of Sivají, had faded out of sight at Sátára and Kolhápur. The Peshwás came of a high Bráhman lineage, while the actual fighting force of the Maráthás consisted of low-caste Hindus. It thus happened that each Maráthá general who rose to independent territorial sway, was inferior in caste, although possessed of more real power than the Peshwa, the titular head of the confederacy. Of the two great northern houses, Holkar was descended from a shepherd,1 and Sindhia from a slipper-bearer.2 These potentates lay quiet for a time. Progress after their crushing disaster at Pánípat. But within ten years of that fatal field, they had finally established themselves Maráthás. throughout Málwá, and invaded the Rájput, Ját, and Rohillá Provinces, from the Punjab on the west to Oudh on the east (1761-71). In 1765, the titular Emperor, Shah Alam, had and sunk into a British pensioner after his defeat at Baxar. In 1761-1803. 1771 he made overtures to the Maráthás. Holkar and Sindhia nominally restored him to his throne at Delhi, but held him a virtual prisoner till 1803-04, when they were overthrown by our second Maráthá war. of the northern Sindhia Holkar, The 1751-1853. The third of the northern Maráthá houses, namely, the Bhonslas Bhonslas of Berar and the Central Provinces, occupied themof Berar, selves with raids to the east. Operating from their basis at Nagpur, they had extorted, by 1751, the chauth or 'quarterrevenue' of Bengal, together with the sovereignty of Orissa. The accession of the British in Bengal (1756-65) put a stop to their raids in that Province. In 1803, a division of our army drove them out of Orissa. In 1817, their power was finally broken by our last Maráthá war. Their head-quarter territories, now forming the Central Provinces, were administered under the guidance of British Residents from 1817 to 1853. On the death of the last Raghují Bhonsla, without issue, in 1853, Nagpur lapsed to the British. The The fourth of the northern Maráthá houses, namely, Gaekwárs Baroda,5 extended its power throughout Gujarát, on the northof Baroda. western coast of Bombay, and the adjacent peninsula of Káthiáwár. The scattered but wealthy dominions known as the Territories of the Gáekwár were thus formed. Since our last Maráthá war, in 1817, Baroda has been ruled by the Gaekwár, with the help of a British Resident and a 1 See article INDORE, The Imperial Gazetteer of India. 4 See article CENTRAL PROVINCES, The Imperial Gautteer of India. THE THREE MARATHA WARS. 323 subsidiary force. In 1874, the reigning Gáekwár, having Baroda in attempted to poison the Resident, was tried by a High Com- 1874. mission consisting of three European and three native members, found guilty, and deposed. But the British Government refrained from annexing the State, and raised a descendant of the founder of the family from poverty to the State cushion. While these four northern houses of the Maráthás were pursuing their separate careers, the Peshwá's power was being broken to pieces by family intrigues. The sixth Peshwa, Sixth Madhu Ráo Nárayan, was born after his father's death, and Peshwá, during his short life of twenty-one years the power remained 1774-95. in the hands of his minister, Náná Farnavis. Raghubá, the uncle of the late Peshwá, disputed the birth of the posthumous child, and claimed for himself the office of Peshwá. The infant's guardian, Náná Farnavis, having invoked the aid of the French, the British sided with Raghubá. These alliances brought on the first Maráthá war (1779-81), ending with the First Martreaty of Salbái (1782). That treaty ceded the islands of 1779-81. Salsette and Elephanta with two others to the British, secured to Raghubá a handsome pension, and confirmed the child - Peshwá in his sovereignty. The latter, however, only reached manhood to commit suicide at the age of twenty-one. áthá war, Peshwá, Maráthá His cousin, Bájí Ráo 11., succeeded him in 1795 as the Seventh seventh and last Peshwá. The northern Maráthá house of and last Holkar now took the lead among the Maráthás, and forced the 1795-1818. Peshwá into the arms of the English. By the treaty of Bassein in 1802, the Peshwá agreed to receive and pay for a British force to maintain him in his dominions. The northern Maráthá houses combined to break down this treaty. The second Maráthá war followed (1803-04). General Wellesley Second crushed the forces of the Sindhia and Nágpur houses on the war, great fields of Assaye and Argaum in the south, while Lord 1803-04. Lake disposed of the Maráthá armies at Laswári and Delhi in the north. In 1804, Holkar was completely defeated at Dig. These campaigns led to large cessions of territory to the British, the overthrow of the French influence in India, and the replacement of the titular Delhi Emperor under the protection of the English. In 1817-18, the Peshwá, Holkar, Last Marand the Bhonsla Maráthás at Nágpur took up arms, each on his own account, against the British, and were defeated in detail. That war finally broke the Maráthá power. The Peshwá, Bájí Ráo, surrendered to the British, and his territories átha war, 1817-18. were annexed to our Bombay Presidency. The Peshwá remained a British pensioner at Bithúr, near Cawnpore, on a End of the magnificent allowance, till his death. His adopted son grew into the infamous Náná Sáhib of the Mutiny of 1857, when the last relic of the Peshwás disappeared from the eyes of Peshwás, 1849. up men. 1 For a summary of the events of this last Maráthá war, vide post, pp. Also Grant Duff's History of the Maráthás, vol. iii. passim. 401, 402. CHAPTER XIII. THE INDIAN VERNACULARS AND THEIR LITERATURE. Indian for India races; THE foregoing chapters have summarized the successive The three settlements of Asiatic peoples in India. The remainder of stages in this volume will deal with altogether different aspects of Indian history: history. For the three essential stages in that history are— (1) first, the long struggle for India by the races of Asia; second, Struggle a shorter struggle for India by European nations; third, the by the consolidation of India under British rule. From the great Asiatic contest of five thousand years, England emerged the victor. We have seen how the tidal waves of Asiatic populations- European (2) by the pre-Aryan, Aryan, Scythic, Afghán, and Mughal-swept across nations; India from the north. The next chapter (xiv.) will exhibit the (3) Conbriefer, but not less eventful, efforts of the European maritime of India powers to enter India from the sea. The conquest of India under by the British, and an account of the administration which British they have established throughout its widely separated Provinces, will conclude this volume. solidation rule. temporary, and semi The inroads under Alexander the Great and his successors Greek had proved momentary episodes,-episodes, moreover, of an inroads Asiatic rather than of a European type. The Greek and Græco-Bactrian hosts entered India from the north; they Asiatic in effected no settlements beyond the frontier Province; and the type. permanent element in their forces consisted of Asiatic rather than of European troops. The civilisation and organization of India, from a prehistoric period many thousand years before Christ down to the 15th century A.D., had been essentially the work of Asiatic races. Since the end of that century, when the Portuguese landed on the Malabar coast, the course of Indian history has been profoundly influenced by European nations. of India. Before entering on this new period, therefore, it is desir- Asiatic able to obtain a clear idea of India, as moulded by the civilisation survival of the fittest among the Asiatic peoples who had struggled for the Indian supremacy during so many thousand years. The social constitution of the Indian races on the As found by the European Powers. India in the Ist century A. D. India in the 16th century A. D. The Dravidians. twofold basis of religion and caste, has been fully explained. Their later political organization under the Afgháns, Mughals, and Maráthás, has been more briefly summarized. It remains, however, to exhibit the geographical distribution of the Indian races, and the local landmarks, literatures, and languages, which the Europeans found on their arrival in India. Before the beginning of the Christian era, Northern India was partitioned out among civilised communities in which the Aryan element prevailed, while the southern peninsula was covered with forests, and dotted with the settlements of nonAryan peoples. The Northern Aryans had a highly developed literary language, Sanskrit. They spoke less artificial cognate dialects, called Prákrits, which (equally with the Sanskrit) had grown out of the primitive Indo-Germanic tongue. The non-Aryans of Southern India at that period knew nothing of the philosophy or sciences which flourished in the north. They had not even a grammatical settlement of the principles of their own language; and they used vernaculars so uncouth as to earn for them, from the civilised Aryans, the name of Mlechchhas, meaning the people of imperfect utterance or broken speech,1 When the European nations arrived in India during the 16th and 17th centuries, all this had changed. The stately Sanskrit of the Northern Aryans had sunk into a dead language, still used as a literary vehicle by the learned, but already pressed hard by a popular literature in the speech of the people. The Prákrits, or ancient - spoken dialects, had given place to the modern vernaculars of Northern India. In Southern India a still greater change had taken place. The obscure non-Aryan races had there developed a political organization and a copious literature, written in vernaculars of their own,-vernaculars which, while richly endowed for literary uses, remained non-Aryan in all essentials of structure and type. Leaving aside, for the moment, the changes among the Aryans in the north, let us briefly examine this survival of prehistoric non-Aryan life in the southern peninsula. The non-Aryan races of the south were spoken of by Sanskrit authors under the general name of Dravidas, and their For the ideas connoted by this word, and its later application to the Huns and Musalmáns, see the Honourable K. T. Telang's Essay on the Mudrárákhasa, pp. 4-7, 12, etc., and footnotes. Bombay. |