CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION.

WITH the first accounts we have of India, a mighty empire at once opens to our view; which, in extent, riches, and population, has not we believe been equalled by any one nation on the globe. We find an ingenious and refined system of religion and civil policy established; sciences and arts known and practised; and all of these evidently brought to the degree of perfection they had attained at that remote period, by the accumulated experience of many preceding ages. We see a country abounding in fair and opulent cities; magnificent temples and palaces; useful and ingenious artists employing the precious stones and metals in curious workmanship; manufacturers fabricating cloths, which, in the

fineness of their texture, and the beauty and duration of some of their dyes, have not hitherto been equalled by those of any other nation. Through that immense country the traveller was enabled to journey with ease and safety; the public roads were shaded with trees to defend him from the sun; at convenient distances, buildings were erected for him to repose in ; a friendly Brahmin attended to supply his wants; and hospitality and the laws held out assistance and protection to all alike, to the stranger as well as native, of whatever faith or country, without prejudice or partiality.

Their laws, being interwoven with their religious doctrines, perhaps threw too great a preponderance on the side of the priesthood; but the evil which this might have occasioned, seems, in some degree, to have been rectified by the exclusion of the members of that order from temporal offices ;*

*This law still exists in force with respect to the Brahmins, who are of the first class of the priesthood; but all who are not of that class, may, in consequence of the changes that have been produced by invasion and

so that while they guarded the people from tyranny, they secured to the sovereign the peaceable and lawful obedience of his subjects.

The sciences, being confined to a particular class, could not be so susceptible of that improvement which they may attain in countries, where the study of them is open to the public at large, and where genius is encouraged and respected in whatever sphere it may appear: the priests in Hindustan seem early to have foreseen, that extension of knowledge among the other classes of the community, would produce the decline of their authority; and they therefore appear to have guarded against it, with an extraordinary degree of caution. Yet, with all the exceptions that can be made, we must allow, that the laws and government of the Hindus tended, as much as any others with which we are acquainted, to procure peace, and promote

conquest, now follow other pursuits, provided they be exempt from manual labor. See Note B, infra.

happiness. They were calculated to prevent violence, to encourage benevolence and charity, to keep the people united among themselves, and to prevent their tranquillity from being disturbed by the introduction of foreign innovations.

It was never our intention to contend with those who have endeavoured to reduce the chronology of the Indians to the standard of that now in use with European nations; nor to range ourselves with others who have ventured to suppose, that much of what was promulgated, and taught by the legislator of the Hebrews, was learnt by him from the Egyptians, and by these from the Hindūs; or, in other words, that the laws of Moses are to be traced to Hindūstān. On this, we are ready to concur with a learned author;* who, while he admits that communications existed between the Egyptians and Indians, long before the birth of Moses, observes, that "this will in no degree affect the truth and sanctity of

the Mosaic history."* Men unwillingly renounce opinions in which they have been nursed, or which they have undertaken to defend :-and those who have been accustomed to admire the philosophers of Greece and Rome, will not easily be brought to admit, that, long before these existed, there were philosophers in India equal to the most celebrated of them, and who in certain sciences were their superiors; that,

* Jones's Works, vol. iii. p. 391, et seq.

He remarks in the same article, that " M. Sonnerat refers to a dissertation by Mr. Schmidt, which gained a prize at the Academy of Inscriptions, On an Egyptian Colony established in India: it would be worth while to examine his authorities, and either to overturn or verify them by such higher authorities, as are now accessible in these provinces. I strongly incline to think him right; and to believe that Egyptian priests have actually come from the Nile to the Ganga and Yamuna, which the Brahmins most assuredly would never have left: they might, indeed, have come either to be instructed or to instruct; but it seems more probable, that they visited the Surmans of India, as the sages of Greece visited them, rather to acquire than to impart knowledge; nor is it likely, that the self-sufficient Brahmins would have received them as their preceptors."