Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 79)

E. G. Keene, Sketch of the History of Hindustan, page 1.

"Sinde, India, and Hindu-stan are various representatives of the same native word. 'Hindu' is the oldest known form, since it occurs in one of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta. The Greeks and Romans sometimes called the river Sindus, instead of Indus."

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 1, note.

INDIA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

"Our earliest glimpses of India disclose two races struggling for the soil. The one was a fair-skinned people, which had lately entered by the north-western passes,—a people who called themselves Aryan, literally of 'noble' lineage, speaking a stately language, worshipping friendly and powerful gods. These Aryans became the Brahmans and Rajputs of India. The other race was of a lower type, who had long dwelt in the land, and whom the lordly newcomers drove back into the mountains, or reduced to servitude on the plains. The comparatively pure descendants of these two races are now nearly equal in numbers; the intermediate castes, sprung chiefly from the ruder stock, make up the mass of the present Indian population. … The victorious Aryans called the early tribes Dasyus, or 'enemies,' and Dasas, or 'slaves.' The Aryans entered India from the colder north, and prided themselves on their fair complexion. Their Sanskrit word for 'colour' (varna) came to mean 'race' or 'caste.' The old Aryan poets, who composed the Veda at least 3,000 and perhaps 4,000 years ago, praised their bright gods, who, 'slaying the Dasyus, protected the Aryan colour;' who, 'subjected the black-skin to the Aryan man.' They tell us of their own 'stormy deities, who rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black-skin.' Moreover, the Aryan, with his finely-formed features, loathed the squat Mongolian faces of the Aborigines. One Vedic poet speaks of the non-Aryans as 'noseless' or flat-nosed, while another praises his own 'beautiful-nosed' gods. … Nevertheless all the non-Aryans could not have been savages. We hear of wealthy Dasyus or non-Aryans; and the Vedic hymns speak of their 'seven castles' and 'ninety forts.' The Aryans afterwards made alliance with non-Aryan tribes; and some of the most powerful kingdoms of India were ruled by non-Aryan kings. … Let us now examine these primitive peoples as they exist at the present day. Thrust back by the Aryan invaders from the plains, they have lain hidden away in the mountains, like the remains of extinct animals found in hill-caves. India thus forms a great museum of races, in which we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture. … Among the rudest fragments of mankind are the isolated Andaman islanders, or non-Aryans of the Bay of Bengal. The Arab and early European voyagers described them as dog-faced man-eaters. The English officers sent to the islands in 1855 to establish a settlement, found themselves in the midst of naked cannibals; who daubed themselves at festivals with red earth, and mourned for their dead friends by plastering themselves with dark mud. … The Anamalai hills, in Southern Madras, form the refuge of many non-Aryan tribes. The long-haired, wild-looking Puliars live on jungle products, mice, or any small animals they can catch; and worship demons. Another clan, the Mundavers, have no fixed dwellings, but wander over the innermost hills with their cattle. They shelter themselves in caves or under little leaf sheds, and seldom remain in one spot more than a year. The thick-lipped, small-bodied Kaders, 'Lords of the Hills,' are a remnant of a higher race. They live by the chase, and wield some influence over the ruder forest-folk. These hills abound in the great stone monuments (kistvaens and dolmens) which the ancient non-Aryans erected over their dead. The Nairs, or hillmen of South-Western India, still keep up the old system of polyandry, according to which one woman is the wife of several husbands, and a man's property descends not to his own sons, but to his sister's children. This system also appears among the non-Aryan tribes of the Himalayas at the opposite end of India. In the Central Provinces, the non-Aryan races form a large part of the population. In certain localities they amount to one-half of the inhabitants. Their most important race, the Gonds, have made advances in civilisation; but the wilder tribes still cling to the forest, and live by the chase. … The Maris fly from their grass-built huts on the approach of a stranger. … Farther to the north-east, in the Tributary States of Orissa, there is a poor tribe, 10,000 in number, of Juangs or Patuas, literally the 'leaf-wearers.' Until lately their women wore no clothes, but only a few strings of beads around the waist, with a bunch of leaves before and behind. … Proceeding to the northern boundary of India, we find the slopes and spurs of the Himalayas peopled by a great variety of rude non-Aryan tribes. Some of the Assam hillmen have no word for expressing distance by miles or by any land-measure, but reckon the length of a journey by the number of plugs of tobacco or pan which they chew upon the way. They hate work; and, as a rule, they are fierce, black, undersized, and ill-fed. … Many of the aboriginal tribes, therefore, remain in the same early stage of human progress as that ascribed to them by the Vedic poets more than 3,000 years ago. But others have made great advances, and form communities of a well-developed type. These higher races, like the ruder ones, are scattered over the length and breadth of India, and I must confine myself to a very brief account of two of them,—the Santals and the Kandhs. The Santals have their home among the hills which abut on the valley of the Ganges in Lower Bengal. {1702} They dwell in villages of their own, apart from the people of the plains, and number about a million. Although still clinging to many customs of a hunting forest tribe, they have learned the use of the plough, and settled down into skilful husbandmen. Each hamlet is governed by its own headman, who is supposed to be a descendant of the original founder of the village. … Until near the end of the last century, the Santals lived by plundering the adjacent plains. But under British rule they settled down into peaceful cultivators. … The Kandhs, literally 'The Mountaineers,' a tribe about 100,000 strong, inhabit the steep and forest-covered ranges which rise from the Orissa coast. Their idea of government is purely patriarchal. The family is strictly ruled by the father. The grown-up sons have no property during his life, but live in his house with their wives and children, and all share the common meal prepared by the grandmother. The head of the tribe is usually the eldest son of the patriarchal family. … The Kandh system of tillage represents a stage half way between the migratory cultivation of the ruder non-Aryan tribes and the settled agriculture of the Hindus. … Whence came these primitive peoples, whom the Aryan invaders found in the land more than 3,000 years ago, and who are still scattered over India, the fragments of a pre-historic world? Written annals they do not possess. Their traditions tell us little. But from their languages we find that they belong to three stocks. First, the Tibeto-Burman tribes, who entered India from the north-east, and still cling to the skirts of the Himalayas. Second, the Kolarians, who also seem to have entered Bengal by the north-eastern passes. They dwell chiefly along the north-eastern ranges of the three-sided tableland which covers the southern half of India. Third, the Dravidians, who appear, on the other hand, to have found their way into the Punjab by the north-western passes. They now inhabit the southern part of the three-sided tableland as far down as Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India. As a rule, the non-Aryan races, when fairly treated, are truthful, loyal, and kind. Those in the hills make good soldiers; while even the thieving tribes of the plains can be turned into clever police. The non-Aryan castes of Madras supplied the troops which conquered Southern India for the British; and some of them fought at the battle of Plassey, which won for us Bengal. The gallant Gurkhas, a non-Aryan tribe of the Himalayas, now rank among the bravest regiments in our Indian army, and lately covered themselves with honour in Afghanistan."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: R. Brown, Races of Mankind, volume 4, chapter 1.

R. G. Latham, Ethnology of British Colonies and Dependencies, chapter 3.

See, also, TURANIAN RACES.

INDIA: The immigration and conquests of the Aryas. The hymns and prayers of their religion. Vedism. Brahmanism. Hinduism

"The immigration of the Aryas into India took place from the west. They stand in the closest relation to the inhabitants of the table-land of Iran, especially the inhabitants of the eastern half. These also call themselves Aryas, though among them the word becomes Airya, or Ariya, and among the Greeks Arioi. The language of the Aryas is in the closest connection with that of the Avesta, the religious books of Iran, and in very close connection with the language of the monuments of Darius and Xerxes, in the western half of that region. The religious conceptions of the Iranians and Indians exhibit striking traits of a homogeneous character. A considerable number of the names of gods, of myths, sacrifices, and customs, occurs in both nations, though the meaning is not always the same, and is sometimes diametrically opposed. Moreover, the Aryas in India are at first confined to the borders of Iran, the region of the Indus, and the Panjab. Here; in the west, the Aryas had their most extensive settlements, and their oldest monuments frequently mention the Indus, but not the Ganges. Even the name by which the Aryas denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha (Deccan), i. e., path to the right, confirms the fact already established, that the Aryas came from the west. From this it is beyond a doubt that the Aryas, descending from the heights of Iran, first occupied the valley of the Indus and the five tributary streams, which combine and flow into the river from the north-east, and they spread as far as they found pastures and arable land, i. e., as far eastward as the desert which separates the valley of the Indus from the Ganges. The river which irrigated their land, watered their pastures, and shaped the course of their lives they called Sindhu (in Pliny, Sindus), i. e., the river. It is, no doubt, the region of the Indus, with the Panjab, which is meant in the Avesta by the land hapta hindu (hendu), i. e., the seven streams. The inscriptions of Darius call the dwellers on the Indus Idhus. These names the Greeks render by Indos and Indoi. … Products of India, and among them such as do not belong to the land of the Indus, were exported from the land about 1000 B. C., under names given to them by the Aryas, and therefore the Aryas must have been settled there for centuries previously. For this reason, and it is confirmed by facts which will appear further on, we may assume that the Aryas descended into the valley of the Indus about the year 2000 B. C., i. e., about the time when the kingdom of Elam was predominant in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, when Assyria still stood under the dominion of Babylon, and the kingdom of Memphis was ruled by the Hyksos. … The oldest evidence of the life of the Aryas, whose immigration into the region of the Indus and settlement there we have been able to fix about 2000 B. C., is given in a collection of prayers and hymns of praise, the Rigveda, i. e., 'the knowledge of thanksgiving.' It is a selection or collection of poems and invocations in the possession of the priestly families, of hymns and prayers arising in these families, and sung and preserved by them. … We can ascertain with exactness the region in which the greater number of these poems grew up. The Indus is especially the object of praise: the 'seven rivers' are mentioned as the dwelling-place of the Aryas. This aggregate of seven is made up of the Indus itself and the five streams which unite and flow into it from the east—the Vitasta, Asikni, Iravati, Vipaça, Çatadru. The seventh river is the Sarasvati, which is expressly named 'the seven-sistered.' The land of the seven rivers is, as has already been remarked, known to the Iranians. The 'Sapta sindhava' of the Rigveda are, no doubt, the hapta hendu of the Avesta, and in the form Harahvaiti, the Arachotus of the Greeks, we again find the Sarasvati in the east of the table-land of Iran. {1703} As the Yamuna and the Ganges are only mentioned in passing … and the Vindhya mountains and Narmadas are not mentioned at all, the conclusion is certain that, at the time when the songs of the Aryas were composed, the nation was confined to the land of the Panjab, though they may have already begun to move eastward beyond the valley of the Sarasvati. We gather from the songs of the Rigveda that the Aryas on the Indus were not one civic community. They were governed by a number of princes (raja). Some of these ruled on the bank of the Indus, others in the neighbourhood of the Sarasvati. They sometimes combined; they also fought not against the Dasyus only, but against each other."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 5, chapters 1-2 (volume 4).

"When the Indian branch of the Aryan family settled down in the land of the seven rivers. … now the Panjab, about the 15th century B. C., their religion was still nature-worship. It was still adoration of the forces which were everywhere in operation around them for production, destruction, and reproduction. But it was physiolatry developing itself more distinctly into forms of Theism, Polytheism, Anthropomorphism, and Pantheism. The phenomena of nature were thought of as something more than radiant beings, and something more than powerful forces. … They were addressed as kings, fathers, guardians, friends, benefactors, guests. They were invoked in formal hymns and prayers (mantras), in set metres (chandas). These hymns were composed in an early form of the Sanskrit language, at different times—perhaps during several centuries, from the 15th to the 10th B. C.—by men of light and leading (Rishis) among the Indo-Aryan immigrants, who were afterwards held in the highest veneration as patriarchal saints. Eventually the hymns were believed to have been directly revealed to, rather than composed by, these Rishis, and were then called divine knowledge (Veda), or the eternal word heard (sruti), and transmitted by them. These Mantras or hymns were arranged in three principal collections or continuous texts (Samhitas). The first and earliest was called the Hymn-veda (Rig-veda). It was a collection of 1,017 hymns, arranged for mere reading or reciting. This was the first bible of the Hindu religion, and the special bible of Vedism. … Vedism was the earliest form of the religion of the Indian branch of the great Aryan family. … Brahmanism grew out of Vedism. It taught the merging of all the forces of Nature in one universal spiritual Being—the only real Entity—which, when unmanifested and impersonal, was called Brahma (neuter); when manifested as a personal creator, was called Brahmā (masculine); and when manifested in the highest order of men, was called Brāhmana ('the Brāhmans'). Brahmanism was rather a philosophy than a religion, and in its fundamental doctrine was spiritual Pantheism. Hinduism grew out of Brahmanism. It was Brahmanism, so to speak, run to seed and spread out into a confused tangle of divine personalities and incarnations. … Yet Hinduism is distinct from Brahmanism, and chiefly in this—that it takes little account of the primordial, impersonal Being Brahma, and wholly neglects its personal manifestation Brahmā, substituting, in place of both Brahma and Brahmā., the two popular personal deities Siva and Vishnu. Be it noted, however, that the employment of the term Hinduism is wholly arbitrary and confessedly unsatisfactory. Unhappily there is no other expression sufficiently comprehensive. … Hinduism is Brahmanism modified by the creeds and superstitions of Buddhists [see below: B. C. 312—] and Non-Aryan races of all kinds, including Dravidians, Kolarians, and perhaps pre-Kolarian aborigines. It has even been modified by ideas imported from the religions of later conquering races, such as Islam and Christianity."

M. Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, part 1, chapter 1, and introduction.

ALSO IN: R. Mitra, Indo-Aryans.

F. Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature.

F. Max Müller, editor, Sacred Books of the East, volume. 1, and others.

A. Barth, Religions of India.

Rig-Veda Sanhita, translated by H. H. Wilson.

See, also, ARYANS.

INDIA: 6th Century, B. C. Invasion of Darius.

See PERSIA: B. C.621-493.

INDIA: B. C. 327-312. Invasion and conquests of Alexander the Great. Expulsion of the Greeks. Rise of the empire of Chandragupta.

"The year B. C. 327 marks an important era in the history of India. More than two centuries are supposed to have elapsed since the death of Gotama Buddha. The great empire of Magadha was apparently falling into anarchy, but Brahmanism and Buddhism were still expounding their respective dogmas on the banks of the Ganges. At this juncture Alexander of Macedon was leading an army of Greeks down the Cabul river towards the river Indus, which at that time formed the western frontier of the Punjab.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 330-323.

… The design of Alexander was to conquer all the regions westward of the Indus, including the territory of Cabul, and then to cross the Indus in the neighbourhood of Attock, and march through the Punjab in a south-easterly direction, crossing all the tributary rivers on his way; and finally to pass down the valley of the Ganges and Jumna, via Delhi and Agra, and conquer the great Gangetic empire of Magadha or Pataliputra between the ancient cities of Prayaga and Gour. … After crossing the Indus, there were at least three kingdoms in the Punjab to be subdued one after the other, namely;—that of Taxiles between the Indus and the Jhelum; that of Porus the elder between the Jhelum and the Chenab; and that of Porus the younger between the Chenab and the Ravee. … When Alexander had fully established his authority in Cabul he crossed the Indus into the Punjab. Here he halted some time at the city of Taxila [Taxiles, the king, having submitted in advance], and then marched to the river Jhelum, and found that Porus the elder was encamped on the opposite bank with a large force of cavalry and infantry, together with chariots and elephants. The decisive battle which followed on the Jhelum is one of the most remarkable actions in ancient story. … Porus fought with a valour which excited the admiration of Alexander, but was at last wounded and compelled to fly. Ultimately he was induced to tender his submission. … The victory over Porus established the ascendancy of Alexander in the Punjab." It "not only decided the question between himself and Porus, but enabled him to open up a new communication with Persia, via the river Indus and the Indian Ocean. {1704} He sent out woodmen to cut timber for ship-building in the northern forests, and to float it down the Jhelum; and he founded two cities, Bukephalia and Nikæa, one on each side of the Jhelum. … Whilst the fleet was being constructed, Alexander continued his march to the Chenab, and crossed that river into the dominions of Porus the younger," who fled at his approach, and whose kingdom was made over to the elder Porus, his uncle. "Alexander next crossed the Ravee, when he was called back by" a revolt in his rear, which he suppressed. "But meantime the Macedonians had grown weary of their campaign in India. … They … resisted every attempt to lead them beyond the Sutlej; and Alexander, making a virtue of necessity, at last consulted the oracles and found that they were unfavourable to an onward movement. … He returned with his army to the Jhelum, and embarked on board the fleet with a portion of his troops, whilst the remainder of his army marched along either bank. In this manner he proceeded almost due south through the Punjab and Scinde. … At last he reached the Indian Ocean, and beheld for the first time the phenomena of the tides; and then landed his army and marched through Beloochistan towards Susa, whilst Nearchos conducted the fleet to the Persian Gulf, and finally joined him in the same city. … Alexander had invaded the Punjab during the rainy season of B. C. 327, and reached the Indian Ocean about the middle of B. C. 326. Meantime Philip remained at Taxila as his lieutenant or deputy, and commanded a garrison of mercenaries and a body-guard of Macedonians. When Alexander was marching through Beloochistan, on his way to Susa, the news reached him that Philip had been murdered by the mercenaries, but that nearly all the murderers had been slain by the Macedonian body-guards. Alexander immediately despatched letters directing the Macedonian Eudemos to carry on the government in conjunction with Taxiles, until he could appoint another deputy; and this provisional arrangement seems to have been continued until the death of Alexander in B. C. 323. The political anarchy which followed this catastrophe can scarcely be realized. … India was forgotten. Eudemos took advantage of the death of Alexander to murder Porus; but was ultimately driven out of the Punjab with all his Macedonians by an adventurer who was known to the Greeks as Sandrokottos, and to the Hindus as Chandragupta. This individual is said to have delivered India from a foreign yoke only to substitute his own. … By the aid of banditti he captured the city of Patali-putra, and obtained the throne; and then drove the Greeks out of India, and established his empire over the whole of Hindustan and the Punjab."

J. T. Wheeler, History of India: Hindu, Buddhist and Brahmanical, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander (translated by Chinnock), books 4-6.

T. A. Dodge, Alexander, chapters 38-43.

INDIA: B. C. 312 Chandragupta and Asoka. The spread of Buddhism and its Brahmanic absorption.

"The first tolerably trustworthy date in Indian history is the era of Candra-gupta (=Sandro-kottus) the founder of the Maurya dynasty, who, after making himself master of Pataliputra (Palibothra, Patna) and the kingdom of Magadha (Behar), extended his dominion over all Hindustan, and presented a determined front towards Alexander's successor Seleukos Nikator, the date of the commencement of whose reign was about 312 B. C. When the latter contemplated invading India from his kingdom of Bactria, so effectual was the resistance offered by Candra-gupta that the Greek thought it politic to form an alliance with the Hindu king, and sent his own countryman Megasthenes as an ambassador to reside at his court. To this circumstance we owe the first authentic account of Indian manners, customs, and religious usages by an intelligent observer who was not a native, and this narrative of Megasthenes, preserved by Strabo, furnishes a basis on which we may found a fair inference that Brahmanism and Buddhism existed side by side in India on amicable terms in the fourth century B. C. There is even ground for believing that King Candra-gupta himself was in secret a Buddhist, though in public he paid homage to the gods of the Brahmans; at any rate, there can be little doubt that his successor Asoka did for Buddhism what Constantine did for Christianity—gave an impetus to its progress by adopting it as his own creed. Buddhism, then, became the state religion, the national faith of the whole kingdom of Magadha, and therefore of a great portion of India. This Asoka is by some regarded as identical with Candra-gupta; at any rate, their characters and much of their history are similar. He is probably the same as King Priyadarsi, whose edicts on stone pillars enjoining 'Dharma,' or the practice of virtue and universal benevolence, are scattered over India from Katak in the east and Gujarat in the west to Allahabad, Delhi, and Afghanistan on the north-west. What then is Buddhism? It is certainly not Brahmanism, yet it arose out of Brahmanism, and from the first had much in common with it. Brahmanism and Buddhism are closely interwoven with each other, yet they are very different from each other. Brahmanism is a religion which may be described as all theology, for it makes God everything, and everything God. Buddhism is no religion at all, and certainly no theology, but rather a system of duty, morality, and benevolence, without real deity, prayer or priest. The name Buddha is simply an epithet meaning the perfectly enlightened one,' or rather one who, by perfect knowledge of the truth, is liberated from all existence, and who, before his own attainment of Nirvana, or 'extinction,' reveals to the world the method of obtaining it. The Buddha with whom we are concerned was only the last of a series of Buddhas who had appeared in previous cycles of the universe. He was born at Kapila-vastu, a city and kingdom at the foot of the mountains of Nepal, his father Suddhodana being the king of that country, and his mother Maya-devi being the daughter of King Suprabuddha. Hence he belonged to the Kshatriya class, and his family name was Sakya, while his name of Gautama (or Gotama) was taken from that of his tribe. He is said to have arrived at supreme knowledge under the Bodhi tree, or 'tree of wisdom' (familiarly called' the Bo tree'), at Gaya, in Behar (Magadha), about the year 588 B. C., and to have commenced propagating the new faith at Benares soon afterwards. … Buddhism was a protest against the tyranny of Brahmanism and caste. According to the Buddha, all men are equal. {1705} … We have five marked features of Buddhism:

1. disregard of all caste distinctions;

2. abolition of animal sacrifice and of vicarious suffering;

3. great stress laid on the doctrine of transmigration;

4. great importance assigned to self-mortification, austerity, and abstract meditation, as an aid to the suppression of all action;

5. concentration of all human desires on the absolute extinction of all being.

There is still a sixth, which is perhaps the most noteworthy of all; viz., that the Buddha recognized no supreme deity. The only god, he affirmed, is what man himself can become. A Buddhist, therefore, never really prays, he only meditates on the perfections of the Buddha and the hope of attaining Nirvana. … Brahmanism and Buddhism [in India] appear to have blended, or, as it were, melted into each other, after each had reciprocally parted with something, and each had imparted something. At any rate it may be questioned whether Buddhism was ever forcibly expelled from any part of India by direct persecution, except, perhaps, in a few isolated centres of Brahmanical fanaticism, such as the neighbourhood of Benares. Even in Benares the Chinese traveller, Hiouen Thsang, found Brahmanism and Buddhism flourishing amicably side by side in the 7th century of our era. In the South of India the Buddha's doctrines seem to have met with acceptance at an early date, and Ceylon was probably converted as early as B. C. 240, soon after the third Buddhist council held under King Asoka. In other parts of India there was probably a period of Brahmanical hostility, and perhaps of occasional persecution; but eventually Buddhism was taken by the hand, and drawn back into the Brahmanical system by the Brahmans themselves, who met it half way and ended by boldly adopting the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu. … Only a small section of the Buddhist community resisted all conciliation, and these are probably represented by the present sect of Jains [who are found in large numbers in various parts of India, especially on the western coast]. Be the actual state of the case as it may, nothing can be clearer than the fact that Buddhism has disappeared from India (the island of Ceylon being excepted), and that it has not done so without having largely contributed towards the moulding of Brahmanism into the Hinduism of the present day."

M. Williams, Hinduism, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: M. Williams (now Sir Monier Monier-Williams), Buddhism.

H. Oldenburg, Buddha.

P. Bigandet, Life and Legend of Gaudama.

A. Lillie, Buddha and the Early Buddhists.

W. W. Rockhill, The Life of the Buddha.

INDIA: A. D. 977-1290. Under the Ghaznavide and Mameluke empires.

"Aryan civilisation was … germinating, but it was in uncongenial soil. Like the descendants of Abraham and Jacob, the invaders mingled with the heathen and learned their ways. The older inhabitants were barbarous, multilingual, indolent; worshippers less of many gods than of many devils. The fusion that ensued was not happy; though the origin and growth of the caste system prevented complete union, it facilitated some of its evils; the character of the Aryan settlers became disastrously affected; the want of commercial communication by land and sea tended to perpetuate stagnation. This was the state of things upon which the rising tide from Central Asia began to flow with resistless pertinacity after the Mongolo-Turkish power became established on the Oxus and the Helmand. It was not to be wondered at if the Arabs made no wide or lasting Indian conquests in the early ages of the Musulman era. At a time when they were engaged with the Christian Empires of the East and the West, when they were spreading the power of the crescent from the borders of Khorásán to the Pillars of Hercules, the warriors of Islam had perhaps but little temptation to undertake further adventure. Certain it is that beyond the confines of Makran and a part of Sindh (occupied less than a hundred years after the Hijra)—the Arab conquests did not spread in India. It was Nasir-ud-Din Sabuktigin—certainly a Merv captive and popularly believed a scion of the Sassanian dynasty that once ruled Persia—by whom the first Muslim invasion of Hindustan was made in durable fashion. His master, Alptigin, having fled from the oppression of the Samani dynasty of Bukhara in 962 A. D., had founded a principality at Ghazni. Sabuktigin acquired his favour, and was able, soon after his death, to acquire the succession in 977 A. D. He established his power in the Punjab; and his armies are said to have penetrated as far as Benares. On his death, 997 A. D., his son, the celebrated Sultan Mahmud, succeeded to the Empire extending from Balkh to Lahore, if not to Hansi [see TURKS: A. D. 999-1183]. During a reign of over thirty years he invaded Hindustan twelve times, inflicting terrible carnage on the Hindus, desecrating their idols, and demoralising their temples. Mathura, Kanauj, Somnath; to such distant and divergent points did his enterprises reach. Mahmud died 1030 A. D., and was buried at Ghazni, where his monument is still to be seen. For about one hundred years the dynasty continued to rule in the Punjab and Afghanistan, more and more troubled by the neighbouring tribe of Ghor, who in 1187 A. D. took Lahore and put an end to the Ghaznavide dynasty. A prince of the Ghorians—variously known, but whose name may be taken as Muhammad Bin Sam—was placed in a sort of almost independent viceroyalty at Ghazni. In 1191 A. D. he led an army against Sirhind, south of the Sutlaj river. Rai Pithaura, or Pirthi Rai, a chief of the Chauhans (who had lately possessed themselves of Dehli), marched against the invaders and defeated them in a battle where Bin Sam had a narrow escape from being slain. But the sturdy mountaineers would not be denied. Next year they returned" and defeated Pithaura. "The towns of Mirat and Dehli fell upon his defeat; and their fall was followed a year later by that of Kanauj and Benares. The Viceroy's brother dying at this juncture, he repaired to his own country to establish his succession. He was killed in an expedition, 1206 A. D., and the affairs of Hindustan devolved upon his favourite Mameluke, Kutb-ud-din Aibak. … When Muhammad bin Sam had gone away, to rule and ultimately to perish by violence in his native highlands, his acquisitions in Hindustan came under the sway of Kutb-ud-din Aibak, a Mameluke, or Turkish slave, who had for a long time been his faithful follower. One of the Viceroy's first undertakings was to level to the ground the palaces and temples of the Hindus at Dehli, and to build, with the materials obtained by their destruction, a great Mosque for the worship of Allah. … From 1192 to 1206, the year of Bin Sam's death, Kutb-ud-din Aibak ruled as Viceroy. {1706} But it is recorded that the next Emperor—feeling the difficulty, perhaps, of exercising any sort of rule over so remote a dependency—sent Aibak a patent as 'Sultan,' accompanied by a canopy of state, a throne and a diadem. Becoming Sultan of Hindustan, the distinguished and fortunate Mameluke founded what is known as 'the Slave dynasty.' … Aibak died at Lahore, in 1210, from an accident at a game now known as 'polo.' He was contemporaneous with the great Mughul leader Changiz Khan, by whom, however, he was not molested. The chief event of his reign is to be found in his successful campaigns in Behar and Northern Bengal. … The Musulman power was not universally and firmly established in the Eastern Provinces till the reign of Balban (circ. 1282). At the death of Aibak the Empire was divided into four great portions. The Khiljis represented the power of Islam in Bihar and Bengal; the North-West Punjab was under a viceroy named Ilduz, a Turkman slave; the valley of the Indus was ruled by another of these Mamelukes, named Kabacha; while an attempt was made at Dehli to proclaim an incompetent lad, son of the deceased, as Sultan. But the Master of the Horse, a third Mameluke named Altimsh, was close at hand, and, hurrying up at the invitation of influential persons there, speedily put down the movement. … Altimsh, having deposed his feeble brother-in-law, became Suzerain of the Empire. His satraps were not disposed to obedience; and bloody wars broke out, into the details of which we need not enter. It will be sufficient to note that Ilduz was defeated and slain A. D. 1215. Two years later Kabacha came up from Sindh, and seems [to] have enlisted some of the Mughul hordes in his armies. These formidable barbarians, of whom more anon, were now in force in Khorasan, under Changiz in person, assisted by two of his sons.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.

They drove before them the Sultan of Khwarizm (now Khiva), and occupied Afghanistan. The fugitive, whose adventures are among the most romantic episodes of Eastern history, attempted to settle himself in the Panjab; but he was driven out by Altimsh and Kabacha in 1223. Two years later Altimsh moved on the Khiljis in the Eastern Provinces, occupied Gaur, their capital; and proceeding from thence made further conquests south and north at the expense of the Hindus. In 1228 he turned against Kabacha, the mighty Satrap of Sindh, who was routed in battle near Bakkhar, where he committed suicide or was accidentally drowned. In 1232-3 the Sultan reduced Gwalior (in spite of a stout resistance on the part of the Hindus under Milak Deo), slaying 700 prisoners at the door of his tent. In 1234 he took the province of Malwa; where he demolished the great temples of Bhilsa and Ujain. In the following year this puissant warrior of the Crescent succumbed to the common conqueror, dying a natural death at Dehli, after a glorious reign of twenty-six (lunar) years. … His eldest son, who had conducted the war against the Khiljis, had died before him, and the Empire was assumed by a younger son, Rukn-ud-din Firoz. … [In 1241] Lahore was taken by the Mughols with terrific carnage. Troubles ensued; Dehli was besieged by the army that had been raised for its defence against the Mughols; in May 1242 the city was taken by storm and the new Sultan was slain. His successor, Ala-uddin I., was a grandson of Altimsh, incompetent and apathetic as young men in his position have usually been. The land was partitioned among Turkish satraps, and overrun by the Mughols, who penetrated as far as Gaur in Bengal. Another horde, led by Mangu, grandson of Changiz, and father of the celebrated Kiblai Khan, ravaged the Western Punjab. The Sultan marched against them and met with a partial success. This turned into evil courses the little intellect that he had, a plot was organised for his destruction. Ala-ud-din was slain, and his uncle Nasir-ud-din was placed upon the vacant throne in June 1246. Nasir's reign was long, and, so far as his personal exploits went, would have been uneventful. But the risings of the Hindus and the incursions of the Mughols kept the Empire in perpetual turmoil." Nasir was succeeded in 1286-7 by his grandson, Kai Kobad. "This unfortunate young man was destined to prove the futility of human wisdom. Educated by his stern and serious grandfather, his lips had never touched those of a girl or a goblet. His sudden elevation turned his head. He gave himself up to debauchery, caused his cousin Khusru to be murdered, and was himself ultimately killed in his palace at Kilokhari, while lying sick of the palsy. With his death (1290) came to an end the Mameluke Empire of Hindustan."

H. G. Keene, Sketch of the History of Hindustan, book 1, chapters 1-2.

ALSO IN: J. T. Wheeler, History of India, volume 4, part 1, chapter 2.

A. Dow, History of Hindustan (from the Persian of Ferishta), volume 1.

INDIA: A. D. 1290-1398. From the Afghans to the Moghuls.

"In 1290 the last Sultan of the Afghan slave dynasty was assassinated, and a Sultan ascended the throne at Delhi under the name of Jelal-ud-din. He was an old man of seventy, and made no mark in history; but he had a nephew, named Ala-ud-din, who became a man of renown," and who presently acquired the throne by murdering his uncle. "When Ala-ud-din was established on the throne at Delhi he sent an army to conquer Guzerat." This conquest was followed by that of Rajputana. "Meanwhile the Moghuls [Mongols] were very troublesome. In the previous reign the uncle of Ala-ud-din had enlisted 3,000, and settled them near Delhi; but they were turbulent, refractory, and mixed up with every rebellion. Ala-ud-din ordered them to be disbanded, and then they tried to murder him. Ala-ud-din then ordered a general massacre. Thousands are said to have been put to death, and their wives and children were sold into slavery. Ala-ud-din was the first Muhammadan sovereign who conquered Hindu Rajas in the Dekhan and Peninsula. … Ala-ud-din sent his general Malik Kafur to invade these southern countries, ransack temples, and carry off treasure and tribute. The story is a dreary narrative of raid and rapine. … Ala-ud-din died in 1316. His death was followed by a Hindu revolt; indeed Hindu influences must have been at work at Delhi for many years previously. Ala-ud-din had married a Hindu queen; his son had married her daughter. Malik Kafur was a Hindu converted to Islam. The leader of the revolt at Delhi in 1316 was another Hindu convert to Islam. The proceedings of the latter rebel, however, were of a mixed character. He was proclaimed Sultan under a Muhammadan name, and slaughtered every male of the royal house. Meanwhile his Hindu followers set up idols in the mosques, and seated themselves on Korans. {1707} The rebels held possession of Delhi for five months. At the end of that time the city was captured by the Turkish governor of the Punjab, named Tughlak. The conqueror then ascended the throne of Delhi, and founded the dynasty of Tughlak Sultans. The Tughlak Sultans would not live at Delhi; they probably regarded it as a Hindu volcano. They held their court at Tughlakabad, a strong fortress about an hour's drive from old Delhi. The transfer of the capital from Delhi to Tughlakabad is a standpoint in history. It shows that a time had come when the Turk began to fear the Hindu. The conqueror of Delhi died in 1325. He was succeeded by a son who has left his mark in history. Muhammad Tughlak was a Sultan of grand ideas, but blind to all experiences, and deaf to all counsels. He sent his armies into the south to restore the Muhammadan supremacy which had been shaken by the Hindu revolt. Meanwhile the Moghuls invaded the Punjab, and Muhammad Tughlak bribed them to go away with gold and jewels. Thus the imperial treasury was emptied of all the wealth which had been accumulated by Ala-ud-din. The new Sultan tried to improve his finances, but only ruined the country by his exactions. … Then followed rebellions and revolutions. Bengal revolted, and became a separate kingdom under an independent Sultan. The Rajas of the Dekhan and Peninsula withheld their tribute. The Muhammadan army of the Dekhan broke out into mutiny, and set up a Sultan of their own. Muhammad Tughlak saw that all men turned against him. He died in 1350, after a reign of twenty-five years. The history of Delhi fades away after the death of Muhammad Tughlak. A Sultan reigned from 1350 to 1388, named Firuz Shah. He is said to have submitted to the dismemberment of the empire, and done his best to promote the welfare of the subjects left to him; but it is also said that he destroyed temples and idols, and burnt a Brahman alive for perverting Muhammadan women. In 1398-99, ten years after the death of Firuz Shah, Timur Shah invaded the Punjab and Hindustan [see TIMOUR]. The horrors of the Tartar invasion are indescribable; they teach nothing to the world, and the tale of atrocities may well be dropped into oblivion. It will suffice to say that Timur came and plundered, and then went away. He left officers to rule in his name, or to collect tribute in his name. In 1450 they were put aside by Afghans;—turbulent Muhammadan fanatics whose presence must have been hateful to the Hindus. At last, in 1525, a descendant of Timur, named the Baber, invaded India, and conquered the Punjab and Hindustan."

J. T. Wheeler, Short History of India, part 2, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: M. Elphinstone, History of India: Hindu and Mahometan, book 6. chapters 2-3.

INDIA: A. D. 1398-1399. Timour's invasion of the Punjab.

See TIMOUR.

[Image: Map of India, about the close of the Sixteenth Century, and map of the growth of the Anglo-Indian Empire.]

INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605. The Saiyid and the Lodi dynasties. The founding of the Moghul Empire by Babar and Akbar.

"The invasion of Taimur … dealt a fatal blow to an authority already crumbling. The chief authority lingered indeed for twelve years in the hands of the then representative, Sultan Mahmud. It then passed for a time into the hands of a family which did not claim the royal title. This family, known in history as the Saiyid dynasty, ruled nominally in Northern India for about 33 years, but the rule had no coherence, and a powerful Afghan of the Lodi family took the opportunity to endeavour to concentrate power in his own hands. The Muhammadan rule in India had indeed become by this time the rule of several disjointed chiefs over several disjointed provinces, subject in point of fact to no common head. Thus, in 1450, Delhi, with a small territory around it, was held by the representative of the Saiyid family. Within fourteen miles of the capital, Ahmad Khan ruled independently in Mewat. Sambhal, or the province now known as Rohilkhand, extending to the very walls of Delhi, was occupied by Darya Khan Lodi. … Lahore, Dipalpur, and Sirhind, as far south as Panipat, by Behlul Lodi. Multan, Jaunpur, Bengal, Malwa, and Gujarat, each had its separate king. Over most of these districts, and as far eastward as the country immediately to the north of Western Bihar, Behlul Lodi, known as Sultan Behlul, succeeded on the disappearance of the Saiyids in asserting his sole authority, 1450-88. His son and successor, Sultan Sikandar Lodi, subdued Behar, invaded Bengal, which, however, he subsequently agreed to yield to Allah-u-din, its sovereign, and not to invade it again; and overran a great portion of Central India. On his death, in 1518, he had concentrated under his own rule the territories now known as the Punjab; the North-western Provinces, including Jaunpur; a great part of Central India; and Western Bihar. But, in point of fact, the concentration was little more than nominal." The death of Sikandar Lodi was followed by a civil war which resulted in calling in the Tartar or Mongol conqueror, Babar, a descendant of Timour, who, beginning in 1494 with a small dominion (which he presently lost) in Ferghana, or Khokland, Central Asia, had made himself master of a great part of Afghanistan (1504), establishing his capital at Kabul. Babar had crossed the Indian border in 1505, but his first serious invasion was in 1519, followed, according to some historians, by a second invasion the same year; the third was in 1520; the fourth occurred after an interval of two or three years. On his fifth expedition he made the conquest complete, winning a great battle at Panipat, 53 miles to the north-west of Delhi, on the 24th of April, 1526. Ibrahim Lodi, son and successor of Sikandar Lodi, was killed in the battle, and Delhi and Agra were immediately occupied. "Henceforth the title of King of Kabul was to be subjected to the higher title of Emperor of Hindustan." Babar was in one sense the founder of the Mughal (synonymous with Mongol) dynasty—the dynasty of the Great Moguls, as his successors were formerly known. He died in 1530, sovereign of northern India, and of some provinces in the center of the peninsula: But "he bequeathed to his son, Humayun, … a congeries of territories uncemented by any bond of union or of common interest, except that which had been concentrated in his life. In a word, when he died, the Mughal dynasty, like the Muhammadan dynasties which had preceded it, had shot down no roots into the soil of Hindustan."

G. B. Malleson, Akbar, chapters 4-5.

{1708}

Humayun succeeded Babar in India, "but had to make over Kabul and the Western Punjab to his brother and rival, Kamran. Humayun was thus left to govern the new conquest of India, and at the same time was deprived of the country from which his father had drawn his support. The descendants of the early Afghan invaders, long settled in India, hated the new Muhammadan hordes of Babar even more than they hated the Hindus. After ten years of fighting, Humayun was driven out of India by these Afghans under Sher Shah, the Governor of Bengal. While flying through the desert of Sind to Persia, his famous son Akbar was born in the petty fort of Umarkot (1542). Sher Shah set up as emperor, but was killed while storming the rock fortress of Kalinjar (1545). His son succeeded. But, under Sher Shah's grandson, the third of the Afghan house, the Provinces revolted, including Malwa, the Punjab, and Bengal. Humayun returned to India, and Akbar, then only in his thirteenth year, defeated the Afghan army after a desperate battle at Panipat (1556). India now passed finally from the Afghans to the Mughals. Sher Shah's line disappears; and Humayun, having recovered his Kabul dominions, reigned again for a few months at Delhi, but died in 1556. … Akbar the Great, the real founder of the Mughal Empire as it existed for two centuries, succeeded his father at the age of fourteen. … His reign lasted for almost fifty years, from 1556 to 1605, and was therefore contemporary with that of our own Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). His father, Humayun, left but a small kingdom in India, scarcely extending beyond the Districts around Agra and Delhi. … The reign of Akbar was a reign of pacification. … He found India split into petty kingdoms, and seething with discordant elements; on his death, in 1605, he bequeathed it an empire. The earlier invasions by Turks, Afghans, and Mughals, had left a powerful Muhammadan population in India under their own Chiefs. Akbar reduced these Musalman States to Provinces of the Delhi Empire. Many of the Hindu kings and Rajput nations had also regained their independence: Akbar brought them into political dependence upon his authority. This double task he effected partly by force of arms, but in part also by alliances. He enlisted the Rajput princes by marriage and by a sympathetic policy in the support of his throne. He then employed them in high posts, and played off his Hindu generals and Hindu ministers against the Mughal party in Upper India, and against the Afghan faction in Bengal. … His efforts to establish the Mughal Empire in Southern India were less successful. … Akbar subjugated Khandesh, and with this somewhat precarious annexation his conquests in the Deccan ceased. … Akbar not only subdued all India to the north of the Vindhya mountains, he also organized it into an empire. He partitioned it into Provinces, over each of which he placed a governor, or viceroy, with full civil and military control."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 10.

"I wish briefly and fairly to state what the Emperor Akbar did for the improvement of the country and the people of Hindostan. He improved the system of land-assessment, or rather he improved upon the improvements instituted by Shir Shah. He adapted an uniform and improved system of land-measurement, and computed the average value of the land, by dividing it into three classes, according to the productiveness of each. This computation being made, one-third of the average produce was fixed as the amount of tax to be paid to the state. But as this was ordinarily to be paid in money, it was necessary to ascertain the value of the produce, and this was done upon an average of the nineteen preceding years, according to local circumstances; and if the estimate was conceived to be too high, the tax-payer was privileged to pay the assessment in kind. … The regulations for the collection of the revenue enforced by Akbar were well calculated to prevent fraud and oppression, and, on the whole, they worked well for the benefit of the people; but it has been said of them, and with truth, that 'they contained no principle of progressive improvement, and held out no hopes to the rural population, by opening paths by which it might spread into other occupations, or rise by individual exertions within its own.' The judicial regulations of Akbar were liberal and humane. Justice, on the whole, was fairly administered. All unnecessary severity—all cruel personal punishments, as torture and mutilation, were prohibited, except in peculiar cases, and capital punishments were considerably restricted. The police appears to have been well organised. … He prohibited … trials by ordeal … ; he suppressed the barbarous custom of condemning to slavery prisoners taken in war; and he authoritatively forbade the burning of Hindoo widows, except with their own free and uninfluenced consent. … That something of the historical lustre which surrounds the name of the Emperor Akbar was derived rather from the personal character of the man than from the great things that he accomplished, is, I think, not to be denied. His actual performances, when they come to be computed, fall short of his reputation. But his merits are to be judged not so much by the standard of what he did, as of what he did with the opportunities allowed to him, and under the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Akbar built up the Mogul Empire, and had little leisure allowed him to perfect its internal economy."

J. W. Kaye, The Administration of the East India Company, part 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: 3 W. Erskine, History of India under Baber and Humayun.

A. Dow, History of Hindostan, from Ferishta, volume 2.

J. T. Wheeler, History of India, volume 4, chapter 4.

INDIA: A. D. 1498-1580. Portuguese trade and settlements.

In May, 1498, Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, reached Calicut, on the southwest (Malabar) coast, being the first European to traverse the ocean route to India, around the Cape of Good Hope (see PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498). He met with a hostile reception from the natives of Malabar; but the next voyager from Portugal, Alvarez Cabral, "who came out the following year, was very favourably received, being allowed to establish a factory on the mainland and to appoint a 'factor' (or consul, as we say now) to represent Portugal there. This factor seems to have had some difficulties with the natives, chiefly owing to his own high-handed actions, which resulted in the murder of himself and the destruction of the factory. Alvarez Cabral therefore sailed up to Cochin, and was received with great friendliness by the chiefs of that part of the country, who allowed him again to set up agencies at Cochin and at Cananore. But the vengeance of the ruler of Malabar pursued them; and the Portuguese, together with their native allies, had to fight desperately for their safety. {1709} They were almost exhausted with the struggle when in 1504 large reinforcements were sent from Portugal, bombarded Calicut, the capital of Malabar, and established the name and fame of the Portuguese as an important power in India generally. A regular maritime trade with India was now firmly set on foot, but the Portuguese had to struggle hard to maintain it. The Mohammedans of India called in the aid of Egypt against them, and even the republic of Venice joined these enemies, in hopes of crushing this new rival to their ancient trade. In 1508 a powerful expedition was sent out from Egypt against the newcomers, a tremendous battle took place, and the Portuguese were defeated. But by a desperate effort Almeida, the Portuguese viceroy, collected all his forces for a final blow, and succeeded in winning a magnificent naval victory which once and for all firmly established the Portuguese power in India. Two years afterwards Almeida's rival and successor, Alfonso de Albuquerque, gained possession of Goa (1510), and this city became the centre of their Indian dominion, which now included Ceylon and the Maldive Islands, together with the Malacca and Malabar coasts. In 1511 the city of Malacca was captured, and the city of Ormuz in 1515. The next few years were spent in consolidating their sovereignty in these regions, till in 1542 the Portuguese colonists practically regulated all the Asiatic coast trade with Europe, from the Persian Gulf … to Japan. … For nearly sixty years after this date the king of Portugal, or his viceroy, was virtually the supreme ruler—in commercial matters at any rate—of the southern coast of Asia. The Portuguese were at the climax of their power in the east. The way in which Portuguese trade was carried on is an interesting example of the spirit of monopoly which has, invariably at first and very often afterwards, inspired the policy of all European powers in their efforts of colonisation. The eastern trade was of course kept in the hands of Portuguese traders only, as far as direct commerce between Portugal and India was concerned; but even Portuguese traders were shut out from intermediate commerce between India and other eastern countries, i. e., China, Japan, Malacca, Mozambique, and Ormuz. This traffic was reserved as a monopoly to the crown; and it was only as a great favour, or in reward for some particular service, that the king allowed private individuals to engage in it. The merchant fleet of Portugal generally set sail from Lisbon, bound to Goa, once a year about February or March. … This voyage generally took about eighteen months, and, owing to the imperfect state of navigation at that time, and the lack of accurate charts of this new route, was frequently attended by the loss of several ships. Immense profits were, however, made by the traders. On arriving back at Lisbon the Portuguese merchants, as a rule, did not themselves engage in any trade with other European countries in the goods they had brought back, but left the distribution of them in the hands of Dutch, English, and Hansa sailors who met them at Lisbon. … The colonial empire of Portugal, so rapidly and brilliantly acquired, came to a disastrous close. It lasted altogether hardly a century. The avarice and oppressions of its viceroys and merchants, the spirit of monopoly which pervaded their whole policy, and the neglect both of the discipline and defences necessary to keep newly-acquired foreign possessions, hastened its ruin. By 1580 the Portuguese power in the east had seriously declined, and in that year the crown of Portugal was united to that of Spain in the person of Philip II. The Spaniards neglected their eastern possessions altogether, and engaged in wars with the Dutch which had the effect, not only of wasting a great portion of their own and the Portuguese fleet, but of positively driving the Dutch into those very eastern seas which the Portuguese had once so jealously kept to themselves. Only Goa and Diu and a few other small stations remained out of all their magnificent dominion."

H. de B. Gibbins, History of Commerce in Europe, book 3, chapter 1 (sections 94-97).

ALSO IN: E. McMurdo, History of Portugal, volume 3, books 2-5.

Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque (Hakluyt Society Publications).

E. Grey, Introduction to Travels of Pietro della Valle (Hakluyt Society Publications).

H. M. Stephens, Albuquerque.

INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702. Beginnings of English trade. The chartering of the English East India Company. Its early footholds in Hindostan. The founding of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The three Presidencies.

"For some time it appears to have been thought by other European Powers, that the discovery of the passage round Africa by the Portuguese gave them some exclusive claim to its navigation. But after the year 1580 the conquest of Portugal by Spain, and the example of the Dutch who had already formed establishments not only in India but the Spice Islands, aroused the commercial enterprise of England. In 1599 an Association was formed for the Trade to the East Indies; a sum was raised by subscription, amounting to £68,000; and a petition was presented to the Crown for a Royal Charter. Queen Elizabeth wavered during some time, apprehending fresh entanglements with Spain. At length, in December 1600, the boon was granted; the 'Adventurers' (for so were they termed at that time) were constituted a body corporate, under the title of 'the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.' By their Charter they obtained the right of purchasing lands without limitation, and the monopoly of their trade during fifteen years, under the direction of a Governor, and twenty-four other persons in Committee, to be elected annually. … In 1609, the Charter of the new Company was not only renewed but rendered perpetual,—with a saving clause, however, that should any national detriment be at any time found to ensue, these exclusive privileges should, after three years' notice, cease and expire. It does not seem, however, that the trade of the new Company was extensive. Their first voyage consisted of four ships and one pinnace, having on board £28,742 in bullion, and £6,860 in goods, such as cloth, lead, tin, cutlery, and glass. Many other of their voyages were of smaller amount; thus, in 1612, when they united into a Joint Stock Company, they sent out only one ship, with £1,250 in bullion and £650 in goods. But their clear profits on their capital were immense; scarcely ever, it is stated, below 100 per cent. During the Civil Wars the Company shared in the decline of every other branch of trade and industry. {1710} But soon after the accession of Charles II. they obtained a new Charter, which not only confirmed their ancient privileges but vested in them authority, through their agents in India, to make peace and war with any prince or people, not being Christians, and to seize within their limits, and send home as prisoners, any Englishmen found without a licence. It may well be supposed that in the hands of any exclusive Company this last privilege was not likely to lie dormant. … The period of the Revolution was not so favourable to the Company as that of the Restoration. A rival Company arose, professing for its object greater freedom of trade with the East Indies, and supported by a majority in the House of Commons. It is said that the competition of these two Companies with the private traders and with one another had well nigh ruined both. … An Union between these Companies, essential, as it seemed, to their expected profits, was delayed by their angry feelings till 1702. Even then, by the Indenture which passed the Great Seal, several points were left unsettled between them, and separate transactions were allowed to their agents in India for the stocks already sent out. Thus the ensuing years were fraught with continued jarrings and contentions. … After the grant of the first Charter by Queen Elizabeth, and the growth of the Company's trade in India, their two main factories were fixed at Surat and Bantam. Surat was then the principal sea-port of the Mogul Empire, where the Mahometan pilgrims were wont to assemble for their voyages towards Mecca. Bantam, from its position in the island of Java, commanded the best part of the Spice trade. But at Surat the Company's servants were harassed by the hostility of the Portuguese, as at Bantam, by the hostility of the Dutch. To such heights did these differences rise that in 1622 the English assisted the Persians in the recovery of Ormuz from the Portuguese, and that in 1623 the Dutch committed the outrage termed the 'Massacre of Amboyna,'—putting to death, after a trial, and confession of guilt extorted by torture, Captain Towerson and nine other Englishmen, on a charge of conspiracy. In the final result, many years afterwards, the factories both at Bantam and Surat were relinquished by the Company. Other and newer settlements of theirs had, meanwhile, grown into importance.—In 1640 the English obtained permission from a Hindoo Prince in the Carnatic to purchase the ground adjoining the Portuguese settlement of St. Thomé, on which they proceeded to raise Fort St. George and the town of Madras. … In a very few years Madras had become a thriving town.—About twenty years afterwards, on the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of Braganza [1661], the town and island of Bombay were ceded to the King of England as a part of the Infanta's dowry. For some time the Portuguese Governor continued to evade the grant, alleging that the patent of His Majesty was not in accordance with the customs of Portugal; he was compelled to yield; but the possession being found on trial to cost more than it produced, it was given up by King Charles to the East India Company, and became one of their principal stations. Nor was Bengal neglected. Considering the beauty and richness of that province, a proverb was already current among the Europeans, that there are a hundred gates for entering and not one for leaving it. The Dutch, the Portuguese, and the English had established their factories at or near the town of Hooghly on one of the branches—also called Hooghly—of the Ganges. But during the reign of James II. the imprudence of some of the Company's servants, and the seizure of a Mogul junk, had highly incensed the native Powers. The English found it necessary to leave Hooghly, and drop twenty-five miles down the river, to the village of Chuttanuttee. Some petty hostilities ensued, not only in Bengal but along the coasts of India. … So much irritated was Aurungzebe at the reports of these hostilities, that he issued orders for the total expulsion of the Company's servants from his dominions, but he was appeased by the humble apologies of the English traders, and the earnest intercession of the Hindoo, to whom this commerce was a source of profit. The English might even have resumed their factory at Hooghly, but preferred their new station at Chuttanuttee, and in 1698 obtained from the Mogul, on payment of an annual rent, a grant of the land on which it stood. Then, without delay, they began to construct for its defence a citadel, named Fort William, under whose shelter there grew by degrees from a mean village the great town of Calcutta,—the capital of modern India. … At nearly the same period another station,—Tegnapatam, a town on the coast of Coromandel, to the south of Madras,—was obtained by purchase. It was surnamed Fort St. David; was strengthened with walls and bulwarks, and was made subordinate to Madras for its government. Thus then before the accession of the House of Hanover these three main stations,—Fort William, Fort St. George, and Bombay,—had been erected into Presidencies, or central posts of Government; not, however, as at present, subject to one supreme authority, but each independent of the rest. Each was governed by a President and a Council of nine or twelve members, appointed by the Court of Directors in England. Each was surrounded with fortifications, and guarded by a small force, partly European and partly native, in the service of the Company. The Europeans were either recruits enlisted in England or strollers and deserters from other services in India. Among these the descendants of the old settlers, especially the Portuguese, were called Topasses,—from the tope or hat which they wore instead of turban. The natives, as yet ill-armed and ill-trained, were known by the name of Sepoys,—a corruption from the Indian word 'sipahi,' a soldier. But the territory of the English scarcely extended out of sight of their towns."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope); History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 39 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: J. Mill, History of British India, book 1 (volume 1).

P. Anderson, The English in Western India, chapters 1-10.

H. Stevens, editor., Dawn of British Trade to East Indies: Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1599-1603.

J. W. Kaye, The Administration of the East India Company, chapters 3-4.

INDIA: A. D. 1602-1620. Rise of the Dutch East India Company.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1620.

{1711}

INDIA: A. D. 1605-1658. Jahangir and Nur Mahal. Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal. Seizure of the throne by Aurungzebe.

"Selim, the son and successor of Akbar, reigned from the year of his father's death until 1627, having assumed the title of Jahangir, or 'Conqueror of the World'; that is to say, he reigned, but he did not govern. Before he came to the throne, he fell in love with a poor Persian girl," whom his father gave in marriage to one of his officers. "On his advent to the throne, Jahangir … managed to get the husband killed, and took the widow into his harem. He subsequently married her, and she ruled, not him alone, but the whole empire. … [She was first called Nur Mahal, 'Light of the Harem,' then Nur Jahan, 'Light of the World.'] It was during this reign, in 1615, that the first English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, arrived in Hindustan from James I.; and proceeding to Ajmere, where Jahangir was staying at the time with his court, he made him several presents, amongst which, we are told, a beautiful English coach gave the Emperor the most satisfaction. He received the ambassador with great distinction, showed him marked attention at all public receptions, and granted a firmân to the English to establish a factory at Surat. … The later years of Jahangir's reign were disturbed by family intrigues, in which the Empress Nur Jehan took a prominent part, endeavouring to secure the succession for her son-in-law; but after the death of the Emperor, his oldest living son, Shah Jahan, pensioned and forced the Empress into retirement … and … 'dispatched all the males of the house of Timour, so that only himself and his children remained of the posterity of Baber, who conquered India.' In some respects the reign of Shah Jahan was unfortunate. He lost his Afghan dominions, and gained but little by his invasions of the Dekhan, which were carried on by his rebellious son and successor, Aurungzeb; but in another direction he did more to perpetuate the glory of the Mughal dynasty than any other emperor of his line. Amongst other handsome buildings, he erected the most beautiful the world has ever possessed. … This was the well-known Taj Mahal at Agra, a mausoleum for his favourite Empress Arjamund, known as Mumtaz-i-Mahal [of which name, according to Elphinstone, Taj Mahal is a corruption], 'the Exalted One of the Seraglio.' … When Shah Jahan had attained his 66th year (according to some writers, his 70th), he was seized with a sudden illness, the result of his debauched life, and as it was reported that he was dead, a civil war broke out amongst his sons for the possession of the throne. These were four in number, Dara (the oldest), Shuja, Aurungzeb, and Murad (the youngest); and in the conflict Aurungzeb, the third son, was ultimately successful. Two of the brothers, Dara and Murad, fell into the power of the last-named and were put to death by his orders. Shuja escaped to Arracan, and was murdered there; and as for the Emperor, who had recovered, Aurungzeb confined him in the fort at Agra, with all his female relatives, and then caused himself to be proclaimed in his stead [1658]. Towards the close of Shah Jehan's life [which came to an end in 1666], a partial reconciliation took place between him and his son, who, however, did not release him from his confinement."

J. Samuelson, India, Past and Present, part 1, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: J. T. Wheeler, History of India, volume 4, chapters 5-7.

Sir T. Roe, Journal of Embassy (Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages, volume 8).

M. Elphinstone, History of India: Hindu and Mahometan, book 10.

INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748. The struggle of Aurungzebe with the Mahrattas. The Mahratta empire. Invasion of Nadir Shah. Sack of Delhi and great Massacre.

"Aurungzebe had reigned five years before he succeeded in destroying all his kinsmen. … About that time, in the year 1662, a new and extraordinary power in Southern India began to attract attention. The Mahrattas appear to have been nothing more than the Hindoo peasantry, scattered throughout some of the mountainous districts of the Mahomedan kingdoms of Ahmednuggur, Beijapoor and Golconda, and united into a body only by the prejudices of caste, of which their rank was the lowest, that of Sudra. In the confusion incidental to the constant wars in which these states were engaged, some of the head men of their villages set up for themselves, and one of them, Shahji Borla, became powerful enough to play a conspicuous part at the time of the annexation of Ahmednuggur to the Mogul empire. His son Sevaji, setting out from this vantage ground, strengthened his hands by the silent capture of some hill forts in Beijapoor, and eventually raising the standard of revolt against that government, introduced a spirit of union amidst the scattered masses of his people, and may thus be considered the founder of the Mahratta empire. In 1662 he commenced his predatory expeditions into the Mogul territory, and in ten years he found himself at the head of a regular government with the title of Rajah, and strong enough to encounter and defeat the imperial forces in a field battle. This was the critical moment in the progress of the Mogul empire. Aurungzebe was called away for two years by the chronic disturbances beyond the Indus; his strength was wasted by the ceaseless wars of the Deccan; and being goaded to madness by the casual insurrection of some Hindoo devotees in the centre of his dominions, he replaced the capitation tax on infidels, and fulminated other decrees against that portion of his subjects of such extravagant intolerance that they at length looked upon the progress of their co-religionists, the Mahrattas, with more longing than alarm. In 1679, the western portion of Rajahstan was in arms against the empire, and continued in a state of hostility more or less active during the whole reign. Even the emperor's eventual successes in the Deccan, in overthrowing the kingdoms of Beijapoor and Golconda, contributed to his ruin; for it removed the check of regular government from that distracted portion of the country, and … threw into the arms of the Mahrattas the adventurous and the desperate of the population. Sevaji died, and successors of less talent filled the throne of the robber-king; but this seems to have had no effect upon the progress of the inundation, which now bursting over the natural barriers of the peninsula, and sweeping away its military defences, overflowed Malwa and a portion of Guzerat. Aurungzebe fought gallantly and finessed craftily by turns; … and thus he struggled with his destiny even to extreme old age, bravely and alone. He expired in his 89th year, the 50th of his reign, on the 21st of February, 1707. … During the next twelve years after the death of Aurungzebe, no fewer than five princes sat upon the throne, whose reigns, without being distinguished by any great events, exhibited evident indications of the gradual decline of the empire. {1712} During that period the Sikhs, originally a sect of Hindoo dissenters, whose peculiarity consisted in their repudiation of all religious ceremonies, having first been changed into warriors by persecution, began to rise by the spirit of union into a nation; but so weak were they at this time that in 1706 the dying energies of the empire were sufficient almost for their extirpation. … Mahomed Shah succeeded to the throne in 1719. The Mahratta government was by this time completely consolidated, and the great families of the race, since so celebrated, had begun to rise into eminence: such as that of the Peshwa, the official title of a minister of the Rajah; of Holkar, the founder of which was a shepherd; and of Sindia, which sprang from a menial servant. … A still more remarkable personage of the time was Asof Jah, whose descendants became the Nizams [regulators or governors—the title becoming hereditary in the family of Asof, at Hyderabad] of the Deccan. … While the empire was … rent in pieces by internal disturbances, a more tremendous enemy even than the Mahrattas presented himself from without. A revolution had taken place in Persia, which seated a soldier of fortune upon the throne; and the famous Nadir Shah, after capturing Candahar, found it necessary, according to the fashion of conquerors, to seize upon the Mogul territories, Ghizni and Cabul, and when at the latter city to continue his march into Hindostan. In 1739, he arrived at Kurnaul, within 70 miles of Delhi, and defeated the emperor in a general engagement. … The two kings then proceeded to Delhi after the battle, where Nadir, in consequence, it is said, of an insurrection of the populace, set fire to the city and massacred the inhabitants to a number which has been variously estimated at from 30,000 to 150,000. He then proceeded to the main business of his invasion, robbing first the treasury and afterwards the inhabitants individually, torturing or murdering all who were suspected of concealing their riches, and at length returned to his own dominions, having obtained a formal cession of the country west of the Indus, and carrying with him in money and plate at least twelve millions sterling, besides jewels of great value, including those of the Peacock Throne [the throne of the Great Mogul, made solidly of gold and adorned with diamonds and pearls,—the enamelled back of the throne being spread in the form of a peacock's tail.]

Tavernier's Travels, translated and edited by V. Ball, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 1).

From this period to the death of the Emperor Mahomed Shah, in 1748, the interval was filled up with the disturbances which might be expected."

Leitch Ritchie, History of the Indian Empire, book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).

The Asof or Asaf Jah mentioned above had become, in 1721, the Prime Minister of the Emperor Muhammad Shah, "In a little more than three years he had thrown up in disgust an office which the levity of the young monarch hindered him from discharging to his satisfaction; and had repaired to the Deccan, where he founded the State which still subsists under the name of 'The Nizam's Dominions.' Nominally, it was the Subah [province] erected on the ruins of the old Musalman kingdoms; but in the decline of the Empire it became a hereditary and quasi-independent province, though the ruler never took the royal title, but continued to retain the style of an Imperial Viceroy, as 'Nizam-ul-mulk,' which his descendant still bears."

H. G. Keene, Madhava Rao Sindhia, chapter 1.

"The different provinces and viceroyalties went their own natural way; they were parcelled out in a scuffle among revolted governors, rebellious chiefs, leaders of insurgent tribes or sects, religious revivalists, or captains of mercenary bands. The Indian people were becoming a masterless multitude swaying to and fro in the political storm, and clinging to any power, natural or supernatural, that seemed likely to protect them. They were prepared to acquiesce in the assumption of authority by anyone who could show himself able to discharge the most elementary functions of government in the preservation of life and property. In short, the people were scattered without a leader or protector; while the political system under which they had long lived was disappearing in complete disorganization. It was during this period of tumultuary confusion that the French and English first appeared upon the political arena in India."

Sir A. Lyall, Rise of the British Dominion in India, chapter 4, sections 1-2.

ALSO IN: S. Lane-Poole, Aurangzib, chapters 9-12.

A. Dow, History of Hindostan, from Ferishta, volume 3.

J. G. Duff, History of the Mahrattas, volume 1, and volume 2, chapter 1.

C. R. Markham, History of Persia, chapter 12.

INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743. Commercial undertakings of the French. Their settlement at Pondicherry.

"Many expeditions to India had been made [by the French] earlier than the time of Colbert's East India Company, chartered in the year 1665. The first French ships, of which there is any record, that succeeded in reaching India, were two despatched from one of the ports of Brittany in 1601. These ships were, however, wrecked on the Maldive Islands, and their commander did not return to France for ten years. Voyages were undertaken in 1616, 1619, and again in 1633, of which the most that can be said is that they met with no great disaster. The attempt to found settlements in Java and Madagascar, which was the object of these voyages, completely failed. The first operations of the French East India Company were to establish factories in Hindostan. Surat, a large commercial city at the mouth of the Taptee, was fixed upon for the principal depot. The abuses and lavish waste of the officers entrusted to carry out Colbert's plans, brought the company to an end in five years. An attempt in 1672 to form a colony at Trincomalee, on the north-east coast of Ceylon, was frustrated by the hostility of the Dutch. Afterwards the French made an attempt on Meliapoor or Thomé, belonging to the Portuguese. They were soon expelled, and the survivors sought refuge at Pondicherry [1674], a small town which they had purchased on the same coast of the Carnatic. In 1693, Pondicherry was taken by the Dutch, who improved the fortifications and general condition of the town. At the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, the settlement was restored to the French. For half a century Pondicherry shared the neglect common to French colonies, and owed more to the probity and discretion of its governors than to the home government. M. Martin, and subsequently Dumas, saved the settlement from ruin. They added to the defences; and Dumas, being in want of money for public purposes, obtained permission from the King of Delhi to coin money for the French settlers. He also procured the cession of Karikal, a district of Tanjore. On the other hand, several stations and forts had to be given up."

J. Yeats, Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, part 3, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, History of the French in India, chapters 1-3.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapter 2.

{1713}

INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752. Struggle of the French and English for supremacy in the Deccan. Clive against Dupleix. The founding of British empire.

"England owes the idea of an Indian empire to the French, as also the chief means by which she has hitherto sought to realize it. The war of the Austrian succession had just broken out [1743] between France and England.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

Dupleix, the governor of the settlements of the French East India Company, proposed to the English company a neutrality in the eastern seas; it was rejected. The English probably repented of their presumption when they saw Captain Peyton, the commander of a squadron of three liners and a frigate, after an indecisive engagement with the French admiral, Labourdonnais, take flight to the Bay of Bengal, leaving Madras, then the most flourishing of the English settlements, defenceless. Dupleix and Labourdonnais were the first of that series of remarkable Frenchmen who, amidst every discouragement from home, and in spite of their frequent mutual dissensions, kept the French name so prominent in India for more than the next half century, only to meet on their return with obloquy, punishment, even death. Labourdonnais, who was Admiral of the French fleet, was also Governor of Mauritius, then called the Isle of France. He had disciplined a force of African negroes. With French troops and these, he entered the narrow strip of coast, five miles long, one mile broad, which was then the territory of Madras, bombarded the city, compelled the fort (which had lost five men) to surrender. But his terms were honourable; the English were placed on parole; the town was to be given up on payment of a moderate ransom (1746). Dupleix, however, was jealous; he denied Labourdonnais powers; broke the capitulation; paraded the Governor and other English gentlemen in triumph through Pondicherry. In vain did Admiral Boscawen besiege the latter place; time was wasted, the trenches were too far, the rains came on; Boscawen raised the siege, crippled in men and stores; was recalled by the news of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and, to close his career of misfortune, lost several ships and 1,200 men on the Coromandel coast (1748-9). News of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, however, produced a very temporary cessation of hostilities, Madras being restored, with fortifications much improved. The English fortunes seemed at their lowest in India; the French rising to their full height. Dupleix conceived the bold plan of interfering in the internal politics of the country. Labourdonnais had disciplined the negro; Dupleix disciplined the native Indian. … Labourdonnais had beaten off the so-called Nawab of the Carnatic, when he attempted to take Madras; the event produced an immense sensation; it was the first victory obtained for a century by Europeans over the natives of India. Dupleix was strong enough to be reckoned a valuable ally. But on the English side a young man had appeared who was to change the whole course of events in the East. Robert Clive, an attorney's son from Market Drayton, born in 1725, sent off at eighteen as a writer to Madras—a naughty boy who had grown into an insubordinate clerk, who had been several times in danger of losing his situation, and had twice attempted to destroy himself—ran away from Madras, disguised as a Mussulman, after Dupleix's violation of the capitulation, obtained an ensign's commission at twenty-one, and began distinguishing himself as a soldier under Major Lawrence, then the best British officer in India."

J. M. Ludlow, British India, lecture 7.

"Clive and others who escaped [from Madras] betook themselves to Fort St. David's—a small English settlement a few miles south of Pondicherry. There Clive prepared himself for the military vocation for which nature had clearly destined him. … At Fort St. David's the English intrigued with the native chiefs, much as the French had done, and not more creditably. They took sides, and changed sides, in the disputes of rival claimants to the province of Tanjore, under the inducement of the possession of Devi-cottah, a coast station at the mouth of the Coleroon. There was no great honour in the results, any more than in the conception, of this first little war. We obtained Devi-cottah; but we did not improve our reputation for good faith, nor lessen the distance between the French and ourselves in military prestige. But Dupleix was meantime providing the opportunity for Clive to determine whether the Deccan should be under French or English influence. … The greatest of the southern princes, the Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy of the Deccan, died in 1748; and rivals rose up, as usual, to claim both his throne and the richest province under his rule—the Carnatic. The pretenders on one side applied to the French for assistance, and obtained reinforcements to the extent of 400 French soldiers and 2,000 trained sepoys. This aid secured victory; the opposing prince was slain; and his son, the well-known Mohammed Ali, 'the Nabob of Arcot' of the last century, took refuge, with a few remaining troops, at Trichinopoly. In a little while, the French seemed to be supreme throughout the country. Dupleix was deferred to as the arbiter of the destinies of the native princes, while he was actually declared Governor of India, from the Kistna to Cape Comorin—a region as large as France, inhabited by 30,000,000 of people, and defended by a force so large that the cavalry alone amounted to 7,000 under the command of Dupleix. In the midst of this dominion, the English looked like a handful of dispirited and helpless settlers, awaiting the disposal of the haughty Frenchman. Their native ally had lost everything but Trichinopoly; and Trichinopoly itself was now besieged by the Nabob of the Carnatic and his French supporters. Dupleix was greater than even the Mogul sovereign; he had erected a column in his own honour, displaying on its four sides inscriptions in four languages, proclaiming his glory as the first man of the East; and a town had sprung up round this column, called his City of Victory. To the fatalistic mind of the native races it seemed a settled matter that the French rule was supreme, and that the English must perish out of the land. Major Lawrence had gone home; and the small force of the English had no commander. Clive was as yet only a commissary, with the rank of captain, and regarded more as a civilian than a soldier. {1714} He was only five-and-twenty. His superiors were in extreme alarm, foreseeing that when Trichinopoly was taken, the next step would be the destruction of Madras. Nothing could make their position worse; and they caught at every chance of making it better. Clive offered to attack Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, in the hope that this would draw away the besiegers from Trichinopoly; and the offer was accepted. The force consisted of 200 British and 300 native soldiers, commanded, under Clive, by four factors and four military men, only two of whom had ever been in action. Everything was against them, from numbers and repute to the weather; but Clive took Arcot [September 11, 1751], and (what was much more difficult) kept it. The garrison had fled in a panic; but it was invested by 10,000 men before the British had repaired half its dilapidations and deficiencies, or recruited their numbers, now reduced to 320 men in all, commanded by four officers. For fifty days, amidst fatigue, hunger, and a hundred pressing dangers, the little band sustained the siege. … A series of victories followed, and men and opinion came round to the side of the victors. There was no energy at headquarters to sustain Clive in his career. … In his absence, the enemy appeared again before Fort George, and did much damage; but Clive came up, and 100 of the French soldiers were killed or taken. He uprooted Dupleix's boasting monument, and levelled the city to the ground, thereby reversing the native impression of the respective destinies of the French and English. Major Lawrence returned. Dupleix's military incapacity was proved, and his personal courage found wanting as soon as fortune deserted him. Trichinopoly was relieved, and the besiegers were beaten, and their candidate prince put to death. Dupleix struggled in desperation for some time longer before he gave up the contest; and Clive had his difficulties in completing the dislodgement of the French. … He did it; but nearly at the sacrifice of his life. When the British supremacy in the Deccan was completely established, he returned [1752] in bad health to England. … He left behind him Dupleix, for whom a summons home in disgrace was on the way."

H. Martineau, History of British Rule in India, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, History of the French in India, chapters 3-6.

G. B. Malleson, Founders of the Indian Empire: Lord Clive, chapters 1-6.

Colonel Sir C. Wilson, Lord Clive, chapters 2-4.

INDIA: A. D. 1747-1761. The Duranee power in Afghanistan. Conflict of the Afghans and the Mahrattas. Great defeat of the latter at Panniput. Fall of the shattered Moghul empire. The state of things which invited British conquest.

On the death of Nadir Shah, who was murdered in 1747, his Afghan kingdom was acquired by a native chief, Ahmed Abdalee, who, first a prisoner and a slave to Nadir Shah, had become one of the trusted officers of his court and army. "Ahmed Abdalee had acquired so great an ascendency among the troops that upon this event [the death of Nadir Shah] several commanders and their followers joined his standard; and he drew off toward his own country. He fell in with and seized a convoy of treasure, which was proceeding to the camp. This enabled him to engage in his pay a still larger body of his countrymen. He proclaimed himself king of the Afghauns; and took the title of Doordowran, or pearl of the age, which being corrupted into Dooranee,[or Duranee], gave one of their names to himself and his Abdallees. He marched towards Candahar which submitted to his arms; and next proceeded to Cabul … and this province also fell into the hands of the Afghaun." Lahore was next added to his dominions, and he then, in 1747, invaded India, intent upon the capture of Delhi; but met with sufficient resistance to discourage his undertaking, and fell back to Cabul. In 1748, and again in 1749, he passed the Indus, and made himself master of the Punjab. In 1755-6 he marched to Delhi, which opened its gates to him and received him, pretendedly as a guest, but really as a master. A plague breaking out in his army caused him to return to his own country. He "left his son Governor of Lahore and Multan; disordered by revolutions, wasted and turbulent. A chief … incited the Seiks [Sikhs] to join him in molesting the Dooranees; and they gained several important advantages over their principal commanders. They invited the Mahratta generals, Ragonaut Raow, Shumsheer Bahadur, and Holkar, who had advanced into the neighbourhood of Delhi, to join them in driving the Abdalees from Lahore. No occupation could be more agreeable to the Mahrattas. After taking Sirhind, they advanced to Lahore, where the Abdalee Prince made but a feeble resistance and fled. This event put them in possession of both Multan and Lahore. … The whole Indian continent appeared now about to be swallowed up by the Mahrattas. … Ahmed Shah [the Abdalee, or Dooranee] was not only roused by the loss of his two provinces, and the disgrace imprinted on his arms, but he was invited by the chiefs and people of Hindustan, groaning under the depredations of the Mahrattas, to march to their succour and become their King. … For some days the Dooranees hovered round the Mahratta camp; when the Mahrattas, who were distressed for provisions, came out and offered battle. Their army, consisting of 80,000 veteran cavalry, was almost wholly destroyed; and Duttah Sindia, their General, was among the slain. A detachment of horse sent against another body of Mahrattas, who were marauding under Holkar in the neighbourhood of Secundra, surprised them so completely that Holkar fled naked, with a handful of followers, and the rest, with the exception of a few prisoners and fugitives, were all put to the sword. During the rainy season, while the Dooranee Shah was quartered at Secundra, the news of this disaster and disgrace excited the Mahrattas to the greatest exertions. A vast army was collected, and … the Mahrattas marched to gratify the resentments, and fulfil the unbounded hopes of the nation. … They arrived at the Jumna before it was sufficiently fallen to permit either the Mahrattas on the other side, or the Dooranees, to cross. In the meantime they marched to Delhi, of which after some resistance they took possession; plundered it with their usual rapacity, tearing away even the gold and silver ornaments of the palace; proclaimed Sultan Jewan Bukht, the son of Alee Gohur [or Shah Alum, absent son of the late nominal Emperor at Delhi, Alumgeer II., who had recently been put to death by his own vizir], Emperor; and named Sujah ad Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, his Vizir. {1715} Impatient at intelligence of these and some other transactions, Ahmed Shah swam the Jumna, still deemed impassable, with his whole army. This daring adventure, and the remembrance of the late disaster, shook the courage of the Mahrattas; and they entrenched their camp on a plain near Panniput. The Dooranee, having surrounded their position with parties of troops, to prevent the passage of supplies, contented himself for some days with skirmishing. At last he tried an assault; when the Rohilla infantry … forced their way into the Mahratta works, and Bulwant Raow with other chiefs was killed; but night put an end to the conflict. Meanwhile scarcity prevailed and filth accumulated in the Mahratta camp. The vigilance of Ahmed intercepted their convoys. In a little time famine and pestilence "raged. A battle became the only resource [January 7, 1761]. The Abdalee restrained his troops till the Mahrattas had advanced a considerable way from their works; when he rushed upon them with so much rapidity as left them hardly any time for using their cannon. The Bhaow was killed early in the action; confusion soon pervaded the army, and a dreadful carnage ensued. The field was floated with blood. Twenty-two thousand men and women were taken prisoners. Of those who escaped from the field of battle, the greater part were butchered by the people of the country, who had suffered from their depredations. Of an army of 140,000 horse, commanded by the most celebrated generals of the nation, only three chiefs of any rank, and a mere residue of the troops, found their way to Deccan. The Dooranee Shah made but little use of this mighty victory. After remaining a few months at Delhi, he recognized Alee Gohur as Emperor, by the title of Shah Aulum II.; and entrusting Nujeeb ad Dowlah with the superintendence of affairs, till his master should return from Bengal, he marched back to his capital of Cabul in the end of the year 1760 [1761]. With Aulum-geer II. the empire of the Moguls may be justly considered as having arrived at its close. The unhappy Prince who now received the name of Emperor, and who, after a life of misery and disaster, ended his days a pensioner of English merchants, never possessed a sufficient degree of power to consider himself for one moment as master of the throne."