ism and ism, 629645 A.D. a seat of learning which recalls the universities of Medieval Europe. Ten thousand monks and novices of the eighteen Buddhist schools here studied theology, philosophy, law, science, especially medicine, and practised their devotions. They lived in lettered ease, supported from the royal funds. But even this stronghold of Buddhism is a proof that Buddhism was only one of two hostile creeds in India. During a single period, with regard to which the Chinese records afford information, it was three times destroyed by the enemies of the faith.1 Mingling Hiouen Thsang travelled from the Punjab to the mouth of of Buddh the Ganges, and made journeys into Southern India. But Bráhman everywhere he found the two religions mingled. Gayá, which holds so high a sanctity in the legends of Buddha, had already become a great Bráhman centre. On the east of Bengal, Assam had not been converted to Buddhism. In the southwest, Orissa was a stronghold of the faith. But in the seaport of Tamluk, at the mouth of the Húglí, the temples to the Brahman gods were five times more numerous than the convents of the faithful. On the Madras coast, Buddhism flourished; and indeed, throughout Southern India, the faith seems still to have been in the ascendant, although struggling against Bráhman heretics and their gods. Victory of Bráhmanism, 600 800 A.D. During the next two centuries, Bráhmanism gradually became the ruling religion. There are legends of persecutions, instigated by Bráhman reformers, such as Kumarila Bhatta and Sankara Achárjya. But the downfall of Buddhism seems to have resulted from natural decay, and from new movements of religious thought, rather than from any general suppression by the sword. Its extinction is contemporaneous with the rise of Hinduism, and belongs to a subsequent part of this sketch. In the 11th century, only outlying States, such as Kashmir and Orissa, remained faithful; and before the Muhammadans fairly came upon the scene, Buddhism as a popular faith had almost disappeared from India. During the last thousand years, Buddhism Buddhism has been a banished religion from its native home. an exiled But it has won greater triumphs in its exile than it could have religion, ever achieved in the land of its birth. It has created a literature and a religion for nearly half the human race, and has affected the beliefs of the other half. Five hundred millions of men, or forty per cent. of the inhabitants of the world, still follow the teaching of Buddha. Afghánistán, deep. General Cunningham's Ancient Geography of India, pp. 468-470, ed. 1871. 1000 A.D. 1 Beal's Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese, p. 371, ed. 1871. Nepál, Eastern Turkistán, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Japan, the Eastern Archipelago, Siam, Burma, Ceylon, and India, at one time marked the magnificent circumference of its conquests. Its shrines and monasteries stretched in a Its foreign continuous line from what are now the confines of the Russian conquests. Empire to the equatorial islands of the Pacific. During twenty-four centuries, Buddhism has encountered and outlived a series of powerful rivals. At this day it forms, with Christianity and Islám, one of the three great religions of the world; and the most numerously followed of the three. in India. In India its influence has survived its separate existence. Buddhist It not only left behind it a distinct sect, but it supplied the survivals basis upon which Bráhmanism finally developed from the creed of a caste into the religion of the people. Of this Buddhistic influence on Hinduism I shall hereafter speak. The distinct sect is known as the Jains, who number about The Jains. half a million1 in India. Like the Buddhists, they deny the authority of the Veda, except in so far as it agrees with their own doctrines; disregard sacrifice; practise a strict morality; believe that their past and future states depend upon their own actions rather than on any external deity; and scrupulously reverence the vital principle in man and beast. They differ from the Buddhists chiefly in their ritual and objects of worship. The veneration of good men departed is common to both, but the Jains have expanded and methodized such adoration on lines of their own. The Buddhists admit that many Buddhas have appeared in successive lives upon earth, and attained Nirvána or beatific extinction; but they confine their reverence to a comparatively small number. The Jains Jain docdivide time into successive eras, and assign twenty-four Jinas, or just men made perfect, to each.2 They name twenty-four in the past age, twenty-four in the present, and twenty-four in the era to come; and place colossal statues of white or black marble to this great company of saints in their temples. They adore above all the two latest, or twenty-third and twenty-fourth Jinas of the present era-namely, Pársvanáth 3 and Mahávíra. 1 Returned by the Census of 1872 as 485,020 'Buddhists' in India; besides the 2,447,831 Buddhists in Burma. Except in a few spots, chiefly among the spurs of the Himálayas and in South-Eastern Bengal, the Indian Buddhists may be generally reckoned as Jains. * Under such titles as Jagata-prabhu, 'lord of the world;' Kshinakarmá, 'freed from ceremonial acts;' Sarvajna, 'all-knowing;' Adhiswara, 'supreme lord ;' Tirthankara, 'he who has crossed over the world;' and Jina, he who has conquered the human passions.' 3 Popularly rendered Párasnáth. trines. Jain temple cities. They choose wooded mountains and the most lovely retreats of nature for their places of pilgrimage, and cover them with exquisitely carved shrines in white marble or dazzling stucco. Parasnath Hill in Bengal, the temple city of Palitana in Káthiáwár, and Mount ABU, which rises with its gems of architecture like a jewelled island from the Rájputána plains, form well-known scenes of their worship. The Jains are a wealthy community, usually engaged in banking or wholesale commerce, devoid indeed of the old missionary spirit of Buddhism, but closely knit together among themselves. Their charity is boundless; and they form the chief supporters of the beast hospitals, which the old Buddhistic tenderness for animals has left in many of the cities of India. Jainism is, in some respects, Buddhism equipped with a of Jainism to Buddh- mythology,—a mythology, however, not of gods, but of saints. The question has been raised, indeed, whether Jainism does not form a survival of beliefs anterior to Asoka and Kanishka, According to one view, the Jains are simply a remnant of the Indian Buddhists who saved themselves from extinction by compromises with Hinduism, and so managed to erect themselves into a recognised caste. According to another view, Relation ism. they represent in an unbroken succession the Nigantha sect of the Asoka edicts. They themselves claim as their founder, Vardhamána, the teacher or contemporary of Buddha; and the Niganthas appear as a sect independent of, indeed opposed to, the Buddhists in the Rock Inscriptions and Southern Canon (pitakas). A theory has thus been advanced that the Buddhism of Asoka (244 B.C.) was in reality a later product than the Nigantha or Jain doctrines.1 In its practical aspects, however, Jainism may be described as Buddhism humanized by saintworship, and narrowed from a national religion to suit the exclusive requirements of a sect. The noblest survivals of Buddhism in India are to be found, not among any peculiar body, but in the religion of the people; in that principle of the brotherhood of man, with the re-assertion of which each new revival of Hinduism starts; in the asylum which the great Vaishnavite sect affords to women who have fallen victims to caste rules, to the widow and the outcast; in that gentleness and charity to all men, which take the place of a poor-law in India, and give a high significance to the half-satirical epithet of the 'mild' Hindu. 1 The subject is discussed in Mr. Edward Thomas' Jainism, or the Early Faith of Asoka; in Mr. Rhys Davids' article in The Academy of 13th September 1879; and Numismata Orientalia (Ceylon fasciculus), pp. 55, 60 (Trübner, 1877).' CHAPTER VI. THE GREEKS IN INDIA (327 TO 161 B.C.). RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY have been the great contributions of India to the world. We now come to deal with India, not as a centre of influence upon other nations, but as acted on by them. sources of Greek B.C. THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF INDIA commences with the External Greek invasion in 327 B.C. Some indirect trade between India the history and the Mediterranean seems to have existed from very ancient of India. times. Homer was acquainted with tin,1 and other articles of Indian merchandise, by their Sanskrit names; and a long list has been made of Indian products mentioned in the Bible.2 But the first Greek historian who speaks clearly of India is Early Hekataios of Miletos (549-486 B.C.); the knowledge of Hero- writers, dotos (450 B.C.) ended at the Indus; and Ktesias, the physician 549-401 (401 B.C.), brought back from his residence in Persia only a few facts about the products of India, its dyes and fabrics, monkeys and parrots. India to the east of the Indus was first made known to Europe by the historians and men of science who accompanied Alexander the Great in 327 B.C. Their narratives, although now lost, are condensed in Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian. Soon afterwards, Megasthenes, as Greek Megas. thenes, ambassador resident at a court in the centre of Bengal 306-298 (306-298 B.C.), had opportunities for the closest observation. B. c. The knowledge of the Greeks and Romans concerning India practically dates from his researches, 300 B.C.3 1 Greek, Kassiteros; Sanskrit, Kastíra; hence, subsequently, the name of Kassiterides given to the Scilly Islands. Elephas, ivory, through the Arabian eleph (from Arabic el, the, and Sanskrit ibha, domestic elephant), is also cited. 2 Dr. Birdwood's Handbook to the British Indian Section of the Paris Exhibition of 1878, pp. 22-35. 3 The fragments of the Indika of Megasthenes, collected by Dr. Schwanbeck, with the first part of the Indika of Arrian, the Periplus Alexan der's expedition, 327-325 B. C. Alexander in the Punjab, 327-326 B. C. 1 Alexander the Great entered India early in 327 B.C.; crossed the Indus above Attock, and advanced, without a struggle, over the intervening territory of the Taxiles to the Jhelum (Hydaspes). He found the Punjab divided into petty kingdoms jealous of each other, and many of them inclined to join an invader rather than to oppose him. One of these local monarchs, Porus, disputed the passage of the Jhelum with a force which, substituting chariots for guns, about equalled the army of Ranjit Sinh, the ruler of the Punjab in the present century. Plutarch gives a vivid description of the battle from Alexander's own letters. Having drawn up his troops at a bend of the Jhelum, about 14 miles west of the modern field of Chilianwála, the Greek general crossed under shelter of a tempestuous night. The chariots hurried out by Porus stuck in the muddy bank of the river. In the engagement which followed, the elephants of the Indian prince refused to face the Greeks, and, wheeling round, trampled his own army under foot. His son fell early in the onset; Porus himself fled wounded; but on tendering his submission, he was confirmed in his kingdom, and became the conqueror's trusted friend. Alexander built two memorial cities on the scene of his victory, -Bukephala on the west bank, near the modern JALALPUR, named after his beloved charger slain in the battle; and Nikaia, the present MONG, on the east side of the river. Alexander advanced south-east through the kingdom of the younger Porus to Amritsar, and after a sharp bend backward to the west, to fight the Kathaei at Sangala, he reached the Beas (Hyphasis). Here, at a spot not far from the modern Maris Erythræi, and Arrian's account of the voyage of Nearchus, have been collected in two most useful volumes by Mr. J. W. M'Crindle, M.A. (Trübner, 1877 and 1879). The Indika of Ktesias, with the 15th Book of Strabo, is also promised; and the sections referring to India in Ptolemy's Geographia would complete a series of high value to Indian history. 1 The Takkas, a Turanian race, the earliest inhabitants of RAWAL PINDI DISTRICT. They gave their name to the town of Takshásila or Taxila, which Alexander found a rich and populous city, the largest between the Indus and Hydaspes,' identified with the ruins of DERI SHAHAN. Taki or Asarúr, on the road between Lahore and Pindi Bhatiyán, was the capital of the Punjab in 633 A.D. 2 Namely, '30,000 efficient infantry; 4000 horse; 300 chariots; 200 elephants' [Professor Cowell]. The Greeks probably exaggerated the numbers of the enemy. Alexander's army numbered 'about 50,000, including 5000 Indian auxiliaries under Mophis of Taxila.'-General Cunningham, Anc. Geog. of India, p. 172. See his lucid account of the battle, with an excellent map, pp. 159-177, ed. 1871. And about 30 miles south-west of Jhelum town. |