THE BHARS AND KOCH.

more briefly dealt with.

187

Proceeding inwards into the NorthWestern Provinces, we everywhere find traces of an early Buddhist civilisation in contact with, or overturned by, rude non-Aryan tribes. In Bareilly District, for example, the wild Ahírs from the north, the Bhils from the south, and the Bhars from the east, seem to have expelled highly-developed Aryan communities at some period before 1000 A.D. Still farther to the east, all remains of pre-historic masonry in Oudh and the North-Western Provinces are assigned to the ancient Buddhists or to a non-Aryan race of Bhars.

The Bhars appear to have possessed the north Gangetic The Bhars plains in the centuries coeval with the fall of Buddhism. in Oudh. Their kingdoms extended over most of Oudh. Lofty mounds covered with ancient groves mark the sites of their forgotten cities; and they are the mysterious 'fort-builders' to whom the peasantry ascribe any ruin of unusual size. In the central valley of the Ganges, their power is said to have been crushed by the Sharki dynasty of Jaunpur in the end In Jaunof the 14th century. In the Districts north of the Gan- pur. getic plain, the Bhars figure still more prominently in local traditions, and an attempt has been made to trace their continuous history. In GORAKHPUR DISTRICT, the aboriginal In GorakhTharus and Bhars seem to have overwhelmed the early pur. outposts of Aryan civilisation several centuries before Christ. Their appearance on the scene is connected with the rise of Buddhism. They became vassals of the Buddhist kingdom of Behar on the south-east; and on the fall of that power, about 550 A.D., they regained their independence. The Chinese pilgrim in the 7th century comments in this region on the large number of monasteries and towers-the latter probably a monument of the struggle with the aboriginal Bhars, who were here finally crushed between the 7th and the 10th centuries A.D. In 1881, the total Bhar population of Oudh and the North-Western Provinces numbered 349,113.

of

As we advance still farther eastwards into Bengal, we find that the non-Aryan races have within historical time supplied a large part of the Hindu population. In the north, the Koch The Koch established their dominion upon the ruins of the Aryan Northern kingdom of Kámrúp, which the Afghán King of Bengal had Bengal. overthrown in 1489. The Koch gave their name to the Native State of KUCH BEHAR; and their descendants, together In Kuch Behar. with those of other non-Aryan tribes, form the mass of the people in the neighbouring British Districts, such as RANGPUR. In RangIn 1881, they numbered 14 million in Northern Bengal and pur.

Kuch Behar Rájás.

Ahams of
Assam.

PreAryan element south of the

Behar. One part of them got rid of their low origin by becoming Musalmáns, and thus obtained the social equality which Islám grants to all mankind. The rest have merged more or less imperfectly into the Hindu population; and about threequarters of a million of them claim, in virtue of their position as an old dominant race, to belong to the Kshattriya caste. They call themselves Rájbansís, a term exactly corresponding to the Rajputs of Western India. The Hinduized Rájás of Kuch Behar obtained for their ancestors a divine origin from their Brahman genealogists, in order to efface their aboriginal descent; and among the nobility all mention of the Koch tribe was avoided. The present Mahárájá married the daughter of the celebrated theistic apostle, Keshab Chandra Sen, the leader of the Brahmo Samáj. He is an honorary major in the British army, and takes a prominent part in Calcutta and Simla society.

race.

Proceeding still eastwards, the adjacent valley of Assam was, until the last century, the seat of another non-Aryan ruling The Ahams entered Assam from the south-east about 1350 (?) A.D.; had firmly established their power in 1663; gradually yielded to Hinduism; and were overpowered by fresh Buddhist invasions from Burma between 1750 and 1825, when the valley was annexed to British India. The Ahams have been completely crushed as a dominant race; and their old national priests, to the number of 253,860, have been forced to become tillers of the soil for a living. But the people of Assam are still so essentially made up of aboriginal races and their Hinduized descendants, that not 130,000 persons of even alleged pure Aryan descent can be found in a population exceeding 43 millions.1

The foregoing summary has been confined to races north of the Ganges. Passing to the southern Gangetic plain, we find that almost every tract has traditions of a pre-Aryan tribe, either as a once-dominant race or as lying at the root of the Ganges. local population. The great Division of Bundelkhand conAborigines tains several crushed peoples of this class, and takes its name in Central from the Bundelas, a tribe of at least semi-aboriginal descent.

India;

1 The Brahmans in Assam number only 119,075 (being fewer than the Kalitás or old priests of the Ahams, 253,860), out of a total population in Assam of 4,881,426; while the Koch alone number about 230,382, and even the crushed Ahams 179,314. For further particulars regarding these races, see The Imperial Gazetteer of India, article ASSAM.

LASTING NON-ARYAN INFLUENCES.

189

As we rise from the Gangetic plains into the highlands of the Central Provinces, we reach the abiding home of the nonAryan tribes. One such race after another-Gaulís, Nágás, Gonds, Ahírs, Bhíls-ruled from the Sátpura plateau.1 Some of their chiefs and leading families now claim to be Kshattriyas; and a section of one of the lowest races, the Chauháns, borrowed their name from the noble Chauhán' Rájputs.

In the Lower Provinces of Bengal, we find the delta in Lower peopled by masses of pre-Aryan origin. One section of them Bengal ; has merged into low-class Hindus; another section has sought a more equal social organization by accepting the creed of Muhammad. But such changes of faith do not alter their ethnical type; and the Musalmán of the delta differs as widely in race from the Afghán, as the low-caste Hindu of the delta differs from the Bráhman. Throughout Southern India, the in non-Aryan elements form almost the entire population, and Southern have supplied the great Dravidian family of languages, which are spoken by 28 millions of people. Two of our oldest and most faithful allies in the Madras Presidency, the enlightened dynasty of Travancore, and the ancient princes of Pudukotta, are survivals of the time when non-Aryan sovereigns ruled over Southern India.

India.

influences

Hinduism.

The Scythic inroads, and the ancient Nágá and so-called Scythic aboriginal tribes, have, however, not merely left behind and Nágá remnants of races in individual Districts. They have affected on the character of the whole population, and profoundly influenced the religious beliefs and domestic institutions of India. In the Veda we see highly developed communities of the Aryan stock, worshipping bright and friendly gods, honouring woman, and assigning to her an important position in the family life. Husband and wife were the Dampati, or joint rulers of the Indo-Aryan household. Traditions of the freedom of woman among the ancient Aryan settlers survive in the swayamvara or Maiden's Own Choice of a Husband, in the epic poems.

The curtain of Vedic and Post-Vedic literature falls upon On the the scene before the 5th century B.C. When the curtain rises religion on the domestic and religious life of medieval India, in the domestic

and

life of

1 See CENTRAL PROVINCES, The Imperial Gazetteer of India. The Gaulís modern India. are locally believed to have been earlier fort-builders than the Gonds (see for example, article SAONER); and some of the Gond chiefs trace their descent through 54 generations to a well-recorded ancestor assigned to 91 A.D. (see The Imperial Gazetteer of India, article SARANGHAR).

The appeal to the Veda.

Puránas about the 10th century A.D., a vast change has taken place. The people are no longer sharply divided into civilised Aryans and rude non-Aryans, but into castes of a great mixed population. Their religion is no longer a worship of bright and friendly gods, but a composite product of Aryan spiritual conceptions and non-Aryan superstitions. The position of woman has also altered for the worse. Husband and wife are no longer joint rulers' of the household. The Maiden's Own Choice has fallen into disuse, or survived only as a Court pageant; the custom of child-marriage has grown up. The widow has been condemned to a life of privation, or has been taught the merit of extinguishing her existence on her husband's funeral pile.

The following chapter will exhibit this amorphous growth, popularly known as Hinduism. Orthodox Hindus are unfortunately in the habit of claiming the authority of the Veda for their mediæval institutions, for the evil as well as for the good. As a matter of fact, these institutions are the joint product of non-Aryan darkness and of Aryan light. The Scythic, and Nágá, and so-called aboriginal races, with their indifference to human suffering, their polyandric households, and their worship of fear and blood, have left their mark deep in the Hindu law-codes, in the terrorizing of the Hindu religion, and in the degradation of woman. English scholarship has shown that the worst feature of Hinduism, widow-burning, had no authority in the Veda. When it is equally well understood that the darker features of Hinduism, as a whole, rest not upon the Vedic scriptures, but are the result of a human compromise with non-Aryan barbarism, the task of the Indian reformer will be half accomplished. It is with a true popular instinct that the great religious movements of India in our day reject the authority of medieval Hinduism, and appeal back to the Veda.

CHAPTER VIII.

RISE OF HINDUISM (750 TO 1520 A.D.).

HINDU

ISM.

FROM these diverse races, pre-Aryan, Aryan, and Scythic, RISE OF the population of India has been made up. The task of organizing them fell to the Bráhmans. That ancient caste, which had never quitted the scene even during the height of the Buddhistic supremacy, stepped forward to the front of the stage upon the decay of the Buddhist faith. The Chinese pilgrim, about 640 A.D., had found Brahmanism and Buddhism co-existing throughout India. The conflict of creeds brought forth a great line of Bráhman apostles, from the 8th to the 16th century A.D., with occasional successors down to our own day. The disintegration of Buddhism, as

we have seen, occupied many hundred years, perhaps from 300 to 1000 A.D.1

A. D.

The Hindus take the 8th century as the turning-point in the Kumárila, struggle. About 750 A.D., arose a holy Bráhman of Bengal, 750 (?) Kumárila Bhatta by name, preaching the old Vedic doctrine of a personal Creator and God. Before this realistic theology, the impersonal abstractions of the Buddhists succumbed; and according to a later legend, the reformer wielded the sword of the flesh not less trenchantly than the weapons of the spirit. A Sanskrit writer, Madhava-Achárya, of the 14th century A.D., relates how Sudhanwan, a prince in Southern India, 'commanded his servants to put to death the old men and the Persecu children of the Buddhists, from the bridge of Ráma [the ridge tion (?) of of reefs which connects India with Ceylon] to the Snowy Mountain let him who slays not, be slain.' 2

1 From the language of the Saddharma Pundarika, translated into Chinese before the end of the 3rd century A.D., H. H. Wilson infers that even at that early date the career of the Buddhists had not been one of uninterrupted success, although the opposition had not been such as to arrest their progress' (Essays, vol. ii. p. 366, ed. 1862). The existence of Buddhism in India is abundantly attested to 1000 A.D.

2 Quoted by H. H. Wilson, ut supra. See also Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. iv. p. 708; Colebrooke's Essays, p. 190.

Buddhism.