the goldsmith charges for his labour. Ahmedabad and Surat are famous for their carved wood-work. Many of the houses in Ahmedabad are covered with elaborate wood-carving, and excellent examples exist in Broach, Baroda, Surat, Nasik and Yeola. Salt is made in large quantities in the government works at Kharaghoda and Udu in Ahmedabad, whence it is exported by rail to Gujarat and central India. There is one brewery at Dapuri near Poona.
Railways and Irrigation.—The province is well supplied with railways, all of which, with one exception, concentrate at Bombay City. The exception is the North-Western line, which enters Sind from the Punjab and finds its natural terminus at Karachi. The other chief lines are the Great Indian Peninsula, Indian Midland, Bombay, Baroda & Central India, Rajputana-Malwa & Southern Mahratta systems. In 1905 the total length of railway under the Bombay government open for traffic was 7980 m. These figures do not include the railway system in Sind. With the exception of Sind, the water-supply of the Bombay Presidency does not lend itself to the construction of large irrigation works.
Army.—Under Lord Kitchener’s re-arrangement of the Indian army in 1904 the old Bombay command was abolished and its place was taken by the Western army corps under a lieutenant-general. The army corps was divided into three divisions under major-generals. The 4th division, with headquarters at Quetta, comprises the troops in the Quetta and Sind districts. The 5th division, with headquarters at Mhow, consists of three brigades, located at Nasirabad, Jubbulpore and Jhansi, and includes the previous Mhow, Deesa, Nagpur, Nerbudda and Bundelkhand districts, with the Bombay district north of the Tapti. The 6th division, with headquarters at Poona, consists of three brigades, located at Bombay, Ahmednagar and Aden. It comprises the previous Poona district, Bombay district south of the Tapti, Belgaum district north of the Tungabhadra, and Dharwar and Aurungabad districts.
Education.—The university of Bombay, established in 1857, is a body corporate, consisting of a chancellor, vice-chancellor and fellows. The governor of Bombay is ex officio chancellor. The education department is under a director of public instruction, who is responsible for the administration of the department in accordance with the general educational policy of the state. The native states have generally adopted the government system. Baroda and the Kathiawar states employ their own inspectors. In 1905 the total number of educational institutions was 10,194 with 593,431 pupils. There are ten art colleges, of which two are managed by government, three by native states, and five are under private management. According to the census of 1901, out of a population of 2512 millions nearly 24 millions were illiterate.
Administration.—The government of Bombay is administered by a governor in council consisting of the governor as president and two ordinary members. The governor is appointed from England; the council is appointed by the crown, and selected from the Indian civil service. These are the executive members of government. For making laws there is a legislative council, consisting of the governor and his executive council, with certain other persons, not fewer than eight or more than twenty, at least half of them being non-officials. Each of the members of the executive council has in his charge one or two departments of the government; and each department has a secretary, an under-secretary, and an assistant secretary, with a numerous staff of clerks. The political administration of the native states is under the superintendence of British agents placed at the principal native courts; their position varies in different states according to the relations in which the principalities stand with the paramount power. The administration of justice throughout the presidency is conducted by a high court at Bombay, consisting of a chief justice and seven puisne judges, along with district and assistant judges throughout the districts of the presidency. The administration of the districts is carried on by collectors, assistant collectors, and a varying number of supernumerary assistants.
History.—In the earliest times of which any record remains the greater part of the west coast of India was occupied by Dravidian tribes, living under their kings in fortified villages, carrying on the simpler arts of life, and holding a faith in which the propitiation of spirits and demons played the chief part. There is evidence, however, that so early as 1000 B.C. an export trade existed to the Red Sea by way of East Africa, and before 750 B.C. a similar trade had sprung up with Babylon by way of the Persian Gulf. It was by this latter route that the traders brought back to India the Brahmi alphabet, the art of brick-making and the legend of the Flood. Later still the settlement of Brahmans along the west coast had already Aryanized the country in religion, and to some extent in language, before the Persian conquest of the Indus valley at the close of the 6th century B.C. The Persian dominion did not long survive; and the march of Alexander the Great down the Indus paved the way for Chandragupta and the Maurya empire. Under this empire Ujjain was the seat of a viceroy, a prince of the imperial house, who ruled over Kathiawar, Malwa and Gujarat. On the death of Asoka in 231 B.C. the empire of the Mauryas broke up, and their heritage in the west fell to the Andhra dynasty of the Satavahanas of Paithan on the Godavari, a Dravidian family whose dominion by 200 B.C. stretched across the peninsula from the deltas of the Godavari and Kistna to Nasik and the Western Ghats. About A.D. 210, however, their power in the west seems to have died out, and their place was taken by the foreign dynasty of the Kshaharatas, the Saka satraps of Surashtra (Kathiawar), who in 120 had mastered Ujjain and Gujarat and had built up a rival kingdom to the north. Since about A.D. 40 the coast cities had been much enriched by trade with the Roman empire, which both the Satavahanas and the satraps did much to encourage; but after the fall of Palmyra (273) and the extinction of the main Kshaharata dynasty (c. 300) this commerce fell into decay. The history of the century and a half that follows is very obscure; short-lived Saka dynasties succeeded one another until, about 388, the country was conquered by the Guptas of Magadha, who kept a precarious tenure of it till about 470, when their empire was destroyed by the White Huns, or Ephthalites (q.v.), who, after breaking the power of Persia and assailing the Kushan kingdom of Kabul, poured into India, conquered Sind, and established their dominion as far south as the Nerbudda.
Under the Hun tyranny, which lasted till the overthrow of the White Huns on the Oxus by the Turks (c. 565), native dynasties had survived, or new ones had established themselves. In Kathiawar a chief named Bhatarka, probably of foreign origin, had established himself at Valabhi (Wala) on the ruins of the Gupta power (c. 500), and founded a dynasty which lasted until it was overthrown by Arab invaders from Sind in 770.[1] The northern Konkan was held by the Mauryas of Puri near Bombay, the southerly coast by the Kadambas of Vanavasi, while in the southern Deccan Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas struggled for the mastery. A new power, too, appeared from the north: the Gurjaras (ancestors, it is supposed, of the Gujar caste), who had probably entered India with the White Huns, established their power over Gujarat and (c. 600) overran north-eastern Kathiawar, made the raja of Valabhi their tributary, and established a branch at Broach (585–740). During the short-lived empire of Harsha (d. 647 or 648), Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar were subject to his sway; but the southern boundary of his kingdom was the Nerbudda, south of which the Chalukyas in the 7th century, having overcome the Rashtrakutas and other rivals, had absorbed the smaller kingdoms into their empire. In 710–711 (92 A.H.) the Arabs invaded India, and in 712 conquered and established themselves in Sind; they did not, however, attempt any serious attack on the Gurjara and Chalukya empires, confining themselves to more or less serious raids. In 770 they destroyed the city of Valabhi and, as already mentioned, brought its dynasty to an end. Meanwhile the Chalukyas, after successfully struggling with the Pallavas (whose capital was taken by Vikramaditya II., c. 740), had in their turn succumbed to their ancient rivals the Rashtrakutas, who succeeded
- ↑ V. A. Smith, Early History of India, p. 295.
