INTRODUCTION. IN N the history of the world India occupies the foremost place. From the dawn of history to the present day India has been connected in one way or another with almost every event of world importance. By endowing India with the best and the choicest of gifts it had in store, Nature herself ordained that this magnificent country, with a climate varied and salubrious, a soil the most fertile in the world, animal and plant life the most abundant, useful and diversified to be found anywhere on the face of the earth, should play the leading part in the history of mankind. Mr. Murray says: "It (India) has always appeared to the imagination of the Western World adorned with whatever is most splendid and gorgeous; glittering, as it were, with gold and gems, and redolent of fragrant and delicious odours. Though there be in these magnificent conceptions something romantic and illusory, still India forms unquestionably one of the most remarkable regions that exist on the surface of the globe. The varied grandeur of its scenery and the rich productions of its soil are scarcely equalled in any other country." 1 Murray's History of India, p. 1. "India is an epitome of the whole world," and possesses all the leading features of other lands-the most bewitching scenery, the most fertile soil, the most dense forests, the highest mountains, some of the biggest rivers and intensely cold seasons, may be found along with arid, treeless deserts, sandy waterless plains, and the hottest days. To a student of humanity or of Nature, India even now is most picturesque, and is the most interesting country in the world. Count Bjornstjerna says: "But everything is peculiar, grand, and romantic in India-from the steelclad knight of Rajasthan to the devoted Brahman in the temples of Benares; from the fierce Mahratta on his fleet and active steed to the Nabob moving gently on his elephant; from the Amazon who chases the tiger in the jungle to the Bayadere who offers in volupte to her gods. Nature, too, in this glorious country is chequered with variety and clad in glowing colours: see the luxuriance of her tropical vegetation and the hurricane of her monsoon ; see the majesty of her snow-covered Himalayas and the dryness of her deserts; see the immense plains of Hindustan and the scenery of her lofty mountains; but, above all, see the immense age of her history and the poetry of her recollections."2 Professor Max Muller says: "If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly 1 Chambers's Encyclopædia, p. 337. Theogony of the Hindus, p. 126. "The scenery of the Himalayas," says Elphinstone, "is a sight which the soberest traveller has never described without kindling into enthusiasm, and which, if once seen, leaves an impression that can never be equalled or effaced."-History of India, p. 181. endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow-in some parts a very paradise on earth-I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we here in Europe-we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of the Greeks and the Romans, and of one Semitic race the Jewish-may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life, again I should point to India." He adds: "Whatever sphere of the human mind you may select for your special study, whether it be language, or religion, or mythology, or philosophy, whether it be laws or customs, primitive art or primitive science, everywhere you have to go to India, whether you like it or not, because some of the most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India and in India only."1 Professor Heeren says: "India is the source from which not only the rest of Asia but the whole Western World derived their knowledge and their religion." A writer in the Calcutta Review for December 1861, 1 Max Muller's India: What can it teach us? p. 15. said: "Though now degraded and abased, yet we cannot doubt that there was a time when the Hindu race was splendid in arts and arms, happy in government, wise in legislation and eminent in knowledge."1 "The ancient state of India," says Mr. Thornton, "must have been one of extraordinary magnificence." 112 Colonel Tod asks: "Where can we look for sages like those whose systems of philosophy were the prototypes of those of Greece: to whose works Plato, Thales, and Pythagoras were disciples? where shall we find astronomers whose knowledge of the planetary system yet excites wonder in Europe, as well as the architects and sculptors whose works claim our admiration, and the musicians who could make the mind oscillate from joy to sorrow, from tears to smiles, with the change of modes and varied intonation ?'"'3 1 The same Review says: "That the Hindus were in former times a commercial people we have every reason to believe the labours of the Indian loom have been universally celebrated, silk has been fabricated immemorially by the Hindus. We are also told by the Grecian writers that the Indians were the wisest of nations, and in metaphysical wisdom they were certainly eminent; in astronomy and mathematics they were equally well versed; this is the race who Dionysius recordsFirst assayed the deep, And wafted merchandize to coasts unknown, 'Their motions marked, and called them by their names.'" 66 Hindustan has from the earliest ages been celebrated as one of the most highly-favoured countries on the globe, and as abounding in the choicest productions both of Nature and Art."--Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 446, 2 Chapters of the British History of India, 3 Tod's Rajasthan, pp. 608, 609. A writer in the Edinburgh Review for October 1872, says: "The Hindu is the most ancient nation of which we have valuable remains, and has been surpassed by none in refinement and civilization; though the utmost pitch of refinement to which it ever arrived preceded, in time, the dawn of civilization in other nation of which we have even the name in history. The further our literary inquiries are extended here, the more vast and stupendous is the scene which opens to us." any An attempt has been made in the following pages, with the help of the laudable labours of philanthropists like Sir W. Jones, Prof. H. H. Wilson, Mr. Colebrooke, Colonel Tod, Mr. Pococke and other European scholars and officers to whom the country owes a great debt of gratitude, to get a glimpse of that civilization which, according to the writer quoted above, has not yet been surpassed. And what is the result? What do we learn about the ancient Hindus? We learn that they were the greatest nation that has yet flourished on this earth. "In the world there is nothing great but man, In man there is nothing great but mind," was the favourite aphorism of the philosopher, Sir William Hamilton. And Mrs. Manning says: "The Hindus had the widest range of mind of which man is capable.' 112 We find that the ancient Hindus, in every feature of national life, were in the first rank. Take whatever department of human activity, you like, you find the ancient Hindus eminent in it, and as occupying a 'See Jevon's Logic, p. 9. "Ancient and Medieval India, Vol. II, p. 148, |