council.

large cauldron of oil. The council was assembled CHAPTER I. on the following day, and the nomination of the The great deceased Maharaja was accepted. The exile of Ráma was considered to disqualify him for succeeding to the throne; and messengers were sent to bring Bharata to Ayodhya with all speed.

for the Maha

Bharata hastened to the capital, but on his arrival he is said to have refused to ascend the throne to the exclusion of his elder brother. Before this point could be settled, it was necessary that he should superintend the burning of the royal remains, and perform the thirteen days of mourning. The body Funeral rites of the deceased Maharaja was placed upon a litter, raja. and covered with garlands, and sprinkled with incense. The funeral procession then moved slowly along to the place of burning without the city. First walked the bards and eulogists, chanting the praises of the deceased Maháraja in melancholy strains. Next appeared the royal widows on foot, with their long black hair dishevelled over their shoulders, shrieking and screaming as they moved along. Next came the royal litter borne by the servants of the Maháraja, with the sacred fire ever burning; whilst the insignia of royalty were held over the royal corpse,-the white umbrella of sovereignty, and the jewelled chamaras of hair waving to and fro. Bharata and his brother walked close behind, weeping very bitterly, and holding on to the litter with their hands. Other servants followed in chariots, and distributed funeral gifts amongst the surrounding multitude. The place of burning was a desolate spot on the bank of the river Sarayú. There the funeral pile was prepared, and the royal corpse was reverently placed thereon;

CHAPTER I. and animals were sacrificed, and their flesh placed upon the pile, together with boiled rice, oil, and ghee. Bharata fired the pile, which was consumed amidst the cries of the women, and the lamentations of the vast multitude. Bharata and his brother then poured out libations of water to refresh the soul of their departed father; and the mourners returned to the gloomy city. For ten days Bharata lamented for his father on a mat of kusa grass. On the tenth day he purified himself. On the twelfth day he performed the Sráddha, or offering of cakes and other food to the soul of his father. On the thirteenth day he returned to the place of burning, accompanied by his brother, and threw all the remains of the deceased sovereign into the river; and thus the funeral rites. of Maháraja Dasaratha were brought to a close.

Closing scenes and return of Ráma.

According to the Rámáyana, Bharata subsequently undertook a journey into the jungle, in order to offer the Raj to his elder brother Ráma ; and the interview between the two brothers on the hill of Chitra-kúta is described at considerable length. But the incidents, although interesting in themselves, are somewhat apocryphal, and throw no light upon ancient manners and usages.24 Ráma is said to have refused the Raj; and Bharata returned to Ayodhya to rule the empire of Kosala in the name of his elder brother. At this point the original tradition of the exile of Ráma seems to have terminated; and it will suffice to add that at the expiration of the fourteen years of banishment Ráma returned to Ayodhya with his wife and brother, and

21 The details will be found in History, vol. ii. part iv., Rámáyana, chap. xiii. xiv. etc.

was solemnly installed on the throne of Kosala by CHAPTER I. the faithful and loyal Bharata.25

of the Vedic

The broad distinction between the life of the Disappearance ancient Rishis, and that of the ancient Kshatriyas, Rishis. has already been pointed out. There was an equally wide difference in their respective destinies. The Vedic Rishis, who chaunted hymns and offered sacrifice on the banks of the rivers of the Punjab, have left no relic of their existence beyond the picture of domestic and religious life which is reflected in the hymns of the Rig-Veda. For thousands of years they may have cultivated their fields, and grazed their cattle and horses, whilst developing a religious culture which was to revolutionize the old primitive worship of Hindustan. But for ages the Rishis have disappeared from the religious life

25 The original tradition of the exile of Ráma is to be found in the Buddhist chronicles, and is exhibited at length in chapter iii. on the life and teachings of Gótama Buddha.

But the Ramayana contains an account of the exile, which belongs to a much later period, and cannot apparently have any connection with the earlier tradition. According to this later story, Ráma spent thirteen years of his exile in wandering with his wife and brother from one Brahmanical hermitage to another, in the country between the river Ganges and the river Godaveri. These journeyings extended from the hill Chitra-kúta in Bundelkund, to the modern town of Nasik, near the sources of the Godaveri, about seventy-five miles to the northwest of the modern town of Bombay. The hermitages are said to have been occupied by the old Rishis who composed the Vedic hymns, and who are represented as Brahmans, although they must have flourished ages before the appearance of the Brahmans. The whole narrative may therefore be dismissed as apocryphal; as a mythical invention of comparatively modern date, intended as an introduction to the tradition of another and later Ráma, who may be distinguished as the Rama of the Dekhan. This Ráma of the Dekhan is represented to have carried on a great religious war against a Raja named Ravana, who was sovereign of the island of Ceylon, anciently known as Lanka. Ravana and his subjects are termed Rakshasas or demons; but there is reason to believe that they represent the Buddhists; and if so, the war could not have been carried on during the Vedic period, but during the Brahmanical revival, which seems to have commenced between the sixth and eighth centuries of the Christian era, and to have continued until our own time. It will accordingly be treated in chapter vii.

CHAPTER I. of India; and their strains of natural piety have died out of the land like a poet's dream.

Absence of Kshatriya annals.

Probable stra

tegy of the

The Punjab.

The Kshatriyas were men of a far different calibre. They were the conquerors of Hindustan, and they must have possessed a history; and though the annals of the conquest were not perhaps written in books, they were doubtless preserved for centuries as songs or ballads in the memory of the bards. But during a later age of Brahmanical revival they were lost in religious revolution, or converted into vehicles or parables for Brahmanical teaching. Every element of historical value was eliminated. Genealogies were fabricated by unscrupulous Bráhmans for the purpose of tracing the descent of existing royal houses to the Sun and Moon, to ancient Rishis who composed the Vedic hymns, or to heroes who were present at the Swayamvara of Draupadí, or fought in the war of Mahá Bhárata. Chronology was perverted by caprice or imagination. Thousands of years were assigned to a single reign. The result is that to this day the eras of the Vedic hymns, the war of the Mahá Bhárata, the exile of Ráma, and the invasion of Hindustan by the Vedic Aryans, are as utterly unknown as the date of Stonehenge.

But although the chronology is hopelessly lost, Aryan invaders. some idea of the progress of the Aryan invasion may be derived from a consideration of the face of the country. The Punjab has already been indicated as the Indian home of the Vedic Kshatriyas; and consequently the basis for all military operations on the part of the Vedic Aryans against the aboriginal or non-Vedic population of the valleys of the Ganges and Jumna. It is a compact territory lying to the

north-west of Hindustan; and is watered by the CHAPTER I. Indus and its tributaries, which appear on the map like the sacred candlestick with seven branches.26 The most eastern tributary of the Indus was the river Saraswatí, which formerly separated the Punjab from Hindustan. Indeed the Saraswatí was to the Vedic Aryans what the river Jordan was to the Israelites. It cut them off from the rich valleys of the Jumna and Ganges, which lay stretched out before them like a land of promise:-to the Rishis a land flowing with milk and butter; to the Kshatriyas a land of flesh-meat and savoury game.

The area of the Aryan invasion thus comprised Hindustan. the greater part of the region between the tributaries of the Indus and the basin of the Brahmaputra ; although the stream of Aryan conquest had probably spent its force before it reached Bengal. This area, known as Hindustan, was traversed from the west to the east by the rivers Jumna and Ganges, which appear on the map like an irregular two-pronged fork. The two prongs take their rise in the Himalayas near the sources of the Indus, and bend round in two parallel lines towards the south-east, until they converge, and form a junction at Allahabad, the ancient Prayága, in the centre of Hindustan. The united streams then flow in one current from Allahabad, in an easterly direction towards the ancient city of Gour. There the river elbows round towards the south, and diverges into two channels, known as the Hooghly and the Ganges,

25 The Punjab literally signifies the land of the five rivers, namely, the Indus, the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravee, and the Sutlej. To these may be added the Beas and the Saraswati, making seven rivers in all.