Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:

http://books.google.com/books?id=swpuAAAAMAAJ

(University of Michigan)
2. The letter "y" with circumflex is Courier New 375.

3. Map images are incomplete and are not provided here.

Map: India to the Present Day.

INDIA THROUGH THE
AGES

A POPULAR AND PICTURESQUE
HISTORY OF HINDUSTAN

BY

FLORA ANNIE STEEL

AUTHOR OF "ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS," ETC.

WITH 7 MAPS

THIRD EDITION

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

1911

PREFACE

A history, above all one which claims to hold no original research, but simply to be a compilation of the work of others, needs no introduction save the compiler's thanks to many who have been consulted.

One word, however, may be said regarding the only accent used--the circumflex.

This is put always on the tone of stress; that is to say, on the syllable to be accented. Thus Mâlwa, Ambêr, Jeysulmêr, Himâlya, Vizigapatâm. Where no accent appears the syllables are of equal value.

F. A. STEEL.

Talgarth, Machynlleth.

LIST OF MAPS

INDIA TO B.C. 231.

INDIA TO A.D. 1000.

INDIA TO A.D. 1483.

INDIA TO A.D. 1556.

INDIA TO A.D. 1707.

INDIA TO A.D. 1757.

INDIA AT THE PRESENT DAY.

CONTENTS

PART I

THE ANCIENT AGE

CHAPTER I

The Ancient Age--When it began--Earliest hymns--The Black people--The White people-Was there a third tribe?

CHAPTER II

The Vedic times--Extent of India--Rig-Veda--Seven rivers--Agriculture--Aryan gods--Aryan features--Hymns to the Dawn.

CHAPTER III

Days of the Epics--Larger extent of India known--Two great epics--The Brahmânas--The Mâhâbhârata--Story of Bhishma --A golden age--Bhishma's vow and its results--The Princess Drâupadi--Bhishma's death--The Râmâyana.

CHAPTER IV

The marvellous millennium--Its literature--The Ûpanishads--Kapîla's philosophy--Vedanta teaching--Religious atmosphere--Gâutama Buddha--Yoga, and other philosophies--Megasthenes' accounts.

CHAPTER V

The Sesu-nâga and other kings--Actual history--Scythians--First breath of reality--History of parricides--Nanda dynasty.

CHAPTER VI

The Anabasis--Alexander's march--Halt on the Indus--The Hydaspes--The stealing of a passage--His victory--Appeal to his soldiers--Forced to return--His sail down the Hydaspes to the sea--His death.

CHAPTER VII

The Great Mauryas--A landmark of history--Chândra-gupta's ability --His iron nerve--Seleukos Nikator--His great success and vast empire--Bindu-sâra--The great Asoka--His reign of religion--The Rock and Pillar edicts--An example to all people --His vast empire.

CHAPTER VIII

The outlying provinces--Difficulty of piecing together historical facts--Case of coins--The personal equation our only guide--The Sâkas--The Yuehchi--Manes--Gondophares--St Thomas --Horse sacrifice--Vikramadîtya--His era--Difficulty of recognising him--Soter Megas-Greek influence on India.

CHAPTER IX

The Bactrian Camel and the Indian Bull--Indo-Greek rulers--Age of gold--Transference of power--Mongolian invasion--Embassy to Rome--Kanîshka--Buddhist council--Hûshka, Jûshka, Kanîshka--Secretiveness of India--Song of the Plough.

CHAPTER X

The Great Gûpta Empire--Wedding bells--Kumâri Devi-- Chândra-gûpta II.--Samûdra-gupta--An Indian Alexander-- An Admirable Crichton--Vikramadîtya-gupta--The Golden Age of Hindus--Extraordinary artistic activity--A real Renaissance.

CHAPTER XI

The White Huns and good King Harsha--Attributes of the Huns-- Worst invasion--Hindu life crystallised into custom-Hypoæstheticised--Good King Harsha--Conversion to Buddhism--Hiuen T'sang, the Chinese priest.

CHAPTER XII

Chaos--The Dark Ages--No hero to hold the imagination--History silent--The Mahomedan invasion imminent--Mahomed's character.

PART II

THE MIDDLE AGE

CHAPTER I

Campaigns of the Crescent--Northern battlefield--Constant invasion --New blood against old--New creed against old--Mahmûd of Ghuzni--Taking of Nagarkot--Twelve raids--The last to Somnâth--Mahmûd's cruelty--His avarice--A born doubter.

CHAPTER II

Campaigns of the Crescent again in milder form--Masûd's imitation of Mahmûd's exploits--The Ghuznevide dynasty--Shahâb-ud-din and Ghiâss-ud-din, the brother kings--The former's change of name to Mahomed--His loot and riches.

CHAPTER III

The Râjput resistance--Râjputs born soldiers--Prithvi-Râj--Story of his marriage with Princess Sunyogata of Kanaûj--His victory over Mahomed Ghori--The latter's disgust--His final attempt at revenge--Princess Sunyogata's reply--The fatal field of Pâniput--Râjputs overthrown--Kutb-din the slave left viceroy of India--Mahomed Ghori's death.

CHAPTER IV

The slave kings--Delhi founded by a slave--The Kutb Minâr-- Kutb-ud-din Eîbuk--Altâmish--His bad sons and good daughter--The Empress Râzia--Scandal--Her and her husband's death--Nâsir-ud-din--A good king followed by many bad ones--Extinction of dynasty.

CHAPTER V

The Tartar dynasties--Slack rule--Tendency to break up into petty States--House of Khilji--Allah-ud-din--His murder of his uncle, Dervish Sidi--Allah-ud-din and Padmani--Sack of Chitore--Difficulties in the Dekkan--Extinction of House of Khilji--Toghluk dynasty--Ferôze Toghluk.

CHAPTER VI

Invasion of Timur--The Toork--Timur's terrible cruelty--A crushing blow--Thirty years of stupefaction.

CHAPTER VII

Devastated India--No master hand in India--Puppet kings--The Dekka fairly consolidated--The Râjputs raise their heads-- Thirty-six years of kinglessness--Three strong men: a warrior, a bigot, a tyrant.

CHAPTER VIII

The Great Moghuls--Story of Babar the adventurer--His extraordinary versatility and charm--His memoirs and literary skill--His constant knight errantry and endless fluctuations of fortune--His final attraction to India.

CHAPTER IX

Babar Emperor of India--His invasion of the Punjâb and return to gather more troops--His swoop on Delhi--The fatal field of Pâniput once more--His victories--His dislike to India--His overthrow of the Râjputs--His vow of total abstinence and victory--His unfailing vitality--Babar as lover and husband-- Devotion to his wife and children--His son Humâyon--Strange story of a father's devotion--The most romantic figure in Indian History.

CHAPTER X

Humâyon--His patience and clemency--Addicted to opium-- Dilatory character--The brothers' bracelet--Ungrateful brothers --His flight from Bengal--Increasing misfortunes--Driven to the desert--Falls in love--Romantic story--Akbar born in the desert--Father and mother forced to fly to Persia.

CHAPTER XI

The House of Sûr--Absolute usurpers--Not royal--Aided, however, by Humâyon's brothers--Held India for twelve years.

CHAPTER XII

The wanderings of a king--Humayon's record of misfortunes--His dilatoriness and absolute good temper--Little Prince Akbar's marvellous escapes--Europe's first knowledge of India--The Portuguese settlement-Humâyon's final return to India as Emperor--His death.

CHAPTER XIII

Akbar the Great--The times in Europe--His singular, almost incredible, character--A man of genius--His age at accession--His immediate grip on affairs--Byrâm-Khân--Fatal field of Pâniput once more--Hemu--Akbar's mercy--Dismissal of Byrâm--Record of the reign--English merchants--Birth of an heir--Fatehpur Sikri--Akbar's religion--His disappointment in his sons--A great dreamer.

CHAPTER XIV

Jahângir and Nurjahân--Story of Mihr-un-nissa--Her meeting with Jahângir-His constancy and final marriage--The first charter of the English trading company--Sir Thomas Roe's embassy-- Captain Hawkins--Nurjahân's influence.

CHAPTER XV

Shâhjahân--Knight of the rueful countenance--An age of gold-- Grant to England--Greatest magnificence of the Court--Trouble with English settlers at Calcutta--Pirates of Arracan--Indian revenues--Shâhjahân's sons--His devotion to his wife--The Tâj.

CHAPTER XVI

Aurungzebe--End of Middle Age--Unamiable character--Good king--Quarrel with Mahrattas under Siva-ji--Likeness between Aurungzebe and the Mahratta general--Extreme astuteness of latter--Additional grants to England--Help promised by James II. to East India Company--Sir John Child as scapegoat-- India's coral strand--Aurungzebe's untiring energy--His deathbed.

PART III

THE MODERN AGE

CHAPTER I

India in the beginning of the eighteenth century--General volte face--Review of the Indian Peninsula--Temptation of Tom Tiddler's ground--Gold but no riches--Bernier's horror at commercial status of India--Surprise at high state of intellectual civilisation--Curious contrasts--Western methods-- Salaries of officers--Story of the king of Guzerât--Gabriel Boughton--William Hamilton.

CHAPTER II

Rise of the Mahratta power--Siva-ji's genius for the sea--Moghuls' star descending--Bahâdur Shâh's difficulties--The Sikhs--Death of the Emperor--Recrudescence of the murders and horrors of the past--Accession of Farokhsir--Mahratta war--Growing strength of Mahrattas--Final victory--Asaf-Jâh returns Delhi-wards--Nâdir the Persian crosses the Indian Border.

CHAPTER III

The invasion of Nâdir--Once more the cry of "Toorkh"--Sole object gold--The raid seemed born out of due time--Diplomacies of Nâdir--The fatal field of Pâniput once more--This time an almost bloodless route--Delhi sieged, one hundred and fifty thousand killed--Thirty millions worth of solid plunder carried off--Decrease in dividends of Company--Opposition to its monopoly in trade once more raised--Renewal of monopoly.

CHAPTER IV

The game of French and English--French East India Companies-- Joseph Dupleix--His diplomacies--Admiral Labourdonnais-- Jealousies between the two--British squadron--Game of hide and seek--Pondicherry given to French by Nawab of Arcot-- Siege of Madras--Plight of England--Saved by a storm-- Labourdonnais impeached by France--Nawab of Arcot sides with England--Coast of Coromandel saved by another storm-- Siege of Pondicherry--Disastrous failure--Dupleix sings "Te Deums"--Peace of Aux la Chapelle.

CHAPTER V

Plots and counterplots--Peace brings thought--French and English turn to commerce--Only ascending power in India the Mahrattas--Western soldiers used as mercenaries--Immediate difficulties--Successional wars, French on one side, English the other--Putting up of puppets--England gets the worst of it--Robert Clive as champion.

CHAPTER VI

Robert Clive as writer, as soldier, as writer once more--Tales of his youth--He takes Arcot--Wonderful vitality--Great influence with natives--They refuse to start on campaign unless led by him--Constant increase of his army by desertions from the enemy--Game of French and English again--Council of Negotiation a farce--Attention of both France and England drawn to constant hostilities in the East--Dupleix recalled --Dies miserably in poverty--Clive commanding at Madras-- News of Black Hole outrage--Sails to avenge it--Cause of the outrage--Clive avenges it--Great friction at Calcutta--Battle of Plassey--Omichand incident--England has real hold on India.

CHAPTER VII

Robert Clive as Governor of Bengal--State of Upper India-- Ahmed-Shâh's invasion and revenge--Comte de Lally--Bussy and Bobbili--Sir Eyre Coote--Gradual defeat of French interests-- Quarrels over batta money--Mir-Jâffar as Nawâb of Bengal gives trouble--Gives jâghir to Clive--Clive goes home-- Trouble at Murshidabad--Ahmed-Shâh, Durrâni, invades Upper India--Historic battlefield once more--Question of private trade--Warren Hastings opposes it--Clive returns to India-- Raises status of Civil Service--Puts down corruption--Health fails--Goes to England--Disgrace--Disillusionment--Dies by his own hand after a grudging acquittal.

CHAPTER VIII

Hyder-Ali et Alia--Treaty of Paris harmful--Hyder-Ali's lawlessness--Colonel Smith holds his own--Treaties--Money-bags-- Plunder--Price of India stock goes down--Financial pressure.

CHAPTER IX

Warren Hastings--Early career--Supporter of Clive--Makes many enemies--Treaty of Nawâb of Oude and Mahrattas--English mercenaries--Hastings appointed first Governor-General-- Reconstruction of appointments under new Act--Mr Francis-- Persistent enmity--Dissensions in the Council--Incident of Nuncomâr--Hastings in minority--In majority--Financial reforms--Francis refuses assent or criticism--Suggests the Great Mistake--Hastings relieved of office--Refuses to accept dismissal--Two Councils, two Governor-Generals--Supreme Court decides for Hastings--Incomprehensible conspiracies in Mahratta Court--Hyder Ali again gives trouble--Dies--His son, Tippoo Sahib--Case of the Râjah of Benares--Of the Begums of Oude--Harsh terms imposed on Nawâb of Oude.

CHAPTER X

Administrations and impeachments--Review of Clive's and Warren Hastings' careers--Attempt to unravel the clues--Influx to India of foreigners--Walter Reinhardt--Begum Sumroo--George Thomas--General view of India.

CHAPTER XI

The Board of Control appointed by the Crown--Responsibilities-- Lord Cornwallis--Jâwan Bakht--Civil and military reforms-- Tippoo Sahib again--Four years' wear--Permanent settlement evolved at Wimbledon--Immediate effects--France and England at war--Renewed trouble in Oude--Death of Tippoo Sahib--English action in Oude--Threatening outlook-- Mahratta jealousy--Assaye--Marquis of Wellesley--First interview of conquering England with Great Moghul--Mutiny at Vellore--Lord Minto--Debt of India.

CHAPTER XII

The extinction of monopoly--Church establishment formed-- Parliament--History of cotton trade--Earl Moira--War in Nepaul-- Râjputana smouldering--Kishen Kumâri--Lord Hastings-- Final Mahratta war--More trouble in Oude--Lord Amherst-- Burmese war--Lord William Bentinck--Policy of noninterference-- Disastrous result--Trouble in Oude--Diplomacy with Shâh-Sujah--The short sea passage.

CHAPTER XIII

Freedom and frontiers--Tea--India thrown open to the world-- Struggle over Governor--Generalship--Lord Auckland-- Macaulay's Penal Code--Fresh trouble in Oude--Embassy to Dost Mahomed--Sir Alexander Burnes--Disaster at Kabul-- Lord Ellenborough--Sir Henry Hardinge--Annexation of Punjâb.

CHAPTER XIV

Manners, morals, and missionaries--Second Burmese war--Annexation of Oude--Unrest--Causes of it--Evangelical wave--Successions-- Annexations--General review of Oude--Question.

CHAPTER XV

The Great Mutiny--Sir Charles Metcalfe's prediction--Signs of the times--Barrackpore--Meerut--Delhi--Fateful delay--Lucknow-- Cawnpore--John Nicholson--End of defence--Success of attack-- Retribution--Final question.

INDIA THROUGH THE AGES

PART I

THE ANCIENT AGE

As the mind's eye travels backwards across the wide plains of Northern India, attempting to re-people it with the men of olden time, historical insight fails us at about the seventh century B.C. From that date to our own time the written Word steps in to pin protean legend down to inalterable form.

And yet before this seventh century there is no lack of evidence. The Word is still there, though, at the time, it lived only in the mouths of the people or of the priesthood. Even if we go so far back as B.C. 2000, the voices of men who have lived and died are still to be heard in the earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda.

And before that?

Who knows? The imaginative eye, looking out over the vast sea of young green wheat which in many parts of the Punjâb floods unbroken to the very foot of the hills, may gain from it an idea of the wide ocean whose tide undoubtedly once broke on the shores of the Himalayas.

The same eye may follow in fancy the gradual subsidence of that sea, the gradual deposit of sand, and loam brought by the great rivers from the high lands of Central Asia. It may rebuild the primeval huts of the first inhabitants of the new continent--those first invaders of the swampy haunts of crocodile and strange lizard-like beasts--but it has positively no data on which to work. The first record of a human word is to be found in the earliest hymn of the Aryan settlers when they streamed down into the Punjâb. When?

Even that is beyond proof. The consensus of opinion amongst learned men, however, gives the Vedic period--that is to say, the period during which the hymns of the Rig-Veda were composed--as approximately the years between B.C. 2000 and B.C. 1400.

But these same hymns tell us incidentally of a time before that. It is not only that these Aryan invaders were themselves in a state of civilisation which necessarily implies long centuries of culture, of separation from barbarian man; but besides this, they found a people in India civilised enough to have towns and disciplined troops, to have weapons and banners; women whose ornaments were of gold, poisoned arrows whose heads were of some metal that was probably iron.

All this, and much more, is to be gathered in the Rig-Veda concerning the Dâsyas or aboriginal inhabitants of India. Naturally enough, as inevitable foes, they are everywhere mentioned with abhorrence, and we are left with the impression of a "tawny race who utter fearful yells."

Who, then, were these people?

Are we to treat the monotonous singing voice which even now echoes out over the length and breadth of India, as in the sunsetting some Brahman recites the ancient hymns--are we to treat this as the first trace of Ancient India? Or, as we sit listening, are we to watch the distant horizon, so purple against the gold of the sky, and wonder if it is only our own unseeing eyes which prevent our tracing the low curve that may mark the site of a town, ancient when the Aryans swept it into nothingness?

"The fiction which resembles truth," said the Persian poet Nizâmi in the year 1250, "is better than the truth which is dissevered from the imagination"; so let us bring something of the latter quality into our answer.

Certain it is that for long centuries the reddish or tawny Dâsyas managed to resist the white-skinned Aryas, so that even as late as the period of that great epic, the Mâhâbhârata--that is, some thousand years later than the earliest voice which speaks in the Vedic hymns--the struggle was still going on. At least in those days the Aryan Pandâvas of whom we read in that poem appear to have dispossessed an aboriginal dynasty from the throne of Magadha. This dynasty belonged to the mysterious Nâga or Serpent race, which finally blocks the way in so many avenues of Indian research. They are not merely legendary; they cross the path of reality now and again, as when Alexander's invasion of India found some satrapies still held by Serpent-kings.

It is impossible, therefore, to avoid wondering whether the Aryans really found the rich plains of India a howling wilderness peopled by savages close in culture to the brutes, or whether, in parts of the vast continent at least, they found themselves pitted against another invading race, a Scythic race hailing from the north-east as the Aryan hails from north-west?

There is evidence even in the voice of the Rig-Veda for this. To begin with, there is the evidence of colour--colour which was hereafter to take form as caste. We have mention not of two, but of three divergent complexions. First, the "white-complexioned friends of Indra," who are palpably the Aryans; next, "the enemy who is flayed of his black skin"; and lastly, "those reddish in appearance, who utter fearful yells."

It seems, to say the least of it, unlikely that a single aboriginal race should be described in two such curiously different ways.

As for the fearful yells, that is palpably but another way of asserting that the utterers spoke a language which was not understood of the invaders. "Du'ye think th' Almighty would be understandin' siccan gibberish," said the old Scotch lady when, during the Napoleonic war, she was reminded that maybe many a French mother was praying as fervently for victory as she was herself. The same spirit breathes in many a Vedic hymn in which the Dâsyas are spoken of as barely human. "They are not men." "They do not perform sacrifices." "They do not believe in anything." These are the plaints which precede the ever-recurring prayer--"Oh! Destroyer of foes! Kill them!" And worse even than this comes the great cause of conflict--"Their rites are different."

So the story is told. These Dâsyas, "born to be cut in twain," have yet the audacity to have different dogma, conflicting canons of the law. Even in those early days religion was the great unfailing cause of strife.

These same hymns of the Rig-Veda, however, give us but scant information of the foes who are called generally Dâsyas, or "robbers." But here again divergence creeps in. It is impossible to class "the wealthy barbarian," the "neglecters of sacrifices," who, "decorated with gold and jewels," were "spreading over the circuit of the earth," whose "iron cities" were to be destroyed, who were to be "slain whether weeping or laughing, whether hand to hand or on horseback, whether arrayed in hosts or aided by missile-hurling heroes"--it is impossible, surely, to class these enemies with the mere robber brutes of whom it is written that they "were slain, and the kine made manifest."

Were then these tawny-hued foes, with the mention of whom wealth is invariably associated, in reality the ancestors of the treasure-holding Takshaks or Nâgas, that strange Snake race of which we read in the Mâhâbhârata, and of which we hear again during the invasion of Alexander?

At least there is nothing to prevent us dreaming that this is so; and while we listen to the voice of some Brahman chanting at sunset-time the oldest hymns in the world, there is nothing to hinder us from trying to imagine how strangely these must have fallen on the ears of the "neglecters of sacrifices, the dwellers in cities, rich in gold and beautiful women," of whom we catch a passing glimpse as the stately Sanskrit rhythm rolls on.

The sun sets, the voice ceases, and the far-away past is no nearer and no further from us than the present.