CHAPTER II. INDIA-ITS EARLY HISTORY OBSCURE.-MOHAMMEDAN CONQUESTS.-BRITISH SUPREMACY.-INHABITANTS DIVERSIFIED. ABORIGINES AND HINDUS.HINDUS, THEIR IMMIGRATION AND PECULIARITIES.-POPULATION, RESPECTING EXTENT, AND DISTRIBUTION.-FURTHER PARTICULARS THE history of India does not fall within the scope of this work; not even can it be attempted to trace the brief outline of those political events which relate to its progress either in ancient or modern times. The origin of the Hindu nation is involved in mystery, and the events connected with the early dynasties, states, and kingdoms, are but very obscurely indicated in the records of the country. From the national epics something may be inferred regarding the early struggles of a solar and lunar race of kings, but up to the time of Alexander, who invaded India, we have little more than fabulous and mythological data for our guides. Considerable obscurity rests on the history of the Hindus even after the invasion of Alexander; of late, however, as already intimated, some light has been cast on this period by the progress made in the deciphering of ancient coins discovered in various parts of the country. Eventually Mohammedan conquerors overran the provinces of India, and the vast territory was for centuries subject to their despotic sway. The events connected with this period may be seen in the valuable history of India by the Honourable Mountstuart Elphinstone. It may be stated succinctly, that what the history of the world was between the earliest settlement of nations to the advent of the Messiah-a series of revolutions, of strifes, of violence, and of bloodshed-till the world found repose in the universal peace of the Roman empire, such was the history of India for three thousand years, when it was emancipated from anarchy and misrule by the conquests of Britain; and now it is blest with tranquillity, and enjoys the advantages of a mild, beneficent, and stable government. The following description from an eloquent author, the Reverend Doctor Duff, is as correct as it is graphic, and may be taken as an epitome of the state of India for many ages :— "At one time divided into a thousand petty states, scowling defiance at each other; here the parricide basely usurping the father's throne; and there the fratricide rescuing the lawful crown from his brother. At another time, split up and parcelled into groups of confederacies, cemented by the bond of indomitable hate, and leaving the retaliation of fell revenge as a legacy to children's children. After ages had rolled their course, in the tenth century of the Christian era, our eyes are turned away from the interior to the far distant north. There the horizon is seen thickening with lurid clouds, that roll their dense masses along the troubled atmosphere. denly the tempest bursts; and one barbarian conqueror At length the greatest and mightiest of them all, from the hyperborean regions of Tartary, from the gorges of the Indian Caucasus, descends upon the plains of poor unhappy India, proclaiming himself the scourge of God and the terror of men. His path is like the red lightning's course. And speedily he blasts the flower of India's chivalry, and smites into the dust her lordly confederacies. Her villages, and cities, and temples, and palaces, lie smoking in their ruins. Through fields of carnage and rivers of blood, he hastens to prop the sceptre of a universal but transient dominion. All India is made profusely to bleed ; and, ere her old wounds are healed, all India is made to bleed afresh. In swift and destructive succession, new issues forth after another. Sud imperial dynasties spring up out of the blood and ashes of the old." Such was the disastrous career of devastating armies, and such the disastrous effects, till the long oppressed tribes of that now peaceful land were freed by the progress of British enterprise. In the course of God's overruling providence, our embassies, our sieges, and our battles, have issued in the subjugation of those who, by their misrule, had so long afflicted the unhappy country in which we now behold the uniform administration of equitable law. As in the times anterior to the advent of the Saviour, the Roman armies prepared the way for the messengers of mercy who were commissioned to publish peace by Jesus Christ, so in these latter days the armies of Britain have in India prepared the way for the introduction of those heaven-derived doctrines which are now gradually diffusing light, and life, and happiness among the emancipated nations that compose our Indian empire. Being, then, in a position such as that we have attained, it becomes us to survey the extent of the responsibility involved in so weighty a trust. India, that immense territory, with all its resources and its teeming millions, whilst it enhances our power and augments our wealth, entails responsibilities. And that the brightest gem in the crown of our gracious and beloved Queen may never be removed, it behoves us to consider well the condition attached to its position there. Heaven designs Britain to convey to her Indian subjects those hallowed privileges which have been assured to her by a gracious Providence, through a long and arduous struggle, in which the constancy of her confessors, the blood of her martyrs, and the patience of her saints, have been conspicuous. To transfer these holy and heaven-born advantages to those whom she now rules, is the work that more than aught beside will assuredly enhance the glory of Britain. The treasures of the Gospel will be an ample return for the diamonds, and the pearls, and the rubies, wherewith India has enriched us. Assuming, then, as we feel it right to do, that Britain has a solemn and important mission to discharge in regard to the millions placed under her rule in our Eastern empire, it will be natural to inquire into their condition, their wants, and the means at our disposal for their amelioration on the due consideration of these concernments must depend the strength of our sympathy, and the vigour of our efforts in the work of India's evangelization. In discussing the subject now before us-the origin and social condition of the inhabitants of India—we have to do with a subject of extreme difficulty, and chiefly because the population is not homogeneous, but diversified in origin, in habit, as well as in religious sentiment and practice. Though the greater part of the inhabitants of India consists of Hindus, or followers of the Brahmanical system of religion, yet in the inaccessible heights among the hills of the country there are scattered tribes amounting to some millions, in a condition of barbarism equalled only among the savages who people the isles of the Pacific. And besides the Hindus and these mountain tribes, there are dispersed abroad in every province at least ten millions of the followers of the false prophet of Arabia. These notices will be sufficient to show that in India there are diversified inhabitants, whose several characteristics need to be considered in order to a due estimate of the condition of our fellow-subjects in that part of the world. It may be convenient here to state, that it is the Brahmanized portion of the population, as forming by far the largest part, that the present volume is designed mainly to present: not that the other races will be overlooked. The Brahmanized or Hindu population is of Caucasian origin; it sprang from Central Asia, the parent seat of population, of knowledge, of languages, and of arts. When it entered India, bringing its own language, of which the Sanscrit is the most polished type, it found an aboriginal race in possession of the country. The period of this immigration cannot be ascertained. Assuming hat it was anterior to the composition of the Vedas, which are supposed to have been written about the time of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, it would seem that its date was very remote. Speaking of those Brahmanists who entered India and civilized the aborigines, Professor Wilson says:— "That they had extended themselves from a more northern site, or that they were a northern race, is rendered probable from the peculiar expression used on more than one occasion, in soliciting long life, when the worshipper asks for a hundred winters,—a boon not likely to be desired by the natives of a warm climate. They appear also to have been a faircomplexioned people, at least comparatively so, and foreign invaders of India, as it is said that Indra divided the fields among his white-complexioned friends after destroying the indigenous barbarians." The Hindu invaders brought with them an Indo-Germanic language, closely allied with those of Europe; they subjugated the aborigines they found in the country; and throughout India established municipal institutions. It would further appear that the Hindus did not advance rapidly towards the south, as Manu describes the inhabitants lying south of the twenty-second degree of latitude, as being "barbarians living in forests, and speaking an unknown tongue." Lieutenant-General Briggs, F. R. S., in a lecture on the aboriginal races of India, has recorded some valuable deductions, and appended thereunto some statistics regarding population, which I shall, for the elucidation of the general subject here transcribe : He says, "The points I desire to establish are— 1. That the Hindus entered India from a foreign country, and that they found it pre-occupied by inhabitants. 2. That by slow degrees they possessed themselves of the whole of the soil, reducing to serfage those they could retain upon it. 3. That they brought with them the Sanscrit language, a tongue different from that of the Aborigines. 4. That they introduced into the country municipal institutions. 5. That the Aborigines differ in every respect from the Hindus. 6. Lastly, that the Aborigines throughout India are derived from one common source. |