VOLUME XIV SLICE IV Independence, Declaration of to Indo-European Languages (continued 3)

Forests.—The forests of India, both as a source of natural wealth and as a department of the administration, are beginning to receive their proper share of attention. Up to the middle of the 19th century the destruction of forests by timber-cutters, by charcoal-burners, and above all by shifting cultivation, was allowed to go on everywhere unchecked. The extension of cultivation was considered as the chief care of government, and no regard was paid to the improvident waste going on on all sides. But as the pressure of population on the soil became more dense, and the construction of railways increased the demand for fuel, the question of forest conservation forced itself into notice. It was recognized that the inheritance of future generations was being recklessly sacrificed to satisfy the immoderate desire for profit. And at the same time the importance of forests as affecting the general meteorology of a country was being learned from bitter experience in Europe. On many grounds, therefore, it became necessary to preserve what remained of the forests in India, and to repair the mischief of previous neglect even at considerable expense. In 1844 and 1847 the subject was actively taken up by the governments of Bombay and Madras. In 1864 Dr Brandis was appointed inspector-general of forests to the government of India, and in the following year an act of the legislature was passed (No. VII. of 1865). The regular training of candidates for the Forest Department in the schools of France and Germany dates from 1867. In the interval that has since elapsed, sound principles of forest administration have been gradually extended. Indiscriminate timber-cutting has been prohibited, the burning of the jungle by the hill tribes has been confined within bounds, large areas have been surveyed and demarcated, plantations have been laid out, and, generally, forest conservation has become a reality. Systematic conservancy of the Indian forests received a great impetus from the passing of the Forest Law in 1878, which gave to the government powers of dealing with private rights in the forests of which the chief proprietary right is vested in the state. The Famine Commission of 1878 urged the importance of forest conservancy as a safeguard to agriculture, pointing out that a supply of wood for fuel was necessary if cattle manure was to be used to any extent for the fields, and also that forest growth served to retain the moisture in the subsoil. They also advised the protection and extension of communal rights of pasture, and the planting of the higher slopes with forest, with a view to the possible increase of the water-supply. These recommendations embody the principle upon which the management of the state forests is based. In 1894 the government divided forests into four classes: forests the preservation of which is essential on climatic or physical grounds, forests which supply valuable timber for commercial purposes, minor forests, and pasture lands. In the first class the special purpose of the forests, such as the protection of the plains from devastation by torrents, must come before any smaller interests. The second class includes tracts of teak, sal or deodar timber and the like, where private or village rights of user are few. In these forests every reasonable facility is afforded to the people concerned for the full and easy satisfaction of their needs, which are generally for small timber for building or fuel, fodder and grazing for their cattle, and edible products for themselves; and considerations of forest income are subordinated to those purposes. Restrictions necessary for the proper conservancy of the forests are, however, imposed, and the system of shifting cultivation, which denudes a large area of forest growth in order to place a small area under crops, is held to cost more to the community than it is worth, and is only permitted, under due regulation, where forest tribes depend on it for their sustenance. In the third place, there are minor forests, which produce inferior or smaller timber. These are managed mainly in the interests of the surrounding population, and supply grazing or fuel to them at moderate rates, higher charges being levied on consumers who are not inhabitants of the locality. The fourth class includes pastures and grazing grounds. In these even more than in the third class the interests of the local community stand first. The state forests, which are under the control of the forest department, amounted in 1901-1902 to about 217,500 sq. m., or more than one-fifth of the total area of British India, varying from 61% in Burma to 4% in the United Provinces.

Timbers.—A large part of the reserved forests, where the control of the forest department is most complete, consists of valuable timber, in which the first place is held by teak, found at its best in Burma, especially in the upper division, and on the south-west coast of India, in Kanara and Malabar. It is also the most prevalent and valuable product of the forests at the foot of the Ghats in Bombay, and along the Satpura and Vindhya ranges, as far as the middle of the Central Provinces. Here it meets the sal, which however is more especially found in the sub-Himalayan tracts of the United Provinces and Eastern Bengal and Assam. In the Himalayas themselves the deodar and other conifers form the bulk of the timber, while in the lower ranges, such as the Khasi hills in Assam, and those of Burma, various pines are prominent. In the north-east of Assam and in the north of Upper Burma the Ficus elastica, a species of india-rubber tree, is found. The sandal-wood flourishes all along the southern portion of the Ghats, especially about Mysore and Coorg; and in the same regions, as well as in Upper India, the blackwood occurs. A valuable tree, known as the padouk, is at present restricted almost entirely to the Andaman Islands, with a scattering in Lower Burma. There are many other timber trees that are in general demand in different parts of India, but the above are the best known outside that country. There is also the universal bamboo, and in the north-western tracts the equally useful rattan. The annual timber yield of the Indian forests is about fifty millions of cubic feet, excluding what is used for local purposes. About half of this quantity comes from the forests of Burma, where large amounts of teak and other woods are annually extracted, chiefly through the agency of private firms. It is, however, only the more valuable of the woods, such as teak, sandal-wood, ebony and the like, which find a market abroad. The total value of the export trade in forest produce averages between 1½ and 2 millions annually.

Manufactures.

Manufacturing industries are being slowly developed in India, though their growth has not yet materially affected the pressure on the land. Next to agriculture, weaving is the most important industry in the country, the cotton-mills of Bombay and the jute mills of Bengal having increased greatly of recent years. On the other hand, the old indigenous industries of India decayed greatly during the latter part of the 19th century. The colonies of hand-workers in silk, cotton, carpets, brass and silver ware, wood and ivory, and other skilled craftsmen, which formerly existed in various parts of India, have fallen off both in the extent of their output and in the artistic excellence of their work. An attempt has been made to remedy the evil by means of schools of art, but with little result.

Cotton.—Cotton is the staple article of clothing in Eastern countries, and Indian cotton and other piece goods used to find a ready market in Europe before the English cotton manufacturer had arisen. When European adventurers found the way to India, cotton and silk always formed part of the rich cargoes that they brought home, and the early settlers were always careful to fix their abode amid a weaving population, at Surat, Calicut, Masulipatam or Hugli. But now the larger part of the cotton goods used in India is manufactured in mills in that country or in England, and the handloom weavers’ output is confined to the coarsest kinds of cloth, or to certain special kinds of goods, such as the turbans and “saris” of Bombay, or the muslins of Arni, Cuddapah, and Madura in Madras, and of Dacca in Bengal. The extent to which village industries still survive is shown by the fact that according to the census of 1901 there were 5,800,000 hand-loom weavers in India against only 350,000 workers in cotton mills.

The present importance of the cotton crop dates only from the crisis in Lancashire caused by the American War. Prior to 1860 the exports of raw cotton from India used to average less than 3 millions sterling a year, mostly to China; but after that date they rose by leaps, until in 1866 they reached the enormous total of 37 millions. Then came the crash, caused by the restoration of peace in the United States, and the exports fell, until they now average little more than 8 millions a year. The fact is that Indian cotton has a short staple, and cannot compete with the best American cotton for spinning the finer qualities of yarn. But while the cotton famine was at its height, the cultivators were intelligent enough to make the most of their opportunity. The area under cotton increased enormously, and the growers managed to retain in their own hands a fair share of the profit. The principal cotton-growing tracts are the plains of Gujarat and Kathiawar, whence Indian cotton has received in the Liverpool market the historic name of “Surat”; the highlands of the Deccan, and the valleys of the Central Provinces and Berar. The total area under cotton in 1905-1906 was 20½ million acres, and the export was 7,396,000 cwt.

It was estimated in 1905 that the world’s output of cotton was 19,000,000 bales, of which 13¾ millions were produced in the United States, 3 millions in India, and nearly 1¼ millions in Egypt, Japan and China being India’s best customers for the raw article. At the same time the total number of spindles employed in working up the world’s raw cotton was 116 millions, of which 48 millions were in the United Kingdom, 24 millions in the United States, and a little over 5 millions in India. There were 203 cotton mills in India, employing a daily average of 196,369 persons. The Bombay Presidency possessed 70% of the mills and much the same percentage of spindles and looms. The industry dates from 1851, when the first mill was started. But though India has special advantages in home-grown cotton and cheap labour, the labour is so inefficient as to make competition with Europe difficult. It is calculated that an Indian power-loom weaver working 72 hours a week can turn out 70 ℔ of cloth, while a European working 54 hours can turn out 468 ℔, and that one Lancashire weaver can do the work of six Indian power-loom weavers and nine hand-loom weavers. While these figures hold good, India cannot be a serious competitor with Europe in the cotton industry.

Jute.—Next to cotton, jute is the most important and prosperous of Indian manufactures. With the advance of commerce it is more and more required for its best-known use, as sacking for produce. Australia and Argentina need it for wool and wheat, Chili and Brazil for nitrates and coffee, Asiatic countries for rice, and the world as a whole for its increased output of produce. The supply has not kept pace with the demand, and the consequence was a steady appreciation in price from 1901 onwards. The cultivation of jute is confined, to a comparatively restricted area, more than three-fourths of the total acreage being in eastern Bengal and Assam, while nearly the whole of the remaining fourth is in Bengal. In 1907, however, experiments were made towards growing it in other parts of India. In Behar it has begun to replace indigo, and some success was achieved in Orissa, Assam and Madras; but jute is a very exhausting crop, and requires to be planted in lands fertilized with silt or else with manure. About half the total crop is exported, and the remainder used in the jute mills centred round Calcutta, which supply cloth and bags for the grain export trade. The number of jute mills in 1904 was 38, employing 124,000 hands, and since then the number has tended constantly upwards. The export of jute in 1905-1906 was 14,480,000 cwt. with a value of £12,350,000.

Silk.—The silk industry in India has experienced many vicissitudes. Under the East India Company large quantities of mulberry silk were produced chiefly in Bengal, and exported to Europe; and Malda, Murshidabad, and other places in that province have long been famous for their silk manufactures. Other kinds of silk are native to certain parts of India, such as those produced by the “castor oil” and the muga silkworms of Assam; but the chief of the wild silks is the tussore silk, which is found in the jungles nearly throughout India. Large quantities of comparatively coarse silk are made from silk so produced. In Assam silk is still the national dress, and forms the common costume of the women, but the men are relinquishing it as an article of daily wear in favour of cotton. Amongst the Burmese, however, silk still holds its own. Owing to disease among the silk-worms the industry has declined of recent years; and in 1886 an inquiry was held, which resulted in putting the silk-rearing industry of Bengal on a better basis. The most hopeful ground, however, for the industry is Kashmir, where Sir Thomas Wardle reported that the silk was of as high a quality as from any part of the world. The most important seat of the silk-weaving industry is Bengal, but there are few parts of India where some silk fabrics are not woven. The silk weavers of India possess the very highest skill in their craft, and with competent and energetic management and increased capital the industry could be revived and extended.

Other Manufactures.—The demand of the Indian population for woollen fabrics is very small in comparison with that for cotton, and although the manufacture of blankets is carried on in many parts of India, the chief part of the indigenous woollen industry was originally concerned with shawls. Kashmir shawls were at one time famous, but the industry is practically extinct. The chief seat of the woollen industry now is the Punjab, where a considerable number of weavers, thrown out of work by the decline of the shawl industry, have taken to carpet-making. The chief centre of this industry is Amritsar. The output of the woollen mills is chiefly used for the army and the police. In addition to these and the cotton and jute mills there are indigo factories, rice mills, timber mills, coffee works, oil mills, iron and brass foundries, tile factories, printing presses, lac factories, silk mills, and paper mills. There is a large trade in wood-carving, the material being generally Indian ebony in northern India, sandal-wood in southern India, and teak in Burma and elsewhere.

From an artistic point of view the metal manufactures are one of the most important products of India.

Brass and Copper Work.—The village brazier, like the village smith, manufactures the necessary vessels for domestic use. Chief among these vessels is the lota, or globular bowl, universally used in ceremonial ablutions. The form of the lota, and even the style of ornamentation, has been handed down unaltered from the earliest times. Benares enjoys the first reputation for work in brass and copper. In the south, Madura and Tanjore have a similar fame; and in the west, Ahmedabad, Poona and Nasik. At Bombay itself large quantities of imported copper are wrought up by native braziers. The temple bells of India are well known for the depth and purity of their note. In many localities the braziers have a special repute either for a peculiar alloy or for a particular process of ornamentation. Silver is sometimes mixed with the brass, and in rarer cases gold. The brass or rather bell-metal ware of Murshidabad, known as khagrai, has more than a local reputation, owing to the large admixture of silver in it.

Pottery is made in almost every village, from the small vessels required in cooking to the large jars used for storing grain and occasionally as floats to ferry persons across a swollen stream. But, though the industry is universal, it has Pottery. hardly anywhere risen to the dignity of a fine art. Sind is the only province of India where the potter’s craft is pursued with any regard to artistic considerations; and there the industry is said to have been introduced by the Mahommedans. Sind pottery is of two kinds, encaustic tiles and vessels for domestic use. In both cases the colours are the same,—turquoise blue, copper green, dark purple or golden brown, under an exquisitely transparent glaze. The usual ornament is a conventional flower pattern, pricked in from paper and dusted along the pricking. The tiles, which are evidently of the same origin as those of Persia and Turkey, are chiefly to be found in the ruined mosques and tombs of the old Mussulman dynasties; but the industry still survives at the little towns of Saidpur and Bubri. Artistic pottery is made at Hyderabad, Karachi, Tatta and Hala, and also at Multan and Lahore in the Punjab. The Madura pottery deserves mention from the elegance of its form and the richness of its colour. The United Provinces have, among other specialties, an elegant black ware with designs in white metal worked into its surface.

Mineral Resources.

Putting aside salt, which has been already treated, the chief mining resources of India at the present day are the coal mines, the gold mines, the petroleum oil-fields, the ruby mines, manganese deposits, mica mines in Bengal, and the tin ores and jade of Burma. Other minerals which exist but have not yet been developed in paying quantities are copper ore, alum, gypsum and plumbago.

Coal.—Coal has been known to exist in India since 1774. The first mine at Raniganj dates from 1820, and has been regularly worked up to the present time. Coal of varying quality exists under a very extensive area in India, being found in almost every province and native state with the exception of Bombay and Mysore. In respect, however, of both the number and size of its mines Bengal comes easily first, with seven-eighths of the total output, the largest mines being those of Raniganj, Jherria, and Giridih, while the Singareni mine in Hyderabad comes next. Many of the Bengal mines, however, are very small. There are some important mines in Assam and the Central Provinces. The importance of the Indian coal production lies in the hope that it holds out for the development of Indian industries, especially in connexion with the nascent iron and steel industry. Coal and iron are found in conjunction in the Central Provinces, and the Tata Company has recently been formed to work them on a large scale. The railways already use Indian coal almost exclusively, and Indian coal is being taken yearly in greater quantities by ships trading to Eastern ports. The total output in 1905-1906 was 8,417,739 tons; while there were 47 companies engaged in coal-mining, of which 46 were in Bengal.

Gold.—The production of gold in India is practically confined to the Kolar gold fields in Mysore. An uncertain but unimportant amount is annually procured by sand-washing in various tracts of northern India and Burma; and there have been many attempts, including the great boom of 1880, to work mines in the Wynaad district of the Madras Presidency. There are also mines in the Hyderabad state from which a small amount of gold is produced. But the output of gold in Mysore represents 99% of the annual Indian yield. Modern mining at Kolar dates from 1881, but there are extensive old workings showing that much gold had been extracted under native rule. The mines are worked under leases from the Mysore government, which secure to the state a royalty of 5% of the gold produced. Up to the end of 1903 the total output of the Kolar mines reached the value of £19,000,000.

Iron.—In purity of ore, and in antiquity of working, the iron deposits of India probably rank first in the world. They are to be found in every part of the country, from the northern mountains of Assam and Kumaun to the extreme south of the Madras Presidency. Wherever there are hills, iron is found and worked to a greater or less extent. The indigenous methods of smelting the ore, which are everywhere the same, and have been handed down unchanged through countless generations, yield a metal of the finest quality in a form well suited to native wants. But they require an extravagant supply of charcoal; and even with the cheapness of native labour the product cannot compete in price with imported iron from England. European enterprise, attracted by the richness of the ore and the low rate of wages, has repeatedly tried to establish iron-works on a large scale; but hitherto every one of these attempts has ended in failure with the exception of the iron-works at Barrakur in Bengal, first started in 1865, which after many years of struggle seem to have turned the corner of success. The principal sources of iron-stone at present are the Madras ores, chiefly at Salem, the Chanda ores in the Central Provinces, and the ores obtained at and near Raniganj in Bengal.

Petroleum.—The great oilfields of the Indian empire are in Burma, which supplies 98% of the total output. Of the remainder nearly all comes from Assam. In both provinces the growth of the yield has been very great, the total output in 1901 being six times as large as in 1892; but even so it has failed to keep pace with the demand. A regular service of steamers carries oil in bulk from Rangoon to Calcutta, and now Burmese oil competes with the Russian product, which had already driven the dearer American oil from the market (see Burma).

Other Ores.—Manganese ore is found in very large quantities on a tract on the Madras coast about midway between Calcutta and Madras. Most of the ore goes to Great Britain. There are also valuable deposits of manganese in the Central Provinces and, it is believed, in Burma. The export of manganese, which had been only about ten years in existence in 1905-1906, amounted then to 316,694 tons, with a value of £250,000. Mica has long been obtained in Bengal, chiefly in the Hazaribagh district, and there is a ruby-coloured variety which is held in great estimation. In Madras also a mica industry has recently grown up. Tin is found in the Tavoy and Mergui districts of Lower Burma, and has for many years been worked in an unprogressive manner chiefly by Chinese labour. In 1900 tin of good quality was found in the Southern Shan States. Copper ore is found in many tracts throughout India, plumbago in Madras, and corundum in southern India.

Precious Stones.—Despite its legendary wealth, which is really due to the accumulations of ages, India cannot be said to be naturally rich in precious stones. Under the Mahommedan rule diamonds were a distinct source of state revenue; and Akbar is said to have received a royalty of £80,000 a year from the mines of Panna. But at the present day the search for them, if carried on anywhere in British territory, is an insignificant occupation. The name of Golconda has passed into literature; but that city, once the Mussulman capital of the Deccan, was rather the home of diamond-cutters than the source of supply. It is believed that the far-famed diamonds of Golconda actually came from the sandstone formation which extends across the south-east borders of the nizam’s dominions into the Madras districts of Ganjam and Godavari. A few poor stones are still found in that region. Sambalpur, on the upper channel of the Mahanadi river in the Central Provinces, is another spot once famous for diamonds. So late as 1818 a stone is said to have been found there weighing 84 grains and valued at £500. The river-valleys of Chota Nagpur are also known to have yielded a tribute of diamonds to their Mahommedan conquerors. At the present day the only place where the search for diamonds is pursued as a regular industry is the native state of Panna in Bundelkhand. The stones are found by digging down through several strata of gravelly soil and washing the earth. Even there, however, the pursuit is understood to be unremunerative, and has failed to attract European capital. At the present day the only important industries are the rubies and jade of Burma. The former are worked by the Ruby Mines Company or by licensed native miners under the company. The value of the rubies found has increased rapidly, and the company, which was for some time worked unprofitably under the lease granted in 1896, has now, with the aid of favourable treatment from the government, become more prosperous. Pearls are found off the southern coast of Madras and also in the Mergui archipelago.

Trade.

The trade of India with foreign countries is conducted partly by sea and partly across the land frontiers; but the frontier trade, though capable of much extension, is only a small fraction of the whole. The sea-borne trade is carried on chiefly through the four great ports of Calcutta, Bombay, Karachi, and Rangoon, of which Calcutta serves the fertile valley of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, Bombay serves the cotton-trade of western India, Karachi exports the wheat crop of the Punjab, and Rangoon the rice crop of Burma. Madras, which has been supplied with an artificial harbour, serves southern India, and Chittagong is rising into prominence as the point of departure for the tea and jute of eastern Bengal and Assam. The land trade is carried on with Persia, Afghanistan, Nepal, Tibet and western China. The new caravan route to Persia from Quetta by way of the Nushki railway offers facilities to traders, of which increasing advantage has been taken, but the trade is still small. Afghanistan under Abdur Rahman imposed prohibitive imposts upon trade, and the present amir followed his father’s policy, but his visit to India in 1907 may result in improved relations. The trade with the tribes lying north of the Malakand Pass has improved considerably since the frontier war of 1897-98, but they are a poor community. Nepal takes the largest share of the frontier trade. The trade with Tibet has slightly improved since the treaty of Lhasa of 1904, but it still amounts to only £90,000 annually. The trade with western China is about half a million annually, and shows signs of development.

A review of Indian trade by the director-general of the statistical department in India is annually presented to parliament, and therefore it is only necessary here to mention the main channels that it has taken of recent years. The chief exports are Exports. raw cotton, cotton goods and yarn, rice, wheat, oil-seeds, raw jute and jute-manufactures, hides and skins, tea, opium and lac. In 1905-1906 there was great activity in both the cotton and jute industries. In Bombay new cotton mills were erected, and old ones extended, high-speed machinery was widely introduced, and 12,000 new looms were set up. Similarly the jute trade far surpassed all records. The crop was a record one, but the demand far exceeded the supply, the cultivators reaped profits of eight millions more than the previous year, and 2000 new looms were set up in Calcutta. The tea outlook was good, and the coffee industry was recovering from the effects of plant disease and Brazilian competition. But both the indigo and opium trades are declining industries, which mean a serious loss to the Indian exchequer. Indigo fell to about one-tenth of its value in the previous decade; and an agreement was come to with China in 1907, by which the area under opium is to be gradually reduced. The total exports for 1905-1906 were valued at £112,000,000.

The chief articles of import are cotton goods, cotton yarn, metals, sugar, mineral oils, machinery and mill-work, woollen manufactures, provisions, hardware and cutlery, silk, liquors, apparel, railway material and chemicals. Cotton manufactures Imports. and yarns are imported almost exclusively from the United Kingdom, and amount to about 40% of the total trade. Metals, including hardware and cutlery, railway material, &c., supply about a fifth. The only other important article of import is sugar, which came to about 5 millions in 1905-1906. The balance of trade is always against India, because she is a debtor country, and has to pay interest on borrowed capital, and the “home charges” for the upkeep of the civil and military services and of the secretary of state’s establishment in London. The total imports for 1905-1906 were valued at 82½ millions sterling, including 14 millions of gold and silver, which are continually hoarded by the people of India.

Broadly speaking, the greater part of the internal trade remains in the hands of the natives. Europeans control the shipping business and have a share in the collection of some of the more valuable staples of exports, such as cotton, jute, oil-seeds Trading classes. and wheat. But the work of distribution and the adaptation of the supply to the demand of the consumer naturally fall to those who are best acquainted with native wants. The Vaisya, or trading caste of Manu, has no longer any separate existence; but its place is occupied by several well-marked classes. On the western coast the Parsees, by the boldness and extent of their operations, tread close upon the heels of the most prosperous English houses. In the interior of the Bombay presidency, business is mainly divided between two classes, the Bunniahs of Gujarat and the Marwaris from Rajputana. Each of these profess a peculiar form of religion, the former being Vishnuvites of the Vallabhacharí sect, the latter Jains. In the Deccan their place is taken by Lingayats from the south, who again follow their own form of Hinduism, which is an heretical species of Siva worship. Throughout Mysore, and in the north of Madras, Lingayats are still found, but along the eastern sea-board the predominating classes of traders are those named Chetties and Komatis. In Bengal many of the upper castes of Sudras have devoted themselves to general trade; but there again the Jain Marwaris from Rajputana occupy the front rank. Their headquarters are in Murshidabad district, and their agents are to be found throughout the valley of the Brahmaputra, as far up as the unexplored frontier of China.

Local trade is conducted either at the permanent bazaars of great towns, at weekly markets held in certain villages, at annual gatherings primarily held for religious purposes, or by means of travelling brokers and agents. The cultivator himself, Local trade. who is the chief producer and also the chief customer, knows little of the great towns, and expects the dealer to come to his own door. Each village has at least one resident trader, who usually combines in his own person the functions of money-lender, grain dealer and cloth seller. The simple system of rural economy is entirely based upon the dealings of this man, whom it is the fashion sometimes to decry as a usurer, but who is really the one thrifty person among an improvident population. Abolish the money-lender, and the general body of cultivators would have nothing to depend upon but the harvest of a single year. The money-lender deals chiefly in grain and in specie. In those districts where the staples of export are largely grown, the cultivators commonly sell their crops to travelling brokers, who re-sell to larger dealers, and so on until the commodities reach the hands of the agents of the great shipping houses. The wholesale trade thus rests ultimately with a comparatively small number of persons, who have agencies, or rather corresponding firms, at the great central marts. Buying and selling in their aspects most characteristic of India are to be seen, not at these great towns, nor even at the weekly markets, but at the fairs which are held periodically at certain spots in most districts. Religion is always the original pretext of these gatherings or melás, at some of which nothing is done beyond bathing in the river, or performing various superstitious ceremonies. But in the majority of cases religion has become a mere excuse for secular business. Crowds of petty traders attend, bringing all those miscellaneous articles that can be packed into a pedlar’s wallet; and the neighbouring villagers look forward to the occasion to satisfy alike their curiosity and their household wants.

The control of the revenues of India is vested by act of parliament in the secretary of state for India in council. Subject to his control the government of India enjoys a certain discretionary power, but no new expenditure may be incurred without Finance. his sanction. There is a special member for finance in the governor-general’s council, and all important matters are brought before the council. The central government keeps in its own hands certain revenues, such as salt, the post-office, telegraphs, railways, army and Indian Marine, in addition to the districts of Coorg, Ajmere and the North-West Frontier province. The other provinces raise and administer their own revenues, subject to the central control; they are allowed a certain proportion of the revenue to meet their own administrative charges, and so have an interest in economical expenditure. The apportionment of the revenues is settled afresh every five years. In 1893 the Indian mints were closed to the free coinage of silver, and in 1899 the British sovereign was made legal tender at the rate of 1s. 4d. per rupee; so that since that year the finances of India have been practically upon a gold basis. The principal heads of revenue are land, opium, salt, stamps, excise, customs, assessed taxes, forests, registration and tributes from native states; and the chief heads of expenditure are charges of collection, interest, post-office, telegraph and mint, civil departments, famine relief and insurance, railways, irrigation, other public works and army. The point most frequently criticized in the finances of India is the “home charges” which amount on an average to about 18½ millions a year. Of this total about 9½ millions are for interest on railways and other public works, 5 millions for pensions and furlough pay for civil and military officers, 2½ millions for stores and 1½ millions miscellaneous. These charges constitute the home expenditure on revenue account, but there are also other remittances from India on capital account which bring up the total disbursements in England to an annual average of about 21¼ millions.

Public Works.

Public works in India fall under three categories—railways, irrigation, and roads and buildings. The railways are managed in various ways, the other two classes of works are carried out through the agency of separate departments in Madras and Bombay, and of officers of the government of India public works department, either under local or central control, in other provinces.

Railways in India serve different purposes—the ordinary purpose of trade and passenger communication, and also the special purposes pf the safeguarding the internal and external peace of the country, and of protecting Railways. special districts against famine by facilitating the movement of grain. For this reason the interest on capital expended on all the lines cannot be judged by a purely commercial standard. They are administered in three separate ways—as guaranteed, state or assisted lines. In the early days of railway enterprise the agency of private companies guaranteed by the state was exclusively employed, and nearly all the great trunk lines were made under this system, but the leases of the last three of these lines, the Great Indian Peninsula, the Bombay Baroda and Central India, and the Madras companies, fell in respectively in 1900, 1905 and 1907. In 1870 a new policy of railway development by the direct agency of the state was inaugurated; and in 1880 the system of encouraging private enterprise by state assistance was again resorted to. Both agencies are now employed side by side. The administration of railways was formerly under a secretary in the public works department; but since 1905 it has been placed in charge of a railway board, consisting of a president and two members, which is connected with, though not subordinate to, the department of commerce and industry. In 1908 the total length of railways open in India was 30,578, m., which carried 330 million passengers and 64 million tons of goods, and yielded a net profit exceeding 4%.

Facilities for irrigation (q.v.) vary widely, and irrigation works differ both in extent and in character. The main distinction arises from the fact that the rivers of northern India are fed by the Himalayan snows, and, therefore, afford Irrigation. a supply of water which surpasses in constancy and volume any of the rivers of the south. In Bombay and Madras almost all the irrigation systems, except in the deltas of the chief rivers, are dependent on reservoirs or “tanks,” which collect the rainfall of the adjacent hills. In Sind and the Punjab there are many canals which act merely as distributaries of the overflow of the great rivers at the time of inundation; but where the utility of the canals has been increased by permanent head-works the supply of water is perennial and practically inexhaustible, thus contrasting favourably with the less certain protection given by tanks. The Irrigation Commission of 1901 advised an expenditure of 30 millions sterling, spread over a term of twenty years, and irrigating 6½ million acres in addition to the 47 millions already irrigated at that time; but it was estimated that that programme would practically exhaust the irrigable land in India, and that some of the later works would be merely protective against the danger of famine, and would not be financially productive.

In addition to the provision and maintenance of roads and the construction of public buildings, the department of public works also provides all works of a public nature, such as water-supply, sanitation, embankments, lighthouses, ferries and bridges, Buildings and roads. which require technical skill. Road-making is an ordinary form of relief work in times of famine. In the famine of 1896-1897, for instance, 579 m. of new roads were made in the Central Provinces alone, and 819 m. were repaired. One of the finest roads in the world is the Grand Trunk Road which stretches across India from Calcutta to Peshawar, and which is metalled most of the way with kankar, a hard limestone outgrowth. The great buildings of ancient India are described under the names of the different cities which contain them.

The post-office of India is under the control of a director-general, in subordination to the department of commerce and industry; and this officer has under him a postmaster-general or deputy postmaster-general in each province. In 1906 the district post, Post Office. originally provided for local convenience and maintained by a local cess, was amalgamated with the imperial post. The mileage over which mails are carried by railway has been constantly increasing with the development of the railway system, but a far larger number are still carried by runners and boats. The total number of letters, &c., carried by the post exceeds 800 millions, and the service yields a small profit to the state. In connexion with the post-office there are inland money order and savings-bank businesses; and in addition the value-payable system, by which the post-office undertakes to recover from the addressee the value of an article sent by post and to remit the amount to the sender, has found great popularity.

Excluding the Indo European telegraph wire, the whole telegraph system of India forms an imperial charge, administered through a Telegraphs. director-general. The total length of line is about 69,000 m., and the net profits of the service approximately pay for new expenditure on capital account.

Telegraphic communication with Europe is maintained by the cable of the Eastern Telegraph Company via Aden, and by the Indo-European system, of which the eastern portion from Teheran and Fao to Karachi belongs to the government of India. The administration of the Indo-European department is in London under the direct control of the secretary of state. The system comprises two sections. The first, called the Persian Gulf section, runs from Karachi to Bushire, from Jask to Muscat, and from Bushire to Fao, where a connexion is made with the Ottoman government line. It includes also the Makran coast lines, running from Jask to Guadur, and thence to Karachi. The second section, known as the Persian section, consists of land lines running from Bushire to Teheran. These land lines, as well as the Makran coast lines, are worked under a treaty with the Persian government. A connexion for extending the system through Persia was signed in 1901, the route to be followed being from Kashan near Teheran to the Baluchistan frontier via Yezd and Kerman.

Bibliography.—Imperial Gazetteer of India (new edition, 1907-1909); Census of India (1901); Statistical Atlas of India (1895); G. A. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India (1903); Sir Thomas Holdich, India (“Regions of the World” series) (1902); Sir John Strachey, India (1903); W. Crooke, Natives of Northern India (1907); W. S. Lilly, India and its Problems (1902); Sidney Low, A Vision of India (1906); R. D. Oldham, Geology of India (1893); W. T. Blanford, Geology of India (1880), and Fauna of British India (1888); R. Lydekker, Great and Small Game of India (1900); Sir J. D. Hooker, Flora of British India (1875); J. S. Gamble, Manual of Indian Timbers (1902); Indian Land Revenue Policy (Calcutta, 1902); B. H. Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community (1896); Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Life and Labour of the People of India (1907); Theodore Morison, Industrial Organization of an Indian Province (1906); Professor Wyndham Dunstan, Coal Resources of India (Society of Arts, 1902); Sir George Watt, Dictionary of Economic Products of India (1908); Sir George Birdwood, Industrial Arts of India (1880); R. H. Mahon, Iron and Steel in India (1899); Lord Curzon in India (1906); India Office List; The Statesman’s Year-Book; and the government of India’s annual reports.

(W. W. H.; J. S. Co.)

History

For an orthodox Hindu the history of India begins more than three thousand years before the Christian era with the events detailed in the great epic of the Mahabharata; but by the sober historian these can only be regarded as legends. See the article Inscriptions: section Indian, for a discussion of the scientific basis of the early history. It is needless to repeat here the analysis given in that article. The following account of the earlier period follows the main outlines of the traditional facts, corrected as far as possible by the inscriptional record; and further details will be found in the separate biographical, racial and linguistic articles, and those on the geographical areas into which India is administratively divided.

Our earliest glimpses of India disclose two races struggling for the soil, the Dravidians, a dark-skinned race of aborigines, and the Aryans, a fair-skinned people, descending from Legends. the north-western passes. Ultimately the Dravidians were driven back into the southern table-land, and the great plains of Hindustan were occupied by the Aryans, who dominated the history of India for many centuries thereafter.

The Rig-Veda forms the great literary memorial of the early Aryan settlements in the Punjab. The age of this primitive folk-song is unknown. The Hindus believe, without evidence, that it existed “from before all time,” or at least 3001 years B.C.—nearly 5000 years ago. European scholars have inferred from astronomical dates that its composition was going on about 1400 B.C. But these dates are themselves given in writings of later origin, and might have been calculated backwards. We only know that the Vedic religion had been at work long before the rise of Buddhism in the 6th century B.C. Nevertheless, the antiquity of the Rig-Veda, although not to be expressed in figures, is abundantly established. The earlier hymns exhibit the Aryans on the north-western frontiers of India just starting on their long journey. They show us the Aryans on the banks of the Indus, divided into various tribes, sometimes at war with each other, sometimes united against the “black-skinned” aborigines. Caste, in its later sense, is unknown. Each father of a family is the priest of his own household. The chieftain acts as father and priest to the tribe; but at the greater festivals he chooses some one specially learned in holy offerings to conduct the sacrifice in the name of the people. The chief himself seems to have been elected. Women enjoyed a high position, and some of the most beautiful hymns were composed by ladies and queens. Marriage was held sacred. Husband and wife were both “rulers of the house” (dampati), and drew near to the gods together in prayer. The burning of widows on their husbands’ funeral-pile was unknown, and the verses in the Veda which the Brahmans afterwards distorted into a sanction for the practice have the very opposite meaning.

The Aryan tribes in the Veda are acquainted with most of the metals. They have blacksmiths, coppersmiths and goldsmiths among them, besides carpenters, barbers and other artisans. They fight from chariots, and freely use the horse, although not yet the elephant, in war. They have settled down as husbandmen, till their fields with the plough, and live in villages or towns. But they also cling to their old wandering life, with their herds and “cattle-pens.” Cattle, indeed, still form their chief wealth, the coin (Lat. pecunia) in which payments of fines are made; and one of their words for war literally means “a desire for cows.” They have learned to build “ships,” perhaps large river-boats, and seem to have heard something of the sea. Unlike the modern Hindus, the Aryans of the Veda ate beef, used a fermented liquor or beer made from the soma plant, and offered the same strong meat and drink to their gods. Thus the stout Aryans spread eastwards through northern India, pushed on from behind by later arrivals of their own stock, and driving before them, or reducing to bondage, the earlier “black-skinned” races. They marched in whole communities from one river-valley to another, each house-father a warrior, husbandman and priest, with his wife and his little ones, and cattle.

About the beginning of the 6th century B.C. the settled country between the Himalaya mountains and the Nerbudda river was divided into sixteen independent states, some monarchies and some tribal republics, the most Early states. important of which were the four monarchies of Kosala, Magadha, the Vamsas and Avanti. Kosala, the modern kingdom of Oudh, appears to have been the premier state of India in 600 B.C. Later the supremacy was reft from it by the kingdom of Magadha, the modern Behar (q.v.). South of Kosala lay the kingdom of the Vamsas, and south of that again the kingdom of Avanti. In the north-west was Gandhara, on the banks of the Indus, in the neighbourhood of Peshawar. The history of these early states is only a confused record of war and intermarriages, and is still semi-mythical. The list of the sixteen states ignores everything north of the Himalayas, south of the Vindhyas, and east of the Ganges where it turns south.

The principal cities of India at this date were Ayōdhyā, the capital of Kosala at the time of the Ramayana, though it afterwards gave place to Srāvastī, which was one of the six great cities of India in the time of Buddha: Capital cities. archaeologists differ as to its position. Baranasi, the modern Benares, had in the time of Megasthenes a circuit of 25 m. Kosambi, the capital of the Vamsas, lay on the Jumna, 230 m. from Benares. Rajagriha (Rajgir), the capital of Magadha, was built by Bimbisara, the contemporary of Buddha. Roruka, the capital of Sovira, was an important centre of the coasting trade. Saketa was sometime the capital of Kosala. Ujjayini, the modern Ujjain, was the capital of Avanti. None of these great cities has as yet been properly excavated.

In those early days the Aryan tribes were divided into four social grades on a basis of colour: the Kshatriyas or nobles, who claimed descent from the early leaders; the Brahmans or sacrificing priests; the Vaisyas, the Social life. peasantry; and last of all the Sudras, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, of non-Aryan descent. Even below these there were low tribes and trades, aboriginal tribes and slaves. In later documents mention is made of eighteen gilds of work-people, whose names are nowhere given, but they probably included workers in wood, workers in metal, workers in stone, weavers, leather-workers, potters, ivory-workers, dyers, fisher-folk, butchers, hunters, cooks, barbers, flower-sellers, sailors, basket-makers and painters.

It is supposed that sea-going merchants, mostly Dravidians, and not Aryans, availing themselves of the monsoons, traded in the 7th century B.C. from the south-west ports of India to Babylon, and that there they became acquainted with a Semitic alphabet, which they brought back with them, and from which all the alphabets now used in India, Burma, Siam and Ceylon have been gradually evolved. For the early inscriptional remains, see Inscriptions: India. The earliest written records in India, however, are Buddhist. The earliest written books are in Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit.

The Buddhist Period.

The systems called Jainism (see Jains) and Buddhism (q.v.) had their roots in prehistoric philosophies, but were founded respectively by Vardhamana Mahavira and Gotama Buddha, both of whom were preaching in Magadha during the reign of Bimbisara (c. 520 B.C.).

During the next two hundred years Buddhism spread over northern India, perhaps receiving a new impulse from the Greek kingdoms in the Punjab. About the middle of the 3rd century B.C. Asoka, the king of Magadha or Behar, who reigned from 264 B.C. to 227 B.C., became a zealous convert to Buddhism. He is said to have supported 64,000 Buddhist priests; he founded many religious houses, and his kingdom is called the Land of the Monasteries (Vihara or Behar) to this day. He did for Buddhism what Constantine effected for Christianity; he organized it on the basis of a state religion. This he accomplished by five means—by a council to settle the faith, by edicts promulgating its principles, by a state department to watch over its purity, by missionaries to spread its doctrines, and by an authoritative collection of its sacred books. In 246 B.C. Asoka is said2 to have convened at Pataliputra (Patna) the third Buddhist council of one thousand elders (the tradition that he actually convened it rests on no actual evidence that we possess). Evil men, taking on them the yellow robe of the order, had given forth their own opinions as the teaching of Buddha. Such heresies were now corrected; and the Buddhism of southern Asia practically dates from Asoka’s council. In a number of edicts, both before and after the synod, he published throughout India the grand principles of the faith. Such edicts are still found graven deep upon pillars, in caves and on rocks, from the Yusafzai valley beyond Peshawar on the north-western frontier, through the heart of Hindustan, to Kathiawar and Mysore on the south and Orissa in the east. Tradition states that Asoka set up 64,000 memorial columns; and the thirty-five inscriptions extant in our own day show how widely these royal sermons were spread over India. In the year of the council, the king also founded a state department to watch over the purity and to direct the spread of the faith. A minister of justice and religion (Dharma Mahamatra) directed its operations; and, one of its first duties being to proselytize, he was specially charged with the welfare of the aborigines among whom its missionaries were sent. Asoka did not think it enough to convert the inferior races without looking after their material interests. Wells were to be dug and trees planted along the roads; a system of medical aid was established throughout his kingdom and the conquered provinces, as far as Ceylon, for both man and beast. Officers were appointed to watch over domestic life and public morality, and to promote instruction among the women as well as the youth.

Asoka recognized proselytism by peaceful means as a state duty. The rock inscriptions record how he sent forth missionaries “to the utmost limits of the barbarian countries,” to “intermingle among all unbelievers” for the spread of religion. They shall mix equally with Brahmans and beggars, with the dreaded and the despised, both within the kingdom “and in foreign countries, teaching better things.” Conversion is to be effected by persuasion, not by the sword. This character of a proselytizing faith which wins its victories by peaceful means has remained a prominent feature of Buddhism to the present day. Asoka, however, not only took measures to spread the religion; he also endeavoured to secure its orthodoxy. He collected the body of doctrine into an authoritative version, in the Magadhi language or dialect of his central kingdom in Behar—a version which for two thousand years has formed the canon (pitakas) of the southern Buddhists.

The fourth and last of the great councils was held in Kashmir under the Kushan king Kanishka (see below). This council, which consisted of five hundred members, compiled three commentaries on the Buddhist faith. These commentaries supplied in part materials for the Tibetan or northern canon, drawn up at a subsequent period. The northern canon, or, as the Chinese proudly call it, the “greater vehicle of the law,” includes many later corruptions or developments of the Indian faith as originally embodied by Asoka in the “lesser vehicle,” or canon of the southern Buddhists.

The Kanishka commentaries were written in the Sanskrit language, perhaps because the Kashmir and northern priests who formed his council belonged to isolated Aryan colonies, which had been little influenced by the growth of the Indian vernacular dialects. In this way Kanishka and his Kashmir council became in some degree to the northern or Tibetan Buddhists what Asoka and his council had been to the Buddhists of Ceylon and the south.3

Buddhism never ousted Brahmanism from any large part of India. The two systems co-existed as popular religions during more than a thousand years (250 B.C. to about A.D. 800), and modern Hinduism is the joint product of Buddhism and Brahmanism. both. Certain kings and certain eras were intensely Buddhistic; but the continuous existence of Brahmanism is abundantly proved from the time of Alexander (327 B.C.) downwards. The historians who chronicled his march, and the Greek ambassador Megasthenes, who succeeded them (300 B.C.) in their literary labours, bear witness to the predominance of the old faith in the period immediately preceding Asoka. Inscriptions, local legends, Sanskrit literature, and the drama disclose the survival of Brahman influence during the next six centuries (250 B.C.-A.D. 400). From A.D. 400 we have the evidence of the Chinese pilgrims, who toiled through Central Asia into India as the birthplace of their faith. Fa-Hien entered India from Afghanistan, and journeyed down the whole Gangetic valley to the Bay of Bengal in A.D. 399-413. He found Brahman priests equally honoured with Buddhist monks, and temples to the Indian gods side by side with the religious houses of his own faith. Hsüan Tsang also travelled to India from China by the Central Asia route, and has left a fuller record of the state of the two religions in the 7th century. His journey extended from A.D. 629 to 645, and everywhere throughout India he found the two faiths eagerly competing for the suffrages of the people. By that time, indeed, Brahmanism was beginning to assert itself at the expense of the other religion. The monuments of the great Buddhist monarchs, Asoka and Kanishka, confronted him from the time he neared the Punjab frontier; but so also did the temples of Siva and his “dread” queen Bhima. Throughout north-western India he found Buddhist convents and monks surrounded by “swarms of heretics.” The political power was also divided, although Buddhist sovereigns predominated. A Buddhist monarch ruled over ten kingdoms in Afghanistan. At Peshawar the great monastery built by Kanishka was deserted, but the populace remained faithful. In Kashmir king and people were devout Buddhists, under the teaching of five hundred monasteries and five thousand monks. In the country identified with Jaipur, on the other hand, the inhabitants were devoted to heresy and war.

During the next few centuries Brahmanism gradually became the ruling religion. There are legends of persecutions instigated by Brahman reformers, such as Kumarila Bhatta and Sankar-Acharjya. But the downfall of Buddhism Decline of Buddhism. seems to have resulted from natural decay, and from new movements of religious thought, rather than from any general suppression by the sword. Its extinction is contemporaneous with the rise of Hinduism, and belongs to a subsequent part of this sketch. In the 11th century, only outlying states, such as Kashmir and Orissa, remained faithful; and before the Mahommedans fairly came upon the scene Buddhism as a popular faith had disappeared from India. During the last ten centuries Buddhism has been a banished religion from its native home. But it has won greater triumphs in its exile than it could ever have achieved in the land of its birth. It has created a literature and a religion for more than a third of the human race, and has profoundly affected the beliefs of the rest. Five hundred millions of men, or 35% of the inhabitants of the world, still follow the teaching of Buddha. Afghanistan, Nepal, Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Japan, the Eastern Archipelago, Siam, Burma, Ceylon and India at one time marked the magnificent circumference of its conquests. Its shrines and monasteries stretched in a continuous line from the Caspian to the Pacific, and still extend from the confines of the Russian empire to the equatorial archipelago. During twenty-four centuries Buddhism has encountered and outlived a series of powerful rivals. At this day it forms one of the three great religions of the world, and is more numerously followed than either Christianity or Islam. In India its influence has survived its separate existence: it supplied a basis upon which Brahmanism finally developed from the creed of a caste into the religion of the people. The noblest survivals of Buddhism in India are to be found, not among any peculiar body, but in the religion of the people; in that principle of the brotherhood of man, with the reassertion of which each new revival of Hinduism starts; in the asylum which the great Hindu sects afford to women who have fallen victims to caste rules, to the widow and the out-caste; in the gentleness and charity to all men, which takes the place of a poor-law in India, and gives a high significance to the half satirical epithet of the “mild” Hindu.

Hindu Period.

The external history of India may be considered to begin with the Greek invasion in 327 B.C. Some indirect trade between India and the Levant seems to have existed from very ancient times. Homer was acquainted with tin and other articles of Indian merchandise by their Sanskrit names; and a long list has been made of Indian products mentioned in the Bible. In the time of Darius (see Persia) the valley of the Indus was a Persian satrapy. But the first Greek historian who speaks clearly of India was Hecataeus of Miletus (549-486 B.C.); the knowledge of Herodotus (450 B.C.) ended at the Indus; and Ctesias, the physician (401 B.C.), brought back from his residence in Persia only a few facts about the products of India, its dyes and fabrics, its monkeys and parrots. India to the east of the Indus was first made known in Europe by the historians and men of science who accompanied Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. Their narratives, although now lost, are condensed in Strabo, Pliny and Arrian. Soon afterwards Megasthenes, as Greek ambassador resident at a court in Bengal (306-298 B.C.), had opportunities for the closest observation. The knowledge of the Greeks and Romans concerning India practically dates from his researches, 300 B.C.

Alexander the Great entered India early in 327 B.C. Crossing the lofty Khawak and Kaoshan passes of the Hindu Kush, he advanced by Alexandria, a city previously founded in the Koh-i-Daman, and Nicaea, another city to Alexander’s march. the west of Jalalabad, on the road from Kabul to India. Thence he turned eastwards through the Kunar valley and Bajour, and crossed the Gouraios (Panjkora) river. Here he laid siege to Mount Aornos, which is identified by some authorities with the modern Mahaban, though this identification was rejected by Dr Stein after an exhaustive survey of Mount Mahaban in 1904. Alexander crossed the Indus at Ohind, 16 m. above Attock, receiving there the submission of the great city of Taxila, which is now represented by miles of ruins near the modern Rawalpindi. Crossing the Hydaspes (Jhelum) he defeated Porus in a great battle, and crossing the Acesines (Chenab) near the foot of the hills and the Hydraotes (Ravi), reached the Hyphasis (Beas). Here he was obliged by the temper of his army to retrace his steps, and retreat to the Jhelum, whence he sailed down the river to its confluence with the Indus, and thence to Patala, probably the modern Hyderabad. From Patala the admiral Nearchos was to sail round the coast to the Euphrates, while Alexander himself marched through the wilds of Gedrosia, or modern Makran. Ultimately, after suffering agonies of thirst in the desert, the army made its way back to the coast at the modern harbour of Pasin, whence the return to Susa in Persia was comparatively easy.

During his two years’ campaign in the Punjab and Sind, Alexander captured no province, but he made alliances, founded cities and planted garrisons. He had transferred much territory to chiefs and confederacies devoted to his cause; every petty court had its Greek faction; and the detachments which he left behind at various positions, from the Afghan frontier to the Beas, and from near the base of the Himalaya to the Sind delta, were visible pledges of his return. At Taxila (Dehri-Shahan) and Nicaea (Mong) in the northern Punjab, at Alexandria (Uchch) in the southern Punjab, at Patala (Hyderabad) in Sind, and at other points along his route, he established military settlements of Greeks or allies. A large body of his troops remained in Bactria; and, in the partition of the empire which followed Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., Bactria and India eventually fell to Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the Syrian monarchy (see Seleucid).

Meanwhile a new power had arisen in India. Among the Indian adventurers who thronged Alexander’s camp in the Punjab, each with his plot for winning a kingdom or crushing a rival, Chandragupta Maurya, an exile Chandragupta Maurya. from the Gangetic valley, seems to have played a somewhat ignominious part. He tried to tempt the wearied Greeks on the banks of the Beas with schemes of conquest in the rich south-eastern provinces; but, having personally offended their leader, he had to fly the camp (326 B.C.). In the confused years which followed, he managed with the aid of plundering bands to form a kingdom on the ruins of the Nanda dynasty in Magadha or Behar (321 B.C.). He seized the capital, Pataliputra, the modern Patna, established himself firmly in the Gangetic valley, and compelled the north-western principalities, Greeks and natives alike, to acknowledge his suzerainty. While, therefore, Seleucus was winning his way to the Syrian monarchy during the eleven years which followed Alexander’s death, Chandragupta was building up an empire in northern India. Seleucus reigned in Syria from 312 to 280 B.C., Chandragupta in the Gangetic valley from 321 to 296 B.C. In 312 B.C. the power of both had been consolidated, and the two new sovereignties were brought face to face. In that year Seleucus, having recovered Babylon, proceeded to re-establish his authority in Bactria (q.v.) and the Punjab. In the latter province he found the Greek influence decayed. Alexander had left behind a mixed force of Greeks and Indians at Taxila. No sooner was he gone than the Indians rose and slew the Greek governor; the Macedonians massacred the Indians; a new governor, sent by Alexander, murdered the friendly Punjab prince, Porus, and was himself driven out of the country by the advance of Chandragupta from the Gangetic valley. Seleucus, after a war with Chandragupta, determined to ally himself with the new power in India rather than to oppose it. In return for five hundred elephants, he ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab and the Kabul valley, gave his daughter to Chandragupta in marriage, and stationed an ambassador, Megasthenes, at the Gangetic court (302 B.C.). Chandragupta became familiar to the Greeks as Sandrocottus, king of the Prasii; his capital, Pataliputra was called by them Palimbothra. On the other hand, the names of Greeks and kings of Grecian dynasties appear in the rock inscriptions, under Indian forms.

Previous to the time of Megasthenes the Greek idea of India was a very vague one. Their historians spoke of two classes of Indians—certain mountainous tribes who dwelt in northern Afghanistan under the Caucasus or Hindu Kush, and a maritime race living on the coast of Baluchistan. Of the India of modern geography lying beyond the Indus they practically knew nothing. It was this India to the east of the Indus that Megasthenes opened up to the western world. He describes the classification of the people, dividing them, however, into seven castes instead of four, namely, philosophers, husbandmen, shepherds, artisans, soldiers, inspectors and the counsellors of the king. The philosophers were the Brahmans, and the prescribed stages of their life are indicated. Megasthenes draws a distinction between the Brahmans (Βραχμᾶνες) and the Sarmanae (Σαρμάναι), from which some scholars have inferred that the Buddhist Sarmanas were a recognized class fifty years before the council of Asoka. But the Sarmanae also include Brahmans in the first and third stages of their life as students and forest recluses. The inspectors or sixth class of Megasthenes have been identified with Asoka’s Mahamatra and his Buddhist inspectors of morals.

The Greek ambassador observed with admiration the absence of slavery in India, the chastity of the women, and the courage of the men. In valour they excelled all other Asiatics; they required no locks to their doors; above all, no Indian was ever known to tell a lie. Sober and industrious, good farmers and skilful artisans, they scarcely ever had recourse to a lawsuit, and lived peaceably under their native chiefs. The kingly government is portrayed almost as described in Manu, with its hereditary castes of councillors and soldiers. Megasthenes mentions that India was divided into one hundred and eighteen kingdoms; some of which, such as that of the Prasii under Chandragupta, exercised suzerain powers. The village system is well described, each little rural unit seeming to be an independent republic. Megasthenes remarked the exemption of the husbandmen (Vaisyas) from war and public services, and enumerates the dyes, fibres, fabrics and products (animal, vegetable and mineral) of India. Husbandry depended on the periodical rains; and forecasts of the weather, with a view to “make adequate provision against a coming deficiency,” formed a special duty of the Brahmans. “The philosopher who errs in his predictions observes silence for the rest of his life.”

Before the year 300 B.C. two powerful monarchies had thus begun to act upon the Brahmanism of northern India, from the east and from the west. On the east, in the Gangetic valley, Chandragupta (320-296 B.C.) firmly consolidated the dynasty which during the next century produced Asoka (264-228 or 227 B.C.), and established Buddhism throughout India. On the west, the Seleucids diffused Greek influences, and sent forth Graeco-Bactrian expeditions to the Punjab. Antiochus Theos (grandson of Seleucus Nicator) and Asoka (grandson of Chandragupta), who ruled these two monarchies in the 3rd century B.C., made a treaty with each other (256). In the next century Eucratides, king of Bactria, conquered as far as Alexander’s royal city of Patala, and possibly sent expeditions into Cutch and Gujarat, 181-161 B.C. Of the Graeco-Indian monarchs, Menander (q.v.) advanced farthest into north-western India, and his coins are found from Kabul, near which he probably had his capital, as far as Muttra on the Jumna.4 The Buddhist dynasty of Chandragupta profoundly modified the religion of northern India from the east; the Seleucid empire, with its Bactrian and later offshoots, deeply influenced the science and art of Hindustan from the west.

Brahman astronomy owed much to the Greeks, and what the Buddhists were to the architecture of northern India, that the Greeks were to its sculpture. Greek faces and profiles constantly occur in ancient Buddhist statuary, Greek influence on art. and enrich almost all the larger museums in India. The purest specimens have been found in the North-west frontier province (the ancient Gandhara) and the Punjab, where the Greeks settled in greatest force. As we proceed eastward from the Punjab, the Greek type begins to fade. Purity of outline gives place to lusciousness of form. In the female figures, the artists trust more and more to swelling breasts and towering chignons, and load the neck with constantly accumulating jewels. Nevertheless, the Grecian type of countenance long survived in Indian art. It is entirely unlike the present coarse conventional ideal of sculptured beauty, and may even be traced in the delicate profiles on the so-called sun temple at Kanarak, built in the 12th century A.D. on the remote Orissa shore.

Chandragupta (q.v.) was one of the greatest of Indian kings. The dominions that he had won back from the Greeks he administered with equal power. He maintained an army of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 horsemen, 36,000 The Maurya Dynasty. men with the elephants, and 24,000 men with the chariots, which was controlled by an elaborate war-office system. The account given of his reign by Megasthenes makes him better known to us than any other Indian monarch down to the time of Akbar. In 297 B.C. he was succeeded by his son, Bindusara, who is supposed to have extended his dominions down to Madras. In 272 B.C. he in turn was succeeded by Asoka, the Buddhist emperor, the religious side of whose reign has already been described. Asoka’s empire included the greater part of Afghanistan, a large part of Baluchistan, Sind, Kashmir, Nepal, Bengal to the mouths of the Ganges, and peninsular India down to the Palar river. After Asoka the Mauryas dwindled away, and the last of them, Brihadratha, was treacherously assassinated in 184 B.C. by his commander-in-chief, Pushyamitra Sunga, who founded the Sunga dynasty.

During the 2nd century B.C. north-western India was invaded and partially conquered by Antiochus III. the Great, Demetrius (q.v.), Eucratides (q.v.) and Menander (q.v.). With the last of these Pushyamitra Sunga waged successful Sunga, Kanva, and Andhra Dynasties. war, driving him from the Gangetic valley and confining him to his conquests in the west. Pushyamitra established his own paramountcy over northern India; but his reign is mainly memorable as marking the beginning of the Brahmanical reaction against Buddhism, a reaction which Pushyamitra is said to have forwarded not only by the peaceful revival of Hindu rites but by a savage persecution of the Buddhist monks. The Sunga dynasty, after lasting 112 years, was succeeded by the Kanva dynasty, which lasted 45 years, i.e. until about 27 B.C., when it was overthrown by an unknown king of the Andhra dynasty of the Satavahanas, whose power, originating in the deltas of the Godavari and Kistna rivers, by A.D. 200 had spread across India to Nasik and gradually pushed its way northwards.

About A.D. 100 there appeared in the west three foreign tribes from the north, who conquered the native population and established themselves in Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar. These tribes were the Sakas, a horde of pastoral The Saka Satraps. nomads from Central Asia (see Saka), the Pahlavas, whose name is supposed to be a corruption of “Parthiva” (i.e. Parthians of Persia), and the Yavanas (Ionians), i.e. foreigners from the old Indo-Greek kingdoms of the north west frontier, all of whom had been driven southwards by the Yue-chi (q.v.). Their rulers, of whom the first to be mentioned is Bhumaka, of the Kshaharata family, took the Persian title of satrap (Kshatrapa). They were hated by the Hindus as barbarians who disregarded the caste system and despised the holy law, and for centuries an intermittent struggle continued between the satraps and the Andhras, with varying fortune. Finally, however, about A.D. 236, the Andhra dynasty, after an existence of some 460 years, came to an end, under circumstances of which no record remains, and their place in western India was taken by the Kshaharata satraps, until the last of them was overthrown by Chandragupta Vikramaditya at the close of the 4th century.

Meanwhile, the Yue-chi had themselves crossed the Hindu Kush to the invasion of north-western India (see Yue-Chi). They were originally divided into five tribes, which were united under the rule of Kadphises I.5 (? A.D. 45-85), the founder of The Kushan Dynasty A.D. 45-225. the Kushan dynasty, who conquered the Kabul valley, annihilating what remained there of the Greek dominion, and swept away the petty Indo-Greek and Indo-Parthian principalities on the Indus. His successors completed the conquest of north-western India from the delta of the Indus eastwards probably as far as Benares. One effect of the Yue-chi conquests was to open up a channel of commerce with the Roman empire by the northern trade routes; and the Indian embassy which, according to Dion. Cassius (ix. 58), visited Trajan after his arrival at Rome in A.D. 99, was probably6 sent by Kadphises II. (Ooemokadphises) to announce his conquest of north-western India. The most celebrated of the Kushan kings, however, was Kanishka, whose date is still a matter of controversy.7 From his capital at Purushapura (Peshawar) he not only maintained his hold on north-western India, but conquered Kashmir, attacked Pataliputra, carried on a successful war with the Parthians, and led an army across the appalling passes of the Taghdumbash Pamir to the conquest of Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan. It is not, however, as a conqueror that Kanishka mainly lives on in tradition, but as a Buddhist monarch, second in reputation only to Asoka, and as the convener of the celebrated council of Kashmir already mentioned.

The dynasties of the Andhras in the centre and south and of the Kushans in the north came to an end almost at the same time (c. A.D. 236-225 respectively). The history of India during the remainder of the 3rd century is all but a blank, a confused record of meaningless names and disconnected events; and it Is not until the opening of the 4th century that the veil is lifted, with the rise to supreme power in Magadha (A.D. 320) of Chandragupta I., the founder of the Gupta dynasty and empire (see Gupta), the most extensive since the days of Asoka. He was succeeded by Chandragupta II. Vikramaditya, whose court and administration are described by the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien, and who is supposed to have been the original of the mythical king Vikramaditya, who figures largely in Indian legends. The later Guptas were overwhelmed (c. 470) by the White Huns, or Ephthalites (q.v.), who after breaking the power of Persia and assailing the Kushan kingdom of Kabul, had poured into India, conquered Sind, and established their rule as far south as the Nerbudda. The dominion of the Huns in India, as elsewhere, was a mere organization for brigandage on an imperial scale and it did not long survive. It was shaken (c. 528) by the defeat, at the hands of tributary princes goaded to desperation, of Mihiragula, the most powerful and bloodthirsty of its rulers—the “Attila of India.” It collapsed with the overthrow of the central power of the White Huns on the Oxus (c. 565) by the Turks. Though, however, this stopped the incursions of Asiatic hordes from the north-west, and India was to remain almost exempt from foreign invasion for some 500 years, the Ephthalite conquest added new and permanent elements to the Indian population. After the fall of the central power, the scattered Hunnish settlers, like so many before them, became rapidly Hinduized, and are probably the ancestors of some of the most famous Rajput clans.8

The last native monarch, prior to the Mahommedan conquest, to establish and maintain paramount power in the north was Harsha, or Harshavardhana (also known as Siladitya), for whose reign (606-648) full and trustworthy materials exist in the book of travels written by the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Tsang and the Harsha-charita (Deeds of Harsha) composed by Bana, a Brahman who lived at the royal court. Harsha was the younger son of the raja of Thanesar, and gained his first experience of campaigning while still a boy in the successful wars waged by his father and brother against the Huns on the north-western frontier. After the treacherous murder of his brother by Sasanka, king of Central Bengal, he was confirmed as raja, though still very young, by the nobles of Thanesar in 606, though it would appear that his effective rule did not begin till six years later.9 His first care was to revenge his brother’s death, and though it seems that Sasanka escaped destruction for a while (he was still ruling in 619), Harsha’s experience of warfare encouraged him to make preparations for bringing all India under his sway. By the end of five and a half years he had actually conquered the north-western regions and also, probably, part of Bengal. After this he reigned for 34½ years, devoting most of his energy to perfecting the administration of his vast dominions, which he did with such wisdom and liberality as to earn the commendation of Hsüan Tsang. In his campaigns he was almost uniformly successful; but in his attempt to conquer the Deccan he was repulsed (620) by the Chalukya king, Pulikesin II., who successfully prevented him from forcing the passes of the Nerbudda. Towards the end of his reign Harsha’s empire embraced the whole basin of the Ganges from the Himalayas to the Nerbudda, including Nepal,10 besides Malwa, Gujarat and Surashtra (Kathiawar); while even Assam (Kamarupa) was tributary to him. The empire, however, died with its founder. His benevolent despotism had healed the wounds inflicted by the barbarian invaders, and given to his subjects a false feeling of security. For he left no heir to carry on his work; his death “loosened the bonds which restrained the disruptive forces always ready to operate in India, and allowed them to produce their normal result, a medley of petty states, with ever-varying boundaries, and engaged in unceasing internecine war.”11

In the Deccan the middle of the 6th century saw the rise of the Chalukya dynasty, founded by Pulikesin I. about A.D. 550. The most famous monarch of this line was Pulikesin II., who repelled the inroads of Harsha (A.D. 620), The Deccan. and whose court was visited by Hsüan Tsang (A.D. 640); but in A.D. 642 he was defeated by the Pallavas of Conjeeveram, and though his son Vikramaditya I. restored the fallen fortunes of his family, the Chalukyas were finally superseded by the Rashtrakutas about A.D. 750. The Kailas temple at Ellora was built in the reign of Krishna I. (c. A.D. 760). The last of the Rashtrakutas was overthrown in A.D. 973 by Taila II., a scion of the old Chalukya stock, who founded a second dynasty known as the Chalukyas of Kalyani, which lasted like its predecessor for about two centuries and a quarter. About A.D. 1000 the Chalukya kingdom suffered severely from the invasion of the Chola king, Rajaraja the Great. Vikramanka, the hero of Bilhana’s historical poem, came to the throne in A.D. 1076 and reigned for fifty years. After his death the Chalukya power declined. During the 12th and 13th centuries a family called Hoysala attained considerable prominence in the Mysore country, but they were overthrown by Malik Kafur in A.D. 1310. The Yadava kings of Deogiri were descendants of feudatory nobles of the Chalukya kingdom, but they, like the Hoysalas, were overthrown by Malik Kafur, and Ramachandra, the last of the line, was the last independent Hindu sovereign of the Deccan.

According to ancient tradition the kingdoms of the south were three—Pandya, Chola and Chera. Pandya occupied the The Kingdoms of the South. extremity of the peninsula, south of Pudukottai, Chola extended northwards to Nellore, and Chera lay to the west, including Malabar, and is identified with the Kerala of Asoka. All three kingdoms were occupied by races speaking Dravidian languages. The authentic history of the south does not begin until the 9th and 10th centuries A.D., though the kingdoms are known to have existed in Asoka’s time.

The most ancient mention of the name Pandya occurs in the 4th century B.C., and in Asoka’s time the kingdom was independent, but no early records survive, the Inscriptions of the dynasty being of late date, while the long lists of kings in The Pandya Kingdom. Tamil literature are untrustworthy. During the early centuries of the Christian era the Pandya and Chera kingdoms traded with Rome. The most ancient Pandya king to whom a definite date can be ascribed is Rajasimha (c. A.D. 920). Records begin towards the end of the 12th century, and the dynasty can be traced from then till the middle of the 16th century. The most conspicuous event in its history was the invasion by the Sinhalese armies of Parakramabahu, king of Ceylon (c. A.D. 1175). The early records of the Chera kingdom are still more meagre; and the authentic list of the rajas of Travancore does not begin till A.D. 1335, and the rajas of Cochin two centuries later.

The Chola kingdom, like the Pandya, is mentioned by the Sanskrit grammarian Katyayana in the 4th century B.C., and was recognized by Asoka as independent. The dynastic history of the Cholas begins about A.D. 860, The Chola Kingdom. and is known from then until its decline in the middle of the 13th century. During those four centuries their history is intertwined with that of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and other minor dynasties. In A.D. 640 the Chola country was visited by Hsüan Tsang, but the country at that time was desolate, and the dynasty of small importance. In A.D. 985 Rajaraja the Great came to the throne, and after a reign of twenty-seven years died the paramount ruler of southern India. He conquered and annexed the island of Ceylon, and was succeeded by four equally vigorous members of the dynasty; but after the time of Vikrama (A.D. 1120) the Chola power gradually declined, and was practically extinguished by Malik Kafur.

The name of the Pallavas appears to be identical with that of the Pahlavas, a foreign tribe, frequently mentioned in inscriptions and Sanskrit literature. It is supposed, therefore, that the Pallavas came from the north, The Pallava Confederacy. and gradually worked their way down to Malabar and the Coromandel coast. When first heard of in the 2nd century A.D. they are a ruling race. The Pallavas appear, like the Mahrattas in later times, to have imposed tribute on the territorial governments of the country. The first Pallava king about whom anything substantial is known was Siva-skanda-varman (c. A.D. 150), whose capital was Kanchi (Conjeeveram), his power extending into the Telugu country as far as the Kistna river. Two centuries later Samudragupta conquered eleven kings of the south, of whom three were Pallavas. It appears that in the 4th century three Pallava chiefs were established at Kanchi, Vengi and Palakkada, the latter two being subordinate to the first, and that Pallava rule extended from the Godavari on the north to the Southern Vellaru river on the south, and stretched across Mysore from sea to sea. About A.D. 609 Pulikesin II., the Chalukya king, defeated Mahendra-Varman, a Pallava chief, and drove him to take refuge behind the walls of Kanchi. About A.D. 620 a prince named Vishnuvardhana founded the Eastern Chalukya line in the province of Vengi, which was taken from the Pallavas. Hsüan Tsang visited Kanchi, the Pallava capital, in the year A.D. 640; the country was, according to his account, 1000 m. in circumference, and the capital was a large city 5 or 6 m. in circumference. In A.D. 642 the Pallavas defeated in turn Pulikesin II. The conflict became perennial, and when the Rashtrakutas supplanted the Chalukyas in the middle of the 8th century, they took up the old quarrel with the Pallavas. Towards the end of the 10th century the Pallava power, which had lasted for ten centuries, was destroyed by the Chola monarch, Rajaraja the Great. Pallava nobles existed to the end of the 17th century, and the raja of Pudukottai claims descent from the ancient royal family.

Mahommedan Period.

At the time that Buddhism was being crushed out of India by the Brahmanic reaction, a new faith was being born in Arabia, destined to supply a youthful fanaticism which should sweep the country from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, and from the western to the eastern sea. Mahomet, the founder of Islam, died at Medina in A.D. 632, while the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Tsang was still on his travels. The first Mahommedan invasion of India is placed in 664, only thirty-two years after the death of the prophet. The Punjab is said to have been ravaged on this occasion with no permanent results. The first Mahommedan conquest was the outlying province of Sind. In 711, or seventy-nine years after the death of Mahomet, an Arab army under Mahommed b. Kasim invaded and conquered the Hindus of Sind in the name of Walid I., caliph of Damascus, of the Omayyad line. In the same year Roderic, the last of the Goths, fell before the victorious Saracens in Spain. But in India the bravery of the Rajputs and the devotion of the Brahmans seem to have afforded a stronger national bulwark than existed in western Europe. In 750 the Hindus rose in rebellion and drove out the Mussulman tyrant, and the land had rest for one hundred and fifty years.

The next Mahommedan invasion of India is associated with the name of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni. Mahmud was the eldest son of Sabuktagin, surnamed Nasr-ud-din, in origin a Turkish slave, who had established his rule Mahmud of Ghazni. over the greater part of modern Afghanistan and Khorassan, with Ghazni as his capital. In 977 Sabuktagin is said to have defeated Jaipal, the Hindu raja of Lahore, and to have rendered the Punjab tributary. But his son Mahmud was the first of the great Mussulman conquerors whose names still ring through Asia. Mahmud succeeded to the throne in 997. During his reign of thirty-three years he extended the limits of his father’s kingdom from Persia on the east to the Ganges on the west; and it is related that he led his armies into the plains of India no fewer than seventeen times. In 1001 he defeated Raja Jaipal a second time, and took him prisoner. But Anandpal, son of Jaipal, raised again the standard of national independence, and gathered an army of Rajput allies from the farthest corners of Hindustan. The decisive battle was fought in the valley of Peshawar. Mahmud won the day by the aid of his Turkish horsemen, and thenceforth the Punjab has been a Mahommedan province, except during the brief period of Sikh supremacy. The most famous of Mahmud’s invasions of India was that undertaken in 1025-1026 against Gujarat. The goal of this expedition was the temple dedicated to Siva at Somnath, around which so many legends have gathered. It is reported that Mahmud marched through Ajmere to avoid the desert of Sind; that he found the Hindus gathered on the neck of the peninsula of Somnath in defence of their holy city; that the battle lasted for two days; that in the end the Rajput warriors fled to their boats, while the Brahman priests retired into the inmost shrine; that Mahmud, introduced into this shrine, rejected all entreaties by the Brahmans to spare their idol, and all offers of ransom; that he smote the image with his club, and forthwith a fountain of precious stones gushed out. Until the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839, the club of Mahmud and the wood gates of Somnath were preserved at the tomb of the great conqueror near Ghazni. The club has now disappeared, and the gates brought back to India by Lord Ellenborough are recognized to be a clumsy forgery. To Mahommedans Mahmud is known, not only as a champion of the faith, but as a munificent patron of literature. The dynasty that he founded was not long-lived. Fourteen of his descendants occupied his throne within little more than a century, but none of them achieved greatness. A blood-feud arose between them and a line of Afghan princes who had established themselves among the mountains of Ghor. In 1155 Bahram, the last of the Ghaznivide Turks, was overthrown by Ala-ud-din of Ghor, and the wealthy and populous city of Ghazni was razed to the ground. But even the Ghoride conqueror spared the tomb of Mahmud.

Khusru, the son of Bahram, fled to Lahore, and there established the first Mahommedan dynasty within India. It speedily ended with his son, also called Khusru, whom Mahommed Ghori, the relentless enemy of the Ghaznivide house, carried away into captivity in 1186.

The Afghans of Ghor thus rose to power on the downfall of the Turks of Ghazni. The founder of the family is said to have been Izzud-din al Husain, whose son Ala-ud-din destroyed Ghazni, as already mentioned. Ala-ud-din had two nephews, Ghiyas-ud-din and Muiz-ud-din, the latter of whom, also called Shahab-ud-din by Mussulman chroniclers, and generally known in history as Mahommed Ghori, is the second of the great Mahommedan conquerors of India. In 1175 he took Multan and Uchch; in 1186 Lahore fell into his hands; in 1191 he was repulsed before Delhi, but soon afterwards he redeemed this disaster. Hindustan proper was at that period divided between the two Rajput kingdoms of Kanauj and Delhi. Mahommed Ghori achieved his object by playing off the rival kings against each other. By 1193 he had extended his conquests as far east as Benares, and the defeated Rajputs migrated in a body to the hills and deserts now known as Rajputana. In 1199 one of his lieutenants, named Bakhtiyar, advanced into Bengal, and expelled by an audacious stratagem the last Hindu raja of Nadia. The entire northern plain, from the Indus to the Brahmaputra, thus lay under the Mahommedan yoke. But Mahommed Ghori never settled permanently in India. His favourite residence is said to have been the old capital of Ghazni, while he governed his Indian conquests through the agency of a favourite slave, Kutb-ud-din. Mahommed Ghori died in 1206, being assassinated by some Ghakkar tribesmen while sleeping in his tent by the bank of the Indus; on his death both Ghor and Ghazni drop out of history, and Delhi first appears as the Mahommedan capital of India.

On the death of Mahommed Ghori, Kutb-ud-din at once laid aside the title of viceroy, and proclaimed himself sultan of Delhi. He was the founder of what is known as The Slave Dynasty. the slave dynasty, which lasted for nearly a century (1206-1288). The name of Kutb is preserved in the minar, or pillar of victory, which still stands amid the ruins of ancient Delhi, towering high above all later structures. Kutb himself is said to have been successful as a general and an administrator, but none of his successors has left a mark in history.

In 1294 Ala-ud-din Khilji, the third of the great Mahommedan conquerors of India, raised himself to the throne of Delhi by the treacherous assassination of his uncle Feroz II. who had himself supplanted the last of the slave Ala-ud-din. dynasty. Ala-ud-din had already won military renown by his expeditions into the yet unsubdued south. He had plundered the temples at Bhilsa in central India, which are admired to the present day as the most interesting examples of Buddhist architecture in the country. At the head of a small band of horsemen, he had ridden as far south as Deogiri (Daulatabad) in the Deccan (q.v.), and plundered the Yadava capital. When once established as sultan, he planned more extensive schemes of conquest. One army was sent to Gujarat under Alaf Khan, who conquered and expelled the last Rajput king of Anhalwar or Patan. Another army, led by the sultan in person, marched into the heart of Rajputana, and stormed the rock-fortress of Chitor, where the Rajputs had taken refuge with their women and children. A third army, commanded by Malik Kafur, a Hindu renegade and favourite of Ala-ud-din, penetrated to the extreme south of the peninsula, scattering the unwarlike Dravidian races, and stripping every Hindu temple of its accumulations of gold and jewels. To this day the name of Malik Kafur is remembered in the remote district of Madura, in association with irresistible fate and every form of sacrilege.

Ala-ud-din died In 1316, having subjected to Islam the Deccan and Gujarat. Three successors followed him upon the throne, but their united reigns extended over only five years. In 1321 a successful revolt was headed by Ghiyas-ud-din Mahommed b. Tughlak. Tughlak, governor of the Punjab, who is said to have been of Turkish origin. The Tughlak dynasty lasted for about seventy years, until it was swept away by the invasion of Timur, the fourth Mahommedan conqueror of India, in 1398. Tughlak’s son and successor, Mahommed b. Tughlak, who reigned from 1325 to 1351, is described by Elphinstone as “one of the most accomplished princes and one of the most furious tyrants that ever adorned or disgraced human nature.” He wasted the treasure accumulated by Ala-ud-din in purchasing the retirement of the Mogul hordes, who had already made their appearance in the Punjab. When the internal circulation failed, he issued a forced currency of copper, which is said to have deranged the whole commerce of the country. At one time he raised an army for the invasion of Persia. At another he actually despatched an expedition against China, which perished miserably in the Himalayan passes. When Hindustan was thus suffering from his misgovernment, he conceived the project of transferring the seat of empire to the Deccan, and compelled the inhabitants of Delhi to remove a distance of 700 m. to Deogiri or Daulatabad. And yet during the reign of this sultan both the Tughlak dynasty and the city of Delhi are said to have attained their utmost growth. Mahommed was succeeded by his cousin Feroz, who likewise was not content without a new capital, which he placed a few miles north of Delhi, and called after his own name. He was a kind-hearted and popular, but weak, ruler. Meanwhile the remote provinces of the empire began to throw off their allegiance to the sultans of Delhi. The independence of the Afghan kings of Bengal is generally dated from 1336, when Mahommed Tughlak was yet on the throne. The commencement of the reign of Ala-ud-din, the founder of the Bahmani dynasty in the Deccan, is assigned to 1347. Zafar Khan, the first of the Ahmedabad kings, acted as an independent ruler from the time of his first appointment as governor of Gujarat in 1391. These and other revolts prepared the way for the fourth great invasion of India under Timur (Tamerlane).

Accordingly, when Timur invaded India in 1398, he encountered but little organized resistance. Mahmud, the last of the Tughlak dynasty, being defeated in a battle outside the walls of Delhi, fled into Gujarat. The city was Timur’s invasion. sacked and the inhabitants massacred by the victorious Moguls. But the invasion of Timur left no permanent impress upon the history of India, except in so far as its memory fired the imagination of Baber, the founder of the Mogul dynasty. The details of the fighting and of the atrocities may be found related in cold blood by Timur himself in the Malfuzat-i-Timuri, which has been translated in Elliot’s History of India as told by its own Historians, vol. iii. Timur marched back to Samarkand as he had come, by way of Kabul, and Mahmud Tughlak ventured to return to his desolate capital. He was succeeded by what is known as the Sayyid dynasty, which held Delhi and a few miles of surrounding country for about forty years. The Sayyids were in their turn expelled by Bahlol, an Afghan of the Lodi tribe, whose successors removed the seat of government to Agra, which thus for the first time became the imperial city. In 1526 Baber, the fifth in descent from Timur, and also the fifth Mahommedan conqueror, invaded India at the instigation of the governor of the Punjab, won the victory of Panipat over Ibrahim, the last of the Lodi dynasty, and founded the Mogul empire, which lasted, at least in name, until 1857.