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Sy — y ‘ \ i j , - 8 i] / i ry { x 1 Pad f clara 4 q * € 1 H . 5 z “ \ 4 j 1 ' \\ I ; 3. i t Katy < af i | + WAP a _ — SS —S— ae, toes Lau ea hoa Yaga } it Wa a ves ths THE NATIONS OF TO-DAY A New History of the World Epirep By JOHN BUCHAN INDIA THE NATIONS OF TO-DAY A New History of the World EDITED BY JOHN BUCHAN FIRST LIST OF VOLUMES GREAT BRITAIN (7°... FRANCE JAPAN ITALY INDIA BELGIUM AND LUXEM- BOURG BRITISH AMERICA YUGOSLAVIA THE BALTIC AND CAU- CASIAN STATES IRELAND BULGARIA AND _ RO- MANIA Other Volumes in Preparation -Erasnotarsk 95 100 ee INDIA ra N y = WD } Wile T ? F = vers F j Y .) 4 : a om apts 2; ed ! ‘4 \\ se eae ne eS eae “a Natural Scale 118,100,000 oO 50 100 200 00 . 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Pelew j\ | é al a : ae es af \J | i? +s | as ¢ Z Ab\ri Z | "tog | StAndrew .| |, = British Natiaa if i ES ae | ze b Aric nba bi bp f ee 2 Pos: ae wa (Bu) Sarno : Maes Rote Mdlioe x , Te c Zs © i| Atoll IN OFC EN A ON Suadiva Altoll oO | ee ae Equatorial Channel | Equator & | “5 ee | ay | ate BAST INDIA Is | Adu Atoll British Territory coloured red; Protected states yellow: : Tay v | : Dutch Possessions brown; (Mal vas a fa Rettich» (P)= Por xe; (Fri=French; (Dw) -~Dutclv. | Bri- British; (P)= Portuguese ; (r)=French,; (Dw) -Dutalv. Natural Scale 1:45,000,000_ j or —— 8° Poul. Se ate ©) -— eee ——— eee Miles ! ; 75 L i E. of i 0 5 = eee 7 ge 75 Longitude E ot Ler rorya 8 a 35 Tong: East alt ; W.& AK. Johnston Jiesited Edinburgh & Tandon esses ALIAS wos a OUD yay * ‘ ' / Sey, teers STE SKOMIIV AT SSS oof a0z OOoT «OS 0 000‘O0T'SEL TBS Te-maRN [THE spelling of place-names in this volume follows broadly that of the Imperial Gazetteer and 1/1,000,000 Survey of India. A few exceptions, such as Haidarabad, Nipal, and Karnatik, will be noted.—ED. ] xV NOTE Tue Historical portion of this volume is the work of Sir Verney Lovett, K.C.S.1., M.A., Reader in Indian history at Oxford University, late of the Indian Civil Service. The Economics have been written by Mr. H. R. C. Hailey, 1.C.8S., C.LE., C.B.E., mainly from a valuable statistical paper compiled for this book by the late Sir William Meyer, G.C.LE., K.C.S.I., High Commissioner for India in London and ex-Member of Council and Financial Secretary in India. Full acknowledg- ment is also due to Dr. J. Coggin Brown, O.B.E., F.G.S., who compiled the material dealing with the minerals of the country. The whole volume has been prepared under the care of Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen. INDIA THE NATIONS OF TO-DAY A New History of the World Epirep By JOHN BUCHAN BOSTON AND NEW |YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Made and Printed in Great Britain. Hazell, Watson ¢ Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 1923 CONTENTS GENERAL INTRODUCTION : : ; ; : ; Vv NOTES : . ‘ 4 ° : ; : XV, XVI A—HISTORY INTRODUCTORY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS —ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS 3 PART I—BEFORE PLASSEY I. THE HINDU PERIOD : ; ; P . 10 II. THE MUHAMMADAN,s PERIOD TO THE DEATH OF AKBAR ; : ; ; : : ‘ 18 III. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE FROM 1605 To 1707 . : 27 IV. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE AND THE PEOPLE . : 34 V. EUROPEAN MARITIME ENTERPRISE . , ; 41 VI. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MOGHAL EMPIRE : 50 VII. THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH : : ; 58 VIII. PLASSEY : : : ‘ : : ; 66 PART TI—FROM PLASSEY TO 1861 IX. THE REGULATING ACT - ; ‘ d : 75 X. THE FIRST GOVERNOR-GENERAL ; F ; 83 XI. NON-INTERVENTION : : ; : . 93 XII. EXPANSION . ; ; , ; : LL XIII. THE DAWN OF MODERN PROBLEMS . : och XIV. DALHOUSIE . ; : ; , ; « 120 XV. THE MUTINY AND AFTER. : , ; pA .f6' IN—D XVil XViil CONTENTS PART III—FROM 1861 TO 1914 avi. XVII. XVIII. XIX. RECONSTRUCTION THE BEGINNING OF POLITICS . THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CURZON THE DECADE BEFORE THE WAR PART IV—FROM 1914 xX, XXII. XXII, XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXXVI. 1914-15 THE DECLARATION OF 1917 THE REFORMS PROPOSALS INDIA’S WAR EFFORT TRAGEDY THE END OF THE OLD ORDER. THE NEW ORDER CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES IV. MINES AND MINERALS V. RAILWAYS VI. FINANCE VII. DEBT, CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE C—MISCELLANEOUS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX B—ECONOMICS AGRICULTURE AND POPULATION FORESTS AND IRRIGATION INDUSTRIES AND COMMERCE PAGE 137 146 155 161 Ly | 179 187 195 202 211 221 233 239 24:7 252 260 265 268 276 287 293 INDIA OF TO-DAY INDIA IN 1605 INDIA IN 1785 AND 1804 INDIA IN 1857 MAP SHOWING VEGETATION MAPS xix Frontispiece Opp. p. 40 106 A—HISTORY INTRODUCTORY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS—ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS TuE India known to Herodotus was the Punjab, the country of the river Indus!; the easternmost region of the inhabited world, the twentieth satrapy of the Persian empire. Later ancient writers thought of India as a wider area of which the Punjab formed part. To Europeans of the Middle Ages India, or the Indies, signified a far-away eastern land, renowned for the spices and costly commodities which it supplied. After- wards this land became the East Indies, as other Indies had been discovered in the far West, and the name India was applied to the countries between the Persian Gulf and the Malay Peninsula. In our own day India denotes the sub- continent of irregularly triangular shape which lies between Cape Comorin and the Himalayas, stretching into the mainland of Asia as far as Baluchistan on the west and Burma on the east. Burma is part of the British-Indian Empire; but, cut off from India by a series of forest-clad ranges, it has been occupied by Mongolian tribes who have united to form the nation known as Burmese. The physical aspects of India have often been described. It is sufficient here to indicate those particular features which from remote ages have largely shaped her history. Triangular in shape, on two sides she is bounded by an enormous sea-board of about 3,400 miles. On the third she is fenced in by moun- tain ranges, of which the Himalayas are the central and most impregnable. As these ranges turn westward and southward toward the Arabian Sea, they are here and there traversed by passes which have frequently given access to invading armies but have not encouraged the advance of tribes or families encumbered by women and children. Raids upon a large scale have been easily practicable; but racial invasions have slowed down; and this circumstance, combined with the decimation of the women and children of conquering peoples, 1 The Sanskrit word “sindhu”’ means a river and particularly the Indus. 3 A INTRODUCTORY has produced upon India certain marked results. There has never been extermination of the previous inhabitants by any invader. On the contrary, successive waves of invaders have settled themselves upon the top of conquered populations. From these populations the new-comers have taken wives, to replace the women lost on the journey from the base. Thus the piecemeal nature of successive conquests and the enforced intercourse between conquerors and conquered have produced a remarkable continuity of Indian civilisation. Despite periodic invasions of the country by peoples of widely divergent races, religions and customs, many affluent streams have been absorbed into two particular systems. The prevailing climate of the plains of Upper India, named Hindostan by the Persians and Aryavarta (Aryan territory) by the Brahmans, has contributed to mould Indian history. The blazing sun of the hot-weather months, their lurid noon-day air laden with grains of dust swept up by burning winds from parched plains, the steamy heat of the monsoon season, its torrential downpours, have conduced to supineness and have borne heavily on settlers of Central Asian ancestry. One race of these after another has established itself in a dominant position in the Gangetic plain, only to lose gradually the redundant strength and martial fibre to which its original success was due, to be merged by degrees in a less vigorous population, and to be conquered in its turn by a fresh army of invaders. Only as long as the victors could stiffen their ranks by continual recruitment from the countries of their origin were they able to maintain their supremacy as a separate and a ruling race. To secure this source of supply necessitated the holding of territory on each side of the mountain barrier, that is, the simultaneous possession of the countries now called Afghanistan and the Punjab. Several dynasties attempted this, but before long they found them- selves unable to retain their hold on regions so severely separated by nature. They paid the penalty exacted by a semi-tropical climate, losing their original vigour, and becom- ing absorbed in the mass of their subjects or conquered by fresh invaders. No conquerors from Central Asia, subjected for generations to depressing climatic influences, exposed to continual risk of overthrow from the countries of their origin, were able to set up long-enduring kingdoms. They estab- lished the Gangetic valley as the main seat of empire, the centre of political and cultural movements which spread throughout the sub-continent. But India south of the Nar- ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS 5 bada River and Vindhya Range remained largely a country apart, although sometimes its kingdoms were reduced to in- effective subjugation. While, however, a northern empire was occupied in such adventures, its own dominions were threat- ened by domestic revolt and incursions of foreign enemies whose martial vigour was still unsapped. By its culture the North established a lasting dominion over the South, but never by force of arms. We have seen that conditions on the land frontiers of India have precluded invasion on a large scale. Nor in earlier ages was her coast-line much more inviting. ‘‘ The succession of militant traders who landed on the narrow strip of fertile but malarious country which fringes Western India, found them- selves cut off from the interior by the forest-clad barrier of the western Ghats, while on the eastern side of the peninsula, the low coast, harbourless from Cape Comorin to Balasore, is guarded by dangerous shallows backed by a line of pitiless suri.’ + Isolated by land and sea, India is divided by geographical conditions into three main regions: (a) the glorious mountains of the Himalaya or abode of snow, (b) the great northern plains which form the basin of the Indus, the Ganges and their tribu- taries, (c) the hills and the wolds of the Deccan, separated from the north by a barrier of which the chief features are the Narbada River and the Vindhya Range, and dividing the Gangetic valley from the Tamil States to the south of the peninsula. Each of these regions has its ethnic character. Along the line of the lower ranges of the Himalayas live peoples of mixed Mongolian descent. The plains of the north have been the highway of Aryan, Afghan and Turkish invasion. The features of many of its people testify to Aryan descent. The Deccan (South) and the Peninsula have been the abiding-place of the Dravidians, who are among the oldest of Indian races. Baluchistan with its blend of Arab, Afghan, Scythian or Turki types, and Burma with its blend of Mongolian types, guard the south-west and eastern land frontiers of the Empire. Risley divides the peoples of all these regions into seven main physical types. (a) The Turko-Iranian, formed by a fusion of Turki and Persian elements in which the former predominate, represented by the Baluchis and Afghans of the Baluchistan Agency and the North-west Frontier Province. 1 Risley, People of India. 6 | INTRODUCTORY (b) Indo-Aryan, occupying the Punjab Rajputana and Kashmir, having as its characteristic members the Rajputs, Khatris and Jats (this type most closely resembles that ascribed to the original Aryan invaders). (c) Scytho-Dravidian, comprising the Maratha Brahmans, the Kumbis and the Coorgs, probably formed by a mixture of Scytho and Dravidian types. (d) Aryo-Dravidian, found in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, in parts of Rajputana, in Bihar, probably the result of the intermixture in varying proportions of the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian types, the former element predominating in the higher types. (e) Mongol-Dravidian, found in Bengal and Orissa, a blend of the Dravidian and Mongoloid elements with a strain of Indo-Aryan blood in the higher groups. (f) Mongoloid, found in the Himalayas, Nipal, Assam and Burma. (g) Dravidian, extending from Ceylon to the Ganges Valley, possibly the original type of the population of India, now modified to a varying degree by the admixture of Aryan, Scythian and Mongoloid elements. The contrasts between these various types are perceptible to any observer. But, as Risley points out, the areas mainly occupied by each melt into each other insensibly, ‘‘ and al- though at the close of a day’s journey from one ethnic tract to another, an observer whose attention had been directed to the subject would realise clearly enough that the physical charac- teristics of the people had undergone an appreciable change, he would certainly be unable to say at what particular stage in his progress the transformation had taken place.” ! Languages are many, and so are social divisions, tribes or castes ; but castes will be dealt with further on. The linguis- tic survey of India recognises 147 distinct languages grouped under 9 differentiated families. The peoples of Northern and Central India and of the Western Deccan speak various lan- guages which have sprung from vernaculars akin to Sanskrit, the literary language of the Brahmans. The most notable of these tongues are Hindi, Bengali and Marathi. Urdu or Hin- dustani, a blend of Hindi and Persian, has been a lingua franca since the earlier days of Muslim ascendency, although in the south and far east it is still comparatively little understood. Its script is the Persian, which differs very widely from the Nagari or Sanskritic character and others akin thereto. In 1 Risley, People of India, p. 33. ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS ii the south Dravidian languages are spoken, of which Tamil is the oldest, richest and most highly organised. Divided as India has always been by many and various circumstances, it was only when her destinies were controlled by a race independent of land-communications, and able, with small let or hindrance, to retain its primitive energy, that, obtaining a new security, she was able to progress towards a unity and national consciousness which in earlier times had been constantly thwarted by the menace or reality of devas- tating invasion. The fruits of that progress were gathered in those memorable years 1914-18. Never before in all the ages had the peoples of India stood together in one consolidated, prolonged effort. Never was clearer testimony borne to the character of a system of government. That system has now given place to another which is designed to prepare the way for further and wider change. In these pages the endeavour will be made to present clearly the outstanding events in the latest stage of a long, eventful history. But in order to make the incidents of this stage clearly understood, the story of earlier stages, and more particularly of those which are nearest to our own time, will be traced as fully as space permits. Recent constitutional changes have laid upon the Services of the Crown in India a task honourable indeed, but of a difficulty which we can appreciate only when we look back into the past. ‘And before we endeavour to throw historical light on its com- plexities, we must sketch the political outlines of the Indian Empire as it stands to-day, noticing in particular a climatic circumstance which regulates economic conditions in every province and state. The Indian Empire consists of nine major provinces con- taining a population of 243,000,000 and six minor administra- tions peopled by about 4,000,000. It includes Native States under British suzerainty, which contain another 72,000,000. The major provinces and their populations are Madras, peopled by 42,300,0001; Bengal, by 46,700,000; Bihar and Orissa, by 34,000,000 ; the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, by 45,600,000; Bombay, by 19,300,000 (including about 100,000 Parsees or Persians domiciled in India for centuries, pre-eminent in industrial and commercial enterprise, Zoroas- trians by religion); Assam, by 7,600,000; the Punjab, by 20,700,000; the Central Provinces and Berar, peopled by 18,800,000 ; Burma, peopled by 13,200,000. The minor provinces are the North-west Frontier Province, 1 Census of 1921. 8 INTRODUCTORY peopled by 2,250,000; British Baluchistan, peopled by 422,000 Ajmir-Merwara, peopled by 496,000; Coorg, peopled by 164,000 ; Andaman and Nicobar Islands, peopled by 27,000 ; Delhi, peopled by 486,000. (It was constituted an ‘‘ adminis- trative enclave’? under a Chief Commissioner in 1912 when the Imperial capital was transferred from Calcutta.) All the minor provinces are administered by Chief Commissioners on behalf of the Central Government. The Native States, with a population of 72,000,000, number about 700, of which 60 or 70 are of major importance; but many, especially in the Bombay Presidency, are ruled by petty chiefs and feudatories. All are on a standing different from that of the independent neighbouring States of Tibet, Nipal, Bhutan and Afghanistan, with which the Government of India has treaty relationships. The foreign affairs of the Native States, their dealings with each other, are managed by and under the direction of the Government of India. Subject in every case to the reservation of jurisdiction over British sub- jects and cantonment towns occupied by British troops, sub- ject also to conditions regarding the strength of a State’s armed forces, the ruling Chiefs divide their internal sovereignty with the paramount power “in proportions which differ greatly according to the history and importance of the several States and which are regulated by treaties or less formal engagements, partly by ‘Sanads’ or charters and partly by usage.” 1 The principal Native States are: Haidarabad,? with a population of 12,454,000, ruled by the Nizam, a prince of Turkoman descent belonging to a dynasty founded in 1724 by a Viceroy of the Moghal Empire. Maisur, peopled by 5,977,000, ruled by a Maharaja, a prince of an ancient Hindu line dispossessed for a time by a success- ful Muslim soldier and his son, but reinstated by the British. Travancore, with a population of 4,006,000, under another Hindu prince claiming descent from an ancient Tamil House. Kashmir and Jammu, with a population of 3,322,000, ceded to the British after the first Sikh War and made over by them to a Rajput, appointed Chief of Jammu by Ranjit Singh. Baroda (population 2,122,000), Gwalior (population 3,176,000), Indore (population 1,148,000)—all three ruled by Maratha princes descended from successful soldiers who carved out dominions for themselves in the confusion of the eighteenth century. 1 Ilbert, Government of India, p. 165. 2 Conventionally, Hyderabad. ETHNIC AND POLITICAL DIVISIONS 9 Udaipur (population 1,393,000), Jaipur (population 2,829,000) —Rajput States ruled by princes of ancient lineage. Bhopal (population 691,000), founded as an independent kingdom by an Afghan officer of the Emperor Aurangzeb and now ruled by the Begam, the only female ruler in India. It should be added that small Indian territories are still held by the French and the Portuguese : Pondicherry, the principal French settlement was _ first founded in 1674. Goa, the capital of a small Portuguese province, was con- quered by Albuquerque in 1510. The lines on which British provinces and Native States are divided have been marked out by history, and modified here and there by administrative arrangements. Of the 319,000,000 of India only 10-2 per cent. dwell in towns. India has always been, is now, and will remain, pre- dominantly an agricultural country. Her greatest natural asset is her soil. Her greatest blessing is a good monsoon. The concentration of almost all the annual rainfall in four consecutive months makes these months of supreme importance. If the monsoon fails over large areas, as it not infrequently does fail, a peasant population, which in spite of frequent inroads of epidemics breeds to the very margin of subsistence, is liable to suffer severely ; and for this reason the history of India has been marked by famines which have only ceased to be desolating since irrigation has been widely extended by canals; since railways and metalled roads have enormously improved communications, and since a careful system of famine preven- tion and relief has been elaborated by the British Government. As Rabindranath Tagore has said, ‘‘ India is many countries packed into one geographical receptacle.’ But divided, as Indians are by varieties of race and language, they are all marked off from other Asiatics by distinct characteristics. How far do they differ from ourselves? To quote an acute observer,! ‘‘ Great as are the differences between us and our Indian fellow-citizens, the points of resemblance are even more remarkable. . . . There is certainly no other non-European race in the world that could so rapidly and so perfectly acquire our;language and adapt themselves to our manners; nor is there any race in whom we are less conscious of an estranging foreignness. The fact is, no doubt, that India is leavened with Aryanism ; and that even this remote cousinship tells in the end.” 1 Mr. William Archer. PART I—BEFORE PLASSEY I THE HINDU PERIOD THE genesis of the religious and social system which is known as Hinduism and has for so many ages affected the lives and destinies of countless millions is to be found in the institutions of the Aryans, who entered India between 2,000 and 1,300 years before the Christian era, and were apparently a cheerful and intelligent people worshipping personified natural powers with the aid of their priests and by means of prayer and sacri- fice, looking towards an immortality spent in heaven with the gods and glorified ancestors. Their political unit was the household, which often included many individuals, presided over by the eldest male. Their households were grouped into tribes headed by Rajas (chiefs or kings). As they made their way through the Punjab into the Gangetic plain and on beyond, conquering and to some extent displacing the darker Dra- vidians,? their religious and political institutions underwent considerable change. Their cheerful nature-worship became intermingled with darker elements derived from Dravidian sources. Their worship became more elaborate, more ritualistic and more mystical. Nature-worship was maintained by anthropomorphism ; and it seems possible that leaders among men obtained divine honours after death. The due performance of worship was held to depend on complicated ceremonies carried out by experts; and simultaneously the original sim- plicity of the political structure developed into a system of small territorial kingdoms consisting of groups of settlements, each settlement made up of village-units. The whole organisa- tion gradually assumed a shape adapted to peace rather than to war. The Rajas began to lose some of the prestige which the function of war-leader had secured for them in days of continual strife, and except when hostilities were actually in progress found their importance in the community, though 1 Named after Dravida, the ancient name of the Tamil country in Southern India, 10 THE HINDU PERIOD 11 still dominant, somewhat curtailed by the position of the intellectual and priestly orders. These tendencies can be traced still further in the picture presented by the two great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata which, although in their present form prob- ably not older than the Christian era, contain earlier tradition. illustrative of changes which came over the Aryan-speaking peoples in the course of the centuries immediately succeeding their settlement in India. | Between the period of the Vedas (the early hymns of these peoples) and the period with which the Epics are generally concerned, the caste system had de- veloped. Caste, derived from the Latin castus (pure), may be defined as an elaborately regulated social exclusiveness with reference to diet and marriage. It has resulted in the division of its millions of followers into thousands of hereditary groups, each of which is closely knit by rules of ceremonial purity, and by these rules effectively separated from other groups. The original basis of caste was probably a sense of distinc- tion of race indicated by differences of colour. The poets of the Rig Veda recognised four classes of men: the Brahmans or priests and intellectuals, the Kshatriyas or warriors, the Vaisyas or traders and agriculturists, the Sudras or servile residuum. The difference between the first three classes, which represented the Aryan conquerors, and the fourth class, which consisted of a portion of the earlier inhabitants of India, was one of colour. The remaining peoples of the country were termed barbarians by the Brahmans, who, presiding over other classes, treating families bound together by offerings to common ancestors as their congregations or religious units, and anxious to consolidate their own authority, elaborated rules for the preservation of ceremonial purity. From the earliest times they cultivated learning, which they regarded as their exclusive property. They developed their spiritual ideals in voluminous literary works and, splitting into various fraternities, were imitated by other classes. Social and occupational compartments became numerous in every class. Each compartment was filled exclusively by a certain community or caste. The dharma or duties of each member of a caste consisted of the observance of particular caste regulations and of such general obligations as reverence for Brahmans and for the sacred cow. Violation of dharma involved a costly expiation ceremony or expulsion from caste and social ruin. As tribes outside the caste-pale, whether Dravidian or descended from the south-Mongolian nomads who 12 BEFORE PLASSEY had entered India from the east, gradually adopted Brahmanic teaching, they became Hindus, members of the community which dwelt beside the great river, and accepting Brahmanic scriptures and gods, invited Brahmans to preside at all domestic events and ceremonies. The Brahmanic religion was elastic. All converts could form new castes and call themselves Hindus if they would submit to Brahman guidance. Some indeed might even be reckoned as Kshatriyas. Aborigines, after admission, might, if they chose, return to their original deities, provided only that they continued to accept the authority and divine right of Brahmans. ; It has been truly said that the caste system, with its rigid seale of social rank, is in remarkable accord with the doctrine of Karma, or ‘‘ action,” which enjoins on every Hindu the obligation of doing his duty in that station in which he has been born. Hinduism teaches that every soul is an emanation of an impersonal supreme Spirit, a desireless, actionless intelli- gence which is always and everywhere present behind all the gods and behind the flux and change of the universe. Sparks from this divine central spirit enter one body after another. Kach spark or soul may be in one life a god, in another a man, in another an animal. No soul is released from repeated re- birth until, after accumulating sufficient merit in many lives, it returns to and is absorbed in the Divine source of its origin. At each re-birth its body or status is determined by its actions in previous existences. Intervals between deaths and births are generally believed to be spent in a temporary heaven or hell, according to deserts. It follows from the creed of Karma that Brahmans and Kshatriyas have won their high position by accumulated merit. Sudras and outcasts deserve their lot. It is useless to educate them. Their Karma must take its course. Their very touch defiles a Brahman. Caste is the foundation and essence of Hinduism. It has been a great stabilising force, and has preserved, as in a mould, the art, the traditions and the spiritual ideals of ancient Brahmanism. But it has sternly repressed individual liberty and has obstructed intercourse with foreign cultures. It has condemned large sections of the peoples of India to scorn and degradation almost beyond the hope of redemption; it has exposed social reform and industrial development to formid- able obstacles. Caste indeed may be described as the anti- thesis of Western individualism, but it has preserved intact against all comers the spirit and teaching of Hinduism through long ages of conflict and confusion. THE HINDU PERIOD 13 The compilations termed the Mahabharata (story of the great war of early India between nations and tribes arrayed on two sides) and the Ramayana (adventures of Rama) include elements of different periods. Some go back to the Vedic age; but in the sixth book of the Mahabharata appears the famous Bhagavad Gita (Lord’s song), a philosophical poem of a much later date; and both compilations have undergone much re-editing at the hands of poets, professional reciters and Brahmans generally. The final recension probably took place about A.D. 200. The two epics contain some substantially identical verses. The tales told therein have inspired and inspire to-day Hindu thought and Hindu folklore. They show the caste system established in force. They insist strongly on the necessity of paying reverence to Brahmans. They exhibit Northern India split up into kingdoms ruled by monarchs among whom war and the chase were objects of high endeavour, whose customs and court-life present considerable resemblance to those of old-fashioned Hindu princes in our own day. . The Raja, or King, of the Mahabharata is assisted by coun- sellors, but his decisions are his own. He is the commander- in-chief and supreme civil ruler. The man who even thinks of doing him harm meets with grief here and Hell hereafter.* The Raja is entitled to a sixth share of the gross revenue of the country. He must treat all classes of his subjects justly. Above all he must be a man who can govern with a complete and strict reliance on the ‘‘ science of chastisement,’’ who can protect his subjects from ‘‘ malice domestic and foreign levy.” If he fails to do this he is like a leaky boat on a sea. He takes upon himself a quarter of the sins of his kingdom.? In the last resort he absolves his subjects from their allegiance, which they may transfer to a more capable ruler. ‘‘If a powerful king approaches kingdoms torn by anarchy, from desire of annexing them to his dominions, the people should go forward and receive the invader with respect.’’ A king should be heed- ful of his subjects as also of his foes. ‘‘ If he becomes heedless, they fall on him like vultures upon carrion.”’ § When we remember that, taken in conjunction with. other compilations (the Puranas), adapted and translated into ver- nacular, these epics have for ages proved a great engine of mass-education and have largely contributed to the fact that Hindu civilisation and thought have remained fundamentally intact from those days to these, we can see how the ancient 1 Santi Parvan, p. 221. 2 Drona Parvan, p. 625. 3 Santi Parvan, p. 289. 14 BEFORE PLASSEY Hindu conception of the duties and liabilities of a ruler has in- fluenced the course of Indian history. The ruler who, if bold and despotic, was strong and ready to protect received obedience. The hero of the Ramayana is a god-man whose fame and influence have penetrated India. He and his wife Sita are held up as the ideals of noble manhood and perfect wifehood. The story of their adventures, told in many Indian tongues, has deeply moved generations of peoples impressed by nothing so much as by remarkable human personality. There are evidences in the Mahabharata of the fact that the Aryans had been brought into contact with Mongoloid as well as Dravidian races, and that the Hindu social structure was sufficiently elastic to enable Mongoloid princes to be regarded as Kshat- riyas who did not observe ordinary caste rules. Both Maha- vira, the founder of Jainism, and Gautama or Sakya Muni, the ereat Buddha (or enlightened one), were aristocrats of this description who renounced worldly vanities for absorption in religious meditation. They taught in Bihar and in the eastern portion of the present United Provinces. The religions which these two reformers preached started merely as varieties of Hinduism. Neither rejected caste. Jainism, however, particularly insisted on the sanctity of life, teaching that not only men and animals but plants, air, wind and fire possess various degrees of consciousness. It still re- mains the creed of a sect. Buddhism, after the death of its founder, divorced itself from Hinduism, and became one of the ereat faiths of mankind. Gautama, after long contemplation of human ills, preached that liberation from the weary round of re-birth could never be attained through magical ceremony or priestly ritual, but only by right living and right thinking. For the Supreme Soul into whom the Hindu hopes to be ab- sorbed eventually, he substituted Nirvana or eternal nothing- ness. After his death, which is believed to have occurred about 480 B.c., his followers proclaimed his divinity. Their faith was about 260 B.c. adopted by the great Hindu Emperor Asoka, who devoted himself earnestly to its propagation, sending Buddhist missionaries far and wide to foreign coun- tries. To him it is mainly due that, although eventually Buddhism was completely vanquished by Brahmanism in the country of its origin, it spread over Ceylon, Tibet, China, Siam and Burma, penetrating even to Japan. Before its virtual extinction in India it checked Brahman sacerdotalism, and, together with Jainism, impressed on Hindus ‘“‘ ahimsa,’’ the avoidance of injury to every form of animal life. THE HINDU PERIOD 15 A great event of the earlier Hindu period was the invasion of the Punjab by Alexander the Great. The Indus was then considered the frontier of the Persian Empire. Alexander found a university of Vedic learning at the city of Taxila, which occupied a site, now deserted, between Rawalpindi and Attock.} Advancing farther, he fought a great battle on the banks of the Jhelum against one Porus, whom he defeated and subdued. He pressed on farther, but was forced to retreat by a mutiny in his army, and sailing down the Indus to the neighbourhood of Karachi, left India in October 323 B.c. He died two years later. His retirement was speedily followed by the expulsion of Greek garrisons from the basin of the Indus by Chandragupta Maurya, sovereign of Magadha (South Bihar), who defeated Seleukus Nikator, one of the best generals of the great Mace- donian, wresting from him territories corresponding to the modern Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Chandragupta, before his death, was master of an empire stretching over these countries and Northern India. He was -assisted by an able Brahman minister named Kautilya, and ruled despotically, by means of a highly-organised system of government, from Pataliputra, the modern Patna. His court was largely affected by Persian influences. His fame has been overshadowed by that of his great grandson Asoka, one of the chief evangelisers of the world, in whose days the Mauryan Empire extended from the north-west frontier to the northern districts of Maisur. But Asoka himself waged one war only, for the annexation of the Kingdom of Kalinga on the Bay of Bengal. The spectacle of the resultant devastation and misery operated so powerfully on his mind that he turned from Brah- manism and became an ardent Buddhist. From 261 B.c. to the year of his death he devoted himself to the propagation of his new faith, sending missionaries to far countries, and causing edicts to be graven on rocks and pillars in order to inculeate humanity and loving-kindness. Into the merciless despotism of his predecessors he infused a new spirit, turning their administrative and military machine into an instrument adapted to secure the welfare of his people. When he died, in 232 B.c., Buddhism had spread abroad west and east to far countries. But after his death his empire speedily dissolved, and was succeeded by chaos and invasions from Central Asia, from Bactria, Parthia, Kabul, from the north of the Jaxartes. For a considerable period after the break-up of Alexander’s 1 Extensive excavations on this site are proceeding and have yielded results of great archeological interest. 16 BEFORE PLASSEY empire, Hellenistic States existed on the north-west frontier of India. With these the Mauryan Empire maintained friendly intercourse. Mauryan sculpture shows signs of Hellenic and of Persian influence. About 175 8B.c., when the Mauryan dynasty had fallen, a Greek King of Kabul and the Punjab, apparently Menander, invaded the Gangetic plain and threat- ened Pataliputra, but was eventually repelled. In the first and second centuries A.D. there was considerable trade between India and the Roman Empire, the frontier of which was, in A.D. 116, pushed by Trajan as far as the Persian Gulf. Com- merce was both overland and sea-borne from Egypt and Arabia to ports on the Malabar coast. Yet neither Greece nor Rome left any substantial impress upon India. In the early years of the fourth century a.p. emerged another indigenous attempt at empire building, which for a time offered some prospect of a unified India, only to dissolve into chaos under the hammer-blows of northern invaders. The empire of the Guptas, governed from Pataliputra like that of the Mauryans, is reported by Fa Hien, a Chinese traveller, who wandered about India between 401 and 410, to have been peaceable, prosperous and gently governed. The caste system was rigorous ; and outcastes were compelled to live apart from centres of population. But the people, as a whole, were happy and were governed in a kindly fashion which differed widely from earlier Mauryan methods. The later Gupta period was cotemporaneous with a remarkable literary and artistic renais- sance, some achievements of which still survive. But all the great buildings with which the Gupta Emperors embellished Pataliputra have succumbed to consuming time or the icono- clastic zeal of Muslim conquerors. The Gupta period was succeeded by invasion and chaos. The peoples who inhabited or occupied ancient Iran and Turke- stan were largely impelled to migrate to India by the aridity of their own lands, lands in which cultivated districts are rare and far apart.1 At this period hordes of Hunas (or Huns) occupied Kabul and poured down the passes of the North- west Frontier into the Gangetic plain. Their kingdom, how- ever, endured but a short space as they were smitten on the Oxus by the Turks. But, with other tribes who had partici- pated in their adventure, they contributed a new and turbulent element to the mixed races of Northern India. In the sixth century they found their niche in the elastic structure of Hindu society and were accepted as Kshatriyas. 1 Sykes, History of Persia, vol. i, p. 8. / THE HINDU PERIOD 17 Karly in the seventh century there arose another outstanding figure, who continued, though upon a lesser scale, the Maurya- Gupta tradition. King Harsha, whose capital was Kanauj, succeeded in subjugating the country now known as the United _ Provinces and Bihar, together with a great part of Bengal. He even attempted to extend his sway into the Deccan, but was defeated by a Raja of Huna extraction. In Harsha’s time came the famous Chinese traveller Yuan Chwang, who remained in India between 680 and 643. The picture which he gives of the condition of the country in the early seventh century is in striking contrast with that of his predecessor Fa Hien. Everywhere he encountered pathetic evidence of past greatness and present decay—pasture-land overrun with savage beasts, vast ruined cities set in the wilderness and inhabited only by a few poor peasants. The roads were unsafe, and he had some unpleasant experiences with bandits. Buddhism was defi- nitely on the down-grade as compared with the Brahmanical system. He was, however, impressed by the wealth of Harsha, as well as by that monarch’s remarkable habit of distributing his savings in the form of largesse every five years. Harsha died about 646; and an insult to a Chinese envoy led to an invasion of his kingdom by Srong Tsan Gampo, ruler of Tibet, who annexed Nipal and occupied Tirhut. He introduced Buddhism into his own country, and imported from India the alphabet which is still used in Tibet. A period of confusion followed his invasion; and very little - indeed is known about events between aA.p. 650 and a.p. 1200. Warlike clans of mixed blood spread over Upper India, sub- duing the older royal families and changing the boundaries of their kingdoms. These clans became known as Rajputs, sons of Kings, and were admitted by the Brahmans to the rank of Kshatriyas. Some were of pre-Aryan stock; others of Huna ; others seem to have been chosen by their kinsfolk as an alternative to intolerable anarchy. It is clear that the designa- tion Rajput originally denoted rank and not race. From the end of the seventh to the thirteenth century Northern India was in a state of troubled disintegration. In the south, however, the Tamil Kingdoms largely held their own. The most famous, the Chola, was renowned for its fleet and for its flourishing trade. Wide as were the ethnical differences that separated these peoples from the mixed population of Upper India, they had become saturated with the culture of the Ganges Valley. They IN—2 18 BEFORE PLASSEY rejected the Buddhist evangel and entered the fold of Brah- manism. We have now briefly surveyed the genesis and growth of a great system which, including in close union the social and religious organisation of human life, developed gradually in the Ganges Valley and spread in course of time over the whole of India. The chief historical events of those far-away cen- turies which we may call the exclusively Hindu period have been summarised. We have seen the rise of Buddhism and its eventual failure in the land of its birth. We have noticed the emergence of two great but short-lived Hindu empires, fugitive intervals in centuries of disintegration which, while they lasted, presented remarkable features. We have observed the conquest of successive hosts of invaders by Hindu culture. We now pass on to observe the arrival of more invaders, differing from all their predecessors in their allegiance to a positive, unifying, militant religion. Between them and the Hindus there could be no assimilation. But, forced in upon itself by Muhammadan conquest, Hinduism nevertheless preserved its ancient vitality completely unimpaired. II THE MUHAMMADAN PERIOD TO THE DEATH OF AKBAR WITHIN eighty years from the death of the prophet Muham- mad in A.D. 632 his successors, the Arab Khalifs, spiritual and temporal sovereigns, became masters of Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Western Turkistan and Sind. They imposed their religion at the point of the sword, or compelled those who would not accept it to ransom their lives by money payments. Early in the eighth century the province of Sind was ruled by a young Muslim Arab general, Muhammad Bin Kazim, and thereafter for centuries was dominated by Arabs. But when Islam came in force to India it came by the north gate through Afghan converts, who had themselves accepted the creed of the Prophet but recently. Notable among these was Sabuktagin, the founder of the mountain kingdom of Ghazni. His raids were limited to the Punjab. His hardy warriors scattered loose temporary combinations of Rajas, acquiring large booty which they carried off in triumph to their native mountains. MUHAMMADAN PERIOD TO DEATH OF AKBAR 19 In 997 Sabuktagin’s place was taken by his son, the famous Mahmud of Ghazni who, between the date of his accession and A.D. 1027, the year of his death, conducted seventeen raids into India, penetrating as far as Benares in one direction and Somnath in another. He not only seized and removed many precious objects, but destroyed things destructible which bore traces of non-Muslim hands. Hindu temples and shrines were burnt or razed to the ground. Hindu images were broken into fragments or carried away to form road-metal. The treasures of India went to enrich the city of Ghazni; and Mahmud’s court became famous for its splendour. Before he died he annexed a large part of the Punjab and probably some Sind territory. He had found that the Rajput’s chiefs and their retainers were seldom able to resist for long the fiery onslaught of the mountaineers of Central Asia, to whom victory stood for plunder and death for paradise. He had so weakened the power of the Rajput chiefs of Northern India that their subju- gation became easy for subsequent hordes of invaders. Mahmud’s dynasty endured till the year a.p. 1150, when it was crushed and obliterated by a prince of the neighbouring kingdom of Ghor. Between 1191 and 1206 Muhammad Ghori and his lieutenants established unchallenged supremacy in Northern India, breaking completely the power of the Rajput chieftains and the political structure of the country. Even Bihar and Bengal were overrun. On the assassination of Mahmud in 1206 the bulk of his dominions passed to Katub- ud-din Aibak, a Turk who, as was the custom of the time, had been elevated to high office from among the slaves of his master on account of his personal force and ability. He suc- ceeded in maintaining unimpaired the heritage of which he took possession, and founded the dynasty of the *‘ Slave Kings ”’ of Delhi. The first of the historical cities known collectively as Delhi had been built near the close of the tenth century a.p. _ It now became the headquarters of the ‘‘ Slave Sultans,’’ who for eighty-four years predominated in Northern India, relying on the swords of their Muslim followers and terrorising their Hindu subjects. In 1290 they were succeeded by the Khilji dynasty, the most notable member of which, Ala-ud-din, required his advisers to draw up “‘rules and regulations for grinding down the Hindus, and for depriving them of that wealth and property which foster disaffection and rebellion.’ The Khilji in time gave place to the Tughlak Sultans, who also followed a policy of ruthless repression of Hindus. In 1840 the empire of 20 BEFORE PLASSEY Muhammad-bin-Tughlak included Northern India and much of the peninsula over which, although a man of culture and talent, he ruled with fanatical ferocity. Obedience to his authority varied necessarily in degree from province to pro- vince, being largely determined by proximity to or distance from Delhi. But it is certain that he possessed power sufficient to cause a vast amount of human misery. The Muslim invaders were a comparatively small minority who fought with the consciousness that they must conquer or perish. They were bound together by a fierce religious enthu- siasm against which Hinduism, dominated by the caste system and the creed of Karma, afforded no counteracting stimulus, They were eaters of meat from mountains and cool climates, stronger and heavier generally than opponents nurtured on vegetarian diet in the enervating atmosphere of the Gangetic plain, split by countless divisions and lacking effective leaders. Ruling by terrorism, the new-comers multiplied rapidly, re- cruiting their ranks by immigrants from Central Asia and by Hindu converts. Their fanaticism was often tempered by discretion, and their Sultans sometimes contented themselves with merely exacting tribute from ruling Rajas. The vastness of India, the lack of communications, the torrential rains of monsoon seasons, impeded centralised administration; and many Hindu principalities and village-communities were seldom disturbed by the new-comers. As time went on, Muslims and Hindus reacted on each other, and evolved a common language in the shape of Urdu (the ‘* camp-tongue’’), which was Hindi intermixed with Persian and in a less degree with Arabic. Seclusion of women, according to Muslim custom, became widely prevalent among high-caste Hindus; and once an unsuccessful effort was made to find a creed which would attract Muslims and Hindus. The power of the Delhi Sultans was constantly menaced from the north-west, notably by the Mongols under the con- quering Chingiz Khan, and after his time. From the south, too, they were threatened with overthrow by revolting vassals. In 13847 Zafar Khan, the Afghan or Turki governor of the Deccan, founded the so-called Bahmani Kingdom; and when Muhammad-bin-Tughlak died in 1851, a Hindu empire was rising farther south with a new capital named Vijayanagar (city of victory). The Delhi Sultanate was shrinking rapidly when in 1898 Amir Timur of Samarqand, the famous Tamerlane, undertook the conquest of India with the professed object of restoring Islam in all its purity. MUHAMMADAN PERIOD TO DEATH OF AKBAR 21 A Central Asian Turk and a zealous Muslim, Timur had conquered a large tract of Central Asia when in 1398 he de- spatched Pir Muhammad, one of his grandsons, to annex the Punjab. Late in the same year he crossed the Indus himself, at the head of 90,000 of his famous cavalry, and put to the sword all who resisted him, brushing aside the forces which Sultan Mahmud Tughlak had collected for the defence of Delhi. He then occupied the capital and extorted a large ransom. In the process of collection, disputes arose, with the result that Delhi was subjected to sack for five days. So thoroughly was the city gutted of all its treasures that it is said that only copper coin was to be found in it for the next half-century. In addition to plundering the city, Timur enslaved a large number of its inhabitants, carrying away with him, when he retired, hundreds of skilled artisans, whom he proposed to employ on the adornment of Samargand. From Delhi he marched to Meerut, which he captured, massacring the inhabitants and making his way back to his own country, where he set to work to plan an invasion of China; but fortu- nately for that country, death removed him in the year 1405 before his project had attained maturity. For more than half a century after Timur’s departure the Sultanate of Delhi remained in abeyance. Bengal, under an Afghan ruler, became entirely independent ; and a new Afghan principality sprang up, with its capital at Jaunpur. The Punjab remained under rulers nominally subject to the Sultans of Delhi, but in practice entirely independent. In 1450 one of these rulers, an Afghan or Pathan named Bahlol of the Lodi tribe, seized the throne of Delhi and proclaimed himself Sultan. He was successful in laying the foundations of an- other Empire, reconquered Jaunpur and extended his political influence as far as Benares and Bundelkhand. He founded a dynasty which came to an end when a rebellious Afghan chief in the Punjab invited Babar, King of Kabul, to overthrow the Delhi throne. Before proceeding to the story of Babar’s invasion, we are observe the position in the peninsula. South of the Narbada- Vindhya line a gradual extension of Muslim conquest had produced Muslim provincial governors, who soon developed into independent kings. Farther south Muslim progress was resisted by a powerful Hindu combination. Certain Kanarese feudal chiefs united to form an empire which, with its capital at Vijayanagar, would be strong enough to resist the invaders. For long the tide was stayed. Between the years 1482 and 22 BEFORE PLASSEY 1518 the Bahmani Kingdom, a source of untold misery to its Hindu subjects, split into five independent sultanates which constantly warred with each other and with the Vijayanagar Empire. Meantime many Persians, Turks, Arabs and Moghals settled in Southern India and married women of the country. The monuments of earlier Hindu civilisation suffered severely, and many Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam. In both the Muslim Sultanates and the Vijayanagar Empire the masses were kept in the strictest subjection. At last the Muslim Sultans of the Deccan combined for a great effort, and on January 238, 1565, at Talikota, decisively defeated Ram Raya, the de facto ruler of Vijayanagar, who was beheaded on the battlefield. The Hindu capital was pillaged and reduced to ruins amid scenes of savage massacre and terror. The descendants of the Emperors were reduced to the position of petty chiefs. Thus perished an organised and highly cultured autocracy which had been a stronghold and a refuge to southern Hinduism. But we must return to Northern India, which had meantime succumbed to the domina- tion of fresh invaders. Zahir-ud-din Muhammad, known to history as Babar (the Tiger), was a descendant: of Timur. In the year 1483 he was born at Ferghana in Central Asia. At eleven he found himself successor to his father as ruler of his country and was compelled at once to fight his uncles, who claimed the throne. At fourteen he took Samarqand after a long siege. Later on he lost both Samarqand and Ferghana; and after some fruitless years of exile and fighting, turning his back on his native country, at the head of a band of Turkomans he captured Kabul. Between the years 1519 and 1526 he invaded India four times. Early in 1526 he tried a fifth invasion, when, as he writes in his memoirs, ‘‘ God most High, of His mercy and grace, cast down and defeated so powerful an enemy as Sultan Ibrahim”’ (of Delhi) ‘“‘and made me master and conqueror of the mighty Empire of Hindustan.”’ Babar claimed kinship on his mother’s side with the Mongol or Moghal conqueror Chingiz Khan, but he always called him- self a Turk. In India, however, he was popularly ascribed to the race from which the dreaded Chingiz Khan had sprung. On April 21, 1526, Babar, at the head of an army of Turko- mans, Mongols and Afghans, numbering only 12,000, camp- followers included, but aided by a park of artillery, routed the hosts of Sultan Ibrahim on the historic field of Panipat near Delhi. His adversaries, he writes, ‘* dispersed like carded wool MUHAMMADAN PERIOD TO DEATH OF AKBAR 238 before the wind, and like moths scattered abroad.’ The Sultan and 15,000 of his followers were left dead on the field, and Babar occupied Agra and Delhi. In subsequent battles he defeated first a great Hindu confederacy under Rana San- gram Singh, the Rajput chief of the Mewar or Chitor State, and next the army of the Afghan rulers of Bengal and Bihar. Thus he made himself master of the plains of Upper India from the north-west frontier to the border of Bengal, winning over by his success and by the power of a fine personality many of the soldiers of his vanquished adversaries. But before he could establish a system of organised administration in the wide territories which he had annexed, he died at Agra at the age of forty-seven. His memoirs, written in Turki and since translated into Persian and English, abound in passages of vivid interest. He did not like India, and pined for the cool of his native mountains. By his own strong desire his body was taken to Kabul, where it now rests in a garden on a hill, which he had himself described as ‘‘ the sweetest spot in the neighbourhood.’’ Severe and ruthless if judged by modern standards, Babar was yet a man of fine qualities. He is lauded by the Persian historian Farishta as liberal and generous, disarming vice and making “‘ the wicked admire his virtue.”” He was strong, bold, courageous in the highest degree and possessed an iron physique. He was not only a great soldier, but a poet and a writer. After his death his dominions were divided. Of his sons Kamran became King of Kabul and Kandahar, and Humayun succeeded to the Indian conquests. Humayun’s days were few and troubled. At first he suffered defeat from Sher Shah, an Afghan chief who was master in Bihar. Driven into Sind by Sher Shah, Humayun eventually sought refuge in Persia. There the reigning monarch, Shah Tahmasp, belonged to the Shia school of Muslims, which refuses to recognise the Khilafat (tenure of office as Khalifa) of the first three successors of the Prophet as genuine, and declares the fourth Khalifa, Ali the Prophet’s son-in-law, to be the only true Khalifa. Humayun himself belonged to the Sunni sect, which, basing its allegiance on the sunnas, or precedents, recognises the Khilafat of Muhammad’s three immediate successors as well as that of Ali. Feeling between Shias and Sunnis often runs high in India. Shah Tahmasp insisted on Humayun’s becoming a Shia, and helped him to recover Kandahar from his brother Kamran, whom eventually he expelled from Kabul, imprisoned and blinded. In July 1555 he recovered Delhi and Agra; but in 24 | BEFORE PLASSEY January 1556 he died of injuries received from a fall, Jeaving two sons, Akbar, aged thirteen, and Muhammad Hakim, aged ten. He had placed the latter in nominal command at Kabul. On his father’s death Akbar was proclaimed sovereign of Hindustan. Sher Shah, too, had died, after proving himself a strong and able ruler; but two of his nephews aspired to succeed him; and while these were disputing, Hemu, the minister of one, a Hindu grain-merchant by caste, seized Agra and Delhi and proclaimed himself king. This pretension was strongly resisted by Bairam Khan, Akbar’s guardian, who on November 5, 1556, met and defeated Hemu in a pitched battle at Panipat. Hemu was killed; and, after the savage fashion of the time, the heads of the slain were piled up in the shape of a tower. Agra and Delhi were occupied by the victors, and the pretensions of Sher Shah’s nephews were decisively disposed of. Akbar owed much to Bairam Khan, from whose tutelage, however, he speedily emancipated himself as soon as the imperial authority had been established over Delhi and its adjacent districts. Then he set himself at once to recover all the territory conquered by Babar, to add to it further territory and to weld the whole into a mighty empire. He possessed the personal qualities necessary to achieve suc- cess; and he decided early that to make success of lasting value an altogether new policy must be adopted. No Indian empire could be stable unless it rested on the goodwill of Hindus as well as Muslims. He reversed the fanatical policy of previous Sultans, and abolished the hated jizya (poll-tax on non-Muslims). Early in life he married a Rajput prin- cess who became the mother of his successor, the Emperor Jehangir. The Rajput clans which had once ruled over the rich Gan- getic plains had been driven by earlier Muhammadan invaders to choose between living in subjection to their conquerors and carving out elsewhere a new and poorer dominion. Some had elected to stay where they were, dominating villages in strong communities, and paying such land-tax as the sovereign of the day was able to enforce. Others had migrated, southward and westward, into regions where the country was arid and difficult and attack could at least be resisted. There they re- mained under chiefs of prominent clans. Their confederacy, headed by the chief of Udaipur, had been vanquished by Babar. But it was Akbar who, first of the Moghals, after capturing the Rajput citadel of Chitor, killing the leader of the defenders, and massacring 80,000 of the country people MUHAMMADAN PERIOD TO DEATH OF AKBAR 25 who had assisted them, set himself to win Rajput support for his throne. Some chiefs were created dignitaries of the Empire. Some gave wives to the Emperor. But the clans of Mewar never submitted to him. Employing in his State and army men of all creeds, and holding that, to use his own words, “‘a monarch should ever be intent on conquest, otherwise his neighbours rise in arms against him,” Akbar gradually extended his dominion in all directions until it covered all the provinces of Northern India including Kashmir, Sind and Orissa, Khandesh in the Deccan, and Afghanistan from Kabul southwards. But the mountain country west of the Indus remained independent, Akbar’s soldiers simply endeavouring to keep open the passes. The boundary of his empire at the time of his death reached the west coast between Guzerat and Bombay, but in that direction included conquests which had hardly been assimilated. In Rajputana too and elsewhere there were chiefs and tribes whose allegiance was uncertain. Yet it is true that Akbar in his forty years of warfare united under one organised govern- ment Hindus and Muslims, Rajputs and Afghans, the numerous races and tribes of Upper India. His army consisted mainly of irregular contingents raised and commanded by autonomous chiefs or by mansabdars (place-holders). His empire was largely composed of pro- tected States, the chiefs of which furnished contingents in time of war and paid tribute more or less regularly. But the man- sabdars, or commanders of levies of horsemen, were the backbone of the army, for small reliance was placed on in- fantry and artillery, the guns being very inferior. Chiefs and mansabdars were expected to provide their commands with all necessities, but drill and uniformity in dress or arms were not exacted. Ordinarily the Emperor allowed his camps to be encumbered with much superfluous equipage ; but on occasion he would dispense with all imperial pomp and travel lightly. Supplies were provided by large markets marching with the camps, conducted by the wandering Banjaras, who then and long after were the commissariat of Indian armies. Man- sabdars of the higher grades were known as Amirs or Omrah (nobles), Akbar generally paid all mansabdars by cash salaries. He disliked the alternative system of granting them jagirs, revenue-free fiefs, as jagirdars, holders of ‘‘ jagirs,’’? were apt to seek independence. The organisation of the Empire established by Akbar will be described in a subsequent chapter. Here it suffices to say 26 BEFORE PLASSEY that the Emperor himself was absolute master, heir and disposer of all his subjects. All institutions derived their sanction from his will and pleasure. As general, statesman and ruler he shone pre-eminent. His great qualities and per- sonal force, his originality, his untiring ambition, dazzled and compelled his multitudinous subjects. His interests were many and varied. Like many of the old Sultans of Delhi, he devoted great attention to building and architecture. The deserted palace-city of Fatihpur Sikri and its noble ‘‘ Gate of Victory ”’ still proclaim the glories of his reign. Although unable to read, he was believed to have mastered the contents of many books; and liberally patronising letters, he collected an enormous library of manuscripts, among which were Persian translations of Sanskrit epics prepared by his orders. In religion he was profoundly interested. His son had declared that ‘‘ never for one moment did he forget God.” Originally a Sunni Muslim, he studied not only the ancient faiths of India, but also the Christianity taught by the Portuguese Jesuits whom he received at his Court. Finally he rejected Islam and promulgated a new ‘‘ Divine Monotheism’”’ which attracted no support. Physically he was as strong and active as his grandfather Babar; but he suffered from a kind of epilepsy which at times plunged him into melancholy and drove him to seek relief in field sports. He was a splendid horseman and shot, willing and eager in all circumstances to risk his life. His great career closed in gloom. His eldest son, Prince Salim, afterwards the Emperor Jehangir, rebelled and pro- cured the atrocious murder of Abul Fazl, his father’s trusted minister. After this father and son were never really recon- ciled. Two other sons had already died of ‘‘ delirium tremens.” Akbar did not reduce to submission all the Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan or the Portuguese on the western coast, whose artillery was far superior to his own. At sea he was powerless. Yet when he died in October 1605, at the age of sixty-two, he had organised and welded together a mighty dominion. His obsequies were hurried and perfunctory. Only his successor, Jehangir, and a few other persons wore mourning, all resuming their ordinary garb before sunset. Eighty-six years later his remains were stolen from his splendid tomb at Sikandra, near Agra. They were burnt; but his fame is immortal. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE FROM 1605 TO 1707 27 III THE MOGHAL EMPIRE FROM 1605 TO 1707 AXKBAR was succeeded by his son Jehangir, who, after repressing a rebellion of his son Prince Khusru, reigned from 1605 to 1627; and Jehangir was succeeded by his son Shah Jehan, who reigned from 1628 to 1659. Jehangir continued his father’s tolerant and prudent policy. Although notoriously a drunkard and violent in temper, susceptible moreover to the intrigues of his queen Nur Mahal and her brother, he was a capable ruler. His son Prince Khurram rebelled, and was in rebellion when Jehangir died. Prince Khurram then, after wholesale executions of his male relatives, became Emperor under the name of Shah Jehan. Although born of a Rajput mother, he was a stricter Muslim than either his father or grandfather. His orthodoxy was fortified by the influence of his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal, the mother of fourteen of his children, who lies by his side at Agra in the glorious mau- soleum which he erected to do her honour. Although generally tolerant to his Hindu subjects, Shah Jehan was subject to fits of fanatical zeal, and in 1632 deter- mined to stop the building of Hindu temples, giving orders that everywhere those under construction should be cast down. It is reported that in the district of Benares alone 76 temples were destroyed. In spite of this aberration, Shah Jehan was a wise ruler. He chose his ministers with discrimination, looked after his finances himself and endeavoured to enforce equitable and effective administration. He dazzled his people by gorgeous display and was certainly the most popular of his house. But in 1681 he lost his beloved Mumtaz Mahal; and as he grew old he devoted himself to sensual pleasures, leaving his empire to be administered by others and fought over by his four sons. The fight was fierce; and the prize fell to the third son Aurangzeb, a man of thirty-eight, after a furious battle at Samugarh near Agra with the forces of Dara, the eldest son, who was strongly supported by a great Rajput contingent. Aurangzeb then imprisoned his father, who survived in comfortable captivity for another seven years. Proclaiming himself Emperor on May 26, 1659, Aurangzeb assumed the title of Alamgir,’ and four months later ordered the unfortunate Dara to execution. Another brother shared 1 World-conqueror. 28 BEFORE PLASSEY the same fate in the following year, and a third brother was driven from the country. Aurangzeb owed his success to his established reputation as a cool, courageous soldier. In 1647 his father had sent him to establish the imperial authority in Balkh and Badak- shan, once the dominions of Babar and recently recovered for his descendants. Aurangzeb, however, finding those regions untenable, had restored them to the Uzbegs, and had led the imperial forces back to Kabul with considerable loss but with coolness and judgment. Again, he had commanded two unsuccessful expeditions for the recovery of Kandahar and had proved himself a steady and intrepid leader. In the middle of a battle with the Uzbegs, at the hour of evening prayer, although under fire, he had calmly dismounted and discharged ~ his religious duties. The strictest of Muslims, he possessed all the courage of his forefathers Akbar and Babar. During the battle of Samugarh at a critical moment he had ordered the legs of his elephant to be chained together in order that retreat might be rendered impossible. The French doctor Bernier, who saw much of his court, calls him ‘‘ a versatile and rare genius, a consummate statesman and a great king.” Yet his reign was a long tragedy. In the first place, to his ruin, he reversed the tolerant and liberal policy bequeathed by Akbar. Obsessed with fanatical zeal, in the name of Islam he persecuted the Hindu majority of his subjects; he destroyed their temples; he revived the poll-tax on non-Muslims. The strongest indictment of his policy is contained in the following protest addressed to him by an unknown Hindu: ‘* Such were the benevolent intentions of your ancestors [Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jehan]. While they pursued those great and generous principles, wheresoever they directed their steps, conquest and prosperity went before them; and then they reduced many countries to their obedience. During your Majesty’s reign, many have been alienated from the Empire, and further loss of territory must follow, since devastation and rapine now universally prevail without restraint. Your subjects are trampled under foot, and every province of your Empire is impoverished; depopulation spreads, and diffi- culties accumulate. If your Majesty places any faith in these books by distinction called divine, you will there be instructed that God is the God of all mankind, not the God of the Muham- madans alone. The Pagan and the Mussalman are equally in His presence. Distinctions of colour are of His ordination. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE FROM 1605 TO 1707 29 It is He who gives existence. In your temples, to His name the voice is raised in prayer; in a house of images, when the bell is shaken, still He is the object of adoration. To vilify the religion or the customs of other men is to set at naught the pleasure of the Almighty. . .. In fine, the tribute you demand from the Hindus is repugnant to justice ; it is equally foreign from good policy, and it must impoverish the country ; moreover, it is an innovation and an infringement of the: Laws of Hindostan.” But all such words fell on deaf ears, and although Aurangzeb did not disdain marriage with Rajput princesses, his bitter and relentless fanaticism led inevitably to Rajput rebellion. Raj- puts had fought stoutly for his predecessors since the days of Akbar. In the second place Aurangzeb’s cold and suspicious nature, his asceticism and frugal simplicity, were repugnant to the majority of his subjects who admired the profuse splendour and display of his forefathers. In the third place his determination to carry on to a finish the subjugation of the Muslim sultans of the Deccan, which had been begun by his predecessors Akbar and Shah Jehan, involved him in constant war. The Kings of Bijapur and Golkonda had remained unsubdued; and the fact that these potentates were Shias, and therefore in his opinion heretics, was sufficient to fire the bigotry of Aurangzeb. After prolonged and weary efforts, he succeeded in crushing both potentates, but at the cost of gravely weakening the whole structure of his Empire and affording golden opportunities to the most dangerous of his foes the Maratha, Sivaji. Maharashtra, the home of the Marathas, is that part of the Deccan which is bisected by the western Ghats and extends from the Satpura Hills on the north to Goa on the south. On the east it is approximately bounded by the Vardha River, and on the west by the sea.1_ The Konkan is that portion of Maharashtra which lies between the Ghats and the sea, a narrow strip of rugged country untraversed by roads in Aurang- zeb’s days and largely covered by forest jungle. The remaining portion is the Deshast or hilly tableland which lies to the east of the Ghats. The features of Maharashtra account largely for the physical characteristics of the Marathas, who are sturdy, laborious and persevering, Hindus by religion and mainly agriculturists by profession. Spiritually they are directed by Brahmans of various sects, of which the most 1 Grant Duff’s History of the Marathas (Edwardes), pp. 3-4 (n.). 30 BEFORE PLASSEY notable is the Konkanasth or Chitpavan. These, by reason of their capacity and ambition, have played a prominent part in history. There are also Rajputs and Vaish, representatives of the military and mercantile castes; but the large majority of Marathas are Kunbis, who belong to the servile class. Others spring from the intermixed progeny of various castes, and each caste is liberally subdivided. Marathas generally are descended to a considerable extent from the original inhabitants of Maharashtra, and early in the seventeenth century were subjects of the Muslim Sultans of the Deccan, speaking a vernacular dialect founded on Sanskrit, producing occasionally ascetics and poets who dealt with religious subjects. Politically they were disunited and there- fore impotent. Frequently they stood in array against each other, fighting for one or other of their Muslim sovereigns. Their country was practically divided between Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. Both before and after Moghal invasion of the Deccan, Marathas fought as free companions, sometimes for one Muslim power and sometimes for another. Sivaji was the son of one of these free companions, and was born in May 1627, eight years after the birth of Aurangzeb. As a child he fell much under Brahman influence and took pleasure in hearing tales gathered from the Hindu epics. He detested all Muhammadans, regarding them as foreign tyrants. Bold and adventurous by nature, he was content to leave reading and writing to Brahmans and grew up a good archer, marksman and rider. From the age of sixteen he began to talk of becoming an independent ruler; and gradually gather- ing round him bands of his brother Marathas, he began opera- tions as a robber chief. He was singularly successful and, going on to attack Muslim forts, at last contrived the destruc- tion of a force sent against him by the King of Bijapur. At a conference before the engagement he slew Afzal Khan the general with his own hand, and by guerrilla tactics subsequently baffled an army sent to the Deccan by Aurangzeb. His power increased rapidly. His aim was independent sovereignty. In June 1674 at his fortress of Raigarh, Sivaji was invested by a Brahman from Benares, the sacred city of the Hindus, with the sacred thread which marked his formal admission to the Kshatriya caste. He was then crowned and anointed as Raja, after the manner of ancient Kshatriya kings. After- wards he availed himself of Aurangzeb’s entanglement in hos- tilities with the wild Afghan tribes on the north-west frontier to acquire territory in the far south; and when he died, in 1680, THE MOGHAL EMPIRE FROM 1605 TO 1707 31 he had established a dominion which consisted partly of swaraj districts! governed by the Raja, and partly of a right to levy blackmail in the shape of chaut, one-fourth of the ordinary land-tax, on territories belonging to other powers, together with, in certain cases, sardeshmukhi, an additional 10 per eent. Such exactions entailed the maintenance of intricate accounts; and as the warrior Marathas despised letters, they were entirely dependent on their Brahmans for their financial arrangements. The government of the swaraj rested with the Raja and a eouncil of eight Brahman ministers, of whom the chief was the Peishwa or prime minister. Over the various districts into which this territory was divided were officers supported by eight principal assistants who dealt with correspondence and ac- counts. Revenue assessment was made on the crops, the State taking two-fifths of the out-turn. Dr. Fryer, an eye- witness, says that taxes were collected with extreme rigour and brutality. But, in spite of this feature of his rule, Sivaji’s success, his religious tendencies, his reverence for Brahmans, made him popular among his Hindu subjects. Even Muham- madans respected some qualities of their redoubtable adver- sary. For while the famous Maratha was a consummate guerrilla leader, and did not scruple to attack caravans and appropriate property, he would allow no harm to mosques, or to copies of the Koran, or to any woman. When unprotected Muhammadan women were captured by his men, they were guarded carefully until their friends redeemed them with a suitable ransom. Female followers were not allowed in Sivaji’s armies. Discipline was strictly maintained; and death was the penalty for disobedience or grave neglect of duty. Never- theless the prime object of the Maratha soldiers was plunder. When a town or village was sacked, copper money, brass and copper vessels, the property of the lower orders, went to the finders ; articles of gold and silver, jewels, valuable stuffs, were by rule to be given up to officers and made over to the Government. ‘The territory and treasures which Sivaji acquired,” says Grant Duff, ‘‘ were not so formidable to the Muhammadans as the example he set, the system and habits he introduced, and the spirit he infused. . . . To sum up, let us contrast his craft, plancy and humility with his boldness, firmness and ambition; his power of inspiring enthusiasm while he showed the coolest attention to his own interests ; the dash of a partisan i Literally “‘ districts held in independent sovereignty.”” The word “‘swaraj”’ comes down from Sanskrit literature. 32 BEFORE PLASSEY adventurer with the order and economy of a statesman; and lastly, the wisdom of his plans, which raised the despised Hindus to sovereignty and brought about their own accomplish- ment, when the hand that formed them was low in the dust.”’ Aurangzeb was slow to realise the quality of Sivaji. At one time his generals succeeded in persuading the Maratha to agree to surrender a number of strongholds and to do homage at Delhi. But when Sivaji appeared in the Emperor’s hall of audience, he was allowed to stand unnoticed among third-class mansabdars. Furious at such treatment, he quitted the presence without taking ceremonious leave ; and escaping from Delhi, concealed in a hamper, he reoccupied all his forts. Shortly afterwards the Emperor acknowledged him as a Raja; _ but the concession came too late. Sivaji was for life Aurang- zeb’s implacable enemy. When in 1680 death removed the Maratha, Aurangzeb admitted that his foe was a great captain, but persisted in underrating the fighting qualities of the race from which Sivaji had sprung. The Emperor sent his sons to lay waste the Konkan; but the guerrilla tactics of the Marathas under Sivaji’s son Sambhaji completely baffled the imperial forces. At last, in 1690, after taking the field himself, Aurangzeb captured Sambhaji, who scornfully rejected an offer of pardon coupled with the condition of turning Mussulman, and was put to an ignominious death. But this only goaded the Mara- thas to further and bitterer resistance. They decoyed, baffled and slaughtered the Emperor’s troops, declining to fight except when they themselves chose, laughing at his heavy cavalry and matchlockmen who, as Bernier says, squatted on the ground, resting their pieces on a wooden fork which they carried on their backs, ‘‘ terribly afraid of burning their eye- lashes or beards, and above all lest some ‘ jin’ or evil spirit should cause the musket to burst.’’? The burning sun, the ~ depressing monsoon-seasons, the intrigues and luxury of the Imperial Court, had done their work on the descendants of those who had followed Babar from Kabul and found no obstacle too hard to overcome. The fanatical folly of Aurang- zeb had antagonised most of the Rajputs who had fought so stoutly for Akbar and Shah Jehan. The sturdy Marathas, caring nothing for comfort or luxury, fighting among their own hills and jungles, camped at pleasure round the grand army of the Empire, carting off supplies, carrying off elephants, plundering ammunition-wagons, harassing their enemies by night attacks. ‘Tropical rains added to the discomfort of THE MOGHAL EMPIRE FROM 1605 TO 1707 388 the imperial troops. Once at midnight a river flooded the Emperor’s camp, sweeping thousands away with tents, horses and bullocks. In 1703 a division of his army was surprised on the banks of the Narbada and driven pell-mell into the river. At last, in 1706, Aurangzeb retreated to Ahmadnagar. Not only were the Marathas more powerful than ever, but the Rajputs were once more in arms, and near Delhi the Jats were in revolt. His own sons were against him. All that was left him was to die. ‘‘ Carry this creature of dust to the nearest burying-place,”’ he said, ‘‘ and lay it in the earth with- out any useless coffin.”” He expired on March 4, 1707, in the fiftieth year of his reign and the eighty-ninth of his life. He had seen ruin threatening his house. In the south were the Marathas; in the north the Rajputs were bitterly hostile ; while in the Punjab had arisen the formidable sect of the Sikhs. The Sikhs, or disciples, began as Hindu religious reformers. By race they are mostly Jats of the Punjab, belonging to the Indo-Aryan physical type, held in high repute as hardy yeo- men, ready either to take up arms or to follow the plough. In religion Jats are Hindus; but some have been converted to Islam. The founder of Sikhism among the Jats was Nanak a Rajput, a guru or teacher who lived from 1469 to 1539. He preached the unity of God, the futility of forms of worship and the un- reality of caste distinctions. He left behind him many earnest and admiring disciples, and was succeeded by other gurus. In 1577 Akbar granted to the fourth guru the site of the tank and Golden Temple at Amritsar, thus establishing that place as the religious capital of the Sikhs. Har Gobind, the sixth guru, began the conversion of a religious sect into a military fraternity, and came into conflict with the Emperors Jehangir and Shah Jehan. Tej Bahadur, the ninth guru, after en- - eouraging Hindu resistance to forcible conversion, was executed by order of Aurangzeb on refusal to embrace the creed of Islam. Gobind Singh, the tenth and last guru (1675-1708), organised his brethren into a military power, binding them together by two sacraments which were to be accepted by all the ‘* Khalisa’”’ (pure). The Adi Granth or original Sikh bible had already been dictated by Arjun, the sixth guru. Gobind Singh added a supplementary Granth and invented new names for God, the first the Akal (Immortal), the last the Asipani (the Sword in his Hand), the impersonation and source IN—3 34 BEFORE PLASSEY of bravery. He commanded Sikhs to adopt the five K’s—five attributes the Punjabi names of which begin with the letter K —namely long hair, short drawers, an iron quoit, a small steel dagger and a comb. Gobind Singh was murdered by an Afghan in 1708; and since his decease the holy Granth has been the spiritual teacher of the Sikhs. As a military power they soon became formid- able. They were commanded by a Rajput convert of Gobind’s named Banda who, at the head of followers of the guru and a number of lawless men, inflamed by the cruel executions of Gobind’s sons by the Moghal commandant of Sirhind, obtained various successes, killed the obnoxious commandant and com- mitted atrocities. At one time Banda was supreme from Delhi to Peshawar. But in 1715 he was captured, was sent to Delhi in a cage and executed with many of his followers. An English eyewitness of the spectacle reported that the Sikhs vied with each other in contempt for death. These incidents, however, belong to a period when the Moghal Empire was waning fast ; and before going further, we will briefly examine its relations with its subjects in happier times. IV THE MOGHAL EMPIRE AND THE PEOPLE Wuen Akbar died in 1605 the Moghal Empire dominated Northern India, including Afghanistan and Kashmir, Guzerat and Sind, Orissa and most of modern Bengal. On the south it was bounded by the three remaining Muhammadan king- doms of the Deccan, Ahmadnagar, Golkonda and Bijapur. Beyond these, in the extreme south of the peninsula, were the territories of various Hindu chieftains who had once owed allegiance to the bygone Vijayanagar Empire. A century later Aurangzeb was approaching the close of his long life. His empire covered Northern India and most of Afghanistan. It stretched southwards almost to Cape Comorin. It had absorbed the Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan and much of the old Vijayanagar Empire. Yet already signs were manifest that its days were numbered. The Emperor, a bitter proselytiser, had for years been continuously at war in a country containing, as Bernier says, hundreds of Hindus to one Muhammadan. His empire was threatened by a new formidable Hindu power, animated by a nascent national spirit. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE AND THE PEOPLE — 85 The prestige of his armies had much declined. By intem- perate fanaticism he had alienated or antagonised the Rajput clans. His Muslim soldiers were ill disciplined ; and Bernier wrote that 25,000 French veterans commanded by Condé or Turenne would overcome any number of the Imperial troops. On the sea the Moghal Empire had always been helpless ; and along its coasts European maritime Powers were establishing factories and forts. Still, the inheritors of Akbar’s glory stood in high repute and maintained considerable order over vast territories. No priest crowned or anointed the Emperor. The proclama- tion of his accession was prefaced with the praise of God and the Prophet. After recital of his titles, gold and silver coins were showered among his courtiers, who hailed him as the Khalifa of the age. The essential act of his coronation was the ‘“‘ jalsa”’ or sitting. .The supreme moment arrived when he took his seat on the throne. Emperors from Akbar onwards assumed the title of Khalifa, which had previously been adopted by Sher Shah. The splendour of the court in its palmy days dazzled the eyes of the populace and of foreign visitors. Sir Thomas Roe tells us that Jehangir on his birthday sat ‘* crosslegged upon a little throne, all clad in diamonds, pearles and rubies, before him a table of gold, on it about fifty pieces of gold plate, .. . his nobilitie about him in their best equipage whom he com- manded to drink froliquely, several wines standing by in great flagons.” Akbar and Jehangir held royal state at Agra; but Shah Jehan added a new city and palace to Delhi which thence- forth became the capital of the empire. ‘* Nothing,” says Bernier, “can be conceived much more brilliant than the great square in front of the fortress [palace] at the hours when the Amirs, Rajas and Mansabdars repair to the citadel to mount guard or attend the Hall of Audience.”’ _ In this hall, which still recalls so many vanished splendours, the Emperor, when at headquarters, in order to be seen of his people, sat daily upon the famous throne of Shah Jehan studded with precious stones accumulated from the spoils of conquered kings and the gifts presented by nobles and feudatory chiefs. Gorgeous festivals were held on special anniversaries, when State processions were made to the noble mosque built by Shah Jehan. Elephant-fights provided excitement. Nobles and officers of State vied with each other in costly display. Even Aurangzeb, noted as he was for his simple habits, appre- ciated the importance of accessibility in the business of an 36 BEFORE PLASSEY Eastern monarch, and for many years showed himselt con- stantly to his subjects *‘ high on a throne of royal state.” The Moghal court, however, was mainly a foreign court. The nobles, the governors, the generals who supported it, were largely of Turkish, Afghan or Persian descent. Adven- turers from Central Asia came to push their fortunes. The languages spoken were at first Turki and Persian, and later on Persian only. Urdu, or Persianised Hindi, developed gradually as a convenient method of communication between the conquerors and the conquered. Akbar had done his best to promote amity and union between his Muslims and the martial Rajputs. But his policy was less actively pursued by his son and grandson, and was vigorously reversed by Aurangzeb. Akbar’s military system and the position of ‘‘ mansabdars ”’ and feudal chiefs in his empire have already been described. We now turn to the system of civil administration which he transmitted to his descendants. The Emperor was absolute but was assisted by ministers. His empire contained feuda- tory States and subas (provinces) under subadars (governors). The Subadar was commander-in-chief of his province, which was divided into “ sarkars’’ or districts. District administra- tion was directed toward securing at all times sufficient soldiers and sufficient money. LHach district was placed in charge of a fauwjdar or commandant, who was responsible for keeping order and for supplying a local force of untrained infantry. He was assisted by an amalguzar, or tax-collector. In towns, peace and public order were the special care of an officer known as the kotwal. He was not only chief officer but chief judge, although judicial officials, known as kazis, dealt with questions arising out of Muslim civil law. Despotic power was wielded by faujdars and kotwals under lazy or incompetent subadars. The administration of justice was honeycombed with bribery, and officials generally made the most of fleeting opportunities, for their position was precarious, especially under Aurangzeb, who employed a staff of inspectors working in all provinces of his empire and informing him of all that passed. Theoretically subjects in the provinces could appeal to the Emperor, but ordinarily they made the best of the treatment accorded to them by their local rulers. ‘‘ Delhi dur ast ”’ (“‘ It is a long way to Delhi’’), ran the proverb; and communications were frequently deterrent. Even Akbar could exercise little supervision over distant tracts. India was then, as she is now, an agricultural country. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE AND THE PEOPLE § 387 The land-revenue, or money equivalent of the State-share of agricultural produce, was and is her fiscal mainstay. Akbar’s Hindu finance minister, Raja Todar Mal, building on a founda- tion laid by the Afghan chief Sher Shah, who expelled Humayun, devised an elaborate method of assessment of crop-outturn based on measurement of land, classification of areas and adjustment of revenue-rates to classified areas. The State dues were theoretically one-third of the average outturn, cal- culated on the result of ten years’ experience. Investigation and calculations were performed by a large staff of officials. The Government sometimes realised revenue from the tenants through tax-collectors, whose offices were frequently hereditary ; at other times it contracted with landholders (zamin- dars) for payment of dues from villages under their protection ; and sometimes the Emperor or his Viceroy granted fiefs (jagirs) to generals or favourites revenue-free. Tax-collectors often became zamindars; but many of the latter were Rajput chiefs or proprietary communities, who still exercised much authority over the masses. We know that numbers of the Rajas and Rajputs of an earlier generation had abandoned the Gangetic plain for the less fertile lands of Rajputana, where they main- tained independence till the time of Akbar. But numbers remained, leaders in their village communities, whom they protected, as best they could, from the invasions, persecutions and exactions of the early Muhammadan conquerors. During the period of disintegration which immediately pre- ceded the establishment of the Moghal Empire, Rajas and Rajputs recovered much of their pristine power. But then came the days of Babar and Humayun; and at last Akbar, establishing a powerful central government, desired to con- ciliate, and to recruit soldiers from, the strongest and most national section of his Hindu subjects. Some Rajas were permitted to hold certain villages free of tax; others paid revenue but were allowed special dues at each harvest. Aurang- zeb indeed pursued another policy with ruinous effect ; but in the Empire’s palmy days the position of the Rajput land- holders, although frequently assailed by Muslim settlers, Muslim governors or Muslim tax-gatherers, was the best com- patible with circumstances. Over the tenants and village labourers they ruled with the authority with which Brahman- ism invested them, unless indeed any of these, disgusted with the serfdom decreed to them, sought escape in conversion to Islam. Some zamindars and many jagirdars were Muslims. The peasants themselves had far less security of tenure and 38 BEFORE PLASSEY far less hope of reaping the fruits of their labour than they have in modern times. At the commencement of his reign Jehangir found it necessary to order that the officials of the Crown-lands and the jagirdars should not forcibly take the ryots’ (tenants’) lands and cultivate them on their own account. Bernier states that owing to the tyranny of such persons the ground was, as a rule, only tilled under compulsion, and that no person wished or was able to repair the water-channels. Mr. Moreland holds, no doubt correctly, that the tenants of hereditary zamindars were better off than those of jagirdars, who were ordinarily strangers. Landlords and tenants alike lived in fear of losing their means of livelihood through war, rebellion or the devastating famines which then entailed heavy mortality and enslavement of children. The peasants themselves and their crops have so far changed but little since the seventeenth century. ‘* The plough and the ox, the millets and the rice, the pulses and the oil-seeds, and the whole traditions of the countryside link the India of to-day with the sixteenth century and with far earlier times in the history of the people.” ! But over many stretches of country the cultivators’ means of irrigation are now far superior to those of his far-away ancestors. ‘The present canal system belongs almost entirely to the nineteenth century. The village labourers were in a hopelessly servile position. It was very difficult for them, when decimated by famine, to obtain the slightest relief either at home or abroad. Travel was often very difficult and prospects of employment were scanty. There were no factories of importance. The produc- tion of gold, quicksilver, lead, zinc, was negligible. The output of copper was small; but that of iron was more considerable. Salt was obtained from the Punjab mines and the Sambhar Lake. There were various diamond-fields which absorbed a certain amount of labour, and there was a drift of villagers toward cities and armies. When an Emperor toured or de- parted on a leisurely campaign, his camp was joined by a host of followers of all kinds as well as by the shopkeepers of his capital. Bernier describes elaborately the organisation of one of Aurangzeb’s camps, peopled by a “ prodigious and almost incredible multitude.” Mr. Moreland concludes that although far less numerous than they are now, the rural masses of these times lived more hardly than they live in these, that a larger proportion of their surplus earnings was absorbed by the State, and that communal expenditure in the shape of 1 Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, p. 101. THE MOGHAL EMPIRE AND THE PEOPLE 39 provision of medical or famine relief, education, means of communication, assistance to production, was either non- existent or of a very meagre description. Industries were largely concentrated in a few towns and cities and more especially at the capital. Bernier tells us that although workshops occupied by skilful artisans did not exist in Delhi city, this was not because there was ‘“‘ any in- ability in the people to cultivate the arts.”? In fact Indians made *‘ excellent muskets and fowling-pieces, and such beau- tiful gold ornaments that it might be doubted if the exquisite workmanship of those articles could be exceeded by any Euro- pean goldsmith.” Want of genius was not the reason why works of superior art were not exhibited in the Delhi shops. The reason was that unless protected by royal patronage, artists and manufacturers were harshly treated and inade- quately rewarded. But the Emperors themselves were patrons of art; and in the Imperial palace enclosure special workshops were provided for artificers, one hall for embroiderers, another for goldsmiths, another for painters, another for varnishers in lacquer-work, another for joiners, turners, tailors and shoe- makers, another for manufacturers of silk, brocade and fine muslins. It was such artistic exhibits, combined with a passion for gorgeous display in Imperial and Viceregal courts, which pro- duced on the minds of European travellers an illusory impres- sion of vast wealth. India indeed produced diamonds and other commodities which were eagerly sought for by peoples of foreign countries. She thereby secured a steady influx of the precious metals, so that travellers who viewed her under the influence of economic theories which are now exploded, and observed the display at courts and the time-honoured habit of hoarding gold and silver in circumstances which prevented their employment in reproduction, were apt to form erroneous ideas of her wealth. But if the relation of the income from all commodities to the total numbers of popu- lation! be considered, and it be remembered that persons employed in producing articles for foreign commerce can only have formed a small fraction of these total numbers, the in- ference follows that India was even then, although far more sparsely inhabited than she is now, a poor country. Her present great export trade in food-grains, oil-seeds and fibres was non-existent. Her communications were extremely meagre ; } Mr. Moreland estimates the population of India in Akbar’s days as “at least about 100 millions.” 40 BEFORE PLASSEY and much land which is now under cultivation was then marsh and jungle. The submontane forests stretched far into the lains. In the next chapter Indian commerce with Europe in this period will be dealt with. India also possessed export markets in Asia. The products of her looms found their way to Arabia, Burma, the Spice Islands, China and the east coast of Africa. Bernier notices particularly the large quantity of silk stuffs and cotton cloths of every kind manufactured in Bengal. Producers generally would have profited more had they not been so much at the mercy of rulers prone to luxury and dis- play, holding office on precarious tenure. The professional classes, which have become prominent as the Congress party in modern times, were then represented | by clerks, merchants, doctors and minor functionaries at administrative centres. There were no practising lawyers, few secular teachers, no engineers, no journalists. Physicians, artists and authors sought the patronage of the great as the sole avenue to success. No court meddled with the hosts of ascetics and religious mendicants who subsisted on alms, as they do to-day. Nor, as a rule, did any Government concern itself with the primitive tribes of mountains and forests which are hardly mentioned by cotemporary writers. The Ain-t-Akbari—or Institutes of Akbar—compiled by his minister, Abul Fazl, lay down elaborate methods for the teach- ing of reading and writing. ‘* Every boy,’’ they say, ‘‘ ought to read books on morals, arithmetic, agriculture, mensuration, geometry, astronomy, physiognomy, household matters, the rules of government, medicine, logic and history, all of which may be gradually acquired.” Injunctions are also given as to the study of Sanskrit. But the incessant wars of Aurang- zeb’s later years and the numerous troubles of the eighteenth century were as injurious to learning as to every other form of progress. The Hindu caste system flourished in full vigour in Moghal times. The alliance between the Brahman and the Raja con- tinued throughout countless villages. The authority of each was deeply respected by the masses, in spite of Muslim governors and settlers. Hinduism remained intact, despite a certain leakage of converts to Islam. Sir Thomas Roe speaks of the “‘ want of Government ”’ in Jehangir’s empire. But European travellers generally testify to Indian hospitality and to the tolerant religious policy of 4 Tuopuo" cy ysang mip" Peony e WOIsSUC YW YM oor oot 00z 001 0s UPUIS ‘SI yeuaefny ‘6 Saji ysi/3ug 4lmysey “Z] essowfy -g BSSIIO “OL = peqeyeliv ‘2 yeseupewyy “Gi UPNO “9g 4esuag “pl eidy ‘C ysepueyy et 419G “PY jesueq ‘Jl = s«UEMINW “S Jeylg ‘il B4OUe)] °S BMIEIN “Ol inqey ‘It syeqng sjeqyy ‘GO9L Y¥! VICNI Akbar’s Subahs INDIA in 1605. |