JOURNAL

OF

THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

ART. VIII.-Notes on the Early History of Northern India. By J. F. HEWITT, late Commissioner of Chota Nagpur.

THE most noteworthy part of the history of India must always be that which tells how the people known as Hindoos, speaking languages derived from the Sanskrit, and living in the country between the Himalayas and the Vindhyan Mountains, and in the Valley of the Indus, were formed from originally heterogeneous elements into a nation, and which further describes the origin and development of their system of government and their early religious history. The written materials available for these purposes are unusually abundant, but vary greatly in value. The earliest documents at all deserving the name of authentic history are the Pali writings of the early Buddhists. These give us a very good idea of North-eastern India, the institutions, government, and customs of the people in the fifth and sixth centuries before Christ. But the people had then reached a comparatively late stage in their progress, and as to events occurring before that time, we have to look for information primarily to the very voluminous early Sanskrit literature, and chiefly to the legends and traditions therein contained; and secondarily to facts ascertained from foreign countries and languages, and to deductions from the earliest subsequent historical documents, and from coins, monuments, and remains of early buildings, all dating from a much later period. The Sanskrit writings consist of religious and warVOL. XX.- -[NEW SERIES.]

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like odes, ritualistic manuals, metaphysical and ethical treatises, books of sacred law, and epic poems; but the historical value of the contents of these works is greatly lessened by the circumstances under which most of them were composed.

Of these books the most valuable for historical purposes are the Hymns of the Rigveda, as the authors of these poems write naturally, without any bias beyond that arising from pride in Aryan prowess, the conviction of Aryan infallibility, trust in Aryan gods, and depreciation and contempt of their opponents who possessed the land they wished to call their own. Though less legendary than the Homeric or later Sanskrit epics, they are in no sense narrative poems, being for the most part war-songs and religious odes addressed to the gods and the god-like Soma, the inspirer alike of gods and men, and they deal only incidentally with actual facts. They nevertheless give us most valuable information as to the social polity and beliefs of the Aryan tribes before they had been much altered by contact with other races. And though they tell us little directly about their predecessors in the country who opposed their advance into it, they enable us to judge of the change effected by the subsequent influence of other races, by comparing Aryan institutions, as set forth in the Veda, with those current in the country in later times.

Many of the later Sanskrit works would be much more trustworthy guides than they are, when not carefully tested, if it were not for the one-sidedness and inaccuracy of the writers, who, whether as priests or bards, systematically ignored and frequently falsified facts, to serve their special ends. The priests, who wrote for the most part after the caste system resulting from the amalgamation of the different races had become an article of the Brahmin faith, made it their object to secure its general recognition, and thereby to make the Brahmins, as priests of the gods and guardians of the national morality, supreme in Church and State. In doing this it was their interest to ignore and suppress all that tended to prove that those who were accepted as

belonging to the three higher castes were not pure Aryans, and that their scheme of society and religious beliefs were not part of the national creed of all people in the country.

In a similar way the royal bards, who were the earliest authors of the great epic poems, the Mahabharata and the Rāmāyana, used their imagination freely in distorting, inventing, and concealing facts so as to establish the fame of their patron kings and the ancestors who had preceded them on the throne.

This very summary and incomplete examination of possible causes of error shows how necessary it is, before accepting statements derived from these writings as correct, to test them by comparison with the secondary sources of information above described. But though much has been done in this direction by Muir, Lassen, Zimmer, Max Müller, and very many other honoured authorities, who will be referred to frequently in this paper, much still remains to be done to show the great share taken by other races besides the Aryans in the formation of the Hindoo religion, Hindoo government, and Hindoo social customs. What I hope especially to prove is, that the knowledge of early times gained from the sources of information described above may be very greatly increased by examining not only the methods by which Hindooism is now extending its influences over tribes which it has not yet absorbed, but also the present customs of the unHindooised sections of those races; as it is from them that the present mixed population has been in a great measure formed, and they have occupied a very important and permanent place in its history, but have left no independent literature to record their achievements. Large and comparatively self-governing confederacies and states of these races still remain in Central India undisturbed by the changes caused by foreign conquest, immigration, and eager competition with other tribes. They are naturally and persistently conservative, like all people who are so contented with their lot as to think the trouble of trying to improve it unnecessary labour, or who have either not excited the cupidity of their neighbours, or have proved that they cannot be interfered with without

risks to those who attack them greater than can be compensated by the advantages of conquest. The unaltered customs of these people, who still worship the gods, retain the system of government, and speak the speech of their remote forefathers, are no less valuable to the historian than undisturbed strata to the geologist. And as the latter is greatly aided in describing accurately former phases of existence by materials supplied by these untainted records, so may the historial inquirer receive trustworthy help in his efforts to resuscitate the past from tribes like those described above, who may in a scientific point of view be called still living fossils.

What I would venture to submit to the judgment of scholars is that the traditional history to be deduced from Hindoo writings and popular legends is totally at variance with the actual facts. According to this account the priestly, ruling, and trading classes of North India belong to the Aryan race, which entered India from the Northwest, led by their kings, who were assisted by their family priests of the Brahmin caste. They succeeded without much difficulty in overrunning the whole country watered by the Indus, Ganges and their tributaries, together with a considerable area of the Eastern and Western coasts south of these river-systems. In their progress they made Aryan institutions and beliefs the accepted laws of the land, and according to the Satapatha Brâhmaṇa,1 the land they traversed was only cultivated and civilized when it was burnt over by Agni Vaiṣvânara, the sacred household fire of the Aryans; or in other words, when the people submitted to Aryan influence and guidance. The aboriginal inhabitants were either driven into the mountains or reduced to semi-slavery as Sudras, while the Aryans, divided into the three classes of (1) Brahmins, (2) Warriors, and (3) traders and agriculturists, exercised supreme authority through the first two classes. They based firstly their religious organization on the rules said to have been laid down from the earliest times

1 Prof. Eggeling's version, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. xii. p. 105.