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all India south of the Himalayas; and therefore the history of British India will be the history of India in the nineteenth century.

While it is hoped that the political history of the various epochs will be found sufficient for the student and in accordance with the latest results of research, the first aim of the writers will be to give a history of the Indian people, to follow the varied development of institutions and constitutions, to mark the growth and decay of literature and science, to watch the constant flux of law and religion. It is not perhaps too much to hope that a truer knowledge of the not inglorious past of the races who, in the inscrutable course of events, have come under the dominion of the people of Great Britain, will help to make the bonds between the two nations closer and more enduring than any that the power of the sword alone can forge. Though in the execution the measure of success may vary, the same spirit and purpose will animate the different volumes of the Series.

J. A.

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EPOCH III.-RATIONALISTIC AGE; B.C. 1000-320.

I. HINDU EXPANSION

II. MANNERS AND CIVILIZATION

III. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

IV. BUDDHISM.

EPOCH IV.-BUDDHIST AGE; B.C. 320-A.D. 400.

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NOTE.

The spelling of proper names is according to the system authorized by the Government of India, except in the case of a few well-known words, as Punjab, where a change from the authorized form would be pedantic. The accent marks a long vowel, and all the vowels are sounded as in the Latin languages.

ANCIENT INDIA.

EPOCH I.-VEDIC AGE.

HINDU SETTLEMENTS ON THE INDUS. B.C. 2000-1400.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

IT has been observed, with much truth, that the early civilization of mankind was determined by natural causes, or, in other words, by the fertilizing power of great rivers and by the influence of a warm and genial climate, conducive alike to the production of crops and to the comfort of man. Other causes have exerted a greater influence in more modern times, and a temperate or cold climate has fostered the more robust civilization of these days; but in the remote past we shall seek in vain for the first glimpses of human civilization except on favoured spots, where Nature helped man by copious and fertilizing inundations, and a warm and genial climate.

Modern researches have shown that between thirty and forty centuries ago, civilization was not the common property of the human race, but was confined almost exclusively to four favoured spots in the Old World. The

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