History of India/Volume 2/Chapter 1

by Vincent A. Smith

Frieze from a Buddhist Stupa

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

THE researches of a multitude of scholars working in various fields have disclosed an unexpected wealth of materials for the reconstruction of ancient Indian history, and the necessary preliminary studies of a technical kind have been carried so far that the moment seems to have arrived for taking stock of the accumulated stores of knowledge. It now appears to be practicable to exhibit the results of antiquarian studies in the shape of a "connected relation" not less intelligible to the ordinary educated reader than Elphinstone's narrative of the transactions of the Mohammedan period.

The first attempt to present such a narrative of the leading events in Indian political history for eighteen centuries is made in this book, which is designedly confined almost exclusively to the relation of political vicissitudes. A sound framework of dynastic annals must be provided before the story of Indian literature and art can be told aright. Although literary and artistic problems are touched on very lightly in this volume, the references made will suffice, perhaps, to convince the reader that the key is often to be found in the accurate chronological presentation of dynastic facts.

European students, whose attention has been directed almost exclusively to the Græco-Roman foundation of modern civilization, may be disposed to agree with the German philosopher in the belief that "Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian antiquities are never more than curiosities;" but, however well founded that opinion may have been in Goethe's day, it can no longer command assent. The researches of Orientalists during the last hundred years have established many points of contact between the ancient East and the modern West, and no Hellenist can now afford to profess complete ignorance of the Babylonian and Egyptian culture which forms the bed-rock of European institutions. Even China has been brought into touch with Europe, while the languages, literature, art, and philosophy of the West have been proved to be connected by innumerable bonds with those of India. Although the names of even the greatest monarchs of ancient India are at present unfamiliar to the general reader, and awaken few echoes in the minds of any save specialists, it is not unreasonable to hope that an orderly presentation of the ascertained facts of ancient Indian history may be of interest to a larger circle than that of professed Orientalists, and that, as the subject becomes more familiar to the reading public, it will be found no less worthy of attention than more familiar departments of historical study. A recent Indian author justly observes that "India suffers to-day in the estimation of the world more through the world's ignorance of the achievements of the heroes of Indian history than through the absence or insignificance of such achievements." The following pages may serve to prove that the men of old time in India did deeds worthy of remembrance and deserving of rescue from the oblivion in which they have been buried for so many centuries.

The section of this work which deals with the invasion of Alexander the Great may claim to make a special appeal to the interest of readers trained in the ordinary course of classical studies, and the subject has been treated accordingly with much fulness of detail. The existing English accounts of Alexander's marvellous campaign treat the story rather as an appendix to the history of Greece than as part of that of India, and fail to make full use of the results of the labours of modern geographers and archæologists. In this volume the campaign is discussed as a memorable episode in the history of India, and an endeavour has been made to collect all the rays of light from recent investigation and to focus them upon the narratives of ancient authors.

The author's aim is to present the story of ancient India, so far as practicable, in the form of a connected narrative, based upon the most authentic evidence available; to relate facts, however established, with impartiality; and to discuss the problems of history in a judicial spirit. He has striven to realize, however imperfectly, the ideal expressed in the words of Goethe:—

"The historian's duty is to separate the true from the false, the certain from the uncertain, and the doubtful from that which cannot be accepted.... Every investigator must before all things look upon himself as one who is summoned to serve on a jury. He has only to consider how far the statement of the case is complete and clearly set forth by the evidence. Then he draws his conclusion and gives his vote, whether it be that his opinion coincides with that of the foreman or not."

The application of these principles necessarily involves the wholesale rejection of mere legend as distinguished from tradition, and the omission of many picturesque anecdotes, mostly folk-lore, which have clustered round the names of the mighty men of old in India.

The historian of the remote past of any nation must be content to rely much upon tradition as embodied in literature, and to acknowledge that the results of his researches, when based upon traditionary materials, are inferior in certainty to those obtainable for periods of which the facts are attested by contemporary evidence. In India, with very few exceptions, contemporary evidence of any kind is not available before the time of Alexander; but critical examination of records dated much later than the events referred to can extract from them testimony which may be regarded with a high degree of probability as traditionally transmitted from the sixth or perhaps the seventh century B.C.

Even contemporary evidence, when it is available for later periods, cannot be accepted without criticism. The flattery of courtiers, the vanity of kings, and many other clouds which obscure the absolute truth, must be recognized and allowed for. Nor is it possible for the writer of a history, however great may be his respect for the objective fact, to eliminate altogether his own personality. Every kind of evidence, even the most direct, must reach the reader, when in narrative form, as a reflection from the mirror of the writer's mind, with the liability to unconscious distortion. In the following pages the author has endeavoured to exclude the subjective element so far as possible, and to make no statement of fact without authority.

But no obligation to follow authority in the other sense of the word has been recognized, and the narrative often assumes a form which appears to be justified by the evidence, although opposed to the views stated in well-known books by authors of repute. Indian history has been too much the sport of credulity and hypothesis, inadequately checked by critical judgment of evidence or verification of fact, and "the opinion of the foreman," to use Goethe's phrase, cannot be implicitly followed.

Although this work purports to relate the early history of India, the title must be understood with certain limitations. India, encircled as she is by seas and mountains, is indisputably a geographical unit, and, as such, is rightly designated by one name. Her type of civilization, too, has many features which differentiate it from that of all other regions of the world, while they are common to the whole country, or rather continent, in a degree sufficient to justify its treatment as a unit in the history of human, social, and intellectual development.

India's sacred lotus.
From stereograph, copyright 1903, by Underwood & Underwood, New York.

But the complete political unity of India under the control of a paramount power, wielding unquestioned authority, is a thing of yesterday, barely a century old. The most notable of her rulers in the olden time cherished the ambition of universal Indian dominion, and severally attained it in a greater or less degree. But not one of them attained it completely, and this failure implies a lack of unity in political history which renders the task of the historian difficult.

The same difficulty besets the historian of Greece still more pressingly; but, in that case, with the attainment of unity, the interest of the history vanishes. In the case of India the converse proposition holds good, and the reader's interest varies directly with the degree of unity attained, the details of Indian annals being insufferably wearisome except when generalized by the application of a bond of political union.

A history of India, if it is to be read, must necessarily be the story of the predominant dynasties, and either ignore, or relegate to a very subordinate position, the annals of the minor states. Elphinstone acted upon this principle in his classic work, and practically confined his narrative to the transactions of the Sultans of Delhi and their Mogul successors. The same principle has been applied in this book, and attention has been concentrated upon the dominant dynasties which, from time to time, have attained or aspired to paramount power.

Twice in the long series of centuries dealt with in this history, the political unity of all India was nearly attained: first, in the third century B.C., when Asoka's empire extended to the latitude of Madras; and again, in the fourth century A.D., when Samudragupta carried his victorious arms from the Ganges to the extremity of the Peninsula. Other princes, although their conquests were less extensive, yet succeeded in establishing, and for a time maintaining, empires which might fairly claim to rank as paramount powers. With the history of such princes the following narrative is chiefly concerned, and the affairs of the minor states are either slightly noticed or altogether ignored.

The paramount power in early times, when it existed, invariably had its seat in Northern India—the region of the Ganges plain lying to the north of the great barrier of jungle-clad hills which shut off the Deccan from Hindustan. That barrier may be defined conveniently as consisting of the Vindhya ranges, or may be identified, still more compendiously, with the river Narmada, or Nerbudda, which falls into the Gulf of Cambay.

The ancient kingdoms of the south, although rich and populous, inhabited by Dravidian nations not inferior in culture to their Aryan rivals in the north, were ordinarily so secluded from the rest of the civilized world, including Northern India, that their affairs remained hidden from the eyes of other nations, and, native annalists being lacking, their history, previous to the year 1000 of the Christian era, has almost wholly perished. Except on the rare occasions when an unusually enterprising sovereign of the north either penetrated or turned the forest barrier, and for a moment lifted the veil of secrecy in which the southern potentates lived enwrapped, very little is known concerning political events in the south during the long period extending from 600 B.C. to 1000 A.D. To use the words of Elphinstone, no "connected relation of the national transactions" of Southern India in early times can be written, and an early history of India must, perforce, be concerned mainly with the north.

The time dealt with is that extending from the beginning of the historical period in 600 B.C. to the Mohammedan conquest, which may be dated in round numbers as having occurred in 1200 A.D. in the north, and a century later in the south. The earliest political event in India to which an approximately correct date can be assigned is the establishment of the Saisunaga dynasty of Magadha about 600 B.C.

The sources of, or original authorities for, the early history of India may be arranged in four classes. The first of these is tradition, chiefly as recorded in native literature; the second consists of those writings of foreign travellers and historians which contain observations on Indian subjects; the third is the evidence of archæology, which may be subdivided into the monumental, the epigraphic, and the numismatic; and the fourth comprises the few works of native contemporary literature which deal expressly with historical subjects.

For the period anterior to Alexander the Great, extending from 600 B.C. to 326 B.C., dependence must be placed almost wholly upon literary tradition, communicated through works composed in many different ages, and frequently recorded in scattered, incidental notices. The purely Indian traditions are supplemented by the notes of the Greek authors, Ktesias, Herodotus, the historians of Alexander, and Megasthenes.

The Kashmir chronicle, composed in the twelfth century, which is in form the nearest approach to a work of regular history in extant Sanskrit literature, contains a large body of confused ancient traditions, which can be used only with much caution. It is also of high value as a trustworthy record of local events for the period contemporary with, or slightly preceding, the author's lifetime.

The great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, while of value as traditional pictures of social life in the heroic age, do not seem to contain matter illustrating the political relations of states during the historical period.

Sanskrit specialists have extracted from the works of grammarians and other authors many incidental references to ancient tradition, which collectively amount to a considerable addition to historical knowledge. These passages from Sanskrit literature, so far as they have come to my notice, have been utilized in this work, but some references may have escaped attention.

The sacred books of the Jain sect, which are still very imperfectly known, also contain numerous historical statements and allusions of considerable value.

The Jatakas, or Birth stories, and other books of the Buddhist canon include many incidental references to the political condition of India in the fifth and sixth centuries B. C., which, although not exactly contemporary with the events alluded to, certainly transmit genuine historical tradition.

The chronicles of Ceylon in the Pali language, of which the Dipavamsa, dating probably from the fourth century A. D., and the Mahavamsa are the best known, offer several discrepant versions of early Indian traditions, chiefly concerning the Maurya dynasty. These Sinhalese stories, the value of which has been sometimes overestimated, demand cautious criticism at least as much as do other records of popular and ecclesiastical tradition.

The most systematic record of Indian historical tradition is that preserved in the dynastic lists of the Puranas. Five out of the eighteen works of this class, namely, the Vayu, Matsya, Vishnu, Brahmanda, and Bhagavata, contain such lists. The Brahmanda and Bhagavata Puranas being comparatively late works, the lists in them are corrupt, imperfect, and of slight value. But those in the oldest documents, the Vayu, Matsya, and Vishnu, are full, and evidently based upon good authorities. The latest of these three works, the Vishnu, is the best known, having been completely translated into English; but in some cases its evidence is not so good as that of the Vayu and Matsya. It was composed, probably, in the fifth or sixth century A. D., and corresponds most closely with the theoretical definition that a Purana should deal with "the five topics of primary creation, secondary creation, genealogies of gods and patriarchs, reigns of various Manus, and the histories of the old dynasties of kings." The Vayu seems to go back to the middle of the fourth century A. D., and the Matsya is probably intermediate in date between it and the Vishnu. The principal Puranas seem to have been edited in their present form before 500 A. D.

Statue of Buddha at Sanchi.
From a photograph.

Modern European writers have been inclined to disparage unduly the authority of the Puranic lists, but closer study finds in them much genuine and valuable historical tradition. For instance, the Vishnu Purana gives the outline of the history of the Maurya dynasty with a near approach to accuracy, and the Radcliffe manuscript of the Matsya is equally trustworthy for Andhra history. Proof of the surprising extent to which coins and inscriptions confirm the Matsya list of the Andhra kings has recently been published.

The earliest foreign notice of India is that in the inscriptions of the Persian king Darius, son of Hystaspes, at Persepolis and Naksh-i-Bustam, the latter of which may be referred to the year 486 B.C. Herodotus, who wrote late in the fifth century, contributes valuable information concerning the relation between India and the Persian empire, which supplements the less detailed statements of the inscriptions. The fragments of the works of Ktesias of Knidos, who was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon in 401 B.C., and amused himself by collecting travellers' tales about the wonders of the East, are of very slight value.

Europe was practically ignorant of India until the veil was lifted by Alexander's operations and the reports of his officers. Some twenty years after his death the Greek ambassadors, sent by the Kings of Syria and Egypt to the court of the Maurya emperors, recorded careful observations on the country to which they were accredited, which have been partially preserved in the works of many Greek and Roman authors. The fragments of Megasthenes are especially valuable.

Arrian, a Græco-Roman official of the second century A. D., wrote a capital description of India, as well as an admirable critical history of Alexander's invasion. Both these works, being based upon the reports of Ptolemy, son of Lagos, and other officers of Alexander, and the writings of the Greek ambassadors, are entitled to a large extent to the credit of contemporary documents, so far as the Indian history of the fourth century B.C. is concerned. The works of Quintus Curtius and other authors who essayed to tell the story of Alexander's Indian campaign are far inferior in value, but each has merits of its own.

The Chinese "Father of History," Ssu-ma-ch'ien, who completed his work about 100 B.C., is the first of a long series of Chinese historians whose writings throw much light upon the early annals of India. The accurate chronology of the Chinese authors gives their statements peculiar value.

The long series of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who continued for several centuries to visit India, which they regarded as their Holy Land, begins with Fa-hien (Fa-hsien), who started on his travels in 399 A.D. and returned to China fifteen years later. The book in which he recorded his journeys has been preserved complete, and has been translated once into French and four times into English. It includes a very interesting and valuable description of the government and social condition of the Ganges provinces during the reign of Chandragupta II, Vikramaditya. Several other pilgrims left behind them works which contribute something to the elucidation of Indian history, and their testimony will be cited in due course.

But the prince of pilgrims, the illustrious Hiuen Tsang, whose fame as Master of the Law still resounds through all Buddhist lands, deserves more particular notice. His travels, described in a work entitled Records of the Western World, which has been translated into French, English, and German, extended from 629 A.D. to 645 or 646, and covered an enormous area, including almost every part of India, except the extreme south. His book is a treasure-house of accurate information, indispensable to every student of Indian antiquity, and has done more than any archæological discovery to render possible the remarkable resuscitation of lost Indian history which has recently been effected. Although the chief historical value of Hiuen Tsang 's work consists in its contemporary description of political and social institutions, the pilgrim has increased the debt of gratitude due to his memory by recording a considerable mass of ancient tradition, which would have been lost but for his care to preserve it. The Life of Hiuen Tsang, composed by his friend Hwui-li, contributes many details supplemental to the narrative in the Travels.

The learned mathematician and astronomer, Alberuni, almost the only Mohammedan scholar who has ever taken the trouble to learn Sanskrit, essentially a language of idolatrous unbelievers, when regarded from a Moslem point of view, entered India in the train of Mahmud of Ghazni. His work, descriptive of the country, and entitled "An Enquiry into India" (Tahkik-i-Hind), which was finished in 1031 A.D., is of high value as an account of Hindu manners, science, and literature, but contributes little information which can be utilized for the purposes of political history.

The visit of the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, to Southern India in 1294-5 A.D. comes just within the limits of this volume.

The Mohammedan historians of India are valuable authorities for the history of the conquest by the armies of Islam.

The monumental class of archaeological evidence, considered by itself and apart from the inscriptions on the walls of buildings, offers little direct contribution to the materials for political history, but is of high illustrative value and greatly helps the student in realizing the power and magnificence of some of the ancient dynasties.

Unquestionably the most copious and important source of early Indian history is the epigraphic, and the accurate knowledge of many periods of the long-forgotten past which has now been attained is derived mainly from the patient study of inscriptions during the last seventy years. Inscriptions are of many kinds. Asoka's edicts, or sermons on stone, form a class by themselves, no other sovereign having imitated his practice of engraving ethical exhortations on the rocks. Equally peculiar is the record of two Sanskrit plays on tables of stone at Ajmir. But the great majority of inscriptions are commemorative, dedicatory, or donative. The former two classes comprise a vast variety of records, extending from the mere signature of a pilgrim's name to an elaborate panegyrical poem in the most artificial style of Sanskrit verse, and are for the most part incised on stone. The donative inscriptions, or grants, on the other hand, are mostly engraved on plates of copper, the favourite material used for permanent records of conveyances.

The south of India is peculiarly rich in inscriptions of almost all kinds, both on stone and copper, some of which attain extraordinary length. The known southern inscriptions are believed to number several thousands, and many must remain for future discovery. But these records, notwithstanding their abundance, are inferior in interest to the rarer northern documents, by reason of their comparatively recent date. No southern inscription earlier than the Christian era is known, except the Mysore edition of Asoka's Minor Rock Edicts and the brief dedications of the Bhattiprolu caskets; and the records prior to the seventh century A.D. are very few.

The oldest northern document is probably the Sakya dedication of the relics of Buddha at Piprawa, which may date back to about 450 B.C., and the number of inscriptions anterior to the Christian era is considerable. Records of the second and third centuries A.D., however, are rare.

Piprawa inscribed vase containing relics of Buddha.

Supposed to be the oldest memorial of Buddha, probably about 450 B.C.

The numismatic evidence is more accessible as a whole than the epigraphic. Many classes of Indian coins have been discussed in special treatises, and compelled to yield their contributions to history. From the time of Alexander's invasion coins afford invaluable aid to the researches of the historian in every period, and for the Bactrian, Indo-Greek, and Indo-Parthian dynasties they constitute almost the sole evidence.

The fourth class of materials for, or sources of, early Indian history, namely, contemporary native literature of a historical kind, is of very limited extent, comprising only two works in Sanskrit and a few poems in Tamil. None of these works is pure history: they are all of a romantic character, and present the facts with much embellishment.

The best known composition of this class is that entitled the "Deeds of Harsha" (Harsha-Charita), written by Bana, about 620 A.D., in praise of his master and patron, King Harsha of Thanesar and Kanauj, which is of high value, both as a depository of ancient tradition, and as a record of contemporary history, in spite of obvious faults. A similar work called "The Deeds of Vikramanka," by Bilhana, a poet of the twelfth century, is devoted to the eulogy of a powerful king who ruled a large territory in the south and west between 1076 and 1126 A.D. The earliest of the Tamil poems alluded to is believed to date from the sixth or seventh century A.D. These compositions, which are panegyrics on famous kings of the south, appear to contain a good deal of historical matter.

The obstacles which have hitherto prevented the construction of a continuous narrative of early Indian history are due not so much to the deficiency of material as to the lack of definite chronology. The rough material is not so scanty as has been supposed. The data for the reconstruction of the early history of all nations are very meagre, largely consisting of bare lists of names, supplemented by vague and often contradictory traditions which pass insensibly into popular mythology. The historian of ancient India is fairly well provided with a supply of such lists, traditions, and mythology, which, of course, require to be treated on the strict critical principles applied by modern students to the early histories of both Western and Eastern nations. The application of those principles is not more difficult in the case of India than it is in that of Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, or Rome. The real difficulty is the determination of fixed chronological points. A body of history must be supported upon a skeleton of chronology, and without chronology history is impossible.

The Indian nations, in so far as they maintained a record of political events, kept it by methods of their own, which are difficult to understand, and until recently were not at all understood. The eras used to date events not only differ from those used by other nations, but are very numerous and obscure in their origin and application. Cunningham's Book of Indian Eras enumerates more than a score of systems which have been employed at different times and places in India for the computation of dates, and his list might be considerably extended. The successful efforts of several generations of scholars to recover the forgotten history of ancient India have been largely devoted to a study of the local modes of chronological computation, and have resulted in the attainment of accurate knowledge concerning most of the eras used in inscriptions and other documents. Armed with these results, it is now possible for a writer on Indian history to compile a narrative arranged in orderly chronological sequence, which could not have been thought of forty years ago.

At that time the only approximately certain date in the early history of India was that of the accession of Chandragupta Maurya, as determined by his identification with Sandrakottos, the contemporary of Seleukos Nikator, according to Greek authors. By the subsequent establishment of the synchronism of Chandragupta's grandson, Asoka, with Antiochos Theos, grandson of Seleukos, and four other Hellenistic princes, the chronology of the Maurya dynasty was placed upon a firm basis, and it is no longer open to doubt in its main outlines.

A great step in advance was gained by Doctor Fleet's determination of the Gupta era, which had been the subject of much wild conjecture. His demonstration that the year 1 of that era is 319-20 A.D. fixed the chronological position of a most important dynasty, and reduced chaos to order. Fa-hien's account of the civil administration of the Ganges provinces at the beginning of the fourth century thus became an important historical document illustrating the reign of Chandragupta II, Vikramaditya, one of the greatest of Indian kings. Most of the difficulties which continued to embarrass the chronology of the Gupta period, even after the announcement of Doctor Fleet's discovery in 1887, have been removed by M. Sylvain Levi's publication of the synchronism of Samudragupta with King Meghavarna of Ceylon (304 to 332 A.D.).

A connected history of the Andhra dynasty has been rendered possible by the establishment of synchronisms between the Andhra kings and the western satraps.

In short, the labours of many scholars have succeeded in tracing in firm lines the outline of the history of Northern India from the beginning of the historical period to the Mohammedan conquest, with one important exception, that of the Kushan, or Indo-Scythian, period, the date of which is still open to discussion. The system of Kushan chronology adopted in this volume has much to recommend it, and is sufficiently supported to serve as a good working hypothesis. If it should ultimately commend itself to general acceptance, the whole scheme of North Indian chronology may be considered as settled, although many details will remain to be filled in.

Much progress has been made in the determination of the chronology of the southern dynasties, and the dates of the Pallavas, a dynasty the very existence of which was unknown until 1840, have been worked out with special success.