LECTURE IX.-Smārta-sūtra. Grihya, 'domestic rules' Smarta-sūtra. Samayaćārika, 'conventional rules' IN INTRODUCTION. N this Introduction I shall endeavour, first, to explain how Sanskrit literature is the only key to a correct knowledge of the opinions and practices of the Hindu people; and, secondly, to show how our possession of India involves special responsibilities and opportunities with reference to the study of the three great systems of belief now confronting Christianity in the world-Brāhmanism, Buddhism, and Islām. To clear the ground let me review very briefly the past and present history of the great country whose teeming population has been gradually, during the past two hundred and fifty years, either drawn under our sway, or, almost against our will, forced upon our protection. The name India is derived from the Greek and Roman adaptation of the word Hindu, which was used by the Persians for their Aryan brethren, because the latter settled in the districts surrounding the streams of the Sindhu (pronounced by them Hindhu and now called Indus). The Greeks, who probably gained their first conceptions of India from the Persians, changed the hard aspirate into a soft, and named the Hindus 'lvdoí (Herodotus IV. 44, V. 3). After the Hindū Āryans had spread themselves over the plains of the Ganges, the Persians called the whole of the region between the Panjāb and Benares Hindūstān or abode of the Hindūs,' and this name is used in India at the present day, especially by the Musalman population 3. The classical name for India, however, as commonly 1 Some detached portions of the information contained in this Introduction were embodied in a lecture on 'The Study of Sanskrit in Relation to Missionary Work in India,' delivered by me, April 19, 1861, and published by Messrs. Williams & Norgate. This lecture is still procurable. 2 Seven rivers (sapta sindhavaḥ) are mentioned, counting the main river and the five rivers of the Panjab with the Sarasvati. In old Persian or Zand we have the expression Hapta Hendu. It is well known that a common phonetic interchange of initial s and h takes place in names of the same objects, as pronounced by kindred races. 3 The name Hindustan properly belongs to the region between the Sutlej and Benares, sometimes extended to the Narbadā and Mahā-nadī rivers, but not to Bengal or the Dekhan. employed in Sanskrit literature and recognized by the whole Sanskritic race, more particularly in Bengal and the Dekhan, is Bharata or Bharata-varsha-that is to say-the country of king Bharata',' who must have ruled over a large extent of territory in ancient times (see pp. 371, 419 of this volume). It will not, of course, be supposed that in our Eastern Empire we have to deal with ordinary races of men. We are not there brought in contact with savage tribes who melt away before the superior force and intelligence of Europeans. Rather are we placed in the midst of great and ancient peoples, who, some of them tracing back their origin to the same stock as ourselves, attained a high degree of civilization when our forefathers were barbarians, and had a polished language, a cultivated literature, and abstruse systems of philosophy, centuries before English existed even in name. The population of India, according to the census of 1872, amounts to at least 240 millions. An assemblage of beings so immense does 1 Manu's name (II. 22) for the whole central region between the Himālaya and Vindhya mountains is Āryāvarta, ' abode of the Aryans,' and this is still a classical appellation for that part of India. Another name for India, occurring in Sanskrit poetry, is Jambu-dvipa (see p. 419). This is restricted to India in Buddhist writings. Strictly, however, this is a poetical name for the wh p. 419), of which India was thought to be the mom Bharata in Rig-veda I. xcvi. 3 may mean 'a supporter,' 'sus her, and Bhārata-varsha may possibly convey the idea of 'a supporting land.' 2 Of these about 27 millions belong to the native states. In the Bengal provinces alone the number, according to the census of 1871-72, amounts to 66,856,859, far in excess of any previous estimate. Of these, only 19,857 are Europeans, and 20,279 Eurasians. A most exhaustive and interesting account of its details is given by Sir George Campbell in his Bengal Administration Report. This is the first real census of the country yet attempted. Sir William Jones in 1787 thought the population of Bengal, Behar, Orissa (with Benares also) amounted to 24,000,000; Colebrooke in 1802 computed it at 30,000,000; in 1844 it was estimated at 31,000,000; and of late years it was assumed to be about 40 or 41 millions. Now it is found that the food-producing area of Bengal numbers 650 souls to the square mile, as compared with 422 in England, and 262 in the United Kingdom. The three Presidency towns number 644,405 inhabitants for Bombay (called by the natives Mumbai); 447,600 for Calcutta (Kalikātā); and 397,522 for Madras (Cenna-pattanam): but not, of course, form one nation. India is almost a continent like Europe. From the earliest times its richness has attracted various and successive immigrants and invaders, Asiatic and European. Its inhabitants differ as much as the various continental races, and speak languages equally distinct. We have first the aboriginal primitive tribes, who, migrating from Central Asia and the steppes of Tartary and Tibet, entered India by successive incursions1. Then we have the great Hindu race, originally members of that primeval family who called themselves Arya or noble, and spoke a language the common source of Sanskrit, Prākṛit, Zand, Persian, and Armenian in Asia; and of the Hellenic, Italic, Keltic, Teutonic, and Slavonic languages in Europe. Starting at a later period than the primitive races, but like them from some part of the table-land of Central Asia-probably the region surrounding the sources of the Oxus, in the neighbourhood of Bokhara-they separated into distinct nationalities, and peopled Europe, Persia, and India. The Hindu Āryans, after detaching themselves from the Persian branch of the family, settled in the Panjab and near the sacred river Sarasvati. Thence they overran the plains of the Ganges, and spread themselves over the region called Āryāvarta (see p. xvi, note 1), occupying the whole of Central India, coalescing ay, making it come next the suburbs have been calculated in the case to London as the second city in the Empire. If this had been done in Calcutta and Madras, the numbers for Calcutta (according to Sir G. Campbell's Report) would have been 892,429, placing it at the head of the three cities. Almost every one in India marries as a matter of course, and indeed as a religious duty (see p. 246 of this volume). No infants perish from cold and exposure. As soon as a child is weaned it lives on rice, goes naked for two or three years, and requires no care whatever. The consequent growth of population will soon afford matter for serious anxiety. The Hindus are wholly averse from emigration. Formerly there were three great depopulators-war, famine, and pestilence-which some regard as evils providentially permitted to exist in order to maintain the balance between the productive powers of the soil and the numbers it has to support. Happily, our rule in India has mitigated these scourges; but where are we to look for sufficient checks to excess of population? 1 These aboriginal tribes, according to the last census, amount to 14,238,198 of the whole population of India. For an account of them see p. 312, note 1, and p. 236, note 2, of this volume. b with and, so to speak, Aryanizing the primitive inhabitants, and driving all who resisted them to the south or towards the hills. But India, even after its occupation by the great Āryan race, appears to have yielded itself up an easy prey to every invader. Herodotus (IV. 44) affirms that it was subjugated by Darius Hystaspes. This conquest, if it ever occurred, must have been very partial. The expedition of Alexander the Great to the banks of the Indus, about 327 B.C., is a familiar fact. To this invasion is due the first authentic information obtained by Europeans concerning the north-westerly portion of India and the region of the five rivers, down which the Grecian troops were conducted in ships by Nearchus. Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleukos Nikator, during his long sojourn at Palibothra (see note, p. 231), collected further information, of which Strabo (see p. 281, note), Pliny, Arrian, and others availed themselves. The next immigrants who appear, after a long interval, on the scene are the Pārsīs. This small tribe of Persians (even now, according to the last census, not more than seventy thousand in number) were expelled from their native land by the conquering Muhammadans under the Khalif Omar in the seventh century. Adhering to the ancient religion of Persia-the worship, that is, of the Supreme Being under the symbol of fire-and bringing with them the records of their faith, the Zand-Avastă of their prophet Zoroaster (see p. 6), they settled down in the neighbourhood of Surat about 1100 years ago, and became great merchants and shipbuilders1. For two or three centuries we = 1 The Parsis appear to have settled first at Yazd in Persia, where a number of them still remain. The Zand-Avastā consists of 1. the five Gāthās, or songs and prayers (in metres resembling Vedic), which alone are thought to be the work of Zoroaster himself, and form part of the Yazna (or Yaśna yajna), written in two dialects (the older of the two called by Haug the Gathā); 2. the Vendidad, a code of laws; 3. the Yashts, containing hymns to the sun and other deities. There is another portion, called the Visparad, also a collection of prayers. Peshotun Dustoor Behramjee Sunjana, in a note to his Dinkard (an ancient Pahlavi work just published at Bombay, containing a life of Zoroaster and a history of the Zoroastrian religion), informs us that the Avastā has three parts: 1. Gāthā, 2. Date, and 3. Mathre; 1. being in verse and treating of the invisible world, 2. in prose and giving rules of conduct, 3. comprising prayers and precepts and an account of the creation. The Hindū and Zoroastrian systems were evidently derived from the same source. Fire |