СНАР. 10.

To

BOOK II. is a question which, for want of monuments, cannot be determined with any degree of precision." leave the subject even in this state of doubt was but a compromise with popular opinion, and with his own imperfect views. The circumstances handed down to us, compared with the circumstances of other nations, afforded materials for a very satisfactory determination. The opinion by which he supports his disbelief of the ancient civilization of Asia is at once philanthrophic and profound; That " despotism is more destructive of leisure and security, and more adverse to the progress of the human mind, than anarchy itself." 2

Essay on the History of Astronomy, p. 27.

2 This question of the civilization of the Hindus, although discussed with disproportionate prolixity, irrelevancy of illustration, and tediousness of repetition, both in these concluding remarks, and in a variety of previous notes and observations, can scarcely be considered as satisfactorily determined. It may be admitted, that the Hindus were not a civilized people according to Mr. Mill's standard; but what that standard is, he has not fully defined. Civilization is used by him, however, as a relative term, and in this sense, we may readily grant that the Hindus never attained the advance made by modern Europe. It is not just to institute such a comparison; for, to say nothing of the advantages we possess in a pure system of religious belief, we cannot leave out of consideration the agency of time. The Hindus, by the character of their institutions, and by the depressing influence of foreign subjugation, are apparently what they were at least three centuries before the Christian æra. Two thousand years have done nothing for them, every thing for us. We must, therefore, in fairness, compare them with their cotemporaries, with the people of antiquity; and we shall then have reason to believe, that they occupied a very foremost station amongst the nations. They had a religion less disgraced by idolatrous worship, than most of those which prevailed in early times. They had a government, which, although despotic, was equally restricted by law, by institutions, and religion: they had a code of laws, in many respects wise and rational, and adapted to a great variety of relations, which could not have existed, except in an advanced condition of social organization. They had a copious and cultivated language, and an extensive and diversified literature; they had made great progress in the mathematical sciences; they speculated profoundly on the mysteries of man and nature, and they had acquired remarkable proficiency in many of

the ornamental and useful arts of life. Whatever defects may be justly BOOK II. imputed to their religion, their government, their laws, their literature, CHAP. IO. their sciences, their arts, as contrasted with the same proofs of civilization in modern Europe, it will not be disputed by any impartial and candid critic, that as far as we have the means of instituting a comparison, the Hindus were in all these respects quite as civilized as the most civilized nations of the ancient world, and in as early times as any of which records or traditions remain.-W.

BOOK III

CHAP. 1.

BOOK III.

THE MAHOMEDANS.

CHAPTER I.

From the first Invasion of India by the Nations in the North, till the expulsion of the Gaznevide dynasty.

AT the time when the nations of Europe opened their communication with India, by the Cape of Good Hope, the people whom we have now described had for a number of ages been subject to a race of foreigners. That subjection, though it had not greatly altered the texture of native society, had introduced new forms into some of the principal departments of state; had given the military command to foreigners; and had mixed with the population a proportion of a people differing from them considerably, in manners, character, and religion. The political state of India, at this time, consisted of a Mahomedan government, supported by a Mahomedan force, over a Hindu population.

It appears that the people of Hindustan have at all times been subject to incursions and conquest, by the nations contiguous to them on the north-west. The Scythians, that is, the rude nations on the east of Persia, conquered, we are told by Justin, a great part

CHAP. 1.

of Asia, and even penetrated as far as Egypt, about BOOK III 1500 years before Ninus, the founder of the Assyrian monarchy. And we know that in the vast empire of Darius Hystaspes as much of India was included, as constituted one, and that the most valuable, of his twenty satrapies. The exact limits of the Indian satrapy are unknown; but from the account which Herodotus gives of its tribute, far exceeding that of any of the rest, the extent of it cannot have been small. Major Rennel supposes that it may have reached as far as Delhi,' and have included the whole of the Punjab, or country watered by the five branches of the Indus, together with Cabul, Candahar, and the tract of country which lies along the Indus to the sea.2

The conquests of Alexander the Great, which succeeded to those of the Persian monarchs, seem not to have extended so far in India, as the previous possessions of Darius; since his career was stopped on the

'This is incorrectly quoted. Rennels' words are, we may conclude, that Darius, in fact, possessed no more of India, than what lay contiguous to the Indus and its branches;" 8vo. ed. i. 409. The amount of tribute, less than one million sterling, was not large absolutely; the only difficulty applies to its relative amount; it was nearly one-third of the whole revenue of the Persian empire; this is probably an exaggeration.-W.

2 Rennel's Geography of Herodotus, p. 305. The Major, who is here puzzled with a mistranslation of 600, for 360, corrects the hyberbolical statement of the amount of the tribute, though he doubts not it was great. Herodot. lib. iii. cap. 94, 95. It is by no means impossible, or perhaps improbable, that Cyrus subdued part of India. Herodotus, who knew India, says that his General, Harpagus, subdued one part of Asia, and he another, παν εθνος καταστρεφομενος, και ουδεν παρίεις παντα τα της ηπειρου ὑποχειρια εποιησατο. Herodot. lib. i. cap. 147. Justin says that Cyrus, having reduced Asia, and the East in general, carried war into Scythia: lib. i. cap. 8. Xenophon says expressly, pre dε kaι Вактριv kaι Ivowv. Cyri Institut. lib. i. cap. i. The Persian historians describe the Persians, in the early ages, as chiefly occupied by wars in Turan and India.

....

CHAP. 1.

BOOK III banks of the Hyphasis, or modern Beyah, the last of the five branches of the Indus; whence returning to the Hydaspes, he passed down the Indus to the sea. Seleucus, the successor of Alexander in Upper Asia, not only received, but endeavoured to augment, the acquisitions made by that conqueror in India. He gained victories over Sandracottos, the sovereign of a people living on the Ganges. But, as he was recalled to the defence of another part of his dominions against Antigonus, he made peace with the Indian and the limits established between the mare

not ascertained.1

2

Among the kingdoms formed out of the vast empire of Alexander by the dissensions of his followers, was Bactria. This district was part of that great range of country, on the eastern side of Media and Persia, extending from the lake Aral to the mouths of the Indus, which the power of the Persian monarchs had added to their extensive dominions. The people of this intermediate region seem to have possessed an intermediate stage of civilization between the Tartar or Scythian tribes which bordered with them on the east, and the people of the Assyrian or Persian empire which was contiguous to them on the west. Among these people there is some reason for believing that

1 The notices relating to the conquests of Alexander and his successors in India are collected in Robertson's Disquisition concerning Ancient India, and Gillies' History of the World. Strabo and Arrian are the authorities from whom almost every thing we know of the transactions of the Greeks in India, is borrowed.

2 This is by no means an accurate statement. The political power of Bactria may, after its acquirement of independence, have extended over this space; but the Bactrian province of Persia lay entirely to the north of the Paropamisan mountains, and had Sogdiana and the Scythians between it and the Aral lake.-W.