India
India is the middle one of the three great land-masses that
jut southward from the mainland of Asia. In shape it is somewhat like a lozenge
or diamond, with land-boundaries to the north and water-boundaries to the south.
The northern half is wedged in between the Himalayan and the Sulaiman ranges,
which thus form respectively its northeastern and northwestern frontiers; while
the southern half, tapering to a point at Cape Comorin, projects into the Indian
Ocean, and is washed by the Arabian Sea on the southwest and by the Bay of Bengal
on the southeast. Its area is nigh 1,500,000 square miles--that is, nearly one-half
(about 5/12) that of the United States, or almost equal to that of all Europe
less Russia.
In respect of physical configuration, India may be divided
into three very distinct parts: the Himalayan region; the river plains of the
Indus and Ganges, or the Indo-Gangetic plain; and Peninsular India. The last is
a triangular plateau which forms the southern half of the "lozenge."
The Himalaya shuts off India from Central Asia by an almost impassable barrier
on the north. The Indus, flowing northwest, drains the back of the western half
of the range; then, turning a right angle to the left, it breaks through the mountains,
and receiving the affluents which with it drain the Punjab (Persian, Panj-ab,
"Five-river" land) flows in a general southwesterly direction to the
Arabian Sea. The Ganges, with its feeders, drains the southern slopes of the range
and flows in a general southeasterly direction into the Bay of Bengal. The watershed
between the drainage basins of the Indus and the Ganges is scarce a thousand feet
above sea-level, and the slope on each side is imperceptible. The "basins,"
therefore, form one practically continuous "plain." This Indo-Gangetic
plain is a vast alluvial formation, made by deposits of rich silt brought down
by the rivers, and has accordingly been the principal scene of Indic civilization.
The home of the earliest and most primitive Indic civilization,
as indicated by the geographical allusions of the Vedas, was the Punjab, the region
of the middle Indus and its tributaries. Later, the scene shifts to the southeast,
to the valley of the Ganges and its most important affluent, the Jumna. This is
the "Middle Country" (Sanskrit, Madhya-deca), the fertile region in
which occur the chief events of the great Epic period and of the rise and bloom
of Buddhism.
For the country above defined as India, there is no comprehensive
name in the oldest native literature. Later books call it Jambu-dvipa, "Land
of the Rose-apple;"and the great Gangetic region is named "The Bharatan"(Sanskrit,
Bharata), or also Arya-avarta, "Home of the Aryans." The French take
their name for Germany--Allemagne --from that of the region of the tribe--the
Alemanni--nearest themselves, and then extend it to the whole country. Similarly
the Greeks. Their names for India--he India, he Indike--apply properly only to
the westernmost part of India, the region of the Indus. In Sanskrit, Sindhu-s
(the Hindu-sh of the ancient Persians) means "stream,"and then "The
Stream," that is, "The Indus, ho Indos" (incolis Sindus appellatus,
says Pliny), and finally also "The region on the Indus."
Subjoined are the names of the tributaries of the Indus in
order from west to east--first the Sanskrit form, then the Greek, and then the
modern name:
| Vitasta |
Hudaspes |
Jehlam |
| Asikni ("Black") |
Akesines |
Chenab |
| Iravati ("Refreshing") |
Hudraotes |
Ravi |
| Vipac ("Unfettered") |
Huphasis |
Beas |
| Catadru ("Hundred-runs") |
Zadadres |
Sutlej |
The Asikni was known later as the Chandrabhaga, a name to the
Macedonian ears so ominously like Sandaro-phagos ("Xander-devourer"),
that Alexander changed it to Akesines ("The Healing"), with a bright
play on its older name Asikni. Sandarophagos hupo Alexandrou potamos metonomasthe
kai eklethe Akesines, says Hesychius.
The names of the Ganges and its greatest tributary, the Jumna,
are easily recognized in their ancient forms--Ganges and Diamouna; Sanskrit, Ganga
and Yamuna. The mountain names Emodo-s (Strabo, 689) and Haemodes (Mela, i. 81)
correspond closely to the vernacular form of the Sanskrit Haimavata-s, synonymous
with Hima-vant, "The Snow-y" range, and with Hima-alaya, "Abode
of Snow." The Hindu, in telling the points of the compass, faces the east.
The Sanskrit name for Peninsular India, south of the Vindhya Mountains (to Ouindion
oros) is, accordingly, Dakshina-patha, "Region to the right (dexia) or the
south," Dachinabades of the Periplus ( 50), our Dekkan.
The recent science of Comparative Grammar has proved that the
ancestors of Hindus and Iranians and Greeks and of the Slavic, Germanic, Italic,
and Keltic races are of one stock, called Aryan or IndoEuropean, which once had
a common language and home. The Indic branch of this stock were not the aboriginal
inhabitants of India; these were the dark-skinned tribes or Dasyus, whom the more
gifted Aryan invaders, entering India from the extreme northwest, forced constantly
to retire to the east and southeast. These non-Aryan tribes are now represented
in part by the Dravidian races of the Dekkan. Of the Aryans, numerous tribes are
mentioned in the Vedic literature, among them the Purus, the Bharatas, the Kuru-Panchalas;
but the physical form of the Indo-Gangetic plain, free as it is from mountain
barriers, is not favourable to the maintenance of tribal identity, and the floods
of foreign invasion have had a similarly unfavourable tendency.
The language of the Indic Aryans shows three principal stages
of development: (1) Old Indic or Sanskrit; (2) Middle Indic or Prakrit; and (3)
New Indic or Bhasha. The first is represented by the Vedic, the Epic, and the
Classical Sanskrit; the second, chiefly by the Pali and by the Prakrit proper,
or languages respectively of the sacred books of the Southern Buddhists and of
the Jains; the third, chiefly by the nine principal Aryan tongues of modern India,
Mahratti, Bengali, etc.
Of all these, as indeed of all recorded Aryan tongues, the
language of the Vedas is the most ancient; and it has, on the whole, conserved
the greatest number of antique features. Note, for example, the retention in Sanskrit
of the primitive sibilant in su-s as compared with the cognate hu-s and English
sow; in janas-as=gene(s)-os, gener-is; in as-mi, "I am"=Lesbian em-mi;
in a-srava-t, "it flowed"=erree, for *e-sreWe-t, root sru=hru.
The structure of the Sanskrit forms of derivation and inflection
is so transparent as to shed much light on the corresponding forms of the allied
languages. Thus it has two equivalent endings for the passive participle, -na-s
and -ta-s; and likewise a root mah, "Be great," with an older form,
magh--facts which, considered together, furnish an easy bond of connection for
meg-a, mag-nu-s, and mac-tu-s, "Magnified." In ichami da-tu-m, "I
wish to give," the infinitive is simply the accusative of a verbal noun-stem
da-tu, of which various other case-forms occur. Such facts make clear the nature
of the Latin supines: ire datum, "Be going to give;" lepida memoratui,
"Nice for telling, nice to tell;" redire opsonatu, "Come back from
marketing." Take quo-d and po-then by themselves, and the stem is obscure;
but in the light of the Sanskrit ka-d, Gothic hva, English wha-t, Ionic ko-then,
it is plain that the pronominal stem began originally with the k-sound, not with
the p.
An extensive Sanskrit literature has come down to us from the
Hindus. Oldest and most important are the four Vedas, chiefly metrical. The Rigveda
is a collection of over a thousand hymns, the most ancient of which may antedate
our era by twenty centuries, and are therefore the oldest recorded documents of
Aryan antiquity. Next come the Brahmanas, in prose, and containing, besides mystical
discussions of the sacrifice and ritual, those theosophic speculations which culminated
in the doctrines of the Upanishads, and thus became the basis of the later philosophical
systems, notably of the pantheistic system of the Vedanta. In another stream from
the Vedas flow the books of ceremonial, of custom, and of law. The legends of
the Heroic Age are embodied in the vast epic called the Great Bharata Story (Maha-bharataakhyana,
or, more briefly, the Maha-bharata); and also in the lesser epic called Ramayana.
Notable, besides, are especially the drama (Kalidasa's Cakuntala) and the beast-fable
(Pancha-tantra). The Pali literature embraces the legends of the life and teachings
of Buddha, the books of the doctrine and order which grew therefrom, and the great
collection of charming folk-stories called the Jataka, or tales of the anterior
births of Gotama Buddha.
The early Indic Aryans of the Punjab were a sturdy, life-loving
race. Their religion was a primitive polytheism, whose deities were personifications
of the phenomena of nature, such as the wind and the sun. Thus agnis was the element
(Latin ignis), while Agnis was the fire-god, who bore aloft the sacrifice to the
other gods. To Hindu, as to Greek and Roman, the sky (dyaus, Zeus, Dies-piter)
was father and the earth was mother. As the Aryans advanced southeastward down
the Ganges valley, the hot and humid climate wrought a profound change in their
character. Their religion degenerated into a most elaborate and souldeadening
ritualism. The growth of individuality and so of great and public-spirited personalities
was estopped by the rigid system of caste. The belief in the transmigration of
souls became general. And the institutions of monkish life and asceticism developed
to a degree which astonished the Greeks beyond measure, and is perhaps without
a parallel elsewhere. Religious nostrums were doubtless many in the "Middle
Country" in the sixth century b.c.; and so were the religious teachers or
saviours, each with his following greater or less. Of all the latter, only two
have left any great mark in the world's history--namely, Nataputta the Nigantha
and the great monk Gotama. Nataputta was contemporary with Gotama, but somewhat
older; and he was the reformer of Jainism, or the religion of the "Conqueror"
(Jina), which, since it still flourishes in India, may not unfairly be deemed
the oldest Aryan sect in the world. Gotama, whose death at the age of eighty may
be set at about B.C. 480, seems to be the greatest personality that India has
ever produced. He taught not only a pure and gentle and noble morality, but also
that all things are transitory, are misery, are unreal; and that the supreme goal
is escape from the bonds of existence and rebirth. His religion, vastly modified
by influences of time and locality, has spread to the Extreme Orient; and has
meanwhile become displaced in India by Hinduism and the worship of the gods Vishnu
and Civa.
The customs of the ancient Hindus may be learned with much
fulness from the treatises of household usages called Grihya-sutras; and, when
studied in the light of the corresponding classical or Germanic customs, will
form a most important and interesting chapter of Aryan comparative philology.
Since birth, reproduction, and death are the three great facts of human existence,
the marriage and funeral customs naturally take a prominent place in these pictures
of ancient life. The joining of right hands was the most significant feature of
the nuptial ceremonies; and this was not lacking with the Romans (dextrarum iunctio).
The walking about the altar with the right side towards it (epidexia), or the
sunwise circumambulation, finds its analogies among other Aryan races: compare
the Roman dextratio and the Gaelic "walking the deasil" The confarreatio
and the pellis lanata may be traced to India. At a funeral the circumambulation
was reversed, in Italy (Statius, Theb. vi. 215) as well as on the Ganges. The
above may serve as examples of coincidences of usage. It is likely that a considerable
body of these customs go back to Aryan antiquity. Ancient India
has no history, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. If all things are transitory,
are misery--why fix the thoughts on them? The events of its past do not show the
working of noble and mighty personalities. Its loftiest souls are absorbed in
religious and philosophical speculation. The history of India is a history of
thought, of religion. The Vedas and the Epics yield us abundant and invaluable
evidence concerning the life and civilization of the times to which they belong;
but for any records of events in orderly sequence and with fixed chronology we
look in vain.
Yet two great events--the appearance of Buddha and the invasion
of Alexander--are exceptions. The one was of profoundest importance to India;
the other, of great importance for our knowledge of India. Indeed, it is to foreign
invaders and pilgrims that we owe some of our most valuable knowledge about India.
Darius (521- 485), on an inscription at Persepolis, mentions the Indus region
among his conquered provinces. Nearly two centuries later, B.C. 326, Alexander
the Great crossed the Indus and the Hydaspes; and, after defeating the Indian
king Porus, advanced to the Hyphasis. On the bank of this Indian stream the worldconqueror
was forced to turn back; and, without even entering the Gangetic plain, he set
out for Persis.
After his death (June, 323), one of his great generals, Seleucus
Nicator, invaded India again (about 305), and made a treaty with the famous Sandrokottos
(or Sandrokuptos, Sanskrit Chandra-gupta), the founder of the Mauryan dynasty
of Magadha. The Magadhan empire extended from Lower Bengal to the Indus, and its
capital was Palibothra (Sanskrit Pataliputra), on the Ganges at the old confluence
of the Sone. The Pali books call him Chandagutta the Moriya (Morieus); and there
is no other ancient Hindu about whom there is so much concurrent evidence from
Indian and classical sources. It was to his court that Seleucus sent his friend
Megasthenes as ambassador. Megasthenes was a careful observer, and had a most
unusual opportunity for observing; so that the book which he wrote was probably
the most valuable work of antiquity on India. As if to show how deplorable is
its loss, considerable excerpts from it have been preserved by Strabo, Arrian,
and others.
Chandragupta's grandson Acoka (B.C. 259-222) was the greatest
monarch of ancient India. Many rock-inscriptions containing his edicts are still
extant, and are of priceless worth, as being the oldest of their kind. Some of
them are especially interesting because they mention the Greeks, for example,"Antiyoka,
king of the Yonas," and "Antikina." The former is Antiochus II.,
and the latter Antigonus Gonatas. The Yonas or Yavanas are of course the Iones
or Iaones, that is, the Greeks. The rock-cut edicts are found in Orissa, Gujarat,
and the extreme north of the Punjab--places so wide apart as to show that Acoka's
empire embraced the whole Indo-Gangetic region. Perhaps the most notable event
of his reign was his conversion to Buddhism. He was mild and tolerant, but zealous
withal for the promotion of the faith.
The century from B.C. 326 to 222, accordingly-- including,
as it does, Alexander's invasion and death, the reigns of Chandragupta and Acoka,
and the culmination of the Magadhan empire--is the most notable one of Indian
antiquity. It includes also the rise of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, from which
Hellenic kings made repeated conquests of parts of Western India. There followed
the GraecoIndian sovereigns, chief of whom was Menander (Pali Milinda), about
B.C. 100. Some fifteen years later the dynasty was overthrown by the Cakas or
Scythians, and the power of the Greeks put to an end. The greatest of the Caka
kings was Kanishka; and it is probably his consecration in A.D. 78 that forms
the starting-point of the Caka era, which is still in use.
The Imperial Gupta dynasty, beginning A.D. 320 and lasting
till about 480, deserves mention as bearing a national Indian character. It gave
to India a respite from the inroads of the northern barbarians and an excellent
administration of government. Among regents of the sixth century, Harsha of Ujjain,
with the title Vikramaditya, is famous because of the traditional connection of
his name with that of the greatest of all Hindu poets, Kalidasa. In the seventh
century, Ciladitya of Kanauj became very powerful; and it was during his long
reign that the illustrious Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hiuen Tsiang, made his travels
in India (A.D. 629-645). The history of modern India begins with the invasion
made by Mahmud of Ghazni, A.D. 1000, and embraces the period of the Mohammedan
conquerors and that of British rule.
This text is cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
