to the north of it, the Videhas dwelt in modern Tirhút ; while between the Kurus and the Videhas lived the powerful Kosalas in modern Oudh. These and other races had their mutual jealousies, their varying alliances, and their internecine wars, but were nevertheless bound together by a common sacred language and literature, by a common religion, and by common social and religious institutions. The student of Greek history is tempted to compare these flourishing and civilized Gangetic states with the Greek cities in their palmy days, while he would compare the sturdy but less civilized Hindu settlers on the banks of the Indus with the robust Greek warriors who fought with the Trojans. The ascendency and vigour of the Gangetic kingdoms lasted for four or five centuries.

III. RATIONALISTIC EPOCH.

Hindu Expansion over all India, B.C. 1000–320.

When Northern India as far as Benáres and North Behar had been occupied, colonies began to be established in more distant places, and the whole of India became thus Hinduized in the course of some centuries. South Behar or Magadha was early civilized; schools of philosophy multiplied in this age, and in the sixth century before Christ, Gautama Buddha preached there the great religion which is now the religion of a third of the human race. Malwa or Avanti became a seat of culture or learning; while beyond the Vindhya mountains the Andhras had a great and powerful kingdom in the Dekhan, stretching as far down as the Kistna river, and boasting of a great capital and of celebrated schools of learning. Colonists from the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges settled in Gujrat and founded the ancient seaport of Dvaraka; and it is supposed that merchants

from this place sailing to the extreme south of India helped to civilize the kingdom of Pandya. Certain it is that by the fourth century before Christ, three sister nations, the Pandyas, the Cholas, and the Cheras, had established powerful kingdoms in India, south of the Kistna river. In the east, Anga or East Behar, Vanga or Bengal, and Kalinga or Orissa, also received the light of Hindu civilization, religion, and literature, while the distant island of Ceylon was conquered and Hinduized in the fifth century.

Thus all India, except wilds and deserts, had received Hindu civilization, manners, and religion, before the time of Alexander the Great. It is necessary, however, to make a passing remark about these southern Hindu kingdoms, as distinguished from the older northern kingdoms. The Aryan races had penetrated in vast numbers into the Punjab and the Gangetic valley, and had all but exterminated or expelled the children of the soil, who were utter barbarians; and the population of Northern India therefore is, to the present day, more or less of pure Aryan stock. On the other hand, the later and less numerous Hindu colonists who penetrated into South Behar and Bengal, to the Dekhan and Southern India, found the aboriginal races of those spacious regions possessing a more or less imperfect civilization of their own, and the extermination of those vast populations all over India by a handful of colonists was out of the question. The Hindu colonists were satisfied therefore with introducing Hindu civilization, language, and religion; and to this day the majority of the population of Southern and Eastern India are of non-Aryan stock who have adopted the higher civilization, literature, and religion of their Aryan Hindu conquerors and teachers.

The Hindu world of the third Epoch, i.e., of the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C., thus appears to us as a

map coloured in two or three different shades, representing different degrees of Aryan enlightenment. Northern India is almost purely Aryan, while the Southern and Eastern Indian states are more or less non-Aryan, with a veneer of Aryan religion and civilization cast over them. It is remarkable that the ancient Hindu writers of the sixth and fifth centuries before Christ viewed India in this light, and one of them parcels out the Hindu world into three portions to indicate the degrees of their Aryan purity. Northern India comes first; South and East Behar, Malwa, Gujrat, and the Dekhan are included by him in the second portion; while Bengal, Orissa, and India south of the Kistna are included in the last. If we were disposed to find a parallel to the Hindu world of the third Epoch, we should compare it with the Greek world after the death of Alexander, when outside Greece proper, Macedon, Egypt, and the whole of Western Asia wore the livery of Greek civilization, religion, and lite

rature.

IV. BUDDHIST EPOCH.

Ascendency of Magadha, B.C. 320—A.D. 400.

If the first three Epochs of Hindu history are epochs of the gradual expansion of the Hindus first over the Punjab, then in the Gangetic valley, and then over all India, the fourth is the Epoch of a union among these Hindu races under a great and dominant ruling power.. Immediately after the departure of Alexander the Great from India, the great Chandragupta founded a new dynasty in Magadha, and for the first time united the whole of Northern India under his vigorous rule. His grandson, Asoka the Great, adopted Buddhism as the state religion in the third century before Christ, even as Constantine the Great adopted the Christian religion in

the fourth century after Christ. The dynasty of Chandragupta and Asoka declined in course of time; but the powerful Andhras of the Dekhan took possession of Magadha about the commencement of the Christian era, and down to the close of the fourth century after Christ held the supreme power both in Northern and Southern India. After the fourth century the Andhras declined, and the ascendency of the Magadha Empire was at an end.

We may consider the first three Epochs of the History of Ancient India as a preparation for the fourth Epoch. In the former, all India was gradually civilized and Hinduized; in the last, it was united under one great central power, even as Europe and Western Asia were united in the same age under the imperial power of Rome.

V. PURANIC EPOCH.

Ascendency of Kanouj and Ujain, A.D. 400-800.

The parallel between Hindu history and European history extends further than would appear at first sight. The supreme power passed from the rulers of Magadha to the emperors of Kanouj and Ujain in the fifth and succeeding centuries, but like the later Roman emperors they had to battle against hordes of barbarian invaders to save their country and their civilization. The war went on for centuries, and races of barbarians settled down in the west and south of India, and adopted Hindu manners, religion, and civilization. But the crisis came, and ancient Hindu rule was at last swept away from Northern India in the eighth century. Ancient Hindu history terminates at this date.

Dark ages followed in India as in Europe, and the history of Northern India in the ninth and tenth centuries is a perfect blank. Towards the close of the tenth century, a new power arose on the ruins of ancient

civilization in Europe and in India; the feudal barons in Europe, and the Rajpút barons in India. These new Rajpút chiefs stepped into the vacant thrones of ancient and polished but effete nations, and adopted the Hindu religion and civilization, even as the mediæval kings and conquerors of Europe embraced the Christian faith. And the new defenders of Hinduism and of Christianity had to fight in India and in Europe against the same rising power, viz., the Muhammadans. But here the parallel ends. After centuries of warfare, the Christian knights beat back the Moslems from France, from Spain, and from Austria. The Rajpút chiefs of India offered an equally brave, but not an equally successful, resistance ; they struggled and they fell; and Hindu independence and national life terminated with the conquest of India by the Muhammadans.

Historical analogies are often misleading unless we constantly bear in mind the great differences in details, even when the resemblance in the outline seems most striking. But when instituted with due caution, such comparisons have their use; and they show us how the same historical laws rule the destinies and the progress of nations at the farthest ends of the globe, and how the same great historical causes often affect and control the march of events, simultaneously in the east and the west.