 Section 28 of Hinduism and Buddhism in historical sketch, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Shashank Jagmola. Hinduism and Buddhism in historical sketch, Volume 1 by Charles Iliad. Historical It may be useful to insert here a brief sketch of Indian history, but its aim is merely to outline the surroundings in which Hindu religion and philosophy grew up. It, therefore, passes lightly over much which is important from other points of view and is intended for reference rather than for continuous reading. An indifference to history, including biography, politics and geography, is the great defect of Indian literature. Not only are there few historical treatises, but even historical illusions are rare and this curious vagueness is not peculiar to any age or district. Fortnite 107 The chief exception in Sanskrit is the Raja Tarangani, a chronicle of Kashmir composed in 1148 A.D. There are also a few panegyrics of contemporary monarchs such as the Harshacharitra of Barna and some of the Purans, especially the Matsya and Vayu. Contain historical material. See Vincent Smith, Early History of India, Chapter 1, Section 2 and Purgator Dynasties of the Kali Age. The Greek and Roman accounts of ancient India have been collected by McRindle in 6 volumes, 1877 to 1901. End footnote It is as noticeable among the Dravidians of the south as among the speakers of Aryan languages in the north. It prevails from Vedic times until the Muhammedan quests, which produced chronicles though it did not induce Brahmins to write them in Sanskrit. The lacuna is being slowly filled up by the labors of European scholars who have collected numerous data from an examination of inscriptions, monuments and coins from the critical study of Hindu literature and from research in foreign, especially Chinese, accounts of ancient India. At first sight, the history of India seems mainly a record of invasions, the annals of a land that was always receptive and fated to be conquered. The coast is poor in ports and the nearest foreign shore distant. The land frontiers offer more time to invaders than to immigrants. The Vedic Aryans, Persians, Greeks and hordes of innumerable from Central Asia poured in century after century through the passages of the northwestern mountains and after the arrival of Vasco da Gama, other hordes came from Europe by sea. The armies and fleets of India can tell no similar story of foreign victories. This picture, however, neglects the fact that large parts of Indochina and the Malay archipelago, including Cambodia, Champa, Java and even Borneo received not only civilization but colonists and rulers from India. In the North too, Nepal, Kashmir, Khotan and many other districts might at one time or another be legitimately described as conquered or tributary countries. It may be indeed be just the objective that Indian literature knows nothing of Cambodia and other lands where Indian buildings have been discovered and that the people of India were unconscious of having conquered them. Footnote 108 The inscriptions of the Chola King, however, circa 1000 A.D., seems to boast of conquest to the east of India. Sikwe des le Royame de Krivijaya in B.E.F.E.O.1980 End of footnote But Indian literature is equally unconscious of the conquests made by Alexander, Kanishka and many others. Poets and philosophers were little interested in the expeditions of princes, whether native or foreign. But if by India is meant the country bounded by the sea and northern mountains, it undoubtedly sent armies and colonists to regions far beyond these limits, both in the southeast and the north, and if the expansion of a country is to be measured not merely by territorial accusation, but by the diffusion of its institutions, religion, heart and literature, then the conquests of the Dhamma to use Ashoka's phrase including China, Japan, Tibet and Mongolia. The fact that the Hindus paid no attention to these conquests and their spread of their civilization argues a curious lack of interest in national questions and an inability to see or utilize political opportunities which must be the result of temperament rather than of distracting invasions. For the long interval between the defeat of the Huns in 526 AD and the raids of Mahmud of Ghazni about 1000 AD, which was almost entirely free from foreign inroads, seems precisely the period when the want of political ideas and constructive capacity was most marked. Nor were the incursions always destructive and sterile. The invaders, though they had generally more valor than culture of their own, often brought with them foreign art and ideas, Hellenic, Persian or Muhammadan. Naturally the northern districts felt their violence most as well as the new influences which they brought, whereas the south became the focus of Hindu politics and culture which radiated dense northwards again. Yet, on the whole, seeing how vast is the area occupied by the Hindus, how great the difference is not only of race but of language, it is remarkable how large a measure of uniformity exists among them. Of course, I exclude Muhammadans in things religious and intellectual. Hinduism ranges from the lowest superstition to the highest philosophy but the stages are not distributed geographically. Pilgrims go from Badrinath to Rameshwaram. The Vaishnavism of Trichinapoli, Mutra and Bengal does not differ in essentials. The worship of the linga can be seen almost anywhere. And though India has often been receptive, this receptivity has been deliberate and discriminating. Great as was the advance of Islam, the resistance offered to it was even more remarkable and at the present day it cannot be said that in the things which most interested them, Indian minds are specially hospitable to British ideas. The relative absence of political unity seems due to want of interest in politics. It is often said that the history of India in pre-Muhammadan times is an unintelligible or at least unreadable record of the complicated quarrels and the varying frontiers of small states. Yet this is as true of the history of the Italian as of the Indian Peninsula. The real reason why Indian history seems tedious and intricate is that large interests are involved only in the greatest struggles such as the efforts to repulse the Huns or Muhammedans. The ordinary wars, though conducted on no small scale, did not involve such causes or principles as the strife of roundheads with Cavaliers. With rare exceptions, states and empires were regarded as the property of their monarchs. Religion claimed to advise kings like other wealthy persons as to their duties and opportunities and ministers became the practical rulers of kingdoms just as a steward may get the management of an estate into his hands. But it rarely occurred to Hindus that other persons in the estate had any right to a share in the government or that a Raja could be dispossessed by anybody but another Raja. Of that, indeed, there was no lack. Not only had every sovereign to defend himself against the enemies in his own house, but external politics seems based on the maxim that it is the duty of a powerful ruler to increase his territory by direct and unprovoked attacks on his neighbours. There is hardly a king of eminence who did not expand his power in this way, and the usual history of a royal house is successful aggression followed by collapse when weaker hands were unable to hold the inherited handful. Even moderately long intervals of peace are rare, yet all the while we seem to be dealing not with the expansion or decadence of a nation, but with great nobles who add to their estates or go bankrupt. These features of Indian politics are illustrated by the Arthashastra, a manual of state craft attributed to Chharnakya, the minister of Chandragupta, and sometimes called the Indian Machiavelli. Its authenticity has been disputed, but it is now generally accepted by scholars as an ancient work composed, if not in the fourth century, at least sometime before the Christian era. It does not, like Manu and other Brahmanic law books, gives regulations for an ideal kingdom, but frankly describes the practice of kings. The form of states contemplated is a small kingdom surrounded by others like it, and war is assumed to be their almost normal relation, but due to the taste or policy of kings, not to national aspirations or economic causes. Towards the Brahmins, a king has certain moral obligations towards his subjects and fellow monarchs none. It is assumed that his object is to obtain money from his subjects, conquer his neighbours, and protect himself by espionage and severe punishments against the attacks to which he is continually exposed, especially at the hands of his sons. But the author does not allow his prince a life of pleasure. He is to work hard, and the first thing he has to attend to are religious matters. The difficulty of writing historical epitomes, which are either accurate or readable, is well known, and to outline the events which have occurred in the vast area called India, during the last 2,500 years, is a specially arduous task, for it is almost impossible to frame a narrative which follows the fortunes of the best known Hindu kingdoms and also does justice to the influence of southern India and Islam. It may be useful to tabulate the principal periods, but the table is not continuous, and even when there is no gap in chronology, it often happens that only one political area is illuminated amid the general darkness, and that this area is not the same for many centuries. 1. From about 500 to 200 BC, Magadha, the modern Bihar, was the principal state, and the dominions of its great king Ashoka were almost the same as British India today. 2. In the immediately succeeding period, many invaders entered from the northwest. Some were Greeks and some Iranians, but the most important were the Kushans, who ruled over an empire embracing both northwestern India and regions beyond it in Afghanistan and Central Asia. This empire came to an end in the 3rd century AD, where the causes of its collapse are obscure. 3. The native Hindu dynasty of the Guptas began to rule in 320 AD. Its dominions included nearly all northern India, but it was destroyed by the invasions of the Huns in the 5th and 6th centuries. 4. The Hindu Emperor Harsha, 606 to 647 AD, practically reconstituted the Gupta Empire, but his dominions split up after his death. At the same time, another empire which extended from Gujarat to Madras was founded by Pulakesan, a prince from the south, a region which, though by no means uncivilized, had hitherto played a small part in the general history of India. 5. From 650 to 1080, India was divided among numerous independent kingdoms. There was no central power, but Bengal and Deccan were more prominent than previously. 6. After 1000 AD, the conquest of Muhammadan invaders became important and the Hindu states of northern and central India collapsed or grew weak. But the Hindus held out in Rajputana, Orissa and above all in Vijayanagar. 7. In 1526 came the invasion of the Mughals, who founded an empire which at its zenith, 1556 to 1707 included all India except the extreme south. In its decadence, the Marathas and Sikhs became powerful and Europeans began to intervene. It is generally agreed that at a period which, though not fixed, was anterior to 1000 BC, a body of invaders known as Aryans and nearly akin to the ancient Iranians entered India through the north-western mountains. Footnote 109. Very different opinions have been held as to whether this date should be approximately 1500 BC or 3000 BC. The strong resemblance of the hymns of the Rig Veda to those of the Avesta is in favour of the less ancient date, but their date of the Gathas can hardly be regarded as certain. And Footnote. They found there other tribes not deficient in civilisation but unable to offer any effective resistance. These tribes who retired southwards are commonly known as Dravidians and possibly represent an earlier invasion of central Asiatic tribes allied to the remote ancestors of the Turks and Mongols. Footnote 110. Linguistically, there seems to be two distinct divisions, the Dravidians and Munda, Kolarian. Footnote 111. The affinity between the Dravidian and Ural Altai groups of languages has often been suggested but has met with scepticism. Any adequate treatment of this question demands a comparison of the earliest forms known in both groups and as to this I have no pre-tension to speak. But circumstances have led me to acquire at different times some practical acquaintances with the Turkish and Finnish as well as a slight literary knowledge of Tamil and having these data I cannot help being struck by the general similarity shown in the structure both of words and of sentences, particularly the use of adherence and constructions which replace relative sentences and by some resemblances in vocabulary. On the other hand, the pronouns and consequently the conjugation of verbs show remarkable differences. But the curious Brahui language which is classed as the Dravidian has negative forms in which pa is inserted into the verb as in the Turkish example given I do not cut I do not see The plural of nouns in Brahui uses the suffixes k and t which are found in the Finnish group and in Hungarian. End footnote At the time when the earlier hymns of the Rigveda were composed the Aryans apparently lived in the Punjab and did not know the sea, the Vindhya mountains or the Narbudda river. They included several tribes among whom five were specially mentioned and we hear that a great battle was fought on the Ravi in which a confederation of ten kings who wished to force a passage through the east was repulsed by Sudhas, chief of the Tritsas. Still, the southeastern movement across the modern provinces to the borders of Bengal continued and so far as the records go it was in this direction rather than do south or southwest that the Aryans chiefly advanced. Footnote 1-1-2 See the legend in Satpata Brahmana first 4-1-14-FF End footnote The Brahmanas and earlier Upanishads were composed 800-600 BC the principal political units were the kingdoms of the Panchalas and Kurus in the region of Delhi. The city of Ayodhya is also credited with a very ancient but legendary history. The real history of India begins with the life of the Buddha who lived in the 6th century BC. Footnote 1-1-3 This much seems sure but whereas European scholars were till recently agreed that he died about 487 BC it is now suggested that 543 may be nearer the true date. See Vincent Smith in Oxford history of India 1920 page 48. End footnote At that time the small states of northern India which were apparently monarchies or monarchies restricted by the powers of a tribal council were in process of being absorbed by large states which were absolute monarchies and this remained the normal form of government in both Hindu and Muslim times. The Skosala or Oud absorbed the kingdom of Benares but was itself conquered by Magdha or Bihar the chief city Patalipatra or Patna destined to become the capital of India. We also know that at this period and for about two centuries later the Persian Empire had two setrapies which within the limits of modern India one called India including the country east of the Indus and possibly part of the Punjab and the other called Gandhara, Peshawar containing Takshila a celebrated university. Footnote 114 Pali Takasila, Greek Takshila it was near the modern Ravalpindi and is frequently mentioned in the Jatakas as an ancient and well-known place. End footnote The situation of this seat of learning is important for it was frequented by students from other districts and they have felt there in early times Persian and afterwards Hellenistic influence. There are clear signs of Persian influence in India in the reign of Ashoka. Of Magdha there is little to be said for the next century and a half but it appears to have remained the chief state of northern India. In 327 B.C. Alexander the Great after overthrowing the Persian Empire invaded India where he remained only 19 months. He probably intended to annex Sindh and Punjab permanently to his empire but he died in 323 and in the next year Chandragapta, an exiled skyan of the royal house of Magdha put an end to the Macedonian authority in India and then seized the throne of his ancestors. He founded the Moria dynasty under which Magdha expanded into an empire comprising all India except the extreme south. Silesis Nicator who had inherited the asian possessions of Alexander and wished to assert his authority came into collision with Chandragapta but was completely worsted and about 303 B.C. concluded a treaty by which he seated the districts of Kabul, Herat and Kandahar. Shortly afterwards he sent as his ambassador to the court of Patli Putra, a Greek named Megastinis who resided there for a considerable time and wrote an account of the country still extant in a fragmentary form. The grandson of Chandragapta was a shoka the first ruler of all India. 273 B.C. to 231 B.C. His empire extended from Afghanistan almost to Madras and was governed with benevolent but somewhat grandmotherly despotism. He was an ardent Buddhist and it is mainly owing to his efforts which are described in more detail below that Buddhism became during some centuries the dominant faith in India. A shoka's empire broke up soon after his death in circumstances which are not clear for we now enter upon one of those chaotic periods which recur from time to time in Indian history in information until the 4th century A.D. Andhra, a region including large parts of the districts now called the northern Srikas, Hyderabad and central provinces was the first to revolve from the Mauryas and the dynasty of Andhra kings who claimed to belong to the Satvahana family ruled until 236 A.D. over varying but often extensive territories. Footnote 115 Most of them are known by the title of Satakarni. And a footnote what remained of the Maurya throne was usurped in 184 B.C. by the Shungas who in their turn were overthrown by the Karnvas. These latter could not withstand the Andhras and collapsed before them about 27 B.C. Alexander's invasion produced little direct effect and no allusion to it has been found in Indian literature but indirectly it had a great influence on the political, artistic and religious development of the Hindus by preparing the way for a series of later invasions from the north which brought with them a mixed culture containing Hellenic, Persian and other elements. During some centuries India as a political region was not delimitated on the northwestern side as it is at present and its principalities rose and fell which included Indian territory as well as parts of Afghanistan. These states were of at least three classes Hellenistic, Persian or Barthian and Skythian if that word can be properly used to include the Sakas and Kushans. Bactria was a Persian Satrapi before Alexander's invasion but when he passed through it on his way to India he found 12 cities and settled a considerable number of his soldiers in them. It formed part of the empire of Seleusus but declared itself independent in 250 B.C. about the same time that the Barthians revolted and founded the empire of Arsacidae. The Bactrian kings bore Greek names and in 209 Antiochus III made peace with one of them called Euthydemus in common cause against the nomads who threatened western Asia. Demetrius, the son of this Euthydemus appears to have conquered Kabul, the Punjab and Sindh circa 190 B.C. but his reign was troubled by the rebellion of a certain Eucratides and it is probable that many small and contending frontier states of which we have a confused record were ruled by the relatives of one or other of these two princes. The most important of them was Menander apparently king of the Kabul valley. About 155 he made an incursion to the east occupied Muttra and threatened Patliputra itself but was repulsed. He is celebrated in Buddhist literature as the hero of the questions of Melinda but his coins though showing some Buddhist emblems indicate that he was also a worshipper of Pallas. Shortly after this, Hellenic influence in bacteria was overwhelmed by the invasion of the Yoenche though the Greek principalities in the Punjab may have lasted considerably longer. In the reign of Mithridates 171 to 138 B.C. the Parthian empire was limitrophy with India and possibly his authority extended beyond the Indus. Later the Parthian dependencies included two Satrapis Arakosia and the western Punjab with capitals at Kandahar and Taksilap respectively. In the latter ruled kings or viceroys one of whom called Gondofores 20 AD is celebrated on account of his legendary connection with the Apostle Thomas. More important for the history of India were the conquests of the Sarkas and Yoche nomad tribes of Central Asia similar to the modern Turkomans. Footnote 116 but perhaps not in language. Recent research makes it probable that the Kushans or Yoche used an Iranian idiom. End footnote. The former are first heard of in the basins of the river Ely and being dislodged by the advance of the Yoche moved southwards reaching northwest in India about 150 BC. Here they founded many small principalities the rulers of which appear to have admitted the suzerainty of the Parthians for some time and to have borne the title of Satrapis. It is clear that western India was parceled out among foreign princes called Sarkas, Yavinas or Pallavas The frontiers and mutual relations were constantly changing. The most important of these principalities was known as the Great Satrapi which included Surashtra, Kartyavad with adjacent parts of the mainland and lasted until about 395 AD. The Yoche started westwards from the frontiers of China about 100 BC and driving the Sarkas before them settled in Bakhtriya. Here Karpises, the chief of one of their tribes called the Kushans, succeeded in imposing his authority on the others who coerced into one nation henceforth known by the tribal name. The chronology of the Kushan empire is one of the waste questions of Indian history and the dates given below are stated positively only because there is no space for adequate discussion and are given with some skepticism that is desire for more knowledge founded on facts. Karpises won 15-45 AD after consolidating his empire led his armies southwards conquering Kabul and perhaps Kashmir. His successor Karpises II 45-78 AD annexed the whole of northwestern India including northern Sindh, the Punjab and perhaps Banaras. There was a considerable trade between India and the Roman Empire at this period and an embassy was sent to Trajan apparently by Kanishka. 78-123 AD the successor of Karpises. This monarch played a part in the later history of Buddhism comparable with that of Ashoka in earlier ages. 1-1-7 Fleet and Frankie considered that Kanishka preceded the two Karpises and began to reign about 58 BC. And a footnote. He waged war with the Parthians and Chinese and his empire which had its capital at Peshawar included Afghanistan, Bactria, Kashgar, Yarkhand and Khotan and Kashmir. Footnote 1-1-8 He appears to have been defeated in these regions by the Chinese general Panchao about 98 AD but to have been more successful about 15 years later. Footnote 2-3-4 These dominions which perhaps extended as far as Gaya in the east were retained by his successor Hovishka and Vasudeva. But after this period the Andhra and Kushin dynasties both collapsed as Indian powers although Kushin kings continued to rule in Kabul. The reasons for their fall are unknown but may be connected with the rise of Sassanids in Persia. For more than a century the political history of India is a blank and little can be said except that the kingdom of Surashtra continued to exist under Asaka dynasty. Light returns with the rise of the Gupta dynasty which roughly marks the beginning of modern Hinduism and of a reaction against Buddhism. Though nothing is known of the fortunes of Pataliputra, the ancient imperial city of the Morias, during the first three centuries of our era it continued to exist. In 320 a local Raja known as Chandragupta first increased his dominions and celebrated his coronation by the institution of the Gupta era. His son Samudragupta continued his conquests and in the course of an extraordinary campaign concluded about 340 AD appears to have received the submission of almost the whole peninsula. He made no attempt to retain all this territory but his effective authority was exercised in a wide district extending from the Hoogli to the rivers Jamuna and Chambal in the west and from the Himalayas to the Narbada. His son Chandragupta II or Vikramaditya added to these negotiations Malva, Gujarat and Kartyavad and for more than half a century the Guptas ruled undisturbed over nearly all northern India except Rajputana and Sindh. Their capital was at first Pataliputra but afterwards Kaushambhi and Ayodhya became royal residences. The fall of the Guptas was brought about by another invasion of barbarians known as Hunas, Ephthalites or White Huns and apparently a branch of the Huns who invaded Europe. Footnote 119 or Hephthalites the original name seems to have been something like Haptal. This branch remained behind in Asia and occupied northern Persia. They invaded India first in 455 and were repulsed but returned about 490 in greater force and overthrew the Guptas. Their king, Toramana and Meheragulla were masters of northern India till 540 and had their local capital at Sialkot in the Punjab though their headquarters were rather in Bamiyan and Bulk. The cruelties of Meheragulla provoked a coalition of Hindu princes. The Huns were driven to the north and about 565 AD, their destruction was completed by the allied forces of the Persians and Turks. Though they founded no permanent states, their invasion was important for many of them together with kindred tribes such as the Gurjaras. Gurjars remained behind when their political power broke up and like the Sakas and the Kushans before them, contributed to form the population of northwestern India, especially the Rajput clans. The defeat of the Huns was followed by another period of obscurity but at the beginning of the 7th century, Harsha, 606-647 AD a prince of Thanesar founded after 35 years of warfare, a state which though it did not outlast his own life emulated for a time the dimensions and prosperity of the Gupta Empire. We rather from the accounts of the Chinese pilgrim Wang Chang who visited his court at Kanoj that the kings of Bengal, Assam and Ujjain were his vassals but that the Punjab, Sindh and Kashmir were independent. Kalinga to the south of Bengal was depopulated but Harsha was not able to subdue Pulakesan II, the Chalukya king of the Deccan. Let us now turn for a moment to the history of the south. It is even more obscure both in events and chronology than that of the north but we must not think of the Dravidian countries as uninhabited or barbarous. Even the classical writers of Europe had some knowledge of them. King Pandyan, Pandya sent a mission to Augustus in 20 BC. Pliny speaks of Madura, Madura and Tolemy also mentions this town with about 40 others. Footnote 120 Strabo 15 473 Footnote 1-1 History Nationality 623-26 and footnote It is said that there was a temple dedicated to Augustus at Muziris identified with Kranganur. Footnote 122 For authorities Sievens and Smith Early history of India 1908-Page 401 and footnote From an early period with extreme south of the peninsula was divided into three states known as the Pandyas, Cheras and Shola kingdoms. Footnote 1-2-3 The inscriptions of Ashoka mention four kingdoms Pandya, Kerala Putra Chola and Satyaputra and footnote The first corresponded to the districts of Madura and Tinevelli. Serra or Kerala lay on the west coast in the modern Travancore. The Chola country included Tanjore, Trichinapurli, Madras with the greater part of Mysore. From the 6th to 8th century AD a fourth power was important namely the Pallavas who apparently came from the north of the Madras Presidency. The capital at Kanjiveram and were generally at war with the three kingdoms. Their king Narasimha Verman 625-645 AD ruled over the parts of Deccan and most of the Chola country but after about 750 they declined. Whereas the Cholas grew stronger and Raja Raja 985-1018 whose dominions included the Madras Presidency and Mysore made them the paramount power in southern India which position they retained until the 13th century. As already mentioned the Deccan was ruled by the Andras from 220 BC to 236 AD but for the next three centuries nothing is known of its history until the rise of the Chalukya Dynasty at Watapi Badami in Bijapur. Pulakesin II of this dynasty 608-642 a contemporary of Harsha was for some time successful in creating a rival empire which extended from Gujarat to Madras and his power was so considerable that he exchanged embassies with Khusru II King of Persia as is depicted in the frescoes of Ajanta but in 642 he was defeated and slain by the Pallavas With the death of Pulakesin and Harsha begins what has been called the Rajput period extending from about 650 to 1080 and characterised by the existence of numerous kingdoms ruled by dynasties nominally Hindu but often descended from northern invaders or non-Hindu aboriginal tribes. Among them may be mentioned the following 1. Kanoj or Panchala This kingdom passed through these times after the death of Harsha but from about 840 to 910 AD under Bhoja or Mihira and his son it became the principal power in northern India extending from Bihar to Sindh in the 12th century it again became important under the Gaharvar dynasty 2. Kanoj was often at war with the Pallas of Bengal a line of kings which began about 730 AD Dharmapala was sufficiently powerful to depose the king of Kanoj. Subsequently the northern portion of the Pala kingdom separated itself under a rival dynasty known as the Senas. 3. The districts to the south of the Jumna known as Jejaka Bhukti, Bundelkhand and Chedi nearly equivalent provinces were governed by two dynasties known as Chandals and Kalakuris The former are thought to have been originally goons. They were great builders and constructed among other monuments the temple of Khajarau. Kirtivarman Chandal 1049 to 1100 greatly extended their territories. He was a patron of learning and the allegorical drama Prabhuda Chandrodaya was produced at his court. 4. The Paramara, Pawar dynasty of Malwa were likewise celebrated as patrons of literature and kings Munja. 974 to 995 and Bhoja 1018 to 1060 were authors as well as successful warriors. 5. Though the Chalukyas of Vatapi were temporarily crushed by the Pallavas the power was re-established in 655 and continued for a century. The Eastern Chalukyas, another branch of the same family established themselves in the Vengi between the Kishna and Godavari. Here they ruled from 609 to 1070 first as viceroys of the western Chalukyas and then as an independent power till they were absorbed by the Cholas. Yet another branch settled in Gujarat. 6. The Chalukyas of Vatapi were overthrown by the Rashtrakutas who were masters of the Dutkin from about 750 to 972 and reigned first at Nasik and then at Maniakheta, Malkhed. Krishna, the first of this dynasty excavated Kailasa empire at Ellora 760 but many of his successors were Jains. In the 21st century the Rashtrakutas seemed to have ruled over most of western India from Malwa to the Tungabhadra. 7. The Rashtrakutas collapsed before a revival of the Chalukya dynasty which reappears from 993 to 1190 as the Chalukyas of Kalyani in the Nizam's dominions. The end of this dynasty was partly due to the usurpation of a gen named Bijjala in whose reign arose. We must now turn to an event of great historical importance although its details are not relevant to the subject of this book namely the Muhammedan conquest. Three periods in it may be recognised. First the conquest of Sindh in 712 AD by the Arabs who held it till the 11th century but without disturbing or influencing India beyond their immediate neighbourhood. Second period of invasions and dynasties which are commonly called Turkey. 1002 1526 AD The progress of Islam in central Asia coincided with the advance to the west and south of vigorous tribes known as Turks or Mongols and by giving them a religious and legal discipline admirably suited to their stage of civilisation it greatly increased their political efficiency. The Muslim invaders of India started from principalities founded by these tribes near the northwestern frontier with the military population of mixed blood and a veneer of Persia Arabic civilisation and apart from the greater invasions there were incursions and settlements of Turks, Afghans and Mongols. The whole period was troublesome and distracted. The third period was more significant and relatively stable. A Turkish prince of Fargana captured Delhi in 1526 and founded the power of the Mongols which during the 17th century deserved the name of the Indian Empire. The first serious Muslim incursions were those of Mahmood of Ghazni who between 1997 and 1030 made many raids in which he sacked Kanoj, Mutra, Somnath and many other places but without acquiring them as permanent possessions. Only the Punjab became a Muslim province. In 1150 the rulers of Ghore a vassal principality near Herat revolted against Ghazni unoccupied its territory. Then the chief ten commonly called Mahmood of Ghore descended on India and subdued Hindustan as well as the Punjab. 1175 to 1206 One of his slaves called Qutabuddin Aibak became his general and vice-roy and when Mahmood died founded at Delhi the dynasty known as slave sultans. They were succeeded by the Khilji sultans 1219 to 1318 The most celebrated of whom was the capable but ferocious Alauddin and these again by the Toghulak dynasty. Mahmood Adil the second of this line attempted to move the capital from Delhi to Dalitabad in the Dakhon. In 1398 Northern India was convulsed by the invasion of Taimur who only remained a few months but sat Delhi with terrible carnage. Many years of confusion followed and a dynasty known as the Sayyads ruled in greatly diminished territories. But in 1451 arose the Lodhis or Afghan dynasty which held the Punjab, Hindustan and Bundelkhand until the advent of the Mughals. These five royal houses do not represent successive invasions from the west. Their founders, though of diverse origin were all leaders engaged in the troubled politics of Northern India and they all reigned at Delhi round which a tradition of empire thus grew up. But the succession was disputed in almost every case. Out of 34 kings came to a violent end and not one deserved to be called Emperor of India. They were confronted by a double array of rivals. Firstly, Hindu states which were at no period all reduced to subjection and secondly independent Muhammadan states for the governors in the more distant provinces through of their allegiance and proclaimed themselves sovereigns. Thus Bengal from the time of its first conquest by Muhammad India had only a nominal connection with Delhi and declared itself independent in 1338. When Taimur upset the Tughla dynasty, the states of Johnpur, Gujarat, Malwa and Khandesh became separate kingdoms and remained so until the time of Akbar. In the south one of Muhammad Adel's generals founded the Bahamani Kingdom which for about a century 1374 to 1482 ruled the Deccan from sea to sea. It then split up into 5 Sultanates which capitals at Bidar, Bijapur Golkonda, Ahmednagar and Elekpur. In the 12th century the Hindi states were not quite the same as those noticed for the previous period. Kanoj and Gujarat were the most important. The Palas and Senas ruled in Bengal, the Tomaras at Delhi, the Chauhards in Ajmer and subsequently in Delhi too. The Muhammadans conquered all the states at the end of the 12th century. Their advance was naturally less rapid towards the south. In the Deccan, the old Hindu dynasties had been replaced by the Hoyasalas 1117 to 1310 AD and the Yadavas 1180 to 1309 AD with capitals at Halibid and Badd respectively. Both were destroyed by Malik Kapoor the slave general of Sultan Alauddin but the spirit of the Deccan was not broken and within a few years the brothers Bukka and Harihara founded the state of Vijayanagar. The never-to-be-forgotten empire as a native scholar has aptly termed it which for more than two centuries was the centre of Hindu political power. The embossing ruins of its capital may still be seen at Hampi on the Tungabhadra and its possessions comprised everything to the south of this and at times also territory to the north for throughout its existence it was engaged in warfare with the Bahmani dynasty or the five Sultanates. Among its rulers the most notable was Krishna Deva 1509 to 1529 but the arrogance and weakness of its successors evoked the five Muslim Sultanates to form a coalition. They collected an immense army defeated the troops of Vijayanagar at the battle of Talikota and sacked the city. 1565 In two other districts the Hindus were able to retain political independence until the time of Akbar namely Odessa and Rajputana. In the former the best known name is Anantavarman Kolaganga 1076 to 1147 who built the temple of Jagannath at Puri established the eastern Ganga dynasty and ruled from the Gudavari to the Ganges. The Muhammadans never occupied Rajputana and though they captured the principal fortresses they did not retain them. The state of Mewar can even boast that it never made any but a nominal and honourable submission to the sultans of Delhi. Akbar incorporated the Rajputs in his empire and by his considerate treatment secured their support. The history of the Mughals may be divided into three periods. In the first, Baba acquired 1526 AD the dominions of the Lodi dynasty as well as Johnpur but his death was followed by a troubled interval and it was not till the second period 1556 to 1707 comprising the reigns of Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjaha and Aurangzeb that the empire was securely established. Akbar made himself master of practicality all India north of the Gudavari and his liberal policy did much to conciliate his Hindu subjects. He abolished the pole tax levied from non-Muslims and the tax on pilgrimages. The reform of revenue administration was entrusted to an orthodox Hindu Todarmal. Among the emperor's personal friends were Brahmins and Rajputs and the principal Hindu states except Mevard sent daughters to his harem. In religion he was a select and love to hear theological argument. Towards the end of his life he adopted many Hindu usages and founded a new religion which held as one of its principal tenets that Akbar was God's Jahangir and Shahjaha were also tolerant of Hinduism but Aurangzeb was a fanatical Muslim and though he extended his rule over all India except the extreme south he alienated the affection of his Hindu subjects by reimposing the pole tax and destroying many temples. The Rajputs, Sikhs and Marathas all rebelled and after his death the empire entered into the third period in which it rapidly disintegrated. Hindu states like the Maratha Confederacy and Rajputana asserted themselves. Mohammedan governors declared their independence in Oud, Bengal, Denizam's dominions and elsewhere. Persians and Afghans raided the Punjab. French and English contended for the possession of southern India. It would be outside the purpose of this book even to outline the establishment of British sovereignty but I may mention that direct European influence began to be felt in the 16th century for Vasco da Gama arrived in Calicut in 1498 and Goa was a Portuguese possession from 1510 onwards. Nor can we linger over the fortunes of the Marathas who took the place of Vijayanagar as the Hindu opposition to Mohammedanism. They are however important for us in so far as they show that even in that is political, the long Muslim domination had not broken the spirit of the Hindus. About 1660, a chieftain named Shivaji who was not merely a successful soldier but something of a fanatic with the belief in his divine mission founded a kingdom in the western guards and like the Sikh leaders almost created a nation for it does not appear that before his time the word Maratha, Maharashtra had any special ethnic significance. After half a century the power of his successors passed into the hands of the Brahmin ministers known as Peshwas who became the heads of a confederacy of Maratha chiefs including the Rajas of Gwalior Berar and Odisha Indore and Baroda. About 1760 the Marathas were practically masters of India and though the Mughal Emperor nominally ruled at Delhi he was under their tutelage. They had a chance of reviving the glories of Ashoka and the Guptas but even apart from the intervention of Europeans they were distracted by duality and quarrels. End of section 28 Section 29 of Hinduism and Buddhism in historical sketch Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer. Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Shashank Jakhmola Hinduism and Buddhism in historical sketch Volume 1 General Characteristics of Indian Religion In the first chapter we inquire whether there are any religious ideas common to eastern Asia as a whole and found that they amount to little more than a background of nature worship and ancestors worship almost universally present behind the official creeds. Also the conception of a religious system and its relation to beliefs which do not fall within it are not quite the same in these countries as in Europe so that the inhabitants sometimes follows more than one religion. Let us now examine the characteristics common to Indian creeds. They are numerous in striking. A prolonged study of the multitudinous sects in which Indian religion manifests itself makes the inquirer feel the truth of its own thesis that plurality is an illusion and only the one substratum real. Still there are divergent lines of thought the most important of which are Hinduism and Buddhism. Though decadent Buddhism differed little from the sects which surrounded it, early Buddhism did offer a decided contrast to the Brahmanic schools in its theories as to human nature as well as in ignoring tradition and secularism. We may argue that Buddhism is merely Vaishnavism or Shaivism in travelling dress but its rejection of Brahmanic authority is of capital importance. It is one of the reasons for its success outside India and its disappearance in India meant that it could not maintain this attitude. Yet many features of Buddhism are due to the fact that Hinduism and not Islam or Christianity was the national expression of religion in India and also many features of Hinduism may be explained by the existence of this once vigorous antagonist. Hinduism has striking peculiarities which distinguishes it from Christianity, Islam and even from Buddhism. Footnote 1-4 Hinduism is often used as a name for the medieval and modern religion of India and Brahmanism for the older pre-Buddhist religion but one word is needed as a general designation for Indian religion and Hinduism seems the better of the two for this purpose. Footnote It recognises no other master and all unifying principles known to other creeds seem here to be absent. Yet its unity and vitality are clear and depend chiefly on its association with the Brahman caste. We cannot here consider the complex details of the modern caste system but this seems the place to examine the position of the Brahman for from the dawn of Sanskrit literature until now they have claimed to be the guides of India in all matters intellectual and religious and this persistent claim though often disputed has had a great measure of success. The institution of caste is social rather than religious and has grown gradually. We know for instance that in the time of the Buddha it had not attained to anything like its present complexity and rigidity. Its origin is that the Indo-Aryans were an invading people with an unusual interest in religion. The Shaktryas and Vaishyas mark the distinction between the warriors or nobles and the plebs which is found in other Aryan communities and the natives whom the Aryans conquered formed a separate class recognised as inferior to all the conquerors. This might have happened in any country. The special feature of India is the numerical, social and intellectual strength of the priestly caste. It is true that in reading Sanskrit literature we must remember that most of it is the work of Brahmins and discount their proclivity to glorify the priesthood but still it is clear that in India the sacerdotal families acquired a position without parallel elsewhere and influence its whole political history. In most countries powerful priesthoods are closely connected with the government under which they flourish and support the secular authority. As a result of this alliance kings and the upper classes generally profess and protect orthodoxy and revolutionary movements in religion generally come from below but in ancient India though the priests were glad enough to side with the kings, the nobles during many centuries were not ready to give up thinking for themselves. The Hindus capacity for veneration and the small inclination of the Brahmins to exercise direct government prevented revolts against sacerdotal tyranny from assuming the proportions we should expect but whereas in many countries history records the attempts of priests to become kings the position is here reversed. The national proclivity towards all that is religious metaphysical, intellectual and speculative may all agree in regarding the man of knowledge who has the secret of intercourse with the other world as the highest type. The priests tended to become a hereditary guild possessed of a secret professional knowledge. The warrior caste disputed this monopoly and sought with less learning but not inferior vigor to obtain the same powers. They had some success during a considerable period for Buddhism, Jainism and other sects all had their origin in the military aristocracy and had it remained purely Hindu it would perhaps have continued the contest. But it was partly destroyed by tyrannian invaders and partly amalgamated with them so that in 500 AD as the Brahmins were in race and temperament very much what they were in 500 BC the Shatriyas were different. It is interesting to see how this continuity of race brought triumph to the Brahmins in the theological sphere. At one time the Buddhists and even the Jains seemed to be competitors for the first place but there are now hardly any Indian Buddhists in India and less than a million and a half of Jains whereas Hinduism has more than 217 million adherents. Footnote 1-5 excluding Burma the last census gives over 300,000 these are partly inhabitants of frontier districts which are Indian only in the political sense and partly foreigners residing in India. The power of persistence and resistance displayed by the briefly caste is largely due to the fact that they were householders not collected in temples or monasteries but distributed over the country in villages intensely occupied with the things of the mind and soul but living a simple family life. The long succession of invasions which swept over northern India destroyed temples, broke up monasteries and annihilated dynasties but their destructive force had less effect on these communities of theologians whose influence depended not on institutions or organization but on their hereditary aptitudes. Though the modern Brahmans are not pure in race still the continuity of blood and tradition is greater among them than in the royal families of India's. Many of these belong to districts which were formerly without the pale of Hinduism. Many more are the descendants of the northern hordes who century after century invaded India few can bring forward any good evidence of Shatria descent. Hence in India kings have never attained a national and representative position like the emperors of China and Japan or even the sultans of Turkey they were never considered as the high priests of the land or a quasi-divine epitome of the national qualities. The people tended to regard them as powerful and almost superhuman beings but somewhat divorced from the moral standard and ideals of the subject. In the early times there was indeed the idea of a universal emperor the Chakravartin analogous to the messiah but my characteristic turn of thought he was thought of less as a deliverer than as a type of superhuman considering at intervals but monarchs who even approximated to this type were rare and some of the greatest of them were in early ages Buddhists and in later Mohammedans so that they had not the support of the priesthood and as time went on it became less and less possible to imagine all India rendering sympathetic homage to one sovereign. In the midst of a perturbed of dynasties usually short-lived often alien only occasionally commanding the affection and respect of the population the Brahmans have maintained for at least two millenniums and a half their predominant position as an intellectual aristocracy. They are an aristocracy for they boldly profess to be by birth better than other men. Although it is probable that many clans have entered the privileged order without genealogical warrant, yet in all cases birth is claimed. Footnote 126 Only tradition preserves the memory of an older and freer system when warriors like Vishwamitra were able by the religious austerities to become Brahmans. Same years Sanskrit texts Volume 1 pages 296 to 479 on the early contests between warriors and Brahmans. We hear of kings like Janaka of Videha and Ajat Shatru of Kashi who were admitted to be more learned than Brahmans but also of kings like Vena and Nahusha who withstood the priesthood and perished through want of submissiveness. The legend of Parashurama an incarnation of Vishnu as a Brahmin who destroyed the Shatria race must surely have some historical foundation though no other evidence is forthcoming of the event which it relates. End footnote And though the Brahmans have aristocratic faults such as unreasonable pride of birth, still throughout their long history they have produced in every age men of intelligence learning and true piety in numbers sufficient to make their claims to superiority seem reasonable. In all ages they have been sensual, ambitious and ever-recious but in all ages penetrated by the conviction that desire is a plague and gratification unsatisfying. It is the intelligent sensualist and politician who are bound to learn that passion and office are vanity. A Brahmin is not necessarily a priest although they have continually and on the whole successfully claimed a monopoly of sacred signs yet at the present day many follow secular callings and probably this was so in early periods. And though many riots can be performed by Brahmans only yet by a distinction which it is difficult for Europeans to grasp the priests of temples are not necessarily and in many places not usually Brahmans. The reason perhaps is that the superstitious worship offered in temples is considered trivial and almost degrading in comparison with the elaborate ceremonial and subtle speculation which ought to occupy a Brahmin's life. In Europe we are accustomed to associate the ideas of sacred totalism hierarchy and dogma mainly because they are united in the greatest religious organization familiar to us the Roman Catholic Church. But the combination is not necessary. Hinduism is intensely sacred total but neither hierarchical nor dogmatic. Mohammedanism is dogmatic but neither sacred total nor hierarchical. Buddhism is dogmatic and also somewhat hierarchical since it has to deal with the bodies of men collected in monasteries where discipline is necessary but except in its most corrupt forms it is not sacred total. The absence of the hierarchical idea in Hinduism is striking. Not only is there no pope but there is hardly any office comparable with the bishopric. Footnote 127 In southern India and in Assam the superiors of monasteries sometimes exercise a quasi episcopal authority. And footnote the relationships recognized in the priesthood are those springing from birth and the equally sacred ties uniting teacher and pupil. Hence there is little to remind us of the organization of Christian churches. We have simply teachers expounding their sacred books to their scholars with such combination of tradition and originality as their idiosyncrasies may suggest somewhat after the theory of congregational churches. But that resemblance is almost destroyed by the fact that both teachers and pupils belong to clans connected by descent and accepted by the people as the superior order of mankind. Even in the most modern sects the descendants of the founder often receive special reverence. Though the Brahmans have no esliastical discipline they do not tolerate the sovereigns of kings. But the sovereigns have summoned council but not so Hindu monarchs. They have built temples paid priests to perform sacrifices and often been jealous of them but for the last 2000 years they have not attempted to control them within their own sphere or to create a state church. And with the Brahmans on their side have kept within their own province. It is true that they have succeeded in imposing or in identifying themselves with a most exacting code of social legal and religious prescriptions but they have rarely aimed at imporal power or attempted to be more than wisiers. They have of course supported pious kings and received support especially donations from them and they have enjoyed political influence as domestic chaplains to royal families but they have not consented to any such relations between religion and the state as exist or existed in England, Russia, Muhammedan countries or China. At the ancient coronation ceremony the priest who presented the new ruler to his subject said, This is your king, O people the king of us Brahmans is Soma. Footnote 128 V. 3 312 and 423 End footnote Part 2 These facts go far to explain some peculiar features of Hinduism. Compared with Islam or Christianity its doctrines are extraordinary fluid, multi-form and even inconsistent. Its practice though rarely works is also very various in different castes and districts. The strangeness of the phenomenon is diminished if one considers that the uniformity and rigidity of western creeds are due to their political more than to the religious character. Like the wind, the spirit blow it where it lists it. It is governed by no laws but who is which its own reverence imposes. It lives in changing speculation but in Europe it has been in double bondage to the logic of Greece and the law of Rome. India deals in images and metaphors, Greece in dialectic. The original thought of Christianity had something of this Indian quality though more sober and less fantastic with more limitation and less imagination. On this substratum the Greeks reared their offices of dialectic and when the quarrels of theologians began to disturb politics the state treated the whole question from a legal point of view. It was assumed that there must be a right doctrine which the state should protect or even enforce and a wrong doctrine which it should discourage or even forbid. Hence councils, creeds and persecutions. The whole position is logical and legal. The truth has been defined. Those who do not accept it harm not only themselves but others. Therefore they should be restrained and punished. But in religious matters Hindus have not proceeded in this way as a rule. They have adopted the attitude not of a judge who decides but of the humane observer who sees that neither side is completely right or completely wrong and avoids expressing his opinion in a legal form. Hindu teachers have never hesitated to proclaim their views as the whole and perfect truth. In that indeed they do not yield to Christian theologians but their pronouncements are professional rather than judicial and so diverse and yet also influential that the state though bound to protect sound doctrine they are not champion one more than the other. Religious persecution is rare. It is not absent but the student has to reach for instances whereas in Christian Europe they are amongst the most conspicuous facts of history. Restless, subtle, and argumentative as Hindu thought is, it is less prone than European theology to the vice of distorting transcendental ideas by two strident definition. It adembrates the indescribable by metaphors and figures. It is not a trade of inconsistencies which may illustrate different aspects of the infinite but it rarely tries to cram the divine within the limits of a logical phrase. Attempts to explain how the divine and human nature were combined in Christ convulsed the Byzantine empire and have fettered succeeding generations with their stiff formulae. It would be rash to say that the ocean of Hindu theological literature contains speculations about the incarnations of Vishnu similar to the views of the Nestorians, Monophysites, and Catholics but if such exist they have never attracted much interest or been embodied in well known phrases. Footnote 1-9 The Markandeya Puran discusses the question how Krishna could become a man. End footnote The process by which a god can be born as a man while continuing to exist as a god is not described in quasi-league language. Similarly the summa offered in sacrifices is a god as well as a drink but though the ritual of the sacrifice has produced an infinity of discussion and exegesis, no doctrine like transubstantiation or consubstantiation has assumed any prominence. The Hindu has an extraordinary power of combining dogma and free thought uniformity and variety. For instance, it is held that Vedas are a self-existent eternal revelation made manifest to ancient sages and that their correctory citation ensures superhuman results. Yet each veda exists in several recensions handed down by oral tradition in separate schools and though the exact text and pronunciation are matters of the utmost importance diversities of opinion respecting them are tolerated and honored. Further though the early scriptures were preserved with scrupulous care the canon was never closed. It is impossible to say how many Upanishads there are nor does a Hindu think the list of an Upanishad because it is not found in a certain list and in medieval and modern times these ancient sacred books have been replaced for all except by more recent Sanskrit works or by a vernacular literature which though having no particular imprimatur claims the same authority as the Vedas. Footnote 130 See for instance the holy lives of the Azavas by Alkonda Vile Govindacharya Mysore 1902 pages 215 to 216 The Dravida Vedas have thus as highest sanction and authority as the Girvana i.e Sanskrit Vedas and footnote The only essential tenets of Hinduism are recognition of the Brahmin caste and divine authority of the Vedas those who publicly deny these doctrines as the Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs have done put themselves outside the pale but recognition required to ensure orthodoxy or at least to avoid excommunication must not be compared with that implied by such phrases as recognizing the authority of the Bible or the supremacy of the Pope. The atmost latitude of interpretation is allowed and the supposed follower of the Veda comprise Sikhs whose beliefs seem to have no relation to one another or to the Veda philosophic atheists and demonolators whose religious ideas hardly rise above those of the savages. One explanation may be that every nation insists on liberty at the expense of logic in the matters which interest it most. We do this in politics. It might be difficult to make an untraveled oriental understand how parliamentary institutions can continue for a day, how socialists and republicans can take part in the government of a monarchial country and why the majority do not yet Englishmen prefer to let this curious illogical muddle continue rather than tolerate some symmetrical and authoritative system which would check free speech and individuality. It is the same in Indian religion. In all ages the Hindu has been passionately devoted to speculation. He will bear heavy burdens in the way of priestly exaction, social restrictions and elaborate ceremonies but he will not allow or even assilliastical authority to grab and school his religious fancy nor will he be deterred from sampling an attractive form of speculation merely because it is pronounced unorthodox by the priesthood and the priesthood being themselves Hindus are discreet in the use of anathemas. They insist not so much on particular doctrines and rights as on the principle that whatever the doctrine, whatever the right, they must be the teachers and officiants. In critical and revolutionary times the Brahmins have often assured their preeminence by the judicious recognition of heresies. In all ages there has been a conservative clique which restricted religion to ceremonial observances. Again and again some intellectual or emotional outburst has swept away such narrow limits and proclaimed doctrines which seemed subversive of the orthodoxy of the day. But they have simply become the orthodoxy of the motto under the protection of the same Brahmin caste. The assailants are turned into champions and in time the bold reformers stiffen into antiquated saints. Hinduism has not been made but has grown. It is a jungle not a building. It is a living example of a great national paganism such as might have existed in Europe if Christianity had not become the state religion of the Roman Empire. If there had remained an incongruous jumble of old local superstitions Greek philosophy and Oriental cults such as the worship of Mitra or Serapis. Yet the parallel is not exact for in Rome many of the discordant religious elements remain exotic whereas in India they all whatever their origin became Indian and smack of the soil. There was wanting in European paganism the bond of union supplied by the Brahmins who by sometimes originating sometimes tolerating and adapting have managed to set their seal upon all Indian beliefs. Part 3 Thus the dominance of the Brahmins and their readiness to countenance every cult and doctrine which can attract worshippers explains the diversity of Indian religion but are there no general characteristics which mark all its multiple forms There are and they apply to Buddhism as well as Hinduism but in attempting to formulate them it is well to say that Indian religion is as willful and unexpected in its variations as human nature itself and that all generalizations about it are subject to exceptions. If we say that it preaches asceticism and the subjection of the flesh we may be confronted with the Vallabhacharyas who inculcate self-indulgence. If we say that it teaches reincarnation and successive lives we may be told that the Lingayats do not hold that doctrine. Footnote 131 I am inclined to believe that the Lingayat doctrine really is that Lingayats dying in the true faith do not transmigrate anymore. End footnote and though we might logically maintain that these sects are unorthodox yet it does not appear that Hindus exo-communicate them. Still it is just to say that the doctrines mentioned are characteristic of Hinduism and are repudiated only by eccentric sects. Perhaps the idea which has had the widest and most penetrating influence on Indian thought is that conception of the universe which is known as Sansar the world of change and transmigration. The idea of rebirth and wandering of souls from one body to another exists in a fragmentary form among savage tribes in many countries but in India it makes its appearance as a product of ripening metaphysics rather than as a survival. It plays no part in the Vedic hymns. It first acquires importance in the older Upanishads as a mystery to be communicated to the elect than as a popular belief and to some extent as a special doctrine of the military class rather than of the Brahmans. At the same time of the Buddha however it had passed beyond the stage and was as integral a part of popular theology as is the immortality of the soul in Europe. Such expressions as the transmigration of souls or metempsychosis imperfectly represent Indian ideas. They are incorrect as descriptions of Buddhist dogmas which start by denying the existence of a soul and they are not entirely suitable to those Vedantic schools which regard transmigration as part of the illusory phenomenal world. The thought underlying the doctrine is rather that as a child grows into youth and age so the soul passes from life to life in continuity if not in identity. Whatever the origin of the idea may have been its root in post-Vedic times is a sense of the transitoriness but continuity of everything. Nothing is eternal or even permanent not even the gods for they must die not even death for it must turn into new life. This view of life is ingrained in Indian nature. It is not merely a scientific or philosophical speculation but it summarizes the outlook of ordinary humanity. In Europe the average religious man thanks or at least remembers his creator. But in India the creator has less place in popular thought. There is a disinclination to make him responsible for the sufferings of the world and speculation though continually occupied with the origins of things rarely adopts the idea familiar to Christians and Mohammedans alike that something was produced out of nothing by the divine fiat. Hindu cosmogenes are various and discordant in details but usually start with the evolution or emanation of living beings from the divinity and often a reproductive act forms part of the process such as the hatching of an egg or the division of a divinity into male and female halves. In many accounts the deity brings into being personages who continue the work of world making and such entities as mind, time and desire are produced before the material world. But everything in these creation stories is figurative. The faithful are not perplexed by the discrepancies in the inspired narratives and one can hardly imagine an Indian sect agitated by the question whether God made the world in six literal days. All religious doctrines, especially theories about the soul are matters of temperament. A race with more power of will and more delight in life might have held that the soul is the one agent that can stand firm and unshaken amidst the flux of circumstance. The intelligent but passive Hindus sees clearly that whatever illusions the soul may have it really passes on like everything else and continue it not in one's day. He is disposed to think of it not as created with the birth of the body but as a drop drawn from some ocean to which it is destined to return. As a rule he considers it to be immortal but he does not emphasize or value personality in our sense. In previous births he has already been a great many persons and he will be a great many more. Whatever may be the thread between these existences it is not individuality and what he craves is not eternal personal activity but unbroken rest in which personality even if supposed to continue can have little meaning. The character of the successive appearances or tenements of the soul is determined by the law of karma which even more than metempsychosis is the basis of Indian ideas about the universe. Karma is best known as a term of the Buddhists who are largely responsible both for the definition and the white diffusion of the doctrine but here is Brahmanic as well as Buddhist and occurs in well-known passages of the Upanishads where it is laid down that as a man act so shall he be in the next life. Footnote 132 Example given The word which means simply deed is the accepted abbreviation for the doctrine that all deeds bring upon the doer and accurately proportionate consequence either in this existence or more often in a future birth. At the end of a man's life his character or personality is practically the sum of his acts and when extraneous circumstances such as worldly position disappear the soul is left with nothing but these acts and the character they have formed as in Indian languages the fruit of life and it is these acts and this character which determine its next tenement. That tenement is simply the home which it is able to occupy in virtue of configuration and qualities which it has induced in itself. It cannot complain. One aspect of the theory of the sansara which is important for the whole history of Indian thought is its tendency towards pessimism. This tendency especially definite and dogmatic in Buddhism but it is a marked characteristic of the Indian temperament and appears in almost every form of devotion and speculation. What salvation or the desire to be saved is to the ordinary protestant, mukti or moksha deliverance is to the ordinary Hindu. In Buddhism this desire is given a dogmatic basis for it is declared all existence in all possible worlds necessarily involves dukkha or suffering and this view seems to have met with popular as well as philosophic ascent. Footnote 133 This is the accepted translation of dukkha but perhaps it is too strong and uneasiness though inconvenient for literary reasons gives the meaning better. End footnote But the desire for release and deliverance is based less on a contemplation of the woes of life than on a profound sense of its impermanence and instability. Footnote 134 The old Scandinavian literature with its gods who must die is equally full of this sense of impermanence but the Viking temperament paid a man fight and face his fate. End footnote Life is not the preface to eternity as religious Europeans think. The Hindu justly rejects the notion that the conduct of the soul during a few score years can fix its everlasting destiny. Every action is important for it helps to determine the character of the next life but this next life even if it should be passed in some temporary heaven will not be essentially different from the present before and behind the future stretches a vista of lives past, present and to come impermanent and unsatisfying so that future existences are spoken of not as immortality but as a repeated death. Footnote 134 This sense of weary reiteration is increased by two other doctrines which are prevalent in Hinduism though not universal or uncontested. The first of them identifies the human soul with the supreme and only being. The doctrine of sansara holds that different forms of existence may be phases of the same soul and this prepares the way for the doctrine that all forms of existence are the same and all souls part of or even identical with the atma or self the divine soul which not only pervades the world but is the world. Connected with this doctrine is another namely that the whole world of phenomena is maya or illusion. Nothing really exists except the supreme atma all perceptions of plurality and difference is illusion and error. The reality is unity, identity and rest. The development of these ideas leads to some of the principle system of philosophy and will claim much attention later. At present I merely give their outlines as indicative of Hindu thought and temperament. The Indian things of this world as a circular and unending journey, an ocean without shore, a shadow play without even a plot. He feels more strongly than the European that change is in itself an evil and he finds small satisfaction in action for its own sake. All his higher aspirations bid him extricate himself from this labyrinth of repeated births this phantasmagoria of fleeting unsubstantial visions and he has generally the conviction that this can be done by knowledge for since the whole samsar is illusion it collapses and sees it so soon as the soul knows its own real nature and its independence of phenomena. This conviction that the soul in itself is capable of happiness and in order to enjoy its needs, only the courage to know itself and be itself goes far to correct the apathy which is the great danger of Indian thought. It is also just to point out that from the Upanishads down to the writings of Rabindranath Tagore in the present day Indian literature from time to time enunciates the idea that the whole universe is the manifestation of some exuberant force giving expression to itself in joyous movement. Thus the Thaitiriya Upanishad 3rd, 6th says Bliss is Brahman for from bliss all these beings are born by bliss when born they live into bliss they enter at their death. It is remarkable that Indian thought, restless and speculative as it is, hardly ever concerns itself with the design, object or end of the world. The notion of Greek telos plays little part in its cosmogony or ethics. Footnote 135 But see Rabindranath Tagore sadhana, especially the chapter on realization. End footnote The universe is often regarded as a spout, a basing whim of the divine being almost a mistake. Those legends which describe it as the outcome of a creative act generally represent the creator as moved by some impulse to multiply himself rather than as being some deliberate if mysterious plan. Legends about the end of the world and the establishment of a better order are rare. Hindu chronology reveals in periods whose enormous length, though expressed in figures leaves no real impression on the mind days and nights of Brahma, Kalpas, Manavan, Taras and Yugas in which gods and worlds are absorbed into the supreme essence and born again. But there is no finality about these catastrophes. The destruction of the whole universe is as certain as the death of a mouse and to the philosopher not more important. Footnote 136 CF Shelly's Lines in Hellas. Worlds on worlds are rolling ever from creation to decay like the bubbles on a river sparkling bursting born away. End Footnote Everything is periodic. Buddhas, Jinas and incarnations of all sorts are all members of a series. They all deserve great respect and are of great importance in their own day but they are none of them final. Still less are they able to create a new heaven in Earth or to rise above the perpetual flux of Sansar. The Buddhists look forward to the advent of Maitreya the future Buddha and the Hindus to the reappearance of Vishnu as Kalki who swore in hand and mounted on a white horse will purge India of barbarians. But these future apparitions excite only a feeble interest in the popular conscience and cannot be compared in intensity with such ideas as the Jewish Messiah. It may seem that Indian religion is dreamy, hopeless and unpractical but another point of view will show that all Indian systems are intensely practical and hopeful. They promise happiness and point out the way. A mode of life is always prescribed not merely by works on law and ceremony but by theological and metaphysical treatises. These are not analogous to the writings of Kant or Schopenhauer and to study them as if they were is like trying to learn writing or cricket by reading handbooks. The aphorisms Sankhya and Vedanta are meant to be read under the direction of a teacher who will see that the pupil's mind is duly prepared not only by explanation but by abstinence and other physical training. Hindu religions are unpractical only in so far that they decline to subordinate themselves to human life. It is assumed that the religious man who is striving towards a goal beyond this world is ready to sacrifice the world without regret and in India the assumption is justified surprisingly often. As mentioned already the word God has more than one meaning. In India we have at least two different classes of divinities distinguished in the native languages. First there is Brahmin, the one self-existenced, omnipresent super personal spirit from whom all things emanate and to whom all things return. The elaboration of this conception is the most original feature of Indian theology which tends to regard Brahmin as not merely emanant in all things but as being all things so that the soul liberated from illusion can see that it is one with him and that nothing else exists. Very different is the meaning of Deva. This signifies a God which is not the same as God though our language insufficiently distinguishes the two roughly comparable with the gods of classical mythology. Footnote 137 Nevertheless Deva is sometimes used in the Upanishads as a designation of the supreme spirit. And footnote how little sense of divinity it carries with it is seen by the fact that it became the common form of address to kings and simply equivalent to your majesty. In later times though Shiva is styled Mahadeva it was the great sectarian gods who are for their respective worshipers the personal manifestations in which Brahmin makes himself intelligible required some name distinguishing them from the hosts of minor deities. They are commonly spoken of by some title signifying the Lord. Thus Shiva is Ishwara, Vishnu and his incarnations are more often styled Bhagavad. From the way they came onwards the gods of India have been polymorphic figures not restricted by the limitations of human personality. If a Jew or a Muslim hears new views about God he is disposed to condemn them as wrong. The Hindus inclination is to appropriate them and ascribe to his own deity the novel attributes whether they are consistent with the existing figure or not. All Indian gods are really everything as though of the worshipper wanders among them they turn into one another. Even so sturdy a personality as Indra is declared to be the same as Agni and as Varuna and probably every deity in the Vedic Pantheon is at some time identified with another deity. But though in one way the gods seem vague and impersonal in another the distinction between gods and men is slight. The Brahminas tells us that the gods were originally immortal and obtained immortality by offering sacrifices. The man who sacrifices like them makes for himself an immortal body in the abode of the gods and practically becomes a Deva and the bliss of great sages is declared equal to the bliss of the gods. Footnote 138 Example Brahad Aranyaka Upanishad 4th, 333 and the parallel passages in the Taitriya and other Upanishads. Footnote The human and divine worlds are not really distinct and as in China and Japan distinguished men are deified. The deification of Buddha takes place before our eyes as we follow the course of history. The origin of Krishna's Godhead is more obscure but it is probable that he was a deified local hero. After the period of the Brahminas the theory that deities manifest themselves to the world in avatars or descents that is in our idiom Incarnations becomes part of popular theology. There are other general characteristics of Indian religion which will be best made clear by more detailed treatment in succeeding chapters. Such are firstly a special theory of sacrifice or ritual which though totally rejected by Buddhism has survived two modern times. Secondly a belief in the efficacy of self-mortification as a means of obtaining superhuman powers or final salvation. Thirdly an even more deeply rooted conviction that salvation can be obtained by knowledge. Fourthly there is the doctrine that faith or devotion to a particular deity is the best way to salvation but this teaching though it seems natural to our minds does not make its appearance in India until relatively late. It is not so peculiarly Indian as the other ideas mentioned but even at the outset it is well to insist on its prevalence during the last 2000 years because a very false impression may be produced by ignoring it. There also runs through Indian religion a persistent though inconspicuous current of non-theistic thought. It does not deny the existence of spirits but it treats them as beings like men subject to natural laws though able like men to influence events. The ultimate truth for it is not pantheism but fixed natural laws of which no explanation is offered. The religion of the Jains and the Sankhya philosophy belong to this current. So did the teaching of several ancient sects such as the Ajivikas and strictly speaking Buddhism itself. For the Buddha is not an avatar or a messenger but a superman whose exceptional intelligence sees that the wheel of causation and the four truths are part of the very nature of things. It is strange too that asceticism, sacrifices and modern tantric rites which seem to us concerned with the relations between man and god are in India penetrated by a non-theistic theory namely that there are certain laws which can be studied and applied much in electricity and that then spirits can be coerced to grant what the ascetic or sacrifice desires. At the same time such views are more often implied than formulated. The Dharma is spoken of as the teaching of the Buddha rather than as cosmic order like the Tao of the Chinese and though tantric theory assumes the existence of certain forces which can be used scientifically the general impression produced by tantric works is that they expound and integrate mythology and ritual. End of section 29