled emperor Humayoon, who had now 
 a second time returned for the recovery of his throne. 
 
 When Humayoon made his escape into Persia, 
 Tamasp the son of Ismael, second of the Sophis, 
 ruled from beyond the Euphrates, to the farthest 
 boundary of Transoxiana. The governor of the pro- 
 vince which first afforded shelter to Humayoon re- 
 ceived him with distinction ; and he was conveyed, 
 with the respect which seemed due to his rank and 
 misfortunes, to the Presence at Ispahan. He was 
 treated by Tamasp as a sovereign ; and his misfor- 
 tunes excited the compassion of a favourite sister of 
 the king, and of several of his councillors. At their 
 instigation an army of ten thousand horse was 
 intrusted to Humayoon ; with which he advanced 
 towards Kandahar, still governed, together with 
 Kabul, by one of his rebellious brothers. After an 
 obstinate resistance, the city of Kandahar fell into 
 his hands, and the rest of the province submitted. 
 Jealousy and dissatisfaction soon sprung up between 
 him and the Persian commanders. But various 
 Omrahs of the country now joined him with their 
 troops ; and, marching to Kabul, he was joined by 
 the second of his rebellious brothers, and several 
 other chiefs. Kabul was in no situation to resist ;
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 331 
 
 and his hostile brother fled to Bukker, a wild and 6001 ^ 11 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 desert province toward the mouth of the Indus, 
 
 governed by a relation. When Kabul was subdued, 1536 - 54> 
 Humayoon crossed the mountains to the north, for 
 the purpose of reducing Budukshan, that district of 
 the Mogul kingdom of Transoxiana which had 
 remained united to the dominions of Baber. In the 
 mean time his brother returned from Bukker, and in 
 the absence of Humayoon and his army obtained 
 possession of Kabul. Humayoon hastened from 
 Budukshan, gave battle to his brother's army, routed 
 it, and laid siege to Kabul. His brother seeing no 
 hopes of success, fled from the city by night, and 
 made his way to Balkh, where he received assistance 
 from the governor, marched against Humayoon's new 
 conquest of Budukshan, and expelled his governor. 
 Humayoon left him not to enjoy his acquisition in 
 peace : he marched against him, and forcing him 
 to submit, treated him with lenity and respect. 
 Humayoon next involved himself in hostilities with 
 the Usbeks of Balkh, over whom at first he gained 
 advantages, but at last was routed, and obliged to 
 retreat to Kabul. In this retreat he was deserted by 
 his perfidious brother, whom he had recently spared. 
 Some of the chiefs of his army wrote to that deserter, 
 that if he could attack the army of Humayoon, they 
 would betray him in the action. Humayoon was ac- 
 cordingly defeated ; and obliged to fly towards Buduk- 
 shan, leaving Kabul a third time to his foe. Being 
 joined, however, by the second of his brothers, who 
 now repaid by great services his former demerits ; 
 and by several other chiefs ; he was speedily in a 
 condition to march again to Kabul with a force
 
 332 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 which his brother was by no means able to withstand. 
 
 After some resistance the brother was obliged to 
 
 fly ; and though he continued for several years to 
 raise disturbance, he was no longer able to endanger 
 the sovereignty of Humayoon. 
 
 That prince though now in possession of part of 
 hisancientdominions, though aware of the distraction 
 which prevailed in the rest, and invited by the inhabit- 
 ants of Agra and Delhi, paused at the thought of in- 
 vading Hindustan. At first he was able to raise an army 
 of only fifteen thousand horse. With that he began to 
 advance towards the Indus, where he was joined by 
 his veterans from Kandahar. The governors of the 
 Panjab and Lahore fled before him; and those coun- 
 tries were regained without a contest. Sekunder de- 
 tached an army, which advancd towards the Sutlej. 
 But the general of the advanced division of the 
 army of Humayoon surprised the camp of Sekunder 
 in the night, and entirely dispersed the troops. This 
 disaster made Sekunder hasten with his main army 
 to meet the enemy ; a great battle was fought under 
 the walls of Sirhind in which the young Akbar, son 
 of Humayoon, showed remarkable spirit and resolu- 
 tion. Sekunder, being routed, fled to the mountains 
 of Sewalik. 
 
 Humayoon re-entered Delhi in the year 1554; but 
 was not destined to a long enjoyment of the power 
 which he had regained. As he was supporting him- 
 self by his staff on the marble stairs of his palace, 
 the staff slipped, and the emperor fell from the top 
 to the bottom. He was taken up insensible, and 
 expired in a few days, in the year 1 555, the fifty-first 
 of his age.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 Tamasp still reigned in Persia. But the Usbeks 
 had now possessed themselves of Bokhara, and of the 
 greater part of Transoxiana. 
 
 Akbar, the son of Humayoon, though not quite 
 fourteen years of age, was placed on his father's 
 throne. He had been nursed in difficulty and mis- 
 fortune; and, young as he was, those powerful teachers 
 had done much in forming his mind. 
 
 When Humayoon with the few friends who adhered 
 to him first fled from India, they nearly perished in 
 the sandy desert which lies between Ajmere and the 
 Indus. With the utmost difficulty, and after the loss 
 of many lives, they arrived at Amercot, the seat of a 
 Hindu Raja, about two hundred miles from Tatta. 
 It was here that Akbar was born. Humayoon, pro- 
 ceeding to Kandahar, where he still hoped for sup- 
 port, was attacked by the governor of Kandahar, and 
 obliged to fly, leaving his infant son and his mother 
 behind him. Akbar was kept at Kandahar by the 
 governor, till Humayoon was on his march from 
 Persia, when he sent him to his uncle at Kabul. 
 When Humayoon after Kabul was taken, again beheld 
 his son and his wife, he took the child in his arms, 
 then four years of age, and exclaimed; "Joseph by 
 his envious brethren was cast into a well; but he was 
 exalted by Providence to the summit of glory." Akbar 
 once more fell into the hands of his uncle, when that 
 rebellious prince regained possession of Kabul. When 
 Humayoon returned to besiege him, Akbar was bound 
 to a stake, and exposed upon the battlements. Hu- 
 mayoon made proclamation, that if injury happened 
 to Akbar, every human being in Kabul should be put 
 to the sword. The wretched uncle was deterred,
 
 334 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 forcibly restrained, from exposing it to such a 
 disaster. 
 
 1557. Byram, the chief of the Omrahs in the service of 
 Humayoon, a man of talents, but of a severe, or rather 
 of a cruel disposition, was appointed regent during 
 the minority ; which, in so unsettled and turbulent 
 an empire, was not likely to be attended with general 
 submission and peace. 
 
 The first object of the new government was to ex- 
 terminate the party of the late pretended emperor 
 Sekunder ; and for this purpose an army, with the 
 young sovereign at its head, marched toward the 
 mountains. Sekunder fled; the Raja of Nagracote 
 made his summission ; and the rainy season coming 
 on, the army retired into quarters. 
 
 In the mean time, the Governor who had been left 
 by Humayoon in the command of Budukshan assumed 
 independence ; and presumed so far upon the weak- 
 ness of the new government, as to march against 
 Kabul. The city stood a siege of four months ; but 
 at last submitted, and acknowledged the authority of 
 the invader. 
 
 This calamity arrived not alone. Himu, the vizir 
 of Mohammed, the usurper who retained a part of the 
 eastern provinces, marched to the centre of the empire 
 with a formidable army. He took Agra. He took 
 Delhi. The young Shah still remained in his quar- 
 ters. A council of war was held, in which Byram 
 advised to march against the enemy. The principal 
 part of the Omrahs, as the hostile army amounted 
 to 100,000, horse, that of the king to scarcely 
 20, 000, held it advisable to retreat. But the young 
 Shah supported the opinion of Byram with so much
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 335 
 
 ardour, that he kindled the enthusiasm of the Omrahs, BOOK in 
 
 C HAP 4 
 
 who declared their resolution to devote their lives 
 
 and fortunes to his service. 1557-60. 
 
 While the army was on its march, the governor of 
 Delhi, he by whom the city had just been surren- 
 dered, joined the King. Waiting for a time when 
 the presence of the Prince offered no interruption, 
 Byram called this governor into his tent, and be- 
 headed him. It was to anticipate, he told the King, 
 the clemency of the royal mind, that he had taken 
 upon him, without consultation, to make this ex- 
 ample ; necessary to let the neglectful Omrahs know, 
 that want of vigour was hardly less criminal than 
 want of loyalty ; and that, as meritorious services 
 would be amply rewarded, so no failure in duty 
 should pass with impunity. The Prince, whatever 
 were his thoughts, thanked the regent for the care 
 he bestowed upon his person and government. 
 
 The brave Himu made the necessary dispositions 
 for encountering the imperial army. ' The contending 
 parties arrived in presence of one another in the 
 neighbourhood of Paniput. The Moguls, who had 
 been reinforced on the march, fought with great con- 
 stancy, and the enemy were thrown into disorder. 
 Himu advanced, conspicuous on a towering elephant, 
 and endeavoured by his example to reanimate his 
 troops. He was shot with an arrow through the eye ; 
 and his followers, believing him killed, endeavoured 
 to save themselves by retreat. Himu drew the eye 
 out of the socket with the arrow ; and continued the 
 fight with unabated constancy. But the driver of 
 his elephant seeing a mortal blow aimed at himself 
 offered to direct the animal wherever he should be
 
 .33(3 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii i desired. 1 Upon this, Himu was surrounded and 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 taken. 
 
 i. r j57-60. When the battle ended, he was brought into the 
 presence of Akbar, almost expiring with his wounds. 
 By ram, addressing the king, told him it would 
 be a meritorious action to kill that dangerous infidel 
 with his own hands. Akbar, in compliance with 
 the advice of his minister, drew his sword, but only 
 touching with it gently the head of his gallant 
 captive, burst into tears. This movement of gene- 
 rous compassion was answered by the minister with 
 a look of stem disapprobation ; and with one blow 
 of his sabre he struck the head of the prisoner to 
 the ground. 
 
 This important victory restored tranquillity to the 
 principal part of Akbar's dominions. It is true that 
 in the same year the invasion of a Persian army, 
 under the nephew of Tamasp, rendered that prince 
 for a time master of Kandahar. And the late pre- 
 tended emperor Sekunder advanced into the western 
 provinces, and made the governor fly to Lahore. 
 But the imperial standards were carried with expedi- 
 tion towards the Indus ; Sekunder was cooped up in 
 a fort; when, offering to surrender the place and all 
 his pretensions, he was permitted to retire into 
 Bengal, and Akbar returned to Lahore. 
 
 The overbearing pretensions of an imperious, 
 though useful servant, and the spirit of a high- 
 
 1 This is indistinct : Ferishta's account is, Shah Koolly Khan, (one of 
 Akbar's officers,) levelled his lance at the driver, who, in order to save his 
 own life, pointed to his master, and promised Shah Koolly Khan, to guide 
 the elephant wherever he directed : he accordingly, it -would seem, drove 
 the animal amongst a body of Akbar's horse. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 337 
 
 minded, though generous sovereign, could not long BOOKIII 
 be reconciled. Mutual jealousies and discontents ' 
 arose ; the minister used his power with cruelty to 1557-60. 
 deliver himself from those who stood in his way ; he 
 increased by that means the disgust of his master ; 
 yet he contrived for a time to preserve himself in 
 power, by occupying the mind of the King with 
 military preparation and action. An expedition, 
 which ended successfully, was planned against Gua- 
 lior, at that time a place of the highest importance. 
 In the same year, one of Abkar's generals subdued 
 all the country about Jonpoor and Benares, hitherto 
 retained by the Omrahs who had derived their 
 power from the gift or the weakness of the late 
 princes of the Afghan or Patan dynasty. Opera- 
 tions were commenced against Malwa, possessed by 
 another of those Omrahs. But all this business and 
 success served only to retard, not prevent, the fall of 
 the minister. When the royal ear was found open 
 to accusations against the harsh and domineering 
 Byram, courtiers were not wanting to fill it. He 
 was secretly charged with designs hostile to the 
 person and government of the Shah ; and the mind 
 of Akbar, though firm, was not unmoved by imputa- 
 tions against the man he disliked, however destitute 
 of facts to support them. After some irresolution 
 and apprehension, a proclamation was issued to 
 announce that Akbar had taken upon himself the 
 government; and that henceforth no mandates but 
 his were to be obeyed. Byram, who had shown so 
 much resolution w r hen serving his master, was full 
 of indecision when called upon to act for himself. 
 The sovereign advised him to make a voyage to 
 VOL. n. z
 
 338 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in Mecca. At one time Byram proceeded to obey ; at 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 _ another time he resolved to render himself mdepen- 
 
 15GO. d en t; j n S ome of the provinces which Akbar had not 
 yet subdued ; and at another time conceived the 
 design of seizing and governing the Panjab itself. 
 He attempted arms, but met with no support ; and, 
 driven to his last resource, implored the clemency of 
 his master. Akbar hastened to assure him of for- 
 giveness, and invited him to his presence. When 
 the unfortunate Byram presented himself with all 
 the marks of humiliation, and bursting into tears 
 threw himself on his face at the foot of the throne, 
 Akbar lifted him up with his own hand, and setting 
 him in his former place at the head of the Omrahs, "If 
 the noble Byram," said he, " loves a military life, he 
 shall obtain the government of a province in which his 
 glory may appear ; if he chooses rather to remain at 
 court, the benefactor of our family shall be distin- 
 guished by our favours ; but should devotion engage 
 the soul of Byram to make a voyage to the holy city, 
 he shall be provided and escorted in a manner suit- 
 able to his dignity." Byram, desiring leave to 
 repair to Mecca, received a splendid retinue^ and 
 allowance ; but in his passage through Guzerat, an 
 Afghan Chief, whose father he had formerly slain in 
 battle, pretending salutation, stabbed him with a 
 dagger, and killed him on the spot. 
 
 In the year 1560, a son of the late Shah Mo- 
 hammed, who had found means to raise 40,000 
 horse, advanced with a design to recover the pro- 
 vince of Jonpoor. The generals of Akbar, who 
 had the province in charge, vanquished him with 
 the forces under their command. Presuming, how-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 339 
 
 ever, on their services or strength, they delayed BOOK In 
 remitting the plunder. Akbar went towards them ' 
 without a moment's delay ; upon which they made 15 G- 8 - 
 haste to meet him with the spoils. He accepted 
 their obedience ; praised their valour ; and bestowed 
 on them magnificent gifts. This is a specimen of 
 the behaviour of Akbar to his Omrahs. Their 
 proneness to seize every opportunity of disobedience 
 he restrained by prompt and vigorous interference ; 
 seldom punished their backwardness ; but always 
 bestowed on their services honour and renown. 
 
 Hussun, the governor of Ajmere, made some pro- 
 gress in subduing several forts in that hilly country, 
 yet held by Hindu Rajas. The general, sent to re- 
 duce Malwa, had carried on the war in that province 
 with so much success as to drive the pretended king 
 out of his dominions. He fled, however, to the so- 
 vereigns of Kandesh and Berar; from whom he 
 received such effectual support as to be able to defeat 
 the army of the imperial general, which he pursued 
 to the vicinity of Agra. Akbar gave commission to 
 Abdalla, the Usbek, governor of Kalpy, a city and 
 province on the Jumna, to prosecute the war ; and 
 by him was Malwa annexed to the Mogul dominions. 
 About the same time the Gickers, those restless 
 tribes of Hindus, who so often from their mountains 
 disturbed the obedience of the upper provinces, 
 were united under a warlike chief, and assumed the 
 appearance of a formidable enemy. They were 
 attacked with the usual vigour of Akbar's govern- 
 ment; and compelled to receive, though of their 
 own nation, a sovereign named for them by the 
 Moguls. 
 
 Z2
 
 340 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in Notwithstanding the virtues of Akbar's adminis- 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 - tration, the spirit of rebellion, inherent in the prin- 
 ciples of Indian despotism, left him hardly a mo- 
 ment's tranquillity, during the whole course of a long 
 and prosperous reign. Hussun revolted in Ajmere, 
 and gained a victory over the imperial troops who 
 were sent to oppose him. Hakim, brother of Akbar, 
 a weak man, the governor of Kabul, began to act as 
 an independent prince. A slave of his, approaching 
 the king while marching with his troops, let fly an 
 arrow which wounded him in the shoulder. Abdalla, 
 the Usbek, master of Malwa, believed himself so 
 strong, and the king, pressed by rebellion in various 
 quarters, so weak, that he might erect a throne for 
 himself. He contrived artfully to spread a rumour, 
 that the Shah had contracted a general hatred of the 
 Usbeks in his service, and meditated their destruc- 
 tion. This gained over Sekunder and Ibrahim, the 
 governors of two of the eastern provinces. Asaph, 
 who held the government of Korah, had obtained 
 great wealth by subduing and plundering a rajaship 
 or Hindu kingdom, between Berar and Bengal, 
 which till this time had escaped the ravage of a Mo- 
 hammedan conqueror. 1 Not wishing to part with 
 
 1 This is a very ungallant mode of passing over an instance of female 
 heroism highly celebrated in the Hindu annals. The district in question 
 was Gurra, or Gurrah Mundela, then under the regency of a queen-mother, 
 Durgauti, or Durgavati. Upon the incursion of the Mohammedans, she 
 led her forces in person against the invaders ; a sanguinary conflict ensued, 
 the event of which was long doubtful, until the queen, who was mounted 
 on an elephant, was disabled by a wound fron^an arrow in her eye. lit r 
 troops then gave way, .and fearing to fall into the hands of the victors, 
 Durgavati snatched a dagger from the girdle of the elephant-driver, and 
 stabbed herself. The story is told by Ferishta, and is confirmed by an 
 inscription found at Gurra Mandala, and translated by Captain Fell. As. 
 Res. xv. 427. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 341 
 
 any of this wealth and influence, he joined with the BOOK in 
 
 rebels, in hopes of being able to defy the imperial 
 
 power. Even Zemaun, the captain-general of the 1560-80. 
 empire, and his brother Bahadur, two chiefs of great 
 power and renown, joined the enemies of Akbar, and 
 hoped to raise themselves on the ruins of the king. 
 
 Akbar, whom neither exertion nor danger dis- 
 mayed, opposed himself to his enemies with an 
 activity, which often repaired the deficiencies of pru- 
 dence. It would be tedious to follow minutely a 
 series of expeditions, so much the same, to subdue 
 one rebellious chieftain after another. Akbar had 
 made considerable progress in reducing the eastern 
 provinces to obedience, when he learned that Hakim, 
 governor of Kabul, 1 in hopes of advantage from his 
 absence, had advanced towards Lahore. The tran- 
 quillity of the northern provinces, whose inhabitants 
 were hardy and warlike, was always regarded by 
 Akbar as worthy of more watchful solicitude than 
 that of the east, where the people were effeminate 
 and more easily subdued. Leaving therefore the 
 reduction of the Usbek rebels still incomplete, he 
 hasted towards Lahore ; and surprising his brother 
 by the celerity of his appearance, he rendered oppo- 
 sition hopeless, and crushed the rebellion in its bud. 
 In the mean time the Usbeks increased their army, 
 and extended their conquests. The expeditious 
 movements of Abkar left them little time to enjoy 
 their advantages. Having returned with a recruited 
 army, he came to an action with the combined forces 
 
 1 It was Akbar's brother Mohammed Hukeem, Mirza, who had been 
 driven out of Kabul by Soliman Mirza, and who endeavoured to obtain 
 unauthorized possession of Lahore, as an equivalent. W.
 
 342 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in of the insurgents, and gained a great victory, which 
 - effectually quashed the rebellion in the east. 
 
 1560-80. i^ unsettled state of the province of Malwa soon 
 required the royal presence. Among other measures, 
 for the secure possession of that important district, 
 he advanced to the attack of Chitore, 1 a fort of great 
 natural strength, situated in a mountainous and dif- 
 ficult part of the province, inhabited by Hindus, who 
 had been frequently subdued, by the more powerful 
 of the Mohammedan princes, but had as often 
 revolted when the reins of government were held by 
 a feeble hand. After an obstinate resistance Chitore 
 was taken. Rantampore, in the Arrabarree hills, 
 in the province of Ajmere, was also a hill-fort, of 
 great strength, which had often been taken from the 
 Hindus, and as often recovered. Having reduced 
 Rantampore, as well as Callinger, another strong 
 hold of similar description and importance, in the 
 same range of mountains, 2 he directed his attention 
 to Guzerat. 
 
 This was one of the provinces the governor of 
 which, during the decline of the Patan or Afghan 
 dynasty, had assumed independence; and it had 
 been governed as a separate kingdom for a number 
 of years. After a time it had fallen into the same 
 confusion, which seems the common fate of Asiatic 
 sovereignties whether great or small. The Omrahs 
 became too powerful for the sovereign ; the different 
 districts or governments assumed independence ; 
 
 1 The particulars of this capture are narrated by Tod. Annals of Mewan, 
 i. 325. W. 
 
 * There is no range of mountains in this part of India. Calinjcr, and 
 some other elevations of a like character, are detached hills springing 
 abruptly from a plain. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 343 
 
 and the royal power was reduced to a shadow. In BOOK In 
 
 CHAT. 4. 
 
 this situation the province offered but little resist- 
 
 ance to Akbar ; the different leaders, who felt their 156 - b - 
 inferiority, courted favour by hastening submission. 
 Hussun, in Ajmere, w r as able to take the field with 
 an army ; but as the king was now at leisure to 
 push the war against him, he was driven from the 
 province, and, with the remains of his army, fled to 
 the Panjab. Attacked by a warlike tribe of the inha- 
 bitants, he was there taken prisoner, delivered up to 
 the governor of Multan, and by him put to death. 
 No sooner had the king turned his back on Guzerat, 
 than some of the turbulent chiefs began to assemble 
 armies, and prepare the means of resistance. The 
 rainy season was now commenced, when the great 
 army was unable to move ; but Akbar, selecting a 
 small body of cavalry, pursued his way with the 
 utmost expedition to Guzerat, surprised the rebels 
 in the midst of their preparations ; offered them 
 battle notwithstanding the inferiority of his force, 
 and, contrary to all prudential calculation, gained a 
 victory, w T hich established his authority in Guzerat. 
 The province of Bengal paid a nominal submission 
 to the throne of Delhi, but during several reigns had 
 been virtually independent. After the other pro- 
 vinces of the empire were reduced to more substantial 
 obedience, it was not likely that grounds of quarrel 
 would long fail to be laid between Akbar and the 
 King of Bengal. The governor or Subahdar of 
 Oude being ordered, as contiguous, to begin opera- 
 tions against him, had gained some important advan- 
 tages, and was besieging Patna, when he was joined 
 by the Shah. The Bengal chief, seeing no chance
 
 344 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in O f success, offered terms of accommodation. Akbar 
 
 CHAT. -1. 
 
 _ consented to engage for his life, but demanded that 
 1580. every thing else should be left to his clemency ; to 
 spare, however, the blood of their subjects, he offered 
 to decide their disputes by personal combat. In the 
 following night the Bengal chief went secretly down 
 the river in a boat, and his troops immediately 
 evacuated the city. Akbar returned to Agra ; and 
 the governor of Oude, to whose jurisdiction Patna 
 was annexed, was ordered to complete the reduction 
 of Bengal. The vanquished sovereign was allowed 
 to retain Orissa. But unfortunately for him, the 
 Zemindars of Bengal still adhered to his interests, 
 and speedily assembled a considerable army for his 
 restoration. Having put himself at the head of this 
 armament, he was taken prisoner, and in the absence 
 of Akbar put to death in cold blood, upon the field. 
 For a short space Akbar now enjoyed tranquillity 
 and obedience throughout his extensive empire ; and 
 wisely made use of the interval to visit and inspect 
 its several provinces. Soon was he recalled to his 
 former troubles and exertions. The recently sub- 
 dued Bengal furnished a variety of discontented 
 spirits, who again appeared in arms ; and his 
 brother, in Kabul, marched against Lahore. Akbar 
 never allowed disobedience in the upper provinces 
 to gain strength by duration. He hastened to 
 Lahore, overcame his brother, followed him close to 
 Kabul, and received a message from the vanquished 
 prince, imploring forgiveness. Akbar, with his 
 usual generosity, which was often inconsiderate, and 
 cost him dear, replaced him in his government. 
 The peace of Bengal was in the mean time
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 345 
 
 restored: but a formidable rebellion broke out in BOOKir 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 Guzerat, which the son of Byram, the late regent, 
 was sent to subdue. He was opposed with great 1593 - 
 obstinacy ; and some power. But being a man of 
 talents, he restored the province in a little time to 
 obedience, and was rewarded with its government. 
 
 The governor of Kabul, the king's brother, died. 
 The state of the upper provinces seemed upon that 
 occasion to require the presence of Akbar, and he 
 marched towards the Panjab. Here he projected the 
 conquest of Kashmere, and despatched an army for 
 that purpose. The season being ill-chosen and pro- 
 visions failing, that army found itself unequal to the 
 enterprise. Akbar, however, was not willing to be 
 foiled : he despatched a second army ; and the con- 
 quest was made with little opposition. Soon after 
 this, the Governor of Kandahar, a province which 
 hitherto had paid but a nominal submission to the 
 Mogul throne, unable to defend himself against his 
 rebellious brothers, and the Usbeks, who had now 
 rendered themselves masters of Transoxiana and 
 Bactria, and were formidable neighbours to the 
 northern provinces of Hindustan, offered to deliver 
 up his government to Akbar ; and received that of 
 Multan in exchange. 
 
 Akbar, who now beheld himself master, from the 
 mountains of Persia, and Tartary, to the confines of 
 the Deccan, began to cast the eyes of ambition on that 
 contiguous land. He gave directions to his gover- 
 nors, in the provinces nearest the Deccan, to prepare as 
 numerous armies as possible ; and to omit no oppor- 
 tunity of extending the empire. He despatched am- 
 bassadors to the kingdoms of the Deccan, more with a
 
 346 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 . 1 design to collect information, than to settle disputes. 
 And at last a great army, under Mirza, 1 the son of 
 Byram, who had reduced Guzerat, marched in ex- 
 ecution of this project of unprovoked aggression, and 
 unprincipled ambition. 
 
 We have already observed the circumstances which 
 attended the first establishment of a Mohammedan 
 empire in the Deccan, and it will now be necessary to 
 recount shortly the events which intervened from the 
 death of Alia Bhamenee, in the year 1357, to the 
 invasion of Akbar in 1593. 2 Alia was succeeded by 
 his son Mohammed, who reigned seventeen years, and 
 carried on successful wars against the Rajas of 
 Telingana and Beejanuggur, 3 a city on the Tum- 
 medra or Toombuddra, the most southern branch of 
 the Kistna or Krishna, and at that time the capital of 
 a considerable kingdom. 4 He stript these sovereigns 
 of part of their dominions, and rendered them tri- 
 butary for the rest. A circumstance is recorded by 
 the historian, which indicates but a thin population 
 in that part of India. The number of li ves which 
 were destroyed by his wars was computed at near 
 
 1 Mirza was his title ; his name was Abdool Ruheem, but he was com- 
 monly called Mirza Khan ; he was also entitled Khan-khanan. W. 
 
 * For the succeeding sketch of the history of the Mohammedan sove- 
 reignties in the Deccan, Ferishta's History of the Deccan, translated by 
 Captain Jonathan Scott, and Wilks's Historical Sketches of the South of 
 India, have been the principal guides. 
 
 3 Called Bisnagar, in the common maps, and Vijeyanuggur by Col. 
 Wilks. Bijanuggur was but a modern power, in the South of India, and 
 had risen upon the ruins of the Rajaship of Warunkul. Historical 
 Sketches, by Col. Wilks, ch. i. 
 
 4 Col. Wilks thinks that the whole of the south of India, (i. e. India to 
 the south of the Kistna,) had for a considerable space of time been com- 
 prised in the empire of Vijeyanuggur. Ibid. p. 20. After the ruin of the 
 Rajaship of Warunkul, when was the time for such an aggrandisement ?
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 347 
 
 500,000, among whom was the natural proportion of BOOKIII 
 
 both sexes, and of all ages ; for Indian wars spare 
 
 neither sex nor age : And by this loss, the regions 1593 - 
 of the Carnatic, says the historian, were so laid waste, 
 that they did not recover their natural population for 
 several kerruns, or revolutions of ten years : yet they 
 had never before been more than slightly overrun 
 by a foreign invader ; and the virtues or vices of 
 Hindu policy were here to be traced in their natural 
 effects. 1 Mujahid the son of Mohammed, was assas- 
 
 1 The premises are not of a character to warrant this conclusion. It is 
 not true of 'Indian' wars, whether Mohammedan or Hindu, that they 
 "spare neither age nor sex;" and, if the number be correctly stated, it 
 consists for the most part of adult males, killed in battle, or in the sack of 
 cities. It is not very likely, however, that the number is statistically 
 precise, nor can the facts be admitted without further scrutiny ; for, 
 cither the dates or names are irreconcileable with the authentic records of 
 the Bijnagar kings as preserved in inscriptions. Cat. Mackenzie Collec- 
 tion, Introd. 139, and As. Res. vol. xx. p. 1. If at all correct, the injury 
 to the country, however, and consequent depopulation, was not the 
 result only of the numbers slain, but of the ravages committed ; the 
 effects of which, might possibly have been for some time visible ; or, 
 rather, similar effects might have been perpetuated by similar causes ; 
 as, up to the time the historian wrote, about 1596, the whole interval 
 had been one of continual struggle with the Mohammedan kings. The 
 desolate condition which Ferishta notices, may, however, have been 
 the work of much more recent occurrences ; Bijuagar had irrecoverably 
 fallen about twenty years before, by the combined arms of the Moham- 
 medans, and the capital had been destroyed and the country laid waste. 
 The evidence of Ferishta applies to this season, if to any, and there is 
 proof that it is not applicable to the whole intermediate time : we have evi- 
 dence of the flourishing state of Bijnagar, ninety years before his time ; so 
 that the state must have recovered then from whatever blows it had pre- 
 viously sustained. It was well known to early European travellers, as the 
 kingdom of Narsinha : several visited it in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, Barbessa, for instance, in 1516, and he describes it as a city of 
 considerable extent, and the seat of a still powerful, though declining mo- 
 narchy. The king maintained 40,000 cavalry, and a very numerous body 
 of foot. Ramusio, Collezione dei Viaggi, vol. 1. As. Res. vol. xx. p. 3. 
 There is no reason, therefore, to attach much weight to the vague asser- 
 tions of the Mohammedan writer, and still less can the inference of scanty 
 population, as the consequence of Hindu misrule be derived from his 
 statement. W.
 
 348 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 sinatcd by his uncle after reigning three years. The 
 murderer Daood placed himself on the throne, but 
 1593. i os t his own life by assassination, after a month and 
 five days. Of Alia, the first of the Bahmenee so- 
 vereigns, the youngest son was still alive, and had 
 passed his life in confinement during the interme- 
 diate reigns. By the intrigues of the Haram, he was 
 now acknowledged as King, and spent a mild and 
 prudent reign of nineteen years, in almost uninter- 
 rupted tranquillity. His eldest son Gheause suc- 
 ceeded him ; but having affronted one of his Turkish 
 Omrahs, who disguised his resentment the more 
 effectually to secure his revenge, he lost his throne 
 and his eyes, after a reign of little more than a 
 month ; and his brother Shums was made to pos- 
 sess it in his stead. 
 
 Shums was but fifteen years of age: and 
 was a passive instrument in the hands of the 
 Turk. Of Daood, however, the usurper, who had 
 enjoyed royalty a month, several sons remained, who, 
 under the odium attending the present state of the 
 government, conceived hopes of profiting by the 
 usurpation of their father. By an alternation of force 
 and artifice, they secured the persons of the king and 
 his minister, after a reign of only five months and 
 seven days, and one of the brothers, by name Firoze, 
 took possession of the throne. He reigned upwards 
 of five and twenty years ; and is the most celebrated 
 of all the sovereigns of the Deccan. He was engaged 
 in a variety of wars with the Hindu Rajas; but his 
 acquisitions in point of territory were inconsiderable. 
 His endeavours to secure the succession to his son, by 
 the destruction of a brother of his own, whose power
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 349 
 
 and talents excited his fears, involved the last months BOOK -iii 
 
 of his reign in trouble. But finding his efforts in- 1 
 
 effectual, he submitted to necessity, and appointing 1593 - 
 his brother successor, died in a few days. 
 -x The new sovereign, Ahmed, was a man of talents; 
 governed with moderation and prudence; and enjoyed 
 a prosperous reign of twelve years and two months. 
 He overthrew the Raja of Warunkul, and added the 
 city of Telingana to his dominions. The governors 
 who, during the decline of the Afghan or Patan 
 dynasty of Delhi, had assumed independence in the 
 provinces of Malwa, Kandesh, and Guzerat, were now 
 sovereigns, whose contiguity failed not to produce 
 occasions of discord. At different times Ahmed was 
 engaged in war with all those princes, but without 
 any memorable result. He enlarged and beautified 
 the city of Beder, which he called Ahmedabad, and 
 removed to it the seat of government from Kalburga. 
 Toward the conclusion of his reign he projected a 
 partition of his kingdom among his sons. His acqui- 
 sitions in Berar, with some contiguous districts, he 
 assigned to Mahmood; he gave Telingana to Daood; 
 and sent these princes to take possession of their 
 shares. His two remaining sons, Alia and Mohammed 
 were destined to succeed him as colleagues on the 
 throne of Koolburga. 
 
 They ascended the throne without opposition ; but 
 Mohammed, dissatisfied with the share of power which 
 his brother allowed him, was soon excited to rebel. 
 He was defeated, and treated with generosity by 
 Alia. Their brother Daood having just died in Te- 
 lingana, Mohammed was appointed governor of that 
 kingdom, where he devoted himself to his pleasures,
 
 350 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in an( | lived in peace. Alia was at various times 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 attacked, by the Raja of Beejanuggur in the south, 
 
 1593 - and the kings of Guzerat, Kandesh, and Malwa, in 
 the north ; but defended himself with success. He 
 sent an army to invade Malabar, which at first gained 
 advantages, but being artfully drawn into a difficult 
 recess of that mountainous and woody country, was 
 almost totally destroyed. After a reign of nearly 
 twenty-four years, he was succeeded by his son Hu- 
 mayoon, who meeting with opposition and rebellion, 
 gave reins to the ferocity of a violent mind; but died, 
 or was assassinated, it is uncertain which, after a 
 reign of a little more than three years. His eldest son, 
 Nizam, was only eight years of age at his accession ; 
 but the reins of government were directed by the 
 queen-mother, a woman of talents, and though the 
 surrounding sovereigns endeavoured to avail them- 
 selves of the weakness of a minority and the king of 
 Malwa penetrated to the very capital, he was repulsed, 
 and the Bahmenee empire remained entire. Nizam 
 died in little more than two years after his father, 
 when the crown devolved upon his second brother 
 Mohammed, who was then in his ninth year. The 
 abilities of the queen-mother, and of a faithful minister, 
 conducted the state in safety through the difficulties 
 and dangers of a second minority; and Mohammed, 
 displaying, when he grew up, considerable talents for 
 government, enjoyed prosperity for a number of years; 
 took part of Orissa, and the island of Goa; and thus 
 extended his dominion from sea -to sea. At last, 
 however, the jealous rivals of the minister forged an 
 accusation, which they presented to the king at an 
 artful moment, and surprised him into a sudden order
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 for his destruction. Mohammed soon discovered, and clIAr . j 
 
 soon repented, his fatal mistake. The ambitious 
 
 Omrahs, whom the vigilance and talents of the mi- 
 nister had restrained, began immediately to encroach 
 on the royal authority. Mohammed died within a year 
 of the execution of his minister, having languished 
 both in mind and body, from the day of that unfor- 
 tunate and criminal act. 
 
 His son Mahmood ascended the throne of the Dec- 
 can in the twelfth year of his age. The contentions of 
 the great Omrahs now filled the state with disorder. 
 The sovereign himself displayed no talents for go- 
 vernment, and was a slave to his indolence and 
 pleasures. After plotting and struggling for several 
 years, four of the great Omrahs declared themselves 
 independent in their several governments ; and a 
 fifth, who remained at the court, reduced the power 
 of the sovereign to a shadow, and ruled in his name. 
 Mahmood's nominal sovereignty lasted for thirty- 
 seven years ; during which the Deccanee empire 
 was divided into five several kingdoms; that of 
 Beejapore or Visiapore, founded by Esuff Adil Khan; 
 that of Ahmednuggur, founded by Ahmed Nizam 
 Beheree ; that of Berar, founded by Ummad al 
 Mulk ; that of Golconda, founded by Koottub al 
 Mulk ; their respective governors ; and that of Ah- 
 medabad Beder, founded by Ameer Bereed, who 
 rendered himself master of the person and throne of 
 his master, and retained the provinces which had not 
 been grasped by the other usurpers. This revolution, 
 after being several years in progress, was consum- 
 mated about the year 1526. These sovereigns were
 
 352 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 engaged in almost perpetual wars with one another, 
 with the Raja of Beejanuggur, and with the Sultan 
 of Guzerat, who was so powerful as to hold in a 
 species of subjection the Sultans of both Malwa and 
 Kandesh. A temporary union of the Shahs of Bee- 
 japore, Golconda, and Ahmednuggur, in 1564, en- 
 abled them to subvert the empire of Beejanuggur, 
 and reduce the power of its chief to that of a petty 
 Raja. The kingdom of Beder, which had fallen to 
 the share of Ameer Bereed, was conquered during 
 the reign of his grandson ; and its territories, which 
 were not large, were divided among the other 
 usurpers of the Bahmenee dominions. A similar 
 fate awaited the portion of Ummad, which consisted 
 of the southern part of Berar; it subsisted as a 
 kingdom only four generations ; and was annexed to 
 his dominions by the King of Ahmednuggur in the 
 year 1574. The Deccan was, therefore, at the time 
 when its invasion was projected by the Moguls, 
 divided among the sovereigns of Beejapore, Ahmed- 
 nuggur, and Golconda. At the time when the Bah- 
 menee empire of the Deccan was first divided into 
 separate kingdoms, the Portuguese began their con- 
 quests on the coast of Malabar, and took possession 
 of the island of Goa. 
 
 In addition to the army which Akbar had des- 
 patched under Mirza Khan towards the Deccan, he 
 sent orders to his son Morad, to whom he had committed 
 the government of Guzerat, to join him with all his 
 forces : Mirza had already been Reinforced with the 
 troops of Malwa, governed by another son of the 
 Emperor, and by six thousand horse belonging to
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 the king of Kandesh, who had endeavoured, by sub- BOOK In 
 
 * CHAP. 4. 
 
 mission, to avert the ruin which resistance would . 
 
 ensure. The combined army marched upon Ah- 1598> 
 mednuggur, to which they laid siege. The place 
 was defended with great bravery, till provisions 
 began to fail in the Mogul army, when the generals 
 opened a negotiation, and agreed, upon condition of 
 receiving Berar, to raise the siege of Ahmednuggur, 
 and evacuate the kingdom. The pain felt by the 
 king at the loss of Berar soon prompted him to an 
 effort for its recovery. His army fought a drawn 
 battle with the Moguls. The resolution and ardour 
 of Mirza led him to renew the engagement on the 
 following day, when he defeated indeed the enemy 
 but was so weakened by his loss, as to be unable to 
 pursue the fugitives, or to improve his victory. 
 Mirza was soon after recalled. In his absence the 
 Ahmednuggur arms gained some advantages; and 
 the Mogul interests declined. But in 1598 Mirza 
 was restored to the army in the Deccan, to which the 
 Emperor proceeded in person. Ahmednuggur, was 
 again besieged; and at last compelled to open its 
 gates. The territory of Ahmednuggur was formed 
 into a province of the Mogul empire; and its go- 
 vernment conferred upon Danial, one of the sons of 
 Akbar. The Emperor did not long survive these 
 new acquisitions. He returned to Agra, and died in 
 the fifty-second year of his reign. 
 
 At the time of the death of this successful prince, 
 his great empire was divided into fiften vice-royal- 
 ties, called Subahs ; each governed immediately by 
 its own viceroy called Subahdar. The names of the 
 Subahs were, Allahabad, Agra, Oude, Ajmere, Gu- 
 
 VOL. II. 2 A
 
 354 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in Z e r at, Bahar, Bengal, Delhi, Kabul, Lahore, Multan, 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 Malwa, Berar, Kandesh, and Ahmednuggur. 1 
 
 1605. Shah Tamasp, the second in the line of the Sophis, 
 held the sceptre of Persia till the twentieth year of 
 the reign of Akbar ; when there was a rapid succes- 
 sion of several princes, most of whom were cut off by 
 violence. During these disorderly reigns, the Us- 
 beks made dangerous inroads upon the eastern 
 provinces of Persia, and even threatened the security 
 of the northern provinces of India. At the time of 
 the death of Akbar, Shah Abbas the Great was upon 
 the throne, a prince who made both his neigbours 
 and his subjects tremble at his name. 
 
 Selim was the only surviving son of Akbar ; but 
 even this fortunate circumstance did not save him 
 from a rival. Selim's own son Khosroo was destined 
 to supersede his father, by Azim Khan, whose 
 daughter was the wife, and by Raja Man Sing, 
 whose sister was the mother of Khosroo. Azim 
 Khan was vizir ; Man Sing had a powerful govern- 
 ment as an Omrah of the empire, and an army of 
 twenty thousand Rajpoots, his countrymen, in his 
 service. The schemes of these powerful chiefs were 
 rendered abortive, by a decisive resolution of the 
 commander of the City guards; who ordered the 
 gates to be shut, and delivered the keys to Selim on 
 his knees. Selim assumed the title of Moham- 
 med Jehangir, or conqueror of the world, and dated 
 his reign from October 21, 1605, being then in the 
 thirty-seventh year of his age. Jehangir, for whom 
 it would have been difficult, in the commencement 
 
 1 Ayeen Akbery, ii. 2.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 355 
 
 of his reiffn, to contend with the power of Azim BOOKI . 11 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 Khan, and Raja Man Sing, contented himself with 
 sending them to their respective governments; the 1605- 
 vizir to his Subah of Malwa; the Raja to that of 
 Bengal ; and Khosroo was received into favour. A 
 short time elapsed, when Khosroo again rebelled, 
 but, rejecting the advice of Azim Khan, and Raja 
 Man Sing, to assassinate his father, he taught those 
 artful chiefs to despair of his cause, and they ab- 
 stained from lending him any open support. So 
 many followers crowded to his standards, as en- 
 abled him to seize and ravage some extensive dis- 
 tricts. Unable to contend with the army which 
 pressed him, he retired towards the Indus, when 
 his followers dispersed, his principal friends were 
 punished with all the ferocity of Oriental despotism, 
 and he himself was placed in confinement. 
 
 One of the circumstances which had the greatest 
 influence on the events and character of the reign of 
 Jehangir was his marriage with the wife of one of 
 the Omrahs of his empire, whose assassination, like 
 that of Uriah, cleared the way for the gratification 
 of the monarch. The history of this female is 
 dressed in romantic colours by the writers of the 
 East. Khaja Aiass her father, was a Tartar, who 
 left poverty and his native country, to seek the gifts 
 of fortune in Hindustan. The inadequate provision 
 he could make for so great a journey failed him 
 before its conclusion. To add to his trials, his wife, 
 advanced in pregnancy, was seized with the pains of 
 labour in the desert, and delivered of a daughter. 
 All hope of conducting the child alive to any place 
 of relief forsook the exhausted parents ; and they 
 
 2 A 2
 
 356 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 agreed to leave her. So long as the tree, at the foot 
 of which the infant had been deposited, remained 
 5 ' in view, the mother supported her resolution ; but 
 when the tree vanished from sight, she sunk upon 
 the ground, and refused to proceed without her. The 
 father returned ; but what he beheld was a huge 
 black snake, convolved about the body of his child, 
 and extending his dreadful jaws to devour her. A 
 shriek of anguish burst from the father's breast ; 
 and the snake, being alarmed, hastily unwound 
 himself from the body of the infant, and glided away 
 to his retreat. The miracle animated the parents to 
 maintain the struggle ; and before their strength 
 entirely failed, they were joined by other travellers, 
 who relieved their necessities. 
 
 Aiass, having arrived in Hindustan, was taken 
 into the service of an Omrah of the court ; attracted 
 after a time the notice of Akbar himself; and by 
 his abilities and prudence rose to be treasurer of the 
 empire. The infant who had been so nearly lost in 
 the desert was now grown a woman of exquisite 
 beauty ; and, by the attention of Aiass to her edu- 
 cation, was accomplished beyond the measure of 
 female attainments in the East. She was seen by 
 Sultan Selim, and kindled in his bosom the fire of 
 love. But she was betrothed to a Turkman Omrah; 
 and Akbar forbad the contract to be infringed. When 
 Selim mounted the throne, justice and shame were 
 a slight protection to the man whose life was a bar 
 to the enjoyments of the King. . By some caprice, 
 however, not unnatural to minds pampered, and 
 trained up as his ; he abstained from seeing her, for 
 some years, after she was placed in his seraglio ;
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 357 
 
 and even refused an adequate appointment for her BOOK in 
 
 maintenance. She turned her faculties to account ; 
 
 employed herself in the exquisite works of the needle 1611 - 
 and painting, in which she excelled ; had her pro- 
 ductions disposed of in the shops and markets, and 
 thence procured the means of adorning her apart- 
 ments with all the elegancies which suited her con- 
 dition and taste. The fame of her productions 
 reached the ear, and excited the curiosity of the 
 emperor. A visit was all that was wanting to 
 rekindle the flame in his heart ; and Noor Mahal 
 (such was the name she assumed) exercised from that 
 moment an unbounded sway over the Prince and 
 his empire. 
 
 Through the influence of the favourite Sultana, 
 the vizirat was bestowed upon her father ; her two 
 brothers were raised to the first rank of Omrahs, by 
 the titles of Aetikad Khan, and Asoph Jah ; but their 
 modesty and virtues reconciled all men to their 
 sudden elevation ; and though the emperor, naturally 
 voluptuous, was now withdrawn from business by 
 the charms of his wife, the affairs of the empire were 
 conducted with vigilance, prudence, and success; 
 and the administration of Khaja Aiass was long 
 remembered in India, as a period of justice and 
 prosperity. 
 
 The Afghans broke from their mountains into the 
 province of Kabul, in the sixth year of the reign of 
 Jehangir; but an army was collected with expe- 
 dition, and drove them back to their fastnesses with 
 great slaughter. About the same time, one insur- 
 rection was raised in the province of Bengal, and
 
 358 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in another in that of Bahar. But the springs of the 
 
 CHAP. 4. ill JM 
 
 government were strong ; and both were speedily 
 
 16U - suppressed. 
 
 More serious hostility began in Odipore, a moun- 
 tainous district lying between Ajmere and Malwa, 
 the prince of which, though he had acknowledged 
 subjection to the Mohammedans, yet, protected by 
 his mountains, had never been actually subdued. 
 Amar Singh, the present Rana or prince of Odipore, 
 attacked and defeated the imperial troops in Kandesh. 
 Purvez, the second son of the Emperor, at the head 
 of 30,000 horse, was sent to take the command of all 
 the troops on the borders of the Deccan, and to oppose 
 him. But Amar Singh was no contemptible foe, 
 possessing great authority among his countrymen, 
 and the obedience of a great proportion of the people 
 called Mahrattas, who inhabited the mountains on 
 the south-west, adjoining those of Odipore. Dis- 
 sensions prevailed among the Omrahs of the imperial 
 army, which the youth and easy character of Purvez 
 made him unable to repress. Encompassed with 
 difficulties, and fain to retreat, he was pursued with 
 loss to Ajmere. Purvez was recalled ; a temporary 
 general was sent to take charge of the army ; the 
 Emperor himself prepared to march to Ajmere, 
 whence he despatched his third son Khurrum, to 
 prosecute the war. Khurrum entered the mountains 
 with a force which alarmed the Hindus, and induced 
 the Rana after a few losses to offer terms of accom- 
 modation. It suited the views of -Khurrum to show 
 liberality on this occasion, and to conclude the war 
 with despatch. Peace was effected ; and Sultan
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 359 
 
 Khurrum returned to his father, with a vast increase BOOKIII 
 
 CHAP 4 
 
 of reputation and favour at the expense of Purvez ; 
 
 who was left, notwithstanding, governor of Kandesh ; ien-15. 
 and lived in royal state at his capital Burrahan- 
 pore. 1 
 
 It was at the time of which we are now speaking, 
 that Sir Thomas Roe arrived at Surat, ambassador 
 to the Great Mogul. In his way to the imperial 
 presence he repaired to Burrahanpore, to pay his 
 respects to the Prince, and solicit permission for his 
 countrymen to establish a factory in his province. 
 Purvez, whose good-nature, affability, and taste, 
 were better fitted for display, than his facility, indo- 
 lence, and diffidence, for the duties of government, 
 received the European messenger with magnificence 
 and distinction. From Burrahanpore, Sir Thomas 
 repaired to Ajmere, where the Emperor still remained. 
 Jehangir was flattered by the compliments and 
 solicitations of a distant monarch. But the rude 
 court of India was not a place where the powers of 
 an ambassador could be exerted with much effect. 
 
 In the year 1615, disturbances arose both in Gu- 
 zerat and Kabul. In the most inaccessible parts of 
 Guzerat lived a race of men, known by the name of 
 Koolies, who exercised perpetual depredations and 
 cruelties upon the inhabitants of the open and cul- 
 tivated districts. The enormities of this people had 
 lately risen to an extraordinary height, when Jehan- 
 gir issued a sanguinary order for the utter extirpa- 
 tion of the race. Many were slaughtered ; the rest 
 hunted to their mountains and deserts. Kabul was 
 
 1 Written also Brampore, and Boorhanpore.
 
 360 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA 
 
 ' a g a * n overrun l)y the Afghans, who issued from the 
 - mountains adjoining that province on the north. 
 
 II" *>ft 
 
 But the Subahdar, collecting an army, overcame them 
 in battle, and drove them back to their own country. 
 
 The provinces of the south were still unquiet. 
 Purvez was engaged in a war with the princes of the 
 Dcccan, which, from the dissensions and treachery of 
 his Omrahs, was not successful, and encouraged the 
 Rana of Odipore " to draw his neck from the yoke 
 of obedience." The hopes of the Emperor were again 
 cast upon his younger son ; and though his counsel- 
 lors set before him the danger of sending the younger 
 to supersede the elder, he made light of the menaced 
 evil; bestowed upon Khurrum the title of Shah Jehan 
 or King of the World, and vested him with the con- 
 duct of the war. The easy and unambitious Purvez 
 contested not the royal appointment ; fortune, rather 
 than any merit of Shah Jehan, induced the opposing 
 princes to offer terms of accommodation without try- 
 ing the fortune of the sword ; and the prudent desire 
 of Shah Jehan to obtain the credit of terminating the 
 war, without running any of its dangers, made him 
 eagerly remove every obstacle to the conclusion of the 
 peace. In the mean time the Emperor, accompanied 
 by the English ambassador, departed from Ajmere, 
 to Mando, the capital of Malwa, where he presided 
 at the settlement of the affairs of the south ; and 
 having spent at Mando seventeen months in business 
 and pleasure, he conveyed the royal camp, which 
 was a prodigious moving city, into the kingdom of 
 Guzerat, and thence to Agra, where he arrived after 
 an absence of little less than five years. 
 
 It was shortly after this arrival, that Khaja Aiass,
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 361 
 
 the Vizir, now dear to the nation for the blessings 
 conferred upon it, ended a life which had been che 
 quered by so great a diversity of fortune. The sym- ] 
 pathies of the Sultana with such a father appear to 
 have been strong, in spite of that loss of heart, which 
 flows almost inevitably from the enjoyment of bound- 
 less power. She was inconsolable for his loss : and 
 her inconsiderate mind, and gaudy taste, made her 
 conceive the design of raising a monument of silver 
 to his memory, till reminded, by her architect, that 
 one of less covetable materials stood a fairer chance 
 for duration. Her brother Asoph Jah sustained the 
 weight of administration, in the room of Khaja Aiass, 
 and inherited the virtues and capacity of his father. 
 But he dared not contend with the haughty and un- 
 controllable disposition of his sister. And from the 
 death of her father, the caprices and passions of the 
 Sultana exercised a calamitous influence over the fate 
 of the empire. 
 
 As the other parts of his dominions were now at 
 peace, Jehangir marched toward Sewalik, or that 
 part of the mountains, separating Tartary from Hin- 
 dustan, which lies near the spot where the Ganges 
 descends upon the plain. In the recesses and valleys 
 of these mountains, lived tribes of Hindus, which, 
 protected by the strength of their country, had es- 
 caped subjection to a foreign yoke, and exercised the 
 depredations, common to the mountaineers of Hin- 
 dustan, upon the fertile provinces below. The Em- 
 peror wished to subdue them ; his army penetrated 
 into the mountains ; and after enduring a variety of 
 hardships, for nearly two years (so long the war con- 
 tinued), brought twenty-two petty princes to promise
 
 .362 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in obedience and tribute, and to send hostages to Agra. 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 _ During this expedition the Emperor paid a visit to 
 ) 61 5-28. th e delightful valley of Kashmir, where he spent 
 several months. His partiality produced one good 
 effect. A command was issued to improve the road, 
 for the future visits of the Emperor ; and this grand 
 improvement, once begun, was extended to various 
 parts of the empire. 
 
 In the mean time, the south engendered new dis- 
 turbances, which led to important events. The 
 princes of the Deccan withheld their tribute, and raised 
 an army to make good their disobedience. Intelli- 
 gence arrived that they had crossed the Nerbudda in 
 great force, and were laying waste the adjacent pro- 
 vinces. A great army was placed under the command 
 of Shah Jehan, with which he was despatched to 
 repel and chastise the enemy. As the greatness of 
 the force with which he advanced took from the con- 
 federates all hopes of successful resistance, they has- 
 tened to make their peace, paid arrears, and promised 
 punctuality and obedience. The success and power of 
 Shah Jehan encouraged him now to commence the 
 execution of designs which had long existed in his 
 mind. His eldest brother Khosroo, confined in a 
 fortress in Malwa, from the time of his last rebellion, 
 he prevailed on his father, before departing, to permit 
 him to relieve from his confinement, and carry along 
 with him. That prince was taken off by assassina- 
 tion, and all men ascribed the murder to Shah Jehan. 
 The emperor loudly expressed his suspicions and re- 
 sentment. Shah Jehan conceived the time for revolt to 
 be now arrived ; assumed the royal titles, and marched 
 to attack his father. They came to action not far
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 363 
 
 from Delhi, and empire was staked on the turn of a BOOK in 
 
 die. After an obstinate struggle, the troops of the 
 
 father prevailed ; and the son, who in his rage and 1615 - 28 - 
 grief had with difficulty been restrained from laying 
 hands on himself, fled in great consternation toward 
 the mountains of Mewat. He was pursued to the Dec- 
 can ; one province was wrested from him after another; 
 and he lost a battle on the banks of the Nerbudda, 
 which broke up his army, and obliged him to fly to 
 Orissa. Here fortune seemed to dawn upon him 
 anew. The governor of Orissa retired at his approach. 
 He made himself master of Burdwan. He next en- 
 tered Bengal, and defeated its Subahdar. He then 
 marched to Bahar, which also yielded to his arms ; 
 and the impregnable fortress of Rotas, of which the 
 governor came to deliver the keys into his hands, 
 presented to him the inestimable advantage of a place 
 of security for his family. In the mean time, the 
 imperial army advanced. That of Shah Jehan was 
 routed, in spite of all his exertions, and he again fled 
 towards the Deccan. All men now deserted him. After 
 some time spent in eluding his pursuers ; his spirits 
 sunk, and he wrote a contrite letter to his father. 
 Pardon was obtained, but with an order to deliver up 
 the forts which were held in his name, and to repair 
 with his family to Agra. That part alone of the 
 command which regarded his own person, he en- 
 deavoured to elude, alleging the shame he should feel 
 to behold the face of an injured sovereign and father ; 
 and occupied himself under the guise of pleasure in 
 travelling with a few attendants through different 
 parts of the empire. During this rebellion Abbas, 
 the Persian Shah, attacked and conquered Kandahar.
 
 364 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 1 The Usbeks also penetrated to Ghizni, but were 
 successfully resisted, and compelled to retreat. 
 
 The general to whose valour and conduct, on the 
 late extraordinary and critical occasions, the Em- 
 peror owed his success, was Mohabet, from whom, 
 also, on many former emergencies, he had reaped the 
 most important services. The first movement in the 
 breast of Jehangir was gratitude to his benefactor. 
 But Mohabet possessed a dangerous enemy in Noor 
 Mahal. The slave, she said, who had power to keep 
 the crown upon the head of the Emperor, had power 
 to take it off. Fear is nearly allied to hatred in the 
 breast of an emperor. The power of Mohabet was 
 curtailed ; offensive mandates were addressed to 
 him ; a strong fort, which he held, was transferred 
 to a creature of the Sultana. He was commanded to 
 court. His friends represented the danger; but an 
 angry and more peremptory order following his 
 apology, Mohabet resolved to obey. Five thousand 
 Rajputs, who had served with him in the imperial 
 army, offered themselves for his escort. When Mo- 
 habet approached the imperial camp, he was ordered 
 to stop, till he should account for the revenues of 
 Bengal, and the plunder acquired in the recent 
 battle. Mohabet, deeply affected with this injurious 
 treatment, sent his own son-in-law to the Emperor 
 to represent his loyalty, and expose the injustice of 
 his enemies. His son-in-law was seized in the royal 
 square, stript of his clothes, bastinadoed, covered 
 with rags, placed backwards on a horse of the most 
 miserable description, and sent out of the camp amid 
 the shouts and insults of the rabble. Mohabet 
 separated his retinue from the camp ; and resolved
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 365 
 
 to watch his opportunity. Next morning, the royal BOOK in 
 
 army began to cross the bridge which lay upon the 
 
 river Jelum, or Behut, on the road between Lahore 1615-28. 
 and Kabul. The greater part of the army had now 
 passed, and the royal tents were yet unstruck ; when 
 Mohabet, with two thousand of his Rajputs, gal- 
 loped to the bridge, and set it on fire. Hastening 
 thence, with a few followers, to the royal quarters ; 
 he secured the person of the Emperor, and conveyed 
 him without opposition to his camp. Noor Mahal, 
 in the mean time, contrived to make her escape. 
 Next day Asoph Jah, the vizir, made an obstinate 
 attempt to ford the river, and rescue the Emperor ; 
 but was repulsed with great slaughter. Unable 
 after this, to keep the army from dispersing, he fled 
 to the castle of New Rotas on the Attock, where he 
 was besieged and soon obliged to surrender at discre- 
 tion, while his sister the Sultana fled to Lahore. 
 The Emperor was treated by Mohabet with profound 
 respect; assured that no infringement of his au- 
 thority was designed ; that the necessity alone 
 under which the enemies of Mohabet had criminally 
 placed him, was the lamented cause of the restraint 
 which his imperial master endured. The generous 
 Mohabet, who really meant as he spoke, was well 
 aware that for him there was no security, under 
 Jehangir, while influenced and directed by Noor 
 Mahal. She was repairing to the Emperor upon his 
 own request, when met by an escort of Mohabet, 
 who, under pretence of guarding, kept her a pri- 
 soner. He accused her immediately of treason and 
 other high crimes ; and the Emperor, on whose 
 feeble mind absence had already effaced in some
 
 366 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 degree the impression of her charms, signed without 
 much reluctance the order for her execution. She 
 1615-28. on jy i )e gg e( ^ that she might have leave, before her 
 death, to kiss the hand of her lord. She was ad- 
 mitted, but in the presence of Mohabet. She stood 
 in silence. The Emperor burst into tears. " Will 
 you not spare this woman, Mohabet *? See how she 
 weeps." " It is not for the Emperor of the Moguls," 
 cried Mohabet, " to ask in vain." At a wave of his 
 hand, the guards retired, and she was that instant 
 restored to her former attendants. In a few months 
 Mohabet restored to the Emperor the full exercise 
 of his authority, and, to show the sincerity of his 
 obedience, dismissed the greater part of his at- 
 tendants and guards. No sooner did the Sultana 
 conceive him in her power, than she importuned the 
 Emperor for his death. The Emperor had virtue to 
 reject her proposal; but the consequence only was. 
 that she resolved to employ assassination. Je- 
 hangir himself discovered to Mohabet his danger; 
 and he fled without attendants from the camp. The 
 man who had saved the Emperor ; and spared both 
 his life and authority, when both were in his hands, 
 was now the object of a command to all the 'go- 
 vernors of provinces to suffer him no where to lurk 
 in existence; and a price was set on his head. 
 Mohabet seized a resolution which accorded with 
 the boldness and generosity of his nature. In a 
 mean habit, he secretly entered the camp of Asoph 
 Jah when it was dark, and placed himself in the 
 passage which led from the apartments of the vizir 
 to the haram. He was questioned by the eunuch 
 on guard, who recognised his voice, and carried to
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 367 
 
 Asoph his request to see him on affairs of the utmost BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 importance. Asoph was not ignorant of the baneful . 
 
 effects of his sister's passions; nor unmoved by the 1G2S - 
 generosity with which Mohabet had lately treated 
 both her and himself. He took him in his arms, 
 and conveyed him in sil ence to a secret apartment ; Mo- 
 habet opened his mind with freedom on the miscon- 
 duct of the Sultana ; the weakness of Jehangir ; 
 and the necessity of another sovereign to cure the 
 evils of an afflicted state. rt The elder of the 
 princes," said he, " is a virtuous man, and my friend, 
 but we must not exchange one feeble sovereign for 
 another. I know the merit of Shah Jehan; for 
 I have fought against him ; and though his ambition 
 knows no restraint either of nature or justice, his 
 vigour will prevent intestine disorders, and give 
 power to the laws." The views of Asoph, whose 
 daughter was the favourite wife of Shah Jehan, cor- 
 responded, it seems, with those of Mohabet : a plan 
 of co-operation was concerted at that moment : and 
 Mohabet, with letters from the vizir, retired to the 
 court of the Rana of Odipore, to wait for events. 
 
 The death of the prince Purvez, which happened 
 soon after, of an apoplexy ; and the death of Jehan- 
 gir, which followed at a short interval, saved the 
 conspirators from many difficulties, and probably 
 crimes. It was found, when the will of the Emperor 
 was opened, that he had named Shahriar,his youngest 
 son, successor; at the instigation of the Sultana, 
 whose daughter, by her first husband, that prince had 
 espoused. As a temporary expedient, the vizir 
 placed Dawur Buksh, the son of the late prince 
 Khosroo, upon the throne; but at the same time
 
 368 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in despatched to Mohabet the concerted siernal for com- 
 
 CHAP. 4. * f 
 
 mencing operations in behalf of Shah Jehan. Asoph 
 
 1628. conquered the troops of Shahriar, and put out his 
 eyes. Shah Jehan proceeded towards Agra; and 
 every obstacle was removed by the death of Dawur 
 Buksh. Shah Jehan was proclaimed Emperor of 
 the Moguls in the beginning of the year 1628. 
 
 He began his reign by removing all danger of 
 competition. The whole of the male posterity of 
 the house of Timur, with the exception of himself 
 and his sons, were despatched by the dagger or the 
 bow-string. His sons were four in number ; Dara 
 surnamed Sheko, Shuja, Aurungzeb, and Morad ; 
 the eldest, at this time, thirteen ; the youngest, four 
 years of age. Even the daughters of Shah Jehan 
 were important actors in the scenes of his eventful 
 reign. They were three in number, women of talents 
 and accomplishments, as well as beauty. The 
 eldest, Jehanara, was her father's favourite, with a 
 boundless influence over his mind ; lively, generous, 
 open ; and attached to her brother Dara, whose 
 disposition corresponded with her own. The second. 
 Roshenrai Begum, was acute, artful, intriguing, and 
 from conformity of character, favoured Aurungzeb. 
 The gentleness of Suria Banu, the youngest, kept 
 her aloof from the turbulence of political intrigue and 
 contention. 
 
 The two chiefs, Asoph and Mohabet, who had con- 
 ducted Shah Jehan to the throne, and were the most 
 able and popular men of the empire, were appointed, 
 the first, vizir ; the latter, commander-in-chief of the 
 forces. Through the wide dominions of the Shah, 
 Khan Jehan Lodi, who commanded the army in the
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 369 
 
 Deccan, was the only disobedient chief. Even he 
 submitted, as soon as an army approached. 
 
 The dissensions and weakness usually attending a 
 change of sovereign in the disjointed governments 
 of the East, persuaded the leader of the Usbeks, 
 that conquests might be achieved in Hindustan. 
 Though Abbas still reigned in Persia, and the 
 Usbeks had lately shed their blood in torrents, in 
 disputes about the succession to their throne, they 
 still possessed the regions of the Oxus, of which 
 Abbas had in vain attempted to deprive them. Ten 
 thousand horse, with a train of artillery, penetrated 
 through the mountains in Kabul. They first laid 
 siege to the fortress of Zohac ; but, finding it strong 
 and well defendeded, proceeded to Kabul. The city 
 made a vigorous resistance ; but was at last reduced 
 to extremity. The defenders, resolving however 
 upon one desperate struggle, sallied forth, and 
 repulsed the enemy, who evacuated the province, be- 
 fore Mohabet, on his march from the Deccan, whither 
 he had been sent for the subjugation of Lodi, could 
 reach the scene of action. 
 
 The disobedience of the Raja of Bundelcund, 
 who was so imprudent as to take offence at an in- 
 crease of tribute, was chastised by an overwhelming 
 force. But the heart of the generous Mohabet was 
 gained by the bravery of his enemy ; and he obtained 
 for him pardon and restoration. 
 
 All the merit of Mohabet, and all his services, 
 only inflamed the dark suspicions which usually 
 haunt the mind of an Oriental despot. Shah Jehan 
 regarded him with terror ; and by such steps as it 
 
 VOL. II. 2 B
 
 370 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 appeared safe to venture upon, proceeded to deprive 
 him of his power. 
 
 The jealous and revengeful passions of the 
 Emperor involved him in difficulties through another 
 channel. When Lodi submitted upon terms, he was 
 appointed to the, government of a province, but not 
 forgiven. He was now ordered to court, and received 
 with so much studied insult, that both his pride and 
 his prudence taught him to look for safety in his 
 independence alone. He escaped with much diffi- 
 culty ; was reduced to the deepest distress ; but, 
 having talents and perseverance, he baffled the 
 imperial pursuers, and reached the Deccan. The re- 
 sources which such a man as Lodi might find in the 
 south made the Emperor tremble on his throne. He 
 raised a large army ; placed himself at its head ; 
 hastened to the scene of action ; and engaged in those 
 struggles for the subjugation of the Deccan, which 
 formed so large a portion of the business of this, and 
 of the following reign. 
 
 Since the fall of Ahmednuggur, at the close of the 
 reign of Akbar, the following are the principal events 
 which had taken place in the Deccan. The territories 
 of the Nizam Shahee or Ahmednuggur sovereignty 
 were divided between Mallek Umber, who possessed 
 the country from theTelingana frontier to within eight 
 miles of Ahmednuggur, and four of Dowlatabad; and 
 Rajoo Minnaun, ! who ruled from Dowlatabad north- 
 ward to the borders of Guzerat, and southward to within 
 twelve miles of Ahmednuggur; while Mortiza II. a 
 prince of the royal house of Ahmednuggur, with the 
 
 1 The name is Mian Rajoo with the epithet Dekhani. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 371 
 
 empty name of sovereign, was allowed to hold the BOOK in 
 
 CHAP 4 
 
 fortress of Ouseh, with a few villages to yield him '. 
 
 subsistence. Perpetual contests subsisted between the 1632 - 
 usurpers; and Umber succeeded at last in taking 
 Raj oo prisoner, and seizing his dominions. Umber was 
 now a sovereign of high rank among the princes of the 
 Deccan, governed his dominions with wisdom, and, 
 exacting something more than respect from the kings 
 of Beejapore and Golconda, held in check the arms of 
 Jehangir himself. He built the city of Gurkeh, now 
 called Aurungabad, five coss from Dowlatabad, and 
 died two years before the present expedition of Shah 
 Jehan, at eighty years of age, leaving his dominions 
 the best cultivated, and the happiest, region in India. 
 Futteh Khan, the son of Umber, succeeded him. 
 Mortiza II., still alive, got him by treachery into his 
 power; and recovered once more to the house of 
 Nizam Beheree the remaining part of the Ahmed- 
 nuggur territories. He did not retain them long; 
 Futteh Khan regained his liberty and ascendency; 
 and, with the concurrence of Shah Jehan, whom he 
 consulted, put Mortiza to death; and placed his son, 
 only ten years of age, upon a nominal throne. l 
 
 TheBeejaporeandGolcondasovereigntiesremained 
 nearly in the same situation in which they had been 
 found and left by Akbar. Mohammed Adil Shah was 
 now on the throne of the former ; Abdoolla Koottub 
 Shah, on that of the latter kingdom. 2 
 
 The Emperor arrived at Burrahanpore the capital 
 
 1 Ferishta's History of the Deccan, by Scott, i. 400 403. Umber was 
 one of the adventurers from Abyssinia, of whom so many sought, and ob- 
 tained, their fortunes in the Deccan, during the existence of the Afghan, 
 dynasties. 
 
 * Ibid. p. 339, 340 ; and 409, 410. 
 
 2 B 2
 
 372 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in O f Kandesh, and sent his mandates to the prince of the 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 Deccan, to discard their forces, deliver up Lodi, and 
 
 G32 - make their submissions in person, on pain of destruc- 
 tion. The celerity of the Emperor had allowed to 
 Lodi too little time to make the preparations which 
 resistance to so formidable an enemy required. But he 
 had already engaged the three sovereigns of the Deccan 
 in a confederacy for his support, and had influence to 
 make them reject or evade the commands of the Em- 
 peror. He was intrusted with a body of troops, and, 
 seizing the passes of the mountains, opposed the en- 
 trance of the Mogul army into Golconda. The Em- 
 peror, impatient of delay, removed his general, and 
 commanded the vizir to take upon himself the charge 
 of destroying Lodi, and chastising the insolence of 
 the princes of the Deccan. The princes were already 
 tired of the war, and alarmed by its dangers. The 
 reputation and power of the vizir augmented their 
 apprehensions. Lodi was deserted by all on the day 
 of battle, except by a few chiefs, his friends, who ad- 
 hered to him with their retinues. With these he 
 posted himself on an advantageous ground ; and long 
 arrested victory against the whole might of the impe- 
 rial arms. A neighbouring Raja, to gain the favour 
 of the Emperor, set upon him unexpectedly, as he 
 was pursuing his way to some place of safety, and he 
 lost his brave son with the greater part of his fol- 
 lowers. A party of those who were sent in all direc- 
 tions to scour the country, at last came upon him in a 
 place from which there was no retreat ; and he fell 
 defending himself to the last extremity. Shah Jehan 
 exhibited the most indecent joy when assured of his 
 destruction ; the measure of his terrors, while this
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 373 
 
 brave man was alive. After the conquest of Lodi, BOOKIII 
 
 CHAP 4. 
 
 the war in the Deccan was little else than a series of 
 
 ravages. The princes were able to make little resist- 1640-55. 
 ance. A dreadful famine, from several years of 
 excessive drought, which prevailed throughout India 
 and a great part of Asia, added its horrid evils to the 
 calamities which overwhelmed the inhabitants of the 
 Deccan. The princes sued for peace, and the Em- 
 peror agreed to withdraw his army, which he now 
 found it difficult to subsist, retaining, as a security 
 for good behaviour, the forts which had fallen into 
 his hands. 
 
 During the famine, religion had made the Hindus 
 desert cultivation, and betake themselves to the sup- 
 plications, penances, and ceremonies, pleasing to their 
 gods. The calamities which sprung from this act 
 of devotion raised the indignation of Shah Jehan. 
 Though no fanatic in his own religion, he pronounced 
 that " an army of divinities who, so far from benefit- 
 ting their votaries, led them to inflict upon themselves 
 worse evils than the wrath of an enemy, were unfit 
 to be endured in his dominions." The Hindus how- 
 ever took arms in defence of their gods ; and after 
 some unavailing and unhappy efforts, he desisted, 
 declaring, " that a prince who wishes to have subjects 
 must take them with all the trumpery and baubles 
 of their religion." 
 
 The Portuguese who had established themselves at 
 Hoogley , in Bengal, and whose presumption rose with 
 their success, gave displeasure to the Subahdar. He 
 transmitted a complaint to the Emperor. " Expel 
 those idolaters from my dominions ;" was the laconic 
 answer. The Portuguese defended themselves bravely,
 
 374 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 v in When compelled to lay down their arms, the principal 
 evil which they were doomed to suffer, was, to see 
 " 55< their religious images broken and destroyed. To this 
 affair succeeded a second revolt of the Raja of Bun- 
 delcund, who warded off the destruction now decreed 
 for him with obstinate bravery for two years. The 
 third son of the Emperor, Aurungzeb, with an expe- 
 rienced general for his guide, had the nominal com- 
 mand of the army, though only thirteen years of age ; 
 and showed that ardour in the work of destruction 
 which distinguished his riper years. 
 
 When the Emperor marched from the borders of 
 the Deccan, he offered the government of Kandesh and 
 of the frontier army, for which he saw that great 
 talents were required, to the Vizir, who, fearing the 
 consequences of absence from the court, recommended 
 successfully the virtues and capacity of Mohabet. 
 Adil Shah, the King of Beejapore, threatened to wrest 
 Dowlatabad from Futteh Khan, who governed in the 
 name of the young Shah of Ahmednuggur. To pre- 
 vent the annexation of this important fortress to the 
 dominions of his rival, Futteh Khan offered it to Shah 
 Jehan, and Mohabet marched to receive possession. 
 Futteh Khan repented of his offer; and Mohabet 
 laid siege to the fortress. Dowlatabad is a place of 
 great natural strength, standing upon a detached and 
 precipitous rock, and had been fortified with the 
 highest efforts of Oriental skill ; but famine at last 
 made Futteh submit. The young prince, his master, 
 was carried a prisoner to Gualior. . Futteh Khan was 
 allowed to retain his private property, and was destined 
 to become one of the high Omrahs of the empire ; 
 but being seized with insanity, the consequence
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 375 
 
 of a wound formerly 'received in his head, he was B OKIII 
 
 * CHAP. 4. 
 
 carried to Lahore, where he lived many years on a 
 
 liberal pension. The fall of Dowlatabad put a period 164 - 55 - 
 to the dynasty of Nizam Shah, which had swayed 
 the sceptre of Ahmednuggur for 150 years. 1 Moha- 
 bet, resolving to pursue the reduction of the Deccan, 
 marched towards Telingana, and laid siege to a for- 
 tress ; but falling sick, and finding himself unable to 
 superintend the operations of the army, he withdrew 
 the troops to Burrahanpore, where he died at an 
 advanced age. 
 
 The tranquillity of the empire permitted the ambi- 
 tion of Shah Jehan to attach itself to the subjugation 
 of the Deccan. He began to march from Agra. That 
 time might be afforded to the governors of the pro- 
 vinces for joining him with their troops, his progress 
 was purposely slow. In rather less than a year he 
 arrived at Dowlatabad with an accumulated army. 
 This great host was divided into twelve bodies, and 
 poured upon the kingdoms of Golconda and Beerja- 
 pore, with orders not to spare the severities of war : 
 " because war (such was the reflection of Shah Jehan) 
 was the scourge of humanity, and compassion served 
 only to prolong its evils." One hundred and fifteen 
 towns and fortresses were taken in the course of a 
 year. The unfortunate sovereigns were overwhelmed 
 with calamity ; and solicited peace on any terms. It 
 was granted ; but on condition that they should re- 
 sign their dominions, and be contented to hold them 
 as tributaries of the Mogul. The province of Kan- 
 
 1 The fall of DowlataLad is somewhat differently related by Dow in his 
 history of Nizam Shah, p. 151. We have here followed the account 
 of Ferishta. Scott's Deccan, i. 402.
 
 376 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ' J 11 desh, with the army in the Deccan, was left under the 
 command of the son of the late Mohabet, an accom- 
 
 ' M- plished chief. But he died in a little time, and Au- 
 rungzeb, the Emperor's aspiring son, was appointed 
 to succeed him. 
 
 About this time a refractory Raja of Berar drew 
 upon himself the imperial arms. That large district 
 of Hindustan was regularly subdued ; and bestowed 
 as a Subah upon the successful general. Another 
 event yielded high satisfaction to the Emperor. The 
 province of Kandahar, which had been wrested from 
 the Moguls by the power of Abbas, Shah of Persia, 
 was now recovered by the treachery of its governor, 
 disgusted with the cruel and capricious sway of Sefi, 
 the successor of Abbas on the Persian throne. 
 
 Of the operations next in order it is to be lamented 
 that our information is very imperfect. The province 
 of Bengal, we are told, was invaded from the king- 
 dom of Assam, the enemy descending the Brahma- 
 pootra in boats till its junction with the Ganges below 
 Dacca. The Subahdar of Bengal experienced little 
 difficulty in repelling the invaders ; and, not contented 
 with an easy triumph, pursued them into their own 
 country, took possession of several forts, and re- 
 duced some provinces ; but he was obliged to return 
 for want of subsistence, and suffered extremely in his 
 retreat by the commencement of the rains and the 
 badness of the roads. It is related also, that the king-? 
 dom of Tibet was reduced about this time by another 
 of the generals of Shah Jehan, who was delighted to 
 conquer in regions, which the arms of his predecessor 
 had never reached. But to these conquests no effects 
 are ascribed ; and of that which is said to have been 
 accomplished in Tibet we are told neither the place.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 377 
 
 nor the extent, nor the circumstances, neither the road BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 by which the army was led to it, nor that by which 
 
 it was conducted back. 16.40-55. 
 
 The numerous subjects of Shah Jehan now en- 
 joyed a tranquillity and happiness such as had 
 seldom, if ever, been experienced in that portion of 
 the globe. The governors and officers, in every part 
 of his dominions, were strictly watched; and not 
 only their obedience to himself, but their duty to 
 his subjects, was vigorously enforced. His reign is 
 celebrated for the exact execution of the laws. And 
 the collection of the revenue, which affects so deeply 
 the condition of the people, and had, in the time 
 of Akbar, been very much improved, was advanced 
 to greater perfection under the diligent administration 
 of Shah Jehan. 1 
 
 This tranquillity was scarcely affected by an incur- 
 sion of the Usbeks into Kabul, the governor of which 
 not only repulsed them, but, following the invaders, 
 ravaged their country as far as Balkh, and returned with 
 considerable booty. This success of the governor of 
 Kabul encouraged him to make an incursion into the 
 territory of the Usbeks the following year. But he was 
 on the point of paying dear for his temerity, his com- 
 munications being intercepted, and his retreat rendered 
 in the highest degree dangerous and difficult. The 
 Emperor himself was, at last, infected with the 
 
 1 We meet with boasts, in the Oriental historians, of kings, whose ad- 
 ministration of justice was so perfect, that a purse of gold might be ex- 
 posed on the highways, and no man would touch it. Never was justice 
 better administered in India than under the reign of Shah Jehau ; yet 
 knowing more of the circumstances of his reign, we know better what 
 the general eulogies of the Oriental historians mean. Bernier, describ- 
 ing his situation at the time of his arrival at the court of Shah Jehan, 
 speaks of "Ic peu d'argent quimerestoit de diverses rencontres de voleurs." 
 Hist, des Estats du Grand Mogul, p. 5.
 
 378 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OK HI ambition of conquering the Usbeks. His youngest 
 
 son, Morad, was sent with an army, and over-ran 
 
 1640-55. the country without much difficulty ; but offended 
 his father by returning from his command, not only 
 without, but contrary to, orders. The Usbek sove- 
 reign had fled into Persia, but one of his sons 
 solicited and obtained the co-operation of the kindred 
 tribes beyond the Oxus. Aurungzeb was sent to 
 cope with the new adversary ; and his talents, and 
 persevering courage, were not more than necessary. 
 In a desperate battle victory hung suspended, and 
 fortune was more than once on the point of declaring 
 against the Moguls. After much difficulty, and 
 much loss, the country was indeed subdued ; but 
 its ancient sovereign, writing a most submissive 
 letter to the Emperor, was, on promise of a slight 
 tribute, reinstated in his dominions. 
 
 It was mortifying to the Emperor, in so high a 
 tide of his power, that Kandahar, regarded as the 
 key of his dominions on the side of Persia, was 
 wrested from his hands. Shah Abbas the Second 
 had succeeded the wretched Sefi, on the throne of 
 Persia : and taking advantage of the removal of the 
 Mogul troops from the northern provinces, and of 
 the subjugation of the Usbeks, which seemed to 
 deliver those provinces from danger, he marched 
 towards Kandahar with a great force, and obtained 
 the city by capitulation, before the Mogul army was 
 able to arrive. The strongest efforts were made for 
 its recovery. Aurungzeb besieged it two several 
 times; and Dara, the eldest son of the Emperor, 
 once. It baffled the operations of both. 
 
 The most memorable transaction in the reign of 
 Shah Jehan was the renewal of the war in theDeccan.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 379 
 
 The frontier provinces, and the army appointed to 
 hold in check the sovereigns of the south, had been 
 intrusted to the command of Aurungzeb ; but the 1640-55. 
 suspicions and jealousy of his father and brothers 
 had made them seek occasions to remove him, at 
 one time to Guzerat, at another in the war against 
 the Usbeks ; he had still, however, found means to 
 regain that important government, and was at Dow- 
 latabad when an occasion offered which a mind like 
 his was not apt to despise. A chief, in the service 
 of the king of Golconda, who had carried the arms of 
 that sovereign against the Rajas of the Karnatic, and 
 added extensive districts to his dominions, fell at 
 last, from apprehension of his power, under the 
 hatred of his master ; and perceived that his life was 
 no longer safe. He transmitted private intelli- 
 gence to Aurungzeb of his readiness to co-operate 
 with him in surprising the city of Hyderabad, not 
 far from Golconda, where the sovereign resided, 
 and where his treasures were deposited. Aurung- 
 zeb, covering his designs under the pretence of an 
 embassy, was admitted into the city, but the king 
 discovered the treachery in sufficient time to make 
 his escape to Golconda ; and as Hyderabad was set 
 on fire in the confusion of the attack, the greater part 
 of the riches which had tempted Aurungzeb was 
 consumed in the flames. Siege was laid to Gol- 
 conda ; but orders arrived from court, suggested by 
 the jealousies which there prevailed, that the king 
 of Golconda should be offered terms of peace. The 
 troops were withdrawn, after the beautiful daughter 
 of the king had been given in marriage to the eldest 
 son of Aurungzeb. 
 
 The chief, at whose instigation Aurungzeb had
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 undertaken the expedition, was the famous Emir 
 Jumla, born in a village near Ispahan in Persia, 
 and of parents so extremely poor that they had 
 scarcely the means of procuring him instruction to 
 read. A diamond merchant, who travelled to Gol- 
 conda, carried him to that city as a servant or clerk ; 
 at this place he left his master, and began to trade 
 on his own account. With the first of his gains he 
 purchased a place in the service of the king. His 
 talents and address attracted favour; and he as- 
 cended by rapid gradations to the summit of 
 command. During his public services he forgot not 
 the arts of private acquisition ; he had vessels 
 trading to various places, and farmed under borrowed 
 names the whole of the diamond-mines. He greatly 
 added to those riches by his successful wars in 
 Karnatic; and was supposed to possess enormous 
 treasures at the time when he connected himself 
 with Aurungzeb. That prince immediately received 
 him into his inmost friendship; and sought the 
 benefit of his counsels and co-operation in his most 
 important affairs. As it appeared that his talents 
 might be employed advantageously for Aurungzeb 
 at the court of his father, he was sent with such 
 recommendations as helped him quickly to the 
 highest rank. When the office of vizir became 
 vacant, the remonstrances of Dara could not prevent 
 the -Emperor from bestowing it upon Jumla, in the 
 sordid hope of receiving, upon his appointment, a 
 magnificent present, suited to the riches he was 
 supposed to possess. 
 
 Meanwhile, a new event demanded the presence 
 of Emir Jumla in the Deccan. The king of Beejapore 
 died : and his Omrahs, without consulting the Em-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 381 
 
 peror, placed his son upon the throne. The Emperor, 
 who now affected to reckon the sovereigns of the 
 Deccan among his dependants, construed this neglect ] 
 into a crime, which his new vizir was sent with an 
 army to chastise. He joined Aurungzeb at Bur- 
 rahanpore ; and that ambitious, but artful prince, 
 affected to act with profound submission under the 
 orders of his father's vizir. These two leaders under- 
 stood one another. The war was conducted with 
 concert and ability. The city of Beder was taken. 
 The Beejapore army was defeated in the field. 
 Kalburga,the ancient capital of the Deccanee empire, 
 submitted ; and the King threw himself at the feet 
 of the conqueror. After settling the terms of sub- 
 mission, which were severe, Aurungzebe returned to 
 Burrahanpore, and the vizir was recalled to Agra. 1 
 
 After these events, the health of the Emperor 
 excited alarm; 2 when the flames, which had for 
 some time been with difficulty compressed, broke 
 out with irresistible fury. To every brother under 
 an Oriental despotism the sons of the reigning mon- 
 arch look, as either a victim, or a butcher; and see 
 but one choice between the Musnud and the grave. 
 The usual policy of Oriental fear is to educate the 
 royal youths to effeminacy and imbecility in the 
 haram : but the sons of Shah Jehan had been led 
 
 1 For these transactions of Aurungzeb and Emir Jumla, see Bernier, 
 ut supra, p. 22 32, and the reign of Shah Jehan, chap. v. in Dow. 
 
 2 Dow, who follows his Persian authority, says, the malady was paralysis 
 and strangury, brought on by excesses in the haram ; Bernier the physician 
 speaks of it in the following terms ; " Je ne parlerai point ici de sa mala- 
 die, et je n'en raporteray pas les particularitez. Je diray seulement 
 qu'elle estoit peu convenable a un vieillard de soixante-dix ans et plus, qui 
 devoit plut&t songer a conserver ses forces qu'a les ruiner comme il fit." 
 Ut supra, p. 33.
 
 382 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 4 act i n an d indulged with the possession of 
 
 power. They were not all men of capacity ; but 
 
 1656-58. t^y were all arden^ brave, and aspiring ; and each 
 thought himself worthy of empire. Dara, the eldest, 
 gallant, open, sincere, but impetuous, thoughtless, 
 and rash, was destined to the sovereignty by his 
 father, and generally kept near himself; Shujah, the 
 second, was now Subahdar of Bengal, with more 
 prudence and discretion than his elder brother, but 
 far inferior in those qualities to the deep and dissem- 
 bling Aurungzeb, who had from an early age af- 
 fected a character of piety, pretending to hate the 
 business and vanities of the world, and to desire only 
 a retreat, where he might practise the austerities and 
 devotions pleasing to God. Morad, the youngest of 
 the sons of Shah Jehan, was conspicuous, chiefly, for 
 his courage ; popular, from his affability and gene- 
 rosity ; but credulous and weak. When his father's 
 illness gave fire to the combustibles which filled the 
 imperial house, this Prince was serving as Subahdar 
 in Guzerat. 
 
 As the illness of the Emperor was from the first 
 regarded as mortal, Dara took into his hands without 
 hesitation the reins of government; and with his 
 usual precipitation and violence began to show what 
 he apprehended from his brothers, and what his bro- 
 thers had to expect from him. All communication 
 with them was interdicted on pain of death. Their 
 agents, papers, and effects at the capital were seized. 
 Jumla, and such of the other high officers of the state 
 as were suspected of attachment to any of the younger 
 princes, were removed from their situations. And 
 orders were issued to place the imperial forces in a 
 state of preparation for the field.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 383 
 
 Shuja, who was nearest the scene of action, was the BOOK in 
 
 f* -i CHAP. 4. 
 
 first to appear in hostile array. From the govern- . 
 
 ment of the richest province of the empire, which he ] 655-58. 
 had severely pillaged, he was master of a large trea- 
 sure, the best sinew of war ; and he had collected an 
 army with a view to that very contest which was 
 now impending. Soliman, the eldest son of Dara, 
 was despatched without loss of time to oppose him ; 
 found means to cross the Ganges unexpectedly; 
 surprised the camp of Shuja, and forced him to retreat 
 precipitately to Mongeer ; where he was immediately 
 besieged. 
 
 In the mean time, Aurungzeb was employing the 
 resources of his fertile mind for strengthening his 
 hands, and making sure his blow. He persuaded 
 Morad, that with regard to himself his views were 
 directed to heaven, not to a throne ; but as his bro- 
 thers Dara and Shuja, compared with Morad, were 
 unworthy to reign, he was desirous from friendship 
 of aiding him with all his resources ; after which the 
 only boon he should crave would be to retire into 
 obscurity, and devote his days and his nights to the 
 service of his Maker. 
 
 Though Emir Jumla had been dismissed from the 
 vizirat, he was sent, through some influence which the 
 Dara could not resist, to the command of an army in 
 the Deccan, where it was the business of Aurungzeb 
 to obtain the benefit of his talents and resources. But 
 the family of Jumla, detained at Delhi, still retained 
 that chieftain in bonds. The expedient which pre- 
 sented itself to the mind of Aurungzeb, fertile in 
 contrivances, was, to seize the person of Emir 
 Jumla. The appearance of constraint would deprive 
 Dara of a pretext for taking revenge on his family.
 
 384 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 sudden resentment of his army could be ap- 
 - peased by promises and bribes. The stratagem 
 58 ' succeeded, and the talents and army of Jumla were 
 both added to the resources of Aurungzeb. 
 
 Having concerted with his brother, from Guzerat, 
 to join him at Oojein, he took the route from 
 Burrahanpore, and arrived at the Nerbudda, where 
 he learned that Jesswunt Sing, who had married the 
 daughter of the Rana of Odipore, and through her 
 succeeded to most of the dominions of her father, was 
 in possession of the city of Oojein, and prepared to 
 dispute the passage of the army. The Raja lost the 
 favourable opportunity of attacking the troops of 
 Aurungzeb, when, spent with heat and fatigue, 
 they first arrived on the banks of the Nerbudda. 
 The wily Mogul delayed some days, till joined by 
 Morad: when the brothers crossed the river, and, 
 after a well-contested action, put the Raja to flight. 
 Aurungzeb, who never trusted to force what he 
 could effect by deceit, had previously debauched the 
 Mohammedans in the army of the Raja, by dissemi- 
 nating among them the idea that help to the infidels 
 was treason to the faithful. 
 
 In the mean time, the Emperor Shah Jehan had 
 recovered from the violent effects of his disorder: 
 and resumed the exercise of his authority. Dara, 
 who during the royal illness had behaved with ten- 
 derness and fidelity truly filial, and delayed not a 
 moment to restore the reins of government when his 
 father was capable to receive them, was exalted to a 
 still higher place in the affections of the Emperor ; 
 who despatched his commands to the Princes Au- 
 rungzeb and Morad to return to their respective 
 governments. Aurungzeb was little inclined to
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 intermit the efforts he had so happily begun ; but to BOOK in 
 make war upon his father, beloved both by the ' 
 soldiers and people, was to ruin his cause, and make 1655-58, 
 even his own army desert him. Under colour of 
 refreshing his troops, he waited several days at 
 Oojein ; and the impetuosity of Dara, which the 
 counsels of Shah Jehan were unable to restrain, 
 speedily afforded him a pretext to cover his de- 
 signs. The news of the passage of the Nerbudda, 
 and of the defeat of the Raja, kindled Dara 
 into a flame. He marched out of Agra at the head 
 of the imperial forces ; and enabled Aurungzeb 
 to give out that he fought by necessity ; against 
 his brother merely, not his father; and in self- 
 defence. Dara sent to his son Soliman, who was 
 besieging Shuja in Mongeer, to make what terms he 
 could with that Sultan, and march with all expedi- 
 tion to join him against Aurungzeb. Shuja was 
 allowed to resume the government of Bengal : Soli- 
 man hastened toward the new scene of action : and, 
 could the impatience of Dara have waited, till joined 
 by his son, who was beloved by the soldiers, and at 
 once prudent and brave, the career of Aurungzeb 
 might perhaps have been closed. The emperor 
 trembled at the prospect of a battle ; he threatened 
 to take the field in person, which would have been 
 effectual ; because no authority would have been 
 obeyed in opposition to his. But the infatuated 
 Dara found means to prevent the execution of this 
 design; and marched to occupy the banks of the 
 river ChumbuL, and the passes of the mountains 
 which extend from Guzerat to the Jumna. Aurung- 
 zeb found the passes so strongly guarded, and the 
 
 VOL. II. 2 C
 
 386 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 enemy so advantageously posted, that he durst not 
 attack them ; and fearing the approach of Soliman, 
 
 1655-58. h e wag thrown into the greatest perplexity. In this 
 situation he received, from a treacherous Omrah in 
 the army ofDara, information of a by-road among the 
 hills, which would conduct him to an unguarded part 
 of the river. He left his camp standing to amuse 
 the eyes of Dara ; whose first intelligence was, that 
 Aurungzeb was in his rear, and in full march to- 
 wards the capital. By great exertion Dara threw 
 himself before the enemy, and prepared for action. 
 Dara appeared to most advantage in the field of 
 battle. His bravery animated his troops. The im- 
 petuous gallantry of Morad, and the cool and inven- 
 tive intrepidity of Aurungzeb, were balanced by 
 the spirit of the imperial army and its leader. The 
 elephant of Dara was wounded ; and in an evil hour 
 he was persuaded to dismount. The troops, missing 
 the imperial houda, suspected treachery, and the 
 death of their general ; and every man began to 
 provide for himself. Aurungzeb found himself 
 master of the field of battle, at the moment when he 
 despaired of any longer being able to make his 
 soldiers maintain the contest. 
 
 Dara fled to Agra, and, after a short interview 
 with his father, departed with his family and a few 
 attendants to Delhi, where some imperial troops and 
 treasures were placed at his disposal, and whence he 
 proposed to effect a junction with Soliman. All the 
 cunning and diligence of Aurungzeb were now 
 exerted to the utmost, to improve his victory. He 
 affected to treat Mor&d as Emperor ; and began to 
 make preparations for himself, as intending imme-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 diately to set out on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca. BOOKIII 
 In the mean time he wrote letters, and exhausted the _____ 
 arts of seduction, to detach the Omrahs from the 1658. 
 cause of Dara. His principal solicitude was to 
 debauch the army of Soliman; which he accom- 
 plished so effectually, that the unfortunate Prince 
 found at last he could place no dependence on its 
 obedience, and was not even safe in its power. He 
 fled from his danger ; and took shelter with the 
 Raja of Serinagur, an unconquered kingdom of 
 Hindus, among the northern mountains. The vic- 
 torious army advanced towards Agra ; but the Em- 
 peror ordered the gates of the citadel to be shut, 
 and Aurungzeb was still afraid to offer violence to 
 his father. He wrote a letter, replete with the 
 strongest professions of loyalty, and of the most 
 profound submission to his parent and sovereign. 
 The Emperor, with the hope of drawing him into 
 his power, affected to be satisfied, and invited him to 
 his presence. Aurungzeb every day pretended that 
 he was just about to comply ; but every day found 
 an excuse for delay. After a series of intrigues, he 
 pretended that to set his mind at ease, in appearing 
 under humiliation and abasement before his father, 
 it was necessary that his son should previously be 
 admitted into the citadel with a guard for his 
 person. The Emperor, who was blinded by his 
 desire to have Aurungzeb in his hands, assented to 
 a condition which seemed indispensable. When he 
 found himself a prisoner in the hands of his grand- 
 son, his rage and vexation exceeded bounds ; and 
 he offered to resign to him the crown, if he would 
 set him at liberty, and join him in defeating the 
 2 c 2
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 CHAP 4 Sc ^ emes f Aurungzeb. But the youth, though 
 , not averse to the prospect of reigning, and not much 
 less, restrained by the sense of filial duty, refused to com- 
 ply; and, after some hesitation and delay, Shah 
 Jehan sent the keys of the citadel to Aurungzeb. The 
 hypocrisy of Aurungzeb, was not yet renounced. 
 By a letter, which was carefully made public, he 
 declared ; that with the utmost grief he had been 
 reduced to these extremities ; and that as soon 
 as Dara, to whose crimes every evil was owing, 
 should be disabled from future mischief, the happiest 
 event of his life would be, to restore to his father 
 the plenitude of his power. 
 
 To deliver himself from Morad was the next study 
 of Aurungzeb. The friends of that thoughtless 
 prince had at last brought him to look with suspicion 
 upon his brother's designs ; and even to meditate an 
 act which might deliver him finally from so dan- 
 gerous a rival. The sagacity of Aurungzeb enabled 
 him to discover the intended blow, which he contrived 
 to elude at the very moment when it was aimed and 
 ready to fall. In his turn he inveigled Morad to an 
 entertainment, and, having intoxicated him with wine, 
 withdrew his arms while he slept ; seized him with- 
 out any commotion, and sent him a prisoner to the 
 castle of Agra. 1 
 
 It was now useless, if not hurtful to the cause of 
 Aurungzeb, any longer to disavow his ultimate pur- 
 pose. But he waited till he was importuned by his 
 
 1 Bernier had not heard of the attempt of Morad upon the life of 
 Aurungzeb. It is here stated upon the Persian authorities of Dow, 
 Bernier, ut supra, p. 109 114. Dow's Shah Jehan, ch. iii. Hist, of 
 Hindostan, vol. iii.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 nobles ; and then, on the second of August, 1658, in BOOK in 
 
 C H AP 4 1 
 
 the garden of Azabad, near Delhi, pretending to be . 
 
 overcome by their entreaties, he submitted to receive l658 - 
 the ensigns of royalty ; and assumed the pompous 
 title of Aulum-gir, or Conqueror of the World. 
 
 Aulum-gir allowed not what he had already 
 achieved to slacken his efforts in finishing what re- 
 mained to be done. Dara had taken the route towards 
 Lahore ; and had the resources of the northern pro- 
 vinces, Lahore, Multan, and Kabul, at his command : 
 Soliman was ready to descend from the mountains 
 with the assistance of the Raja of Serinagur, and 
 with a body of adherents who still approached the 
 size of an army : and Shuja was master of the rich 
 province of Bengal. Aulum-gir saw, what every 
 skilful leader has seen, that in the coarse business of 
 war, expedition is the grand instrument of success. 
 He hastened toward the Sutlej, from the banks 
 of which Dara retreated upon the news of his approach. 
 Aurungzeb, pressing on, drove him first from the 
 Beyah, then from Lahore, and next from Multan ; the 
 unfortunate prince, who might have resisted with 
 some chance of success, having lost his resolution to- 
 gether with his fortune. From Multan, he fled across 
 the Indus to the mountains of Bicker, when Aurung- 
 zeb, declaring the war against him to be closed, 
 left eight thousand horse to pursue him, and returned 
 with haste to Agra. 
 
 He had no sooner arrived at Agra, than he learned, 
 what he partly expected, that Shuja was already in 
 force, and in full march toward the capital, He sent 
 to his son Mohammed whom he had left at Multan, 
 to join him with all his forces ; and in the mean time
 
 390 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 to k tne roa d to Bengal, but by slow marches, till 
 - Mohammed came up. Shuja intrenched himself near 
 Allahabad ; and waited for the arrival of his enemy. 
 Though Shuja did not avail himself of all his advan- 
 tages, he was able to join battle with a fair prospect 
 of success. Nor was this all. In the very heat of 
 the action, the Rajah, Jesswunt Sing, who had made 
 his peace with Aurungzeb, and joined him with his 
 forces, turned his arms against him, and fell upon the 
 rear of his army. The dismay and desertion which 
 every unexpected incident scatters through an Indian 
 army began to appear. But the firmness of the 
 usurper recovered the blow. His elephant, which 
 was wounded and began to be ungovernable, he or- 
 dered to be chained immoveable by the feet ; the 
 soldiers, still beholding the imperial castle opposed to 
 the enemy, were rallied by the generals ; Shuja com- 
 mitted the same fatal mistake which had ruined 
 Dara ; he descended from his elephant, and his army 
 dispersed. 
 
 Emir Jumla, the ancient friend of Aurungzeb, 
 who from his place of confinement, or pretended con- 
 finement in the Deccan, had joined him on the march, 
 performed eminent service in this battle. It is even 
 said, that Aurungzeb, when his elephant became 
 ungovernable, had one foot out of the castle to alight, 
 when Jumla, who was near him on horseback, cried 
 out sternly, " You descend from the throne !" Au- 
 rungzeb smiled, had a moment for reflection, and 
 replaced himself in the houda. 
 
 Shuja and his army fled during the night, while 
 Aurungzeb was in no condition to pursue them. 
 Jesswunt Sing and his Rajpoots, who had plundered
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 391 
 
 the camp, had the audacity to wait the attack of BOOK ni 
 
 15 J CHAP. 4. 
 
 Aurimgzeb the following day ; and were routed, but 
 
 without being obliged to abandon their spoil. Leaving 1658 - 
 Mohammed with a force to pursue the vanquished 
 Shuja, Aurungzeb hurried back to Agra. 
 
 The haste was not without a cause. Dara, after 
 having arrived at Bicker, crossed the desert with his 
 family, and arrived in Guzerat, where he gained the 
 governor. Aurungzeb, aware how small a spark 
 might kindle into a flame, among the disaffected 
 rajas of the mountains, and the distant viceroys and 
 princes of the Deccan, was eager to allow the danger 
 no time to augment. He courted Jesswunt Sing, who 
 had so recently betrayed him, to prevent his co- 
 operation with Dara: and marched with all expedition 
 to Ajmere. Dara had already seized an important 
 pass, and intrenched himself. Aurungzeb was not 
 a little- startled when he first beheld the advantages 
 of the position, and strength of his works. He set in 
 motion his usual engines of treachery and deceit ; and 
 by their assistance gained a complete and final victory. 
 Deserted by all, and robbed of his effects, by a body 
 of Mahrattas in his service, Dara fled towards the 
 Indus with his family, who, nearly destitute of attend- 
 ants, were on the point of perishing in the desert. 
 After many sufferings, he was seized by a treacherous 
 chief, who owed to him his life and fortune ; and de- 
 livered into the hands of Aurungzeb. His murder 
 was only a few days deferred; during which he 
 was ignominiously exposed about the streets of 
 Delhi. 
 
 While the Emperor was engaged in opposing Dara, 
 his son Mohammed and Jumla the Vizir prosecuted the
 
 392 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in war against Shuja. That Prince had fled from the 
 _____ battle to Patna, from Patna toMongeer,from Mongeer 
 1668. to Rajamahal, and from Rajamahal he was forced to 
 retreat to Tanda. Shuja was still possessed of re- 
 sources ; his courage and resolution failed not ; and 
 an event occurred which promised a turn in the tide of 
 his affairs. Mohammed had been formerly enamoured 
 of the daughter of Shuja ; and their union had been 
 projected, before the distractions of the royal family 
 had filled the empire with confusion and bloodshed. 
 It is said that the Princess wrote to Mohammed a 
 letter, reminding him of his former tenderness, and 
 deprecating the ruin of her father. The impatient 
 and presumptuous Mohammed was little pleased with 
 the treatment he sustained at the hands of Aurung- 
 zeb ; his heart was touched with the tears of the 
 princess ; and he resolved to desert the cause of his 
 own father, and join that of hers. He expected that 
 the army, in which he was popular, would follow his 
 example. But the authority and address of Jumla 
 preserved order and allegiance. The news of his 
 son's defection quickly reached Aulum-gir; who 
 concluded for certain that he had carried the army 
 along with him, and set out in the utmost expedition 
 with a great force for Bengal. In the mean time 
 Jumla attacked the army of Shuja, which he defeated ; 
 and the conquered Princes retreated to Dacca. Au- 
 rungzeb, pursuing his usual policy, wrote a letter to 
 Mohammed, which he took care that the agents of 
 Shuja should intercept. It purported to be an answer 
 to one received ; offering to accept the returning duty 
 of Mohammed, and to pardon his error, on the per- 
 formance of a service which was nameless, but seemed
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 393 
 
 to be understood. This letter smote the mind of Shuia BOOK m 
 
 " CHAP. 4. 
 
 with incurable distrust. After a time Mohammed was 
 
 obliged to depart, and with a heavy heart to intrust 1658 - 
 himself to his unforgiving father. He was imme- 
 diately immured in Gualior, where, after languishing 
 for some years, he was intrusted with liberty, though 
 not with power; but died a short time after. 1 Shuja 
 was speedily reduced to extremity in Dacca, and 
 having no further means of resistance, fled from the 
 province, and sought refuge in the kingdom of Arra- 
 can. But the wretched Raja, who at once coveted 
 his wealth, and dreaded his pursuers, violated with- 
 out scruple the laws of hospitality and mercy. Death, 
 in some of the worst of its forms, soon overtook the 
 family of Shuja. 
 
 During these transactions, rewards, which were too 
 powerful for the virtue of a Hindu, had been offered 
 to the Raja of Serinagur ; and shortly after the ruin of 
 Shuja, Soliman, the last object of the fears of Aulum- 
 gir, was delivered into his hands, and added to the 
 number of the prisoners of Gualior. 
 
 From the time when Aulum-gir, having subdued 
 all competition for the throne, found himself the 
 undisputed lord of the Mogul empire, the vigilance 
 ind steadiness of his administration preserved so 
 mch tranquillity in the empire, and so much uni- 
 )rmity in its business, that the historians who de- 
 3ribe only wars and revolutions, have found little to 
 
 This account of the fate of Mohammed is given by Mr. Stewart, (Hist. 
 Jengal, p. 276) on the authority of the Muasir Alumgiry, and varies 
 
 om the account of Ferishta, who says he died in Gualior. M. 
 
 Dow's supplement to Ferishta is here intended. Ferishta's history closes 
 rith the reign of Akbar, and there is reason to believe that he did not 
 wig survive A. D. 1611 above 40 years before these events. W.
 
 394 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK HI c |o. The most important series of transactions were 
 
 CHAP. 4. L 
 
 . . those which occurred in the Deccan ; which ceased not 
 
 1661. during the whole of this protracted reign ; laid the 
 foundation of some of the most remarkable of the 
 subsequent events ; and had a principal share in 
 determining the form which the political condition 
 of India thereafter assumed. That we may relate 
 these transactions without interruption, we shall 
 shortly premise such of the other transactions handed 
 down to us (for we have no complete history of 
 Aurungzeb) as fell near the beginning of his reign, 
 and merit any regard. 
 
 When Aurungzeb marched from the Deccan to 
 contend for the crown, he left Mohammed Mauzim,his 
 second son, to command in his name. When esta- 
 blished upon the throne, it was not altogether without 
 apprehension that he contemplated so vast a power 
 in hands which possibly might turn it against him. 
 Mauzim, aware of the jealous disposition of his 
 father, preserved the utmost humility of exterior; 
 avoided all display, either of wealth or power ; was 
 vigilant in business ; exact in obeying the commands 
 of the Emperor, and in remitting the revenue and 
 dues of his government. He was recalled, notwith- 
 standing his prudence, and Shaista Khan made vice- 
 roy in the Deccan. At the same time, Aurungzeb, 
 seeking security for the present, by directing hope 
 to the future, declared Mohammed Mauzim heir to 
 the throne, and changed his name to Shah Aulum, 
 or King of the World. 
 
 The third year of his reign was visited with a 
 great famine, a calamity which ravages India with 
 more dreadful severity than almost any other part of
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 395 
 
 the globe. It was occasioned by the recurrence of BOOK * n 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 an extraordinary drought, which in India almost 
 
 suspends vegetation, and, throughout the principal 1665 ' 
 part of the country, leaves both men and cattle 
 destitute of food. The prudence of Aurungzeb, if 
 his preceding actions will not permit us to call it his 
 humanity, suggested to him the utmost activity of 
 beneficence on this calamitous occasion. The rents 
 of the husbandman, and other taxes, were remitted. 
 The treasury of the Emperor was opened without 
 limit. Corn was bought in the provinces where the 
 produce was least, conveyed to those in which it 
 was most defective ; and distributed to the people at 
 reduced prices. The great economy of Aurungzeb, 
 who allowed no expense for the luxury and ostenta- 
 tion of a court, and who managed with skill and 
 vigilance the disbursements of the state, afforded 
 him a resource for the wants of his people. 
 
 It was before the commencement, perhaps, of this 
 calamity, that the empire was agitated by the pro- 
 spect of a fresh revolution from a dangerous sickness 
 of the Emperor. 1 The court was full of intrigues ; 
 on one hand, for Mauzim, the declared successor ; 
 on the other, 'for Akbar, a young, and even infant 
 son of Aurungzeb. Shah Jehan himself was still 
 alive ; and the people in general expected that he 
 would resume the reins of government. But the 
 
 1 Dow, (Hist, of Aurungzebe, chap, iv.) places the Emperor's illness 
 after the famine. But Bernier, who was on the spot, and mentions the 
 arrival of ambassadors from the Khan of the Usbeks first among the 
 events succeeding the termination of the civil war, says, that those am- 
 bassadors, who remained somewhat more than four months, had not 
 departed from Delhi when the Emperor was taken ill. Bernier, Evenemens 
 Particuliers des Etats du Mogul, p. 10.
 
 396 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 nation was relieved from its terrors, and from the 
 calamities which too certainly would have fallen upon 
 it. The usurper recovered. But the efforts of Sultan 
 Mauzim, to secure the succession, expressed to the 
 suspicious mind of Aulum-gir, more of the desire to 
 obtain a throne than to preserve a father ; and his 
 purpose in regard to the succession, if his declaration 
 in favour of Mauzim had ever been more than a 
 pretence, was from this time understood to have 
 suffered a radical change. 
 
 To forward his designs in favour of Akbar, he 
 applied to Shah Jehan, to obtain for that prince, in 
 marriage, the daughter of Dara, who remained in 
 the seraglio of her grandfather. Shah Jehan, though 
 strictly confined in the palace at Agra, had been 
 treated with great respect ; retaining his women and 
 servants, and furnished with every amusement in 
 which he was understood to delight. He had not, 
 however, remitted his indignation against Aurung- 
 zeb, and now sent a haughty and insulting refusal. 
 Aurungzeb had prudence not to force his inclina- 
 tion; and, so far from showing any resentment, 
 redoubled his efforts to soften his mind. 
 
 The services of Emir Jumla had been rewarded 
 with the government of Bengal. But the mind of 
 Aurungzeb, and indeed the experience of Oriental 
 government, told him, that he was never safe while 
 there was a man alive, who had power to hurt him. 
 He wished to withdraw the Vizir from his govern- 
 ment, but without a rupture, which might raise dis- 
 trust in the breasts of all his Omrahs. To afford 
 him occupation which would detain his mind from 
 planning defection, he recommended to him a war
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 397 
 
 against the King of Assam, who had broken into BOOKIII 
 
 . / CHAP. 4. 
 
 Bengal during the distractions of the empire, and 
 
 still remained unchastised. Jumla, who promised 1665 - 
 himself both plunder and reputation from this expe- 
 dition, and whose exploring eye beheld an illustrious 
 path through the kingdom of Assam to the conquest 
 of China, undertook the expedition with alacrity. 
 He ascended the Brahmapootra in boats. The 
 Assamese abandoned the country which lies on the 
 side of the mountains facing Bengal; but the for- 
 tress of Azo was garrisoned, and stood an attack. 
 After the reduction of Azo, Jumla crossed the moun- 
 tains of Assam, vanquished the King, who took 
 refuge in his capital, forced him to fly to the shelter 
 of the mountains, ' and became master of a great 
 part of the kingdom. But the rains came on, which 
 in that kingdom are peculiarly violent and lay the 
 greater part of the level country under water, Jumla 
 found it impossible to subsist his army ; and was 
 under the necessity of returning to Bengal. Incre- 
 dible were the difficulties with which he had to 
 contend ; necessaries were wanting, the roads covered 
 with water, and the enemy every where harassing 
 his retreat. The capacity of Jumla triumphed over 
 all obstructions ; he brought back the greater part 
 of the army safe ; and wrote to the Emperor that he 
 would next year carry his arms to the heart of 
 China. But the army, on its return, was afflicted 
 with a dysentery, the effect of the hardships it had 
 endured. The general escaped not ; and worn out, 
 as he was, with years and fatigue, he fell a victim to 
 the violence of the disease. " You," said the Em- 
 peror to the son of Jumla, whom he had recently
 
 398 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 made generalissimo of the horse, " have lost a 
 father ; and I have lost the greatest and most dan- 
 661 gerous of my friends." * 
 
 The next event is ludicrous, perhaps, in itself, but 
 of high importance, as an instance of the power of 
 superstition among the weak and credulous inhabi- 
 tants of India. Of the professors of devotion and 
 penance, going by the name of Fakirs, one class is 
 distinguished by wandering about the country in 
 crowds, almost naked, pretending to live by men- 
 dicity, but stealing, plundering, and even com- 
 mitting murder, wherever prompted by the hope 
 of advantage. In the territory of Marwar, or Jod- 
 pore, an old woman, possessed of considerable pro- 
 perty, began to enlarge her liberalities towards the 
 Fakirs. The sturdy beggars crowded around her, 
 to the number of some thousands, and not satisfied 
 with the wealth of their pious patroness, made spoil 
 of the neighbouring country, and rioted in devotion 
 and sensuality at her abode. The people, exas- 
 perated by these oppressions, rose repeatedly upon 
 
 1 Bemier, ut supra, p. 87. M. A particular account of the invasion 
 of Asam is given from the Hadiket-as-safa in the Calcutta Quarterly 
 Magazine, June 1825. The Mogul army suffered not only upon its retreat 
 from disease, but from famine and sickness, during the rains whilst 
 in the country. As an instance of their distress, it is stated that the bat- 
 talion under Diler Khan -was reduced from 1500 to 400 men. No such 
 fort as Azo is mentioned ; the principal towns of Asam were Gergaon and 
 Gohati, both which fell into the hands of the invaders, but were given up on 
 their retreat, which was purchased by a present payment of money and 
 elephants, and a promise, which no doubt was never fulfilled, of more. 
 Mir Jumla was taken ill in Asam, and died at Khizerpore in Kooch 
 Behar. According to the Asamese accounts of this occurrence the 
 Moguls were not only obliged to make a precipitate retreat, but were 
 driven out of territories bordering on Asam, which had for some time 
 been subject to the Emperor. Account of Asam ; Annals of Oriental 
 Literature. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 399 
 
 the saints ; but were defeated with great slaughter. BOOK in 
 
 ' CHAP. 4. 
 
 The idea of enchantment was generated. The people 
 
 regarded the old woman as a sorceress ; and believed 1665 - 
 that she compounded for her followers a horrid mess 
 which rendered them proof against human weapons, 
 and invincible. What they were not rendered by 
 enchantments, they were rendered by the belief of 
 them. The Fakirs, finding themselves, under the 
 auspices of an old woman, too formidable for resis- 
 tance, assembled in great numbers, and spread their 
 devastations to a wide extent. The Raja of Marwar 
 attacked them, but was defeated. The collectors of 
 the imperial revenue marched against them with the 
 troops under their command; but sustained a similar 
 disaster. Becoming presumptuous from unexpected 
 success, they resolved on a march to the capital, to 
 the number of twenty thousand plundering saints, 
 with the sacred old woman at their head. About five 
 days' journey from Agra, they were opposed by a body 
 of imperial troops, under the collector of the district. 
 Him they overcame; and now grasped in their ima- 
 ginations the whole wealth and authority of the state. 
 They set up their old woman as sovereign. Aurung- 
 zeb felt the danger to be serious; for the soldiers 
 were infected with the superstition of the people; 
 and it was hazardous to the last degree, from the 
 terrors with which they might be disordered, to per- 
 mit them to engage with the sainted banditti. What 
 was first demanded ; an antidote to the religious 
 contagion ; was invented by Aurungzeb. His own 
 sanctity was as famous as that of the old woman ; he 
 pretended that by means of incantation, he had dis- 
 covered a counter-enchantment ; he wrote with his
 
 400 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 B c * "* own hand, certain mysterious words upon slips of 
 
 paper, one of which, carried upon the point of a spear 
 
 6C5 - before each of the squadrons, he declared would 
 render impotent the spells of the enchantress. The 
 Emperor was believed, and though the Fakirs 
 fought with great desperation, they were all cut to 
 pieces, except a few whom the humanity of the 
 general led him to spare; "I find," said Aurung- 
 zeb, " that too much religion among the vulgar is 
 as dangerous as too little in the monarch." l 
 
 1 The whole of this story is a specimen of misrepresentation for which, 
 however, the author is no further censurable than in having too easily given 
 credence to a tale which bears evident marks of inaccuracy and exaggera- 
 tion. The best Mohammedan writers state the matter differently. They 
 say nothing of the patronage by a rich old woman, of a set of sturdy 
 beggars, of their riot and sensuality, or of their conflicts with the people, 
 or of their setting up the old dame as sovereign. The story as they tell it 
 wears every appearance of probability. The persons with whom the distur- 
 bance began were as unlike vagrant Fakirs as possible. They were a sect 
 of quietists Hindu quakers as they have been termed. Sadhs or Satna- 
 mis, who acknowledge one God only, offer worship to no idol or created 
 thing ; who enjoin truth as the first of virtues, who prescribe self-denial, 
 temperance and continence, prohibit the use of all stimulating drugs and 
 liquors, and forbid the assumption of the mendicant marks and raiment, 
 and the acceptance of alms. Trans. R. As. Society, vol. i. 251 ; and As. 
 Res. vol. xvi. 209. They of course follow a secular life : one of them was 
 engaged in the cultivation of his land, when some dispute arose between 
 him and the Peon or revenue watchman set to look after the government 
 share of the crop ; the dispute ended in an affray in which the Peon was 
 worsted ; he relurned to the charge with some of his companions : the 
 Satn&mi was aided by his fellows, and the Revenue officers were put to 
 the rout. This success inspirited the people of the country to make com- 
 mon cause with the Sadhs, and their strength became formidable ; troops 
 were sent against them but they were defeated, and then a notion of their 
 invincibility spread amongst the Mohammedans. It was they who re- 
 ported that the insurgents were invulnerable, and amongst other stories 
 asserted that they were led by a female upon a horse of wood, to which 
 their magic had given animation. The Rajpoot Zemindars, near Delhi, 
 joining the insurgents, Aurungzeb began to be alarmed, and sent a con- 
 siderable force against them, directing the men to wear prayers and amulets 
 upon their persons as counter-charms against the conjuration of the enemy. 
 These were no mysterious slips written by his hand, but passages from the
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 401 
 
 In the seventh year of the reign of Aurungzeb BOOK I1J 
 
 his father died. The life of Shah Jehan had reached 
 
 its natural period; but his death did not escape the 1665 - 
 suspicion of the pousta, that detestable invention of 
 despotic fears. l 
 
 After the death of Jumla, the Raja of Arracan 
 had invaded the contiguous quarter of Bengal, and 
 possessed himself of Chittagong and all the country 
 along the coast to the Ganges. He availed himself 
 of the Portuguese settlers, who were numerous at 
 Chittagong, and of their ships, which abounded in 
 the bay of Bengal, and it is said infested the coast 
 and every branch of the Ganges as plunderers and 
 pirates. These evils it consisted not with the vigi- 
 
 Korau which the Mohammedans very commonly wear. There is very 
 little authority for his supposed observation, and it is not likely that he 
 would have spoken of the faith of infidels as " too much religion." The 
 affair was clearly a sudden and aimless rising of the peasantry and land- 
 holders originating in an insignificant quarrel, but expressing the prevailing 
 feelings of the country, provoked by the exaction and tyranny of the im- 
 perial government. It owed neither its commencement nor its extent to 
 the "power of superstition." W. 
 
 1 The Pousta is thus described by the physician, Bernier. Ce pousta 
 n'est autre chose que du pavot ecrase qu'on laisse la suit tremper dans de 
 1'eau ; c'est ce qu'on fait ordinairement boire a Goualeor, a ces princes 
 auxquels on ne veut pas faire couper la teste ; c'est la premiere chose qu'on 
 leur porte le matin, et on ne leur donne point a manger qu'ils n'en ayent 
 bu une grande tasse, on les laisseroit plutot mourir de faim ; cela les fait 
 devenir maigres et mourir insensiblement, perdans peu a peu les forces et 
 1'entendement, et devenus comme tout endormis et etourdis, et c'est par 
 la qu'on dit s'est defait de Sepe-Chekouh, du petit fils de Morad, et de 
 Soliman meme. Bernier, Hist, de la derniere Revolut. des Kstats du 
 Grand Mogul, p. 170. It is said, that when the gallant Soliman was, by 
 the treachery of the Raja of Serinagur, delivered into the cruel hands of 
 Aurungzeb, and introduced into his presence, when every one was struck 
 with the noble appearance of the graceful and manly youth, he entreated 
 that he might be immediately beheaded ; and not reserved to the lingering 
 destruction of the pousta ; when the hypocritical Aurungzeb forbade him 
 to fear, adding, that he was cautious, but not cruel. Bernier, Ibid. p. 169. 
 Dow, Reign of Aurungzeb, ch. iv. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 D
 
 402 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK ii i lance of Aurungzeb to leave without a cure. A new 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 deputy was appointed for Bengal ; an army collected 
 
 1G68. itself at Dacca; and descended the river. The enemy, 
 though master of the forts and strong-holds of the 
 country, without much resistance retired. The Por- 
 tuguese were invited to betray them, and made no 
 hesitation by their obedience to purchase for them- 
 selves privileges and settlements in Bengal. l 
 
 The mistake of a secretary was near involving the 
 empire, not only in hostilities with the whole force of 
 Persia, but in all the horrors of a civil war. Aurung- 
 zeb, who had been complimented upon ascending 
 the throne by embassies from the Khan of the 
 Usbeks, and from Abbas 1 1 . Shah of Persia, pro- 
 posed, after settling the affairs of his government, to 
 make the suitable return. The secretary who com- 
 posed the letters, addressed to the respective sove- 
 reigns, inadvertently designated the Shah, by no 
 higher title than belonged to the Khan of the Usbeks. 
 This was interpreted as a meditated insult: and 
 resented by a declaration of hostilities. Aurungzeb 
 wished to explain the mistake, but his ambassador 
 was not admitted even to an audience. His own 
 weapons were tried against him ; and he added an 
 illustrious instance to prove, that he who is practised 
 in the arts of deception is not always the hardest to 
 deceive. Of the Mohammedan army and officers of 
 the Mogul empire, as some were Moguls, some 
 
 1 Bernier, (Evenemens Particul. des. Etats du Mogul, p. 88 101) 
 speaks of these Portuguese as infamous buccaneers ; and their own his- 
 torian, Faria de Souza, countenances the assertion, which might have been 
 founded upon the reports of enemies. The Portuguese followed their 
 merchandise as their chief occupation, but, like the English and Dutch of 
 the same period, had no objection to plunder, when it fell in their way.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 403 
 
 Afghans, some Turks, and some Usbeks, so a large BOOK in 
 
 -r, , CHAP. 4. 
 
 proportion were rersians, among whom was the 
 
 Vizir himself. The fidelity of this part of his subjects, 
 Aurungzeb was by no means willing to try, in a 
 war with their native country. A letter was inter- 
 cepted from Abbas, addressed to the Vizir himself, 
 importing that a conspiracy existed among the Per- 
 sian nobles to seize the Emperor when he should 
 take the field. Aurungzeb was transported with 
 apprehension and rage. He issued a sudden order to 
 the city guards to surround the houses of the Persian 
 Omrahs, which they were forbidden to quit under 
 pain of death. Aurungzeb found himself on the 
 brink of a precipice. The Persian chiefs were nu- 
 merous and powerful ; a common danger united 
 them; the descendants of the Afghan nobility, who 
 formed a considerable proportion of the men in power, 
 and hated the Moguls, by whom the Afghan dynasty 
 had been driven from the throne, were very likely to 
 make common cause with the Persians. Even if 
 guilty, he beheld appalling danger in attempting to 
 punish them ; but he now reflected that he might 
 have been deceived, and wished only for the means 
 of a decent retreat. He sent for some of the prin- 
 cipal Omrahs ; but they excused themselves from 
 attendance. All had assembled their friends and 
 dependants ; fortified their houses, and waited the 
 appeal to arms. After a suspense of two days, the 
 princess Jehanara arrived. She had been sent for, 
 express, upon the first alarm. The favourite daugh- 
 ter of Shah Jehan, by whom the Persians had always 
 been distinguished and exalted, might render, by 
 her mediation, the most important assistance. After 
 
 2 D 2
 
 404 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 * * 4 n a short conference with the Emperor, she presented 
 herself in her chair at the door of the Vizir. This 
 
 was an act of supreme confidence and honour, The 
 doors of the mansion flew open ; the Vizir hastened 
 to the hall of audience, and prostrated himself at the 
 foot of the throne. Aurungzeb descended, and 
 emhraced him. Convinced that he had been de- 
 ceived, he now sought only to obliterate all memory 
 of the offence ; and with some loss of reputation, 
 and a remainder of disgust in the breasts of some of 
 the Omrahs, he recovered himself from the dangerous 
 position in which a moment of rashness had placed 
 him. Shah Abbas in the mean time, with a large 
 army, was upon his march toward the confines of 
 India ; and Aurungzeb, who had sent forward his 
 son Mauzim to harass the enemy, but not to fight, 
 made rapid preparations to meet him in person. 
 Shah Abbas, however, died in the camp, before he 
 arrived at the scene of action. His successor wished 
 to mount the throne, free from the embarrassment of 
 an arduous war; and Aurungzeb was more intent 
 upon gaining conquests in the Deccan than in Persia. 
 An accommodation, therefore, was easily made. 1 
 
 These transactions were all contained within the 
 first ten years of the reign of Aurungzeb, during which 
 several events had already occurred in the Deccan. 
 A new enemy had arisen, whose transactions were 
 not as yet alarming, but who had already paved the 
 way to revolutions of the greatest importance. This 
 was Sivajee, the founder of the Mahratta empire; a 
 power which began when the empire of the Moguls 
 was in its utmost strength; and rose to greatness 
 
 1 Dow, Reign of Aurungzeb, ch.vi.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 405 
 
 upon its ruins. In the mountainous regions which BOOK m 
 
 extended from the borders of Guzerat to Canara, 1 
 
 beyond the island of Goa, lived a race of Hindus, 1668> 
 who resembled the mountaineers in almost all the 
 other parts of Hindustan, that is, were a people 
 still more rude and uncivilized than the inhabi- 
 tants of the plains, and at the same time far more 
 hardy and warlike. They consisted of various tribes or 
 communities, to some of which (it appears not to how 
 many) the name of Mahratta, afterwards extended 
 to them all, was applied. 1 Sivajee was the son 
 of Shahjee, a Hindu in the service of Ibrahim Adil 
 Shah, King of Beejapore, from whom he received a 
 jahgir in the Carnatic, with a command of ten 
 thousand horse. 2 Sivajee, when very young, was sent 
 
 1 Mheerut, or Mharat, the name of a district, which under the Deccanee 
 sovereigns was part of the province of Dowlutabad, may in former ages, 
 says Mr. Jonathan Scott, have given name to a larger division of Dekkan 
 and the original country of the Mahrattas. Scott's Deccan, Introd. p. x. 
 Ibid. i. 32. The Mahratta language extends along the coast from the 
 island of Bardez to the river Tapti. Orme, Histor. Frag. p. 57. It is 
 said by Col. Wilks, (Hist. Sketches, p. 6) that " from Beder the Mahratta 
 language is spread over the whole country to the northwestward of the 
 Canara, and of a line which, passing considerably to the eastward of Dow- 
 letabad, forms an irregular sweep until it touches the Tapti, and follows 
 the course of that river to the western sea but that in the geographical 
 tables of the Hindus, the name of Maharashtra, and by contraction Mah- 
 ratta desum (or country) seems to have been more particularly appropriated 
 to the eastern portion of this great region, including Baglana, part of Berar 
 and Kandeish : the western was known by its present name Concan." 
 
 * This is an error. Shahjee was never in the service of Ibrahim Adil 
 Shah. He was at first in the service of Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar, and 
 held a principal command; he afterwards joined the Moguls, then trans- 
 ferred his assistance to Mohammed Adil Shah for a season, but returned 
 to Ahmednagar, aspired to the regency, and set up a prince of the Nizam 
 Shahi dynasty. In this character he was in alliance with the Sultan of 
 Beejapore, and equally the object of the hostility of Shah Jehan. The 
 power of the Emperor being more than he could oppose, he petitioned to 
 be allowed to serve under the Mogul government, but he was told that he
 
 406 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in a i on g with n i s mother to reside at Poonah, of which 
 
 CI1AI'. -1. 
 
 - as a Zemindary, his father had obtained a grant, 
 and of which he intrusted the management, together 
 with the charge of his wife and son, to one of his 
 officers, named Dadajee Punt. The mother of Sivajee 
 was an object of aversion to her husband; and the son 
 shared in the neglect which was the lot of his mother. 
 He grew up under Dadajee, to vigour both of body 
 and mind; and at seventeen years of age engaged a 
 number of banditti, and ravaged the neighbouring 
 districts. Dadajee, afraid of being made to answer 
 for these enormities, and unable to restrain them, 
 swallowed poison, and died; when Sivajee took pos- 
 session of the Zemindary, increased the number of 
 his troops, and raised contributions in all the neigh- 
 bouring districts. Such was the commencement of 
 the fortunes of Sivajee. 1 
 
 Of his ancestry, the following is the account pre- 
 sented to us. His father was the son of Malojee; 
 and Malojee was the son of Bauga Bonsla, a son of 
 the Rana of Odipoor, by a woman of an inferior caste. 2 
 The degradation of Bauga Bonsla, from the impurity 
 and baseness of his birth, drove him to seek, among 
 strangers, that respect which he was denied at home. 
 He served, during a part of his life, a Raja, possessing 
 
 might take service with Bijapore. He accordingly passed the remainder 
 of his life as a dependant upon the Bijapore prince, holding the districts 
 of Poona and Sopa. Duff's History of the Mahrattas, vol. i. W. 
 
 1 Aurungzcbe's Operations in the Dckkan, translated by Scott, p. 6. 
 
 * Mallojee was the son of Bapjee, and married Deepa Bhye the sister 
 of Bunga or Bongo-Bhonslay. No person ever thought of making the 
 latter the son of a Rana of Oudipore, although a legend is known intima- 
 ting the descent of the Bhouslay family from the Raja of Mewar. Duff's 
 Mahratta History 1. 89. See also Tod's Rajasthan i. 235. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 407 
 
 a Zemindaree in the province of Kandesh ; and after- BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 wards purchased for himself a Zemindaree in the 
 
 neighbourhood of Poonah, where he resided till his 1668> 
 death. His son Malojee entered the service of a 
 Mahratta chief, in which he acquired so much dis- 
 tinction as to obtain the daughter of his master in 
 marriage for his son. This son was Shahjee, and Si- 
 vajee was the fruit of the marriage. But Shahjee, 
 having quarrelled with his father-in-law, repaired to 
 the king of Bejapore, and received an establishment 
 in the Carnatic. He here joined the Poly gar of Mudkul 
 in a war upon the Raja of Tanjore; and having 
 defeated the Raja, the victors quarrelled about the 
 division of the territory. Shahjee defeated the Poly- 
 gar, took possession of both Mudkul and Tanjore; 
 and having married another wife, by whom he had a 
 son named Ekojee, he left him and his posterity 
 Rajas of Tanjore, till they sunk into dependants of 
 the East India Company. l 
 
 1 Aurungzebe's operations in the Dekkan, a translation from a Persian 
 manuscript, by Jonathan Scott, p. 6; Appendix A. to Lord Wellesley's 
 Notes on the Mahratta war; East India Papers, printed by the House of 
 Commons, 1804, p. 255. Lord Wellesley seems to have followed Scott. 
 Ekogec, as he is called by Mr. Orme and others, is written Angojee in Mr. 
 Scott's translation, p. 32. The history and origin of the family is related 
 with considerable variations, by Col. Wilks, on Mahratta authorities. 
 (Hist. Sketches, chap, iii.) But if Hindu authority were better than. 
 Persian (and it is far inferior), the facts are not worth the trouble of a 
 critical comparison. It is of some importance to state what is related 
 (ibid.) by Wilks, that Shahjee went second in command in the army of 
 the King of Beejapore which proceeded to the conquest of the Carnatic 
 in 1638 ; that he was left provincial governor of all the Beejapore conquests 
 in the Carnatic, when the general in chief returned to the capital ; that 
 his first residence was at Bangalore, but that he afterwards seems to have 
 divided his time between Colar and Balapoor. Wilks infers from some 
 grants of land by Shawjee, of which the writings still remain, that he 
 affected independence of the declining government which he had served. 
 The acquisition of Tanjore was made, as the Colonel thinks, not by Shaw-
 
 408 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 When Sivajee, upon the death of Dadajee, seized 
 the Zemindaree of Poonah, his father was too much 
 i68 ' occupied in the East to be able to interfere. Aurung- 
 zeb was at the same moment hastening his prepara- 
 tions for the war with his brothers ; and invited Si- 
 vajee to join his standards. The short-sighted Hindu 
 insulted his messenger, and reproached Aurungzeb 
 himself with his double treason against a King and a 
 father. He improved the interval of distraction in 
 the Mogul empire ; took the strong fortress of llay- 
 ree, or Rajegur, which he fixed upon as the seat of 
 his government ; and added to it Porundeh, Jegneh, 
 and several districts dependent on the king of Bee- 
 japore. The threats of that power, now little for- 
 midable, restrained not his career of plunder and 
 usurpation. He put to death, by treachery, the Rajah 
 of Jaowlee, and seized his territory and treasure ; 
 plundered the rich and manufacturing city of Kal- 
 lean ; took Madury, Purdhaungur, Rajapore, Sungar- 
 pore, and an island belonging to the Portuguese. At 
 length the Beejapore government sent an army to 
 suppress him. He deceived the general with profes- 
 sions of repentance and offers of submission ; stabbed 
 him to the heart at a conference; cut to pieces his 
 army deprived of its leader ; and rapidly took posses- 
 sion of the whole region of Kokun or Concan, the 
 country lying between the Ghauts and the sea, from 
 Goa to Daman. 
 
 jee, but after his death by Ekojee his son ; and his accomplice was not the 
 Raja or Polygar of Mudkul but the Naik of 'Madura, which however 
 appears to have been called Mudkul by the Persian historians. Naik and 
 Polygar were Hindu names of governors of districts, who, as often as 
 they dared to assume independence, affected the title of Raja. Naik 
 was a title of inferior dignity to Polygar.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 409 
 
 When Aurungzeb, upon the defeat of his rivals, BOOK in 
 
 sent Shaista Khan, with the rank of Ameer al Omrah, 
 
 or head of the Omrahs, to command in the Deccan, 1668 - 
 the Raja Jesswunt Sing, who had redeemed his 
 treachery in the battle against Shuja,by his subsequent 
 dereliction of the cause of Dara, was invested about 
 the same time with the government of Guzerat. As 
 soon as Aurungzeb had leisure to attend to the pro- 
 gress of Sivajee, the viceroy of Guzerat was com- 
 manded to co-operate with the viceroy of the Deccan, 
 in reducing and chastising the Mahratta adventurer. 
 Sivajee could not resist the torrent which now rolled 
 against him. The strong fortress of Jegneh was taken. 
 The Ameer al Omrah advanced to Poonah, where he 
 took up his residence. Here a band of assassins made 
 their way to his bed in the night. He himself was 
 wounded in the hand, by which he warded off a blow 
 from his head, and his son was slain. The assassins 
 escaped, and Sivajee himself was understood to have 
 been among them. Circumstances indicated treachery ; 
 and the suspicions of Shaista Khan fell upon Jess- 
 wunt Sing. These two generals were recalled ; and 
 after an interval of two years, during which the 
 PrineeMohammed Mauzim, or Shah Aulum, held the 
 government of the Deccan, two other generals, Jey 
 Sing and Dilleer Khan, were sent to prosecute the war 
 against the Mahratta chief. Jey Sing was the Raja 
 of Abnir, 1 and Dilleer was a Patan Omrah, who both 
 
 1 The mountainous districts, lying between the provinces of Agra and 
 Guzerat, and forming part of the provinces of Malwa and Ajmere, -were 
 inhabited by a race of warlike Hindus, named Rajpoots, who, from pride 
 of superior prowess, claimed to be of a higher caste than the mass of other 
 Hindus. They had been divided into three principal Rajaships ; that of 
 Abnir or Ambecr, called afterwards Jeypore and Jyenagur, on the borders
 
 410 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 had obtained high rank as generals in the service of 
 Shah Jehan ; and being chosen for their merit as the 
 G8- fittest to guide and enlighten Soliman, when sent 
 against Shuja, were the chiefs whom Aurungzeb had 
 gained to betray their master, and debauch his army. 
 Before the arrival of these generals, Sivajee had 
 with great address surprised and plundered Surat ; a 
 city of importance and renown ; the chief port of the 
 Mogul empire ; and that from which the holy pilgrims 
 commenced their voyage to the tomb of the prophet. 
 The operations of the new commanders turned the 
 tide in Mahratta affairs. The armies of Sivajee 
 were driven from the field ; his country was plun- 
 dered ; and Poorundeh, a strong fortress, in which he 
 had placed his women and treasures, was besieged. 
 It w y as reduced to the last extremity, when Sivajee, 
 unarmed, presented himself at one of the outposts of 
 the imperial camp, and demanded to be led to the 
 
 of Agra ; that of Jodepore or Marwur, south-west from Abnir, approach- 
 ing the centre of Ajmere ; and lastly that of Chitore, called also Odeyporc, 
 from another city, lying further south. Of these Rajas the most powerful 
 had been the Raja of Chitore, whose distinctive title was liana. Jess- 
 wunt Sing, the Raja of Jodpore, having married the daughter of the last 
 Rana, had merged those two kingdoms of Rajpoots into one. Mr. Orme 
 seems not to have been aware of the marriage of Jesswunt Sing, and of its 
 effects ; as he mentions with some surprise, that the name of the Raja of 
 Chitore no where appears in the history of the present transactions. 
 Bernier, Revol. p. 52, 56; Dow. Reign of Shah Jehan, ch. v. p. '21 '2; 
 Scott, ut supra, p. 10; Memoirs of Eradut Khan, p. 18 ; Rennel's Memoir 
 Introd. p. cxxxii. To the above nations of Rajpoots should also be 
 added those of Bondela, or Bundelcund, a district between the provinces 
 of Agra and Malwa, extending from Jeypore, by Gualior and Callinger, as 
 far as Benares. Memoirs of Eradut Khan, p. 17 ; Rennel, ut supra, p. 
 cxxxii. M. For further and more accurate ' information regarding the 
 states and tribes of Central and Western India, see Malcolm's Central 
 India and Tod's Rajasthan. There is no such name as Abnir in Tod, and 
 it is probably a misreading of Amber. The three principalities an- ;. 
 correctly termed Amber, Marwar and Mewar. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 411 
 
 general. Professing conviction of his folly, in at- BOOK in 
 
 . CHAP. 4. 
 
 tempting to contend with the Mogul power, he craved 
 
 the pardon of his disobedience, and offered to the ! 1668 - 
 Emperor his services, along with twenty forts which 
 he would immediately resign. Jeysing embraced the 
 proposal; and Sivajee obeyed the imperial order, 
 to wait upon the Emperor at Delhi. Sivajee had 
 offered to conduct the war in Kandahar against the 
 Persians. Had he been received with the honour to 
 which he looked, he might have been gained to the 
 Mogul service, and the empire of the Mahrattas 
 would not have begun to exist. But Aurungzebe, 
 who might easily have despatched, resolved to hum- 
 ble the adventurer. When presented in the hall of 
 audience, he was placed among the inferior Omrahs ; 
 which affected him to such a degree that he wept 
 and fainted away. He now meditated, and with great 
 address, contrived the means of escape. Leaving his 
 son, a boy, with a Brahmen whom he knew at Mut- 
 tra, and who afterwards conducted him safe to his 
 father, he travelled as a pilgrim to Juggernaut, and 
 thence by the way of Hyderabad to his own country. 1 
 The prince Shah Aulum, and the Raja Jesswunt 
 Sing, were sent to supersede the Raja Jey Sing, 
 who was suspected of an understanding with Sivajee. 
 and died on his way to the imperial presence. 2 The 
 
 1 Scott, ut supra, p. 11 17. Mr. Orme, from scattered reports, has 
 stated the circumstances differently. Historical Frag. p. 17, &c. 
 
 8 Not without suspicion of poison. Mr. Scott's author, who probably 
 wished to spare Aurungzeb, says, by his moonshee, or secretary (p. 17). 
 Mr. Orme says, by order of Aurungzeb (p. 27). But the Raja was 
 worn out with age and laborious services ; and the only poison, perhaps, 
 was the anguish of disgrace. He is praised by the Mohammedan historians 
 as the most eminent, in personal qualities, of all the Hindus they had yet 
 known ; accomplished in Persian and Arabian learning. His successor,
 
 412 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in change was favourable to Sivaiee; because Jesswunt 
 
 CHAP. 4. . 
 
 Sing, who had but little affection to the imperial 
 
 iocs, gervice, allowed the war to linger, and discontents 
 and jealousies to breed in the army. Sivajee was 
 not inactive. Immediately upon his arrival he took 
 royal titles, and struck coins in his name. His 
 troops, in consequence of his previous arrangements, 
 had been well kept on foot during his absence ; and 
 he attacked immediately the Mogul territories and 
 forts. Surat was again plundered ; he recovered all 
 the forts which he had resigned, and added some new 
 districts to his former possessions. 
 
 The weakness of Beejapore made him look upon 
 the territories of that declining state as his easiest 
 prey. Neither upon that, however, nor any other, 
 enterprise, could he proceed with safety, till his forts 
 were supplied with provisions ; and provisions, while 
 pressed by the Mogul arms, he found it difficult, if 
 not impossible, to supply. He seems never to have 
 distrusted his own address any more than his courage. 
 By a letter to Jesswunt Sing, he averred, that only 
 because his life was in danger had he fled from the 
 imperial presence, where his faithful offer of services 
 had been treated with scorn ; that still he desired to 
 -return within the walks of obedience; and won hi 
 place his son in the imperial service, if any command 
 in the army, not dishonourable, was bestowed upon 
 him. The stratagem succeeded to his wish; he 
 obtained a truce, during which he supplied his forts ; 
 he dexterously withdrew his son from the Mogul 
 
 of whom more will be heard hereafter, was celebrated for his astronomical 
 learning, and for the observatory which he erected at Jeyporc. Memoirs 
 of Eradut Khan, p. 18. Note (1) by Scott.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 413 
 
 army ; with little resistance he took possession of ^^J 11 
 
 several important districts belonging to Beejapore ; 
 
 compelled the King to pay him a contribution of 1671 " 81 - 
 three lacs of pagodas, and the King of Golconda to 
 pay him another of four. 1 
 
 The Emperor, displeased with Jesswunt Sing, as 
 well on account of the ill success of the war, as the 
 divisions and jealousies which reigned in the army, 
 recalled him ; and several generals were successively 
 sent to conduct affairs under Aulum Shah. In the 
 mean time, the Mahrattas plundered the adjoining 
 countries, retreating with the spoil to their forts, in 
 spite of all the efforts of the imperial commanders. 
 At last, in 1671, the Prince himself was recalled. 
 An Omrah, titled Bahadur Khan, 2 succeeded him ; 
 and retained the government till the year 1676. 
 During these years the war produced no remarkable 
 event, though it was prosecuted with considerable 
 activity, and without intermission. The efforts of 
 the Viceroy were divided and weakened, by hostili- 
 ties with Beejapore and Golconda ; which, though 
 they had contributed to the fall of those languishing 
 states, had aided the rising power of Sivajee. In 
 1677 that chieftain affected to enter into an alliance 
 with the King of Golconda against the King of Bee- 
 japore and the Moguls ; and marched into the terri- 
 tory of Golconda at the head of an army of 40,000 
 horse. He proceeded to make conquests with great 
 appearance of fidelity ; but placed Mahratta go- 
 
 1 Wilks, (p. 30) says nine, upon what authorities he, as usual, omits to 
 state. 
 
 4 His proper titles were Khan-jehan-Bahadar Kokaltash though 
 called by Scott, Bahadar Khan. W.
 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 4 vera ors in all the fortresses, and enriched himself by 
 plunder. He obtained possession of the impregnable 
 fortress of Gingee by treachery. He laid siege to 
 Vellore, which defended itself during more than four 
 months. An interview took place between Sivajee 
 and Ekojee, the latter of whom, perceiving the insa- 
 tiable appetite of his brother for power, trembled for 
 his dominions. Before he had time, however, to 
 conquer every thing to the north of the Coleroon, 
 he was recalled to his western dominions. 1 Dilleer 
 Khan, who succeeded Bahadur, carried on the war 
 in a similar manner, and was superseded by Bahadur, 
 who received the command anew, in 1681. The 
 most remarkable occurrence, during the admini- 
 stration of Dilleer, was the arrival in his camp of the 
 son of Sivajee, who had incurred the displeasure of 
 his father, and fled for protection to the Moguls. 
 The event was regarded as fortunate, and a high 
 rank was bestowed upon the young Mahratta ; but 
 Sivajee soon found means to regain his confidence, 
 and he had the good fortune to make his escape a 
 little time before his father terminated his indefati- 
 gable and extraordinary career. 
 
 During all the time of these great and multiplied 
 transactions, a naval war, which we hear of for the 
 first time in the history of India, was carried on 
 between Sivajee and his enemies. At the com- 
 mencement of his exploits, a chief, distinguished by 
 the name of Siddee Jore, had the government of the 
 town of Dunda Rajapore, a sea-port, to the southward 
 
 8 This expedition into the Carnatic is noticed by Scott, ut supra, p. >'_' ; 
 by Orme, Hist. Frag. p. 82 87. Col. Wilks, however, (ch. iii. ut supra,) 
 has given the most distinct account, and is here followed.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 415 
 
 of Bombay, belonging to the king of Beejapore ; and BOOKI11 
 
 at the same time, the command of the fleet, which 
 
 that sovereign had formed to protect his maritime 1G8L 
 dominions, and their trade, from the naval enemies 
 which now infested the coasts of India. While Siddee 
 Tore was endeavouring to signalize himself against 
 Sivajee in another quarter, that ingenious adventurer 
 arrived unexpectedly at Dunda Rajapore, and ob- 
 tained possession of it by a stratagem. The loss of 
 this important place so enraged the King against 
 Siddee Jore that he procured his assassination. At 
 the time of the capture of Dunda Rajapore, however, 
 the heir of Siddee Jore was in the command of the 
 fleet, which lay at the fortified island of Gingerah, 
 before the town. When the outrage was committed 
 upon his father by the king of Beejapore he tendered 
 his services to Aurungzeb, with the fort of Gingerah, 
 and the whole of the Beejapore fleet. The offer, of 
 course, was greedily accepted. Siddee, it appears, 
 was a name, which was applied in common to those 
 Abyssinian adventurers, who had passed over, in great 
 numbers, from their own country into the service of 
 the kings of the Deccan ; and had there frequently 
 engrossed a great proportion of the principal offices of 
 state. Of this class of men was the admiral who had 
 now enlisted himself in the Mogul service. He was 
 joined by a great number of his family and country- 
 men. He himself was called the Siddee, by way of 
 distinction ; his principal officers had the term Siddee 
 prefixed to their names ; and his crews and followers 
 were in general denominated the Siddees. They 
 carried on an active warfare along the whole western 
 coast of India, and were not only dangerous and
 
 416 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 4 trou blesome enemies to Sivajee, but formidable even 
 - to the British, and other European traders, who fre- 
 1682. q uen ted the coast. 1 
 
 Sivajee breathed his last in his fortress of Rayree, 
 on the 5th of April, 1682, of an inflammation in his 
 chest, at the early age of fifty-two ; having displayed 
 a fertility of invention, adapted to his ends ; and a 
 firmness of mind in the pursuit of them, which have 
 seldom been equalled, probably never surpassed. With 
 the exception of the few small districts possessed by 
 the Europeans, his dominions, at the time of his death, 
 comprehended, along the western coast of India, an 
 extent of about 400 miles in length by 120 in breadth, 
 and from the river Mirzeou in the south, to Versal in 
 the north. Of the detached forts, which at one time 
 he had garrisoned in the Carnatic, only one or two 
 appear to have at this time remained in his hands. 2 
 
 During these transactions in the south, we are not 
 informed of any other emergency which called the 
 attention of Aurungzeb from the ordinary details of 
 his administration ; excepting a war with the Patans 
 or Afghans who infested the northern provinces; 
 and another, which the Emperor himself provoked, 
 with the rajpoots of Ajmere and Malwa. 
 
 The Governor of Peshawur, to punish an incursion 
 of the Patans, had, in 1673, pursued them to their 
 mountains, where he allowed himself to be entangled 
 in the defiles, and was cut off with his whole army. 
 A Patan, who had served in the armies of Sultan 
 Shuja, and bore a strong resemblance to his person, 
 
 1 Onne's Hist. Frag. p. 2 to 11, 79 to 81. 
 
 8 Ibid p. 133, 134. Wilks says he died in 1680, (ubi supra, p. 91.)
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 417 
 
 gave birth to a report, that the Sultan had made his BOOKin 
 
 ' % CHAP. 4. 
 
 escape from Arracan. The Patans proclaimed him 
 
 King of India ; and all the tribes of that people were 1682- 
 summoned to join their forces to place him upon his 
 throne. They were able, it is said, had they united, 
 to bring into the field 150,000 men ; and Aurungzeb 
 was roused by the magnitude of the danger. He 
 took the field in person, and crossed the Indus, about 
 the close of the year 1 674. The war lasted for about 
 fifteen months, during which the Patans were driven 
 from the more accessible country ; and Aurungzeb 
 was too cautious to penetrate among the mountains. 
 A chain of forts was established to restrain them ; 
 and the governor, whom he left at Peshawur, having 
 exerted himself to gain the confidence of the Patan 
 chiefs, drew them to an entertainment at that place, 
 and murdered them along with their attendants. 
 Though Aurungzeb disowned the action, he obtained 
 not the credit of being averse to it. 1 
 
 It is probable that Aurungzeb, from political 
 motives, projected the reduction of the Rajpoot states, 
 viewing with jealousy the existence of so great an 
 independent power (able, it is said, to bring 200,000 
 men into the field), to the heart of his dominions. He 
 put on, however, the mask of religion, and began the 
 execution of a project, or pretended project, for the 
 forcible conversion of the Hindus to the religion of 
 the faithful. Jesswunt Sing, the Maharaja, or 
 Great Raja, as he was called, 2 having died, near 
 Kabul, in 1681, his children, on their return to their 
 
 1 Orme's Hist. Frag. p. 6872. 
 
 2 The title was not peculiar to Jeswant Sinh. Every Hindu prince or 
 Raja, takes also the epithet of Maha-raja. W. 
 VOL. II. 2 E
 
 418 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 native country, were ordered to be conducted to 
 court ; where he insisted on their being rendered 
 6821 Mohammedans. Their Rajpoot attendants contrived 
 their escape, and fled with them to their own country. 
 The Emperor revenged the disobedience by a war, 
 which he conducted in person. His numerous forces 
 drove the Rajpoots from the more accessible parts of 
 their difficult country ; but they held possession of 
 their mountains and fastnesses ; and the war degene- 
 rated into a tedious and ineffectual struggle. Au- 
 rungzeb sat down at Ajmere, where he superintended, 
 at a less inconvenient distance, the operations in the 
 Deccan, as well as the war with the Rajpoots. 1 
 
 Samba, or Sambajee, the eldest son of Sivajee, 
 succeeded to his throne, but not without a competi- 
 tor, in a younger brother, whose adherents created 
 him considerable danger, till the principal among 
 them were all put to death. While the war was 
 carried on between the Mahratta and the imperial 
 generals in the Deccan, as it had been for several 
 years, by sudden inroads on the one side, and 
 pursuit on the other ; but with few important advan- 
 tages on either; Akbar, one of the younger sons 
 of Aurungzeb, who was employed in the war 
 against the Rajpoots, turned his standards against 
 his father, being offered assistance by the enemy 
 whom he was sent to subdue. One of Aurungzeb's 
 tried artifices, that of raising jealousy between asso- 
 ciates, enabled him to defeat the first attempt of 
 Akbar, who fled from the country of the Rajpoots, 
 and took refuge with Sambajee. 
 
 1 Scott's Operations of Aurungzeb in the Deccan, p. 53. Ormc, ut 
 supra, p- 100105, and 119121.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 419 
 
 Both Sambajee and Aurungzeb knew the value BOOK in 
 
 f T- ... m, . . CHAP. 4. 
 
 or the acquisition. The prince was received with 
 
 extraordinary honours, by the Mahratta chief, who ]687 - 
 would not sit in his presence. And Aurungzeb, 
 resolving to extinguish the enemy who had so long 
 troubled his government in the south, arrived with a 
 vast army at Aurungabad, in 1684. After the at- 
 tack and defence of some forts, with no important 
 result, the prince Shah Aulum was sent into the Concan, 
 to reduce the Mahratta fortresses on the sea-coast. 
 He found it impossible to procure provisions ; the 
 climate disagreed with the Mogul troops ; and he 
 was obliged to return with only a remnant of his 
 army. 1 
 
 In 1687, the Emperor resolved upon the final re- 
 duction of the Mohammedan kingdoms of the Deccan, 
 Hyderabad or Golconda, and Beejapore, which dis- 
 played a greater residue of strength and resources, 
 than their reduced condition had led him to expect. 
 From Ahmednuggur, where the grand camp had 
 already arrived, he moved as far as Sholapore, and 
 sent one army towards Hyderabad, another towards 
 Beejapore. 
 
 The general, who led the army of the King of Hy- 
 derabad, betrayed his trust, and passed over to the 
 enemy ; upon which the King abandoned the open 
 country, and shut himself up in the fort of Golconda. 
 Hyderabad was taken and plundered. That the 
 Sultan Mauzim, however, who commanded, might 
 not have the honour, which he was wise enough not 
 to covet, of taking Golconda, Aurungzeb accepted 
 
 1 Scott, ut supra, p. 5464 ; Orme Hist. Frag. p. 134152. 
 2 E 2
 
 420 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in th e humble terms which were offered by the 
 
 CHAF. 4. 
 
 King, and reserved his destruction till another op- 
 
 169 - portunity. 
 
 Beejapore made considerable resistance, which was 
 aided by scarcity. After the city had been besieged 
 for some time, the Emperor proceeded to the attack 
 in person. Famine at last compelled the garrison to 
 surrender ; and the young King was delivered into 
 the hands of Aurungzeb. 1 
 
 He received, about the same time, intelligence of 
 another agreeable event, the departure of Sultan 
 Akbar, from the Mahratta country to Persia. As 
 this lessened greatly, in the eyes of Aurungzeb, the 
 importance of immediate operations against the 
 Mahrattas, he turned from Beejapore towards Gol- 
 conda. Shah Aulum, with his sons, was seized and 
 put in confinement, for remonstrating, it is said, 
 against the treachery aimed at the unfortunate King 
 of Golconda, who had submitted under pledge of 
 honour to himself. Aurungzeb, in truth, was 
 incurably jealous of his son, because heir to his 
 throne ; and was stimulated to ease his mind of a part 
 of its load of terror and distrust. Golconda was 
 invested, and, after a siege of seven months, fell by 
 that treachery, the benefit of which Aurungzeb 
 made it his constant endeavour to procure. He had 
 now thetwosovereigns'of the Deccan in his hands, and 
 the reduction of the outstanding forts was all that 
 remained to complete the extension of the Mogul 
 dominion to the farthest limit of the Carnatic. 2 
 
 1 Scott, ut supra, p. 65 73. 
 
 * The greatest part of the Carnatic had belonged to the Rajas of Bceja- 
 nugger, in the flourishing state of that empire. After the reduction of that
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 421 
 
 This important success was immediately followed by BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 an event which the Emperor regarded as peculiarly ' 
 fortunate. His spies brought intelligence, that Sam- 169 -99- 
 bajee, at one of his forts in the mountains not far 
 distant, was spending his time in a round of his 
 favourite pleasures, and very imperfectly on his 
 guard. A body of troops was despatched to surprise 
 him, and he was, in fact, taken prisoner. Sambajee 
 was too formidable to be permitted to live ; but the 
 Emperor polluted his fortune by glutting his eyes 
 with the butchery of his enemy ; who relaxed not 
 his haughtiness in the presence of death. The 
 efficacy of Sambajee's talents, which were not in- 
 considerable, was obstructed by his immoderate pas- 
 sion for women, which his father predicted would 
 lead him to his ruin. 
 
 The Emperor followed up his advantage with acti- 
 vity, and immediately sent an army into the Concan. 
 Its operations were highly successful ; and Rayree, 
 which Sambajee and his father had made their 
 capital, together with the wives and infant son of 
 that chieftain, fell into the hands of the victor. 1 
 
 Rama, however, the brother of Sambajee escaped 
 from the Concan, and, crossing by the way of Seringa- 
 patam to the Carnatic, threw himself into the fort of 
 Gingee, which was a place of great strength, and by 
 the obstinacy of its resistance, or the interested delays 
 of the imperial generals, retarded the settlement of 
 
 state by the Mohammedan powers of the Deccan, it was divided between 
 the states of Golconda and Beejapore. Aurungzebe's Operations in the 
 Deccan, Scott, p. 73, 74, 75. Orme, p. 119130. 
 
 1 Scott, ut supra, p. 7780 ; Orme, p. 230234. Wilks (p. 215) says 
 it was taken in 1698.
 
 422 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 K'J" the Deccan for several years. It gave occupation to 
 
 a great part of the imperial army from the year 1692 
 
 17UO-U7. to t ] ie vear 1700; and during that period kept the 
 reduction of the Carnatic incomplete. 
 
 The Emperor turned his whole attention to the 
 final subjugation of the Mahrattas, and penetrated 
 into the country with his principal army. But 
 while he was employed in the reduction of forts, the 
 Mahrattas, under various chiefs, issued from their 
 mountains, and spreading over the newly-conquered 
 countries of Beejapore and Golconda, and even the 
 provinces of Berar, Kandesh, and Malwa, carried 
 great plunder back with them, and left devastation 
 behind. The imperial forces marched to oppose 
 them in all directions, and easily conquered them in 
 battle when they could bring them to an action. 
 But the Mahrattas eluded rencounter, retired to their 
 mountains when pursued, hung upon the rear of 
 their enemy when obliged to return, and resumed 
 their devastations whenever they found the country 
 cleared of the troops which opposed them. The 
 Emperor persevered with great obstinacy in be- 
 sieging the forts in the accessible parts of the Mah- 
 ratta country ; the greater part of which fell into his 
 hands. But during that time the Mahrattas so en- 
 riched themselves by plundering the imperial do- 
 minions, and so increased in multitude and power, 
 being joined by vast numbers of the Zemindars in 
 the countries which they repeatedly overran, that 
 the advantages of the war were decidedly in their 
 favour, and the administration of Aurungzeb be- 
 trayed the infirmities of age. The more powerful 
 Omrahs, who maintained numerous troops, and were
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 423 
 
 able to chastise invaders, his jealous policy made him BOOK HI 
 afraid to trust with the command of provinces. He '. 
 
 made choice of persons without reputation and 1707. 
 power, who abandoning the defence of their pro- 
 vinces, to which they were unequal, were satisfied 
 with enriching themselves by the plunder of the 
 people. Under so defective a government, the 
 Mahrattas found the whole country south from the 
 Nerbudda open to their incursions. The Emperor 
 persevered in his attempts to subdue them. In that 
 harassing and unavailing struggle were the years 
 consumed which intervened till his death. This 
 event took place, in the camp at Ahmednuggur 
 on the 21st of February, 1707, in the forty-eighth 
 year of his reign, and ninety-fourth of his age. 1 
 
 At the time when the last illness of Aurungzeb 
 commenced, his eldest son Mohammed Mauzim, who 
 at an early age had received the title of Shah Aulum, 
 was at Kabul, of which, as a distant province where 
 he would be least dangerous, he was made governor, 
 upon his liberation from the confinement in which he 
 had languished for several years. His two remaining 
 sons, Azim Shah, who was subahdar of Ghizerat, 
 and his youngest son Kam Buksh, who had been 
 recently appointed to the government of Beejapore, 
 were both in the camp. Aurungzeb, who forgot 
 not his caution to the last, hurried them away to 
 
 1 For the last seven years of the reign of Aurungzeb, the author of 
 Aurungzeb's operations in the Deccan, by Scott, (p. 73-123,) is our princi- 
 pal authority. The age of Aurungzeb is stated on the authority of Golam 
 Hussein Khan (Seer Mutakhareen, i. 2). Mr. Scott's author mentions 
 not the age. Both writers miscalculate the length of the reign (which 
 began in August 1658, and ended in February 1707) ; the one calling it 
 more than fifty, the other more than fifty-one years.
 
 424 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 stat i ons > either fearing lest under his weakness 
 - they should seize upon his person while yet alive ; 
 1707 or lest they should fill the camp with bloodshed im- 
 mediately upon his dissolution. Azim had not yet 
 reached his province, when he received the news of 
 the Emperor's decease. He hurried back to the 
 camp, and, no competitor being present, received 
 without difficulty the obedience of the army. 
 
 As it was not, however, expected that Shah Aulum 
 
 would quietly resign his throne and his life, Azim 
 
 began his march towards the northern provinces. 
 
 On the news of the Emperor's illness, Shah Aulum 
 
 had despatched his commands to his two sons ; Moiz 
 
 ad Din, the eldest, governor of Multan, and Azim 
 
 oos Shaun, the second, governor of Bengal, to advance 
 
 with their forces towards Agra. Azim oos Shaun had 
 
 used so much diligence, that he was enabled to 
 
 anticipate the arrival of Azim Shah, and got pos- 
 
 session of Agra with its treasures. As the two 
 
 armies were approaching one another in the neigh- 
 
 bourhood of Agra, Shah Aulum addressed a letter to 
 
 his brother, offering to divide the kingdom. The 
 
 presumptuous prince rejected the proposal ; and the 
 
 armies came to action, when Azim Shah lost the 
 
 battle, and he and his two eldest sons their lives. 
 
 He had committed many important errors ; among 
 
 others offended the generalissimo, the famous Zul- 
 
 fikar Khan, the favourite general of Aurungzeb, 
 
 and son of Assud Khan, his vizir. He rejected the 
 
 advice of this commander at the commencement of 
 
 the battle, and Zulfikar with his forces withdrew 
 
 from the field. 1 
 
 1 The reign of Shah Aulum is related by two Persian noblemen, both
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 425 
 
 Shah Aulum, who now assumed the title of Baha- BOOK in 
 dur Shah, was chiefly indebted to the prudence and 
 wisdom of Monaim Khan, his minister of finance, for 1707 - 
 his victory and throne. He rewarded him with the 
 office of vizir ; but Assud Khan, the late vizir, and 
 Zulfikar Khan his son, were received with extra- 
 ordinary favour; the former being created Vakeel Mut- 
 luk ; l the latter Meer Bukshi ; 2 and governor of all 
 the Deccan, with the title of Ameer ul Omrah. 
 
 Another contest, however, still remained. The 
 throne was promised to Kam Buksh by his own 
 vanity, and by his astrologers; and though his 
 brother, even when near him with an irresistible army, 
 invited him to enjoy in peace his kingdom of Beeja- 
 pore, to which he offered to add that of Golconda, 
 the infatuated prince was resolved upon his destruc- 
 tion. It had been the object of his father to render 
 him, by his power in Beejapore, safe from the jealousy 
 of any of his brothers who might ascend the imperial 
 throne. For this purpose, he had placed in his 
 service the Turanee Moguls, or that part of the army 
 which consisted of the Mogul adventurers, newly 
 arrived from Tartary, and distinguished from those 
 who had been bred in Hindustan. The chief of 
 these Moguls was Grhazee ad Din Khan, a man of 
 great years and experience ; who had acquired high 
 reputation and influence in the Deccan during the 
 
 cotemporary with the events, Eradut Khan, (Mem. p. 11 64,) and Golam 
 Hussein Khan, Seer Mutakhareen, p. 1 23. 
 
 1 This was the highest office in an Indian government, and seldom be- 
 stowed unless on some great emergency. Scott, Memoirs of Eradut Khan, 
 p. 46. 
 
 * Chief paymaster ; an office of great trust and dignity. Ibid.
 
 426 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OK m wars O f Aurungzeb. The light, inconsiderate, rash, 
 and inconstant character of Kam Buksh would have 
 
 1709. discovered to a less discerning mind than that of 
 Ghazee, the speedy ruin of that prince's hopes ; he 
 therefore listened to the friendly proposals of the 
 Emperor, and was appointed Subahdar of Guzerat, 
 while his son Cheen Koolich Khan, a man of great 
 celebrity in the subsequent history of India, was 
 favourably received at court. K&m Buksh was 
 gradually deserted by almost all his followers ; but 
 rushed desperately into battle near Hyderabad with 
 not more than a few hundred attendants. He was 
 taken prisoner ; but not till he received a mortal 
 wound, of which he died the same evening. 
 
 The Emperor seemed afraid of becoming, like 
 his father, entangled in the labyrinth of Deccanee 
 affairs ; and leaving to his officers whatever remained 
 for the settling of those newly-conquered regions, he 
 began his march towards the capital, though in the 
 middle of the rams. Zulfikar Khan, the subahdar 
 of the Deccan, left Daood Khan Punnee, a native of 
 the Deccan, his deputy ; and followed his master, 
 still further to push his ambitious designs. 
 
 The Emperor was not satisfied with the Rajpoot 
 princes, whose disobedience had been provoked by 
 the religious and mischievous war kindled against 
 them at the end of the reign of Aurungzeb. Ajeet 
 Sing, the successor of Jesswunt Sing, Raja of Odey- 
 pore ; and Jeysing, the successor of the Raja who 
 had rendered himself famous in the wars of Aurung- 
 zeb, had formed an alliance, cemented by marriage ; 
 and without professing independence of the Mogul 
 power, endeavoured to yield a very limited obedience.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 427 
 
 Some unavailing measures were taken to reduce them BOOK in 
 
 . CHAP. 4. 
 
 to more perfect subjection. But a new enemy, whose 
 
 operations began to be serious, and even formidable, I709 - 
 rendered it adviseable to accept for the present the 
 nominal obedience of the Rajpoots. 
 
 The Seiks, now ravaging the province of Lahore 
 and the northern part of the province of Delhi, com- 
 mitting outrages on the persons of the Moslem, in- 
 flamed both the religious and political indignation 
 of the Emperor and his Omrahs. This people, of 
 whom the history is curious, were advancing rapidly 
 to that importance, which renders them at present 
 one of the principal powers in Hindustan. Their 
 origin is to be traced back to the time of the Emperor 
 Baber, when a celebrated Durvesh, being captivated 
 with the beauty of the son of a grain-merchant of the 
 Kshatriya caste, by name Nanuk, brought him to 
 reside in his house, and instructed him in the sublime 
 doctrines and duties of Islamism. Nanuk aspired 
 beyond the merit of a learner. From theological 
 writings which he perused, he selected, as he went on, 
 such doctrines, expressions, sentiments, as captivated 
 his fancy. At length his selections approached to the 
 size of a book ; and being written (it is said with 
 elegance) in the Punjabee dialect, or language of the 
 country, were read by various persons, and admired. 
 The fame of Nanuk's book was diffused. He gave 
 it a name, Kirruntf and, by degrees, the votaries 
 of Kirrunt became a sect. They distinguished 
 themselves by a peculiar garb and manners, which 
 
 1 Sir John Malcolm writes it Grant'h. Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 25. M. 
 The word is Granth, or grunth, meaning in general a book, in this case the 
 hook. W.
 
 428 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in resembled those of the Moslem fakirs. They united 
 
 CHAP. 4. . * 
 
 so as to live by themselves apart from the other in- 
 
 1709. habitants ; and formed villages or communities, called 
 Sangats, in which some one, as head of the commu- 
 nity, always presided over the rest. Nanuk was 
 followed by nine successors in the office of chief, or 
 patriarch of the whole sect ; during whose time the 
 Seiks led peaceable and inoffensive lives. Tej Ba- 
 hadur, the tenth in order, was perpetually followed 
 by a large multitude of the enthusiasts of the sect ; 
 and united himself with a Mussulman fakir who had 
 a number of followers approaching that of his own. 
 To subsist so numerous a body of idle religionists, the 
 neighbouring districts were laid under contribution ; 
 and the saints having tasted the sweets of a life of 
 plunder and idleness, pushed their depredations, and 
 became the scourge of the provinces. Aurungzeb, 
 who was then upon the throne, commanded the go- 
 vernor of Lahore to seize the two leaders of the ban- 
 ditti ; to banish the Mussulman beyond the Indus ; 
 and to conduct the Hindu to the fort of Gualior ; 
 where he was put to death. The loss of their patri- 
 arch was far from sufficient to extinguish the religious 
 flame of the Seiks. A son of Tej Bahadur, whose 
 family name was Govind, was raised to the vacant 
 supremacy, and was distinguished by the name of 
 Gooroo Govind, Gooroo being the title bestowed by 
 a Hindu on his religious instructor. The fate of his. 
 father taught him audacity ; he instructed his fol- 
 lowers, hitherto unarmed, to provide themselves with 
 weapons and horses ; divided them into troops ; 
 placed them under the command of those of his friends 
 in whose conduct and fidelity he confided ; and plun-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 429 
 
 dered the country by force of arms. He was not, 
 however, able to withstand the troops of the province, 
 which were collected to oppose him ; his two sons 17U9< 
 were taken prisoners, and he himself fled among the 
 Afghans. After a time he came back, disguised as 
 an Afghan devotee ; but falling into mental derange- 
 ment, was succeeded by Banda, one of his followers, 
 who assumed the name of Gooroo Govind, and re- 
 solved to take vengence on the Moslems for the 
 slaughter of the father and sons of his predecessor. 
 To the robbery and plunder which had become the 
 business of the Seiks, he added cruelty and murder. 
 The Moslem historians of these events are filled with 
 horror as well as indignation at the cruelties which 
 he exercised upon the faithful (to them alone, it 
 seems, did they extend) and describe as one of the 
 most sanguinary of monsters the man whose actions, 
 had infidels been the sufferers, and a Mussulman the 
 actor, they might not, perhaps, have thought un- 
 worthy of applause. It was this Banda whose enor- 
 mities Shah Aulum hurried from the Deccan to inter- 
 rupt and chastise. The rebels (so they were now deno- 
 minated) deserted Sirhind upon the approach of the 
 Emperor, and retired to Daber, a place of strength, 
 at the entrance of the mountains, and the principal 
 residence of the Gooroo. When Daber was reduced 
 to the last extremity, Banda, with his principal fol- 
 lowers, retired to the mountains during the night. 
 The presence of the Emperor suspended, but did not 
 extinguish, the depredations of the Seiks. 1 
 
 1 Golam Hussein, (Seer Mutakhareen, i. 8793) who gives a pretty 
 detailed account of the origin of the Seiks; and Scott (Hist, of Aurung- 
 zebe's Successors, p. 142), who gives an abridged one, agree pretty exactly
 
 430 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 Shah Aulum had reigned five years, counting from 
 the death of Aurungzeb, with the praise of great 
 1712- humanity, having spilt the blood of no rival but in 
 the field, and treating the sons of his rebel brothers 
 like his own ; when he was seized with a violent ill- 
 ness, and expired suddenly in his camp, near Lahore, 
 in the year 1712. 
 
 The four sons of Shah Aulum, each with his army 
 and retainers, were in the camp; Moiz adDien Khan, 
 theeldest; Azeem oos Shaun, the second, the favorite 
 of his father; Ruffeh oos Shaun, the third; and Ko- 
 jesteh Akter, the youngest. Of all the Omrahs, the 
 vizir Monaim Khan being dead, Zulfikar Khan was 
 by far the most powerful ; and doubted not to place 
 on the musnud any of the princes whose cause he 
 should espouse. Azeem oos Shaun, who had in the 
 camp a large treasure of his own, and from his situa- 
 tion near his father was enabled to possess himself of 
 all the imperial treasure and effects, assumed the 
 sceptre without hesitation. Zulfikar Khan sent 'to 
 him a confidential messenger, to ask if, in that emer- 
 gency, he could render him any service; and receiving 
 a careless and disdainful answer, took his resolution. 
 He passed to the camp of Moiz ad Dien, and formed 
 
 in the facts. Eradut Khan (Mem. p. 61) describes the reduction of Daber. 
 Some general remarks are found in a paper of Mr. Wilkins, in the first 
 vol. of the Asiatic Researches. The more detailed account of Sir John 
 Malcolm, (Sketch of the Sikhs, p. 1 85,) taken from Seik authorities, 
 differs widely in the history of Nanuk ; but though the inaccurate Per- 
 sians are not much to be trusted, the fabling Seiks, making every thing 
 miraculous in the origin of their sect, are still less. M. Without attach- 
 ing more credit to the Sikh accounts than they deserve, their authority is 
 preferable to those of the Mohammedan writers, whose defect is not in- 
 accuracy only, but religious bigotry also ; the Sketch of the Sikhs, by sir 
 J. Malcolm, first published in the As. Researches, vol. xi., is a much safer 
 guide than even the SeirMutakhareen. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 431 
 
 or confirmed a union of the three brothers, who agreed CHAP 4 
 
 to oppose Azeem oos Shaun, and afterwards to divide 
 
 the empire. Azeem oos Shaun lost the favourable op- 
 portunity of attacking his brothers. He allowed the 
 time to pass, till they made their preparations; and 
 till his own army, becoming uneasy and dispirited, 
 began to disperse. When the inevitable hour arrived, 
 he was conquered without much difficulty, and disap- 
 peared in the battle ; his wounded elephant, it is sup- 
 posed, rushed with him down the precipice into the 
 river, where both sunk to appear no more. 
 
 To the surviving princes it remained to settle the 
 partition on which they had agreed; but Zulfikar 
 Khan had other designs. Whether from selfish 
 motives, or a patriotic dread of the consequences of 
 division; whether because that prince was the weakest, 
 and might be governed, or the oldest, and had the 
 better title, the Ameer ul Omrah resolved to make 
 Moiz ad Dien sole Emperor, and to defeat the ex- 
 pectations of the other two. By various artifices, 
 creating difficulties and delay, he contrived to secure 
 the greater part of the treasure to Moiz ad Dien. 
 This roused the jealousy of Kojesteh Akter, and he 
 prepared for action; but the night before the projected 
 battle a fire broke out in his camp, and he lost the 
 greater part of his ammunition. He and his son fought 
 with gallantry, but his soldiers deserted him during 
 the engagement, and gave an easy victory to his more 
 fortunate brother. Ruffeh oos Shaun stood aloof 
 during this action; still confiding in the friendship 
 of Zulfikar Khan, and reserving himself to fall upon 
 the victor. While he waited with impatience for the 
 morning, having been dissuaded from attacking the
 
 432 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 success f u l army the same night, intelligence of his 
 design was carried to the Ameer ul Omrah, who made 
 1712. perparations to receive him. The victory was not a 
 moment doubtful, for the army of the prince almost 
 immediately dispersed, and he was slain, fighting 
 bravely amid a few attendants. l 
 
 Moiz ad Dien was proclaimed Emperor with the 
 title of Jehandar Shah. He possessed not abilities 
 to redeem the weaknesses by which he exposed 
 himself to the disapprobation of his people ; and his 
 government and person fell into contempt. He was 
 governed by a concubine, who had belonged to the 
 degraded and impure profession of public dancers, 
 and shed infamy upon the man with whom she was 
 joined. The favours of the crown were showered 
 upon the mean relations, and ancient companions of 
 Lall Koor, (such was the name of the mistress,) who 
 did not always enjoy them with moderation. The 
 Emperor, who loved the jollity of debauch, exposed 
 himself about the city in company with Lall Koor 
 and her favourites, in situations where dignity was 
 apt to be lost. The nobles were offended, because a 
 new set of favourites intercepted the rays of imperial 
 favour ; and the people were disgusted at the sight 
 of vices in their sovereign, which shed degradation 
 on the meanest of themselves. 
 
 Jehandar Shah was, from these causes, ill pre- 
 pared to meet the storm which shortly after he was 
 summoned to face. When Azim oos Shaun marched 
 
 1 Eradut Khan, (Memoirs, p. 65 67,) and Golam Hussein Khan, (Seer 
 Mutakhareen, i. 23 36, agree in the general points of this struggle for the 
 crown ; the former describing it like an eye-witness, but not a very curious 
 one ; the other from report merely, but not without diligence and criticism.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 433 
 
 from Bengal to assist his father in the struggle for BOOKin 
 
 the crown, he left behind him his son Ferokhser 
 
 Upon the defeat of Azim oos Shaun, and the eleva- 1712 - 
 tion of Jehandar Shah, it became necessary for Fe- 
 rokhser to think either of flight or of resistance. 
 There were two brothers, Abdoolla Khan, and 
 Hussim Khan, of the high birth of Syeds, or 
 descendants of the prophet, who had distinguished 
 themselves in the service of Azim Shah, and, having 
 afterwards attached themselves to Azim oos Shaun, 
 were by him appointed, the one to the government 
 of Allahabad ; the other, to that of Bahar. Ferokh- 
 ser succeeded in gaining the support of these 
 brothers, whose talents were powerful, and their 
 reputation high. The counsels of Jehandar were 
 divided. The powers and services of Zulfikar 
 Khan were eclipsed by the favour of Kokultash 
 Khan, the foster-brother of the Emperor. The 
 talents of Kokultash were unequal to the conduct of 
 any important affair. The abilities of Zulfikar 
 were restrained, and his ardour cooled, by the 
 success with which Kokultash thwarted his designs. 
 Neither wished to take the command of the army, 
 which, compelling him to quit the Emperor, left the 
 imperial power in the hands of his rival. Time was 
 consumed during these intrigues. In the end, Aiz 
 ad Din, the eldest son of the Emperor, and with 
 him, for his guide, a relation of the foster-brother, a 
 man without talents or experience, proceeded to the 
 reduction of Ferokhser. The two armies met at 
 Kudjwa. a town in the district of Korah, where 
 Aurungzeb and Shujah had formerly engaged. But 
 the conductor of Aiz ad Din fled with him during 
 
 VOL. II. 2 F
 
 434 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 K "I the night which was expected to precede the battle ; 
 
 upon which the army either dispersed or joined 
 
 1713. Ferokhser. By an advice of Syed Abdoolla, for 
 which it is difficult to account, Ferokhser halted for 
 several days, instead of rapidly improving his advan- 
 tage. Jehandar Shah had now to put life and em- 
 pire upon the fate of a battle. All that could be 
 assembled of the imperial forces marched toward! 
 Agra, with the Emperor himself at their head. 
 Ferokhser also arrived on the opposite side of the 
 river, and the two armies faced one another for 
 several days. At last Ferokhser unexpectedly crossed 
 the river in the night; and battle was joined the 
 following day. The line of the imperial army was 
 soon broken, and confusion ensued. Zulfikar Khan, 
 indeed, fought with a gallantry not unworthy of his 
 former renown, and kept the field when he and his 
 followers remained alone. Not despairing to rally 
 the army, and renew the action on the following day, 
 he despatched messengers in all directions, but in 
 vain, to search for the Emperor during the night. 
 That unhappy prince had taken the road in disguise 
 toward Delhi, of which Assud Khan, the father of 
 Zulfikar, was governor. After intelligence of his 
 arrival, the friends of the late Azim oos Shaun sur- 
 rounded his palace, and demanded the custody of his 
 person. To quiet their clamours, or to lay a founda- 
 tion of merit with the future sovereign, Assud Khan 
 placed him in confinement ; and wrote to Ferokhser 
 that he waited for his^ commands, to dispose of the 
 prisoner. So gracious an answer was received, as 
 dissipated the fears of Assud Khan, and enabled him 
 to prevail upon his son, who had arrived at Delhi, to 
 trust himself in the hands of Ferokhser. The ere-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 435 
 
 dulity of Zulfikar deceived him ; for he might have BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 escaped to his government of the Deccan, where his 
 
 talents would have enabled him to set the imperial 1713 - 
 power at defiance. He was strangled by order of 
 Ferokhser, and his dead body was exposed about the 
 streets of Delhi, at the same time with that of his 
 master Jehandar Shah. 1 
 
 Ferokhser began his reign in the year 1713, with 
 the usual performances of an Oriental despot ; that is, 
 the murder of all who were the objects of his appre- 
 hension. After this the two Syeds, to whom he owed 
 both his life and his throne, were elevated ; Hussun 
 to the post of Bukshi, or paymaster of the forces, 
 with the title of Ameer ul Omrah ; and Abdoolla to 
 that of Vizir, with the title of Koottub al Mulk, or 
 axis of the state. Cheen Kulich Khan, the son of 
 Ghazee ad Din Khan, who was chief of the Too- 
 ranee Moguls in the Deccan at the end of the reign 
 of Aurungzeb, was known to have lived on adverse 
 terms with Zulfikar Khan; and by this circum- 
 stance, as well as by the weight which was attached 
 to his reputation for talents, and his connexion with 
 the Tooranee lords, was recommended to the atten- 
 tion of the new government. He was appointed to 
 the regency or subahdarry of the Deccan, and 
 decorated with the title of Nizam al Mulk, or com- 
 poser of the state ; 2 a common title, which he ren- 
 
 1 The Memoirs of Eradut Khan finish with the reign of Jehandar Shah 
 He describes the scenes with the knowledge of an eye-witness, but with 
 little favonr to Jehandar Shah or Zulfikar, the victims of the severity or 
 cruelty of the prince under whom he wrote, and whom it was adviseable 
 not to offend. Gliolam Houssein is more candid and more discerning. 
 Seer Mutakhareen, i. 42 63. 
 
 2 Rather, regulator or governor of the state. W. 
 
 2 F 2
 
 436 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 j 11 dered remarkable, in the modern history of India, 
 - by transmitting it to his posterity, and along with it 
 a kingdom, in that very region which he was now 
 sent, and but for a little time, to superintend. 
 
 Ferokhser was a weak prince, governed by fa- 
 vourites. The two Syeds had laid such obligations 
 upon their sovereign, and possessed such power, 
 chiefly from the inconsiderate cruelty of Ferokhser, 
 who had killed Zulfikar and others by whom they 
 might have been restrained, that they could brook 
 neither rival nor partner in disposing of the state. 
 Their chains soon became heavy on Ferokhser. Aware 
 of his impatience, they made such efforts to render 
 themselves secure against the effects of his malice, 
 as embroiled the state from the very commencement 
 of his reign. 
 
 The first of the contrivances of Emir Jumla (this 
 was the name of the favourite, a man who had for- 
 merly been Kauzy at Dacca), was to separate the 
 brothers, under the pretence of honourable employ- 
 ment. The Raja Ajeet Sing, whom we have already 
 mentioned as the successor of Jesswunt Sing, in that 
 district or division of Rajpootana which was known 
 by the name of Marwar or Rhatore, 1 and of which 
 Chitore and Odeypore had been successively the 
 capitals, had stood out against the operations of 
 Aurungzeb, and remained in a state little short of 
 independence, during the reigns of Shah Aulum and 
 Jehandar Shah. Hussun, the Ameer al Omrah, was 
 required to undertake the reduction of the rebellious 
 Hindu. He marched with so great a force that the 
 
 1 Rhatore is the name, not of the country, but of the Rajput tribe to 
 which the Rajas of Marwar belong. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 437 
 
 Raja deemed it better to yield than contend ; and BOOK in 
 
 1*11 CHAP. 4. 
 
 though he received private encouragements from the 
 
 court, where he was assured that opposition would 
 be gratefully considered, he concluded an agreement 
 with Hussun, impatient to return to the capital, 
 where his brother's letters assured him, that designs 
 were ripening for their common destruction. 
 
 Though Abdoola, the Vizir, had talents and other 
 eminent qualities ; he was so addicted to women and 
 other pleasures, that he neglected business ; and let 
 the affairs of his high office devolve into subordinate 
 hands, whose mismanagement shed discredit and un- 
 popularity on himself. His enemies therefore enjoyed 
 advantages, which in the absence of his brother they 
 were eager to improve. Upon the return of Hussun 
 from Marwar, he demanded the regency of the Dec- 
 can, with a view to govern it by deputy, and remain 
 at court ; and he received the appointment, in ex- 
 pectation of his being called to that distant province 
 by the duties of his trust. When it was found, at last, 
 that he had no intention to depart for the Deccan, the 
 misunderstanding between the court and the brothers 
 became public and undisguised. They forbore at- 
 tendance upon the Emperor; assembled their fol- 
 lowers, and fortified themselves in their palaces; 
 while the weak and timid Ferokhser, who desired, 
 without daring to attempt, their destruction, formed 
 and abandoned twenty resolutions in a day. After a 
 period of anxiety and alarm, a reconciliation was 
 effected by mediation of the Empress-mother, who 
 was favourable to the Syeds, and by whom, it is said, 
 that intelligence was sometimes conveyed to them of 
 the plots by which their lives were essayed. The
 
 438 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 agreement was, that Meer Jumla, being appointed 
 to the government of Bahar, should depart for that 
 province, at the same time that the Ameer al Omrah 
 should proceed to the Deccan. 1 
 
 Hussun told the Emperor, that if mischief were 
 aimed at his brother,'he would in twenty days be in 
 the capital from the Deccan. The first danger, how- 
 ever, regarded himself. Daood Khan Punnee, the 
 Afghan, who had been left deputy by Zulfikar, and 
 obtained the province of Guzerat, upon the appoint- 
 ment of Nizam al Mulk to the regency of the Deccan, 
 was ordered to Boorahanpore, ostensibly to wait upon 
 the Subahdar of the Deccan, and receive his com- 
 mands ; but with secret instructions to assail the Syed 
 and cut him off. Great expectations were entertained 
 of the Afghan, who, being a man of prodigious bodily 
 strength, great courage, and not devoid of conduct, 
 had risen to the highest repute as a warrior. It is 
 not unworthy of remark, that he had associated with 
 himself a Mahratta chief, named Neemajee Sindia, 
 who had been taken into the imperial service by Shah 
 Aulum, honoured with a high rank, and gifted with 
 several jagheers in the vicinity of Aurungabad. Hus- 
 sun had a severe conflict to sustain ; and had not a 
 matchlock ball struck Daood, at the moment when 
 
 1 Before the departure of Hussun, the marriage of the Emperor was 
 celebrated with the daughter of Maharaja Ajeet Sing, stipulated for, in the 
 conditions lately imposed by Hussun upon the Raja. She had been con- 
 veyed from her father's palace to that of Hussun, as her adopted father, 
 who graced her nuptials with a magnificence which surpassed all that 
 hitherto had been seen in Hindustan. 
 
 An indisposition of the Emperor, rather inconvenient at the time of a 
 marriage, cured by a medical gentleman of the name of Hamilton, is said 
 to have been the cause of obtaining the first firmaun of free trade for the 
 East India Company. Scott's Successors of Auruugzebe, p. 139.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 the advantage seemed hastening to his side, the day 
 might have been fatal to the fortune of the brothers. 
 When the Emperor heard of the failure of his project, 1719> 
 he could not, even in the presence of Abdoolla, sup- 
 press his chagrin ; and observed that Daood was a 
 brave man unworthily used. Abdoolla replied, that 
 if his brother had fallen, the victim of perfidy, the 
 imperial mind would have experienced more agree- 
 able sensations. 
 
 About this time, Banda, the patriarch and captain 
 of the Seiks, fell into the hands of his enemies. He 
 had soon collected his followers, after they were dis- 
 persed by Shah Aulum ; and spread more widely his 
 depredations and authority in the contiguous pro- 
 vinces. The Subahdar of Lahore had been sent 
 against him, shortly after the accession of Ferokhser; 
 but was defeated with great slaughter. The Faujdar, 
 or military and judicial chief of Sirhind, was next 
 commanded to take the field; but was assassinated 
 in his tent by a Seik, especially commissioned for that 
 purpose. The governor of Kashmere was then re- 
 moved to the government of Lahore, and appointed 
 to act against the heretics or infidels, with a great 
 army. After many severe engagements, Banda was 
 driven to seek refuge in a fort ; where famine at last 
 compelled him to surrender. Great cruelty was 
 exercised upon his followers ; and he himself was 
 carried to the capital, where he was ignominiously 
 exposed, and afterwards put to death by torture. 
 
 It would be useless and disgusting to describe the 
 scenes to which the hatred of the Emperor and the 
 jealousy of the Vizir gave birth in the capital. When 
 the Ameer al Omrah arrived in the Deccan, he found
 
 440 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 p 0wcr O f the Mahrattas arrived at a height which 
 was not only oppressive to the provinces, but for- 
 1719 - midable to the imperial throne. Sahoo Raja, or 
 Sahojee the son of Sambajee, had succeeded to the 
 authority of his father and grandfather, as the head 
 of the Mahrattas, and had, during the distractions in 
 the Mogul empire, experienced little resistance in 
 extending the sphere of his domination and exactions. 
 Towards the close of the reign of Aurungzeb, the 
 widow of Rama, the brother of Sambajee, who during 
 the minority of Sahogee enjoyed a temporary au- 
 thority, had offered to put a stop to all the predatory 
 incursions of the Mahrattas, under which the imperial 
 provinces in the Deccan so cruelly suffered, on con- 
 dition of receiving a tenth part, which they call Des- 
 mukhee, of the revenues of the six provinces which 
 composed the viceroyalty of the Deccan. The pride 
 of Aurungzeb revolted at the humiliating condition ; 
 and the offer was rejected with scorn. 1 Daood Khan 
 Punnee, however, who governed the country, as 
 deputy of Zulfikar, during the reigns of Shah Aulum 
 and Jehandar, and who cultivated the friendship 
 rather than the enmity of the Mahrattas, agreed to 
 purchase deliverance from their incursions by the 
 payment of even the chout, or fourth part of the 
 revenues of the Deccanee provinces, reserving only 
 such districts as were held in jagheer by any princes 
 of the blood royal, and excluding the Mahrattas from 
 
 1 In the first instance these claims had been made by Sivaji, and were 
 confined to the district dependant on Bijapur. Aurungzeb tacitly recog- 
 nised them on the occasion of the treaty into which he entered with Si- 
 vaji, and although that treaty was not long unviolatcd, the recognition 
 formed the basis of the similar claims subsequently extended to other pro- 
 vinces. Duff, Mahrattas, i. 210. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 441 
 
 the collection, which was to be performed by his own 
 officers alone. Upon the arrival of Nizam al Mulk as 
 Viceroy of the Deccan, the chout gave rise to dispute 1/19 
 and hostilities ; in which the Viceroy gained a battle, 
 and might have further checked the pretensions of 
 the freebooters, had he not been recalled, after enjoy- 
 ing the government one year and some months. The 
 Ameer al Omrah sent a force to dislodge a Mahratta 
 chief who had established a chain of mud forts along 
 the road from Surat to Boorahanpore ; and by means 
 of them plundered or levied a tax upon the merchants 
 who trafficked between the two cities. The com- 
 mander allowed himself to be drawn by the wily 
 Mahratta into a place of difficulty ; where he and the 
 greater part of his soldiers lost their lives. A still 
 stronger force was sent to dislodge the plunderer ; 
 who declined an action ; and was followed by the 
 imperial general as far as Sattara, the residence of 
 Sahojee. But before Sattara was besieged, the Ameer 
 al Omrah, understanding that danger was increasing 
 at Delhi, and that even Sahojee had received en- 
 couragement from the Emperor to effect his destruc- 
 tion, resolved, on any terms, to free himself from the 
 difficulties and embarrassment of a Mahratta war. 
 He not only granted the chout, but he added to it 
 the desmukhee ; nay, admitted the Mahratta agents, 
 with a respectable force at Aurungabad, to perform 
 the collection of their own portion of the taxes. The 
 provinces were thus freed from the ravages of military 
 incursion; but the people were oppressed by three 
 sets of exactors, one for the imperial revenue, one 
 for the chout, another for the desmukhee. 1 
 
 1 The circumstances leading to this arrangement, as well as the particu-
 
 442 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in Meanwhile a new favourite had risen at court, 
 
 l~t HAP. I . 
 
 -recommended to the Emperor by a double tie, a 
 fellowship in disreputable pleasures, and promises to 
 cut off the Syeds without the danger of a contest. 
 By his advice, the most powerful chiefs in the empire 
 were invited to court; Nizam al Mulk, from his 
 government of Moradabad; Sirbullund Khan, from 
 that of Patna ; and the Rajpoot princes, Jeysing of 
 Ambere or Jagenagur ; and, the father-in-law of the 
 Emperor, Ajeet Sing of Rhatore. Had these chiefs 
 perceived a prospect of sharing among themselves the 
 grand posts of the empire, they would have under- 
 taken the destruction of the Syeds ; but they found 
 the despicable Ferokhser so infatuated with his un- 
 worthy favourite, that he alone was destined to be 
 the organ of power. Ajeet Sing, perceiving the mi- 
 serable state of the imperial councils, lost no time in 
 uniting himself with the Vizir. 
 
 The increasing violence of the councils pursued for 
 the destruction of the Syeds, and the union, which the 
 removal of the favourite would suffice to form against 
 them, of so many powerful chiefs, induced Abdoolla to 
 summon his brother from the Deccan, and to meditate 
 a decisive step. No sooner did the Emperor hear that 
 Hussun was in motion, than, struck with apprehen- 
 sion, he solicited reconciliation with the Vizir. They 
 exchanged turbans, and vows of fidelity, which were 
 equally sincere on both sides. A messenger of rank 
 was despatched towards Hussun, to declare the rein- 
 statement of his family in the plenitude of imperial 
 favour ; while Hussun, giving up to the Mahrattas 
 
 lars, arc somewhat differently related by Duff. Hist, of the Mahrattas, 
 i. 111. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 443 
 
 such forts as he could not garrison, proceeded to the 
 capital with an army, of which ten thousand were 
 Mahrattas ; attended by a youth, whom he received 172 - 
 from Sahojee as a son of Sultan Akbar, and treated 
 with all the respect due to a grandson of Aulumgir, 
 and a competitor for the imperial throne. In the 
 mean time the Vizir had found little difficulty in de- 
 taching from the hopeless cause of the Emperor, 
 Nizam al Mulk, and the other chiefs of the intended 
 conspiracy. Jeysing alone adhered to Ferokhser, ad- 
 vising him to take the field in person, and, by the 
 weight of the imperial name, bear down the cause of 
 rebels and traitors. The pride and the resentments 
 of Ferokhser made him incline to violent measures 
 during one moment; his fears and pusillanimity made 
 him incline to submissive measures the next. After 
 an interval, during which these passions violently 
 alternated in his breast, he threw himself upon the 
 mercy of the Syeds, and summitted to all their de- 
 mands. It is not certain that they meant to depose 
 him ; but during these violent proceedings, tumults 
 arose in the city ; Ferokhser shut himself up in the 
 women's apartments, and refused to come out; his 
 friends and servants took arms ; the commotions be- 
 came alarming, and a moment might be productive 
 of fatal events. After repeated entreaties, the Vizir 
 was at last compelled to violate the sanctity of the 
 secret apartments ; Ferokhser was dragged forth, and 
 put in confinement ; Ruffeh al Dirjaut, son of Ruffeh 
 al Kudder, a grandson of Aurungzeb by a daughter 
 of Akbar, was taken from among the confined princes, 
 and seated on the throne ; his accession was an- 
 nounced by the sound of the nobut, and firing of can-
 
 444 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in non; and, in a few hours, the commotions, which 
 
 UHAP. 4. 
 
 seemed ready to overwhelm the city, gave place to 
 
 tranquillity and order. 
 
 Ferokhser was rather more than six years on the 
 throne. His successor was labouring under a con- 
 sumption, and died in five months after his exaltation. 
 During this interval, Ferokhser suffered a violent 
 death, but whether at his own hand, or that of the 
 brothers, is variously affirmed. Except in the palace, 
 the offices of which were filled entirely with the crea- 
 tures of the Syeds, the different functionaries of the 
 state were confirmed in their situations. Nizam al 
 Mulk, who liked not the complexion of the times, 
 desired leave to retire ; but he was prevailed upon to 
 accept the government of Malwa. 
 
 Ruffeh al Dowlah, the younger brother of Ruffeh 
 al Dirjaut, was chosen to supply the vacancy of the 
 throne. But the Governor of the citadel of Agra had 
 under his charge a son of Akbar, the youngest son of 
 Aulumgir; and, in hopes of being joined by other 
 lords, inimical to the Syeds, as well as by Jeysing, 
 who. through influence of the brothers, had been dis- 
 missed to his own country before the dethronement of 
 Ferokhser, proclaimed the son of Akbar, King. The 
 Syeds left no time for the disaffected to combine ; and 
 the Governor, finding his undertaking desperate, put 
 an end to his life. The sickly youth, who this time 
 also was placed upon the throne, followed his prede- 
 cessor in three months. Roshun Akter, a son of 
 Kojesteh Akter the youngest son of Shah Aulum, 
 was the Prince who now was taken to fill the dan- 
 gerous throne. 
 
 Mohammed Shah (that was the name which the new
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 445 
 
 sovereign adopted) began his reign in the year 1720. BOOK in 
 
 He was in his seventeenth year; had been confined 
 
 along with his mother, a woman of judgment and 172 - 
 prudence, from the beginning of the reign of Jehan- 
 dar Shah, and reared by her in great silence and 
 obscurity. 
 
 The Syeds were now deprived of all grounds of 
 jealousy and resentment towards the throne; for the 
 Empress-mother advised, and the Emperor practised 
 the most perfect submission to their will. But among 
 the great lords of the empire were some, who beheld 
 not their triumphs and power, without envy and 
 hatred. The governor of Allahabad had been guilty 
 of some marks of disrespect. Shortly after the ac- 
 cession of Mohammed, Hussun marched to chastise 
 him. The Governor died while Hussun was yet 
 upon the march; and his nephew, though he stood 
 upon the defensive, offered to lay down his arms, 
 provided Rajah Ruttun Chund, the famous Dewan of 
 the Vizir, were sent to negotiate the terms of his 
 submission. l The difficulty of besieging Allahabad, 
 strongly defended by the Jumna and the Ganges, 
 which meet under its walls, allayed in the bosom of 
 Hussun the thirst of revenge. He listened to the 
 proposition of the nephew, and gave him the govern- 
 ment of Oude, in exchange for that which his uncle 
 had enjoyed. 
 
 Mohammed Ameen Khan, one of the Tooranee 
 Omrahs, remaining at court, began to excite the 
 suspicions of the Syeds; but Nizam al Mulk soon 
 
 1 The governor of Allahabad, Girdhar Bahadar, was a Hindu, which 
 explains his object in requiring Katan Chund, also a Hindu, and in whom 
 therefore he had confidence, to negotiate for his surrender. W.
 
 446 HISTORY OF BRITISH I!S 7 DIA. 
 
 BOOK in became the principal object of their attention and 
 
 CHAP. 4. . r J 
 
 fears. Upon taking possession of his government of 
 
 1720. Malwa, he found the province, owing to the late 
 distraction of the empire, overrun with disorder; 
 the Zemindars aiming at independence, and the 
 people either become robbers themselves, or suffering 
 from bands of robbers, who plundered the country 
 with impunity. The vigorous operations demanded 
 for the suppression of these enormities, justified the 
 Nizam in raising and maintaining troops; in pro- 
 viding his garrisons; in adopting all the measures, 
 in short, which were best calculated to strengthen 
 his position. The Syeds were not slow in discerning 
 that these preparations looked beyond the Defence of 
 a province. Policy required the removal of the 
 Nizam. The most respectful intimations were con- 
 veyed to him, that as Malwa lay half way between 
 the Deccan and the capital it was pointed out as pecu- 
 liarly convenient to form the place of residence for 
 the Ameer al Omrah, who, from that station, could 
 both superintend his viceroyalty in the Deccan, and 
 watch the operations of the court; and four Subahs 
 were pointed out to Nizam al Mulk ; Multan, Kan- 
 desh, Agra, and Allahabad; of which he was invited 
 to make his election in exchange. Policy might 
 counsel the non-compliance of the Nizam ; but pride 
 and vanity counselled an insolent reply, which pre- 
 cipitated hostilities on both sides. The brothers sent 
 an army against Malwa. The Nizam resolved to 
 take possession of the Deccan. He crossed the Ner- 
 budda; got, through bribery, possession of the strong 
 fortress of Asere, and the city of Boorahanpore; was 
 joined by Eiwuz Khan, Subahdar of Berar, his re-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 447 
 
 lation; by a Mahratta chief, who had quarrelled with 
 Sahojee; and by a variety of Zemindars. He en- 
 countered and defeated the army which the brothers 1/20 ' 
 had sent to oppose him; conquered, and slew in battle 
 the governor of Aurungabad, who marched out to 
 meet him : and remained without a rival in theDeccan. 
 The Governor of Dowlatabad held out; but the Go- 
 vernor of Hyderabad joined him with 7000 horse. 
 In addition to all these fortunate events, he was 
 encouraged by messages from the court, from Moham- 
 med Ameen Khan, and from the Emperor himself, 
 that his opposition to the Syeds should meet with 
 their support. 
 
 The brothers wavered ; and permitted time to be 
 lost. Ruttun Chund recommended, what was pro- 
 bably wise, to gain Nizam al Mulk by resigning to 
 him the Deccan ; and, with vigilance, to guard the 
 rest of the empire. Pride rejected this proposal. It 
 was at last determined that Hussun, accompanied by 
 the Emperor, should proceed with a great army to 
 the Deccan, while Abdoolla should remain to guard 
 the capital. The troops were assembled ; the march 
 began, and had continued during four or five days, 
 when Mohammed Ameen Khan conceived his plan to 
 be ripe for execution. He had associated with him- 
 self Sadut Khan, afterwards Nabob of Oude, pro- 
 genitor of the now reigning family ; and another 
 desperado, named Hyder Khan, in a conspiracy, with 
 the privity of the Emperor, to assassinate the Ameer 
 al Omrah. The lot fell upon Hyder to strike the 
 blow. Hussun, who received a mortal stab, had 
 strength to cry, " Kill the Emperor!" but the con- 
 spirators had taken measures for his protection ; and,
 
 448 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in though the nephew of the deceased armed his fol- 
 
 CIIAP. 4. r 
 
 -lowers, and endeavoured to penetrate to the Em* 
 1720-32. peror, he was overpowered and slain, while his tents 
 were plundered by the followers of the camp. 
 
 The dismal news was speedily conveyed to Abdoolla, 
 who was on his march to Delhi. He advanced to 
 that city ; took one of the remaining princes, and 
 proclaimed him Emperor ; found still the means to 
 assemble a large army, and marched out to oppose 
 Mohammed. A great battle was fought at Shahpore ; 
 but the Vizir was vanquished and taken prisoner. 
 The Emperor, after a little more than a year of tute- 
 lage, entered his capital in great pomp and ceremony, 
 and was hailed as if it had been his accession to the 
 throne. 
 
 The weakness of Mohammed Shah's administra- 
 tion, whose time was devoted to pleasure, and his 
 mind without discernment and force, was soon felt in 
 the provinces. The Raja, Ajeet Sing, with a view to 
 bind him to the cause of Mohammed, had, through 
 the hands of the Empress-mother, at the time of the 
 accession, received a firman appointing him Governor 
 of Guzerat and Ajmere during life. The grant was 
 now revoked, and Ajeet Sing rebelled. After some 
 vain demonstrations of resentment, the Emperor was 
 obliged to submit to concessions and indulgence. 
 
 The Afghans about Peshawur rose in arms ; and, 
 after an obstinate engagement, defeated and took 
 prisoner the son of the Governor of the province. 
 
 These, and other disorders, were expected to be 
 redressed upon the arrival of Nizam al Mulk, who 
 was invited from the Deccan to receive the office of 
 Vizir. He earnestly exhorted the Emperor to apply
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 449 
 
 his own mind to affairs, and to infuse vigour into BOOK in 
 
 C HAP 4 
 
 government, now relaxed and dissolving, through neg- ' 
 ligence and corruption. But the pleasantries of his 1732 - 
 gay companions, who turned the person and the 
 counsels of the old and rigid Vizir into ridicule, were 
 more agreeable to the enervated mind of Mohammed ; 
 and the Nizam, in disgust, under pretence of coercing 
 a refractory Governor in Guzerat, withdrew from the 
 capital. Sadut Khan was about the same time 
 appointed Subahdar of Oude. 
 
 The Nizam, having reduced to his obedience the 
 province of Guzerat, and taken possession of Malwa, 
 which was also added to his extensive government, 
 paid another visit to the capital, where he found the 
 temper of administration as negligent and dissolute 
 as before. Despairing, or careless of a remedy, and 
 boding nothing but evil, he only thought of securing 
 himself in his extensive dominions ; and, under pre- 
 tence of a hunting excursion, left the capital without 
 leave, and pursued his march to the Deccan. The 
 Emperor, who now both hated and feared him, des- 
 patched a private message to the Governor of Hyder- 
 abad to oppose and cut him off, with a promise of all 
 his government of the Deccan, as the reward of so 
 meritorious a service. The bribe was too great to be 
 resisted ; but the undertaker paid the forfeit of his 
 temerity with his life. The Nizam, however, was 
 deprived of his Vizirat, and of his new governments of 
 Malwa and Guzerat. To be revenged he encouraged 
 his deputy in Guzerat to resist the imperial com- 
 mands ; and the Mahratta chiefs Pilajee and Kan- 
 tojee to invade the provinces. Some inadequate and 
 unavailing efforts were made to oppose the progress 
 
 VOL. n. 2 G
 
 450 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in of these Mahratta chiefs; who were afterwards joined, 
 
 CHAP. 4. . 
 
 still at the instigation, it is said, of the old Nizam, by 
 1736 Baji Rao, the general of Sahojee. The struggle was 
 upheld with more or less of vigour, by the imperial 
 deputies, till about the year 1732; when the provinces 
 of Guzerat and Malwa might be regarded as com- 
 pletely reduced under Mahratta dominion. Never 
 contented with present acquisitions, the Mahrattas 
 made endless encroachments ; and, by degrees, seized 
 upon several districts in the Subahs of Agra and 
 Allahabad, plundering even to the vicinity of Agra. 
 When opposed by an army, they retreated, scoured 
 the country, cut off supplies, and made flying attacks. 
 When the opposing army was obliged to retrace its 
 steps, they immediately re-seized the country ; and 
 still more extensively diffused their depredations. 
 
 During the calamities of the empire, Sadut Khan 
 alone, among the different Omrahs and Governors, 
 exhibited any public spirit, or any manliness and 
 vigour. Though his province, placed beyond the 
 Ganges, was little exposed to the devastations of the 
 destructive Mahrattas, he marched out, in 1735, to 
 chastise a body of them, who were plundering to the 
 very walls of Agra; overtook them by forced marches, 
 brought on a battle, and gave them a signal over- 
 throw. 1 The wreck of the army joined Baji Rao, in 
 the neighbourhood of Gualior. Sadut Khan intended 
 to follow up his blow, to pursue the marauders to 
 
 1 This is a greatly exaggerated account of the transaction furnished by 
 Mohammedan "writers. Sadut Khann, merely repelled a detachment of 
 Mahrattas, under Holkar and other leaders, who were committing ravages, 
 not only near Agra, but in the Doab. Baji Rao, with the main army, 
 proceeded to Delhi. Hist, of the Mahrattas, i. 531. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 451 
 
 their own country, and redeem the lost honour of the BOOKIII 
 
 J CHAP. 4. 
 
 imperial arms. But the Ameer al Omrah, jealous of 
 the glory, sent him orders to halt, till he shouldjoin 1736> 
 him with the troops of the capital. Baji Rao, 
 having time to restore animation to the Mahrattas, 
 and learning the removal of the troops from Delhi, 
 marched with Mahratta speed towards that capital, 
 and communicated the first intelligence of his strata- 
 gem by the fires which he lighted up in the suburbs. 
 He was in possession of the outskirts of the city for 
 three days before the approach of the imperial army 
 made it necessary for him to decamp. He took the 
 road to Malwa ; and the pusillanimous monarch was 
 advised by his dissolute courtiers to purchase the 
 promise of peace by paying the chout, or fourth, of 
 his revenues to the Mahrattas. 
 
 A more dreadful enemy was now about to fall upon 
 the misgoverned empire. The Sophis, whom in the 
 reign of Shah Jehan we left sitting upon the throne 
 of Persia, had sunk into that voluptuousness and 
 neglect of the business of government, which so uni- 
 formly accompany the continued possession of power; 
 relax the springs of the existing government, and 
 prepare the way for an usurper. In this state of the 
 country, the range of mountains placed near the con- 
 fines of Persia and India, which had already given a 
 race of sovereigns to Hindustan, produced a chief 
 who with his rude and hardy countrymen, the moun- 
 taineers of Afghanistan, invaded Persia, and pushed 
 his conquests against the feeble Hussun Shah, whose 
 government was, moreover, distracted, by the wretched 
 factions of the black eunuchs, and the white. Though 
 the Afghan was assassinated, he was succeeded by 
 
 2 G 2
 
 452 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 a ne ph e w, an enterprising youth of eighteen years of 
 
 age. The provinces near the Caucasus and the 
 
 Caspian, as well as those near the Indus, revolted. 
 The Afghan iu 1722 laid siege to Ispahan itself, 
 and the wretched Hussun laid his crown at his feet, 
 In the mean time a son of Hussun, whose name was 
 Thamas, 1 escaped from massacre, and was joined by 
 as many people as still adhered to his family or person, 
 in the neighbourhood of Tauris; among others by 
 Nadir, the son of a shepherd of Khorasan, who, by 
 the sale of part of his father's flocks, had hired a 
 banditti, with whom he scoured and plundered the 
 country. By his daring courage, and indefatigable 
 activity, he soon distinguished himself among the fol- 
 lowers of the fugitive prince. He took the name of 
 Thamas Koolee Khan, or Khan the slave of Thamas. 
 Such a man found it easy in Persia to increase the 
 number of his followers, whom he subsisted and re- 
 warded by the plunder of the country. In a short 
 time he was daring enough to measure swords with 
 the Afghan himself, and prevailed. In 1729 he re- 
 took Ispahan, pursued the usurper to Afghanistan 
 itself, vanquished and took him prisoner. Thamas, 
 whom he acknowledged as king of Persia, he retained 
 in confinement, and, governing in his name, turned 
 his arms against the Turks, who had made encroach- 
 ments on the eastern provinces of Persia during the 
 declining vigour of the Sophis, Having conducted 
 this war with success, he felt his power sufficient to 
 pull off the mask. He proclaimed himself King, 
 by the title of Nadir Shah, in the year 1736; and 
 put out the eyes of the unfortunate Thamas. 
 
 1 Tamasp is the more correct form of this name. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 453 
 
 The restless and enterprising Afghans, who re-BooKin 
 gretted the loss of Persia, still kept up disturbance CHAr ' 
 on its eastern frontier; and they provoked the proud 1739. 
 and furious Nadir to undertake a war of little less 
 than extermination. Not satisfied with driving them 
 from all the accessible parts of their own country, he 
 made his way into Kandahar, which had for some 
 generations been detached from the Mogul empire, 
 and annexed to that of Persia. Kabul, which already 
 contained a great mixture of Afghans, was now 
 crowded with that people, flying from the cruelties of 
 the foe. Nadir was not soon tired in the pursuit of 
 his prey. He had reason to be dissatisfied with the 
 government of Hindustan, to which he had sent re- 
 peated embassies ; received with something more than 
 neglect. In the general negligence and corruption 
 which pervaded the whole business of government, 
 the passes from Persia into Kabul were left unguarded. 
 The Persian protested that he meant neither hostility 
 nor disrespect to his brother of Hindustan; and that, 
 if not molested, he would chastise the accursed 
 Afghans, and retire. The opposition he experienced 
 was, indeed, so feeble, as hardly to excite the resent- 
 ment of Nadir; and, after slaughtering the Afghans 
 in Kabul, he was ready to withdraw; when a cir- 
 cumstance occurred, which kindled his rage. A mes- 
 senger and his escort, whom he had despatched from 
 Kabul to the Emperor of Delhi, were murdered at 
 Jellalabad by the inhabitants; and instead of yielding 
 satisfaction for the injury, the silken courtiers of 
 Mohammed counselled approbation; and ridiculed 
 supposition of danger from the shepherd and free- 
 booter of Khorasan.
 
 454 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in That furious warrior hastened to the offending 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 city, and slaughtered the inhabitants without mercy. 
 
 1739. From this he pursued his route to Peshawur, and 
 thence to Lahore ; at both of which places he expe- 
 rienced but little opposition. He then turned his face 
 directly to the capital, where Mohammed and his coun- 
 sellors, wrapped in a fatal security, were not prepared 
 to believe that the Persian usurper would dare to 
 march against the Majesty of Hindustan. The Hin- 
 dustanee army, which had been two months in the 
 field, had only advanced to Karnal, four days' march 
 from Delhi, where it was surprised by the appearance 
 of the enemy, while Mohammed and his friends were 
 yet ignorant of his approach. The hardy and expe- 
 rienced valour of Nadir's bands quickly spread con- 
 fusion among the ill-conducted crowds of Mohammed. 
 The Ameer al Omrah was mortally wounded, and 
 died after leaving the field of battle. Sadut Khan 
 fought till he was deserted by his followers, and taken 
 prisoner. Nadir, who had no project upon Hindu- 
 stan, left the disordered camp the next day without an 
 attack ; and readily listened to the peaceful counsels 
 of his prisoner Sadut Khan, who hoped, if now set 
 free, to obtain the vacant office of Ameer al Omrah. 
 Mohammed honoured the Shah with a visit in his camp, 
 and the Shah consented to evacuate Hindustan, upon 
 receipt of two crores of rupees. The insatiable avidity, 
 however, of Nizam al Mulk fatally defeated this 
 happy agreement. He demanded, and was too pow- 
 erful to be refused, the office of Ameer al Omrah. 
 The disappointed and unprincipled Sadut hastened 
 to inform Nadir, that two crores of rupees were no 
 adequate ransom for the empire of Hindostan ; that
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 455 
 
 he himself, who was but an individual, would yield BOOK in 
 
 * CHAP. 4 
 
 as great a sum : that Nizam al Mulk who alone had 
 power to offer any formidable resistance, ought to be 1739 - 
 secured ; and that Nadir might then make the wealth 
 of the capital and empire his own. A new and 
 dazzling prospect was spread before the eyes of the 
 ravager. Mohammed Shah, and Nizam al Mulk were 
 recalled to the Persian camp ; when Nadir marched 
 to Delhi, the gates of which were opened to receive 
 him. 1 For two days had the Persians been in Delhi, 
 and as yet observed the strictest discipline and order. 
 But on the night of the second, an unfortunate 
 rumour was spread that Nadir Shah was killed; 
 upon which the wretched inhabitants rose in tumult ; 
 ran to massacre the Persians ; and filled the city 
 throughout the night with confusion and bloodshed. 
 With the first light of the morning, Nadir issued 
 forth ; and dispersing bands of soldiers in every direc- 
 tion, ordered them to slaughter the inhabitants with- 
 out regard to age or sex in every street or avenue 
 where the body of a murdered Persian should be 
 found. 3 From sun-rise to mid-day the sabre raged; 
 
 1 This is the story told by the writers of Hindustan, and no doubt, va- 
 rious intrigues were at work to influence the decision of Nadir Shah, but 
 it is little likely that he would have withdrawn, without laying Delhi 
 under contribution. Sir J. Malcolm observes, " our knowledge of the 
 character of Nadir Shah, forbids our granting any belief to a tale, which 
 would make it appear, that the ultimate advantages to be obtained from 
 this great enterprise, and the unparalleled success with which it had been 
 attended, depended less upon his genius, than upon the petty jealousies 
 and intrigues of the captive ministers of the vanquished Mohammed Shah." 
 History of Persia, ii. 78. W. 
 
 * Nadir at first, it is said, endeavoured to allay the tumult, both by 
 messengers sent to pacify the people, and by his personal interference ; 
 and it was not till his agents were slain, and he himself endangered, that 
 he gave orders for a general massacre. History of Persia, ii. 83. W.
 
 456 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in ail d by that time not lees than 8000 Hindus, Moguls, 
 
 CHAP. 4. * 
 
 or Afghans, were numbered with the dead. During 
 
 1739 - the massacre and pillage, the city was set on fire in 
 several places. The destroyer at last allowed him- 
 self to be persuaded to stay the ruin ; the signal was 
 given, and in an instant, such was the authority of 
 Nadir, every sword was sheathed. 
 
 A few days after the massacre, a nobleman was 
 despatched by Nadir, to bring from Oude the two 
 crores of rupees, promised by its governor Sadut 
 Khan; who, in the short interval, had died of a cancer 
 in his back. On the same day he commenced his 
 seizure of the imperial treasure and effects ; three 
 crores and fifty lacks in specie j 1 a crore and fifty 
 lacks in plate ; 2 fifteen crores in jewels ; 3 the cele- 
 brated peacock throne, valued at a crore ; 4 other 
 valuables to the amount of eleven crores ; 5 besides 
 elephants, horses, and the camp-equipage of the Em- 
 peror. The bankers and rich individuals were or- 
 dered to give up their wealth, and tortured to make 
 discovery of what they were suspected to have con- 
 cealed. A heavy contribution was demanded of the 
 city, and exacted with cruel severity ; many laid 
 violent hands upon themselves to escape the horrid 
 treatment to which they beheld others exposed. 
 Famine pervaded the city ; and pestilential diseases 
 ensued. Seldom has a more dreadful calamity fallen 
 
 3,500,000. 
 1,500,000. 
 15,000,000. 
 1,000,000. 
 11,000,000. 
 
 In all, if we believe our authorities, 32,000,000,
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 457 
 
 upon any portion of the human race, than that in BOOK m 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 which the visit of Nadir Shah involved the capital of _____ 
 Hindustan. Yet a native and cotemporary historian 1739 - 
 informs us, such is the facility with which men 
 accommodate themselves to their lot, " that the in- 
 habitants of Delhi, at least the debauched, who were 
 by far the most numerous part, regretted the depar- 
 ture of the Persians ; and to this day, (says hej, the 
 excesses of their soldiery are topics of humour in the 
 looser conversation of all ranks, and form the comic 
 parts of the drolls or players. The people of Hin- 
 dustan at this time regarded only personal safety and 
 personal gratification. Misery was disregarded by 
 those who escaped it, and man, centred wholly in 
 himself, felt not for his kind. This selfishness, de- 
 structive of public and private virtue, was universal 
 in Hindustan at the invasion of Nadir Shah ; nor 
 have the people become more virtuous since, conse- 
 quently not more happy, nor more independent." 1 
 
 Nadir having ordered, as the terms of peace, that 
 all the provinces on the west side of the Indus, Kabul, 
 Tatta, and part of Multan, should be detached from 
 the dominions of the Mogul, and added to his own, 
 restored Mohammed to the exercise of his degraded 
 sovereignty ; and, bestowing upon him and his cour- 
 tiers some good advice, began on the 14th of April, 
 1739, his march from Delhi, of which he had been 
 in possession for thirty-seven days. 2 
 
 1 Aurungzeb's Successors, by Scott, p. 214. 
 
 2 The most valuable of the details respecting the invasion of Nadir are 
 furnished us by Golam Hussein, (Seer Mutakhareen, i. 325 344.) Scott 
 as usual, gives chiefly an abridgement of the Seer Mutakhareen, but here, 
 enriched with some particulars from the known historians of Nadir. An 
 interesting account of the march of the Persian army back, and its opera- 
 tions in Bucharia, and Kharism, to which Nadir immediately proceeded,
 
 458 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OK in j n regulating the offices of state, Mohammed was 
 . obliged to confirm the vizirat, which he intended for 
 other hands, to Kummur ad Din Khan, the relation 
 and partisan of Nizam al Mulk. At the request of 
 that domineering chief, the office of Ameer al Omrah 
 was transferred to Ghazee ad Din Khan, his eldest 
 son while he himself was in haste to depart for the 
 Deccan, where Nazir Jung, his second son, whom he 
 had left his deputy, was already aspiring at indepen- 
 dence. After several months spent without avail in 
 messages and negotiations, the father was obliged to 
 draw his sword against the son. A victory, gained in 
 the neighbourhood of Ahmednuggur, restored his go- 
 vernment to the Nizam, and made Nazir Jung his 
 prisoner. To compose the provinces subject to his 
 command, which had been governed so irregularly 
 and feebly for many years, and were over-run by in- 
 numerable disorders, required both vigour and time. 
 The war which he carried on in the Carnatic was the 
 most remarkable of his subsequent transactions. Its 
 result is the only circumstance material to us. 
 Nearly the whole of that great province was reduced 
 to his obedience. 1 
 
 is given us by an eye-witness, Khojeh Abdulkurreem, a Kashmerian of 
 distinction, who accompanied him from Hindustan, and whose narrative 
 has been translated for us by Mr. Gladwin. Khojeh Abdulkurreem differs 
 from Scott, in the day of the conqueror's departure from Delhi, which he 
 makes the 4th of May. Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, p. 1. A cu- 
 rious letter of Nadir Shah himself, giving an account to his son of his 
 march towards Delhi, of the battle, and of his intention not to seize the 
 crown of Mohammed, has been translated by Sir John Malcolm. ( Asiat. 
 Res. x. 539.) M. Other authorities might have been cited, particularly 
 Fraser's Life of Nadir Shah, and Hanway's Travels. Malcolm's History 
 of Persia, was perhaps not available when these pages were written 
 though the work was published before the History of India. W. 
 
 1 For the circumstances of Nizam ul Mulk's resumption of his govern- 
 ment in the Deccan, sec Seer Mutakharecn, iii. 3, 8.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 459 
 
 Sadut Khan Boorahan al Mulk, the deceased go- BOOK HI 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 vernor of Oude, was succeeded by his son-in-law, 
 
 Abul Mansoor Khan Suffder Jung ; who subsequent- 1739 - 
 ly received the dignity of grand master of the house- 
 hold. A new governor was appointed for Guzerat, 
 and an effort was made, but without success, to ravage 
 that important province from the Mahrattas. 
 
 A refractory chief called the Emperor into the field, 
 in the year 1745. This was Ali Mohammed Khan, 
 the founder of the power of the Rohillas, a name of 
 some celebrity in the modern history of Hindustan. 
 The Afghans, inhabiting the district of Roh, bor- 
 dering on Cabul, were known by the name of Rohil- 
 las. 1 Ali Mohammed himself is said to have been of 
 Hindu extraction ; the son of a man of the caste of 
 cow-keepers. He was adopted, however, and reared 
 by an Afghan of the Rohilla clan ; a man of a rank 
 no higher than his own. He entered into the army 
 as a common soldier ; and after a time acquired the 
 command of a small body of Afghan cavalry, with 
 which he served in the army of the Vizir, governor 
 of Moradabad. His conduct gained him distinction ; 
 he was recommended to promotion by the Vizir ; re- 
 ceived some lands in grant from the Emperor; and 
 was appointed to manage certain districts in Morada- 
 bad by the Vizir. Under the negligent government of 
 Mohammed, and the disorders which ensued upon the 
 invasion of Nadir Shah, scope was afforded to the 
 ambition of such a man as Ali Mohammed, the Rohilla. 
 He acquired possession of the lands of some neigh- 
 bouring jagheer holders, under pretence of taking 
 
 1 Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, p. 183.
 
 460 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 \ n them in lease : He increased the number of Afghans 
 in his pay ; many of whom the severities of Nadir 
 
 ' Shah had driven to look for a home beyond the 
 reach of his destructive sword, and to seek employ- 
 ment and protection under Ali Mohammed their 
 countryman. The supposition of power produced 
 its usual consequence. The remittances from his 
 government were delayed and evaded. The Vizir sent 
 a new governor with an army to enforce obedience. 
 Him the Rohilla conquered and slew : and the Vizir, 
 who hated every thing which disturbed his pleasures 
 and ease, thought it better to make an accommo- 
 dation with Ali than contend with him. He was 
 confirmed in the government of certain districts; 
 and by one acquisition after another, extended the 
 limits of his authority, till they comprehended Mo- 
 radabad, Bareilly, Aunlah,Sambal, Bangur, Budaoon, 
 and Amroah, districts of Kutteer, a province hence- 
 forward known by the name of Rohilcund, from the 
 Afghan clan, to whom more particularly, Ali and 
 his followers were regarded as belonging. The 
 progress of this adventurer alarmed at last the Vice- 
 roy of Oude ; whose representations of danger pre- 
 vailed upon the Emperor to take the field in person. 
 The Rohilla was unable to resist the imperial army, 
 but was underhand supported by the Vizir, in oppo- 
 sition to the Viceroy of Oude. He was besieged in 
 one of his fortresses ; but receiving the promise of 
 the Vizir to make his peace with the Emperor, he 
 sent away his treasures to a place of safety, and 
 surrendered. As a compensation for the territory 
 which he had governed, he received the foujdary, or
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 461 
 
 military and judicial authority of Sirhind, a district 
 in the upper part of the province of Delhi. 1 
 
 In the second year after this imperial expedition, 1747 
 happened the invasion of Ahmed Abdallee, a man 
 destined to be the founder of a formidable empire in 
 the contiguous provinces of Persia and Hindustan. 
 He was an Afghan chief of the tribe of Abdal, in- 
 habiting a district of the mountains of Gaur, near 
 the city of Herat. When yet very young he was 
 taken prisoner by Nadir Shah, and was for some 
 time one of the slaves of the presence ; till, attract- 
 ing the notice of his master, he was raised to the 
 office of Yessawal, or mace-bearer. He was by de- 
 grees promoted to a considerable rank in the army, 
 and accompanied Nadir in his invasion of India. 
 Nadir Shah was massacred in his tent, not far from 
 Meshed, on the 8th of June, 1747. Ahmed Ab- 
 dallee had acquired so great an ascendency among 
 the troops, that upon this event several commanders 
 and their followers joined his standard; and he 
 drew off toward his own country. He fell in with 
 and seized a convoy of treasure, which was pro- 
 ceeding to the camp. This enabled him to engage 
 in his pay a still larger body of his countrymen. 
 He proclaimed himself king of the Afghans ; and took 
 the title of Doordowran, or pearl of the age, which 
 being corrupted into Dooranee, gave one of their 
 names to himself and his Abdallees. 2 He marched 
 
 1 Seer Mutakhareen, (iii. 20 26) ; Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, 
 (p. 183 185). Scott gives a very short and unsatisfactory abridgement 
 of the passage in the Seer Mutakhareen; Auruugzeb's Successors, p. 218. 
 M. A more detailed account is given in Hamilton's History of the 
 Rohilla Afgans. W. 
 
 2 Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, p. 204.
 
 462 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA 
 
 BOOK in towards Kandahar, which submitted to his arms ; 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 and next proceeded to Kabul. The inhabitants had 
 1747. resisted the proposal of the governor to purchase 
 tranquillity by the payment of a contribution, but 
 they deserted him on the approach of danger ; and 
 this province also fell into the hands of the Afghan. 
 The governor of Lahore sent him a proposal, offering 
 to betray his trust, and become the servant of 
 Ahmed, on condition of being appointed his Vizir ; 
 and though he repented of his engagement and came 
 to blows, his troops made a feeble resistance ; and 
 Lahore was added to the dominions of the conqueror. 
 He now directed his ambitious thoughts to the 
 capital of Hindustan, with the feeble government of 
 which he was not unacquainted. A large army, under 
 the Emperor's eldest son, the Vizir, and other dis- 
 tinguished chiefs, advanced as far as the Sutlej 
 to repel him; but he passed them artfully, and 
 plundered the rich city of Sirhind, where the heavy 
 baggage of the prince was deposited. The im- 
 perialists made haste to overtake him : and, after 
 several days of skirmishing, the Vizir was killed with 
 a cannon ball in his tent. The brittle materials of 
 an Indian army were nearly broken asunder by this 
 event; the Rajpoots, under their princes, "stretched," 
 says the historian, " the feet of trepidation on the 
 boundless plain of despondency, and marched back 
 to their homes." However, the remaining chiefs, 
 and among the rest the sons of the late Vizir, ex- 
 erted themselves with constancy and judgment ; and 
 on the following day a still more disastrous accident 
 took place in the camp of the Abdallees. A 
 magazine of rockets and ammunition which had
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 463 
 
 been taken at Sirhind accidentally exploded, and BOOK in 
 
 killing a great number of people, shed through the 
 
 army confusion and dismay, Ahmed, no longer 1747 - 
 willing to risk an engagement, drew off his troops, 
 and marched unmolested to Kabul. 1 
 
 The Emperor, who only survived a sufficient time 
 to receive intelligence of this joyful event, expired in 
 the thirtieth year of his reign, and forty-ninth of 
 his age ; his constitution exhausted by the use of 
 opium. 2 
 
 Ahmed Shah, his eldest son, succeeded him without 
 opposition. The great character and power of Nizam 
 al Mulk removed all competition for the vizirat, but 
 he excused himself on account of his years, and 
 actually died, about a month afterwards, in the 
 hundred and fourth year of his age, leaving his 
 government of the Deccan to be seized by his second 
 son Nazir Jung, whose good fortune it was to be 
 present on the spot. After the refusal of the Nizam, 
 the vizirat was bestowed upon Suffder Jung, the 
 Viceroy of Oude, for whom it was originally in- 
 tended. 
 
 1 Seer Mutakhareen, (iii. 3852) ; Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem, 
 p. 186, 203207. Life of Ahmed Shah, king of the Abdallees, who are 
 also called Duranees, from the custom of wearing a pearl in one of their 
 ears, translated from the Persian by Henry Vansittart, published in Glad- 
 win's Asiatic Miscellany. 
 
 2 The Seer Mutakhareen is the great authority for this reign ; Mr. Scott 
 giving little more than an abridgment of the narrative in that work. Some 
 curious facts are contained in the memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem. 
 Frazer's Nadir Shah ; and the history of that ferocious conqueror, trans- 
 lated into French by Sir William Jones, are to be consulted for the details 
 on the Persian side. In Frazer there is an abridgment of the Mogul his- 
 tory, from Aurungzeb to Mohammed Shah, which is given in a still more 
 abridged form by Holwell in his " Interesting Historical Events." Fra- 
 zer's materials were imperfect.
 
 464 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK i ii The Rohillas and Abdallee Afghans gave occa- 
 
 CHAP* 4 
 
 . sion to the most remarkable transactions of the reign 
 
 1749-50. O f Ahmed Shah. AH Mohammed, though removed 
 from Rohilcund to Sirhind, found means to return, 
 upon the invasion of the Abdallees, and being joined 
 by the Afghans, great numbers of whom had still 
 remained in the country, he regained possession, and 
 expelled the imperial governor, much about the time 
 of the death of Mohammed Shah. He enjoyed not 
 his prosperity long; but, dying of a cancer in his back, 
 left discord and contention in his family. This cir- 
 cumstance encouraged the governor of Oude, who 
 was now Vizir, and commanded the remaining re- 
 sources of the state, to form the design of relieving 
 himself from the dread of an aspiring neighbour, and 
 of increasing his power and dominion by the country 
 which that neighbour possessed. The district of 
 Furruckabad was governed by an Afghan of the 
 Bungush tribe. This man the Vizir endeavoured 
 to make his instrument in the destruction of the 
 Rohillas. But the Bungush chieftain lost his life in 
 the contest. The Vizir was not less greedy of the 
 country of his Bungush friend, than he was of that 
 of his Rohilla antagonist. The family of the Bun- 
 gush chieftain, perceiving the designs of the Vizir, 
 formed a confederacy with the neighbouring Af- 
 ghans. The Vizir was defeated in a great battle ; 
 after which the Afghans proceeded in two bodies, 
 one to Allahabad, where they plundered the city and 
 besieged the citadel ; the other to Lucknow, which 
 they expected to surprise. The Vizir, now trembling 
 for his own possessions, could think of nothing better 
 than the wretched resource of calling in the Mah-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 465 
 
 rattas to his aid. They fell upon the country with BOOK m 
 
 their usual rapidity ; took the Afghans in a great 
 
 measure by surprise; and compelled them after 1749-so. 
 much slaughter to take shelter in the neighbouring 
 hills. This done, the Mahrattas had no inclination 
 to depart. They took up their quarters during the 
 rainy season in the country which they had cleared; 
 and the Vizir was fain to assign them a large por- 
 tion of it in the name of a reward for their service. 
 The Afghans, as a welcome counterpoise, were 
 allowed to re-occupy the remainder. These events 
 occurred before the end of the year 1750. 
 
 In 1749, Ahmed Abdallee marched from Kabul, 
 and advanced as far as Lahore. Meer Munnoo, the 
 eldest son of the late Vizir, had been appointed Go- 
 vernor of Multan, and of as much of the other pro- 
 vinces of Upper India, as could be recovered from 
 the Persians or Afghans. Being unprepared for 
 adequate resistance, he offered to purchase the re- 
 treat of the Dooranee by assigning to him the re- 
 venues of four districts ; with which Ahmed, for the 
 present, thought proper to content himself. 1 In 
 two years he repeated his visit ; when Meer Mun- 
 noo, after some months of vigorous resistance, was 
 betrayed by one of his generals, and defeated. The 
 Dooranee Shah was not incapable of generosity ; he 
 soothed the vanquished leader by obliging expres- 
 sions, and appointed him his deputy in the two 
 provinces of Multan and Lahore, which were now 
 finally severed from the dominion of the Moguls. 
 
 1 Seer Mutakhareen (iii. 79). Mr. Scott speaks of a vigorous resistance 
 on the part of the Governor (p. 225) ; but Golam Hussein says, there was 
 no fighting; and so does Kojeh Abdulkurreem (p. 236). 
 
 VOL. II. 2 H
 
 466 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 1 A messenger was sent to Delhi to demand even a 
 - formal cession of the conquered territory ; and, 
 1752- though Suffder Jung was summoned from his go- 
 vernment, with a view to resist the Afghans, the 
 favourite eunuch, jealous of the honour which he 
 might acquire by recovering those important pro- 
 vinces, persuaded the emperor to ratify the cession 
 before he arrived. About the same time an expe- 
 dition was undertaken against one of the nations of 
 Rajpoots, who had seized, with a disputable title, 
 upon certain districts in Ajmere. The war was ill 
 conducted, and ended in disgrace. 
 
 A youth now appeared on the stage, who was des- 
 tined to play a conspicuous part in the closing scenes 
 of the Mogul sovereignty. This was the only son of 
 Ghazee ad Din Khan, the eldest son of Nizam al 
 Mulk. Upon the death of Nazir Jung in the Deccan, 
 Ghazee ad Din his elder brother, solicited the Vice- 
 royalty of that important country for himself; and 
 taking with him the Mahratta army, which had 
 been in the pay of the Vizir, marched unmolested to 
 Aurungabad. At this place he died only a few days 
 after his arrival. His army immediately dispersed ; 
 and the Mahratta general took possession of Kandesh, 
 the government of which the deceased Viceroy had 
 been obliged to assign him in security for the pay of 
 his troops. His son Shuhab ad Din, whom he had 
 left in the capital, made so good a use of his interest, 
 chiefly with the Vizir Suffder Jung, that he received 
 his father's titles of Ghazee ad Din Khan Baha- 
 dur, and was raised to his office of Ameer al 
 Omrah. This did not prevent him from joining im- 
 mediately the party of the Emperor, and from se-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 467 
 
 conding, with all his power, the machinations in- B K m 
 
 _ r CHAP. 4. 
 
 tended for the destruction of the Vizir. The military 
 
 command of the palace was artfully taken out of the 1752 - 
 hands of that officer; and he and his dependants 
 were refused admittance. The Vizir was alarmed at 
 the prospect of a war with his master. He there- 
 fore solicited permission to retire to his government 
 beyond the Jumna. This was refused. He marched 
 out of the city, and encamped at a few miles' dis- 
 tance, with an intention of proceeding to his govern- 
 ment without leave, but without drawing the sword, 
 unless in self-defence. Learning that an attack was 
 certainly intended, he invited to his assistance the 
 Jaat Raja Sooraje Mul. This chief had already 
 fought in his service, and readily joined his old 
 friend and commander. 1 The Vizir set up a new 
 Emperor, a youth whom he represented as one of 
 
 1 The Jaats or Jauts, inhabiting the mountainous region, from the 
 Chumbul and Jumna eastward, to the Jeypoor Rajaship on the west; 
 and from twenty coss to the southward of Agra, to the province of Delhi 
 on the north, were known as a formidable predatory tribe from the earliest 
 period of the Mohammedan history. The original seat of the Jaats 
 appears to have been near the Indus, in the lower part of Multan. Their 
 chief, or one of their chiefs, was received into the service of Jehandar 
 Shah, and behaved with gallantry in the war between that Prince and 
 Ferokhser. Upon the ascendency gained by the latter Prince, the Jaat 
 retired with his plunder to his fortress of Bhurtpore. This chief was suc- 
 ceeded by his son, who was obliged to become tributary to the Raja of 
 Jeypoor. To him succeeded his brother, who contrived to throw off his 
 dependence upon the Rajpoot ; and, first of his race, assumed the title of 
 Raja. During the weakness of Mohammed Shah's administration, he 
 spread his incursions to the very walls of Agra, and left to his son and 
 successor, Sooraje Mull, a considerable kingdom. His power, and vicinity 
 to the capital, rendered him an object of consequence;- and the Vizir had 
 attached him to his interests by placing him among the Omrahs of the em- 
 pire, and other favours. See an account of the Jaats, Asiat. An. Reg. 
 1802 ; Characters, p. 12. Also " A Sketch of Rajehpootaneh," translated 
 from the Persian, in " Tracts, &c." by William Francklin, a small volume, 
 published in 1811. 
 
 2 H 2
 
 4()8 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in t) ie r oyal princes; and laid siege to the castle. It 
 
 was vigorously defended by the spirit and bravery of 
 
 1753 - the young Ameer al Omrah ; and, after a fruitless 
 contest of six months, both parties were glad to ne- 
 gotiate. Suffder Jung gave up his pretended Prince, 
 and was allowed to retire to his government, but 
 was deprived of the Vizirat, which was bestowed 
 upon Intizam ad Dowlah, son of the late Vizir 
 Kummur ad Din Khan. 
 
 The Jaat Raja, Sooraje Mul, had given sufficient 
 umbrage by his support of the rebellious Vizir ; but, 
 during the weakness of the Mogul government, the 
 Jaats had also extended their encroachments over a 
 great part of the province of Agra. The youthful 
 ardour of Ghazee ad Din suggested to him an ex- 
 pedition for the entire reduction of the Jaat country. 
 He called to his assistance a Mahratta general, Hol- 
 kar Mulhar Rao ; and the Jaats, unable to keep the 
 field, retired to their strong-holds. To reduce them 
 speedily, heavy cannon was required. For this Gha- 
 zee ad Din applied to the Emperor. But the 
 aspiring temper of the Ameer al Omrah was already 
 formidable to both the Emperor and Intizam ad 
 Dowlah. Sooraje Mul, aware of their sentiments, 
 conveyed intimation to the Emperor, that if he would 
 meet him at Secundra, he would join him with all 
 his forces, and deliver him at once from the dangers 
 which, from the ambition of his Ameer al Omrah, 
 impended over his person and throne. The scheme 
 was relished ; and the Emperor, under pretence of a 
 hunting-party, set forward with as great a force as 
 possible on the road to Secundra. He had advanced 
 as far as that city, when Holkar Mulhar Rao sur-
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 469 
 
 prised his camp in the night. The Emperor, the c 
 Vizir, and other leading officers, fled, disguised as 
 
 women ; leaving even their wives and daughters be- 1753 - 
 hind them. Upon this the army disbanded, and 
 Ghazee ad Din marched to the capital, where no- 
 thing remained to oppose him. He invested him- 
 self with the office of Vizir ; seized the Emperor and 
 his mother ; blinded them both ; and bringing forth 
 Yezziz ad Din, son of the late Jehandar Shah, 
 proclaimed him Emperor, by the title of Aulumgeer 
 the Second. This revolution occurred in the year 
 1753. 1 
 
 During the same year died Suffder Jung, Subah- 
 dar of Oude ; and was succeeded by Sujah ad Dow- 
 lah, his son. About the same time died also Meer 
 Munnoo, Viceroy, under the Abdallee King, of the 
 provinces of Multan and Lahore. By the severe ex- 
 actions of the government, and the interruptions of 
 agriculture through the ravages and terror of war, 
 these provinces had for some time been severely af- 
 flicted with scarcity. Of this, one important conse- 
 quence was, an accession to the numbers and power 
 of the Seiks ; for that people making it a rule to pro- 
 vide maintenance and occupation for one another, 
 great numbers of persons in distress were tempted to 
 join them ; and all were readily received upon adopt- 
 ing the garb and principles of the sect. 2 The Ab- 
 dallee Shah withdrew not the government of Multan 
 and Lahore from the family of Meer Munnoo. His 
 
 1 The Seer Mutakhareen is followed hi the text. Francklin (Hist, of 
 Shah Aulum, p. 4) says, 1755. 
 
 2 Seer Mutakharecn, hi. 137.
 
 470 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 S on was a minor; but, in quality of guardian of the 
 minor, his mother was allowed to act in his stead. 
 1754. Under this arrangement, the disorder of the provinces 
 increased. The weakness of the administration sug- 
 gested to the Vizir, who now had changed his title 
 from that of Ghazee ad Din Khan to that of Umad 
 al Mulk, the project of wresting the provinces at once 
 from the hands of this female superintendent, and 
 from the dominion of the Afghans. During the life 
 of Meer Munnoo, the daughter of the Governess had 
 been promised in marriage to Ghazee ad Din Khan, 
 who now claimed fulfilment of the contract. The 
 mother, to whom few events could yield greater plea- 
 sure, conveyed to him his bride, with all the magni- 
 ficence which the importance of the nuptials appeared 
 to require. Under the confidence and security which 
 this alliance inspired, the Vizir detached a body of 
 troops to Lahore, who seized, and conveyed to his 
 camp, the deluded Governess, inveighing against 
 his perfidy, and denouncing the vengeance which 
 Ahmed Shah, her sovereign, would speedily exact. 
 
 The fulfilment of her angry predictions was not 
 long deferred. The exasperated Afghan hasted 
 from Kandahar to Lahore, which was evacuated on 
 his approach ; and thence directed his march to 
 Delhi. The Vizir, sensible of his inability to con- 
 tend with the storm, eagerly solicited reconciliation 
 with his mother-in-law, and employed her as a medi- 
 ator with the Shah. The invader rejected not the 
 prayer, but demanded a large contribution as the 
 price of his clemency ; and in the mean time con- 
 tinued his march to Delhi. The wretched Aulum- 
 geer having no means of resistance, opened to him
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 471 
 
 the gates of the capital ; and affected to receive him 
 as a royal guest. For some weeks, Delhi was sub 
 ject to all the enormities which are practised by a 1756 - 
 barbarian soldiery on a prostrate foe. To gratify 
 more fully the rapacity of the invader, UmadalMulk 
 offered to go in person to raise contributions in the 
 Dooab, or country between the Jumna and Ganges ; 
 while the Dooranee Shah was to march against the 
 country of the Jaat Raja Sooraje Mul. He had 
 reduced some fortresses, and was employed in be- 
 sieging the citadel of Agra, when a plague broke out 
 in his camp. Upon this he formed the resolution of 
 returning immediately to his own country, without 
 even waiting for the return of the Vizir. An inter- 
 view, as he passed Delhi, again took place between 
 him and Aulumgeer. The fallen Mogul entreated 
 the invader of his country not to leave him in the 
 hands of his overbearing Vizir. Nujeeb ad Dowlah, 
 a chief of Rohillas, who had lately acted a conspi- 
 cuous part in the imperial service, was, at the 
 request of the Emperor, appointed Ameer al Omrah ; 
 and to him the Dooranee recommended the protection 
 of his master. 
 
 The Vizir, upon the retreat of the Abdallees en- 
 gaged in his party Ahmed Khan, the Bungush chief 
 of Furrukhabad, whose father had lost his life in the 
 contest with the Rohillas. To him and his Afghans 
 he joined an army of Mahrattas, under Ragonaut 
 Rao and Holkar. With this force he marched to 
 Delhi. The Emperor and Nujeeb ad Dowlah shut 
 the gates of the city ; but after a siege of forty-five 
 days, the Emperor was obliged to submit; while Nu- 
 jeeb ad Dowlah, by bribing the Mahrattas, obtained
 
 472 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 HOOK in t ] ie means O f escaping to his own district in Rohil- 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 - cund; and his ofticc of Ameer al Omrah was bestowed 
 17561 upon Ahmed Khan. Alee Gohur, the eldest son of 
 Aulumgeer, was in the vicinity of Delhi, supporting 
 himself with a small body of cavalry in some districts 
 which he had in Jaghire. The Vizir made his father 
 recall him; and the Prince repaired to Delhi, but re- 
 fused to enter the citadel, where he might easily be 
 confined. He was, accordingly, besieged in his pa- 
 lace; but a few of his followers cut a passage for him 
 through the troops of the Vizir, and he made his 
 escape to Nujeeb ad Dowlah, with whom, and with 
 the Subahdar of Oude, he remained for some months ; 
 and then betook himself for an asylum to the English 
 in Bengal. 
 
 The settlement which, with short-sighted policy, 
 the viceroy of Oude had given to a body of Mahrat- 
 tas in part of Rohilcund, had fired other Mahrattas 
 with a passion for the fertile country beyond the Gan- 
 ges. Of this passion, in labouring the ruin of Nu- 
 jeeb ad Dowlah, and of the Nabob of Oude, 1 whose 
 power he dreaded and whose government he desired, 
 Umad al Mulk resolved to make his account. At 
 his instigation two chiefs, Junkojee andDuttah Sindia, 
 set out from the Deccan, meditating no less than the 
 
 1 The term Nabob, as equivalent to Subahdar, is very modern in Hin- 
 dustan ; and is said to have begun with Sujah Dowlah. Formerly it was 
 not applied to the Subahdar or governor of the Subah, but to the Subah- 
 dar's deputy, or locum tenens ; the literal meaning of the word being 
 deputy. The new use of the term is thus accounted for in the Seer Mu- 
 takhareen (iii. 167) : When the Prince Alee Gohur was on the visit just 
 mentioned, to Snjah ad Dowlah, and received the compliments of that 
 Governor, he addressed him by the title of brother Nabob, which being 
 reckoned an elegant compliment, passed into conversation, when the name 
 was afterwards currently applied to him, and also to ether governors.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 473 
 
 entire subjugation of Hindustan. They crossed the BOOK In 
 
 * CHAP. 4. 
 
 Jumna; and driving Nujeeb ad Dowlah from the 
 
 open country besieged him in one of his forts, where 1756- 
 he defended himself with obstinate bravery. Sujah 
 ad Dowlah saw that the danger was common; and, 
 collecting an army, marched to support him. He 
 encountered the Mahratta army; gained the advan- 
 tage, and forced it to cross the Jumna, where a consi- 
 derable portion of it perished in the waters. Hear- 
 ing at the same time of the march of the Abdallee 
 Shah, its leaders were sufficiently disposed to accom- 
 modation. 
 
 As soon as Umad al Mulk, the Vizir, was made 
 acquainted with the alliance of Sujah ad Dowlah and 
 the Rohillas,it was his desire, as his interest, to march 
 to the assistance of his Mahratta allies. But he was 
 now beset with a number of difficulties. The Abdallee 
 Shah, whom he had twice offended, was in motion : 
 The Rohillas, with the Nabob of Oude, were oppos- 
 ing the Mahrattas : And Aulumgeer was in corre- 
 spondence with all his enemies. He resolved, without 
 scruple, to deliver himself from the last of these diffi- 
 culties. A trusty Cashmerian having received his 
 commission, the Emperor was stabbed with poignards, 
 and his body thrown out upou the strand of the 
 Jumna; where it was stripped by the people, and 
 remained exposed for eighteen hours. Mohee al 
 Sunnut, a son or grandson of Kaum Buksh, the 
 youngest son of Aurungzeb, was taken from con- 
 finement, and set up as the pageant of royalty; after 
 which the Vizir hastened to join the conflict against 
 Nujeeb ad Dowlah and the Nabob of Oude. He 
 was on his march when he heard that peace was
 
 474 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in conc l u( l e( l. and that the Mahrattas were gone to 
 
 CHAP. 4. 
 
 oppose themselves to the approach of the Abdallee 
 
 1759> King. The means of personal safety now engrossed 
 
 the mind of Umad al Mulk. He retired to the 
 
 country of Suraje Mul, and shut himself up in one of 
 
 the strongest of his forts. 
 
 Upon the last retreat of Ahmed Dooranee Shah 
 from Hindustan, he had left his son Governor of La- 
 hore and Multan ; disorderded by revolutions, wasted 
 and turbulent. A chief who had served with dis- 
 tinction under the late Meer Munnoo incited the 
 Seiks to join him in molesting the Dooranees ; and 
 they gained several important advantages over their 
 principal commanders. They invited the Mahratta 
 generals, Ragonaut Rao, Shumsheer Bahadur, and 
 Holkar, who had advanced into the neighbourhood 
 of Delhi, to join them in driving the Abdallees from 
 Lahore. 1 No occupation could be more agreeable to 
 the Mahrattas. After taking Sirhind, they advanced 
 to Lahore, where the Abdallee Prince made but a 
 feeble resistance, and fled. This event put them in 
 possession of both Multan and Lahore. Placing 
 the country under a temporary government, they 
 marched homeward at the approach of the rains; 
 but left a Mahratta Subahdar, who next season ex- 
 tended his acquisitions as far as the river Attok. It 
 was at this very time that the army, of which we 
 have already spoken, marched to take possession of 
 Rohilcund and Oude : and the whole Indian conti- 
 nent appeared now about to be swallowed up by the 
 
 1 The Mahratta General was Ragunath Rao, Holkar was serving under 
 him. Duff's Mahrattas, ii. 132. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 
 
 475 
 
 Mahrattas. Had not Ahmed Shah, the Abdallee, B *i n 
 
 CilAi . -i. 
 
 whose empire was in its youth and vigour, been 
 
 upon the stage: had not the Mahrattas at that 1760 ' 
 time been possessed of extraordinary power; the 
 Mahrattas in the one case; the Abdallees, in the 
 other, might have extended their dominion from 
 Thibet and Persia to Cape Comorin. The opposi- 
 tion which they made to one another opened a way 
 for a maritime nation to introduce itself from the 
 other side of the globe, and to acquire by rapid 
 strides a more complete ascendant over that exten- 
 sive region than any single government had ever 
 attained. 
 
 Ahmed Shah was not only roused by the loss of 
 his two provinces, and the disgrace imprinted on his 
 arms ; but he was invited by the chiefs and people 
 of Hindustan, groaning under the depredations of the 
 Mahrattas, to march to their succour and become 
 their King. The Mahrattas, flying before him, eva- 
 cuated the two provinces at his approach; and 
 assembled together from all quarters in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Delhi, The Dooranee army was joined 
 by the chiefs of Rohilcund, Nujeeb al Dowlah, 
 Saadoollah Khan, Hafiz Rahmut, and Doondee 
 Khan. For some days the Dooranees hovered 
 round the Mahratta camp; when the Mahrattas, 
 who were distressed for provisions, came out and 
 offered battle. Their army, consisting of 80,000 
 veteran cavalry, 1 was almost wholly destroyed ; and 
 Duttahjee Sindia, their General, was among the 
 
 1 Holkar and Sindhia, had not 30,000 men in the whole, and these were 
 acting in separate divisions. Hist, of the Mahrattas, ii. 136. W.
 
 476 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 slain. A detachment of horse sent against another 
 body of Mahrattas, who were marauding under Holkar 
 in the neighbourhood of Secundra, surprised them 
 so completely that Holkar fled naked, with a hand- 
 ful of followers, and the rest, with the exception 
 of a few prisoners and fugitives, were all put to the 
 sword. 
 
 During the rainy season, while the Dooranee Shah 
 was quartered at Secundra, the news of this disaster 
 and disgrace excited the Mahrattas to the greatest 
 exertions. A vast army was collected ; and Sudda- 
 sheo Rao, commonly called Bhao, 1 the nephew 
 of Ballajee, the Peshwa and other chiefs of the 
 greatest note, assuming the command, the Mahrattas 
 marched to gratify the resentments, and fulfil the 
 unbounded hopes of the nation. Having been 
 joined by Sooraje Mul the Jaat, and Umad al Mulk 
 the Vizir, they arrived at the Jumna before it was 
 sufficiently fallen to permit either the Mahrattas on 
 the other side, or the Dooranees, to cross. In the mean 
 time they marched to Delhi, of which after some 
 resistance they took possession ; plundered it with 
 their usual rapacity, tearing away even the gold and 
 silver ornaments of the palace; proclaimed Sultan 
 Jewan Bukht, the son of Alee Gohur, Emperor; 
 and named Sujah ad Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, his 
 Vizir. Impatient at intelligence of these and some 
 other transactions, Ahmed Shah swam the Jumna, 
 still deemed impassable, with his whole army. 
 This daring adventure, and the remembrance of the 
 
 1 The term means ' brother,' but is applied to a cousin, and Sadashco 
 was so termed, because he was the cousin of the Peshwa. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 477 
 
 late disaster, shook the courage of the Mahrattas ; BOOK \ 11 
 
 ' CHAP. 4. 
 
 and they intrenched their camp on a plain near Pan- 
 
 niput. The Dooranee, having surrounded their 176 - 
 position with parties of troops, to prevent the pas 
 sage of supplies, contented himself for some days 
 with skirmishing. At last he tried an assault ; 
 when the Rohilla infantry of Nujeeb ad Dowlah 
 forced their way into the Mahratta works, and Bui- 
 want Rao with other chiefs was killed ; but night 
 put an end to the conflict. Meanwhile scarcity 
 prevailed, and filth accumulated, in the Mahratta 
 camp. The vigilance of Ahmed intercepted their 
 convoys. In a little time famine and pestilence 
 raged. A battle became the only resource. The 
 Abdallee restrained his troops till the Mahrattas had 
 advanced a considerable way from their works ; 
 when he rushed upon them with so much rapidity as 
 left them hardly any time for using their cannon. 
 The Bhao was killed early in the action ; confusion 
 soon pervaded the army ; and a dreadful carnage 
 ensued. The field was floated with blood. Twenty- 
 two thousand men and women were taken prisoners. 
 Of those who escaped from the field of battle, the 
 greater part were butchered by the people of the 
 country, who had suffered from their depredations. 
 Of an army of 140,000 horse, commanded by the 
 most celebrated generals of the nation, only three 
 chiefs of any rank, and a mere residue of the troops, 
 found their way to the Deccan. 1 The Dooranee 
 Shah made but little use of this mighty victory. 
 
 1 This account of the famous battle of Panniput ; the consequences of 
 which were so momentous to the future fortunes of India, is not altogether 
 correct : one great cause of the defeat of the Mahrattas, was, the defection
 
 478 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 CHAP. 4. After remaining a few months at Delhi, he recog- 
 
 nised Alee Gohur, as Emperor, by the title of Shah 
 Aulum the Second: and intrusting Nujeeb ad 
 Dowlah with the superintendence of affairs, till his 
 master should return from Bengal, he marched back 
 to his capital of Kabul in the end of the year 1760. 
 With Aulumgeer the Second, the empire of the 
 Moguls may be justly considered as having arrived 
 at its close. The unhappy Prince who now received 
 the name of Emperor, and who, after a life of misery 
 and disaster, ended his days a pensioner of English 
 merchants, never possessed a sufficient degree of 
 power to consider himself for one moment as master 
 of the throne. 1 
 
 of Suraj Mull and the Jaats. See account of the battle by an eye-witness. 
 As. Researches, vol. iii. p. 91, and Duffs Mahratta History, ii. 144. W. 
 1 The events of Aulumgeer's and the preceding reign are found in con- 
 siderable detail in the Seer Mutakhareen (iii. 62 192), -which is abridged 
 by Scott, Hist, of Aurungzeb's Successors, p. 224 246. The principal 
 facts are noticed, but in certain respects somewhat differently, by Francklin, 
 Life of Shah Aulum, p. 7 27. M. This summary of Mohammedan His- 
 tory, though too concise to be of all the interest of which it is capable, is, 
 in most instances, as correct as the imperfect materials at the author's 
 command permitted. Some valuable additions to the authorities on this 
 subject have been made since it was written ; but a more extensive refer- 
 ence to native histories, many of which, of great merit, exist, is still indis- 
 pensable to a faithful and interesting view of the History of Mohammedan 
 India. W.
 
 THE MOGUL DYNASTY. 479 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A Comparison of the State of Civilization among 
 the Mohammedan Conquerors of India with the 
 State of Civilization amony the Hindus, 
 
 AFTER this display of the transactions to which the BOOKIII 
 Mohammedan nations have given birth in Hin- 
 dustan, it is necessary to ascertain, as exactly as 
 possible, the particular stage of civilization at which 
 these nations had arrived. Beside the importance of 
 this inquiry, as a portion of the history of the 
 human mind, andaleading fact in the history of India; 
 it is requisite for the purpose of ascertaining whether 
 the civilization of the Hindus received advancement 
 or depression from the ascendency over them which 
 the Mohammedans acquired. 
 
 We have seen, in the comparisons adduced to 
 illustrate the state of civilization among the Hindus, 
 that the nations, in the western parts of Asia; the 
 Persians, the Arabians, and even the Turks; pos- 
 sessed a degree of intellectual faculties rather higher 
 than the nations situated beyond them toward the 
 East; were rather less deeply involved in the ab- 
 surdities and weaknesses of a rude state of society ; 
 had in fact attained a stage of civilization, in some 
 little degree, higher than the other inhabitants of 
 that quarter of the globe. 
 
 This is a statistical fact, to which it is not pro- 
 bable that much contradiction will hereafter be 
 applied. The point of chief importance, for the
 
 480 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 l present inquiry, is, to show, that the people who 
 actually invaded Hindustan, and assumed the go- 
 vernment over so large a portion of its inhabitants, 
 were perfectly on a level with the Arabians and 
 Persians, in the highest state of their civilization. 
 
 The M ohammedans, who established their dominion 
 in Hindustan, were principally derived from the 
 eastern portions of that great country which was 
 contained within the limits of the Persian empire in 
 its greatest extent. 
 
 These eastern provinces of the great Persian em- 
 pire, Bactria and Transoxiana, with the contiguous 
 regions, at the time when those men were formed 
 who established the Mohammedan dominion in Hin- 
 dustan, were remarkable rather for exceeding than 
 falling short of the other parts of that empire, in the 
 attainments of civilized life. The language of Balkh 
 was reckoned the most elegant dialect of the Persian 
 tongue ; and when God speaks mildly and gently to 
 the cherubim surrounding his throne, this, according 
 to the Mohammedans, is the language he employs. A 
 large proportion of the men who have been most dis- 
 tinguished in all the different walks of Persian lite- 
 rature, have been natives of Balkh ; of whom it may 
 suffice to mention Mohammed Ebn Emir Khowand 
 Shah, better known to Europeans under the name of 
 Mirkhond, the author of a great historical w'ork, to 
 which Europeans have been indebted for much of 
 their knowledge of Persian history ; Rashid, a cele- 
 brated poet ; and Anwari, famous both as a poet and 
 astronomer. So greatly was Balkh distinguished 
 during the reigns of the immediate successors of 
 Jungiz Khan, that it was denominated Kobbat al
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 481 
 
 Islam, the metropolis of Islamism. Bokhara was BOOKIII 
 one of the greatest seats of learning in the East. ' 
 Students flocked from all parts to the celebrated 
 university of Bokhara. In the Mogul language, 
 Bokhar, we are told, is a common appellation for a 
 learned man. Among the celebrated men who have 
 made illustrious the studies of Bokhara, is found a 
 name, ranked high among his contemporaries in all 
 the quarters of the globe, Ebn Sina, or Avicenna, 
 who wrote above one hundred volumes, and died in 
 1036, at the early age of fifty-eight. 
 
 The Moguls were not perfectly barbarous when 
 they advanced upon the countries of the West. It 
 is sufficiently proved that they had the use of letters ; 
 they had an alphabet of their own, in no degree 
 corresponding with the troublesome characters of 
 the Chinese, but as ingenious and simple as that of 
 the Romans. 1 The degree in which they approxi- 
 mated to the mental capacity of the most enlightened 
 nations of Asia, is abundantly proved, not only by 
 that power of combined action which enabled them 
 to effect their conquests, but by the skill with which 
 they regulated the government of China, as well as 
 that of Persia and Transoxiana, to which they sub- 
 sequently advanced. It appears not that the govern- 
 ment in those several countries was more skilfully 
 conducted in any hands, than in those of the imme- 
 diate successors of Jungis. The Moguls, at the 
 time of their conquests, were so fully prepared for a 
 new step in civilization, that they assimilated them- 
 selves with wonderful rapidity, both in China and 
 
 1 It was not their own, but the Syriac, introduced by Nestorian 
 missionaries. Remusat Langues, Tartares, p. 29. W. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 I
 
 482 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK HI Persia, to the more cultivated people among whom 
 
 CHAP. 5. ' . 
 
 they had arrived ; and, in a short time, were to be 
 
 distinguished from them rather by slight shades of 
 character and manners, than any difference in point 
 of civilization. 1 In their new acquisitions in Persia 
 and Transoxiana, they were celebrated for prose- 
 cuting the sciences with great ardour ; and, in par- 
 ticular, for having laid astronomy, geography, and 
 the mathematical sciences, under great obligations. 
 In the city of Samarcand, the seat of government of 
 one of the sons of Jungis and his successors, " the 
 academy of sciences," to use the words of the writer 
 in the Universal History, " was one of the most emi- 
 nent to be found among the Mohammedans, who re- 
 sorted thither to study from all the neighbouring 
 countries." Abulfeda mentions two decisive marks 
 of a considerable degree of civilization. In his time 
 the streets were paved, and water was conveyed into 
 the city by leaden pipes. The silk-paper made here 
 was the most beautiful in Asia ; and in great request 
 over all the East. 2 
 
 1 This is by no means satisfactorily proved, and at any rate the people 
 were in a state as remote from that of civilization as can be well imagined, 
 unless by that term be understood the condition of nomadic races. The 
 Mongols of Jangiz Khan were shepherds and robbers, whose migratory 
 life and predatory habits rendered it easy to collect them into large moving 
 masses, and to precipitate them upon other countries in quest of plunder. 
 That they readily adopted the arts and civilization of those they subdued, 
 is a proof of their capacity for civilization, not of their being civilized. It 
 is true, however, only of their princes, upon their adoption of the Moham- 
 medan faith ; the people remain to the present day what they always were 
 shepherds and freebooters. The Turkman representative of the original 
 Turk, and the Uzbek representative of the early Mongol, offer in the pages 
 of Conolly, Burnes, and Moorcroft, no such examples of civilization as 
 are imagined in the text. W. 
 
 1 For these facts, the reader will find the original authors faithfully 
 quoted and extracted, in the Universal History, ii. 352, 354; iv. 309, 393;
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 483 
 
 Mohammed, of Ghizni, the founder of the first BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 Mohammedan dynasty in Hindustan was the most 
 
 accomplished Prince in Asia. His court contained 
 an assemblage of learned men. The greatest poet 
 of Asia wrote in his capital, and was fostered by his 
 bounty. He and his nobles adorned Ghizni with an 
 architecture which rendered it the finest city in the 
 East. He there erected an university, which he 
 richly endowed, and made it one of the principal 
 seats of learning in that quarter of the globe. 1 
 
 Under Mohammed of Ghizni, the great sovereign of 
 Persia, 2 who combined in his service all the finest 
 spirits that Persian civilization could produce, the 
 Hindus could not be said to be overrun, or held in 
 subjection by a people less civilized than themselves. 
 As little could this be said under the descendants of 
 Mohammed, who, though inferior to him in personal 
 qualities, were themselves formed, and served by men 
 who were formed, under the full influence of Persian 
 arts and knowledge. The same was undoubtedly the 
 case with the princes of the Gaurian dynasty. They, 
 and the leaders by whom they were principally served, 
 were, in respect of training and knowledge, in reality 
 Persians. It will not be denied, that the Moguls, 
 the last of the Mohammedan dynasties of Hindustan, 
 had remained a sufficient time in Transoxiana and 
 Persia, to have acquired all the civilization of these 
 
 v. 123. Modern Part, 8vo. Ed. In exploring the Persian and Arabian 
 Authorities, the authors of the Universal History are not the worst of our 
 guides. 
 
 1 Vide supra, p. 252. 
 
 8 Mahmud never was sovereign of Persia. That country was divided 
 among the houses of Saman and Dilem, from the former of whom Mah- 
 mud obtained some advantages, but not such as to justify the designation 
 here assigned to him. W. 
 
 2 I 2
 
 484 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 "* two countries, l n g before they attempted to perform 
 conquests in India. The Persian language was the 
 language they used ; the Persian laws, and the Per- 
 sian religion, were the laws and religion they had 
 espoused ; it was the Persian literature to which they 
 were devoted ; and they carried along with them the 
 full benefit of the Persian arts and knowledge, when 
 they established themselves in Hindustan. 
 
 The question, therefore, is, Whether by a govern- 
 ment, moulded and conducted agreeably to the pro- 
 perties of Persian civilization, instead of a government 
 moulded and conducted agreeably to the properties of 
 Hindu civilization, the Hindu population of India lost 
 or gained. For the aversion to a government, because 
 in the hands of foreigners; that is, men who are 
 called by one rather than some other name, without 
 regard to the qualities of the government, whether 
 better or worse ; is a prejudice which reason dis- 
 claims. 1 As India was not governed by the Moguls, 
 in the character of a detached province, valued only 
 as it could be rendered useful to another state, which 
 is the proper idea of foreign conquest ; but became 
 the sole residence and sole dominion of the Mogul 
 government, which thereby found its interest as 
 closely united to that of India, as it is possible for the 
 interest of a despotical government to be united with 
 that of its people, the Mogul government was, to all 
 
 1 It is something more than a prejudice; a government of foreigners ex. 
 eluding natives in their own country from powery can never be reconciled 
 to their feelings or opinions by abstract considerations of its goodness. 
 The difference implied by the term foreigners is also something more than 
 one of name alone ; it is a difference of sympathies and of interests which 
 cannot be concealed by the most conscientious and philosophical perfec- 
 tion in the discharge of its public obligations. W.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 485 
 
 the effects of interest, and thence of behaviour, not a BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 foreign, but a native government. 1 With these consi- 
 
 derations before the inquirer, it will not admit of any 
 long dispute, that human nature in India gained, 
 and gained very considerably, by passing from a 
 Hindu to a M ohammedan government. O f this , with- 
 out descending to particulars, the situation of human 
 nature, under the Hindu governments which we have 
 seen ; that of the Mahrattas, for example ; that of 
 Nepaul ; that of Mysore, before the time of Hyder 
 Ali ; or that of Travancore ; affords a very satisfac- 
 tory proof. The defects of Mohammedan rule, enor- 
 mous as they justly deserve to be held, can by no 
 means be regarded as equal to those which univer. 
 sally distinguish the government of Hindus. 
 
 The same minute analysis might here be insti- 
 tuted of the grand circumstances which constitute 
 the marks of civilization among the Mohammedans of 
 India, as has been already executed in regard to the 
 Hindus. But it is by no means necessary. The 
 state of civilization among the Hindus has been mys- 
 terious, and little known. With the state of civiliza- 
 tion in Persia the instructed part of European readers 
 are pretty familiar. Besides ; in analyzing the cir- 
 cumstances which constitute the marks of civilization 
 
 1 Then of course all objection to it as a government of foreigners ceased, 
 but even to the last there were vestiges of its foreign origin at the court of 
 Delhi. As regards the Hindus, there was the essential difference of law 
 and religion, but even the Indian Mohammedans had reason to complain 
 of the partial encouragement given to adventurers from Persia and Turk- 
 estan, many of whom rose to great wealth and power, and they suffered a 
 more permanent and extensive injury in the patronage bestowed upon the 
 languages and literature of Arabia and Persia, to the neglect and corrup- 
 tion of their own forms of speech, and the consequent depression of the 
 intellectual state of the people. W.
 
 486 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in among the Hindus, such comparisons, for the sake 
 of illustration, were made with the corresponding 
 circumstances among the Persians, as served to throw 
 some light upon the state of civilization among the 
 latter people, and to show in what position they stood 
 as compared with the Hindus. A few short reflec- 
 tions under each of the heads will therefore suffice. 
 
 1. CLASSIFICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE 
 PEOPLE. In this grand particular, the superiority 
 of the order of things among the Mohammedans, over 
 that among the Hindus, was inexpressibly great. 
 The Mohammedans were exempt from the institution 
 of caste ; that institution which stands a more effec- 
 tual barrier against the welfare of human nature than 
 any other institution which the workings of caprice 
 and of selfishness have ever produced. 1 Under the 
 Mohammedan despotisms of the East, nearly as much 
 as in republics themselves, all men are treated as 
 equal. There is no noble, no privileged class. Legally, 
 there is no hereditary property, as the king is the 
 heir of all his subjects. The only thing which 
 creates distinction, is office; or the exercise of some 
 
 1 The effects of caste, as a barrier to the happiness or advancement of 
 society have been shown to be exceedingly exaggerated, and it may be 
 safely asserted that it is much more propitious to social advancement, than 
 the rapid vicissitudes of Mohammedan society in which there is no se- 
 curity for the permanent possession of either station or property. That 
 condition of equality which Mr. Mill admires is a condition of equal abject- 
 ness, men may rise daily from the lowest ranks to the highest command, 
 but how are they raised? by the will of one individual; in all probability 
 they are wholly unfit for their elevation, and it is certain that they are 
 liable every day to be pushed down again to theif original insignificance, 
 happy if they escape with life. There was much more real equality under 
 the Hindu system in which each man knew and could maintain his posi- 
 tion, and could rely upon the laws and their hereditary expounders, for 
 protection against despotic caprice and cruelty. W.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 487 
 
 portion of the powers of government. For office, BOOK in 
 there is no monopolizing class. Men from the very ' 
 lowest ranks in life are daily rising to the highest 
 commands ; where each of them is honoured, in pro- 
 portion not to the opulence of his father, but the 
 qualities which he himself displays. Though here, 
 there is wanting that barrier to the unlimited pro- 
 gress of the power of the king, which was found in 
 the hereditary nobility of Europe ; yet the situation 
 of Spain, of Poland, and, in a greater or less degree, 
 of every country in Europe, shows that the body of 
 the people is not much benefited, when the unlimited 
 power of oppressing them, instead of being confined 
 to the hands of the king and his servants, is shared 
 between him and a body of nobles. 
 
 II. THE FORM OF GOVERNMENT. In the sim- 
 plicity of Oriental despotism, there is not much room 
 for diversity of form. Yet there are circumstances 
 which distinguish to a considerable extent the state 
 of government among the Mohammedans from that 
 among the Hindus ; and all of them to the advan- 
 tage of the former. 
 
 Under the Mohammedan sovereigns, there was a 
 regular distribution of the functions of government, 
 to certain fixed and regular oflicers; that of the 
 Vizir, that of the Bukshee, Ameer al Omrah, and so 
 on. Under the Hindu sovereigns there appears to 
 have been a confusion of all things together in one 
 heterogeneous mass. 1 The sovereign governed by a 
 
 1 This has been shown to be a mistake ; the functions of the several 
 officers under the Hindu form of government were in fact more accu- 
 rately and carefully appropriated, than under the Mohammedan, and the 
 instrumentality of a cabinet council, was no disadvantage, it may be appre- 
 hended, to the Hindu prince or his people W.
 
 .|SS HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in sort of council, composed of Brahmens, who exer- 
 ' cised the powers of government, according to no pre- 
 established plan ; but according as each, by intrigue, 
 or by reputation, could obtain an ascendency among 
 the rest. 1 The natural and common order of things, 
 in this situation, was, that some one individual ac- 
 quired a predominant influence ; and employed the 
 rest as merely his instruments. This man became, 
 by way of distinction, the minister peshwa, as he is 
 called by the Mahrattas. Where the council of 
 Brahmens is not a regular establishment, the sove- 
 reign chooses a minister, that is, a depositary of all 
 his power, who disposes of it in portions, regulated 
 by no rule, and by not much of established custom 
 and habit. 
 
 To the abuse of the power which is placed in the 
 hand of absolute sovereigns, there is no limit, ex- 
 cept from three circumstances: 1. Religion; 2. 
 Insurrection ; 3. Manners. 
 
 1 . When it is said that Religion opposes the will 
 of the sovereign, it is meant that the ministers of 
 religion oppose it ; the priests : for, as a political 
 engine, religion, without somebody to stand up for it, 
 is a dead letter. Now the priests can only oppose 
 the will of the sovereign, when, by their influence 
 over the minds of men, they have acquired a great 
 portion of power, a power which the king is afraid 
 
 1 Mr. Grant remarks that Kirkpatrick's account of Ncpaul exhibits a 
 form of government, state officers, civil, and military, nearly the same as 
 were established in Hindustan, under the rule of the Moguls. Grant's 
 Observations on the Hindus, p. 41. But Kirkpatrick's account is very 
 imperfect, and he appears to have supplied his want of information, by 
 ideas borrowed from what he knew in other parts of India. Besides, the 
 N.-paulians, as well as the Mahrattas, were in a situation to borrow from 
 the Mohammedans. W.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 489 
 
 to provoke. Again; this power of the priests will, 
 or will not, be applied in a way to protect the people 
 from the abuse of the sovereign power, according as 
 the sovereign allies himself with it, or does not 
 ally himself with it. If he allies himself with it ; 
 that is to say, if he associates the power of the priests 
 with his own, and admits them to a due share of the 
 benefits which he pursues, the power of the priests 
 is employed, not in checking, but in supporting him 
 in the abuse of his power. Now, so completely was 
 the power of the priests associated with that of the 
 sovereign, under the Hindu system of government, 
 that the power of the sovereign was almost wholly 
 transferred into the hands of the priests. As the be- 
 nefit of abusing the sovereign power was shared so 
 largely with themselves, they had no motive to check, 
 but every motive to support. 1 To misgovernment 
 accordingly, under Hindu sovereigns, we find no 
 where any symptoms of opposition from religion. 
 
 Under Mohammedan sovereigns the alliance be- 
 tween the Church and the State is much less com- 
 plete. The Caliphs, it is true, were at once head 
 magistrates, and head priests : in other situations, 
 under Mohammedan sovereigns, the priests have had 
 little political power. Except in some matters of 
 established custom, which by themselves are little 
 capable of mending the condition of the people upon 
 the whole, they have never had sufficient influence, 
 
 1 The mistake is here repeated of confounding Brahmans with priests. 
 The alliance of church and state is much more intimate with the Moham- 
 medans where the sovereign should properly even perform the office of 
 public preacher in the temples ; he has also the whole patronage of the 
 Moollas in his hands. With the Hindus the Raja can perform no sacred 
 offices, nor can he exercise any control over the Brahmanical caste. W.
 
 490 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OKHi nor apparently any inclination, to protect the people 
 
 from the abuses of sovereign power. Herein they 
 
 differ from the Hindu system of priesthood, and the 
 difference is an important one, that they are not 
 allied with those who abuse the sovereign power, 
 and yield them no protection. 
 
 2. Insurrection is a principle of salutary opera- 
 tion, under the governments of the East. To that is 
 owing almost every thing which the people are any 
 where left to enjoy. I have already had some op- 
 portunities, and as I proceed shall have more, to 
 point out remarkable instances of its practical effects. 
 In a situation where there is no regular institution 
 to limit the power of gratifying the will, the caprices, 
 and the desires of the sovereign and his instruments, 
 at the expense of the people, there is nothing which 
 hinders the people from being made as completely 
 wretched as the unbounded gratification, at their ex- 
 pense, of the will, caprices, and desires of those who 
 have sovereign power over them, can render human 
 beings; except the dread of insurrection. But, in a 
 situation where the mass of the people have nothing 
 to lose, it is seldom difficult to excite them to insur- 
 rection. The sovereigns of the East find, by expe- 
 rience, that the people, if oppressed beyond a certain 
 limit, are apt to rebel ; never want leaders of capa- 
 city in such a case to conduct them ; and are very 
 apt to tread their present race of oppressors under 
 their feet. This prospect lays these rulers under a 
 certain degree of restraint, and is the main-spring of 
 that portion of goodness which any where appears 
 in the practical state of the despotisms of the East. 
 But the dread of insurrection was reduced to its
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 491 
 
 lowest terms, among a people whose apathy and pa- BOOK in 
 
 CHAP. 0. 
 
 tience under suffering exceeded those of any other 
 
 specimen of the human race. The spirit, and excit- 
 ability, and courage of the Mohammedan portion of 
 the Indian population, undoubtedly furnished, as far 
 as it went, an additional motive to good government, 
 on the part of the sovereigns of Hindustan. 1 
 
 3. It is in a higher state of civilization than that 
 exemplified, either among the Mohammedans oramong 
 the Hindus, that Manners have great influence in 
 limiting the abuses of sovereign power. It is only in 
 proportion as the mind of man is susceptible of plea- 
 sure from the approbation, pain from the disapproba- 
 tion, of his fellow-creatures, that he is capable of re- 
 straint from the operation of manners ; unless in so 
 far as they increase or diminish the chance of insur- 
 rection. Though no great amount of salutary effects 
 is, therefore, to be ascribed to the operation of man- 
 ners, under the sovereigns, either of Hindu or of 
 Mohammedan breed, the benefit, as far as it went, 
 was all on the side of the Mohammedans. 2 There 
 was, in the manners of the Mohammedan conquerors 
 
 1 We may grant the greater aptitude of the Mohammedans to rebellion, 
 but instances are not wanting to show that the Hindus can resent violence 
 offered to their religion, if not to themselves ; the history of the Sikhs is a 
 continual series of Hindu insurrections against the Mogul government, 
 terminating in national independence. W. 
 
 4 The contrary was the case; the Mohammedan princes were, with a few 
 honourable exceptions, remarkable for profligacy and contempt of opinion ; 
 in scarcely any instances, indeed, did they attach any importance to the 
 opinions of their Hindu subjects. The natural mildness of the Hindu 
 prince, and the restriction of caste, tended to preserve him from indecorous 
 excess. If it was true that profligate barbarism was the natural condition 
 of the government among such a passive people as the Hindus, we cannot 
 expect that our own government of them should be free from the imputa- 
 tion. It scarcely follows, as a matter of course, that because the people are 
 submissive their rulers must naturally be barbarous or profligate. W.
 
 492 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 OK HI O f i nt ii a) an activity, a manliness, an independence, 
 
 which rendered it less easy for despotism to sink, 
 
 among them, to that disgusting state of weak and 
 profligate barbarism, which is the natural condition 
 of government among such a passive people as the 
 Hindus. 
 
 Further, along with those remains of barbarism 
 which in considerable amount adheres to the best of 
 the Mohammedan nations, as well as to all the other 
 inhabitants of Asia, a considerable portion of plain 
 good sense marked the character of the conquerors of 
 India; while the natives of that country are distin- 
 guished by a greater deficiency in the important article 
 of practical good sense, than any people, above the 
 rank of savages, of whom we have any record. The 
 practical good sense of any people is not without its 
 influence upon the mode of employing the powers of 
 government, and upon the minds of some at least of 
 the princes that wield them. Before the Moguls 
 proceeded to Hindustan, we have a proof, in the 
 Institutes of the conqueror Timur, l of the degree of 
 beneficent contrivance, with which he laid down the 
 plan of his administration. 
 
 " I appointed a Suddur, a man of holiness, and of 
 illustrious dignity, to watch over the conduct of the 
 faithful ; that he might regulate the manners of the 
 times; and appoint superiors in holy offices; and 
 establish in every city, and in every town, a judge of 
 penetration, and a doctor learned in the law, and a 
 supervisor of the markets, of the weights, and the 
 measures. 
 
 1 The Persian version was translated by Major Davy ; and edited, with 
 a preface and other additions, by Mr. White, the Arabic Professor at 
 Oxford, in 1783.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 493 
 
 " And I established a judge for the army, and a BOOK in 
 judge for the subjects : and I sent into every pro- 
 vince and kingdom, an instructor in the law, to 
 deter the faithful from those things which are for- 
 bidden, and to lead them in the truth. 
 
 "And I ordained that in every town, and in every 
 city, a mosque, and a school, and a monastery, and 
 an alms-house for the poor and the indigent, and an 
 hospital for the sick and infirm, should be founded, 
 and that a physician should be appointed to attend 
 the hospital ; and that in every city a government- 
 house, and a court for the administration of justice 
 should be built; and that superintendents should 
 be appointed to watch over the cultivated lands, and 
 over the husbandmen. 
 
 "And I commanded that they should build places 
 of worship, and monasteries in every city ; and that 
 they should erect structures for the reception of 
 travellers on the high roads, and that they should 
 make bridges across the rivers. 
 
 " And I commanded that the ruined bridges 
 should be repaired; and that bridges should be 
 constructed over the rivulets, and over the rivers; 
 and that on the roads, at the distance of one stage 
 from each other, Kauruwansarai should be erected ; 
 and that guards and watchmen should be stationed 
 on the road, and that in every Kauruwansarai people 
 should be appointed to reside ; and that the watch- 
 ing and guarding of the roads should appertain 
 unto them ; and that those guards should be an- 
 swerable for whatever should be stolen on the roads 
 from the unwary traveller. 
 
 " And I ordered that the Suddur and the Judge
 
 494 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK HI should, from time to time, lay before me all 
 
 CHAP. 5. . J 
 
 the ecclesiastical affairs of my empire ; and I ap- 
 pointed a Judge in equity, that he might transmit 
 unto me all civil matters of litigation, that came 
 to pass amongst my troops and my subjects." 
 
 Here is a selection of four of the most important 
 objects of government, in making a provision for 
 which, the first care and attention of the Mogul 
 sovereign are employed: the administration of jus- 
 tice ; the instruction of the people ; the facilitation 
 of intercourse ; and his own knowledge of all that is 
 transacted in his name. That the provision for 
 these objects was very incomplete, we have suffici- 
 cient assurance ; but some progress was made in the 
 art and science of government, when they were 
 pointed out as primary objects of regard ; still more, 
 when something considerable was really done for 
 their attainment. 
 
 Of the twelve maxims of his government, the 
 following is a selection : 
 
 " Persons of wisdom, and deliberation, and vigi- 
 lance, and circumspection, and agedmen endowed with 
 knowledge and foresight, I admitted to my pri- 
 vate councils ; and I associated with them, and I 
 reaped benefit, and acquired experience from their 
 conversation. 
 
 " The soldier and the subject I regarded with the 
 same eye. And such was the discipline which I 
 established amongst my troops and my subjects, 
 that the one was never injured or oppressed by 
 the other. 
 
 " From amongst the wise and the prudent, who 
 merited trust and confidence, who were worthy of
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 495 
 
 being consulted on the affairs of government, and to B o K in 
 
 T CHAP. 5. 
 
 whose care 1 might submit the secret concerns of 
 
 my empire, I selected a certain number, whom I 
 constituted the repositories of my secrets : and my 
 weighty and hidden transactions, and my secret 
 thoughts and intentions, I delivered over to them. 
 
 "By the vizzeers, and the secretaries, and the 
 scribes, I gave order and regularity to my public 
 councils : I made them the keepers of the mirror of 
 my government, in which they showed unto me the 
 affairs of my empire, and the concerns of my armies 
 and my people : and they kept rich my treasury ; 
 and they secured plenty and prosperity to my sol- 
 diers and to my subjects; and by proper and 
 skilful measures they repaired the disorders incident 
 to empire ; and they kept in order the revenues and 
 the expenses of government; and they exerted 
 themselves in promoting plenty and population 
 throughout my dominions. 
 
 "Men learned in medicine, and skilled in the art 
 of healing, and astrologers, and geometricians, who 
 are essential to the dignity of empire, I drew around 
 me : and by the aid of physicians and chirurgeons 
 I gave health to the sick : and with the assistance 
 of astrologers I ascertained the benign or malignant 
 aspect of the stars, their motions, and the revo- 
 lutions of the heavens : and with the aid of geome- 
 tricians and architects, I laid out gardens, and 
 planned and constructed magnificent buildings. 
 
 " Historians, and such as were possessed of in- 
 formation and intelligence, I admitted to my pre- 
 sence : and from these men I heard the lives of the 
 prophets and the patriarchs, and the histories of
 
 496 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 ancient princes, and the events by which they 
 - arrived at the dignity of empire, and the causes of 
 the declension of their fortunes : and from the narra- 
 tives and the histories of those princes, and from the 
 manners and the conduct of each of them, I ac- 
 quired experience and knowledge : and from those 
 men I heard the descriptions and the traditions of 
 the various regions of the globe, and acquired know- 
 ledge of the situations of the kingdoms of the 
 earth. 
 
 " To travellers, and to voyagers of every country, 
 I gave encouragement, that they might communicate 
 unto me the intelligence and transactions of the sur- 
 rounding nations : and I appointed merchants and 
 chiefs of Kauruwauns to travel to every kingdom 
 and to every country, that they might bring unto 
 me all sorts of valuable merchandise and rare cu- 
 riosities, from Khuttau, and from Khuttun, and from 
 Cheen, and from Maucheen, and from Hindostaun, 
 and from the cities of Arabia, and from Missur, and 
 from Shaum, and from Room, and from the islands 
 of the Christians, that they might give me informa- 
 tion of the situation, and of the manners and of the 
 customs of the natives and inhabitants of those re- 
 gions, and that they might observe and communicate 
 unto me the conduct of the princes of every kingdom 
 and of every country towards their subjects." 
 
 All these different points laid down, in writing, as 
 main objects of attention in the conduct of govern- 
 ment, undoubtedly indicate a state of the human 
 mind very considerably removed from the lowest 
 barbarism. 
 
 The following regulations respecting the collection
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 497 
 
 of the revenues ; of all the parts of an imperfect BOOK irr 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 government that which most deeply affects the . 
 
 happiness of the people ; indicate no common share 
 of excellence in the spirit of administration. 
 
 " And I commanded that the Ameers, and the 
 Mingbaushees, in collecting the revenues from the 
 subjects, should not, on any account, demand more 
 than the taxes and duties established. 
 
 " And to every province on which a royal assign- 
 ment was granted, I ordained that two supervisors, 
 should be appointed ; that one of them should inspect 
 the collections, and watch over the concerns of the 
 inhabitants, that they might not be impoverished, 
 and that the Jaugheerdaur might not ill use or 
 oppress them, and that he should take an account of 
 all the sums which were collected in the province ; 
 and that the other supervisor should keep a register 
 of the public expenses, and distribute the revenues 
 among the soldiers. 
 
 " And every Ameer who was appointed to a jaug- 
 heer, I ordained that for the space of three years it 
 should remain unto him, and that, after three years, 
 the state of the province should be inspected : If the 
 inhabitants were satisfied, and if the country was 
 flourishing and populous, that he should be continued 
 therein ; but if the contrary should appear, that the 
 jaugheer should return unto the crown, and, that for 
 the three following years, subsistence should not be 
 granted to the holder thereof. 
 
 " And I ordained that the collection of the taxes 
 from the subject might, when necessary, be enforced 
 by menaces and by threats, but never by whips and 
 by scourges. The governor, whose authority is in- 
 
 VOL. II. 2 K
 
 498 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 to the power of the scourge, is unworthy to 
 govern. 
 
 " I ordained that the revenues and the taxes 
 should be collected in such a manner as might not 
 be productive of ruin to the subject, or of depopula- 
 tion to the country." 
 
 Of the produce of the fertile and cultivated lands, 
 one third was taken for the government ; and this 
 was the principal, and almost the only source of the 
 revenue. 
 
 " And I ordained, whoever undertook the cultiva- 
 tion of waste lands, or built an aqueduct, or made 
 a canal, or planted a grove, or restored to culture a 
 deserted district, that in the first year nothing should 
 be taken from him, and that in the second year, 
 whatever the subject voluntarily offered should be 
 received, and that in the third year the duties should 
 be collected according to the regulation. 
 
 " And I ordained, that if the rich and the power- 
 ful should oppress the poorer subject, and injure or 
 destroy his property, an equivalent for damage 
 sustained should be levied on the rich oppressor, and 
 be delivered to the injured person, that he might be 
 restored to his former estate. 
 
 " And I ordained, that in every country three 
 Vizzeers should be stationed. The first, for the 
 subject to keep a regular account of the taxes and 
 the duties received, and what sums, and to what 
 amount, were paid in by the subject, and under 
 what denomination, and on what .account, and to 
 preserve an exact statement of the whole. The 
 second, for the soldier to take account of the sums 
 paid to the troops, and of the sums remaining due
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 499 
 
 unto them." The third was for certain miscellaneous BOOKnr 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 services, too tedious to be specified. 
 
 These details are sufficient to show, that among the 
 Moguls, even at their first irruption into Hindustan, 
 the arts of government were considerably advanced ; 
 and that the Hindus had much to gain by a change 
 of masters. In the hands of some of the most 
 eminent of the Mogul princes, the Emperor Akbar, 
 for instance, the powers of government were dis- 
 tributed, and employed with a skill which would 
 not disgrace a period of considerable knowledge and 
 refinement. 
 
 Though in a pure despotism much depended on 
 the qualities of the sovereign, yet when a good plan 
 of administration was once fully introduced, a por- 
 tion of its excellence always remained, for a time ; 
 and had a strong tendency to become perpetual. 
 
 III. THE LAWS. The laws of the Hindus, we 
 have already seen, are such as could not originate in 
 any other than one of the weakest conditions of the 
 human intellect ; and, of all the forms of law known 
 to the human species, they exhibit one of the least 
 capable of producing the benefits which it is the end 
 and the only good consequence of law, to ensure. 1 
 
 1 It has been shown that the view taken of the laws of the Hindus is 
 exceedingly imperfect ; and that which follows of Mohammedan law rest- 
 ing upon the Hedaya alone is not much more comprehensive, but being in- 
 fluenced by a different feeling it is more candid. During the flourishing 
 periods of Mohammedan rule in Asia, the law was very diligently culti- 
 vated by a number of ingenious writers, some of whom were not impro- 
 bably acquainted with the compilations of Justinian, which will account 
 for its analogy in classification to Roman law. In this respect it may be 
 allowed to have an advantage over Hindu law, but in the civil branch, in 
 the laws of contracts and inheritance, it is not so exact or complete as the 
 latter. The penal law has the advantage also of being framed without 
 regard to persons, but its spirit of barbarous retaliation is unknown to the 
 Hindu code. W. 
 
 2 K 2
 
 500 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 The Mohammedan law, as introduced into India by 
 
 CHAP. 5. ^ J 
 
 its Mogul conquerors, is defective indeed, as com- 
 pared with any very high standard of excellence; 
 but compare it with the standard of any existing 
 system, with the Roman law for instance, or the law 
 of England, and you will find its inferiority not so 
 remarkable, as those who are familiar with these 
 systems, and led by the sound of vulgar applause, 
 are in the habit of believing. In the following view 
 of the most remarkable particulars in the state of 
 Mohammedan law, a reference to the system of 
 English law is peculiarly instructive, and even ne- 
 cessary ; as it is by the English system that the Mo- 
 hammedan has been superseded. 
 
 1. The civil, or non-penal branch of law, lays 
 down the rights which, for the good of the species, 
 should be constituted in behalf of the individual ; 
 in other words, prescribes the power which the indi- 
 vidual, for the good of the species, ought exclu- 
 sively to possess, over persons, and over things. 
 
 The particular powers or privileges which it is 
 expedient to constitute rights, are, in the great 
 points, so distinctly and strongly indicated by com- 
 mon experience, that there is a very general agree- 
 ment about them among nations in all the stages of 
 civilization. Nations differ chiefly in the mode of 
 securing those rights. 
 
 One instrument, without which they cannot be 
 secured, is strict and accurate definition. In afford- 
 ing strict and accurate definitions of the rights of the 
 individual, the three systems of law, Roman, English, 
 and Mohammedan, are not very far from being on a 
 level. Completeness, in point of definition, it seems,
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 5Q1 
 
 is a perfection in the state of law, which it requires BOOK in 
 a very advanced stage of civilization to bestow. At _ 
 first, experience has provided no record of all the 
 variety of material cases for which a provision is ne- 
 cessary. Afterwards, the human mind is not suf- 
 ficiently clear and skilful to classify accurately a mul- 
 titude of particulars ; and without accurate classifi- 
 cation, useful definitions and rules can never be 
 framed. Lastly (and that is the state in which the 
 more civilized nations of Europe have long been 
 placed) custom and habit acquire a dominion which 
 it is not easy to break ; and the professors of law 
 possess an interest in its imperfections, which prompts 
 them to make exertions, and a power, which enables 
 them for a long time to make successful exertions, to 
 defeat all endeavours for its improvement. 
 
 Until very lately, there was no civil code, that is 
 to say, there was no description, good or bad, in a 
 permanent set of words, of almost any of the rights 
 belonging to individuals, in any country in Europe. 
 The whole was traditionary, the whole was oral ; 
 there was hardly any legislative writing. Of course, 
 in the greater number of cases, nobody knew exactly 
 what was a right. The judge, having no fixed defi- 
 nition for his guidance, made for himself, on each 
 particular occasion, a definition to suit that parti- 
 cular occasion. But these numerous definitions, 
 made by numerous judges on numerous occasions, 
 were more or less different one from another. All 
 the approximation to accuracy that was attained, or 
 that was attainable, consisted in this, that the rou- 
 tine of decision fixed a certain sphere, within which 
 the variation of the arbitrary definitions which the
 
 502 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in judges on each occasion made for themselves was, 
 
 HP. . ? . 
 
 with a certain force, confined ; as he, by whom a 
 wider range was taken for injustice than what was 
 usually taken, would expose himself to the conse- 
 quences of blame. Within a few years some at- 
 tempts have been made, in some of the German 
 states, to supply a code ; that is, to give fixed and 
 determinate words to the laws, by the only instru- 
 ment of permanency and certainty in language, 
 writing. These attempts have been partial, and ex- 
 ceedingly imperfect, even as far as they went. The 
 Emperor Napoleon was the first sovereign in modern 
 Europe, who bestowed upon his subjects the inesti- 
 mable benefit of laws, in written, fixed, and deter- 
 minate words. Many are the faults which might be 
 discovered in this code, were this the place to criti- 
 cize the execution ; but with all its imperfections, it 
 placed the French people, with respect to law, in a 
 situation far more favourable than that of any other 
 people upon the globe. In England, the whole por- 
 tion of the field, occupied by what is denominated 
 the common law ; that is, almost all the civil, and a 
 great proportion of the penal branch, is in the un- 
 written, that is, the oral, and traditionary, or bar- 
 barous state. Lastly, that portion, which bears the 
 character of written, or statute law, is so overloaded 
 with useless words ; so devoid of classification ; and 
 the expression is so ambiguous and obscure, that the 
 lawyers declare it is far more polluted with the vice 
 of uncertainty, than that which is .in a state of ne- 
 cessary and perpetual fluctuation, the common law 
 itself. 
 
 The form of the Mohammedan law, as exhibited
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 503 
 
 to us in some of the best of its digests, as the He- BOOK [ ll 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 daya, for instance, is not much more rude and bar- 
 
 barous than this. To give any intelligible account 
 of the powers which law converts into rights, it is 
 necessary to make a distribution of the existences 
 which are the subject of those rights, or over which 
 the powers, converted into rights, are granted. This 
 distribution is the same, in the Mohammedan, as in 
 the European systems. The subjects of those rights, 
 or the existences over which the powers are granted, 
 are either, First, Persons ; or, Secondly, Things. 
 In the case in which Persons are considered as the 
 subject of rights ; 1. Individuals, as individuals, are 
 allotted rights, or exclusive powers, with respect to 
 their own persons ; 2. As husbands, fathers, sons, 
 masters, servants, judges, suitors, kings, or subjects, 
 &c., they are allotted rights or exclusive powers, 
 with respect to the persons (including the services) 
 of others. In the case in which Things are consi- 
 dered as the subject of right, two circumstances 
 principally require to be ascertained; First, the 
 powers which are included in each right ; Secondly, 
 the events which cause, or give origin to the existence 
 of a right. These points are determined upon the 
 same principles, and nearly in the same way, by the 
 Mohammedan, as by European legislation. Every 
 where law has been formed, not by a previous sur- 
 vey and arrangement of the matters which it belongs 
 to a system of law to include ; but by the continual 
 aggregation of one individual case to another, as they 
 occurred for decision : The only classifications, 
 therefore, which have ever been attempted, are those
 
 504 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in o f t}j e cases w hich occur for decision ; the states of 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 circumstances which most frequently give occasion 
 
 to disputes about rights. Now, these states of cir- 
 cumstances are the more common of the events 
 which constitute change of ownership, or affect the 
 transfer of property : of these events, one set, which 
 obviously enough fall into a class, are those of bar- 
 gain and sale, or the exchange of one article of value 
 for another ; this constitutes a large chapter in the 
 Mohammedan code. Another important class of 
 such events are those which relate to inheritance : a 
 third class are those which relate to wills ; a fourth, 
 those which relate to engagements either to pay a 
 sum of money, or to perform a service. There are 
 other inferior titles, of which those relating to depo- 
 sits and to bail are the most considerable : and under 
 these heads is the matter of civil law distributed in 
 the Mohammedan code. 
 
 It will not be denied that this distribution very 
 closely resembles that which is made of the same 
 subject in the legal systems of Europe. It will hardly 
 be denied that this combination of heads as completely 
 includes the subject, or all the cases of dispute re- 
 specting ownership or right, as that combination of 
 heads which we find in the codes of the west. To 
 show the exact degree in which the Mohammedan 
 system falls short of the Christian system, but exceeds 
 the Hindu, in making clear and certain the rights 
 which it means to create and uphold, would require a 
 developement far too long and intricate for the present 
 occasion. From the delineation of the great lines to 
 which the present aim has been confined, it will appear.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 505 
 
 that a much higher strain of intelligence runs through 
 the whole, than is to be found in the puerilities, and 
 the worse than puerilities, of the Hindus. 
 
 2. So much for the comparison of Mohammedan 
 law with that of the Hindus and Europeans, in regard 
 to the civil branch, or the constitution of rights. In 
 the penal branch, besides a selection of the acts 
 which shall be accounted offences, in which selection 
 there is great uniformity all over the globe, two things 
 are necessary, an exact definition of the act which 
 the law constitutes an offence, and an exact specifica- 
 tion of the punishment which it adopts as the means 
 of preventing that offence. 
 
 On the penal branch of law the Mohammedan, like 
 the Roman system, is exceedingly scanty. In the 
 Institutes of Justinian, for example, three short titles 
 or chapters, out of eighteen, in the last and shortest 
 of four books, is all that falls to the share of this half 
 of the field of law: and the whole is brought in 
 under the subordinate title of " Obligations arising 
 from delinquency." The arbitrary will of the judge 
 (a wretched substitute) was left to supply the place of 
 law. The same disproportion, (and it is one of the 
 most remarkable points of inferiority in the ancient 
 Roman as compared with the modern systems of juris- 
 prudence,) is observable in the Mohammedan books 
 of law : the portion which relates to the penal is very 
 small, in comparison with that which relates to the 
 non-penal branch of the subject. 
 
 The Mohammedan system contained, indeed, one 
 law comprehensive enough to supersede a number ; 
 viz., that, in all cases of injury to the person, retalia- 
 tion should be the rule ; an eye for an eye, and
 
 506 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in a tooth for a tooth. This recommends itself to 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 a rude age by the appearance of proportion. But it 
 
 recommends itself to no other but a rude age, 
 because it possesses nothing but the appearance 
 of proportion, and grossly violates the reality. In 
 this the Mohammedan more nearly approached the 
 Hindu, than the European systems of penal law. 
 By this however it avoided the atrocity of some 
 modern systems, particularly the English, in as much 
 as it limited capital punishment, never allowed 
 for offences against property, to the single case of 
 murder. In practice too, " the Mussulman courts," 
 says the translator of the Hedaya, " in all cases short 
 of life, understand the words of the Koran, not 
 as awarding an actual retaliation, according to the 
 strict literal meaning, but an atonement in exact 
 proportion to the injury." 1 This indicates a consi- 
 derable refinement of thought on the subject of penal 
 law ; far removed from the brutality which stains the 
 code of the Hindus. 
 
 The most atrocious part of the Mohammedan 
 system of punishment is that which regards theft 
 and robbery. Mutilation, by cutting off the hand, 
 or the foot, is the prescribed remedy for all higher 
 degrees of the offence. This savours strongly of a 
 barbarous state of society ; and in this the Moham- 
 medan and Hindu systems resemble one another. 
 The translator of the Hedaya, though he laments 
 the inhumanity, inconvenience ', and inefficiency, of 
 this mode of punishment, yet tells his British coun- 
 
 1 The Hedaya, or Guide ; a commentary on the Mussulman Laws : 
 Translated by order of the Governor-General and Council of Bengal, by 
 Charles Hamilton, in 4 vols. 4to. Preliminary Discourse, by the trans- 
 lator, p. Ixxxiii.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 
 
 try men, "They have nothing better to offer by way 
 of substitute ; for surely their penal laws are still 
 more sanguinary." This is a heavy imputation on 
 the legislature of his country ; but surely n.o good 
 reason hinders a better system of penal remedies, 
 than that of either English or Mohammedan law, 
 from being introduced into India, by an enlightened 
 legislature, if such a thing were to be found. 
 
 One peculiarity, indicating the work of an imma- 
 ture state of the human mind, strongly distinguishes 
 the Mohammedan system; while it distinguishes the 
 English, in a degree scarcely, if at all, inferior. In 
 framing the several rules or ordinances ; which, of 
 course, are intended, each, to include not a mere in- 
 dividual case (for then to be complete they must be 
 innumerable,) but sets or classes of cases ; it is not 
 the specific, or the generic differences, but the indi- 
 vidual differences, upon which a great proportion of 
 the rules are founded. Their mode of proceeding is 
 the same, as if (taking a familiar case for the sake of 
 illustration) they were to make one law to prohibit 
 the stealing of a sheep ; another to prohibit the 
 stealing of a cow ; a third, the stealing of a horse ; 
 though all the cases should be treated as equally 
 criminal, and all subjected to the same penalty. 
 Not merely a good logic, but a good talent for expe- 
 diting business, would teach that all such cases as 
 could be comprehended under one description, and 
 were to be dealt with in one way, should be in- 
 cluded in one comprehensive law. This would have 
 two admirable effects. The laws w r ould first be less 
 voluminous ; hence less obscure, and difficult to 
 administer. In the second place, being founded upon 
 
 507
 
 508 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 o*" 1 the generic and specific differences, they would in- 
 clude all individual cases without exception ; whereas 
 in so far as they are founded upon individual dis- 
 tinctions, they may rise to the number of millions, 
 and leave as many cases (no individual case resem- 
 bling another) without an appropriate provision. 
 
 3. Beside the laws which mark out rights and 
 punishments, are a set of laws on which the execu- 
 tion of the former branches altogether depends. 
 These are the laws which constitute the system of 
 procedure ; or the round of operations through 
 which the judicial services inquiry, sentence and 
 enforcement are rendered. 
 
 In this part of the field of legislation, there is a 
 most remarkable difference, between the Indian and 
 European systems. In the European system, the 
 steps of procedure are multiplied to a great number, 
 and regulated by a correspondent multiplicity of 
 rules. In the Mohammedan, (and in this the Mo- 
 hammedan and the Hindu systems concur) the mode 
 of procedure is simple, and not much regulated by 
 any positive rules ; the Judge being left to conduct 
 the judicial inquiry, in the mode which appears to 
 him most conducive to its end, and falling of course 
 into the natural and obvious train of operations, 
 recommended to every individual by ordinary good 
 sense, when he has any private inquiry, analogous 
 to the judicial, to perform. The parties are sum- 
 moned to appear before him : they state, in their 
 order, the circumstances of the case,. subject to ex- 
 amination of all sorts, for the elucidation of the 
 facts : the evidence which they have to adduce, 
 whether of testimony or of things, is received : when
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 509 
 
 all the evidence is before the Judge, he balances BOOK in 
 the weight of that which affirms, with the weight of 
 that which denies the point in dispute ; and according 
 as either preponderates, decision is pronounced. 
 
 In this department, the advantage is all on the 
 side of the Indian systems. The inconvenience to 
 which the Indian mode of procedure is liable con- 
 sists in the arbitrary power intrusted to the Judge ; 
 which he may employ either negligently, or partially 
 and corruptly. Two things may here be observed : 
 first, that this inconvenience is not removed from 
 the system characterized by the great number of 
 steps and rules, which may be called the technical 
 system : secondly, that it may, to a great degree, be 
 easily removed from the system which is charac- 
 terized by the small number of steps and rules, 
 which may be called the natural system. 
 
 It is not removed from the technical system ; for 
 that binds the Judge to nothing but an observance 
 of the technical rules : now they may all be observed 
 in the most punctilious manner; while the real 
 merits of the case may have been most imperfectly 
 brought to light, through negligence ; or purposely 
 disguised, through corruption. The observance of 
 the technical rules by no means forces the inquiry 
 upon the merits of the case ; and affords no security 
 whatsoever that in regard to them the inquiry shall 
 be complete. 
 
 In the next place, the power of the Judge may be 
 restrained from abuse, in the natural mode of proce- 
 dure, by very easy expedients. As the steps are 
 simple, they can be clearly described ; and a standard 
 of perfection may be rendered perfectly familiar to
 
 "510 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK n i the minds of the people : with this standard in their 
 
 CHAI-.5. 
 
 minds, the conduct of the Judge may be subjected to 
 perfect publicity, and held open to the full view, and 
 unrestrained criticisms, of the people ; as no miscon- 
 duct would thus escape detection, an efficient method 
 might be easily provided to render it very difficult, 
 or impossible, that it should escape the due measure 
 of punishment. This is the mode of obtaining good 
 conduct from the Judge, as from every other servant 
 of the public ; not the prescription of numerous cere- 
 monial observances, few of them having any con- 
 nexion with the merits of the case ; many of them 
 obstructing, rather than aiding the efficient opera- 
 tions of a rational inquiry ; and all, taken together, 
 far better calculated for screening the Judge in 
 a course of misconduct, than for imposing upon him 
 any necessity of good and faithful service. 
 
 If the technical affords no security for good con- 
 duct in the Judge, above the natural system, it pos- 
 sesses other qualities which render it infinitely 
 hurtful to the interests of justice. By multiplying 
 the operations of judicature, it renders the course 
 long, intricate, obscure, and treacherous. It cre- 
 ates delay, which is always a partial, often a 
 complete denial of justice. It creates unnecessary 
 expense ; which is always positive robbery ; and as 
 often as it is above the means of the suitor is com- 
 plete and absolute denial of justice ; expense, which 
 is almost always above the means of the indigent, 
 that is,* the most numerous class ; which possesses, 
 therefore, this peculiar property, that it outlaws the 
 great body of the people ; making law an instrument 
 which any one may employ for the oppression of
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 511 
 
 the most numerous portion of the species ; an instru- BOOK m 
 
 . _ i CHAP. 3. 
 
 ment which they can scarcely at all employ for their 
 
 protection. 
 
 It is instructive, and not difficult, to trace the 
 causes which gave birth to such different modes of 
 judicial procedure in the two countries. The dif- 
 ference arose from the different situation of the 
 judges. It rose from the different means presented 
 to the judges of drawing a profit out of the business 
 which they had to perform. In India, as the state 
 of manners and opinions permitted them to receive 
 bribes, they had no occasion to look out for any other 
 means of drawing as much money as possible from 
 the suitors ; and, therefore, they allowed the course 
 of inquiry to fall into the straight, the shortest, and 
 easiest channel. In England, the state of manners 
 and opinions rendered it very inconvenient, and in 
 some measure dangerous, to receive bribes. The 
 judges were, therefore, induced to look out for other 
 means of rendering their business profitable to them- 
 selves. The state of manners and opinions allowed 
 them to take fees upon each of the different judicial 
 operations. It was, therefore, an obvious expedient, 
 to mutiply these operations to excess ; to render them 
 as numerous, and not only as numerous, but as 
 insnaring as possible. For, with a view to fees, it 
 was of prodigious importance, after the operations 
 had been rendered as numerous as possible, to create 
 pretexts for performing them twice over. This was 
 easily done, by rendering the operations, imposed 
 upon the suitors, so nice, and intricate, and equivocal, 
 that it was hardly possible to observe them, in such 
 a manner as to preclude exception ; and, by making
 
 512 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOO K.III [i a ru j e t} ia as soon as an y misobservance was laid 
 
 CHAP. 5. J 
 
 hold of by the judge, the whole of the preceding 
 operations, how exactly soever performed, should be 
 set aside, and the suit ordained to commence anew. 
 This re-commencement, accordingly, this double per- 
 formance of the ceremonies, double payment of the 
 fees, is one of the most remarkable features in the 
 English system of procedure. 1 
 
 Two persons in the Mohammedan courts, the Cauzee 
 and Mooftee, share between them, on each occasion, 
 the functions of the judge. The Mooftee attends in 
 order to expound the sacred text ; the Cauzee is the 
 person who investigates the question of fact, and 
 carries into execution what he receives as the mean- 
 ing of the law. 2 
 
 The following passage discovers a correct mode of 
 thinking, whatever disconformity may have been 
 found between the rule and the practice. " It is in- 
 cumbent on the Sultan to select for the office of 
 Cauzee, a person who is capable of discharging the 
 duties of it, and passing decrees ; and who is also 
 in a superlative degree just and virtuous ; for the 
 prophet has said ; Whoever appoints a person to the 
 discharge of any office, whilst there is another among 
 his subjects more qualified for the same than the person 
 so appointed, does surely commit an injury with re- 
 spect to the rights of God, the prophet, and the Mus- 
 sulmans" 3 
 
 1 This explanation of the causes of complex procedure in the English 
 courts of law is an amusing exemplification of one of our author's peculi- 
 arities ; his horror of English is even more strong than of Hindu law. 
 According to his theory, the corruption of the judge is the best security for 
 justice. It would be dangerous to reduce this to practice. W. 
 * Hedaya, U. 614. 3 Hedaya, ii. 615.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 513 
 
 Publicity was an important principle in the Mo- BOOKin 
 
 l ~i - CHAP, O. 
 
 nammedan jurisprudence. For the hall of justice, 
 " the principal mosque," says the law, " is the most 
 eligible place, if it be situated within the city ; be- 
 cause it is the most notorious." 1 
 
 There is no part of the rules of procedure which 
 more strongly indicate the maturity or immaturity 
 of the human mind, than the rules of evidence. 
 There is scarcely any part of the Mohammedan system, 
 where it shows to greater advantage. On many points 
 its rules of evidence are not inferior : in some they 
 are preferable, to those of the European systems. Its 
 exclusion of evidence, for example, is not so exten- 
 sive, and,, in the same proportion, not so mischievous 
 as the English. There are other cases, however, in 
 which inferiority appears. Reckoning women's tes- 
 timony inferior to that of men (they have less cor- 
 rectness, says the law, both in observation and 
 memory which so long as their education is infe- 
 rior will no doubt be the case), the Mohammedan 
 law makes some very absurd rules. In all criminal 
 cases, the testimony of the woman is excluded ; and 
 in questions of property, the evidence of two women 
 is held only equal to that of one man ; as if one class 
 of women may not be better educated than another 
 class of men, and their testimony, therefore, more to 
 be depended upon. Under Mohammedan customs, 
 indeed, which exclude the women from the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge and experience, the regulation had 
 less of impropriety than it would have in a state of 
 things more favourable to the mental powers of the 
 sex. There is nothing, however, in the Moham- 
 
 1 Hedaya, ii, 620. 
 VOL. II. 2 L
 
 514 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 medan laws of evidence, to compare with many ab- 
 surdities of the Hindu system, which makes perjury, 
 in certain cases, a virtue. 1 
 
 IV. THE TAXES. To a great extent the Mo- 
 hammedans followed the plan of taxation which was 
 established under the native government of the 
 Hindus. The great source of the revenue was the 
 proportion, exacted by the sovereign, of the gross 
 produce of the land. The Emperor Akbar was ce- 
 lebrated as having placed the details of collection in 
 a better state, than that important business had ever 
 been seen in before. From what has been observed 
 of the practice of existing Hindu governments ; and, 
 from the superior share of intelligence which the 
 Mohammedans brought to the business of state, we 
 may infer, with sufficient assurance, that the im- 
 provement introduced by that people was not incon- 
 siderable. That the Mohammedan princes gene- 
 rally made use of Hindus in affairs of revenue ; and 
 even employed them as their instruments, in the 
 reforms to which they were led, is not inconsistent 
 with the supposition, that the business was better 
 managed under the Mohammedans than under the 
 Hindus. 2 For the details of collection; which a 
 revenue chiefly derived from a proportion of the 
 gross produce of the land rendered excessively ope- 
 
 1 Tins, as we have seen, is a mistake ; truth in evidence is as strenuously 
 enjoined in Hindu as in Mohammedan law, and the disregard of it is 03 
 common among the unprincipled of one as of the other faith. W. 
 
 1 The Mohammedans have always been in India, and are, to the present 
 day, notorious for incapacity as officers of account. Under the English 
 as under their own administrations, all the chief appointments in the 
 revenue department are filled by Hindus. Both as instruments and as 
 principals, whatever merit there may have been in the financial arrange- 
 ments of Akbar it belonged to the Hindus. See Ayeen Akbery. W.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 515 
 
 rose and complex ; an intimate acquaintance with B 
 
 the language and manners of the people was indis 
 
 pensably required; and that acquaintance Hindus 
 alone possessed. There is nothing to hinder the 
 Hindus, as any other people, from being well quali- 
 fied to be used as instruments in a business, in 
 which they might have been utterly incapable of 
 being the principals. The methods devised, with 
 considerable skill, under the Emperor Akbar, for 
 preventing the two great abuses incident to the ma- 
 chinery of collection ; the oppression of the people ; 
 and embezzlement of the king's revenue ; appear to 
 have preserved their virtue, not much impaired, 
 during the time when any vigour remained in the 
 Mogul government ; and to have become altogether 
 neglected, only when each province, as the empire 
 fell to pieces, became an independent petty state ; 
 and when the feeble and necessitous sovereign of 
 each petty state was unable to contend either with 
 his own vices, or those of his agents. 1 
 
 V. RELIGION. Under this head very few words 
 are required; because the superiority of the Mo- 
 
 1 " The moderation of the tribute imposed by all Mohammedan con- 
 querors, and the simplicity of their method of collecting it, accounts for 
 the surprising facility with which they retained possession of their con- 
 quests. The form of their government was despotic : but in fact it was 
 not oppressive to the mass of the conquered people. In general they in- 
 troduced no change, but in the army, and in the name of the sovereign." 
 Francis, Plan for a Settlement of the Revenues of Bengal, par. 9. " The 
 gentiles (Hindus) are better contented to live under the Mogul's laws 
 than under Pagan princes, for the Mogul taxes them gently, and every one 
 knows what he must pay, but the Pagan kings or princes tax at discretion, 
 making their own avarice the standard of equity; besides, there were 
 formerly many small Rajas, that used upon frivolous occasions to pick 
 quarrels with one another, and before they could be made friends again, 
 their subjects were forced to open both their veins and purses to gratify 
 ambition or folly." Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies, ii. 26. 
 
 2 L2
 
 51() HISTORY OF WHITISH INDIA. 
 
 ROOK in hammedans, in respect of religion, is beyond all dis- 
 
 pute. To the composition of the Koran was brought 
 
 an acquaintance with the Jewish and Christian scrip- 
 tures ; by which the writer, notwithstanding his 
 mental rudeness, appears to have greatly profited; 
 and assigning, as we are disposed to assign, very 
 little value to the lofty expressions regarding the 
 Divine perfections, in the Koran, as well as to those 
 in the Vedas, we find the absurdities in the Koran, 
 by which those lofty ideas are contradicted, incon- 
 siderable both in number and degree, compared with 
 those which abound in the religious system of the 
 Hindus. l 
 
 VI . MANNERS. In this respect the superiority of 
 the Mohammedans was most remarkable. The prin- 
 cipal portion of the manners of the Hindus was 
 founded upon the cruel and pernicious distinction of 
 castes: A system of manners proceeding, like that of 
 the Mohammedans, upon the supposition of the natural 
 equality of mankind, constituted such a difference in 
 behalf of all that is good for human nature, as it is 
 hardly possible to value too high. Another great 
 portion of the manners of the Hindus consisted in 
 the performance of religious ceremonies : In cere- 
 monies to the last degree contemptible and absurd, 
 very often tormenting and detestable, a great propor- 
 tion of the life of every Hindu is, or ought to be, 
 consumed. The religion of the Moslem is stript of 
 
 1 In some respects the superiority may be granted to the Mohammedan 
 religion, but there are two important principles by which its advantages 
 are more than counterbalanced, its promise of sensual delights as the re- 
 ward of virtue, and its bigoted intolerance. The Hindu sees truth in 
 every form of religious worship, and holds the pleasures of Paradise un- 
 worthy of a wise or pious hope. W.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 517 
 
 ceremonies to a degree no where else exemplified BOOKI11 
 
 C HAP. > 
 
 among nations in the lower stages of civilization. 
 
 As so great a portion of human life is devoted to 
 the preparation and enjoyment of food, the great 
 diversity between a diet wholly vegetable, and one 
 which may in any degree consist of animal food, 
 implies a considerable diversity in one grand portion 
 of the details of ordinary life. Abstinence from in- 
 toxicating liquors, is a feature almost equally strong 
 in the manners of both Mohammedans and Hindus. 
 
 In point of address and temper, the Mohammedan 
 is less soft, less smooth and winning than the Hindu. 
 Of course he is not so well liked by his lord and 
 master the Englishman : who desires to have nothing 
 more to do with him, than to receive his obedience. 
 In truth, the Hindu, like the Eunuch, excels in the 
 qualities of a slave. The indolence,, the security, the 
 pride of the despot, political or domestic, find less to 
 hurt them in the obedience of the Hindu, than in 
 that of almost any other portion of the species. But 
 if less soft, the Mohammedan is more manly, more 
 vigorous. He more nearly resembles our own half- 
 civilized ancestors; who, though more rough, were 
 not more gross; though less supple in behaviour, 
 were still more susceptible of increased civilization, 
 than a people in the state of the Hindus. 
 
 In the still more important qualities, which con- 
 stitute what we call the moral character, the Hindu, 
 as we have already seen, ranks very low ; and the 
 Mohammedan is little, if at all, above him. The 
 same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy ; the same 
 indifference to the feelings of others ; the same pro-
 
 518 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in gtitution and venality, 1 are conspicuous in both. The 
 Mohammedans are profuse, when possessed of wealth, 
 
 and devoted to pleasure; the Hindus are almost 
 
 always penurious and ascetic. 2 
 
 VII. THE ARTS. The comparison has been so 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Roe, speaking of even the Mogul Emperor and his court, 
 says, " Experience had taught me that there was no faith among these 
 barbarians." Journal in Churchill's Voyages, i. 799. Contrasting the 
 opposition he met with, -when he had not, and the obsequiousness when 
 he had something to give, he says, " This made me sensible of the poor 
 spirits of those people. Asaph Khan [the minister] was become so much 
 our friend, in hopes to buy some trifles, that he would have betrayed his 
 own son to serve us, and was my humble servant." Ibid. Sir Thomas 
 Roe said it was better not to send ambassadors to the Mogul's court, but 
 to employ the money in bribing. " Half my charge," said he, " shall cor- 
 rupt all this court to be your slaves." Letter to the E. I. Company, Ibi d 
 p. 809. 
 
 * In this comparison of manners, a variety of assertions are made, wholly 
 unfounded. The distinction between the Moslem and the unbeliever, 
 has everywhere rendered the former inclined to be brutal in his treatment 
 of the latter, to an extent much beyond the ordinary effect of the distinc- 
 tion of caste. This was a matter of importance in India, where nine- 
 tenths of the people were unbelievers, and were constant food for the 
 insolence and cruelty of the faithful. The Mohammedan doctrine of equality 
 was not incompatible with slavery to a very great extent, with all its 
 debasing effects upon the manners of the slave-owner. Although not 
 unknown to the Hindu system, it is in so modified a form, and is so little 
 in harmony with Hindu manners, that it scarcely exists in most parts of 
 India. The Hindus are not restricted to a vegetable diet any more than 
 the Mohammedans, whilst it is not true that the Mohammedans abstain 
 from spirituous liquors as rigidly as the Hindus. There are no such con- 
 fessions in Hindu writings as in Baber's honest accounts of his drinking 
 bouts, no such panegyrics upon wine, as in the poetry of Hafiz. With 
 regard to deportment, there is not much difference between a well-bred 
 Mohammedan and Hindu ; but generally speaking there is more sincerity 
 in the latter. The morals of the Mohammedans are much lower than 
 those of the Hindus, from their stronger propensity to personal gratification 
 ascribable partly to the spirit of their religion, and partly to greater physi- 
 cal vigour. The only superiority possessed by the, Mohammedan over the 
 Hindu is energy ; they are, in general, a more resolute and enterprising 
 race, retaining some of the physical qualities of their Turkish or Persian 
 origin. This applies only to the better classes of them. The lower 
 orders of Indian Mohammedans, arc in general inferior to the lower orders 
 of the Hindus. W.
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 519 
 
 fully exhibited, between the Persians and Hindus, in BOOK in 
 
 CH.AP *S 
 
 respect to progress, in the arts, in that chapter of the ' 
 preceding book, in which the arts of the Hindus have 
 been described ; and it is so well known, that the 
 Mohammedan conquerors of India carried with them 
 in perfection the arts of the Persians, that under this 
 head scarcely any thing remains to be adduced. 
 
 Of the mechanical arts, those of architecture, jew- 
 ellery, and the fabrication of cloth, appeared to be 
 the only arts for which admiration has been bestowed 
 upon the Hindus. In the first two, the Hindus were 
 found decidedly inferior to the Mohammedans. 1 Of 
 the Mohammedan structures, some are hardly ex- 
 ceeded by the finest monuments of architecture in 
 Europe. The characteristic circumstance of build- 
 ing an arch, the Hindus were totally ignorant of; 
 the Mohammedans excelled in it. 2 If in any thing 
 the Mohammedans were inferior to the Hindus, it was 
 in the productions of the loom ; though it is doubtful 
 whether, as high specimens of art, the silks and vel- 
 vets of the Persians are not as wonderful as the fine 
 muslins of the Hindus. 
 
 In making roads and bridges, one of the most im- 
 portant of all the applications of human labour and 
 skill, the Hindus, before the invasion of the Moham- 
 medans, appear to have gone very little beyond the 
 
 1 This is quite gratuitous; what do we know of the works of Hindu 
 princes in these respects? In a country like India, edifices of the most 
 stately character soon fall to decay, if left to such neglect, as could not 
 fail to be the fate of Hindu monuments under the scourge of foreign ag- 
 gression. There are, however, remains of magnificent causeways in 
 Behar, the Dekhin, and Guzerat, which must have been the work of 
 Hindu princes, and sufficiently prove that they were not unmindful of the 
 construction of roads and bridges, W. 
 
 8 Vide supra, p. 13, 14.
 
 520 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in state of the most barbarous nations. We have seen, 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 in the extract lately produced from the Institutes of 
 Timur, that this was a primary care of government 
 among the Moguls, before they became the con- 
 querors of Hindustan. 
 
 In the fine arts, as they are usually called ; or 
 those of music, painting, and sculpture, the reader 
 has already traced, with me, a remarkable coin- 
 cidence in the progress of the Mohammedans, the 
 Chinese, and the Hindus. In painting, the taste, as 
 well as the mechanical faculty of all these nations, 
 exhibit a resemblance which is singular and sur- 
 prising. In music, the Hindus appear to be inferior ; 
 as, in sculpture, the Persians superior to the other 
 two. 
 
 Whether war is to be ranked among the fine or 
 the coarse arts ; and whatever the relative portion of 
 the powers of mind which it requires ; the art may 
 be expected to exist in a state of high perfection 
 among a people who are more, than a people who 
 are less advanced in the scale of intelligence. When 
 a number of people, comparatively few, overcome 
 and hold in subjection a number of people compara- 
 tively large, the inference is a legitimate one 
 (unless something appear which gives the small 
 number some wonderful advantage,) that the art of 
 war is in a state of higher perfection among the 
 conquering people, than the conquered. This in- 
 ference, in the case of the Mohammedans and Hin 
 dus, is confirmed by every thing which we know 
 with respect to both those people. 
 
 VIII. LITERATURE. In this important article, 
 it will be impossible to show that the Hindus hud
 
 MOHAMMEDAN CIVILIZATION. 521 
 
 the superiority in one single particular. It will not be BO 
 
 disputed, it is probable, that in almost every respect 
 
 a decided superiority was on the side of their 
 invaders. The only branches of Hindu literature 
 of which the admirers of Hindu civilization have 
 called for any admiration, are the mathematics and 
 the poetry. 
 
 With regard to the mathematics, it is rather the 
 supposed antiquity, than the high progress of the 
 science, among the Hindus, at which any wonder 
 has been expressed. Whatever the case in regard to 
 antiquity ; it is abundantly certain that the science 
 existed among the Mohammedans, acquainted to a 
 considerable degree with the mathematics of Europe, 
 in a state not less high, than it was found among the 
 Hindus ; and that point is all which is material to 
 the present purpose, 
 
 Of the poetry of the Hindus I have already endea- 
 voured to convey a precise idea. On the present 
 occasion it appears sufficient to say, that even those 
 who make the highest demand upon us for admira- 
 tion of the poetry of the Hindus, allow, as Sir 
 William Jones, for example, that the poetry of the 
 Persians is superior. 1 Compare the Mahabharat, the 
 great narrative poem of the Hindus, with the Shah 
 Namah, the great narrative poem of the Persians ; 
 the departure from nature and probability is less 
 wild and extravagant ; the incidents are less foolish; 
 the fictions are more ingenious ; all to a great degree, 
 
 1 Who makes any such admission ? A more specific reference to the 
 opinion of Sir William Jones is necessary, as it may be doubted if it is 
 accurately quoted. The Shah Namah has some interesting narrative, 
 but little that can be called poetry. The Mahabharat is no doubt inarti- 
 ficial, and often tiresome, but it abounds with poetical beauties. W.
 
 522 
 
 HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA. 
 
 BOOK in hi the work of the Mohammedan author, than in 
 
 CHAP. 5. 
 
 that of the Hindu. 
 
 But the grand article in which the superiority of 
 the Mohammedans appears in history. As all our 
 knowledge is built upon experience, the recordation 
 of the past for the guidance of the future is one of 
 the effects in which the utility of the art of writing 
 principally consists. Of this most important branch of 
 literature the Hindus were totally destitute. Among 
 the Mohammedans of India the art of composing 
 history has been carried to greater perfection than in 
 any other part of Asia. In point of simplicity and 
 good sense, there is no specimen even of Persian 
 history, known to the European scholar, which can 
 vie with the works of Ferishta, or the interesting 
 Memoirs of Gholam Hussein, the Seer Mutakha- 
 reen. 1 Beside the best specimens of Persian history, 
 it is worthy of remark that the best specimen also 
 of Persian poetry, the celebrated Shah Namah, was 
 produced among the Mohammedan conquerors of 
 Hindustan. 2 
 
 1 It may be shrewdly suspected that our author would not have 
 spoken so highly of Ferishta, or even of that much more intelligent 
 Chronicler Gholam Hosein, had not his purpose been to disparage the 
 Hindus by exalting the Mohammedans. W. 
 
 * The answer to this, in all, except in history, the superiority is with 
 the Hindus. W.
 
 N O T S. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 THE most authentic source of information, yet open to the 
 research of the European scholar, on the metaphysical, as on 
 other ideas of the learned Hindus., is the volume of the Insti- 
 tutions of Menu. This celebrated, authoritative, and divine 
 work contains, as is usual with the sacred books of the Hindus, 
 a specimen of all their knowledge ; cosmogony, theology, 
 physics, metaphysics, government, jurisprudence, and economics. 
 From the account which in this work is rendered of the origin 
 of the mind and its faculties, very sure conclusions may be 
 drawn respecting the extent and accuracy of the psychological 
 knowledge of the people by whom that account is delivered 
 and believed. 
 
 The inspired author of this divine work informs the believing 
 Hindu that, " From the supreme soul, Brahma, the Creator, 
 drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by 
 sense, immaterial." 1 The principal words here employed are 
 vague and obscure, and no distinct meaning can be assigned to 
 them. What is meant by " existing substantially ?" What is 
 meant by " immaterial ?" "To exist substantially," if it have 
 any meaning, is to be a substance. But this is inconsistent 
 with the idea which we ascribe to the word immaterial ; and 
 there is in many other passages, abundant reason to conclude 
 that the word, with its usual leanings, here translated, " imma- 
 terial,'' by Sir William Jones, meant nothing, in the conception 
 
 1 Laws of Menu, eh. i. 14. See the passage quoted ;it length, supra ; 
 vol. i. p. 125.
 
 524 NOTE A. 
 
 of a Hindu, but a certain air, or ether, too fine to be perceived 
 by the organs of sense. 
 
 Immediately after the words we have just quoted, it is added ; 
 44 And before mind, or the reasoning power, he produced con- 
 sciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler." 1 Consciousness, a 
 faculty of the mind, is here represented as created before the 
 mind, the quality before the substratum. It is subjoined in 
 the next words ; " And before them both " (that is, before the 
 mind and consciousness) 4 ' he produced the great principle of 
 the soul, or first expansion of the divine idea." 2 Here is a 
 third production, which is neither the mind, nor consciousness. 
 What is it? to this we have no answer. As to the term 44 first 
 expansion of the divine idea," which may be suspected to be a 
 gloss rather than a translation, it is mere jargon, with no more 
 meaning than the cawing of rooks. 44 In the same manner " 
 (that is, according to the construction of the sentence, before 
 mind and consciousness ) 4- he created the five perceptions of 
 sense, and the five organs of perception." 3 Another faculty of 
 the mind, perception, is thus a creation antecedent to mind. 
 The organs of perception, too, or bodily part, are a separate 
 creation; perceiving organs which belong to no perceiving 
 being. 
 
 The following text, which are the words next in order, ex- 
 hibits a curious sample of metaphysical ideas. 44 Having at 
 once pervaded, with emanations from the supreme spirit, the 
 minutest portions of six principles immensely operative, con- 
 sciousness, and the five perceptions, the Creator framed all 
 creatures."* Consciousness, and the five perceptions, existed 
 antecedently to all creatures; consciousness and perception, 
 without conscious and perceiving beings. What is meant by 
 the minute portions of consciousness? How can conscious- 
 ness be supposed divided into portions either minute or large ; 
 especially when we are told that the mind is immaterial ? What, 
 too, are we to understand by the minute portions of a per- 
 ception ? As to the mere jargon, such as ' 4 pervading con- 
 sciousness, and the five perceptions with emanations from the 
 supreme spirit," it is unnecessary to offer on it'any remarks. 
 
 1 Laws of Menu, ch. i. 14. * Ibid. 15. 
 
 3 Laws of Menu, ch. i. 15. 4 Ibid. 16.
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 We are next informed, " that the minutest particles of visible 
 nature have a dependence on those six emanations from God/' 1 
 What is meant by these six emanations is not very definitely 
 expressed. The six things that are spoken of are consciousness 
 and the five perceptions ; and it is probable that they are 
 meant. But how visible nature should depend upon conscious- 
 ness and the five perceptions, does not appear. Certain other 
 emanations from God, however, are spoken of, with which con- 
 sciousness and the five perceptions were pervaded : and perhaps 
 it was meant that the minutest particles of matter depend on 
 them. But this is only barbarous jargon. 
 
 In the following verse it is said, that " from these six emana- 
 tions proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, 
 and mind with operations infinitely subtle, the unperishable 
 cause of all apparent form." 2 It is still a difficulty, what is 
 meant by the six emanations. If those are meant with which 
 consciousness and the five perceptions are pervaded, no ideas 
 whatever can be annexed to the words ; they are totally without 
 a meaning ; and that is all. If consciousness and the five per- 
 ceptions be, as seems probable, the emanations in question ; in 
 what manner do the great elements and mind proceed from 
 consciousness and the five perceptions ? Mind would thus 
 proceed from certain of its own operations. 
 
 It is added in the succeeding sentence, " This universe, 
 therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of those 
 seven divine and active principles, the great soul, or first ema- 
 nation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe 
 from immutable ideas." 3 Here it appears that the great soul, 
 as well as consciousness and the perceptions, can be divided 
 into portions. The great soul is not therefore immaterial, ac- 
 cording to our sense of the word: and still less can either that, 
 or the perceptions and consciousness be immaterial, if the uni- 
 verse, a great part of which is surely material, can be compacted 
 from portions of them. " A mutable universe," it is said, 
 " from immutable ideas ; " therefore, the great soul, conscious- 
 ness, and the five perceptions, are not realities, though divisible 
 
 1 Laws of Menu, ch. i. 19. 
 
 * Ibid. 17. 3 Ibid. 18.
 
 526 NOTE B. 
 
 into portions ; they are only ideas ! What conclusions arc we 
 entitled to form respecting the intellectual state of a people who 
 can be charmed with doctrine like this? l 
 
 In the following passage, and there are others of asimilar 
 import, we find a specimen of those beginnings which are 
 made at an early stage of society, to refine in the modes of 
 conceiving the mental operation. " Self-love," it is said, " is 
 no laudable motive ; yet an exemption from self-love is not to 
 be found in this world : on self-love is grounded the study of 
 scripture, and the practice of actions recommended in it." 5 
 The absurdity lies, in not perceiving, that if no action proceed- 
 ing from self-love is virtuous ; and if there is no action which 
 does not proceed from self-love ; then there is no virtue in 
 the world, which is far from being the subject of Hindu 
 belief. M. 
 
 NOTE B. p. 479. 
 
 This superior intellectual advancement of the Mohammedan 
 nations, so confidently asserted, as a fact, is no fact at all, nor has 
 any proof of it been adduced. The analogies upon which it is 
 based, have been shewn to be inaccurate, and the comparison 
 involves a total disregard of time and circumstance. The ques- 
 tion formerly discussed, was not what the Arabs, Persians, Turks, 
 and Hindus now are, but what they were. Admitting that the 
 three former have attained since the eighth century a level with 
 the Hindus, it may most confidently be denied that the Arabs 
 before the time of the Khalifat, or the Turks before that of 
 Jangiz, were on a par with Hindu civilization. It would be 
 equally consistent to assert, that because the progress made 
 by the inhabitants of Great Britain, has left the Hindus behind ; 
 therefore the Britons were in the days of Caesar more civilized 
 
 1 Not only are consciousness and the five perceptions regarded as sepa. 
 rate existences, and separate products of creative power, but various other 
 operations of the mind, and even states of the affections. Thus, among 
 the other creations, it is said, that the Creator " gave being to devotion, 
 speech, complacency, desire, and wrath." (Laws of Menu, ch. i. 25.) 
 
 * Ibid. ch. ii. 2.
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 than the people of India. Whatever, therefore, may have been 
 the case in modern times, the nations of western Asia had not 
 at an earlier period a stage of civilization higher than the other 
 inhabitants of the East. In truth the fact is disputable, even 
 in all times. Mohammedan civilization is one, whatever be the 
 nation, the same literature and science are cultivated from the 
 Hellespont to the Oxus, the same laws and the same religion 
 prevail. The literature is in some degree original, but with the 
 exception of the historical portion, is much less agreeable to 
 European taste than that of the Hindus : the science is bor- 
 rowed, not only from the Greeks, but from the Hindus, and it 
 is not true that the disciple has surpassed his masters. The 
 magnificence of the Khaliphs rose suddenly and soon disap- 
 peared ; their bounty created, and their example continued, a 
 race of men of letters, who justly reflect great celebrity and 
 credit upon the Mohammedan name ; but literature was always 
 confined to the court and the camp, it never enlightened the 
 people. Nor were they brought within reach of civilization 
 by the nature of their governments, the prevailing form of which 
 has always been a military despotism, depending for its admi- 
 nistration wholly on the character of the reigning prince. 
 Neither now nor before the birth of Mohammed, were Arabs, 
 Turks, or Persians, elevated above the Hindus by their political 
 condition. They have had an advantage subsequently in their 
 religion, the principles of which approached nearer to truth than 
 Hindu idolatry. In practice, however, it is quite as full of 
 unmeaning and trifling observances, and in its ferocious into- 
 lerance contributes less to humanize its professors, than the 
 universal toleration of Hindu polytheism. W. 
 
 527 
 
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