English
A passage for editorial review. A HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ANCIENT INDIA. L HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION IN ANCIENT INDIA, BASED ON SANSCRIT LITERATURE. IiY ROMESH CHUNDER DUTT, OF THE BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE, AND OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LA W ; AUTHOR OF A BENGALI TRANSLATION OF THE M RIG VEDA SAN KIT A " AND OTHER WORKS. 13* THREE YOLU MES. VOL. III. BUDDHIST AND PAURANIK AGES. Calcutta: THACKER, SPINK AND CO. . . - London: TRUBNER A 1{ D CO. 1890. u i [All rights reserved.] • V I • *' 9 Digitized by Google Digitized by Google CONTENTS OF VOLUME III. rage. ??. et ace, to Volume III. Chapter Chapter I. A<oka the Great and his huicts I II. Language and Alphabet ?i Chapter III. The Kings of Magadha Chapter IV. Kashmir and Gujrat Chapter V. Gupta Kings ... , ... 02 Chapter Chapter VI. Fa Hian's Account of India .. 71 £2 VII. Houen Tsang's Account of India ... Chapter VIII. Buddhist Architecture & Sculpture ... 116 Chapter Chapter IX. Social Manners. Caste IA1 X. Domestic Life. The Position of Women j 60 Chapter XI. Civil and Military Administration ... 170 Chapter XII. Laws ... ill Chapter XIII. Astronomy & the Progress of Learning 202 V. — rauranik Period A. D. SOO to 1194. Chapter I. Vikramaditya the Great and his suc- cessors ^ ^ ^ ^ 2JJ Chapter II. The Valabhis and the Rajputs .., 2:9 Chapter III. Bengal and Orissa 341 Chapter IV. Kashmir and Southern India ... 757 V. Religion and Religious Literature ... 272 ^ a>te in . . . . * 3^7 Chapter V. Chapter VI. Chapter VII. Chapter VIII. Chapter IX. Chapter X. ( hapter XI. Chapter XII. tion of Women 326 Hindu and Jaina Architecture and Sculpture 344 Astronomy and Mathematics ... 373 Medicine ... 382 Drama ^ ^ ^ 396 Poetry 429 Chapter XIII. Fiction - ... 447 Chapter XIV. Early Pauranik Civilization 435 Chapter XV. Later Pauranik Civilization 475 Index ... ••• ... ... ... ... ... •• S^i PREFACE TO VOLUME III. It is with mingled feelings of pleasure and unfeigned diffidence that I now place this completed work before the public. The gre^t task of compiling for the first time a connected and clear history of the Ancient Hindus requires greater leisure and more extensive reading than I can lay claim to. Years of study, often interrupt- ed, enabled me however to grasp the leading facts, and during the last three years I have worked continuously in moments spared from official duties to arrange these facts in their present shape. The first chapters on the Vedic Age were commenced in April 1887, the last chapters on the Pauranik Age have been revised in March 1890. The work, such as it is, is now placed in the hands of my indulgent countrymen for whom it has been written. The reception which my countrymen have given to the earlier volumes has surpassed my most sanguine expectations. The entire edition of a thousand copies has been nearly exhausted before the third volume is out, and a second edition has been called for, and will be shortly taken in hand. More gratifying to me were the requests which were made to me, and Digitized by Google 11 PREFACE. which have been gladly acceded to, for permission to translate the work into the vernaculars of Bombay, Madras, and the North-Western Provinces. And equal- ly encouraging to me were the numerous enquiries, con- gratulations and expressions of sympathy which I have received from all parts of India, testifying to the in- terest which has been taken in this somewhat novel venture. I am too keenly aware of the imperfections of my rude attempt to ascribe the success of the work to its merits ; and I can only suppose therefore that the demand for a readable handbook of this nature was so great among my countrymen, that they have con- sented to accept the article even from such a clumsy workman as myself. I take this opportunity also to thankfully acknow- ledge the valued opinions, notices and reviews with which many scholars in this country and in Europe have honoured this work. A popular work of this nature can scarcely be acceptable to scholars who have devoted their lifetime to all the minutice of Indian anti- quities, and I feel therefore all the more grateful for the cordial and favorable acceptance, (too favourable for its merits), which it has received at their hands. My sincere acknowledgments are due to Doctors Roth, Weber, and Max Miiller, and several other scholars. Of greater value to me than these favourable notices are the criticisms of some of these scholars on certain portions of my work, and it is due to my readers that Digitized by Google PREFACE. Ill I should indicate the main points on which my views have not always received assent. It is necessary to do this, if only to guard my readers from accepting my conclusions in all cases, and to induce them to form their own judgments on the facts. Scholars belonging to the orthodox section of my countrymen have not always accepted my account of Vedic civilization. Life in the Vedic Age, they hold, was more " spiritual," more pious, and contemplative in its tone and character, and they are scarcely prepared to accept my account of the rude self-assertion and boisterous greed for conquests of the Vedic warriors. On the other hand, some European scholars think that I have represented Vedic civilization in too favourable a light. M. Barth, who did me the honour of favour- ably noticing in Paris my chapters on the Vedic Period when they first appeared in the Calcutta Review, expressed his opinion that my account should be ac- cepted with some degree of caution. And Dr. Kern, who has published a favourable review of the first volume of the present work in a Dutch journal, states that opinion is divided as to the character of the Vedic civilization. Some scholars delight in describing all that was robust and manly and straightforward in the character of the Vedic Hindus, while others portray their coarseness and imperfections. Dr. Kern is of opinion that I have adhered to the first school of opinion, but that the truth lies midway. Digitized by iv PREFACE. I am not aware that I have tried to keep back the robust rudeness — coarseness if you like — of the civiliza- tion of the Vedic Age. But I confess that like most modern Hindus, subject to all the drawbacks of a later and more artificial civilization, I feel a warm apprecia- tion for the manly freedom of ancient Hindu civiliza- tion and life. I have sought to portray this prominently in my account of the Vedic Period ; and in my descrip- tion of later ages I have not hesitated to point out emphatically and repeatedly how much we lack in all that was healthy and free, unrestricted and life-giving in the ancient Hindu institutions and social rules. It is a truth which we Hindus need bear in mind. Coming now to the Epic Age, scholars are generally agreed that the caste system of India first took its rise in this period. But here again we should ever re- member that caste rules, with all their potential evils, served in this early period as a sort of moral code for the Aryan Hindus, and tended to unite them by classing them in three great sections, with sanction for inter-caste marriage and religious instruction for all. The caste-system of the Epic Period was no more like the system of to-day than the Feudal institutions of the middle ages, which had their object and their use, were like the baronial oppression of the 18th century in France. As it was neither possible nor desirable under changed circumstances to restore the old institu- tion of the middle ages, the living nations of Europe Digitized by Google PREFACE. V swept away its debased and oppressive substitute which ■ flourished down to the last century. In the second volume of the present work I have treated of the Rationalistic Period and of the rise of Buddhism which took place in this period. My appre- ciation of Buddhism has been criticised, and many friendly critics have reminded me that Buddhist pre- cepts, literally obeyed, would not hold the world to- gether, but would lead nations to subjection, to inaction, and to beggary. This is not the place to enter into a controversy on the subject, but I may be permitted to point out that a religion cannot be criticised in this spirit, and that the teachings of the pure-souled Jesus have not been thus criticised. He too recommended a relinquishment of the world and unresisting submission to wrongs and injuries, but neither he nor Gautama in- tended that men should cease to be men. Religion holds before us great models and perfect ideals of virtues like charity, love and unselfishness ; and these ideals, conveyed in precepts or commandments, legends or parables, have their effect on our moral nature and on our actions in our eternal and selfish struggle in this world. Let us be candid then, and concede that Gautama's ideals were lofty and holy ; that his message of the equality of men, proclaimed to the caste stricken people of India, was large-hearted and benevolent ; and that his religion which imparts moral lessons to a third of the world's population, is beautiful and great. Digitized by vi PREFACE. On another, and a more delicate point, I expected my position would be assailed. My account of the his- torical connection between Buddhism and the rise of Christianity has been questioned. But enough, I hold, has been discovered to prove that connexion, and we can afford calmly to await the result of future re- searches.