Part 35

All through 1606 the game of intrigue was going on without any great advance or advantage to anyone. But while the Dutch had been campaigning in the Netherlands, they had also been establishing themselves in the Spice Islands, and in 1607 the rise of the United Provinces as a sea-power received emphatic demonstration in a great fight off Gibraltar. The disparity in size between the Spanish and Dutch vessels was enormous, but the victory was overwhelming. Not a Dutch ship was lost, and the Spanish fleet, which had viewed their approach with laughter, was annihilated. The name of Heemskerk, the Dutch admiral who inspired the battle, and lost his life at its beginning, is enrolled among those of the nation's heroes.

This event had greatly stimulated the desire of the archduke for an armistice, which had been in process of negotiation. With the old king negotiation had been futile, since there was no prospect of his ever conceding the minimum requirements of the provinces. Now, Spain had reached a different position, and Spinola himself required a far heavier expenditure than she was prepared for as the alternative to a peace on the uti possidetis basis. In the provinces, however, Barneveld and Maurice were in antagonism; but an armistice was established and extended, while solemn negotiations went on at The Hague in the beginning of 1608. The proposals accepted next year implied virtually the recognition of the Dutch republic as an independent nation, though nominally there was only a truce for twelve years. The practical effect was to secure not only independence but religious liberty, and the form implied the independence and security of the Indian trade and even of the West Indian trade. So, in 1609 the Dutch republic took its place among the European powers.

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MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE

The History of India

Mountstuart Elphinstone was born in October 1779, and joined the Bengal service in 1795, some three years before the arrival in India of Lord Mornington, afterwards Marquess Wellesley. He continued in the Indian service till 1829, and was offered but refused the Governor Generalship. The last thirty years of his life he passed in comparative retirement in England, and died in November, 1859, at Hook Wood. He was one of the particularly brilliant group of British administrators in India in the first quarter of the last century. Like his colleagues, Munro and Malcolm, he was a keen student of Indian History. And although some of his views require to be modified in the light of more recent enquiry, his "History of India" published in 1841 is still the standard authority from the earliest times to the establishment of the British as a territorial power.

I.--The Hindus

India is crossed from East to West by a chain of mountains called the Vindhyas. The country to the North of this chain is now called Hindustan and that to the South of it the Deckan. Hindustan is in four natural divisions; the valley of the Indus including the Panjab, the basin of the Ganges, Rajputana and Central India. Neither Bengal nor Guzerat is included in Hindustan power. The rainy season lasts from June to October while the South West wind called the Monsoon is blowing.

Every Hindu history must begin with the code of Menu which was probably drawn up in the 9th century B.C. In the society described, the first feature that strikes us is the division into four castes--the sacerdotal, the military, the industrial, and the servile. The Bramin is above all others even kings. In theory he is excluded from the world during three parts of his life. In practice he is the instructor of kings, the interpreter of the military class; the king, his ministers, and the soldiers. Third are the Veisyas who conduct all agricultural and industrial operations; and fourth the Sudras who are outside the pale.

The king stands at the head of the Government with a Bramin for chief Counsellor. Elaborate rules and regulations are laid down in the code as to administration, taxation, foreign policy, and war. Land perhaps but not certainly was generally held in common by village communities.

The king himself administers justice or deputes that work to Bramins. The criminal code is extremely rude; no proportion is observed between the crime and the penalty, and offences against Bramins or religion are excessively penalised. In the civil law the rules of evidence are vitiated by the admission of sundry excuses for perjury. Marriage is indissoluble. The regulations on this subject and on inheritance are elaborate and complicated.

The religion is drawn from the sacred books called the Vedas, compiled in a very early form of Sanskrit. There is one God, the supreme spirit, who created the universe including the inferior deities. The whole creation is re-absorbed and re-born periodically. The heroes of the later Hindu Pantheon do not appear. The religious observances enjoined are infinite; but the eating of flesh is not prohibited. At this date, however, moral duties are still held of higher account than ceremonial.

Immense respect is enjoined for immemorial customs as being the root of all piety. The distinction between the three superior or "Twice Born" classes points to the conclusion that they were a conquering people and that the servile classes were the subdued Aborigines. It remains to be proved, however, that the conquerors were not indigenous. The system might have come into being as a natural growth, without the hypothesis of an external invasion.

The Bramins claim that they alone now have preserved their lineage in its purity. The Rajputs, however, claim to be pure Cshatriyas. In the main the Bramin rules of life have been greatly relaxed. The castes below the Cshatriyas have now become extremely mixed and extremely numerous; a servile caste no longer exists. A man who loses caste is excluded both from all the privileges of citizenship and all the amenities of private life. As a rule, however, the recovery of caste by expiation is an easy matter. The institution of Monastic Orders scarcely seems to be a thousand years old.

Menu's administrative regulations have similarly lost their uniformity. The township or village community, however, has survived. It is a self-governing unit with its own officials, for the most part hereditary. In large parts of India the land within the community is regarded as the property of a group of village landowners, who constitute the township, the rest of the inhabitants being their tenants. The tenants whether they hold from the landowners or from the Government are commonly called Ryots. An immense proportion of the produce, or its equivalent, has to be paid to the State. The Zenindars who bear a superficial likeness to English landlords were primarily the Government officials to whom these rents were farmed. Tenure by military service bearing some resemblance to the European feudal system is found in the Rajput States. The code of Menu is still the basis of the Hindu jurisprudence.

Religion has been greatly modified. Monotheism has been supplanted by a gross Polytheism, by the corruption of symbolism. At the head are the Triad Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the preserver, Siva the destroyer. Fourteen more principal deities may be enumerated. To them must be added their female Consorts. Many of the Gods are held to be incarnations of Vishnu or Siva. Further, there is a vast host of spirits and demons, good or evil. By far the most numerous sect is that of the followers of Devi the spouse of Siva. The religions of the Buddhists and the Jains though differing greatly from the Hindu seemed to have the same origin.

The five languages of Hindustan are of Sanscrit origin, belonging to the Indo-European family. Of the Deckan languages, two are mixed, while the other three have no connection with Sanscrit.

From Menu's code it is clear that there was an open trade between the different parts of India. References to the sea seemed to prove that a coasting trade existed. Maritime trade was probably in the hands of the Arabs. The people of the East Coast were more venturesome sailors than those of the West. The Hindus certainly made settlements in Java. There are ten nations in India which differ from each other as much as do the nations of Europe, and also resemble each other in much the same degree. The physical contrast between the Hindustanis and the Bengalis is complete; their languages are as near akin and as mutually unintelligible as English and German, yet in religion, in their notions on Government, in very much of their way of life, they are indistinguishable to the European.

Indian widows sometimes sacrifice themselves on the husband's funeral pile. Such a victim is called Sati. It is uncertain when the custom was first introduced, but, evidently it existed before the Christian era.

A curious feature is that as there are castes for all trades, so there are hereditary thief castes. Hired watchmen generally belong to these castes on a principle which is obvious. The mountaineers of Central India are a different race from the dwellers in the plain. They appear to have been aboriginal inhabitants before the Hindu invasion. The mountaineers of the Himalayas are in race more akin to the Chinese.

Established Hindu chronology is found in the line of Magadha. We can fix the King Ajata Satru, who ruled, in the time of Gotama, in the middle of the sixth century B.C. Some generations later comes Chandragupta--undoubtedly the Sandracottus of Diodorus. The early legend apparently begins to give place to real history with Rama, who certainly invaded the Deckan. He would seem to have been a king in Oudh. The next important event is the war of the Maha Bharata, probably in the fourteenth century B.C. Soon after the main seat of Government seems to have transferred to Delhi. The kingdom of Magadha next assumes a commanding position though its rulers long before Chandragupta were of low caste. Of these kings the greatest is Asoka, three generations after Chandragupta. There was certainly no lord paramount of India at the time of Alexander's invasion. Nothing points to any effective universal Hindu Empire, though such an empire is claimed for various kings at intervals until the beginning of the Mahometan invasions.

II.--The Mahometan Conquest

The wave of Mahometan conquest was, in course of time, to sweep into India. By the end of the seventh century the Arabs were forcing their way to Cabul 664 A.D. At the beginning of the next century Sindh was overrun and Multan was captured; nevertheless, no extended conquest was as yet attempted. After the reign of the Calif Harun al Raschid at Bagdad the Eastern rulers fell upon evil days. Towards the end of the tenth century a satrapy was established at Ghazni and in the year 1001 Mahmud of Ghazni, having declared his independence, began his series of invasions. On his fourth expedition Mahmud met with a determined resistance from a confederacy of Hindu princes. A desperate battle was fought and won by him near Peshawer. Mahmud made twelve expeditions into India altogether, on one of which he carried off the famous gates of Somnat; but he was content to leave subordinate governors in the Punjab and at Guzerat and never sought to organise an empire. During his life Mahmud was incomparably the greatest ruler in Asia.

After his death the rulers of Ghazni were unable to maintain a consistent supremacy. It was finally overthrown by Ala ud din of Ghor. His nephew, Shahab ud din, was the real founder of the Mahometan Empire in India. The princes of the house of Ghazni who had taken refuge in the Punjab and Guzarat were overthrown and thus the only Mahometan rivals were removed. On his first advance against the Rajput kingdom of Delhi, he was routed; but a second invasion was successful, and a third carried his arms to Behar and even Bengal.

On the death of Shahab ud din, his new and vast Indian dominion became independent under his general Kutb ud din, who had begun life as a slave. The dynasty was carried on by another slave Altamish. Very soon after this the Mongol Chief Chengiz Khan devastated half the world, but left India comparatively untouched. Altamish established the Mahometan rule of Delhi over all Hindustan. This series of rulers, known as the slave kings, was brought to an end after eighty-two years by the establishment of the Khilji dynasty in 1288 by the already aged Jelal ud din. His nephew and chief Captain Ala ud din opened a career of conquest, invading the Deckan even before he secured the throne for himself by assassinating his uncle. In fact, he extended his dominion over almost the whole of India in spite of frequent rebellions and sundry Mongol incursions all successfully repressed or dispersed. In 1321 the Khilji dynasty was overthrown by the House of Tughlak.

The second prince of this house, Mahomet Tughlak, was a very remarkable character. Possessed of extraordinary accomplishments, learned, temperate, and brave, he plunged upon wholly irrational and inpracticable schemes of conquest which were disastrous in themselves and also from the methods to which the monarch was driven to procure the means for his wild attempts. One portion after another of the vast empire broke into revolt and at the end of the century the dynasty was overturned and the empire shattered by the terrific invasion of Tamerlane the Tartar. It was not till the middle of the seventeenth century that the Lodi dynasty established itself at Delhi and ruled not without credit for nearly seventy years. The last ruler of this house was Ibrahim, a man who lacked the worthy qualities of his predecessors. And in 1526 Ibrahim fell before the conquering arms of the mighty Baber, the founder of the Mogul dynasty.

III.--Baber and Aber

Baber was a descendant of Tamerlane. He himself was a Turk, but his mother was a Mongol; hence the familiar title of the dynasty known as the Moguls. Succeeding to the throne of Ferghana at the age of twelve the great conqueror's youth was full of romantic vicissitudes, of sharp reverses and brilliant achievements. He was only four and twenty when he succeeded in making himself master of Cabul. He was forty-four, when with a force of twelve thousand men he shattered the huge armies of Ibrahim at Panipat and made himself master of Delhi. His conquests were conducted on what might almost be called principles of knight errantry. His greatest victories were won against overwhelming odds, at the head of followers who were resolved to conquer or die. And in three years he had conquered all Hindustan. His figure stands out with an extraordinary fascination, as an Oriental counterpart of the Western ideal of chivalry; and his autobiography is an absolutely unique record presenting the almost sole specimen of real history in Asia.